Why does God
Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Should God’s
existence be proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven
Fideism vs WCG.htm
Does the
Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm
Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath?
Eric V. Snow
The great majority of Christians observe Sunday
as their Sabbath. However, the Jews,
including Jesus Himself and the apostles, observed Saturday as their
Sabbath. So how did this change from
Sabbath to Sunday occur? To put it in a
nutshell, the origin of the custom of Sunday worship lies most likely in the
actions of gentile Christians living in Rome who sought to escape anti-Semitic
persecution or identification as being like Jews, especially when the Roman
government under the Emperor Hadrian persecuted Jews after their second major
revolt in the Holy Land under Bar-Kokhba (132-135 A.D.) It’s a major error to believe this change
occurred because Jesus was resurrected on Sunday since the bible never gives
this as a reason to change the day of Christian worship and because a careful
interpretation of Scripture (based especially on Matthew 12:40) shows that
Jesus was actually resurrected on a Saturday evening instead.
Sometimes sincere religious believers,
especially Protestants, will attempt to build the observation of Sunday in
place of Saturday as the Sabbath based on the bible. However, the texts used to try to prove this simply can’t, since
they are no where enough specific to overturn the wording of the Fourth
Commandment, which is worth quoting in full in this context before analyzing
this common teaching further (Exodus 20:8-11, NKJV):
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the
Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son,
nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your
cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD
made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested
the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
Notice in particular the reasoning of this
commandment is rooted in God’s actions long before the calling of Abraham and
the existence of the Jewish nation during the seventh day of creation, when God
made that day holy by resting on it Genesis 2:1-3, NKJV):
“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the
host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He
had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested
from all His work which God had created and made.”
Indeed, because the Sabbath was established
before sin entered the world, it can’t be seen as a typical law, like the
animal sacrifices, that would be abolished when Jesus died.
So then, if God made the seventh day holy before
Israel arrived at Sinai and before Israel agreed to the old covenant that made
them the chosen people (cf. the timing of when manna fell to feed the nation of
Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 16:22-30)), it would be necessary to find a
text that makes Sunday or the first day of the week holy in order to properly
change the day that believers worship.
A fundamental premise of interpretation of Scripture in this case is
that no commandment of God should be assumed to have changed unless the bible
itself clearly says so for believing this.
The burden of proof, to use legal terminology, should be on those who
believe a change happened, not on those who believe no change occurred. Radical discontinuity concerning what God
commands believers to do between the old and new covenants shouldn’t be assumed
when Jesus Himself denied that kind of thinking was authorized by His ministry
on earth (Matthew 5:17-18, NKJV) "Do not think that I came to destroy the
Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. "For
assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle
will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” So any and all fundamental innovations in
how believers worship should be proven by clear Scriptures, not by reading
desired meanings into ambiguous or irrelevant texts.
When the first day of the week is mentioned in
Scripture, such as when the events surrounding the discovery of Jesus’
resurrection spread among the earliest Christians, it says nothing about its
being holy, its being a day to rest and not work, or its being the day to
assemble as believers to worship God publicly.
A number of texts can be cited in which the first day of the week is
mentioned but they prove nothing favorable to worshipping on Sundays. In particular, this text will serve as a
typical example (Matthew 28:1, NKJV):
“Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.” It says nothing about the resurrection of Jesus as being a reason
to change the day for believers to worship in this text or any other that
mentions the first day of the week.
Indeed, let’s keep in mind that Matthew wrote about these events
probably a couple of decades after Jesus’ resurrection, yet in this verse the
“Sabbath” is still clearly being distinguished from “the first day of the
week.” The first day of the week starts
after the Sabbath ends, according to Matthew when he is writing long after the
death and resurrection of Jesus, which supposedly authorized the change from
the Saturday Sabbath to the Sunday Sabbath.
There are three texts that are commonly trotted
out to try to prove that Christians should worship on Sundays. One of these ambiguous texts is Revelation
1:10 (NKJV): “I was in the Spirit on
the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet.” So now, can one prove from this text that
the first day of the week is “the Lord’s day”? If it refers to a specific day
of the week, it could just as easily refer to Saturday, since Jesus was the
Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28), thus making it “the Lord’s day” if that
kind of reasoning is valid. To assume
“the Lord’s day” is Sunday involves reading a desired meaning into an ambiguous
or even completely irrelevant text, since it says nothing about the day’s being
holy, a day to publicly assemble on, or a day of commanded rest from regular
work. However, given the context of the
book of what the Book of Revelation is about, “the day of the Lord” is surely a
reference to the general period of God’s public intervention in the world’s
affairs when Jesus returns. The Old
Testament repeatedly refers to this period, such as in Isaiah 13:9 (NKJV): “Behold, the day of the LORD comes, Cruel,
with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy
its sinners from it.” Likewise, Joel
also speaks of this day of God’s wrath on an unrepentant humanity (Joel
2:10-11, NKJV): “The earth quakes
before them, The heavens tremble; The sun and moon grow dark, And the stars
diminish their brightness. The LORD gives voice before His army, For His camp
is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the
LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?” So when John was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, it almost
surely wasn’t discussing a particular 24-hour day of the week, but a period
roughly lasting a year in which God intervenes in the world’s affairs when
Jesus returns.
