 |
Lesson
34
From
Sabbath to Sunday
Her
priests do violence to my law and profane my holy
things; they do not distinguish between the holy
and the common; they teach that there is no
difference between the unclean and the clean; and
they shut their eyes to the keeping of my
Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.
-
Ezekiel 22:26
Most Christians believe
that Sunday is the Lord’s Day. They believe
that Jesus trans- ferred the sacredness of the
seventh day Sabbath to Sunday, the first day of
the week, at the time of the resurrection. If
Jesus made such a change, there should be
sufficient evidence in the Bible to support this
claim.
Bible review
Eight texts in the New
Testament mention the first day of the week.
Biblical support for the sacredness of Sunday, if
it exists, has come from these verses. Here are
the texts:
Matthew
28:1
Mark 16:2
Mark
16:9
Luke 24:1
John
20:1
John 20:19
Acts
20:7
1 Corinthians 16:2
Six of these texts refer
to Jesus being resurrected on the first day of
the week – a well-known fact. However, none
of these texts indicate anything about Sunday
sacredness. In fact, Luke 23:56 points out that a
group of women delayed preparation of
Christ’s body for burial on Friday evening
because of the nearness of the Sabbath. They
rested on the Sabbath “according to the
{fourth} commandment.” Therefore, it would
be fair to say that the women had no prior
knowledge that the fourth commandment was voided
that Friday afternoon.
Since the first six texts
simply date the resurrection of Jesus on the
first day of the week and say nothing about
Sunday being sacred, we will investigate the
remaining two verses
Acts 20:7
Some people use Acts 20
as evidence to support that Sunday worship was
practiced by the apostles. “On the first day
of the week we came together to break bread. Paul
spoke to t he people and, because he intended to
leave the next day, kept on talking until
midnight.” (Acts 20:7) Let us consider the
details surrounding this verse.
The event recorded in
Acts 20:7 took place about 30 years after Jesus
ascended. During this 30-year interval, there is
not one text in the Bible that describes how
Sunday had become the day of worship or that the
disciples worshiped on Sunday. Surely, if
Jesus’ death on the cross-had made such a
profound change concerning the day of worship,
this would have been a very controversial issue.
All of the disciples, including Paul, were Jews
and as such, were Sabbath keepers! Paul’s
writings leave no doubt that the question of what
was nailed to the cross was a matter of intense
discussion for early believers. I find it
interesting that nothing is written in Acts or
the New Testament about the sudden sacredness of
Sunday or the sudden obsolescence of the Ten
Commandments.
The Apostle Paul stayed
in Athens some length of time preaching the
gospel. (Acts 17) When Paul finally left Athens,
he went to Corinth. There he lived with
Jewish believers, Aquila and Priscilla, who had
been evicted from Rome by Claudius because they
were Jews. (Acts 18) Actually, Aquila and
Priscilla were converts to Christ, but Emperor
Claudius could not distinguish between a
Christian and the “repugnant” Jews, so
the Romans evicted all Christians and Jews from
Rome at this time. For a period of 18 months,
Paul sustained himself in Corinth by making tents
and he preached in the synagogue “every
Sabbath” attempting to make believers of
Jews and Gentiles alike. (See Acts 18.) If the
seventh day Sabbath had been nailed to the cross,
and if Sunday was God’s holy day, why is
there no record of Paul preaching this new
doctrine? Paul wrote 14 of the 27 books in the
New Testament and he says nothing about the
sacredness of Sunday! (Luke wrote the book of
Acts.)
In Bible times, a day
began at sunset and ended the following evening.
Since creation, Earth’s rotation has
produced this great clock. (See Genesis 1.) The
Jews in Christ’s time regarded a day from
“evening to evening” and observed
Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
Compare Luke 23:50-56 with Leviticus 23:32. So,
the actual timing described in Acts 20:7 is as
follows: Paul stayed with the believers in
Troas for seven days. (Acts 20:6) At the
beginning of the first day of the week, at
suppertime, the believers came together to eat
supper with Paul and say goodbye to their dear
friend. The first day of the week for Paul began
at sundown, or what we call Saturday evening,
Therefore, according to Scripture, Paul preached
Saturday night until midnight. A few hours later,
what we call Sunday morning the first day of the
week Paul departed Troas for Assos. If Sunday had
been a sacred day, Paul would not have departed
for Troas. (See Acts 1:12)
Paul met with believers
for supper and preached to them until midnight.
