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Who would tolerate "on the evil day" in Eph. 6: 13, or "on the days of Noah"
(I Pet. 3: 20)? and why change the translation of en "in" to "on". "I was in the spirit on
the Lord's day"? This looks as though the translators were unconsciously biased toward
the interpretation of Rev. 1: 10 as of the first day of the week, and so they did not realize
that they were, however so slightly, "adding" to the word of the prophecy of this book. "I
came to be in spirit in the Lord's day" is a literal rendering, which acknowledges every
feature while neither adding nor omitting anything. This expression egenomen en
pneumati "I came to be in spirit" occurs again in Rev. 4: 2. In this passage we are not
left in doubt as to the "time" in which this vision is set.
"I will shew thee things which must be hereafter" (Rev. 4: 1),
and in order to see these future things, John "came to be in spirit". This being so, we
should read Rev. 1: 10 in the same way:
"I came to be in spirit in the (yet future) Lord's day."
In two other passages, the words "in spirit" are associated with the verb "to bear" or
"to carry".
"I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore . . . . . so he carried me away in
spirit into the wilderness" (Rev. 17: 1, 3).
Whatever interpretation the reader may entertain of this symbol, all must agree that it
was future to John. In Rev. 21: 9, 10 we have the same expression, and we are all
agreed that what John then saw was future, for the Lamb's wife has not yet descended
from heaven. In all this, we have not yet alluded to the prophecies of the O.T. which are
in process of fulfillment in the Apocalypse, and which cluster round "the day of the
Lord". To collect and ponder the teaching of these prophecies alone, is to be practically
convinced that Rev. 1: 10 cannot refer to Sunday or the first day of the week, but to the
great prophetic day of the Lord. When we assemble, as we have done, the proofs from
grammatical usage, and see the perfect balance of "Man's day" with the "Lord's day",
and supplement that with the four references to "in spirit" that occur in the book of the
Revelation, we feel that no one, unless under the influence of the most fettering bias, can
possibly think that in the majestic introduction of this mighty prophecy, John suddenly
leaves the throne of God, the kingdom of Priests, the prophecy of the coming of the Lord
in clouds and the waiting of all the tribes of the land, the glorious titles of Alpha and
Omega, beginning and ending, the One Who was and is to come, to tell his reader that he
was:
"In a spiritual frame or ecstasy on the first day of the week."