Another ambiguous text that’s used to justify
Sunday worship is I Corinthians 16:1-3 (NKJV):
“Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to
the churches of Galatia, so you must do also: On the first day of the week let
each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there
be no collections when I come. And when I come, whomever you approve by your
letters I will send to bear your gift to Jerusalem.” Notice that this text says nothing about the first day of the
week’s being holy, being a day of rest, or being a (commanded) day to assemble
for members of the church. Instead,
it’s about gathering food together to donate to members of the Jerusalem Church
that Paul would carry to them during a famine or severe food shortage (cf. Romans
15:25-28). The text implies that such
work was deemed to be regular work, so it shouldn’t be done on the day in which
Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church would be publicly read, which would have
been presumably on the Saturday beforehand.
Nothing here says this would have been a regular event or a commanded
activity; it’s a quote taken out of context to apply it to offerings taken up
during church services. The gathering
of the food is done at home individually, “each of you by yourself,” in a more
literal translation of the Greek. So
this text is much too ambiguous and simply irrelevant for proving that
Christians should worship on the first day of the week in commanded assemblies.
The last text that’s commonly cited for proving
Sunday observance is this one that describe Paul’s visit to Troas (Acts
20:5-12, NKJV):
“These men, going ahead, waited for us at Troas.
But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in
five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days. Now on the first
day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready
to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.
There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together. And
in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep
sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down
from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down, fell on him,
and embracing him said, "Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in
him." Now when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and talked a
long while, even till daybreak, he departed.”
Notice again the standard ambiguities
surrounding this text for the purposes of proving Sunday observance: Nowhere does this text say anything about
the first day of the week’s being holy, being a day of rest, or a regular,
commanded assembly of believers. Instead,
because Paul was very much a man on the move at this point, Sunday was simply a
convenient day for the local Christians to meet the apostle to the gentiles in
person. Indeed, it appears that the
main reason why this incident is recorded in Scripture is because Paul
performed a great miracle by healing a man who fell asleep and then died
because he fell from a third story of the building that Paul was speaking
in. Another interesting ambiguity stems
from the oddity of the church meeting occurring late at night, not during the
day. Certain translations of the bible
bring out the lack of clarity of what day it was, such as the New English
bible, which actually translates part of verse 7 this way: “on Saturday night in our assembly” and the
Today’s English Version/Good News Bible has, “on Saturday evening we gathered
together for the fellowship meal.” One
reason for this ambiguity stems from how the Saturday Sabbath is observed from
sunset on Friday night to sunset on Saturday night. Therefore, to Jewish thinking, the first day of the week starts
on Saturday night after sunset, not at midnight or at daybreak Sunday morning.
The general context of the time of the year of this incident is also
interesting, since it occurred just after the Passover and the Days of
Unleavened Bread, which implies that they still being observed by the early
church (cf. I Corinthians 5:7-8). It
would be odd indeed for this passage to be seen as showing the primitive church
was routinely gathering for public worship on Sundays when one of the annual
holy days with its annual Sabbaths was being mentioned at the same time (in
Acts 20:6).
As for the issue of what “breaking bread” means,
which supposedly proves that the church took the Lord’s Supper in this service,
it’s necessary to avoid eisegesis, or reading a desired meaning into the texts
in question. A key problem with this
interpretation is that the drinking of wine is being ignored if one reads these
texts this way, much like it does for ordinary Catholics in the mass when they
take the wafers but don’t drink of the wine, which is only for the officiating
priest. Notice that Jesus, when he had
the disciples take of His blood and His body through the symbolic means of wine
and bread, did it on the Passover, an annual festival clearly authorized in
Scripture. The ceremony in which these
symbols were taken by believers, which is the Passover that falls on the Jewish
calendar on Nisan 14, shouldn’t be detached from the specific day it was done
originally on since “radical discontinuity” shouldn’t be assumed concerning the
relationship between the testaments a priori (before experience). The burden of proof isn’t on those who
believe no change occurred, but on those arguing for change by using clear
texts to authorize such changes. Even
the likes of Vine’s word dictionary (p. 77) still says that one meaning of the
term “to break bread” is, “of an ordinary meal, Acts 2:46; 20:11, 27:35.” Somewhat amusingly, the Panera restaurant
chain prints on its bags a version of this term, which shows it certainly
doesn’t have to have a liturgical/ceremonial meaning! In the case of Matthew 14:19, 15:36, Mark 8:6, 19, these texts
refer to the miraculous feeding of large crowds. From their viewpoint, they
were having an ordinary meal. They had
no idea that they were accepting Jesus’ sacrifice symbolically, especially
since these events occurred long before Jesus’ “Last Supper.” To treat Jesus’ sacrificial body this way,
as the crowd did, would be a violation of the principle found in I Corinthians
11:34. Fellowship with believers has
long been seen as important to being good believers, so the texts appearing
early in Acts that refer to “breaking bread” simply are about to fellowship
over meals. Presumably they weren’t
selling pre-sliced bread in the first century A.D., so this is readily
understandable. One shouldn’t read more
into them than that, especially when the taking of wine isn’t mentioned.
