This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day of thanksgiving in the Passover Hallel, prophetic of Christ and joined to the gates of righteousness and the refused stone becoming head of the corner. The day named is the whole gospel day, the Christian dispensation and day of salvation, not a weekday or single twenty-four-hour day. It is Christ's triumph, when types and prophecy are fulfilled in his death for sin and resurrection for justification, his victory over sin and death and Satan forever as conqueror and firstfruits. It calls for rejoicing in that salvation continually every day and always, and for laying hold today on the present granted time of grace to gain righteousness, peace and joy. It names no Sabbath, rest, command, weekday or change, and gives no warrant for transferring Sabbath sacredness from the seventh to the first day or for releasing from the fourth commandment. Yet the day is also taught as the resurrection morning when the Sun of Righteousness was raised, made the Lord's day and holy binding time commemorated from the cross onward, and as the creation Sabbath made holy and blessed from Eden to restored Eden.
Setting and Language
Psalms 113 to 118 form the Hallel, the psalm of praise sung at Passover and certain other Hebrew feasts. It was the usual Passover song, sung at the Passover meal after the meal and the fourth cup of wine and water. It was the hymn sung after the last Passover supper before going to the Mount of Olives, when the Saviour closed His last Passover service with this song. It was therefore sung by Jesus just before His betrayal, the agony of Gethsemane, and the darkness of the cross.
The psalm to which the verse belongs expresses thanksgiving for loving-kindness and for saving goodness and enduring mercy. It is prophetic of Christ, giving a glimpse of His inner experience and struggles with the enemy. In that way it helps understanding of what He felt as He suffered and was tempted. The verse belongs together with verses 19-24, with the gates of righteousness and with the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone and head stone of the corner. Peter quoted and commented on verse 22 when preaching about crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation.
The word day is not specified as a twenty-four-hour day or an indefinite period, nor is which day specified. It does not specify annual observance or say that the day will recur. It means a season or period of time, the time of Christ's appearing and the triumph of His work. The word this points to a future time, the Christian dispensation, rather than only the time when the words were first spoken. In that sense it supports the use of this generation for the future generation that sees the signs of coming and hears the final warning and will not pass away before fulfillment.
The day God made is the day marked by the earth's rotation, a twenty-four-hour day. A traveler's motion can make the interval between observations of sunrise shorter or longer. His count should then be adjusted to match the day marked by God.
Day as Gospel Era
This is the day of salvation, the whole gospel day and Christian dispensation, not Saturday or Sunday or any single twenty-four-hour weekday, and the call is to rejoice and be glad in it every day and always. Its day means the period of the gospel's opening work and the new dispensation brought about through Christ's mission, death and resurrection, with joy in the salvation and better covenant it brings. It is not identified as the first day of the week, a weekly Sabbath or a day of rest, and rejoicing in it does not make it sacred from labor or transfer Sabbath obligation to it.
It is the day of Christ's triumph, when Old Testament prophecies and types are fulfilled and the good news of His death for sin and resurrection for justification goes to the world. It is the day of the salvation of the church when He was demonstrated to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, after the seeming day of triumph for Satan and the power of darkness at His betrayal into the hands of His enemies and His burial sealed in the stone sepulcher. In that triumph He rose as conqueror and firstfruits of those who sleep over sin and death and Satan forevermore, so the plan of salvation was not thwarted. Its gladness and fruits belong to everyone who knows the power of His resurrection every day of the week, as appropriate on the fourth day as on the first, for it is one great long lifetime day rather than a twenty-four-hour day for rejoicing.
It is the same day of Christ which Abraham saw and rejoiced in, which Simeon rejoiced in, and which the disciples rejoiced in at the entry cry Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord before the resurrection. That joy was taken away by the death of Christ and revived by His resurrection. It is the day secured through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same day spoken of in Psalm 95:7. It is the granted present day of grace and now-accepted time, when righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost may be obtained, and one day offers the choice to gain or lose an eternity of rest. Because this other day was spoken after Joshua failed to give Israel rest in Canaan, there remains a rest for the people of God which Jesus gives to all who come to Him, and through Him those who are Christ's become Abraham's seed, children of Abraham, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, to inherit when He comes sitting on the throne of His glory the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world, which is the rest of the earth freed from the curse.