Saturday night. A farewell supper and the
Saturday night Bible study do not change or
abrogate God’s fourth commandment. Even if
Paul chose to worship on Tuesday night, his
actions could not make God’s law void. Only
God can make His law void. Some people claim that
the term the “breaking of bread”
indicates Paul’s visit was a communion or
worship service. This is not true! The disciples
broke bread every day! (Acts 2:46,47 {KJV} in
Luke 24: 13-31, Jesus “broke bread” at
supper time with two of His disciples after
walking with them more than seven miles to
Emmaus. To this day, breaking bread is a custom
in the Orient because bread is often baked so
firm that it has to be literally broken in order
to eat it. As was the custom at Passover, Jesus
“broke bread” with His disciples on
Thursday night during His last Passover and it
was there that He instituted the
“Lord’s Supper.” (John 13)
Jesus’ actions on Thursday night did not
make Thursday a holy day. If this is true,
Paul’s actions in Troas could not make
Sunday holy!
Paul did not confirm or
authorize “Sunday sacredness” in Troas.
Actually, he held a farewell meeting on Saturday
night because he was leaving the following
morning. The point here is that if Christians
wish to exalt Paul’s farewell at Troas as
proof of Sunday sacredness, they should follow
Paul’s example and worship on Saturday night
(between sundown and midnight).
! Corinthians 16:2
Some people insist that
Paul required offerings for the poor be collected
on the first day of the week (as in a church
service). Notice: “Now about the collection
for God’s people: Do what I told the
Galatian churches to do. On the first day of
every week, each one of you should set aside a
sum of money in keeping with his income, saving
it up, so that when I come no collections will
have to be made. Then, when I arrive, I will give
letters of introduction to the men you approve
and send them with your gift to Jerusalem.”
(1 Corinthians 16:13)
When this text was
written, Rome was severely persecuting Jews and
Christians. (Jerusalem’s destruction in
A.D.70 occurred about 10 years after this appeal
was written.) Paul appeals to the believers in
Corinth, where he had lived for 18 months, to
help fellow Christians suffering in Jerusalem.
Paul does not hesitate to make this request
because it was customary among Jews to use a
portion of their tithe to help those in financial
need. (Deuteronomy 14:24-26)
In Paul’s day, money
was not a common medium of exchange like it is
today. The exchange of goods and services was
done by barter; that is, a person might trade a
chicken or something for cloth or pottery. Since
Paul would not be able to travel to Jerusalem
with a menagerie of roosters, goats, pottery and
other things of value, he asked the believers in
Corinth to convert their gifts into cash,
“the first thing after the Sabbath has
passed.” Paul suggested they begin each week
by selling something at the bazaar so that he
might be able to gather up a sum of currency.
Paul indicated that “the first day of the
week “was the appropriate day to conducting
this business. Paul did not suggest doing this on
Sabbath because it would have been inappropriate.
(See Nehemiah 13:15.) Obviously, Paul’s
instruction did not change or make the fourth
commandment void.
Thoughts on Roman 6
Some people suggest that
Sunday worship is proper because Jesus arose from
the dead on Sunday morning, the first day of the
week. Yes, the resurrection is important, and the
Bible does provide a celebration of the
resurrection! It is called baptism. Notice what
Paul says, “What shall we say, then? Shall
we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By
no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it
any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us
who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into his death? We were therefore buried with him
through baptism into death in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
(Romans 6:1-4) Baptism absolutely does not make
the fourth commandment null and void. Jesus was
baptized at the beginning of His ministry and He
faithfully observed the Sabbath afterwards! (Luke
4:16; Mark 2:27,28)
What was nailed to the
Cross-?
It is common, but not
substantiated argument that the Ten Commandments
were nailed to the cross. However, if this is
true, then whatever happens to the fourth
commandment also happens to the other nine! For
whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at
just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
For he who said, ‘Do not commit
adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not
murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but
commit murder, you have become a
lawbreaker.” (James 2:10,11) If we do away
with the fourth commandment that declares the
seventh day to be a holy day, then the seventh
commandment that says adultery is wrong must be
void as well. Paul wrote, what shall we say,
then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I
would not have known what sin was except through
the law. For I would not have known what coveting
really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not
covet.’” (Romans 7:7)
Many people are surprised
to learn that the ceremonies of the sanctuary
services, which were a shadow or explanation of
the Plan of Salvation, were nailed to the cross.
