A.T. Robertson Matthew 28-1

Many a time as I wrote on ‘The Lord’s Day in the Covenant of Grace’, I discovered that there all the while were others who experienced the same problems and came to the same conclusions as I have about things I thought I have found and tried to unravel all by myself. I often suspected things to be not as traditionally accepted, only to be surprised by the reality there are others who agreed with me. Sometimes the similarities appeared self-evident and virtually identical; sometimes they were less conclusive.

But God and my book are my witnesses I never borrowed or copied the doctrines of others, whether individual or denominational. My ideas are my own, nevertheless not mine, but, I pray God, of His Word. My book, I believe, proves the genuineness of my hopes and claims.

It must be remembered the book didn’t take shape in time as it did in form. Many sections are later inserted. I tried to follow in structure the sequence of the events of the days of God’s Passover. Thereafter the historical development of the Church to an extent determined the place in the series each Part would receive. Larger parts shifted into their positions after others had been completed. And so was it with many smaller parts perhaps comprised of but a single idea.

Till today some sections of the book are far from finished or not even started properly. (The “monstrous scope”, as Barth said, of the Sabbath Commandment! Its “vast scope”, said Calvin.)

Here then, is one – and not the least – of those occasions of unawares coincidence. I did know – or came to know many years after the formulation of my ‘first’ ideas had taken final shape – about A. T. Robertson on this subject in his ‘Grammar’, where he reaches conclusion but cautiously. I would not have thought he in another work of his, would agree with the results I have found, so almost exactly and unconditionally! I don’t hesitate to admit the solace and inspiration it was to me to find myself in this regard ‘on the same side’ that this great scholar had stood.

Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament

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Now late on the sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week (opse de sabbatwn, th epipwskoush eiί mian sabbatwn). This careful chronological statement according to Jewish days clearly means that before the sabbath was over, that is before six P.M., this visit by the women was made "to see the sepulchre" (qeorhsai ton tapon). They had seen the place of burial on Friday afternoon (Mark 15:47; Matthew 27:61; Luke 23:55). They had rested on the sabbath after preparing spices and ointments for the body of Jesus (Luke 23:56), a sabbath of unutterable sorrow and woe. They will buy other spices after sundown when the new day has dawned and the sabbath is over (Mark 16:1). Both Matthew here and Luke (Luke 23:54) use dawn (epipwskw) for the dawning of the twenty-four hour-day at sunset, not of the dawning of the twelve-hour day at sunrise. The Aramaic used the verb for dawn in both senses. The so-called Gospel of Peter has epipwskw in the same sense as Matthew and Luke as does a late papyrus. Apparently the Jewish sense of "dawn" is here expressed by this Greek verb. Allen thinks that Matthew misunderstands Mark at this point, but clearly Mark is speaking of sunrise and Matthew of sunset. Why allow only one visit for the anxious women?

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