In a lower sense the day may refer to Israel's blessed change of circumstances, happier times, or a celebration providentially occasioned by God, but in the higher sense it is the new and glorious era of salvation. That higher era is the new dispensation of the promised Messiah and the Lord's marvelous work, a new era in God's work and of seeing Him at work among His people. It is called the Lord's day because God's promised salvation through Christ was certain before Christ's suffering and resurrection took place, so David and others could share its benefit beforehand through faith in that promise.
Cornerstone Fulfilled in Christ
The refused stone is the Saviour, who did not become head of the corner by rising from the dead but by the act of the Father after His ascension to the heavenly Sion. Then He sat down at the right hand of God and was made High Priest and Mediator and head over all things to the church, with all things put under His feet. That is the same day He went in by the gates of righteousness, which He did formally when He ascended from Mount Olivet, when His mediatorial righteousness was approved by the Father and the door of heaven was visibly opened to believers. If a literal single day is meant it must therefore be the day of the ascension rather than the day of the resurrection, and even then it gives no authority for keeping a new weekly day in place of the ancient Sabbath. The day may mean an indefinite period, particularly the gospel era, rather than a twenty-four-hour day, and the cornerstone event could be pointed instead to His birth or to the beginning of His public ministry.
Peter quoted and commented on verse 22 when preaching of crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation, but made no announcement of a Sabbath change. The closely connected passage therefore gives no prophecy of a new Sabbath. The inspired New Testament fulfillments of the stone prophecy are the authority for its meaning and give no intimation of a first-day Sabbath. The resurrection has its fit and divinely appointed memorial in baptism, so there is no necessity to commemorate the resurrection by keeping the first day of the week.
On the opposing reading held by those who apply the verse to Sunday, the rejected stone became the head of the corner when God made the day by raising Christ very early in the morning on the first day of the week. God made this day by raising the Sun of Righteousness with healing, as when God commanded light to shine at creation. The glory of the seventh day died out while the grave held the Redeemer through the Sabbath kept according to the commandment, yet the glory of the Sabbath survives with fresh luster from the Lord of the Sabbath. Therefore the first day has become the Lord's day and holy binding time, honored by Christ's personal appearances on the first and second Sundays after the resurrection, by His blessing and teaching and breathing on them the Holy Ghost as the earnest of Pentecost, and by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, calling for rejoicing and gladness in it until Christ comes.
No Weekly Sabbath Taught
The verse names no Sabbath, no rest, no command, no particular weekday, no replacement day, and no change, and its day has no connection to Sunday as a Sabbath. It is prophetic of the Christian dispensation, and in a lower sense may point to Israel's blessed change of circumstances or a celebration providentially occasioned, but in the higher sense to the gospel dispensation as a new and glorious era of salvation through Christ's mission, death, and resurrection and its better covenant. Rejoicing and gladness in the made day does not make it sacred from labor, does not give it Sabbath sacredness, does not transfer Sabbath obligation to it, and gives the first day no more honor than other secular days. It says nothing about rest or issuing a command, and applying it to Easter day is one commentator's application, not evidence that Sunday is a weekly Sabbath.
It does not prove that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day to the first, does not make a new weekly Sabbath releasing from the fourth commandment, and does not repeal or alter that commandment, take blessing from the seventh day, or make it a working day. To use it for that change twists Scripture and rests on guess. The day which the Lord made is the whole period of the gospel dispensation in which to rejoice and be glad evermore and every day, the same day of Christ which Abraham saw and rejoiced in, when what before rested on promise was made plain in fact by Christ risen triumphant over sin and death and Satan. There is no proof that the rejected stone becoming the chief cornerstone refers specifically to the resurrection, since it could refer instead to his birth, the beginning of his public ministry, or his exaltation after the ascension to the heavenly Sion when he was made High Priest, mediator, and head over all things to the church with all under his feet; if a literal single day were meant it must be the ascension day rather than the resurrection day, and even then it gives no authority for keeping a new day in place of the ancient Sabbath.
The call is to rejoice in one single day or continually every day, not in the same day of every week, and the command is to rejoice always. It is the day Christ formally went in by the gates of righteousness when he ascended from Mount Olivet and sat at the right hand of God, when his mediatorial righteousness was approved by the Father and heaven's door was visibly opened to believers. As Abraham rejoiced in the day of Christ and believers rejoice in the day of the crucifixion without keeping weekly Sabbaths for them, so joy in the day of resurrection or ascension does not make the first day of the week the Sabbath. The day has a broader scope than one literal twenty-four-hour day, meaning the whole day of Christ that Abraham rejoiced to see, that Simeon rejoiced in, and that the disciples rejoiced in at the entry cry Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord before the resurrection, which joy was taken away by his death and revived by his resurrection.