The key word is shadow. Notice what Paul said,
“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity
lives in bodily form, and you have been given
fullness in Christ, who is head over every power
and authority…When you were dead in your
sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful
nature, God made you alive with Christ. He
forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the
written code, with its regulations, that was
against us and that stood opposed to us; he took
it away, nailing it to the cross…Therefore
do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or
drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a
New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are
a shadow of the things that were to come; the
reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let
anyone who delights in false humility and the
worship of angels disqualify you for the
prize…” (Colossians 2:9-18)
If we look at these
verses carefully, we see that Paul is writing
about the regulations regarding religious feasts,
New Moon observances and Sabbath days. The
Sabbath days that Paul is talking about is not
the seventh day Sabbath of the fourth
commandment. Rather, the term “Sabbath
days” in this context applies to Sabbath
“feast days,” such as the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, or the Day of Atonement.
(Exodus 12:16; Leviticus 16:31) The feast days of
the Jews fell on different days of the week (like
our birthday). These feasts days declared to be
“special Sabbaths “because they pointed
forward to different aspects of the death and
ministry of Jesus. For example, the Passover not
only reminded the Jews of their deliverance from
Egypt, but it also pointed forward to the time
when the Passover Lamb- Jesus Christ – would
die and all who put their faith in Him could be
delivered from the bondage of sin!
The Jews confused the Ten
Commandments law of God with the laws of Moses,
much like Christians do today. Even though one
set of laws was written with God’s finger on
two tablets of stone, and the other penned by the
hand of Moses, the Jews did not understand the
relationship between moral law (written by the
finger of God) and the ceremonial laws (written
by the hand of Moses). One law is permanent and
enduring while the other was temporary.
Understanding Shadows
Paul speaks plainly in
Colossians 2 and Ephesians 2 disclosing that the
laws nailed to the cross were those laws that
were shadows of the real thing. Laws that
governed the constitution of Israel ended at the
cross. Since the shadows have been voided, there
is neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ. The
ceremonial laws requiring the observance of new
moons, feast days and the sacrifice of lambs
became unnecessary because the Lamb of God had
died and the shadow of salvation’s process
was now fully disclosed. In other words,
ceremonial laws were temporary until Jesus
revealed the meaning. Moral laws are not
temporary, because love never ends. One set of
laws was written on paper, the other on stone.
One law was penned by a man; the other, by God.
Surely this reveals something about their
enduring nature. A time is coming during the
Great Tribulation when everyone living on Earth
will see the ark that contains the covenant, the
Ten Commandments. In Revelation 11, the Bible
says that God’s temple in Heaven was opened
and everyone saw the Ark of the Covenant.
(Revelation 11:19; Deuteronomy 4:13)
Which is the Greatest
Law?
As you might expect of a
legalistic society, the Jews loved to argue about
their laws. An expert lawyer challenged Jesus
asking which law was the greatest. (Matthew
22:24-40) Of course, Jesus answered wisely saying
that “loving God” with all of our
heart, mind and soul is the greatest commandment,
and the second is like the first, we are to
“love our neighbors as ourselves.” The
Ten Commandments actually define the reciprocal
of love. If we love God, we will want to comply
with the first four commandments and more! The
first four commandments define what love for God
produces. Likewise, if we love our neighbor, we
will want to comply with the last six
commandments and more. When we love our
neighbors, we will not want to steal from them
because we want the best for them. Love is
expressed in giving, not taking.
If we become
self-centered and love ourselves more than God or
our neighbor, our relationship with God’s
law changes 180 degrees. Instead of loving
God’s law, it becomes a legal standard for
behavior rather than love serving as the standard
for righteousness. Self-righteousness focuses on
conformity to the law, whereas a life of love and
faith focuses on fulfilling the principles of
love. When the widow gave her mite, Jesus said
she had given more than anyone else present. She
responded out of love and she gave all that she
had while the others had given out of obligation.
(Luke 21:3,4) Because of their carnal hearts, the
religion of the Jews degenerated into a legal
system of darkness. When God’s law is
imposed on the carnal heart, the response is
either defiant rebellion or the religious
experience that follows is miserable and
unbearable. (Matthew 23:2-15)
What About Romans 14?
Romans 14 is also used to
prove that it does not matter which day of the
week we worship God. Notice the text:
“Accept him whose faith is weak, without
passing judgment on disputable matters. One
man’s faith allows him to eat everything,
but another man, whose faith is weak, only eats
vegetables. The man who eats everything must not
look down on him who does not, and the man who
does eat everything must not condemn the man who
does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to
judge someone else’s servant? To his master
he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the
Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers
one day more sacred than another; another man
considers every day alike. Each one should be
fully convinced in his own mind. He, who regards
one day as special, does so to the Lord. He, who
eats meals, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks
to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord
and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to
himself alone and none of us dies to himself
alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we
die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or
die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason,
Christ died and returned to life so that he might
be Lord of both the dead and the living. You,
then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do
you look down on your brother? For we will all
stand before God’s judgment seat.”
