These words have often been quoted to show that the observance of the fourth commandment is now a matter of indifference; each individual being at liberty to act his pleasure in the matter. So extraordinary a doctrine should be thoroughly tested before being adopted. For as it pleased God to ordain the Sabbath before the fall of man, and to give it a place in his code of ten commandments, thus making it a part of that law to which the great atonement relates; and as the Lord Jesus, during his ministry, spent much time in explaining its merciful design, and took care to provide against its desecration at the flight of his people from the land of Judea, which was ten years in the future when these words were written by Paul; and as the fourth commandment itself is expressly recognized after the crucifixion of Christ; if, under these circumstances, we could suppose it to be consistent with truth that the Most High should abrogate the Sabbath, we certainly should expect that abrogation to be stated in explicit language. Yet neither the Sabbath nor the fourth commandment are here named. That they are not referred to in this language of Paul, the following reasons will show:—

1. Such a view would make the observance of one of the ten commandments a matter of indifference; whereas James shows that to violate one of them is to transgress the whole.[398] 2. It directly contradicts what Paul had previously written in this epistle; for in treating of the law of ten commandments, he styles it holy, spiritual, just, and good; and states that sin—the transgression of the law—by the commandment becomes “exceeding sinful.”[399] 3. Because that Paul in the same epistle affirms the perpetuity of that law which caused our Lord to lay down his life for sinful men;[400] which we have seen before was the ten commandments. 4. Because that Paul in this case not only did not name the Sabbath and the fourth commandment, but certainly was not treating of the moral law. 5. Because that the topic under consideration which leads him to speak as he does of the days in question was that of eating all kinds of food, or of refraining from certain things. 6. Because that the fourth commandment did not stand associated with precepts of such a kind, but with moral laws exclusively.[401] 7. Because that in the ceremonial law, associated with the precepts concerning meats, was a large number of festivals, entirely distinct from the Sabbath of the Lord.[402] 8. Because that the church of Rome, which began probably with those Jews that were present from Rome on the day of Pentecost, had many Jewish members in its communion, as may be gathered from the epistle itself;[403] and would therefore be deeply interested in the decision of this question relative to the ceremonial law; the Jewish members feeling conscientious in observing its distinctions, the Gentile members feeling no such scruples: hence the admirable counsel of Paul exactly meeting the case of both classes. 9. Nor can the expression, “every day,” be claimed as decisive proof that the Sabbath of the Lord is included. At the very time when the Sabbath was formally committed to the Hebrews, just such expressions were used, although only the six working days were intended. Thus it was said: “The people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day;” and the narrative says, “They gathered it every morning.” Yet when some of them went out to gather on the Sabbath, God says, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?”[404] The Sabbath being a great truth, plainly stated and many times repeated, it is manifest that Paul, in the expression, “every day,” speaks of the six working days, among which a distinction had existed precisely coeval with that respecting meats; and that he manifestly excepts that day which from the beginning God had reserved unto himself. Just as when Paul quotes and applies to Jesus the words of David, “All things are put under him,” he adds: “It is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him.”[405] 10. And lastly, in the words of John, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,”[406] written many years after this epistle of Paul, we have an absolute proof that in the gospel dispensation one day is still claimed by the Most High as his own.[407]

About ten years after this epistle was written, occurred the memorable flight of all the people of God that were in the land of Judea. It was not in the winter; for it occurred just after the feast of tabernacles, some time in October. And it was not upon the Sabbath; for Josephus, who speaks of the sudden withdrawal of the Roman army after it had, by encompassing the city, given the very signal for flight which our Lord promised his people, tells us that the Jews rushed out of the city in pursuit of the retreating Romans, which was at the very time when our Lord’s injunction of instant flight became imperative upon the disciples. The historian does not intimate that the Jews thus pursued the Romans upon the Sabbath, although he carefully notes the fact that a few days previous to this event they did, in their rage, utterly forget the Sabbath and rush out to fight the Romans upon that day. These providential circumstances in the flight of the disciples being made dependent upon their asking such interposition at the hand of God, it is evident that the disciples did not forget the prayer which the Saviour taught them relative to this event; and that, as a consequence, the Sabbath of the Lord was not forgotten by them. And thus the Lord Jesus in his tender care for his people and in his watchful care in behalf of the Sabbath, showed that he was alike the Lord of his people and the Lord of the Sabbath.[408]

Twenty-six years after the destruction of Jerusalem, the book of Revelation was committed to the beloved disciple. It bears the following deeply interesting date as to place and time:—

This book is dated in the isle of Patmos, and upon the Lord’s day. The place, the day, and the individual, have each a real existence, and not merely a symbolical or mystical one. Thus John, almost at the close of the first century, and long after those texts were written which are now adduced to prove that no distinction in days exists, shows that the Lord’s day has as real an existence, as has the isle of Patmos, or as had the beloved disciple himself.

