From Sabbath
to Sunday
Lesson
34
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The Seventh
Day of Creation was Saturday
God has
expressed in the Bible how His
subjects are to worship Him. This is
not a matter left to human design.
Unfortunately, the devil, during the
past 6,000 years, has obscured
God’s truth, infiltrated every
religion, and implanted many false
ideas, concepts, and doctrines
throughout the world. Foe example,
Moslems regard Friday, Jews regard
Saturday, and the Christians regard
Sunday as a holy day! These three
religious bodies represent 50% of
Earth’s inhabitants, and each
religious body claims to have the
truth about God. Each religious
system also declares that the other
two religious systems are false
– and yet, all together they
unwittingly confirm a simple truth.
Their diversity confirms that the
weekly cycle is intact. Let me
explain.
The sixth day
of the week is adjacent to the
seventh day, which is also adjacent
to the first day of the week. In
other words, each religious system
worships on unique days that are
adjacent to each other. This fact
confirms the perpetuity of
Creation’s week ever since Jesus
was on Earth and it shows that the
weekly cycle has not been altered.
Furthermore, God confirmed which day
of the week was the seventh day to
the children of Israel in the
wilderness by the cessation of manna
(no manna fell on the seventh day).
Thus, the Israelites have formally
worshiped on the seventh day ever
since the Exodus in 1437 B.C.
Christians in Rome, according to
Justin Martyr, have formally
worshiped on the first day of the
week since A.D. 150, and Moslems have
formally worshiped on the sixth day
of the week since the sixth century
A.D. If the weekly cycle had been
altered, the holy days of worship
would not be adjacent to each other!
This diversity proves the weekly
cycle has not been altered. The
seventh day (Saturday) is still
God’s holy day just as it was at
creation.
So, What
happened?
So, how did
Sunday become the Lord’s Day?
Who made the change and when did it
occur? Material containing the
history of Christianity during the
first century is meager and
imperfect. The best records for this
time period have been collected and
are known as the writings of the
Apostolic Fathers. These records are
not part of the Bible, nor do they
have the authority of the Bible.
However, they do offer a glimpse into
the religious thinking of that era.
Apostolic Age
Several
references are included in this
chapter for you to consider because a
great number of scholars have used
these ancient writings to show that
Sunday observance was widely
practiced by those living during the
Apostolic Age (A.D.30 – A.D.
100). The writings of early
Christians, however, reveal a
sinister process. They reveal how the
Word of God soon became corrupt, even
in the hands of well-intentioned
people. You can study these
references and draw your own
conclusions.
The first
mention of worship by the Apostolic
Fathers occurs around A.D. 97.
Clement of Rome wrote to the
believers in Corinth:
These things
therefore being manifest to us, and
since we look into the depths of the
divine knowledge, it behooves us to
do all things in [their proper]
order, which the Lord has commanded
us to perform at stated times. He has
enjoined offerings [to be presented]
and service to be performed [to Him],
and that no thoughtlessly or
irregularity, but at the appointed
times and hours. (Clement of Rome,
Epistles to Corinthians, Volume I
Ante-Nicean Library, (Buffalo, 1887)
page. 16 insertion mine.)
As you can
see, Clement does not specifically
endorse any particular day of week.
This early quote, however, is
included because some scholars claim
that Clement of Rome openly defends
Sunday observance in A.D.97.
Pliny the
Younger wrote another early reference
often used to support Sunday
observance in the early Christian
Church about A.D. 107. Pliny the
Younger was the pagan governor of
Bythinia at this time. He wrote to
Emperor Trajan asking advice about
Christian assemblies in his province.
At that time, Roman leaders
anticipated civil revolt in a number
of provinces and Pliny was especially
cautious of a new sect of Jewish
people called Christians. He wrote:
They [the
Christians] affirmed that the whole
of their guilt or error was that they
met on a certain stated day before it
was light and addressed themselves in
a form of prayer to Christ as to some
God…(Pliny the Younger,
Pliny’s letter to Trajan,
Harvard Classics, Volume 9, (New
York, 1937 page 404, insertion mine.)
Pliny does
not say which day of the week the
Christians were meeting. All that we
can learn from this quotation is that
they were meeting for prayer before
it was light. Regardless of the day
he refers to, whether the Christians
were secretly meeting to pray on
Sabbath, Sunday or Monday makes no
difference.