(Romans 14:1-10)
The context of these
verses does not imply that a person can worship
God whenever he or she feels like it. Instead, it
is addressing specific problems that early Roman
believers had to deal with; namely, the numerous
customs of the Jews that have nothing to do with
salvation through faith in Christ. In other
words, if a Jewish believer felt the need to
continue observing Passover, Paul did not condemn
him except to say that his faith was weak. Also,
if a new believer could not consciously eat meat
purchased in the marketplace for fear it had not
been killed correctly or that it may have been
offered to idols. Paul said to leave him alone!
(The Jews would not purchase or eat meat unless
it was killed according to Mosaic code. Leviticus
19:26) The point here is that Paul is not
condemning lawlessness. Paul does not declare the
fourth commandment null and void. Paul is
advocating tolerance because he knew that the
more a person understands Jesus, the greater will
be his religious experience.
Pentecost on Sunday
Another argument used to
support Sunday worship is that Pentecost came on
Sunday during the year Christ died. Somehow, this
is supposed to prove that Sunday is God’s
holy day. Interesting enough, Pentecost always
falls on Sunday! The wave sheaf offering was made
on the first Sunday after Passover and after
seven full weeks or seven Sabbaths had passed,
Pentecost occurred on the 50th day
(counting inclusively). This means that Pentecost
always occurred on a Sunday. (Leviticus 23). The
annual Feast of Weeks occurred on Sunday for more
than a millennium before Jesus came to Earth. The
fact that the Feast of Weeks was regularly
celebrated on Sunday cannot make the fourth
commandment void. One last point. Some people
claim that nine of the Ten Commandments are
mentioned in the New Testament, but the fourth
commandment is missing. This statement is not
true. Even if were true, does the absence of the
fourth commandment in the New Testament prove
that the commandment is void. A more reasonable
explanation of this absence is that New Testament
writers never doubted the continuing presence of
the seventh day Sabbath. Paul removes any doubt
for us when he wrote in A.D.63, “There
remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of
God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also
rests from his own work, just as God did from
his.” (Hebrews 4:9,10)
Grace and Faith Versus
Law?
Many Christians think
that faith and grace make the law unnecessary.
The love between husband and wife does not
eliminate the necessity for fidelity nor does
living together make two people married. The
relationship between love and obedience is
simple. God grants salvation to everyone who
becomes willing to do His will. He does not grant
salvation to us based on our ability to do His
will. We demonstrate our willingness by receiving
strength from God to do what He wants. Paul
understood this process. (See Romans 7.) All
through his life, Paul faithfully observed the
seventh day Sabbath. (See Acts 13:44; 16:13;
17:2; 18:4,11) Even more, when Jesus predicted
the destruction of Jerusalem (which occurred in
A.D. 70), He indicated the Sabbath would still be
sacred at that time! (Matthew 24:20)
Cannot Break Just One
Commandment
If we take the position
that Jesus nailed the fourth commandment to the
cross, then we must conclude that He also nailed
the remaining nine as well. Whatever we do with
the fourth commandment, we must also do with the
other nine. This issue will become the
all-important distinction between those people
who love God and those who rebel against Him
during the outpouring of God’s judgments.
The Ten Commandments are nonnegotiable. They
stand as one unit representing the will of God.
The Ten Commandments were written on two tables
of stone because they are based on two enduring
principles: love to God and love to man. The
first four commandments explain how we are to
love God. The last six commandments explain how
we are to love our neighbor. One more point:
Maturity in Christ begins when we acknowledge the
binding claims of God’s law, and realizing
our great weaknesses, we place our faith in Jesus
so that we can fulfill His law through His
indwelling power.
Paul knew that all Ten
Commandments were intact. He said, “For I
would not have known what it was to covet if the
law had not said, ‘Do not covet.’”
(Romans 7:7) James wrote, “If you really
keep the royal law found in the Scripture,
‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you
are doing right! But if you show favoritism, you
sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles
at just one point is guilty of breaking all of
it. For he who said, ‘Do not commit
adultery, ‘also said, ‘Do not
murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but
do commit murder, you have become a
lawbreaker.” (James 2:8-11)
James brings us to an
important and fundamental conclusion regarding
the royal law, or the King’s law. He says we
must obey all the commandments. If we break any
one of them, we are guilty of breaking them all,
because the King’s law is only fulfilled by
love. We must first love God with all our heart,
mind and soul and then our neighbor as ourselves.
