Rebuttal on Rev 1:10

(Dick Bacon, Saturday, December 30, 2000)

Dear Ted,

The following is offered as rebuttal to your first paragraph after the heading "Now to areas of disagreement" in the text of your post titled "Installment 9." Further rebuttal, especially to your ad hominem reference to my argumentation as "gnostic syncretistic polemics" will follow in subsequent posts.

_________________________________________

"The Lord's Day" in Revelation 1:10 is altogether unrelated to "the day of the Lord" as that phrase appears throughout Scripture. The Day of the Lord, whatever it may signify (and I disagree with your eschatology that this day is yet future, but that is the subject of another time and circumstance), is utilized throughout both the Old and New Testaments. The original language of the OT, which was Hebrew, signifies this term as "yom laYHWH" or simply "yom YHWH." The Greek translation of the OT most often used by the Apostles both in their own writings and when reporting the sayings of Jesus was the Septuagint (LXX). That translation regularly translates this phrase as "he hemera kuriou" with some variations in the article (depending entirely upon syntax for use of the article). The NT, following this same format, regularly uses the terminology of "the day of the Lord" or "the day of the Lord Jesus" in Greek as "he hemera kuriou" (see Acts 2:20; 1 Cor. 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14; 1 Thes. 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10).

Revelation 1:10 utilizes a different vocabulary. There the term day "hemera" is modified by the adjective "kuriake." This is a significant difference and forms a specifically chosen departure from the terminology of "the day of the Lord." The adjective occurs only twice in the NT, and both times it refers to the ownership of something. In 1 Cor. 11:20, it refers to Christ's ownership of his sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In Revelation 1:10 it refers to Christ's ownership of his day.

So why would I place question-marks around Revelation 1:10? NOT because there was some question as to whether Rev. 1:10 refers to the Sabbath - it most certainly does. The only question is whether it refers to the first day of the week or the seventh day of the week. Clearly, given Seventh day presuppositions, the "Lord's Day" would be regarded as the seventh day of the week. Given historical Christian understanding, the "Lord's Day" would be regarded as the first day of the week.

Further, you acknowledged in your "Installment 9" that this term appears nowhere else in Scripture. In other words, the Mosaic SEVENTH DAY Sabbath was NEVER known as "The Lord's Day." This makes it a rather strange phrase to use without further explanation of any kind in referring to a day well-known amongst both Jewish and Gentile Christians by an altogether different name. The burden of demonstrating that this NEW phrase refers clearly to an OLD day is unbearable. Neither the language nor the historical use of that language will hold up the burden.

However, if we regard the day over which the Lord claims a proprietorship as that day in which he rose from the dead then the phrase makes considerably more sense than any explanation an SdA could offer. Does that mean that the first day is *definitely* in view in Revelation 1:10? Though that has been the view of the church for 2,000 years, it is not clearly demonstrable *from the passage itself.* Further, even if it were demonstrated that the first day of the week is in view in Revelation 1:10, that would not ipso facto demonstrate that the day was celebrated as the Sabbath.

Therefore, several reasons conspire to give me reason for placing Revelation 1:10 in question marks as I did. However, none of them are the jejune explanation that "The Lord's Day" is the same thing as "the day of the

Lord." There is no reason either contextually or linguistically to suppose that John invented an altogether new term for something that had been known by a different name or a different term for hundreds of years by the time he wrote.

So, this is my reply to your first paragraph: The term "the Lord's Day" is a new term used by John and is actually similar to "the day of the Lord" at a purely superficial level. Both are technical and theological terms. The church has understood Revelation 1:10's "the Lord's Day" to refer to the first day of the week AT LEAST since the time of the Didache (approx 100 AD) and of course, many would maintain that the Didache has an even earlier authorship. The Apostolic Constitutions and Venantius Honorius, both of which predate Nicaea, also testify to the fact that the church has regarded Revelation 1:10 as referring to the first day of the week from earliest times. As Hughes Old has written, the reason for referring to the Lord's Day is twofold: because it is the day upon which Christ rose and it was the day of the week upon which the disciples were ordinarily gathered to meet with him.

Thus, too, Easton's Bible Dictionary, claims "Lord's day - only once, in Rev. 1:10, was in the early Christian ages used to denote the first day of the week, which commemorated the Lord's resurrection. There is every reason to conclude that John thus used the name." And the testimony of the Harper's Bible Dictionary, "Lord's Day, the day of Jesus' resurrection, the first day of the week, Sunday. The phrase 'the Lord's Day' occurs first in Rev. 1:10, the only occurrence of it in the NT. A similar phrase appears in The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, also known as the Didache (Gk., 'teaching'), a work written toward the end of the first century, probably in Syria. The readers of this work are instructed to gather on the Lord's Day to break bread and to give thanks (Did. 14:1). A similar practice is presupposed in Acts 20:7. When Paul instructed the Corinthians each to contribute to the collection for the saints in Judea on the first day of every week, he presupposed a gathering for worship on that day (1 Cor. 16:2). Each of the Gospels emphasizes the tradition that Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. That emphasis probably reflects liturgical practice. This association is especially clear in Luke, where the Emmaus story links the first day of the week, Jesus' resurrection, and the breaking of bread (Luke 24:13-35). It is likely that many early Christians observed both the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, Saturday, and the Lord's Day. Paul may have objected to Gentile Christians' adopting of Sabbath observance (Gal. 4:10). The Letter to the Colossians instructed its readers that Sabbath observance was not required (Col. 2:16). Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote in the early part of the second century that the Lord's Day should be observed in place of the Sabbath (Ign. Magn. 9:1)."

We may not agree with everything in the Harper's Dictionary, or even with everything in this article. But it does demonstrate that the church from the very earliest point at which we have sub-apostolic records understood Revelation 1:10 and the phrase "The Lord's Day" to refer to the first day of the week. So, the last two paragraphs basically are intended to demonstrate that you are *incorrect* to classify the Didache and other early church sources as "some time later." In fact, if one accepts the late date (approx. 96AD) for the writing of the book of Revelation, it is virtually contemporaneous with the Didache.

Richard Bacon, Ph.D.