From Sabbath to Sunday
Lesson 34
page 2 of 2

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:

l page 1 l page 2 l