So when the obvious texts that mention the first
day of the week are examined in the bible, none of them say that Sunday is now
the required day for Christian worship or that this day is now holy time or
that believers should abstain from regular secular work on this day. None of them say anything remotely like,
“Because Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week, therefore,
Christians should now keep the first day of the week in place of the seventh
day of the week as a Sabbath.” In this
context, it’s worth recalling the enormous controversies in the first-century
church over the continuity validity of circumcision as a command of God and
whether gentile believers should observe it (Acts 15:1, 5, I Cor. 7:18-19; Gal.
5:2-3, 11; 6:15, Col. 3:11; Rom. 2:26-29).
If the apostles had changed the day for rest and public worship from
Saturday to Sunday, which would have required overriding one of the Ten
Commandments spoken by God to Israel and carved by His finger in stone, some
clear evidence of debate and resistance over such a striking innovation should
have left its mark in Scripture. But,
of course, no sign of controversy over this issue erupts in the New Testament’s
text at all.
Although in this context to discuss the day of
Jesus’ resurrection may look like a digression, it isn’t, since the main
argument historically used for Christians to keep Sunday in place of Saturday
stems from the belief that Jesus was resurrected on Sunday morning. However, this belief is actually unfounded
in the Gospel accounts; by inference when reading different texts it becomes
clear that Christ rose Saturday evening. The key text for this belief is
Matthew 12:40, NKJV, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights
in the heart of the earth.” Three days
and three nights simply can’t be inserted between late Friday afternoon and
before sunrise Sunday if the bible is interpreted literally. Keep in mind that Jesus was already
resurrected before Sunday morning, before the women arrived (John 20:1, NKJV),
“Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while
it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the
tomb.” So there’s no way to get three
days into the account here, even when including partial days. Sunday can’t be included, so there are only
two days, rounding up, not three. And
there are only two nights available, on Friday night and Saturday night, not
three nights, if we accept the traditional view. The solution to reconciling the Gospels’ statements (e.g., Mark
15:42) that Jesus was crucified before a Sabbath to what Matthew 12:40 teaches is
simple: The Sabbath before Jesus was
crucified was an annual holy day, not the weekly Sabbath, as per John 19:31
(NKJV), “Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should
not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the
Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken
away.” The women who brought spices for
Jesus' body bought them on a business day (i.e., Friday) during the Festival of
the days of Unleavened Bread but after the first holy day of that festival.
Then they rested on the weekly Sabbath before going to the tomb, which Luke
still says was in force (i.e., a commandment) when writing about this event
decades later (Luke 23:54-56, NKJV):
“That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women
who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb
and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant
oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.” Matthew 28:1 actually uses the term
“Sabbaths,” the plural form, when the Greek is consulted, which one can find in
Marshall’s and Green’s interlinear translations, the latter of which is quoted
here: “After the Sabbaths, at the
dawning into the first of the Sabbaths, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came
to see the grave.” The translation is
awkward, but it’s clear that the plural is present. So the plural was used here since there was both an annual and
weekly Sabbath in the week before the first day of the following week,
Sunday. Therefore, Jesus rested in
death on the Sabbath, and was resurrected near its end, around the same time of
day He had been entombed on the preceding Wednesday, three days and three
nights earlier. So in conclusion, with
a careful examination of all of what Scripture teaches about the timing of
Christ’s resurrection, it becomes evident that the standard argument for
changing the public day of rest and worship for Christians from Sabbath to
Sunday is utterly without foundation.
Because the scriptural case for the observation
of the Sunday in place of Saturday is so weak, a number of Christians who
observe Sunday honestly admit that this change is based on church tradition
alone, not on anything that the bible says.
Many concessions along this line can be quoted, but the number instances
provided below will be somewhat limited in order to avoid being too
repetitious. Such claims are especially
important to keep in mind when Protestants are supposed to uphold the principle
of “sola scriptura” (the bible only) as the sole foundation for doctrine as
opposed to the Catholic principle of using church tradition as well.
James Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921), the past
archbishop of Baltimore, made a point of repeatedly challenging Protestants on
this point, as these extracts below demonstrate:
“Most Christians assume that Sunday is the
biblically approved day of worship. The Catholic Church protests that it
transferred Christian worship from the biblical Sabbath (Saturday) to Sunday,
and that to try to argue that the change was made in the Bible is both
dishonest and a denial of Catholic authority. If Protestantism wants to base
its teachings only on the Bible, it should worship on Saturday.” Rome’s
Challenge, December 2003
“Is not every Christian obliged to
sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is
not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties?
