The Sabbath Between
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The Sabbath Between
Some suppose that evidence is found in Acts 13:42, for Sunday-keeping. The text reads: “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.” The margin says, “In the week between, or, in the Sabbath between.” The word rendered “next” is metaxu, and is defined by Greenfield: “Between, Matthew 23:35, etc.; ho metaxu, intervening time, en to metaxu, sc. chrono, in the meantime, meanwhile, John 4:31; by turns, mutually, Romans 2:12; ho metaxu, subsequent, following, succeeding, next. Acts 13:42.”SBTON 20.1
1. This is all the material with which they are furnished by this text. How do they manipulate it into proof for a first-day Sabbath? That the day in which Paul delivered the discourse of which this verse is a part, was the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, as stated in Acts 13:14, is on all hands conceded. Now, granting that metaxu here means between (which is only one of its meanings), and that the request was that another meeting should be held on the Sabbath between, how does this prove that the first day of the week is here intended? The first day is not named; no day of the week is specified; and nothing is proved for the first day over any other of the days of the week.SBTON 20.2
2. The term sabbaton is applied in the New Testament to only three objects: 1st. The Sabbath proper, the last day of each week. 2nd. The space of time included between these Sabbaths, or the week. 3rd. The yearly or ceremonial sabbaths of the Jews. Our friends will not claim that Acts 13:42, refers to any ceremonial sabbath. They contend that it does not refer to the Sabbath upon the last day of the week, as observed by the Jews. It must, then, in this instance, mean the only other thing to which it is ever applied, namely, the space between, or the whole week, as the margin of our common version reads, “In the week between.” But this would prove nothing for a first-day Sabbath.SBTON 21.1
3. If it means as is claimed, a Sabbath between, then we inquire, Between what? Between two seventh-day Sabbaths certainly: between that Sabbath on which Paul spoke and the next one like it. But what was there between these? There were six whole days of the week. And if one of these is a Sabbath between, who will tell us which one it is? This text neither tells nor intimates. It does not therefore look well for our friends to assume it too positively.SBTON 21.2
4. We inquire further, Who were the ones who made this request of Paul? Answer. The Gentiles. They were neither Jews nor Christians. They could not have been keeping the Sunday in honor of Christ’s resurrection, or in any sense as a Christian institution; for they made no profession of the Christian religion. This is proof positive that their request had no reference to the observance of the first day as a Christian Sabbath.SBTON 21.3
5. For these reasons, metaxu cannot here have the meaning of between, but that of next, subsequent, next in order, following; and we do no violence to the language by giving it this definition; for it has this meaning equally with the other. So Dr. Bloomfield says: “The sense expressed in our common version is, no doubt, the true one. It is adopted by the best recent commentators and confirmed by the ancient versions.”SBTON 22.1
6. Having seen that there is no proof in verse 42 for a first-day Sabbath, we come now to verse 44, which forever annihilates the first-day claim by showing what day that next Sabbath was, namely, the next seventh day of the week. For we read: “And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” This record shows how Paul complied with the request of those Gentiles, and so determines what that request was. They did not ask him to speak on one day, and he speak on another. No; this “next Sabbath” of verse 44, on which Paul spoke, was the “next Sabbath” of verse 42, on which they requested him to speak. And does any one say that this was the Sabbath between? Let us see if it was. It is claimed on verse 42 that it was the Sabbath between because the word metaxu is used, which, among others, has that meaning. Now if this had been what the writer of the Acts designed to teach, he would have used in verse 44, this same word metaxu, which sometimes means between; or, more probably, he would use some stronger word which always has this meaning. But so far from this, he uses a word which never has this meaning. The word used in this case is erehomeno, a participle from the verb erehomai which means primarily, to come. So here it is the coming or next Sabbath, and so far as we have been able to learn is uniformly so translated. So Bloomfield says that the supposition that verse 42 means some intermediate week day is refuted by verse 44.SBTON 22.2
But was not the envy of the Jews stirred, as mentioned in verse 45, because they saw a new Sabbath supplanting the one they had always observed? Nothing of this kind is stated. But it says that when they saw the multitudes they were filled with envy. They were envious that the preaching of the gospel should call forth such crowds, while their own worship excited comparatively little attention. It is truly surprising that any one should urge such an argument as this in proof of a change of the Sabbath.SBTON 23.1
It is not singular that first-day advocates should be anxious to dispose of this case; for, as it stands, it effectually cuts off the claim that Paul made use of the seventh day for the purpose of getting the ears of the Jews, inasmuch as this meeting on the Sabbath pertained wholly to the Gentiles. But they do their cause no service by the method of argument which they adopt. U. SSBTON 23.2