What day, then, is intended by this designation? Several answers have been returned to this question. 1. It is the gospel dispensation. 2. It is the day of Judgment. 3. It is the first day of the week. 4. It is the Sabbath of the Lord. The first answer cannot be the true one; for it not only renders the day a mystical term, but it involves the absurdity of representing John as writing to Christians sixty-five years after the death of Christ, that the vision which he had just had, was seen by him in the gospel dispensation; as though it were possible for them to be ignorant of the fact that if he had a vision at all he must have it in the existing dispensation.

Nor can the second answer be admitted as the truth. For while it is true that John might have a vision concerning the day of Judgment, it is impossible that he should have a vision on that day when it was yet future. If it be no more than an absurdity to represent John as dating his vision in the isle of Patmos, on the gospel dispensation, it becomes a positive untruth, if he is made to say that he was in vision at Patmos on the day of Judgment.

The third answer, that the Lord’s day is the first day of the week, is now almost universally received as the truth. The text under examination is brought forward with an air of triumph as completing the temple of first-day sacredness, and proving beyond all doubt that that day is indeed the Christian Sabbath. Yet as we have examined this temple with peculiar carefulness, we have discovered that the foundation on which it rests is a thing of the imagination only; and that the pillars by which it is supported exist only in the minds of those who worship at its shrine. It remains to be seen whether the dome which is supposed to be furnished by this text is more real than the pillars on which it rests.

That the first day of the week has no claim to the title of Lord’s day, the following facts will show: 1. That, as this text does not define the term Lord’s day, we must look elsewhere in the Bible for the evidence that shows the first day to be entitled to such a designation. 2. That Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul, the other sacred writers who mention the day, use no other designation for it than first day of the week, a name to which it was entitled as one of the six working days. Yet three of these writers mention it at the very time when it is said to have become the Lord’s day; and two of them mention it also some thirty years after that event. 3. That while it is claimed that the Spirit of inspiration, by simply leading John to use the term Lord’s day, though he did in no wise connect the first day of the week therewith, did design to fix this as the proper title of the first day of the week, it is a remarkable fact that after John returned from the isle of Patmos he wrote his gospel;[410] and in that gospel he twice mentioned the first day of the week; yet in each of these instances where it is certain that first-day is intended, no other designation is used than plain first day of the week. This is a most convincing proof that John did not regard the first day of the week as entitled to this name, or any other, expressive of sacredness. 4. What still further decides the point against the first day of the week is the fact that neither the Father nor the Son have ever claimed the first day in any higher sense than they have each of the six days given to man for labor. 5. And what completes the chain of evidence against the claim of first day to this title is the fact that the testimony adduced by first-day advocates to prove that it has been adopted by the Most High in place of that day which he once claimed as his, having been examined, is found to have no such meaning or intent. In setting aside the third answer, also, as not being in accordance with truth, the first day of the week may be properly dismissed with it, as having no claim to our regard as a scriptural institution.[411]

That the Lord’s day is the Bible Sabbath, admits of clear and certain proof. The argument stands thus: When God gave to man six days of the week for labor, he did expressly reserve unto himself the seventh, on which he placed his blessing in memory of his own act of resting upon that day, and thenceforward, through the Bible, has ever claimed it as his holy day. As he has never put away this sacred day and chosen another, the Sabbath of the Lord is still his holy day. These facts may be traced in the following scriptures. At the close of the Creator’s rest, it is said:—

After the children of Israel had reached the wilderness of Sin, Moses said to them on the sixth day:—

In giving the ten commandments, the Law-giver thus stated his claim to this day:—

He gives to man the six days on which himself had labored; he reserves as his own that day upon which he had rested from all his work. About eight hundred years after this, God spoke by Isaiah as follows:—

This testimony is perfectly explicit; the Lord’s day is the ancient Sabbath of the Bible. The Lord Jesus puts forth the following claim:—

Thus, whether it be the Father or the Son whose title is involved, the only day that can be called “the Lord’s day” is the Sabbath of the great Creator.[417] And here, at the close of the Bible history of the Sabbath, two facts of deep interest are presented: 1. That John expressly recognizes the existence of the Lord’s day at the very close of the first century. 2. That it pleased the Lord of the Sabbath to place a signal honor upon his own day in that he selected it as the one on which to give that revelation to John, which himself alone had been worthy to receive from the Father.