But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a
single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce
the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.” James
Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (1917 edition), p. 72-73
(16th Edition, p 111; 88th Edition, p. 89).
“For example, nowhere in the Bible do we
find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from
Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy
the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most
Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the [Roman
Catholic] church outside the Bible.” Catholic Virginian, October 3,
1947, p. 9, article “To Tell You the Truth.”
“Question: How prove you that the church
had power to command feasts and holydays?
“Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants
allow of and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday
strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.
“Question: Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to
institute festivals of precept?
“Answer: Had she not such power, she could not a done that in which all modern
religionists agree with her; -she could not have substituted the observance of
Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh
day of the week, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.” Stephen
Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism On the Obedience Due to the Church, 3rd
edition, Chapter 2, p. 174 (Imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of
New York).
“Perhaps the boldest thing, the most
revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The
holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. ‘The day of the
Lord’ was chosen, not from any direction noted in the Scriptures, but from the
(Catholic) Church’s sense of its own power...People who think that the
Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists,
and keep Saturday holy.” St. Catherine Church Sentinel, Algonac,
Michigan, May 21, 1995.
“Question. What warrant have you for
keeping Sunday preferably to the ancient sabbath which was Saturday?
“Answer. We have for it the authority of the Catholic church and apostolic
tradition.
“Question. Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the
Sabbath?
“Answer. The Scripture commands us to hear the church (St. Matt.18:17; St. Luke
10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess 2:15. But the
Scripture does not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath.
“St. John speaks of the Lord’s day (Rev
1:10) but he does not tell us what day of the week that was, much less does he
tell us what day was to take the place of the Sabbath ordained in the
commandments. St. Luke speaks of the disciples meeting together to break bread
on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7. And St. Paul (1 Cor.16:2) orders that
on the first day of the week the Corinthians should lay in store what they
designated to bestow in charity on the faithful in Judea: but neither the one
or the other tells us that this first day of the week was to be henceforth a
day of worship, and the Christian Sabbath; so that truly the best authority we
have for this ancient custom is the testimony of the church. And therefore
those who pretend to be such religious observers of Sunday, whilst they take no
notice of other festivals ordained by the same church authority, show that they
act more by humor, than by religion; since Sundays and holidays all stand upon
the same foundation, namely the ordinance of the (Roman Catholic) church.”
Catholic Christian Instructed, 17th edition, p. 272-273.
“Protestantism, in discarding the
authority of the (Roman Catholic) Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday
theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath.” John Gilmary
Shea, American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.
“Regarding the change from the observance
of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to
the facts:
“1) That Protestants, who accept the
Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to
the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary
observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.
“2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible
as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the
authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted
by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the
ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the
Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this
law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the
unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of
Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws...
“It is always somewhat laughable, to see
the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of
Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible.” Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic
Church Extension Magazine, USA (1975), Chicago, Illinois, “Under the
blessing of the Pope Pius XI”
At this point, I’ve surely become unduly repetitious
in relaying this kind of quote, but the point is obvious that any honest
exegesis of Scripture about the observation of Sunday worship agrees with what
James Cardinal Gibbons and these other Catholic writers have said above, which
is that it is based on church tradition, not the bible.
So then, what is the historical origin of the
observation of Sunday in place of Saturday by Christians? The church historian Samuel Bacchiocchi, in
his carefully written and scholarly tome, “From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of
Sunday Observation in Early Christianity,” which is nowadays available for a
free download on the internet for those interested (http://www.anym.org/pdf/from_Sabbath_to_Sunday_samuele_bacchiocchi.pdf),
uses the available primary sources to conclude that the change originally
occurred in the early second century A.D. in Rome itself. (This book is used very extensively in what is
written below). Because the
documentary evidence for this change in the surviving historical records is
relatively scarce, this inference can’t be fully proven, but it’s the best
interpretation of the evidence available.
Bacchiocchi (“From Sabbath to Sunday,” p. 200) points to the early
Bishop of Rome Sixtus (c. 116-126 A.D.) as being the most logical candidate for
promoting a change from observing Nisan 14 to Easter and from the Saturday
Sabbath to the Sunday Sabbath. The
early Catholic writer Ireneaus maintained that Sixtus was the first Christian
leader to not keep the Passover (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” p.
202). Since the date of Nisan 14, which
is the beginning of the Passover festival and the Day of Unleavened Bread
(Exodus 12:13-20; Leviticus 23:5-8) on the Jewish calendar, can appear on
different days of the week, but Easter is always on Sunday, it’s a reasonable
inference that the introduction of Easter went along with the much more general
introduction of Sunday worship in place going to church on Saturdays (or Friday
nights). Bacchiocchi traces this change
to the general climate of strong anti-Semitism manifested in the Roman world
generally, but especially in its capital, and among gentile Christians of the
second century who didn’t wish to be associated with or identified by others as
Jews.
