From Sabbath to Sunday
Lesson 34
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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)
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