The New Covenant

DID Christians, after the resurrection, keep the seventh-day Sabbath?—Indeed they did, as every reference to it plainly shows. Our argument on this point will be short, though a great deal might be said. We have already shown that the Sabbath was made by God himself when he created the earth, and that it was given in Eden before the fall; that it was given to Adam, the head of all nations, and that it is the rest day of the Creator himself; that it was given as a memorial of creation, and that it was incorporated into the moral law when it was spoken from heaven; that it was designed for the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and that Christ kept it all his life, and enforced and taught the keeping of every one of the commandments, including the Sabbath.

Now, if the seventh-day Sabbath is not for Christians to keep, whether Jews or Gentiles, then they have no Sabbath at all; for there is not one word said in the New Testament about keeping any other day.

The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's day, or a holy day, or anything like it. There is no blessing pronounced upon it, no curse for breaking it, and no law regulating it. It is nowhere stated that Christ or any of his apostles ever kept it. In short, there is a total silence in regard to it as a holy day, in the New Testament. But it is absurd to say that the Christian Church should be left without any Sabbath day. Man's physical nature requires it, and he needs such a day socially, mentally, spiritually, and morally.

Again, the last book in the New Testament does distinguish a day as belonging to the Lord: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev. 1:10. This was written A.D. 96; hence, as late as this there was a sacred day in the Christian Church. In other scriptures we find it distinctly stated that the Lord's day is the seventh day. Thus Jesus says: "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:28. That day of which Jesus was the Lord must be the Lord's day. This is too plain to need argument.

Again we read, "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; " etc. Isa. 58:13. Here the Lord calls the Sabbath "my holy day." That again shows that the seventh day is the Lord's day. Once more we read, "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Ex. 20:10. These Scriptures do certainly show that the seventh day was the Lord's day; hence it was kept by the Christian Church.

Turning to Acts, which was written many years after the resurrection, we find the seventh day still called the Sabbath day just as it always had been: "And they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day." Acts 13:14. Not the day which used to be the Sabbath, but "the Sabbath" which was still the Sabbath day when Luke wrote this. Again, we find that the Gentiles were keeping this Sabbath day as well as the Jews: "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath." Acts 13:42.

Once more it says: "And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither." Acts 16:13. Here we notice that it is spoken of familiarly as "the Sabbath," just as though Luke and Paul and all Christians still recognized it as the Sabbath as it always had been. In another case we learn that all the while Paul was at Corinth, working at his trade for a year and a half, "he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks." Acts 18:4. This Scripture shows conclusively that the apostle knew nothing about any change in the Sabbath observance.

They never mention a new day. It is nowhere stated that the sanctity was ever removed from the seventh day. Nowhere is anyone given permission to work upon that day. Not a single case can be found in the New Testament where Christians did secular business upon the seventh day; but every reference to it shows that it still remained as of old the Sabbath of the Lord.