Posted on 05/04/2015 6:23:01 AM PDT by Gamecock
Why do Christian churches meet and worship on Sunday? After all, doesn’t the fourth commandment clearly say “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God?” So is Sunday worship just a Christian tradition? Did we not want to get mistaken for Jews? Or perhaps there was a church council that met to decide the day should be moved?
Well no, none of those is the reason that Sunday became the day upon which Christians worship. Sunday worship was not fixed by a church council and as William Perkins points out, “The church, has no power to ordain a Sabbath.” The only authority who can tell us when to worship is the true head of the church, Jesus Christ, and He has done that in His word.
So together let’s take a look at the example of worship in the Apostolic church that we read about in Acts 20:
“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. And they brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted” (NKJV Acts 20:6-12).
Here Paul sails with Luke, the author of Acts, to Troas, a church which he had planted, and stays for 7 days. Now Paul was there on Saturday, but that is not when Luke tells us the church worshiped. Saturday was not their customary day for worship. When was the day when the disciples came together to worship? We read the answer in verse 7, it was first day of the week, and the first day of the week is NOT Monday, the first day of the week is Sunday. That is when they had their corporate worship including the Lord’s Supper (hence the reference to the breaking of bread) and preaching, and a very long sermon. But why had they made that change?
They had made the change because it was on the first day of the week that Jesus Christ forever set that day apart from all the others by rising from the dead. From that point onwards Sunday became a memorial to the turning point in the history of redemption. The Sabbath day from the beginning was the Seventh Day, and hearkened back to the Creation. The original Sabbath pointed to God’s creating work, but the Christian Sabbath points us to God’s redeeming work. It marks the great transition in the bible from redemption promised to redemption accomplished.
As RC Sproul put it: “In Christian history the sacred time of the Sabbath has three distinct orientations. The first is the commemoration of God’s work of creation. The second is the celebration of God’s work of redemption. The third is the celebration of the future promise of the consummation of redemption when we enter our Sabbath rest in heaven. Thus the whole scope of redemptive history, from start to finish, is made sacred in the observance of the Sabbath.”
Jesus also marked that day by appearing to his disciples after his resurrection on successive Sundays in John 20:19 and John 20:26 and it was why they called that day the Lord’s Day as John did in Revelation 1:10 – “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet”
All the references in early Christian writings also make reference to Christian worship being held on the Lord’s Day, for instance the Didache – which dates back to either the late 1st or early 2nd century states, “Chapter 14. Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day. But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.”
Ignatius, the celebrated martyred bishop of Antioch, says, in his epistle to the Magnesians, written somewhere between 107-116 AD, that this is “the Lord’s day, the day consecrated to the resurrection the queen and chief of all the days.”
Justin Martyr, who died about A. D. 160 says that the Christians “neither celebrated the Jewish festivals, nor observed their Sabbaths, nor practiced circumcision.” And in another place, wrote that “they, both those who lived in the city and those who lived in the country, were all accustomed to meet on the day which is denominated Sunday, for the reading of the Scriptures, prayer, exhortation and communion. The assembly met on Sunday, because this is the first day on which God, having changed the darkness and the elements, created the world; and because Jesus our Lord on this day rose from the dead.”
The reason why Christians worship on Saturday is because they believe that Moses celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday. Of course, there is no proof of that because the specific day isn’t mentioned in Scripture.
Thank you! On this 30th Day of the Omer.
**I’m a Pro football fan and have discussed this issue with the Almighty for decades. Still can’t get him to change it up.***
Perhaps you need to pray for your heart to be changed. ;-)
It shouldn’t really matter as long as the better part of that day is given over to God.
And allah be damned.
Start my week of right...
off
Thanks! Thirty days, which is four weeks and two days of the Omer.
Uh, your link proves nothing. The “L-rd’s day” does not say “Sunday.” Circular reasoning.
Please read Justin Martyr on the Early Church.
Mark 2:25 27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Mark 2:25 27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
I’ve read Justin Martyr many times.
I also know that he was a dedicated anti-Semite, which would explain a lot of the early church’s attitude of hate toward all things Jewish, including the Sabbath.
Regardless, why quote someone who lived in the 2nd Century? What is wrong with the 1st Century account? Have you not read the book of Acts? Have you not read Paul’s own declaration in Acts 28, where he says that he had never abandoned the Law and traditions of the Jews?
Dr. Bacchiocchi: “From Sabbath to Sunday is a translation and an adaptation of my Italian doctoral dissertation, originally presented at and published by the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1977. The investigation establishes that the change from Saturday to Sunday began approximately one century after the death of Christ, as a result of an interplay of political, social, pagan and Christian factors. The change in the day of rest and worship was not merely a change of names or of numbers, but rather a change of meaning, authority and experience....”
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No, the legalisms of the Old Testament were not fulfilled, let me explain before you jump all over me.
Because of Adams Sin and because the law is that no imperfect being can be in the presence of God and because Adam died and we are his descendants we too must die.
God instituted a law of sacrifice to pay for our sins. It is our sin that makes us imperfect, it is Adams Transgression that makes us mortal.
the law of sacrifice has always been that God would send a perfect Son to earth and He would take our punishment for our sins. Because He did not deserve any punishment, He was perfect He could take our punishment for us.
the law of sacrifice of animals was not to forgive sin, not at all it was simply to remind us of the Gift that God would be giving to man. To say the law is fulfilled only means that the law of sacrifice has been completed, or that the sacrifice has been made. The law for instance that God gave Moses on Sinai is still in place and we are bound by it.
If we accept Christ and then break the law we are not blameless. we can beg Christ to forgive and keep us His but it means truly repenting to be able to have that “Grace” that allows Him to apply His punishment to our debt. If we break the law over and over then we have not really repented and that Grace will not apply to us because we are liars. Lying is against Gods law. Breaking that law has consequences, lying to God has horrible consequences.
We no longer have to count how many steps we take on The Sabbath but there still is law we must obey.
Yes. Total atonement on the Cross— a free gift if only you accept as true Jesus as the Son of God.
one century?
No way.
In Acts — it happens soon after Christ’s Ascension.
I will not jump all over you because I agree with you. I think you may need to direct your comments to the person to whom I was replying. The law doesn’t help us; it just leaves us helpless. It doesn’t justify us; it just leaves us guilty before the judgment bar of a holy God. By its operation, it leaves us with no other option than to run to Christ on the cross – the cure for our otherwise fatal disease of sin. Grace to the humble; the Law to the proud.
Really? Why does Luke use the otherwise superfluous “a Sabbath’s days journey” in both Luke and Acts?
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