The Day of Pentecost. Acts 2:1-4 – Part 2

Church History: Pentecost, being the 50th day after the Sabbath of the Passover week (Leviticus 23:4-7, 15-16)
This was the first time that they meet as a church. Following the example set by Christ after his resurrection, they met on a Sunday. John 20:19-31
As every place, so is every day and hour alike sacred to God, who fills all space and all time, and can be worshipped everywhere and always. But, from the necessary limitations of our earthly life, as well as from the nature of social and public worship, springs the use of sacred seasons. The apostolic church followed in general the Jewish usage, but purged it from superstition and filled it with the spirit of faith and freedom. Accordingly, the Jewish Hours of daily prayer, particularly in the morning and evening, were observed as a matter of habit, besides the strictly private devotions which are bound to no time.
The Lord’s Day took the place of the Jewish Sabbath as the weekly day of public worship. The substance remained, the form was changed. The institution of a periodical weekly day of rest for the body and the soul is rooted in our physical and moral nature, and is as old as man, dating, like marriage, from paradise. This is implied in the profound saying of our Lord: "The Sabbath is made for man." It is incorporated in the Decalogue, the moral law, which Christ did not come to destroy, but to fulfill, and which cannot be robbed of one commandment without injury to all the rest. At the same time the Jewish Sabbath was hedged around by many national and ceremonial restrictions, which were not intended to be permanent, but were gradually made so prominent as to overshadow its great moral aim, and to make man subservient to the Sabbath instead of the Sabbath to man.
After the exile and in the hands of the Pharisees it became a legal bondage rather than a privilege and benediction. Christ as the Lord of the Sabbath opposed this mechanical ceremonialism and restored the true spirit and benevolent aim of the institution. When the slavish, superstitious, and self-righteous sabbatarianism of the Pharisees crept into the Galatian churches and was made a condition of justification, Paul rebuked it as a relapse into Judaism. (Galatians Chapter 3)
The day was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, not on the ground of a particular command, but by the free spirit of the gospel and by the power of certain great facts which he at the foundation of the Christian church. It was on that day that Christ rose from the dead; that he appeared to Mary, the disciples of Emmaus, and the assembled apostles; that he poured out his Spirit and founded the church; and that he revealed to his beloved disciple the mysteries of the future.
The first day was already in the apostolic age honorably designated as "the Lord’s Day." On that day Paul met with the disciples at Troas and preached till midnight. (Acts 20:7-12) On that day he ordered the Galatian and Corinthian Christians to make, no doubt in connection with divine service, their weekly contributions to charitable objects according to their ability. (1Colrinthians 16:2). Paul often taught in the Synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath because was the only day he could find them in large numbers (Acts 19:8). Even if the Gentile Christians wanted to, they were not allowed in the Synagogues because they were not Circumcised (Acts 16:3). It appears, therefore, from the New Testament itself, that Sunday was observed as a day of worship, and in special commemoration of the Resurrection, whereby the work of redemption was finished.9