Post
Apostolic Age
As
Christianity spread throughout the
Roman Empire, certain compromises and
transformations were made within
Christianity for a variety of
reasons. In Rome, Christians were
regarded as a dangerous sect since
they were considered to be offshoots
from the Jews and second, they
refused to regard Caesar as a divine
god. As time passed, however,
Christianity began to appeal to t he
educated and wealthy people who lived
in Rome. These people could afford
manuscripts containing copies of
Scripture and even more importantly,
they also had influence within the
government of Rome. By A.D. 150,
Christians and converts of Mithraism
(a small pagan sect) had some areas
of compromise and mutual respect.
About this time, a well-educated man
by the name of Justin Martyr became a
Christian. As a Christian, he tried
to soften the hostility that existed
between Romans and Christians. One
area of compromise concerned the
issue of religious meetings on
Sunday. The followers of Mithra
regarded Sunday as a holiday. (The
Mysteries of Mithra, Chicago Open
Court Publication Company, (Chicago
1911) page 167, 191) Christians in
Rome, anxious to separate themselves
from their Jewish heritage (Jews were
despised), found that the pagans
interpreted their religious services
on Sunday as something akin to their
holiday festivities. Justin Martyr
writes: But Sunday is the day on
which we all hold our common assembly
because it is the first day on which
God, having wrought a change in the
darkness and matter, made the world;
and Jesus Christ our Savior on the
same day rose from the dead. (Justin
Martyr, First Apology of Justin
Martyr, Ante-Nicean Christian
Library, (Boston 1887) page 187
Chapter 67)
The
justification he used for holding a
common assembly on Sunday is
interesting. First, he cites the
separation of darkness and light on
the first day of Creation as grounds
for holding a common assembly, and
then the resurrection of Jesus.
Martyr offers no Scriptural authority
for holding an assembly on Sunday,
but his remarks do suggest how
anxious Christians in Rome were to
divorce themselves from the womb of
Judaism.
In those
days, Christianity had no
“central office” and each
geographical location adjusted
doctrine as they chose. During the
last part of the second century A.D.,
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, became
alarmed at a number of heresies that
had infiltrated the Christian
movement. He was aware of how the
Christians in Rome had begun to meet
on Sunday and abandon the seventh day
Sabbath he wrote:
Thus Christ
did not at all rescind the Sabbath.
He kept the law [Ten Commandments]
thereof…He restored to the
Sabbath the works for were proper for
it. (Terullian, Book IV, Chapter 12,
Volume 3 Ante-Nicean Christian
Library, (Boston, 1997) page 362,
insertion mine.)
Considerable
discussion on Sunday observance took
place in those early days. Archelaus,
a bishop wrote in his disputation
with Manes:
Again as to
the assertion that the [seventh day]
Sabbath has been abolished we deny
that He [Christ] has abolished it
plainly. For He Himself was also Lord
of the Sabbath. (Archelaus, The
Disputation with Manes, Volume 4
Ante-Nicean Christian Library,
(Boston 1887), page 217, insertion
mine.)
By A.D. 320,
confusion and compromise took a heavy
toll on early Christian doctrine.
Christians had been scattered by
persecution to every province
throughout the Roman Empire.
Christians in Alexandria, Egypt (the
South) were beginning to defend views
that were different from those in
Rome (the North). Church authority
was discussed, debated and argued.
Most Church
leaders agreed that church doctrine
needed to be more clearly defined and
controlled, but who was going to be
in control? Many questions and issues
were raised for which there was
little agreement. In short, distance,
culture, language and social factors
were beginning to define Christendom
according to geography. Thoughtful
men anticipated the result – a
highly fractured Church. Christianity
needed a strong leader and
Constantine felt that he was divinely
appointed to lead a universal
Christian Church. When Constantine
came to the throne as sole ruler of
the empire around A.D. 312, he had
transformed himself into a Christian
for political advantage. Constantine
was cunning and he saw Christianity
as a means of unifying the Roman
Empire. When he endorsed the
“Roman version” of
Christianity, Constantine set a
powerful sequence of events into
motion. In future years, the church
in Rome would come to dominate all
factions of Christianity.
Hopefully,
this information satisfies your
curiosity about how Sunday observance
began. The Romans were first to merge
Sunday observance into Christianity.
Strange as it may seem, they never
claimed to have divine authority for
this action. In fact, Roman
Christians did not consider labor on
Sunday as sinful or contrary to the
will of God. Of course, this attitude
stands in stark contrast to the
fourth commandment, which forbids
work on Sabbath. Many Romans regarded
the attitude toward Sunday observance
in Rome as a holiday long before
Christianity arrived in Rome. Sunday
was not a day of fasting or
reflection.
