The Lord's Day.
I. What is the meaning of the expression, "the Lord's Day"? Does it mean the day of judgment, and is St. John saying that in an ecstacy he beheld the last judgment of God? Undoubtedly "the day of the Lord" is an expression often applied to the day of judgment in the Old and New Testaments, but such a meaning would not serve St. John's purpose here; he is plainly giving the date of his great vision, not the scene to which it introduced him, and just as he says that it took place in the isle of Patmos, thus marking the place, so he says that it was on the Lord's Day, thus marking the time. Does the phrase, then, mean the annual feast of our Lord's resurrection from the dead our Easter Day? That day, as we know from the Epistle to the Corinthians, we are to keep "not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth"; but it could hardly have served for a date, because in those days, as some time afterwards, there were different opinions in the Church as to the day on which properly the festival should be kept. If the Lord's Day had meant Easter Day, it would not have settled the date of the revelation without some further specification. Does the phrase, then, mean the Sabbath day of the Mosaic law? If St. John had meant the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, he would certainly have used the word "Sabbath"; he would not have used another word which the Christian Church, from the day of: he Apostles downwards, has applied, not to the seventh day of the week, but to the first. There is indeed no real reason for doubting that by the Lord's Day St. John meant the first day of the week, or, as we should say, Sunday. Our Lord Jesus Christ has made that day in a special sense His own by rising on it from the dead and by connecting it with His first six appearances after His resurrection.
II. What are the principles which are recognised in the observance of the "Lord's Day" by the Church of Christ? (1) The first principle embodied is the duty of consecrating a certain portion of time, at least one-seventh, to the service of God. This principle is common to the Jewish Sabbath and to the Christian Lord's Day. And such a consecration implies two things: it implies a separation of the thing or person consecrated from all others and a communication to it or him of a quality of holiness or purity which was not possessed before. (2) A second principle in the Lord's Day is the periodical suspension of human toil. This also is common to the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord's Day. The Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord's Day, while agreeing in affirming two principles, differ in two noteworthy respects: (1) they differ in being kept on distinct days; (2) in the reason or motive for observing them. The Christian motive for observing the Lord's Day is the resurrection of Christ from the dead; that truth is to the Christian creed what the creation of the world out of nothing is to the Jewish creed; it is the fundamental truth on which all else that is distinctively Christian rests, and it is just as much put forward by the Christian Apostles as is the creation of all things out of nothing by the Jewish creed. (3) A third principle is the necessity of the public worship of God. The cessation of ordinary work is not enjoined upon Christians only that they may while away the time or spend it in self-pleasing or in something worse. The Lord's Day is the day of days, on which Jesus our Lord has a first claim. In the Church of Jesus the first duty of the Christian is to seek to hold converse with the risen Lord.
H. P. Liddon, From the Christian World Pulpit.
Christianity would seem to have altered the law of the Sabbath precisely where we might have expected it might be altered in those parts which were of positive, not of moral, obligation. Our Saviour, who, being the coeternal Son of God, is Lord also of the Sabbath day, modified the mode in which it is to be hallowed partly by relaxing the literal strictness of the precept, "Thou shalt do nomanner of work," and permitting works of necessity and of mercy, but principally by removing the false glosses with which superstition and human traditions had disfigured the true meaning of the commandment.
I. Even if the Decalogue or the Fourth Commandment were abrogated by the Gospel, and the Lord's Day were but a Christian ordinance sanctioned by our Lord, either immediately by His own presence and approval, or mediately by His Apostles acting under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we should still be bound to keep it in the same way as if it were the Sabbath transferred from the old dispensation to the new, if, at least, the early Christians may be admitted as witnesses of the meaning of what on this supposition was their own ordinance. With them the first day of the week was not a day of unnecessary work or a day of amusement, but a holy day, set apart from the rest for special public worship and cheerful thanksgiving. So much, indeed, might be inferred from the very name, "the Lord's Day." Chrysostom, Augustine, and others warned Christians against the example of the Jews of their days who made the Sabbath a time for dancing, banqueting, and luxurious self-indulgence. The truth is, Christians held the first day of the week to be the Lord's Day, and kept it as such, not with idle scrupulosity, but with honesty of purpose. Accordingly any work, however laborious, if necessary or compulsory, they would have done with a quiet conscience; but unnecessary work they would have felt a sin. A slave unable to obtain his freedom would have done his master's bidding unhesitatingly and cheerfully; a free man would not have followed his worldly calling on the Lord's Day. Amusements would have been felt more discordant with the Lord's Day than work. They were not necessary; they could not be compulsory; they had nothing to do with the special service of God for which that day was hallowed. They were, therefore, simply wrong. "It is commanded you," writes St. Augustine, "to observe the Sabbath spiritually, not as the Jews observe theirs, in carnal ease for they wish to have leisure for their trifles and their luxuries for a Jew would be better employed in doing something useful in his field than in sitting turbulently in the theatre."
II. It is a matter of little practical moment, then, the obligation on which our observance of the Sunday rests. Whether it is the primal Sabbath, re-enacted on Sinai and continued in the Christian code with modifications in its positive and non-essential details, or whether it is the Christian ordinance of the Lord's Day to be understood and interpreted by the practice of the early Christians, it is undoubtedly a day set apart and holy to the Lord. It is His special portion of our time, dedicated to Him for His glory and for our good. Its peculiar duties are public worship, religious meditation and instruction, and the celebration of the Lord's Supper in remembrance of Christ. Its spirit is a calm and collected mind, undisturbed by worldly cares and unexcited by worldly amusements, in tune with holy thoughts and the exercises of religion, and open to all the cheerful influences of home and family affection, and charity, and benevolence.
III. With this general principle before us, (1) we must be very slow to judge and very cautious to condemn others for their manner of observing the Lord's Day. They have the same rule with us; they are to apply it by the aid of their own conscience. To their own Master they stand or fall. (2) But though indulgent in our judgment of others, we must not be too indulgent of ourselves. Scruples and nice distinctions, indeed, austerity and gloom, the obedience of the letter, not of the spirit, are alien, it has been said, to the true character of the Christian Lord's Day; and he who is free from such scruples and doubts, as he is always the happiest, will often be the holiest man. A healthy faith and a devout heart will usually discern by a kind of spiritual instinct what may and what may not be done. But the important practical rule for all of us is this: "Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind." (3) We must be careful not to impose needless labour on others, and should help and encourage them, as well as we may, to enjoy rest on the day of rest. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
J. Jackson, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 627.
References: Revelation 1:10. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 267. Revelation 1:10-20. Expositor,1st series, vol. ii., p. 115.Revelation 1:12-17. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vii., No. 357.