Jesus shared how we should express our love for
God by saying, “If you love me, you will
obey what I command.” (John 14:15)
Submissive Loyalty
I have said many times,
“keeping the seventh day Sabbath holy cannot
save anyone” because salvation comes before
works. When a person becomes willing to submit
his or her life to God’s sovereign
authority, salvation is granted, full and free to
that individual before he or she can do anything!
The thief on the cross is an excellent example of
this. The works of every person reveal faith or
rebellion! This is why God designed the human
race’s final exam to test our faith in
Jesus: The basis of salvation is faith. Faith
produces submissive loyalty; doing what God
requires at any cost. Ask Noah as he stands in
the doorway of the ark. Ask Abraham, as he is
about to slay his son. Ask Moses as he stands at
the Red Sea. Faith produces submissive loyalty.
Because eternal life only comes by faith, and
since every means of human survival will be cut
off in the days to come, you and I must have
faith in God to remain loyal to Him! If it is
hard to obey God now, what will it be like when
our lives are at stake? Faith is like a mustard
seed. It can grow. It can develop. Although it is
tiny at the beginning, it can become great!
(Matthew 13:31)
The Seventh Day of
Creation was Saturday
God has expressed in the
Bible how His subjects are to worship Him. This
is not a matter left to human design.
Unfortunately, the devil, during the past 6,000
years, has obscured God’s truth, infiltrated
every religion, and implanted many false ideas,
concepts, and doctrines throughout the world. Foe
example, Moslems regard Friday, Jews regard
Saturday, and the Christians regard Sunday as a
holy day! These three religious bodies represent
50% of Earth’s inhabitants, and each
religious body claims to have the truth about
God. Each religious system also declares that the
other two religious systems are false – and
yet, all together they unwittingly confirm a
simple truth. Their diversity confirms that the
weekly cycle is intact. Let me explain.
The sixth day of the week
is adjacent to the seventh day, which is also
adjacent to the first day of the week. In other
words, each religious system worships on unique
days that are adjacent to each other. This fact
confirms the perpetuity of Creation’s week
ever since Jesus was on Earth and it shows that
the weekly cycle has not been altered.
Furthermore, God confirmed which day of the week
was the seventh day to the children of Israel in
the wilderness by the cessation of manna (no
manna fell on the seventh day). Thus, the
Israelites have formally worshiped on the seventh
day ever since the Exodus in 1437 B.C. Christians
in Rome, according to Justin Martyr, have
formally worshiped on the first day of the week
since A.D. 150, and Moslems have formally
worshiped on the sixth day of the week since the
sixth century A.D. If the weekly cycle had been
altered, the holy days of worship would not be
adjacent to each other! This diversity proves the
weekly cycle has not been altered. The seventh
day (Saturday) is still God’s holy day just
as it was at creation.
So, What happened?
So, how did Sunday become
the Lord’s Day? Who made the change and when
did it occur? Material containing the history of
Christianity during the first century is meager
and imperfect. The best records for this time
period have been collected and are known as the
writings of the Apostolic Fathers. These records
are not part of the Bible, nor do they have the
authority of the Bible. However, they do offer a
glimpse into the religious thinking of that era.
Apostolic Age
Several references are
included in this chapter for you to consider
because a great number of scholars have used
these ancient writings to show that Sunday
observance was widely practiced by those living
during the Apostolic Age (A.D.30 – A.D.
100). The writings of early Christians, however,
reveal a sinister process. They reveal how the
Word of God soon became corrupt, even in the
hands of well-intentioned people. You can study
these references and draw your own conclusions.
The first mention of
worship by the Apostolic Fathers occurs around
A.D. 97. Clement of Rome wrote to the believers
in Corinth:
These things therefore
being manifest to us, and since we look into the
depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to
do all things in [their proper] order, which the
Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times.
He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and
service to be performed [to Him], and that no
thoughtlessly or irregularity, but at the
appointed times and hours. (Clement of Rome,
Epistles to Corinthians, Volume I Ante-Nicean
Library, (Buffalo, 1887) page. 16 insertion
mine.)
As you can see, Clement
does not specifically endorse any particular day
of week. This early quote, however, is included
because some scholars claim that Clement of Rome
openly defends Sunday observance in A.D.97.