When
Constantine became “a defender
of the faith,” he had his army
baptized into Christianity by
marching them through a river. To
promote the universal acceptance of a
day of rest, Constantine implemented
a Sunday law in March, A.D.321. This
law was a clever compromise.
Constantine patronized Christians and
pagans alike by declaring a national
day of rest. The political benefit of
this law was well received by the
Romans. Constantine endorsed the
desire of the Christian church in
Rome by setting Sunday aside as a day
of rest and this law also favored a
large population in Rome who
worshipped the pagan god of Mithra on
Sunday.
Let all
judges and all city people and all
tradesmen, rest upon the venerable
day of the Sun. But let those
dwelling in the country freely and
with full liberty attend to the
culture of their fields; since it
frequently happens, that no other day
is so fit for the sowing of grain, or
the planting of vines; hence the
favorable time should not be allowed
to pass, lest the provision of heaven
be lost. (Cod. Justin, III Title 12,
L.3., March 7, A.D. 321)
There is a
World Out There
Although the
Roman church was already meeting on
Sunday when Constantine sent out his
decree, other Christians in other
locations were not! Most Christians
were still observing the seventh day
Sabbath. Socrates writes near the
turn of the fourth century:
Such is the
difference in the churches on the
subject of fasts. Nor is there less
variation in regard to religious
assemblies. For although almost all
churches through the world celebrate
the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath
every week, yet the Christians of
Rome and Alexandria have ceased to do
this. (Socrates, Ecclesiastical
History, Book V, Chapter 22,
Ante-Nicean Christian Library, Volume
II, (Boston, 1887) page 132)
Even
Constantine’s decree did not
shut out the importance of the
seventh day Sabbath. Something else
would have to occur before that could
be accomplished. The leaders from the
church in Rome needed an elaborate
doctrine that dealt directly with the
issue of the “Lord’s
Day” to present a strong case
before the Christian body. So
Eusebius, a Christian confident and
advisor of Constantine masterminded
the doctrine of Sunday observance.
Carefully notice his anti-Semitic
argument for the observance of
Sunday:
Wherefore as
they [the Jews] rejected it [the
Sabbath law], the Word [Christ] by
the new covenant, translated and
transferred the feast of the Sabbath
to the morning light, and gave us the
symbol of true rest, the saving
Lord’s Day, the first [day] of
light, in which the Savior of the
world, after all his labors among
men, obtained the victory over death,
and passed the portals of heaven,
having achieved a work superior to
the six-days creation. On this day,
which is the first [day] of light and
of the true Sun, we assemble, after
an interval of six days, and
celebrate holy and spiritual
Sabbaths, even all nations redeemed
by him throughout the world, and do
things according to the spiritual
law, which were decreed for the
priests to do on the Sabbath. And all
things whatsoever that it was a duty
to do on the Sabbath, these we have
transferred to the Lord’s Day,
as more appropriately belong to it,
because it has a precedence and is
first in rank, and more honorable
than the Jewish Sabbath. All Things
whatsoever that it was duty to do on
the Sabbath, these we have
transferred to the Lord’s Day.
(Eusebius’s Commentary on the
Psalms 92, quoted in Coxe’s
Sabbath literature, Volume I page
361, insertion mine.)
Eusebius was
a spiritual advisor to Constantine.
He is the first man to claim in
writing that Christ changed the day
of worship. THEN, Eusebius testifies
that he (and others, namely
Constantine) had “transferred
all things, whatsoever that it was
the duty to do on the Sabbath
“to Sunday. Also notice that
Eusebius offers no scriptural
authority for the change. Further, no
church father or authority from that
time period supports Eusebius’
claims and notice that he does not
quote from another source. As it
turns out, Eusebius took the thorny
problem of worship in hand and became
the father of a false doctrine, which
favored the practices of the church
at Rome. We need to ask ourselves,
“Can mere mortals change the law
of Almighty God by making a simple
declaration? Who has the higher
authority – God or man?”
Christians have repeated the failure
of the Jews and dismissed or altered
the plainest statements of God’s
Word. Jesus said of the Jews,
“They worship me in vain; their
teachings are but rules taught by
men.” (Matthew 15:9)
Even with the
Sunday law imposed by Constantine,
the seventh day Sabbath did not
suddenly disappear in Christian
churches. By the year A.D. 460
Sozomen writes:
Assemblies
are not held in all churches on the
same time or manner. The people of
Constantinople and almost everywhere
assemble on the [seventh-day] Sabbath
as well as the first day of the week,
which custom is never observed at
Rome or Alexandria. (Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, Book VII,
Chapter 19, Ante-Nicean Christian
Library, V II, (Boston 1887) page
390, insertion mine.)
