04/21/10
HOUR THAT THE CHRISTIAN
SABBATH BEGINS
One webpage that has helpful information on this topic is http://www.reformedpresbytery.org/books/sabbath/sabbath.htm
. Here are sample quotes from the
webpage:
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) was one of the Scottish commissioners
to the Westminster Assembly. The following is an excerpt from his
Ane Catachisme Conteining the Soume of Christian
Religion (cited in
Catechisms of the Second Reformation , by Alexander Mitchell,
James
Nisbet & Co., 1886, p.232). The original English
of Rutherford has
been preserved.
Q. Quhat [What] is it to sanctifie
the Sabbath?
A. It is to sett all apairt
from the dawning of the day untill
midnight
(Jn. 20:1; Acts 20:7) for Godis service.
William S. Plumer, a nineteenth century Southern
Presbyterian
minister wrote the following in an exposition of the ten
commandments entitled, The Law of God, as Contained in the Ten
Commandments, Explained and Enforced (Presbyterian Board of
Publication, 1864, pp.309-310):
When does the Sabbath begin?
There is some diversity in the Christian world respecting the time,
at which the Sabbath begins. Some date it from sunset on Saturday
till sunset on Sabbath. When asked for their authority, they refer
to a phrase which occurs several times in the first chapter of
Genesis: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." This
has not been considered sufficient proof by the great mass of the
Christian world. Nor ought it to be, as all the world knows that no
day of creation began in the evening; but all of them began in the
morning. That saying of Moses therefore only declares that the day
was made up of two parts, the after part, and the fore part. Indeed
the evidence in the New Testament seems to be clearly against this
view. "Our Sabbath begins where the Jewish Sabbath ended; but the
Jewish Sabbath did not end towards the evening, but towards the
morning. Matt. 28:1. `In the end of the Sabbath, as it began
to dawn
towards the first day of the week,' etc. In the New Testament, the
evening following, and not going before this first day of the week,
is called the evening of the first day, John 20:19. `The same day,
at evening, being the first day of the week,' etc. Our Sabbath is
held in memory of Christ's resurrection, and it is certain that
Christ rose early in the morning of the first day of the week."