After the second major Jewish revolt in the Holy
Land (132-135 A.D.), the Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117-138 A.D.) harshly cracked
down on the practice of the Jewish religion, such as by outlawing circumcision
in 132 A.D. and the observation of the Holy Days listed in Leviticus 23, which
includes the Passover (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” pp.
200-201). He also prohibited the
keeping of the Sabbath and outlawed Jews from entering the new Roman city of
Aelia Capitolina, which was built on the ruins of Jerusalem (“From Sabbath to
Sunday,” pp. 159-161). The famed
ancient church historian Eusebius, writing in the fourth century, is one of the
main sources of information about the dispute among Christians in the second
century about whether Easter or Nisan 14 (i.e., the Passover, the day Christ
had the “Last Supper” with His disciples and was crucified on) should be
observed by Christians. He describes
the debate between those Christians of the eastern Roman Empire, who upheld
Nisan 14 in place of Easter, and those of the west, who proclaimed Easter had
replaced the Passover and the victory of the latter over the former (Eusebius,
“Ecclesiastical History,” pp. 207-211).
This controversy, despite it seems to be
separate from the change from the Saturday Sabbath to Sunday, is actually still
closely related, since Easter is always observed on a Sunday. As Bacchiocchi explains this relationship (“From
Sabbath to Sunday,” p. 204): “What is
the relationship, one may ask between the annual Easter-Sunday and the weekly
Sunday? . . . If the two were treated as one similar Feast, it would seem
plausible to suppose that the birthplace of Easter-Sunday could well be also
the place of origin of the weekly Sunday observance, since possibly the same
factors acted in the same place to cause the contemporaneous origin of
both. In numerous patristic [early
Catholic writers] testimonies the weekly and annual Easter-Sunday are treated
as basically the same feast commemorating the same event of the
resurrection. In a document attributed
to Irenaeus it is specifically enjoined to not kneel down on Sunday nor on
Pentecost, that is, the seven weeks of the Easter period, ‘because it is of
equal significance with the Lord’s day.’
The reason given is that both feasts are a ‘symbol of the
resurrection.’ Tertullian confirms that
custom but adds the prohibition of fasting as well: “On Sunday it is unlawful to fast or to kneel while
worshiping. We enjoy the same liberty
from Easter to Pentecost. . . .Origen explicitly unites the weekly with the
yearly commemoration of the resurrection:
‘The resurrection of the Lord is celebrated not only once a year but
constantly every eight days.”
Therefore, the historical relationship between the observation of Easter
Sunday and the weekly observation of Sunday is closer than it may initially
seem to modern-day observers.
Around 200 years later, the Emperor Constantine
(reigned 306-337 A.D.) identified the desire to not be like Jews as a major
motivation to avoid keeping the Passover (Nisan 14) in place of Easter: “It appeared an unworthy thing that in the
celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews,
who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore,
deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. . . . Let us then have nothing in
common with the detestable Jewish crowd . . . All should unite in desiring that
which in sound reason appears to demand and in avoiding all participation in
the perjured conduct of the Jews.” The
same anti-Jewish feeling for not keeping the Passover was surely a factor in
the change from keeping Saturday to keeping Sunday as a day of rest and public
worship.
The Nazarenes, which was a sect of Jewish
Christians, continued to keep the Sabbath long after the second century into at
least the fourth century, which is major evidence that the origin of Sunday
worship lie in the west, not the east, of the Roman Empire (Bacchiocchi, “From
Sabbath to Sunday,” pp. 156-157).
Interestingly, but more indirectly, the creation of a standard curse
against Christians was implemented in the synagogues by the Jews apparently
late in the first century in order to drive out any (secret) Christians who
still attended them on the Sabbath.
Part of this curse proclaims, “May the Nazarenes and the Minim [i.e.,
Jewish heretics] perish in an instant, may they all be erased from the book of
life, that they may not be counted among the righteous.” Because all adult males could end up sooner
or later officiating in a synagogue service, they would be required to affirm
this curse in a public setting, the heretics and Christians among them would
revealed or drive out if they didn’t repeat this curse publicly. As Bacchiocchi explains, “Many
Jewish-Christians in Palestine still considered themselves essentially as
Jews. Their acceptance of Christ as the
Messiah did not preclude their attending Sabbath services. The existence of this situation discredits
therefore any attempt to make Jewish-Christians responsible at the time for the
substitution of Sunday worship for Sabbath keeping (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath
to Sunday,” p. 159). It’s notable also
that gentile Christian bishops replaced the Jewish Christian ones after Hadrian’s
anti-Jewish edicts were implemented, which shows “that a clear distinction was
made between the two” (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” p. 161).