Pliny the Younger wrote
another early reference often used to support
Sunday observance in the early Christian Church
about A.D. 107. Pliny the Younger was the pagan
governor of Bythinia at this time. He wrote to
Emperor Trajan asking advice about Christian
assemblies in his province. At that time, Roman
leaders anticipated civil revolt in a number of
provinces and Pliny was especially cautious of a
new sect of Jewish people called Christians. He
wrote:
They [the Christians]
affirmed that the whole of their guilt or error
was that they met on a certain stated day before
it was light and addressed themselves in a form
of prayer to Christ as to some God…(Pliny
the Younger, Pliny’s letter to Trajan,
Harvard Classics, Volume 9, (New York, 1937 page
404, insertion mine.)
Pliny does not say which
day of the week the Christians were meeting. All
that we can learn from this quotation is that
they were meeting for prayer before it was light.
Regardless of the day he refers to, whether the
Christians were secretly meeting to pray on
Sabbath, Sunday or Monday makes no difference.
Post Apostolic Age
As Christianity spread
throughout the Roman Empire, certain compromises
and transformations were made within Christianity
for a variety of reasons. In Rome, Christians
were regarded as a dangerous sect since they were
considered to be offshoots from the Jews and
second, they refused to regard Caesar as a divine
god. As time passed, however, Christianity began
to appeal to t he educated and wealthy people who
lived in Rome. These people could afford
manuscripts containing copies of Scripture and
even more importantly, they also had influence
within the government of Rome. By A.D. 150,
Christians and converts of Mithraism (a small
pagan sect) had some areas of compromise and
mutual respect. About this time, a well-educated
man by the name of Justin Martyr became a
Christian. As a Christian, he tried to soften the
hostility that existed between Romans and
Christians. One area of compromise concerned the
issue of religious meetings on Sunday. The
followers of Mithra regarded Sunday as a holiday.
(The Mysteries of Mithra, Chicago Open Court
Publication Company, (Chicago 1911) page 167,
191) Christians in Rome, anxious to separate
themselves from their Jewish heritage (Jews were
despised), found that the pagans interpreted
their religious services on Sunday as something
akin to their holiday festivities. Justin Martyr
writes: But Sunday is the day on which we all
hold our common assembly because it is the first
day on which God, having wrought a change in the
darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus
Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the
dead. (Justin Martyr, First Apology of Justin
Martyr, Ante-Nicean Christian Library, (Boston
1887) page 187 Chapter 67)
The justification he used
for holding a common assembly on Sunday is
interesting. First, he cites the separation of
darkness and light on the first day of Creation
as grounds for holding a common assembly, and
then the resurrection of Jesus. Martyr offers no
Scriptural authority for holding an assembly on
Sunday, but his remarks do suggest how anxious
Christians in Rome were to divorce themselves
from the womb of Judaism.
In those days,
Christianity had no “central office”
and each geographical location adjusted doctrine
as they chose. During the last part of the second
century A.D., Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, became
alarmed at a number of heresies that had
infiltrated the Christian movement. He was aware
of how the Christians in Rome had begun to meet
on Sunday and abandon the seventh day Sabbath he
wrote:
Thus Christ did not at
all rescind the Sabbath. He kept the law [Ten
Commandments] thereof…He restored to the
Sabbath the works for were proper for it.
(Terullian, Book IV, Chapter 12, Volume 3
Ante-Nicean Christian Library, (Boston, 1997)
page 362, insertion mine.)
Considerable discussion
on Sunday observance took place in those early
days. Archelaus, a bishop wrote in his
disputation with Manes:
Again as to the assertion
that the [seventh day] Sabbath has been abolished
we deny that He [Christ] has abolished it
plainly. For He Himself was also Lord of the
Sabbath. (Archelaus, The Disputation with Manes,
Volume 4 Ante-Nicean Christian Library, (Boston
1887), page 217, insertion mine.)
By A.D. 320, confusion
and compromise took a heavy toll on early
Christian doctrine. Christians had been scattered
by persecution to every province throughout the
Roman Empire. Christians in Alexandria, Egypt
(the South) were beginning to defend views that
were different from those in Rome (the North).
Church authority was discussed, debated and
argued.
Most Church leaders
agreed that church doctrine needed to be more
clearly defined and controlled, but who was going
to be in control? Many questions and issues were
raised for which there was little agreement. In
short, distance, culture, language and social
factors were beginning to define Christendom
according to geography. Thoughtful men
anticipated the result – a highly fractured
Church. Christianity needed a strong leader and
Constantine felt that he was divinely appointed
to lead a universal Christian Church. When
Constantine came to the throne as sole ruler of
the empire around A.D. 312, he had transformed
himself into a Christian for political advantage.
Constantine was cunning and he saw Christianity
as a means of unifying the Roman Empire. When he
endorsed the “Roman version” of
Christianity, Constantine set a powerful sequence
of events into motion. In future years, the
church in Rome would come to dominate all
factions of Christianity.
