This discussion comes from Getting the Garden Right, coming soon from Founders Press. It is used with permission.
Copyright © 2017 Richard C. Barcellos. All rights reserved.
(This is part 4 of 8, click here for part 1, part 2 & part 3)
The Prominence of the First Day Immediately Subsequent to Christ’s Resurrection
Notice the prominence of the first day immediately subsequent to Christ’s resurrection.
Matt. 28:1 Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.
Matt. 28:5-6 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. 6 “He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.
Matt. 28:9-10 And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”
Mark 16:9 Now when he rose early in the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene
Mark 16:12 After that, he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country.
Mark 16:14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table”
Luke 24:1-2 Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Luke 24:13-15 Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them.
Luke 24:36 Now as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, “Peace to you.”
These post-resurrection appearances of Christ all happened on the first day of the week. How can we best account for this? Waldron comments on this phenomenon:
(1) We note first the phrase in John 20:26, “eight days later”. Since the Jews counted inclusively, this eighth day was the first day of the week. John is careful to include these details of time because they point to his Lord’s Day theology (Rev. 1:10). In fact, four of the eight New Testament references to the first or Lord’s Day are in the Johannine literature of the New Testament (John 20:1,19,26; Rev. 1:10). John 20:26 increases strikingly in its significance when it is compared with John 21:14. There the appearance beside the Sea of Tiberias is said to be “the third time that Jesus was manifested to His disciples.” This statement is, of course, problematic and must be qualified in some fashion. Whatever its specific meaning, it clearly marks the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus of John 20:19, 20:26, and 21:1 as unique and distinct. There were no intervening appearances of like character. Probably the meaning is that Jesus between these three appearances did not appear to a large group of disciples (Apostles). This means, of course, that between the first and eighth days of John 20 there were no like appearances to the disciples. This fact must have had a psychological effect upon the gathered disciples which would have clearly marked the first day of the week as of special significance for their resurrected Lord.
(2) Acts 2:1f. is also significant because the day of Pentecost occurred upon the first day of the week (Lev. 23:15-21). Pentecost, it is interesting to note was a day upon which no laborious work was to be done. Thus, it was in a sense a Sabbath. At any rate, the two constitutive events of the New Covenant and New Creation (the resurrection of Christ and the Pentecostal giving of the Spirit) both occurred on the first day of the week. Surely the disciples of Christ could not have overlooked or failed to ponder these facts.[1]
Though these observations of themselves do not prove that the first day of the week is the Christian sacred day for church worship, taken together with the many other issues we have discussed and will discuss below, they indicate that something is very unique about the first day of the week even after Christ rose from the dead. In other words, the New Testament notes recurring first days after the resurrection of Christ. These post-resurrection and pre-ascension appearances seem to assume something peculiar about the first day of the week. Just what that peculiarity is demands further revelation.
[1] Waldron, Lord’s Day.
Dr. Richard Barcellos is associate professor of New Testament Studies. He received a B.S. from California State University, Fresno, an M.Div. from The Master’s Seminary, and a Th.M. and Ph.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Dr. Barcellos is pastor of Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Palmdale, CA. He is author of Trinity & Creation, The Covenant of Works, and Getting the Garden Right. He has contributed articles to various journals and is a member of ETS.
Courses taught for CBTS: New Testament Introduction, Biblical Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology I, Biblical Theology II.
