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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 46

(Time of the Apostles.)

(Time of the Apostles.)

We are come down now to the time of the Apostles, after that of Jesus; and, in like manner, we will quietly prosecute the enquiry.—

1. How did the Apostles act, with especial reference to the Sabbath?

Of their positive doings re the Sabbath-day, we have very little indeed recorded;—but of those of Paul ("the Apostle of the Gentiles") we have a fair share.—And, in briefly considering Paul's actions and teachings concerning the Sabbath-days, we must ever bear this in mind,—that Paul was (as he himself tells us), one of the straitest (narrowest) religious sect among the Jews, "a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee."

(1) At first we find Paul commonly, during his travels, going into the Jewish synagogues (or Churches) on the Sabbath-day, and teaching (that is, exhorting and preaching) therein, after the manner of the Jews; (viz., at Antioch, Acts 13.14—16, etc., at Thessalonica, Acts 17.2, and at Corinth, Acts 18. 4;) just like Jesus himself did at Nazareth (Luke 4. 16) and other places before him, as we have already seen.

(2) After several years of travel and teaching we find Paul returning to Jerusalem, and there "with the Apostles and elders" assembling to consider certain grave matters pertaining to the Jewish Religion; for the Pharisee believers of Jerusalem had said,—"It was needful to command the Gentile believers to keep the law of Moses." This, however, Peter, who was also present, strongly opposed, terming it "a tempting of God"—to seek "to put a yoke on the neck of the disciples" (the Gentile believers), "which," said Peter, "neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." And so we find this first and best Council, composed of Jewish Christians, after having thoroughly discussed those important matters concerning the keeping of the Law of Moses, laying down four simple rules only for the Gentile Christians,—on whom "they (the Apostles) would lay no greater burdens than these (four) necessary things"; and this decision, they also declared and wrote, had "seemed good to the Holy Spirit as well as to themselves" acting together.

Now, (1) If the keeping of the Sabbath-day was really a Divine Institution, does it not seem strange that nothing was then said about it? Seeing, too, (2) that such comparatively small matters—as the abstaining from things strangled, and the eating of blood-(both long ago broken and thrown aside!) should have been then page 17 sent forth as rules, or decrees? (3) Therefore, it must follow, that the keeping of the Sabbath-day was not, in the opinion of the Holy Spirit and of the Apostles, any great matter.

3. After this, on several occasions, we find Paul writing to the various churches, or congregations, of Christians; and particularly laying down what to avoid ("works of the flesh"), and what to follow and do. Now it is highly noticeable,—(1) that in those long lists of evil works and practises given by him (viz., Gal. 5. 19—21, Eph. 5. 3, Col. 3. 5, etc.,) we find nothing of "Sabbath-breaking"! Although, in his "lists," Paul is sometimes so diffuse as to state the same thing (generically) under different heads (specifically): (2) that in what he plainly directs the Gentile Christians to do,—(viz., Eph. 5, 6: Col. 3, 4: 1 Thess. 5, &c.,)—although he even, at times, quotes from "the Law of Moses" (Eph. 6. 2)—yet Paul never once says a word about keeping "the Sabbath"! And, again, (3) in that particularly affectionate portion of his letter to his beloved Philippians (ch. 4),—in which Paul sums up all good things, as it were, saying,—"Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do"; here, again, is no mention of "the Sabbath."

How is this?—If the strict keeping of "the Sabbath-day" was of such very great importance?

I know very well what kind of answer I shall get to all this evidence that I have hitherto brought forward,—That all such is of a negative character, and therefore proves nothing.

Be it so. I come then to the positive teaching of the Apostle Paul on this subject. He says distinctly to the Colossians,—"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days: which are a shadow of things to come "(2. 16):—and to the Romans,—"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." (14. 4)

On those two passages the late Dean Alford of Canterbury wrote, in his new edition of the Greek Testament:—

"If any one day in the week were invested with the sacred character of the Sabbath, it would have been wholly impossible for the Apostle to uphold or commend the man, who judged all days alike worthy of equal honour.— — —I therefore infer that Sabbatical obligation to keep any day, whether seventh or first, was not recognised in Apostolic times." (On Rom. 14. 5.) "If the ordinance of the Sabbath had been, in any form, of lasting obligation on the Christian Church, it would have been quite impossible for the Apostle to have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of one day, whether the seventh or the first, would have been directly in the teeth of his assertion here." (On Col. 2.16.)

(I bring this forward now,—as it is a single comment on these particular texts.)

Again, Paul says to the Galatians,—"But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." (4.9—11.) Here, of course, Paul alludes to Jewish festivals as commanded by "the Law of Moses," of which the Sabbath days, the New Moons, and the Sabbatical years were examples. And note, how depreciatingly how loweringly Paul speaks of those very things which he once believed to be so high and so holy—Wheatly here well observes,—"the Christians were no more obliged to observe the Jewish festival, than they were oncerned in the mercies therein commemorated, and this is the reason that when the Judaizing Christians would have imposed upon the Galatians the observation of the Jewish festivals, as necessary to salvation; page 18 Paul looked upon it as a thing so criminal that he was afraid the labour he had bestowed upon them to set them at liberty in the freedom of the Gospel had been in vain."

In concluding this part of my subject, I would again remark,—it is very noticeable that, throughout the New Testament, there is not a single instance of any stress whatever being laid on the strict observance of the Sabbath-day. Jesus himself and the apostles (as we have seen) observed it,—but in a very liberal kind of way; they never, in any act or work recorded in the Gospels or Epistles, inculcate, either by example or by precept, a Sabbatarian spirit. Rather, so far as their words and acts imply anything in this respect, they tend to discourage and discountenance such a spirit. And expressly, in the famous decision of the Church at Jerusalem, which was forwarded to the believing Gentiles at Antioch, by the hands of Paul and Barnabas, Judas, and Silas, they laid no "burden" on them of Sabbatical observances.—