There is no proof that Christ became head of the corner on the day of his resurrection rather than when he ascended into heaven, and there is no authority for appointing Sunday to commemorate his resurrection. The New Testament never tells believers to rejoice in the first day of the week, and the resurrection has its fit and divinely appointed memorial in baptism, so there is no necessity to commemorate it by keeping the first day. Treating the verse as proof that the first day became the Sabbath rests on a guess, and applying it to Easter or Sunday is a commentator's application and forced unsupported reasoning from apostasy like modeling worship on the golden calf, not evidence. Appealing to a definite resurrection day sits uneasily with objecting that calendar changes make the seventh-day Sabbath uncertain and with claiming that observing one particular day is impossible on a round world, including the claim that the disciples began observing it at the cross. The contrast of a sorrowful Sabbath with a joyful Sunday is false, because the disciples were still mourning on the first day, and the verse does not establish a change or abrogation of the Sabbath.
The verse marks another day to observe after the Aaronic priesthood ended while the moral law remains binding, linked with the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. It gives the other day spoken of after Joshua failed to give Israel rest in Canaan, leaving a remaining rest for the people of God. That made day is the day of salvation, the now-accepted time, which Jesus gives to all who come to him, through whom those who are Christ's become Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise.
Rival Sabbath Applications
On the rival reading the day is the morning of the resurrection, very early on the first day of the week, made by raising Christ as the Sun of Righteousness with healing as light was made at creation, and the rejected stone becoming head of the corner happened then, calling for rejoicing and gladness in that day. The glory of the seventh day died out while the grave held the Redeemer through the Sabbath kept according to the commandment, yet the glory of the Sabbath survives with fresh luster from the Lord of the Sabbath. The first day has therefore become the Lord's day, holy time binding upon all, replacing the seventh day observed until the death of Christ, commemorating the resurrection and supporting the change from seventh to first from the cross onward. It was honored by Christ's personal appearances to the disciples on the first and second Sundays after the resurrection, by His blessing and teaching, by His breathing on them the Holy Ghost as the earnest of Pentecost, and by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost to teach its holiness. The Christian church has rejoiced in that resurrection day and will continue to do so until Christ comes, and the identification is invoked as the reason given for honoring Sunday.
That use of the verse to prove a first-day Sabbath is a twisting of Scripture that does not establish the change from seventh to first. The claim that the disciples began observing it at the cross conflicts with the argument that observing one particular day is impossible on a round world. The claim that Christ took a common day and made it holy, thereby establishing the first day as the Christian Sabbath, is a failed argument.
On the seventh-day reading the day the Lord made is the Sabbath made at creation as the birthday memorial of the world, blessed and set apart as holy with blessings placed in it for those who observe it religiously. It was instituted before sin entered and before the Jewish nation existed, so it has no relation to the sin-offerings, types, ceremonies and sacrifices that later expired, but belongs to God's eternal purpose for all nations, conditions, climes and countries. It stands as long as God's handiwork is seen in heaven and earth and is as binding today as when instituted, reaching as a Christian institution from Eden to its observance in the restored Eden. The weekly Sabbath remembers the completed work of creation and looks forward to the everlasting Sabbath when the work of providence and redemption is finished. To deny its claims is to deny God's power as Creator and Redeemer, while to honor and revere that made day is to honor the Lord of the Sabbath, so it is not to be profaned or treated as common time but to be met with rejoicing and with gratitude to Christ in whom souls are blessed.
Rejoicing and gladness in the day the Lord has made is the experience of the Sabbath day when a man transformed during the week gladly embraces the message he has heard and feels at home among its people. That rejoicing and gladness in the made day belongs also to the joy of heaven.
Rejoicing in Daily Life
The hymn belonged to the group of psalms sung on paschal occasions and was taken up on the night when betrayal, the anguish of Gethsemane, and the darkness of the cross lay immediately ahead. Even with that suffering in full view, gladness was expressed in the day the Lord had made, resting in faith in a Father too wise to err and too good to be unkind. Praise offered in the face of suffering glorifies God and opens the way to greater blessings.
The day given by God is itself reason to rejoice and give thanks now, making today the true day of thanksgiving rather than some future appointed day. Gladness today is a choice to turn away from troubling thoughts, dreary weather, and burdensome tasks, and to remember that better days and coming joys remain. It is a glad day because righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit may be obtained in it, and a single day holds the choice by which an eternity of rest may be gained or lost.