Another potential source of influence on gentile
Christians in Rome in the early second century was the planetary week’s naming
conventions and the observation of the worship of the sun. The planetary week is simply the name for
the ancient convention of the seven-day week using the names of heavenly bodies
and their associated gods, such as Wotan’s day being Wednesday, Thor’s day
being Thursday, and Saturn being Saturn’s day, to designate them. This practice was becoming common in the
Roman world in the first century A.D.
The gentile pagans, deeming the sun to be the most important heavenly
body, ended up putting the sun’s day as the first day of the week, thus
replacing Saturn’s day, which had had that position originally. The Romans made a point of worshipping the
birthday of the invincible sun on December 25, a date chosen by the Emperor
Aurian (reigned 270-275 A.D.) A related
confusion was the practice of the Jews to pray towards Jerusalem, much like
Muslims pray towards Mecca (i.e., the kibla), which gentile Christians had
adopted. Well, if one lives to the west
of Jerusalem, it would appear that one is praying towards the rising sun in the
east, like pagans do, when praying towards Jerusalem. Sure, the early Christians didn’t worship the sun; they even
heatedly denying the charge. However,
some in their ranks were tempted to when they still had superstitions and
customs left over from their prior lives as pagans. It is possible, however, that some residual influence from the
planetary week’s convention of placing Sunday as the first day of the week and
the related worship of the sun among pagans influenced some gentile Christians
in the early second century to adopt Sunday as a replacement for the Saturday
Sabbath. (See generally Bacchiocchi,
“From Sabbath to Sunday,” pp. 236-261).
A striking instance of this kind of mixing of
pagan and Christian reasoning for observing Sunday appears in the Emperor
Constantine’s law for keeping the Sunday Sabbath (321 A.D.), which was a
command to not work on that day. He
called the first day of the week “the venerable day of the sun,” which makes a pagan
allusion, not a Christian or biblical one.
(The quote in English comes from “Seventh-day Adventists Answer
Questions on Doctrine,” p. 167). So
when the gentile Christians of Rome, many of whom may have been recent converts
from paganism, wanted to find another day for public worship that wasn’t
associated with the generally hated Jews that their government was persecuting
for launching a major revolt, the substitution of Sunday for Saturday may have
looked fittingly appropriate symbolically.
As Bacchiocchi explains this kind of convenient, coincidental thinking,
“In other words, since Sunday was the day of the Sun and since Christ’s
resurrection was viewed as the rising of the ‘Sun of Justice,’ it would only
take a short step for Christians to associate the two. In fact, in their search for a day of
worship distinct from that of the Jews, Christians could well have viewed the
day of the Sun as a providential and valid substitution. Its symbology fittingly coincided with two
divine acts which occurred on that day:
the first creation of light and the rising of ‘the Sun of the second
creation” (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” p. 267). After all, wasn’t life of Christ the light
of men that shined in the darkness and gave light to every man coming into the
world, as per John’s introductory chapter of the Fourth Gospel?
Now another set of peculiar reasonings arose
among the early Catholic writers for keeping Sunday instead of Saturday were
based on the ideas that Sunday was superior to the Sabbath because it was the
first day of the creation week, on which God created light (i.e.,
metaphorically the source of truth and knowledge) and because the number eight
was deemed better than seven, which is a striking case of deriving meaning in
texts from numerology. Because these
kinds of interpretations arose at the same time as those related to the idea
that day of Jesus’ resurrection changed the day of public worship for
Christians, this indicates that the latter idea wasn’t the original or main
story. Had the earliest Catholic
sources, such as those from the second century, had emphasized or only
mentioned the resurrection as a reason for changing the day of Christian
worship, that would be better evidence that the custom went back to the
apostles. But because such patently
absurd arguments were made in favor of Sunday’s spiritual superiority to
Saturday, it’s prime evidence that none of the apostles believed in observing
Sunday in place of Saturday. By contrast,
Augustine, writing some 350 years after Christ’s crucifixion, who indeed is one
of the two greatest writers and theologians of the Catholic Church, clearly
proclaimed that Christ’s resurrection was the only reason for this change in
days: “The Lord’s day was not declared
to the Jews but to the Christians by the resurrection of the Lord and from that
events its festivity has its origin.”
He also wrote in another letter, “the Lord’s day has been preferred to
the Sabbath by the faith of the resurrection.” (Epistula 55, 23, 1, CSEL, 34,
194, and Epistula 36, 12, 14, CSEL 34, 4, as quoted by Bacchiocchi, “From
Sabbath to Sunday,” pp. 271-272).
However, in earlier centuries, the early
post-biblical Christian writers weren’t so crystal clear about their
justifications for worshipping on Sunday.
