1 2 Goshen to Golgotha responsibility and honesty are indispensable for reaching the true consequences of all facts of the received texts. It is in the context of specifically the Sabbath that the Part One of PART ONE letter to the Hebrews declares, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and Passover To Crucifixion sharper than any two-edged sword…. and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of Theories of Day and Time of Crucifixion the heart”. Hb.4:12 Accepting the responsibility to question and investigate established The Day of Worship of the Christian Church is a Confession of Faith conviction, the present writer took liberty of using any translation of the Bible for the in the Lord Jesus Christ purpose of this study, without adhering strictly to any and presenting his own The day of worship of the Christian Church rightfully is called the Lord’s wherever advantageous. Because of its familiarity mainly the Authorised Version has Day, because it is the Church’s most significant and most important – the most visible been used with the purpose to obviate the contrast between the standard and and effective – confession and witness of the Lord Jesus Christ before God, in the proposed interpretations. congregation and to the world. The day of worship of the Church of Christ brings the whole world to a standstill to come to the knowledge of the Kingdom of God; and the whole body of the saints into motion to witness and receive of the Kingdom of God. Throughout the wide and densely populated world of modern times with its 1. unfathomable effects on the ecology, there is no single factor of influence and Introduction importance, even for nature itself, greater than the day of worship of the Christian Church. It is the day on which energy consumption, pollution and crime are, 1.1. universally, at its lowest. This is the day of days when the earth is ‘nearest to Tradition heaven’, the one day that above all the sound of worship rises from the earth. The Church generally accepts that Christ was crucified and buried on a Friday Every people and every religion on earth through the significance of this day and that He was resurrected on Sunday, the First Day of the week. This view is put consciously or unconsciously, resentfully, impassively or rejoicing, acknowledge the forward as follows: effect of the knowledge of Christ. “Sunday for Christians is especially a feast day …. For Christians this truth Nowhere does the invisible body of Christ objectify so visibly as where and applies so much the more: Christ through his resurrection triumphed over death.” Dr. J.H. van Wyk, Transvaler 19/12/8 when it assembles on the day of worship. The day of worship is event where the This is the most basic presupposition for Sunday world sees: Here is the Christ and his people! For the faithful it is the space in time observance. for assembling, worship, proclamation, sacrament and charity – that is, for the life of It is stated categorically as a fact that Jesus was resurrected on the Sunday: faith. “Sunday is a purely Christian creation, connected with the historical fact of the J.Danielou, FSS p12 No institution is more meaningful or important, more practical or more Resurrection of the Lord.” spiritual for the Christian Church than its day of worship. The Church’s, life – Scripture is claimed for proof of this ‘fact’: “What, it might be asked, inwardly as well as outwardly – without God’s day of worship, cannot be imagined. specifically motivated the primitive Jewish church to settle upon Sunday as a regular According to the Reformed evaluation (also the present writer’s), the holy time of assembly ….? It must have had something to do with the resurrection which, sacraments stand in the token of what God does; they stand under the sign of faith’s according to the uniform witness of the Gospels, occurred on the first day of the F.A.Regan, FSS p.74 communion of the Lord toward strengthening of faith and Christian living. To this week.” end the day of worship is just as effective, and more, than the sacraments. Even From this the prime assumption, the resurrection of Jesus is taken to its proclamation is not realised but by means of the opportunity the Sabbath practical application: “As the promised Messiah, He, through his resurrection, Dr Nik Lee, Sondag die Sabbat provides. sanctified the first day of the week.” All this is so because it is the Church’s conviction that its Lord rose from the 1.2. dead and the grave, conquering sin and death, on this day, day of its assembling and Traditional View Questioned worship. This study has as aim the reconsideration of the accepted claims regarding The importance of the day of Christ’s resurrection for the Christian day of the relation between Christ’s resurrection and Sunday as