Hence in the New Testament there was no need of any special enactment of the first day sabbath. The law and its types and ceremonies were fulfilled in Christ, who showed that so far as the seventh day sabbath was related to Israel, it was to be set aside. "Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat," (Mat. 12:1.) When the Phari- sees complained, He gave them to un- derstand that He was disowning unfaith- ful Israel, and that He had a right to break the seal of the covenant He had formerly made with them, "for the Son of Man is Lord also of the seventh day." In another place He said, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath," (Mark 2:27); and there- fore it is not to be compressed into any narrow apd Jewish conception of its observance, but is adapted to the broad- est needs of man wherever found and at all times. It is enough consequently to know GN2X5®i'SUS' consciousness of God Is y T y In nothing more fully ex- 0 0 pressed than in His prayerful- W J fl ness. Prayer was the natural 6 GXD W atmosphere of His life. Even in the midst of a theory He would at once express an inward satisfaction in an outward thanksgiving (Mat. 11:25, 26). The Father seemed.ever to be to. near and Jesus was accustomed to speak to Him as He would speak to one of His own disciples (Jno. 12:27; Luk. 23:46.) His disciples seem to have been impressed with this recognition of the nearness and love of God. They knew the spot where the 5,000 were fed as "the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks" (Jno. 6:2'3), and they remarked on His habit of thanksgiving, of "blessing" in prayer (Mat. 15:36; Mrk. 8:6; Luk. 9:16; Mat. 26:26, 27; Luk. 22:17-19; 24:30.) The first impression of prayerfulness is its love of solitude. There are three kinds of solitude, solitude of time, soli- tude of place, and solitude of Spirit. Jesus knew all these. He was accus- tomed to spend the night in prayer (Luk. He would rise long before day and pray in the faint morning light
that He rose from the dead on the first day, that He appeared on different occasions to His disciples upon the first day, (Jno. 20), that the Holy 'Ghost descended on the first day, (Actâ 2)} in order to show why'it was that the disciples come together to break bread on the first day of the week, (Acts 20:7) and why it was that the Spirit. gave order to the churches to lay by them in store upon the fir^t day of the week their benevolent contributions, > (I Cor; 16:1, 2. The seventh day had bound them to a creation that was marred^ to a rest that was disturbed, to à law that was broken;' but the first day linked them to a new creation of which the risen Christ was the head* and looked on to a rest that can never be inter- rupted. Hence the* disciples of Jesus were not to be judged any more with respect to the seventh or Jewish sabbath (Col. 2:16; Rom. 14:5, 6), but the sacred observance of the Lord's day was not even so much as questioned by the first Christians. (Mrk. 1:35); and at the sunset, hour., "When evening shuts,'.' and th
Jesus' Prayerfulness Robert E. Speer
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