Furthermore, he will see that Israel never really kept the Sabbath, never understood its import, never appreciated its value. This was made manifest in the life, ministry, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ; who performed many of His works of healing on the Sabbath day, and, at the end, spent that day in the tomb. Finally, he will clearly understand the difference between the Jewish Sabbath and the first day of the week, or the Lord's day; that the latter is never once called the Sabbath in the New Testament, but on the contrary, is constantly presented in its own proper distinctness: it is not the Sabbath changed or transferred, but a new day altogether, having its own special basis and its own peculiar range of thought, leaving the Sabbath wholly untouched, as a suspended institution, to be resumed by and by, when the seed of Abraham shall be restored to their own land. (See Ezek. xlvi. 1, 12.) But we cannot happily turn from this interesting subject without a few words on the place assigned, in the New Testament, to the Lord's day, or first day of the week. Though it is not the Sabbath; and though it has nothing to do with holy days, or new moons, or "days and months and times and years;" yet it has its own unique place in Christianity, as is evident from manifold passages in the scriptures of the New Testament. Our Lord rose from the dead on that day; He met His disciples again and again on that day; the apostle and the brethren at Troas came together to break bread on that day (Acts xx. 7.); the apostle instructs the Corinthians, and all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to lay by their offerings on that day; thus teaching us, distinctly, that the first day of the week was _the_ special day for the Lord's people to assemble for the Lord's supper, and the worship, communion, and ministry connected with that most precious institution. The blessed apostle John expressly tells us that he was in the Spirit on that day, and received that marvelous revelation which closes the Divine Volume.[18] [18] Some are of opinion that the expression, "on the Lord's day" ought to be rendered, "on the day of the Lord," meaning that the apostle was in the spirit of that day when our Lord Christ shall take to Himself His great power and reign. But to this view there are two grave objections. In the first place, the words τῇ κυριακῇ ἡμέρα, rendered, in Revelation i. 10, "The Lord's day," are quite distinct from ἠ ἡμέρα κυρίον, in 1 Thessalonians v. 2; 2 Thessalonians ii. 2; 2 Peter iii. 10, properly rendered, "The day of the Lord." This we consider a very weighty objection, and one quite sufficient to settle the question. But in addition to this, we have the argument based on the fact that by far the greater portion of the book of Revelation is occupied, not with "the day of the Lord," but with events prior thereto.