the day of his worship thus makes it absolutely necessary to investigate the relevant Scriptures to resurrection. The reason for such an enquiry originates from the question whether the last implication. “The matter of Sunday observance can be brought under sharp scrutiny” Dr J.H. van Wyk, Criterion Loc. cit. without finding out if what in the first place is taken for granted as factual, For the investigation of the question of the day of Christ’s crucifixion and is true? What hitherto has always been accepted “as ‘The only plausible explanation resurrection it must be kept in mind that the translator of the Bible today occupies for the Origin of Sunday (observance)”, P.K. Jewett, FSS p74 is by no means convincing. the most important position in the Christian community. In Old-Testament times it This untrustworthiness holds definite implications for the Church, as will be used to be the ‘prophet’ who exclaimed: ‘Thus saith Yahweh!’ In our times it is the indicated, with regard to both its translations and expositions of the Gospels, and its translator who claims: “This is what God says… in English!” Undaunted observance of Sunday. 3 4 2. 2.1. Defining the Problem A Convincing Hypothesis John Wenham, starts his book, Easter [Passover] Enigma (Paternoster Press The second century Alexandrian philosopher Celsos ridiculed the Gospel 1984 chapter An Intriguing Puzzle), thus: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that, we record of Jesus’ resurrection, “Everyone saw his suffering, but only one disciple and are witnesses”, said Peter on the day of Pentecost. And from that day to this the half an insane woman saw him after his resurrection”. To answer this accusation, not resurrection of Jesus has been the spearhead of the Christian case. From it flows by pointing out its inaccuracies, but to declare that the Gospels “describe in fact the belief in the deity of Christ and all the other of the testimony of the New Testament origin of the faith of the resurrection and not the fact of the occurrence itself”, is to witnesses. It is not of course essential to belief in the resurrection that the witnesses timidly apologise for “inaccuracies” in the Gospels. To say that “the resurrection is be faultless, but the whole case is gravely impaired if they can be shown to be no unique Christian phenomenon”, is to place Jesus’ resurrection on a par with seriously unreliable. “religion” of which the very unrealistic nature is such that there can be no idea of Now it so happens that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is told by five different truth or accuracy. To say that the writers of the Gospels were “concretely writers, whose accounts differ from each other to an astonishing degree. So much so theologising” does not make the question, “What did really happen there?”, “the that distinguished scholars one after another have said categorically that the five wrong question”. Without concrete fact, the answer is wrong, and not the question. accounts (Paul’s included) are irreconcilable. Going back to the last century, the To say that Jesus rose “on the First Day” (traditionally literal) does not mean “the great radical P.W. Schmiedel, said: “The Gospels … exhibit contradictions of the third day after the crucifixion”, but “an insinuation to the first day of creation – the most glaring kind. Reimarus … enumerated ten contradictions; but in reality their beginning of a totally new era”, is pure allegory, denying every bit of trustworthy number is much greater.” Even the doughty conservative, Henry Alford, wrote: “Of factualness of Jesus’ resurrection. His resurrection was “from the dead” – and a no all harmonies, those of the incidents of these chapters are to me the most more historically factual basis can be given it than that. The Gospels want to tell of unsatisfactory … they seem to me to weaken instead of strengthening the evidence … I Jesus’ resurrection. Their message is founded on the “naked historical fact” of have abandoned all idea of harmonising throughout.” Jesus’ resurrection, and contains no message otherwise. The ‘fact’ and every ‘fact’ Coming to this century, P. Gardner-Smith says: “No ingenuity can make the around it should be gotten straight and not be beaten about. narration of Luke consistent with that of Mark, much less is it possible to reconcile Ramsay mentions the “chronological and geographical plan” into which the the picture presented by the fourth evangelist with the accounts of any of the synoptic stories are to be “woven”. The “limit” he finds ever present when trying to solve the writers. Mutually contradictory narratives cannot all be true … Nothing can be made “enigmas”, and at which also Wenham comes to an unsatisfactory halt, is created by of a jumble of contradicting statements.” E.