Every student
of church history knows that the
church in Rome eventually gained
complete dominion over Christianity.
Eventually the Roman Empire was
transformed into the Holy Roman
Empire and the bishop at Rome became
the “Bishop of the Universal
Church.” For nearly 13
centuries, the kings and queens of
Europe were subservient to the Bishop
of Rome. This great period of church
dominion is appropriately called the
“Dark Ages” because
religious dominion is a cruel master.
I thank God that I live in the United
States, which has a pluralistic
democracy, and a Constitution that
continues to separate church from
state!
Summary
Sunday
observance came about for three
reasons. First, the majority of early
Christians in Rome were not former
Jews. Consequently, the imposing
culture and religious practices of
Judaism, which included the seventh
day Sabbath, were not considered as
important in Rome as they were in
Jerusalem. Actually, converts from
Mithraism brought Sunday observance
into the Christian church in Rome.
Second, the seventh day Sabbath had
been a distinguishing mark of the
Jews for about 1,500 years.
Anti-Semitism was an enormous motive
in those days for distention and
separation between Christians and
Jews. Last and most important, the
union of church and state produced an
enormous surprise. When Constantine
converted to Christianity to
strengthen his political control of
the empire, he initiated a process
that ultimately subjected the nations
of Europe to the dominion and
doctrines of the Roman Catholic
Church for 1,260 years!
Satan often
works in subtle ways and he was
masterful when he led the minds of
carnal men to profane God’s law.
Now, the vast majority of Christians
worship on Sunday. Through the ages,
experts have hammered on the Bible to
make it say that the fourth
commandment was nailed to the cross,
but their creative claims are hollow.
These claims are as silly as the
priests of Baal who danced around the
alter on Mt. Carmel. Protestant
denominations that continue to exalt
the sacredness of Sunday show,
perhaps naively, submission to the
doctrines and authority of the Church
in Rome. There is biblical basis for
Sunday sacredness. There is no
biblical basis for saying the
Lord’s Day is Sunday. All that
supports the observance and
sacredness of Sunday as the
Lord’s Day is a heap of
tradition and the arrogance of man.
God’s law does not change and
the Ten Commandments stand without
impeachment. The fourth commandment
still points to the seventh day of
the week as God’s holy day. What
will God say to you and me on
Judgment Day about our regard and
treatment of His holy day?
I would like
to close this study with three texts.
The first text is from King Solomon.
He wrote, “ Now all has been
heard; here is the conclusion of the
matter: Fear God and keep his
commandments, for this is the whole
duty of man for God will bring every
deed into judgment, including every
hidden thing, whether it is good or
evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13,14)
Jesus said, “ If you obey my
commands, you will remain in my love,
just as I have obeyed my
Father’s command and remain in
his love.” (John 15:10) Since
these Scriptures are true, why not
surrender your life to Jesus and
resolve to keep His Sabbath of rest
at any cost. Think of it this way,
God offers you and me a one-day
vacation from the cares of the world
each week. He promises to sustain
everything that we are doing until we
return after our rest, so that
nothing will be lost. Put your faith
in God to the test and make up your
mind to obey Him. When you carefully
and prayerfully consider His offer,
what is keeping you from accepting
such a fine offer? Jesus says,
“Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give
you rest [Sabbath].” (Matthew
11:28, insertion mine.)
Quiz:
1.
After reading this lesson, which is
the true Sabbath Day according to the
Ten Commandments?
2.
Does Sunday have any importance
according to the Scriptures?
3.
In the New Testament does the Apostle
Paul give any evidence that Sunday is
the correct day of worship?
4.
Some people have said that the fourth
commandment was nailed to the cross,
if this is true what do you do with
the other nine commandments?
5.
Which is the Greatest Law?
Why?
6.
The seventh day of the week falls on
what day? Has it changed since
the creation?
7.
After reading this lesson, what part
did Eusebius play in molding the mind
of Constantine the current Caesar in
Rome?
Notes:
Many today are
unwittingly trampling upon
God's law in the matter of
Sabbath observance. There is
a wonderful
promise in Isaiah 58:13,14 to
those who will
"turn away" the
foot from the Sabbath and
honor God by keeping it holy.
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