This is the day of thanksgiving in the Passover Hallel, prophetic of Christ and joined to the gates of righteousness and the refused stone becoming head of the corner. The day named is the whole gospel day, the Christian dispensation and day of salvation, not a weekday or single twenty-four-hour day. It is Christ's triumph, when types and prophecy are fulfilled in his death for sin and resurrection for justification, his victory over sin and death and Satan forever as conqueror and firstfruits. It calls for rejoicing in that salvation continually every day and always, and for laying hold today on the present granted time of grace to gain righteousness, peace and joy. It names no Sabbath, rest, command, weekday or change, and gives no warrant for transferring Sabbath sacredness from the seventh to the first day or for releasing from the fourth commandment. Yet the day is also taught as the resurrection morning when the Sun of Righteousness was raised, made the Lord's day and holy binding time commemorated from the cross onward, and as the creation Sabbath made holy and blessed from Eden to restored Eden.
Setting and Language
Psalms 113 to 118 form the Hallel, the psalm of praise sung at Passover and certain other Hebrew feasts. It was the usual Passover song, sung at the Passover meal after the meal and the fourth cup of wine and water. It was the hymn sung after the last Passover supper before going to the Mount of Olives, when the Saviour closed His last Passover service with this song. It was therefore sung by Jesus just before His betrayal, the agony of Gethsemane, and the darkness of the cross.
The psalm to which the verse belongs expresses thanksgiving for loving-kindness and for saving goodness and enduring mercy. It is prophetic of Christ, giving a glimpse of His inner experience and struggles with the enemy. In that way it helps understanding of what He felt as He suffered and was tempted. The verse belongs together with verses 19-24, with the gates of righteousness and with the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone and head stone of the corner. Peter quoted and commented on verse 22 when preaching about crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation.
The word day is not specified as a twenty-four-hour day or an indefinite period, nor is which day specified. It does not specify annual observance or say that the day will recur. It means a season or period of time, the time of Christ's appearing and the triumph of His work. The word this points to a future time, the Christian dispensation, rather than only the time when the words were first spoken. In that sense it supports the use of this generation for the future generation that sees the signs of coming and hears the final warning and will not pass away before fulfillment.
The day God made is the day marked by the earth's rotation, a twenty-four-hour day. A traveler's motion can make the interval between observations of sunrise shorter or longer. His count should then be adjusted to match the day marked by God.
Day as Gospel Era
This is the day of salvation, the whole gospel day and Christian dispensation, not Saturday or Sunday or any single twenty-four-hour weekday, and the call is to rejoice and be glad in it every day and always. Its day means the period of the gospel's opening work and the new dispensation brought about through Christ's mission, death and resurrection, with joy in the salvation and better covenant it brings. It is not identified as the first day of the week, a weekly Sabbath or a day of rest, and rejoicing in it does not make it sacred from labor or transfer Sabbath obligation to it.
It is the day of Christ's triumph, when Old Testament prophecies and types are fulfilled and the good news of His death for sin and resurrection for justification goes to the world. It is the day of the salvation of the church when He was demonstrated to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, after the seeming day of triumph for Satan and the power of darkness at His betrayal into the hands of His enemies and His burial sealed in the stone sepulcher. In that triumph He rose as conqueror and firstfruits of those who sleep over sin and death and Satan forevermore, so the plan of salvation was not thwarted. Its gladness and fruits belong to everyone who knows the power of His resurrection every day of the week, as appropriate on the fourth day as on the first, for it is one great long lifetime day rather than a twenty-four-hour day for rejoicing.
It is the same day of Christ which Abraham saw and rejoiced in, which Simeon rejoiced in, and which the disciples rejoiced in at the entry cry Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord before the resurrection. That joy was taken away by the death of Christ and revived by His resurrection. It is the day secured through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same day spoken of in Psalm 95:7. It is the granted present day of grace and now-accepted time, when righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost may be obtained, and one day offers the choice to gain or lose an eternity of rest. Because this other day was spoken after Joshua failed to give Israel rest in Canaan, there remains a rest for the people of God which Jesus gives to all who come to Him, and through Him those who are Christ's become Abraham's seed, children of Abraham, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, to inherit when He comes sitting on the throne of His glory the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world, which is the rest of the earth freed from the curse.