Hopefully, this
information satisfies your curiosity about how
Sunday observance began. The Romans were first to
merge Sunday observance into Christianity.
Strange as it may seem, they never claimed to
have divine authority for this action. In fact,
Roman Christians did not consider labor on Sunday
as sinful or contrary to the will of God. Of
course, this attitude stands in stark contrast to
the fourth commandment, which forbids work on
Sabbath. Many Romans regarded the attitude toward
Sunday observance in Rome as a holiday long
before Christianity arrived in Rome. Sunday was
not a day of fasting or reflection.
When Constantine became
“a defender of the faith,” he had his
army baptized into Christianity by marching them
through a river. To promote the universal
acceptance of a day of rest, Constantine
implemented a Sunday law in March, A.D.321. This
law was a clever compromise. Constantine
patronized Christians and pagans alike by
declaring a national day of rest. The political
benefit of this law was well received by the
Romans. Constantine endorsed the desire of the
Christian church in Rome by setting Sunday aside
as a day of rest and this law also favored a
large population in Rome who worshipped the pagan
god of Mithra on Sunday.
Let all judges and all
city people and all tradesmen, rest upon the
venerable day of the Sun. But let those dwelling
in the country freely and with full liberty
attend to the culture of their fields; since it
frequently happens, that no other day is so fit
for the sowing of grain, or the planting of
vines; hence the favorable time should not be
allowed to pass, lest the provision of heaven be
lost. (Cod. Justin, III Title 12, L.3., March 7,
A.D. 321)
There is a World Out
There
Although the Roman church
was already meeting on Sunday when Constantine
sent out his decree, other Christians in other
locations were not! Most Christians were still
observing the seventh day Sabbath. Socrates
writes near the turn of the fourth century:
Such is the difference in
the churches on the subject of fasts. Nor is
there less variation in regard to religious
assemblies. For although almost all churches
through the world celebrate the sacred mysteries
on the Sabbath every week, yet the Christians of
Rome and Alexandria have ceased to do this.
(Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Book V,
Chapter 22, Ante-Nicean Christian Library, Volume
II, (Boston, 1887) page 132)
Even Constantine’s
decree did not shut out the importance of the
seventh day Sabbath. Something else would have to
occur before that could be accomplished. The
leaders from the church in Rome needed an
elaborate doctrine that dealt directly with the
issue of the “Lord’s Day” to
present a strong case before the Christian body.
So Eusebius, a Christian confident and advisor of
Constantine masterminded the doctrine of Sunday
observance. Carefully notice his anti-Semitic
argument for the observance of Sunday:
Wherefore as they [the
Jews] rejected it [the Sabbath law], the Word
[Christ] by the new covenant, translated and
transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the
morning light, and gave us the symbol of true
rest, the saving Lord’s Day, the first [day]
of light, in which the Savior of the world, after
all his labors among men, obtained the victory
over death, and passed the portals of heaven,
having achieved a work superior to the six-days
creation. On this day, which is the first [day]
of light and of the true Sun, we assemble, after
an interval of six days, and celebrate holy and
spiritual Sabbaths, even all nations redeemed by
him throughout the world, and do things according
to the spiritual law, which were decreed for the
priests to do on the Sabbath. And all things
whatsoever that it was a duty to do on the
Sabbath, these we have transferred to the
Lord’s Day, as more appropriately belong to
it, because it has a precedence and is first in
rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath.
All Things whatsoever that it was duty to do on
the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the
Lord’s Day. (Eusebius’s Commentary on
the Psalms 92, quoted in Coxe’s Sabbath
literature, Volume I page 361, insertion mine.)
Eusebius was a spiritual
advisor to Constantine. He is the first man to
claim in writing that Christ changed the day of
worship. THEN, Eusebius testifies that he (and
others, namely Constantine) had “transferred
all things, whatsoever that it was the duty to do
on the Sabbath “to Sunday. Also notice that
Eusebius offers no scriptural authority for the
change. Further, no church father or authority
from that time period supports Eusebius’
claims and notice that he does not quote from
another source. As it turns out, Eusebius took
the thorny problem of worship in hand and became
the father of a false doctrine, which favored the
practices of the church at Rome. We need to ask
ourselves, “Can mere mortals change the law
of Almighty God by making a simple declaration?
Who has the higher authority – God or
man?” Christians have repeated the failure
of the Jews and dismissed or altered the plainest
statements of God’s Word. Jesus said of the
Jews, “They worship me in vain; their
teachings are but rules taught by men.”
