' (Col. ii. 16,
17), distinctly abrogating the binding authority of the Sabbath on the
Christian church. So that, if Paul's word anywhere means anything--if
his authority is to be taken as of binding force on any point
whatever--then Paul is to be regarded as authoritatively and distinctly
abrogating the Sabbath, and declaring that it is no longer binding on
the Christian church."[395:1]

This breach in the early church, this controversy, resulted at last in
Paul's going up to Jerusalem "to meet James and the representatives of
the Jerusalem church, to see if they could find any common platform of
agreement--if they could come together so that they could work with
mutual respect and without any further bickering. What is the platform
that they met upon? It was distinctly understood that those who wished
to keep up the observance of Judaism should do so; and the church at
Jerusalem gave Paul this grand freedom, substantially saying to him: 'Go
back to your missionary work, found churches, and teach them that they
are perfectly free in regard to all Mosaic and Jewish observances, save
only these four: Abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication,
from things strangled, and from blood."[395:2]

The point to which our attention is forcibly drawn is, that the question
of Sabbath-keeping is one of those that is left out. The point that Paul
had been fighting for was conceded by the central church at Jerusalem,
and he was to go out thenceforth free, so far as that was concerned, in
his teaching of the churches that he should found.

There is no mention of the Sabbath, or the Lord's day, as binding in the
New Testament. What, then, was the actual condition of affairs? What did
the churches do in the first three hundred years of their existence?
Why, they did just what Paul and the Jerusalem church had agreed upon.
Those who wished to keep the Jewish Sabbath did so; and those who did
not wish to, did not do so. This is seen from the fact that Justin
Martyr, a Christian Father who flourished about A. D. 140, did not
observe the day. In his "Dialogue" with Typho, the Jew reproaches the
Christians for not keeping the "Sabbath." Justin admits the charge by
saying:

"Do you not see that the Elements keep no Sabbaths and are
never idle? Continue as you were created. If there was no need
of circumcision before Abraham's time, and no need of the
Sabbath, of festivals and oblations, before the time of Moses,