In a lower sense the day may refer to Israel's blessed change of circumstances, happier times, or a celebration providentially occasioned by God, but in the higher sense it is the new and glorious era of salvation. That higher era is the new dispensation of the promised Messiah and the Lord's marvelous work, a new era in God's work and of seeing Him at work among His people. It is called the Lord's day because God's promised salvation through Christ was certain before Christ's suffering and resurrection took place, so David and others could share its benefit beforehand through faith in that promise.
Cornerstone Fulfilled in Christ
The refused stone is the Saviour, who did not become head of the corner by rising from the dead but by the act of the Father after His ascension to the heavenly Sion. Then He sat down at the right hand of God and was made High Priest and Mediator and head over all things to the church, with all things put under His feet. That is the same day He went in by the gates of righteousness, which He did formally when He ascended from Mount Olivet, when His mediatorial righteousness was approved by the Father and the door of heaven was visibly opened to believers. If a literal single day is meant it must therefore be the day of the ascension rather than the day of the resurrection, and even then it gives no authority for keeping a new weekly day in place of the ancient Sabbath. The day may mean an indefinite period, particularly the gospel era, rather than a twenty-four-hour day, and the cornerstone event could be pointed instead to His birth or to the beginning of His public ministry.
Peter quoted and commented on verse 22 when preaching of crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation, but made no announcement of a Sabbath change. The closely connected passage therefore gives no prophecy of a new Sabbath. The inspired New Testament fulfillments of the stone prophecy are the authority for its meaning and give no intimation of a first-day Sabbath. The resurrection has its fit and divinely appointed memorial in baptism, so there is no necessity to commemorate the resurrection by keeping the first day of the week.
On the opposing reading held by those who apply the verse to Sunday, the rejected stone became the head of the corner when God made the day by raising Christ very early in the morning on the first day of the week. God made this day by raising the Sun of Righteousness with healing, as when God commanded light to shine at creation. The glory of the seventh day died out while the grave held the Redeemer through the Sabbath kept according to the commandment, yet the glory of the Sabbath survives with fresh luster from the Lord of the Sabbath. Therefore the first day has become the Lord's day and holy binding time, honored by Christ's personal appearances on the first and second Sundays after the resurrection, by His blessing and teaching and breathing on them the Holy Ghost as the earnest of Pentecost, and by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, calling for rejoicing and gladness in it until Christ comes.
No Weekly Sabbath Taught
The verse names no Sabbath, no rest, no command, no particular weekday, no replacement day, and no change, and its day has no connection to Sunday as a Sabbath. It is prophetic of the Christian dispensation, and in a lower sense may point to Israel's blessed change of circumstances or a celebration providentially occasioned, but in the higher sense to the gospel dispensation as a new and glorious era of salvation through Christ's mission, death, and resurrection and its better covenant. Rejoicing and gladness in the made day does not make it sacred from labor, does not give it Sabbath sacredness, does not transfer Sabbath obligation to it, and gives the first day no more honor than other secular days. It says nothing about rest or issuing a command, and applying it to Easter day is one commentator's application, not evidence that Sunday is a weekly Sabbath.
It does not prove that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day to the first, does not make a new weekly Sabbath releasing from the fourth commandment, and does not repeal or alter that commandment, take blessing from the seventh day, or make it a working day. To use it for that change twists Scripture and rests on guess. The day which the Lord made is the whole period of the gospel dispensation in which to rejoice and be glad evermore and every day, the same day of Christ which Abraham saw and rejoiced in, when what before rested on promise was made plain in fact by Christ risen triumphant over sin and death and Satan. There is no proof that the rejected stone becoming the chief cornerstone refers specifically to the resurrection, since it could refer instead to his birth, the beginning of his public ministry, or his exaltation after the ascension to the heavenly Sion when he was made High Priest, mediator, and head over all things to the church with all under his feet; if a literal single day were meant it must be the ascension day rather than the resurrection day, and even then it gives no authority for keeping a new day in place of the ancient Sabbath.
The call is to rejoice in one single day or continually every day, not in the same day of every week, and the command is to rejoice always. It is the day Christ formally went in by the gates of righteousness when he ascended from Mount Olivet and sat at the right hand of God, when his mediatorial righteousness was approved by the Father and heaven's door was visibly opened to believers. As Abraham rejoiced in the day of Christ and believers rejoice in the day of the crucifixion without keeping weekly Sabbaths for them, so joy in the day of resurrection or ascension does not make the first day of the week the Sabbath. The day has a broader scope than one literal twenty-four-hour day, meaning the whole day of Christ that Abraham rejoiced to see, that Simeon rejoiced in, and that the disciples rejoiced in at the entry cry Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord before the resurrection, which joy was taken away by his death and revived by his resurrection.