(Matthew 15:9)
Even with the Sunday law
imposed by Constantine, the seventh day Sabbath
did not suddenly disappear in Christian churches.
By the year A.D. 460 Sozomen writes:
Assemblies are not held
in all churches on the same time or manner. The
people of Constantinople and almost everywhere
assemble on the [seventh-day] Sabbath as well as
the first day of the week, which custom is never
observed at Rome or Alexandria. (Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, Book VII, Chapter 19,
Ante-Nicean Christian Library, V II, (Boston
1887) page 390, insertion mine.)
Every student of church
history knows that the church in Rome eventually
gained complete dominion over Christianity.
Eventually the Roman Empire was transformed into
the Holy Roman Empire and the bishop at Rome
became the “Bishop of the Universal
Church.” For nearly 13 centuries, the kings
and queens of Europe were subservient to the
Bishop of Rome. This great period of church
dominion is appropriately called the “Dark
Ages” because religious dominion is a cruel
master. I thank God that I live in the United
States, which has a pluralistic democracy, and a
Constitution that continues to separate church
from state!
Summary
Sunday observance came
about for three reasons. First, the majority of
early Christians in Rome were not former Jews.
Consequently, the imposing culture and religious
practices of Judaism, which included the seventh
day Sabbath, were not considered as important in
Rome as they were in Jerusalem. Actually,
converts from Mithraism brought Sunday observance
into the Christian church in Rome. Second, the
seventh day Sabbath had been a distinguishing
mark of the Jews for about 1,500 years.
Anti-Semitism was an enormous motive in those
days for distention and separation between
Christians and Jews. Last and most important, the
union of church and state produced an enormous
surprise. When Constantine converted to
Christianity to strengthen his political control
of the empire, he initiated a process that
ultimately subjected the nations of Europe to the
dominion and doctrines of the Roman Catholic
Church for 1,260 years!
Satan often works in
subtle ways and he was masterful when he led the
minds of carnal men to profane God’s law.
Now, the vast majority of Christians worship on
Sunday. Through the ages, experts have hammered
on the Bible to make it say that the fourth
commandment was nailed to the cross, but their
creative claims are hollow. These claims are as
silly as the priests of Baal who danced around
the alter on Mt. Carmel. Protestant denominations
that continue to exalt the sacredness of Sunday
show, perhaps naively, submission to the
doctrines and authority of the Church in Rome.
There is biblical basis for Sunday sacredness.
There is no biblical basis for saying the
Lord’s Day is Sunday. All that supports the
observance and sacredness of Sunday as the
Lord’s Day is a heap of tradition and the
arrogance of man. God’s law does not change
and the Ten Commandments stand without
impeachment. The fourth commandment still points
to the seventh day of the week as God’s holy
day. What will God say to you and me on Judgment
Day about our regard and treatment of His holy
day?
I would like to close
this study with three texts. The first text is
from King Solomon. He wrote, “ Now all has
been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is
the whole duty of man for God will bring every
deed into judgment, including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes
12:13,14) Jesus said, “ If you obey my
commands, you will remain in my love, just as I
have obeyed my Father’s command and remain
in his love.” (John 15:10) Since these
Scriptures are true, why not surrender your life
to Jesus and resolve to keep His Sabbath of rest
at any cost. Think of it this way, God offers you
and me a one-day vacation from the cares of the
world each week. He promises to sustain
everything that we are doing until we return
after our rest, so that nothing will be lost. Put
your faith in God to the test and make up your
mind to obey Him. When you carefully and
prayerfully consider His offer, what is keeping
you from accepting such a fine offer? Jesus says,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest
[Sabbath].” (Matthew 11:28, insertion mine.)
Quiz:
1.
After reading this lesson, which is the true
Sabbath Day according to the Ten Commandments?
2.
Does Sunday have any importance according to the
Scriptures?
3.
In the New Testament does the Apostle Paul give
any evidence that Sunday is the correct day of
worship?
4.
Some people have said that the fourth commandment
was nailed to the cross, if this is true what do
you do with the other nine commandments?
5.
Which is the Greatest Law? Why?
6.
The seventh day of the week falls on what day?
Has it changed since the creation?
7.
After reading this lesson, what part did Eusebius
play in molding the mind of Constantine the
current Caesar in Rome?
Notes:
Many today are unwittingly
trampling upon God's law in
the matter of Sabbath observance. There is a
wonderful
promise in Isaiah 58:13,14 to those who will
"turn away"
the foot from the Sabbath and honor God by
keeping it
holy.
l top l
|
|