Although Ignatius, writing in 110 A.D., is often cited as making the
first reference to Sunday worship, his actual statement isn’t discussing
different days but different ways of life and he refers to the resurrection
this context only indirectly (“Letter to the Magnesians,” 9:1), when
proclaiming Christians “attained a new hope, no longer sabbatizing but living
according to the Lord’s life [[not ‘day’]], on [or by] which also our life rose
up through his death.” So when the
Epistle of Barnabas, written around 135 A.D., the resurrection is only the
second of two reasons given for observing Sunday. Instead, he presents first a peculiar eschatological theory
(i.e., about end-time future prophetic events) in which Sunday is the “eighth
day.” It is the prolongation of the
Sabbath at the time of the end and is a sign of “the beginning of another
world.”
Justin Martyr, writing around 150 A.D., presents
the resurrection as only the second reason for observing Sunday while also
displaying a deep antagonism against the Sabbath and Judaism, which reflects
the general anti-Semitic attitude of many Romans. His primary reason for observing Sunday was to commemorate the
first day of the world’s creation (as described in Genesis 1). He also argued for Sunday observance based
on the idea that circumcision was done on the eight day (Leviticus 12:3) and
because eight persons were saved from the great flood (I Peter 3:20), which are
allegorical, numerological reasonings.
Even more of a stretch was his reasoning that the height of the flood
waters’ being fifteen cubits (i.e., seven plus eight) over the highest
mountains was also used as a symbolic shadow and justification that the eighth
day was better than the seventh. (See
Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” pp. 271-272, 285-286). Bacchiocchi makes a strikingly incisive
point about the reasoning of Barnabas and Justin Marytr, when considering what
time period they were writing in: “It
is noteworthy that both Barnabas and Justin who lives at the very time when
Sunday worship was rising, present the resurrection as a secondary motivation
for Sunday-keeping, apparently because initially this was not yet viewed as the
fundamental reason (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” p. 272).
The heretical Gnostics spread the speculation
that the number eight was superior to seven, based on the Pythagorean view that
seven heavenly firmaments or spheres were covered by an eighth. So for at least some Gnostics, the “eighth”
day of the week became symbolic of the perfectly full life that spiritually
attuned people could have here on earth.
Being unorthodox in his theology, Clement of Alexandria picked up on
this numerological notion and spread it, such as by citing Ezekiel 44:26-27,
which mentions the purification of the priests lasted for seven days and then
they offered sacrifices on the eight day.
Irenaeus, who indeed was orthodox in his Catholic theology, reworked
Barnabas’ allegorical millenarian schema, by interpreting the seventh day as
being symbolic of judgment and the eighth as being that of eternal
blessedness. This speculative
conception, derived from the Gnostics, of associating the number eight with
God, i.e., the “ogdoad,” influenced various early Christian writers who wanted
to find a way to show that Sunday was superior to Saturday. Origen also advocated the superiority of the
number eight over the number seven in order to deprecate the Sabbath. He believed the number seven represented
this present evil world, but the eight was symbolic of the future world. In his commentary on Psalm 118, he
associated the seventh day with matter, impurity, and uncircumcision, but the
eighth day was symbolic of perfection, spirituality, and purification, based on
the spiritual circumcision that was made possible by Christ’s resurrection.
Cypian, the bishop of Carthage (died 258 A.D.),
believed the eight day was superior to the seventh by fulfilling both
circumcision and the keeping of the Sabbath.
The writer of the Syriac Didascalia (c. 250 A.D.) got to the number
eight by counting inclusively, i.e., by counting Sunday twice: “The Sabbath itself is counted even unto the
Sabbath, and it becomes eight [days]; thus an ogdoad is [reached], which is
more than the Sabbath, even the first of the week.” Hilary, the bishop of Poitiers (c. 315-367 A.D.) believed the
eighth day both continued and fulfilled the meaning of the seventh: “Although the name and the observance of the
Sabbath had been established for the seventh day, we [Christians] celebrate the
feat of the perfect Sabbath on the eight day of the eek, which is also the
first.” Jerome (c. 342-420 A.D.), the
leading translator of the Latin Vulgate bible, believed observing the Sabbath
was retrogressive because “the Jews by believing in the Sabbath, gave the
seventh part, but they did not give the eight because they denied the
resurrection of the Lord’s day.” Even
Augustine made these kinds of speculations about the superiority of Sunday
observance over Sabbath observance by believing the number eight was better
than seven. He also associated the saving of eight persons through the flood
with the eighth day (i.e., Sunday) and believed the performance of the act of
circumcision on the eighth day prefigured the meaning of Sunday to
Christians.
The culmination of these speculations about
“eight” being symbolically superior to “seven” as a justification for keeping
Sunday appears in the writings of Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604 A.D.), is
the last great “Doctor” or leading theologian of the ancient Latin or Western
Church. He attacked Sabbath keeping,
which showed some Christians were still engaged in doing it even at his late
date. In order to buttress his
viewpoint, he cited (Ecclesiastes 11:2, NKJV), “Give a serving to seven, and also
to eight, For you do not know what evil will be on the earth.” His interpretation of this text is a classic
eisegesis, or reading into a text a desired meaning that it prefigured Christ’s
resurrection, “for He truly rose on the Lord’s day, which since it follows the
seventh day Sabbath is found to be the eighth from creation.” Hunting for more Old Testament texts to
justify the superiority of Sunday over Saturday, he spotted the seven
sacrifices that Job made on the eight day for his children: “The story truly indicates that the blessed
Job when offering sacrifices on the eight day, was celebrating the mystery of
the resurrection . . . and served the Lord for the hope of the
resurrection.” (See generally
Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” pp. 278-295).
