“Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls… And ye shall do no work in that same day… For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people... It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.”
Lev. 23:27-32
“And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes… In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.”
Dan. 9:3; 10:2-4
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Order of Contents
Intro
Articles 2
Early & Medieval 3
Church of Scotland 3
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Introduction
Neh. 8:9-12 says:
“Nehemiah… taught the people… ‘This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep.’ For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, ‘Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved.’ And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.”
Some derive from this passage and others (such as Isa. 58:2-3) that the New Testament First-Day Sabbath is to be one of rejoicing only. While, no doubt, the Lord’s Day ought to be primarily a day of rejoicing, being our commemoration of Christ’s resurrection from the dead and triumph over the grave, yet it does not preclude the whole of every proper relation that we have to God, which sometimes includes mourning and fasting when we meet with Him, due to our sins and our seeking to turn away his righteous anger and and providential judgment (Dan. 9 & 10, quoted above).
This is born out of many places in scripture, but specifically from the appropriateness of the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament, which was called a sabbath, both in Lev. 23:38 and in Col. 2:16. The regular weekly New Testament Sabbath encompasses all the characteristics of the various and diverse Old Testament sabbaths. God in Isa. 58:3-7 addresses the abuse of carnal fasting and in Neh. 8 rectifies providentially inappropriate fasting, but this should not dissuade us from the occasional affliction of our body through fasting coupled with real spiritual contrition when it is sorely needed on the Lord’s Day.
This was the perspective of the puritans who helpfully elucidated this question (and practiced the answer of it). One quote is below, more will be coming.
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Articles
1600’s
Baxter, Richard – Question 81, ‘May We Lawfully Keep the Lord’s Day as a Fast?’ in Christian Directory, Part IV, Christian Politics, p. 432
Horneck, Anthony – ch. 6, ‘Of Receiving the Lord’s Supper Fasting, & How Far it is Necessary’ in The Crucified Jesus, or a Full Account of the Nature, End, Design & Benefits of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper... (London: Lowndes, 1695), pp. 60-70
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Early Church Quotes
Ignatius of Antioch
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Philippians, ch. 13 in ANF, vol. 1 Ignatius (d. c. 108/140) Note that Ignatius was Eastern. The Eastern Church typically held it unlawful to fast on the Lord’s Day (though he gives an exception below), while the Western Church held it lawful.
“If any one fasts on the Lord’s Day or on the Sabbath, except on the paschal Sabbath only, he is a murderer of Christ.”
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Augustine A.D. 396
Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 1, ed. Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), Letters of St. Augustine of Hippo, 2nd Division, Letter 36, ch. 1
“2. As to the question on which you wish my opinion, whether it is lawful to fast on the seventh day of the week, I answer, that if it were wholly unlawful, neither Moses nor Elijah, nor our Lord Himself, would have fasted for forty successive days. But by the same argument it is proved that even on the Lord’s day fasting is not unlawful.”
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On the Early & Medieval Church
Articles
Kolbaba, Tia M. – The Byzantine Lists: the Errors of the Latins (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2000) The lists date 1054 – c. 1274.
‘Fasting on the Sabbath’, pp. 34-35
‘Improper Lenten Fasting’, pp. 41-43
‘They do Not Fast Weekly on Wednesday, & their Friday Fast is Not
. Sufficiently Rigorous’, p. 64
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The Practice of the Church of Scotland
Articles
At the Reformation
Todd, Margo – p. 28 in The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (Yale University Press, 2002)
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1593-1658
Session of Glasgow – ‘About fasts and thanksgivings…’, pp. 38-40 in Collections on the Life of Mr. David Weems in Robert Wodrow, Collections upon the Lives of the Reformers and Most Eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland, vol. 2 (Glasgow, 1845), pt. 2
At the beginning of this time-frame Glasgow only had one minister, David Weems, and one session. This is a descriptive survey of the minutes of the records from that session relating to fasts, many of which were on the Lord’s Day throughout the time-frame.
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Quote
Samuel Rutherford 1642
A Peaceable & Temperate Plea for Paul’s Presbytery in Scotland, ch. 20, Article 7
“We think to deny the lawfulness of public fasting on the Lord’s day, as if the Christian Sabbath were a day only of spiritual feasting and rejoicing, because that day Christ ended the work of redemption and second creation, is a wronging of the Christian Sabbath, which is ordained for the whole public worship of God, joying, sorrowing for sin, learning God’s will in all and every point, as the Jewish Sabbath was not ordained only for meditation on the work of creation, but for worships of all kinds: The worship of this day, Acts 20:7, is as large as preaching, and being in the Spirit, on the Lord’s day, and seeing the visions of God, Rev. 1:10-12, and the whole ordinary public worship. It is then too narrow to restrict all our Sabbath-worship to one single act of festival rejoicing.”
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Related Pages