There is no proof that Christ became head of the corner on the day of his resurrection rather than when he ascended into heaven, and there is no authority for appointing Sunday to commemorate his resurrection. The New Testament never tells believers to rejoice in the first day of the week, and the resurrection has its fit and divinely appointed memorial in baptism, so there is no necessity to commemorate it by keeping the first day. Treating the verse as proof that the first day became the Sabbath rests on a guess, and applying it to Easter or Sunday is a commentator's application and forced unsupported reasoning from apostasy like modeling worship on the golden calf, not evidence. Appealing to a definite resurrection day sits uneasily with objecting that calendar changes make the seventh-day Sabbath uncertain and with claiming that observing one particular day is impossible on a round world, including the claim that the disciples began observing it at the cross. The contrast of a sorrowful Sabbath with a joyful Sunday is false, because the disciples were still mourning on the first day, and the verse does not establish a change or abrogation of the Sabbath.
The verse marks another day to observe after the Aaronic priesthood ended while the moral law remains binding, linked with the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. It gives the other day spoken of after Joshua failed to give Israel rest in Canaan, leaving a remaining rest for the people of God. That made day is the day of salvation, the now-accepted time, which Jesus gives to all who come to him, through whom those who are Christ's become Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise.
Rival Sabbath Applications
On the rival reading the day is the morning of the resurrection, very early on the first day of the week, made by raising Christ as the Sun of Righteousness with healing as light was made at creation, and the rejected stone becoming head of the corner happened then, calling for rejoicing and gladness in that day. The glory of the seventh day died out while the grave held the Redeemer through the Sabbath kept according to the commandment, yet the glory of the Sabbath survives with fresh luster from the Lord of the Sabbath. The first day has therefore become the Lord's day, holy time binding upon all, replacing the seventh day observed until the death of Christ, commemorating the resurrection and supporting the change from seventh to first from the cross onward. It was honored by Christ's personal appearances to the disciples on the first and second Sundays after the resurrection, by His blessing and teaching, by His breathing on them the Holy Ghost as the earnest of Pentecost, and by the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost to teach its holiness. The Christian church has rejoiced in that resurrection day and will continue to do so until Christ comes, and the identification is invoked as the reason given for honoring Sunday.
That use of the verse to prove a first-day Sabbath is a twisting of Scripture that does not establish the change from seventh to first. The claim that the disciples began observing it at the cross conflicts with the argument that observing one particular day is impossible on a round world. The claim that Christ took a common day and made it holy, thereby establishing the first day as the Christian Sabbath, is a failed argument.
On the seventh-day reading the day the Lord made is the Sabbath made at creation as the birthday memorial of the world, blessed and set apart as holy with blessings placed in it for those who observe it religiously. It was instituted before sin entered and before the Jewish nation existed, so it has no relation to the sin-offerings, types, ceremonies and sacrifices that later expired, but belongs to God's eternal purpose for all nations, conditions, climes and countries. It stands as long as God's handiwork is seen in heaven and earth and is as binding today as when instituted, reaching as a Christian institution from Eden to its observance in the restored Eden. The weekly Sabbath remembers the completed work of creation and looks forward to the everlasting Sabbath when the work of providence and redemption is finished. To deny its claims is to deny God's power as Creator and Redeemer, while to honor and revere that made day is to honor the Lord of the Sabbath, so it is not to be profaned or treated as common time but to be met with rejoicing and with gratitude to Christ in whom souls are blessed.
Rejoicing and gladness in the day the Lord has made is the experience of the Sabbath day when a man transformed during the week gladly embraces the message he has heard and feels at home among its people. That rejoicing and gladness in the made day belongs also to the joy of heaven.
Rejoicing in Daily Life
The hymn belonged to the group of psalms sung on paschal occasions and was taken up on the night when betrayal, the anguish of Gethsemane, and the darkness of the cross lay immediately ahead. Even with that suffering in full view, gladness was expressed in the day the Lord had made, resting in faith in a Father too wise to err and too good to be unkind. Praise offered in the face of suffering glorifies God and opens the way to greater blessings.
The day given by God is itself reason to rejoice and give thanks now, making today the true day of thanksgiving rather than some future appointed day. Gladness today is a choice to turn away from troubling thoughts, dreary weather, and burdensome tasks, and to remember that better days and coming joys remain. It is a glad day because righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit may be obtained in it, and a single day holds the choice by which an eternity of rest may be gained or lost.