The only reason why such ancient Christians
writers resort to such self-evident nonsense about the meaning of the number
eight compared to seven is because the bible’s text doesn’t support the change
from Saturday to Sunday as a day of rest and assembly for believers, so they
grasp at straws by making wild interpretations of utterly irrelevant texts for
what they want to prove. Bacchiocchi
makes a reasonable inference by concluding (italics removed): “The fact that the typology of the eighth
day first appears especially in the writings of anti-Judaic polemics, such as
the Epistle of Barnabas and the Dialogue with Trypho, and that it was widely
used as an apologetic devices to prove the superiority of Sunday over the
Sabbath, suggests, first of all, that Sunday worship arose as a controversial
innovation and not as an undisputed apostolic institution. The polemic was apparently provoked by a
Sabbath-keeping minority (mostly Jewish-Christians) who refused to accept the
new day of worship. This was found to
be indicated by the very speculations on the eschatological superiority of the
eight day over the seventh, since these contentions only had meaning in a
polemic with Jewish-Christians and Jews.” (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to
Sunday,” p. 299. After all, these early
Catholic writers are always citing the Old Testament, not the New Testament,
when locating, from the viewpoint of trying to prove Sunday’s superiority over
Saturday, utterly irrelevant uses of the number eight. Further evidence that Sunday observance
didn’t originate from the apostles stems from the very delayed full observation
of Sunday as a day of physical rest, which didn’t occur until the fifth and
sixth centuries (Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” p. 310). Instead of finding some kind of divine
warrant authorizing the change in the day assembled believers should worship
God and rest from regular work, the church simply claims to have the authority
to do it, as Vincent J. Kelly admitted in his dissertation: “It is now commonly
held that God simply gave His church the power to set aside whatever day or
days she would deem suitable as Holy Days.
The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of
time added other days, as holy days.”
(As quoted in Bacchiocchi, “From Sabbath to Sunday,” pp. 310-311).
So having surveyed in some detail above the
evidence put forth for the observation of Sunday instead of Saturday, it’s
obvious that Sunday as a weekly day for physical rest and public worship is an
institution created by men, not by God.
No texts in the New Testament authorize this change with the least bit
of clarity, including all the ones that mention for any reason the first day of
the week. The ancient attempt to
associate the number eight with Sunday exposes how absurdly weak the biblical
arguments are for this alteration in the day of worship for believers. Highly educated, well-informed Catholic
Christian writers simply wouldn’t have made up obvious allegorical nonsense
with the worst kind of eisegesis except when they don’t have any better arguments
to use. The failure of the earliest
Catholic writers (i.e., those of the second century) to emphasize the
resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week as the reason for this
innovation shows that this kind of reasoning didn’t come from the apostles. Furthermore, as already explained above, the
resurrection of Christ couldn’t have been on Sunday anyway, if Matthew 12:40 is
taken literally, since three days and three nights can’t be inserted between Friday
evening and Sunday morning before sunrise.
It’s a fundamental error of biblical interpretation to assume God’s laws
changed without clear evidence from the bible itself for such changes. Human beings don’t have the authority from
God to make time or days holy; instead, it’s the job of human beings to treat
with respect whatever days God has made holy based on clear instructions from
the bible, such as the Fourth Commandments and the seven festivals listed in
Leviticus 23
Eric Snow
Click here to
access essays that defend Christianity: /apologetics.html
Click here to
access essays that explain Christian teachings: /doctrinal.html
Click here to
access notes for sermonettes: /sermonettes.html
Why does God
Allow Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why
Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
May Christians
work on Saturdays? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Protestant
Rhetoric vs Sabbath Refuted.htm
Should
Christians obey the Old Testament law? /doctrinalhtml/Does the
New Covenant Abolish the OT Law.htm
Do you have an
immortal soul? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Here and
Hereafter.htm
Does the
ministry have authority? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is There
an Ordained Ministry vs Edwards.html
Is the United
States the Beast? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Are We
the Beast vs Collins.htm
Should you give
10% of your income to your church? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Does the
Argument from Silence Abolish the Old Testament Law of Tithing 0205 Mokarow
rebuttal.htm
Is Jesus God?
Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Is Jesus
God.htm
Will there be a
third resurrection? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Will
There Be a Third Resurrection.htm
Links to
elsewhere on this Web site: /apologetics.html /book.html /doctrinal.html /essays.html /links.html /sermonettes.html /webmaster.html For
the home page, click here: /index.html