By Filed Under Close Your Church for Good, Luke Written on September 10, 2011
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A Brief History of the Sabbath-to-Sunday Transition


Sabbath to Sunday
On Friday, I asked the question about why Christians meet on Sunday rather than on Saturday. The issue is that while many Christians think Sunday is the Sabbath, a day to refrain from working, Saturday is actually the Sabbath. Since Jesus and His disciples observed the Sabbath by ceasing to work and attending a local synagogue, shouldn’t we do the same thing?

I say “No.” But I don’t think we must worship on Sunday either.

Below is a brief history of the Sabbath-to-Sunday transition, and we will look next at the question about which day of the week Christians should worship God, and whether or not Christians should observe the Sabbath. If you have been reading this blog for more than a week or two, you probably already know how I will answer these questions…

The History of Sunday Church Services

First, it is true that in the Old Testament, the Sabbath was observed on Saturday, the seventh and last day of the week. It was to be a day of resting, reflecting and rejoicing. The basis for this was in God taking a day of rest after six days of creating the world.

One of the things this book fails to recognize is that the Sabbath is actually a sign of the Mosaic covenant. Any time God makes a covenant, He provides a sign, or a symbol to go along with it so that we can remember what He has promised.

God gave the rainbow to Noah. H gave circumcision to Abraham. The Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic covenant between God and Israel (Exod 31:12-17; Ezek 20:12).

But since we do not live under the Mosaic Covenant, but under the New Covenant, we do not have to keep the Sabbath in the same way the Jewish people did. This is one of the main reasons early believers stopped meeting on Saturday.

But why did they start meeting on Sunday? Though they were living under the New Covenant, they could have continued to meet on Saturday, or for that matter, any day of the week! Why did they choose Sunday?

For one reason only: Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, the first day of the week. Since it was on Sunday that Jesus rose, it became known as “the Lord’s Day.” It also became a day set aside for the Lord, a day to “tithe” part of your week, a day to remember the most significant event in the history of the universe – the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

So Christians did not decide to meet on Sunday because God did not change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. No. The Sabbath has always been Saturday, and still is.  Christians just started meeting on Sunday to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus on that day.

The Scriptures for Sunday Church Services

There are numerous passages in the Bible which show this development in the early church. Here are a few:

In the book of Acts, the early Christians met on the Lord’s Day, on the first day of the week to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection and eventual return (Acts 20:7).

In 1 Corinthians 16, Paul instructed the Christians to take an offering on the first day of the week when they met.

In Revelation 1:10, the apostle John, while in exile on the island of Patmos, held his own little church service on the Lord’s Day, and it was on that day which he received his Revelation about the end times.

Furthermore, in church history, we read that by 115 A.D., Christians had ceased to keep the Sabbath, and lived by the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week. They gathered to sing, study the Word of God, pray, and fellowship together.

If you want to read more about this, I recommend Sabbath in Crisis by Dale Ratzlaff.

This post is based off the Grace Commentary for Luke 6:6-11.

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  • Johnny Cox

    Meeting on the Lord’s Day is proper because I use the rule of Apostolic Precedent. Basically, if they (the N.T. church) does something and didn’t get in trouble for it (because the Apostles were still around), we should do it too.

    So we should meet on the Lord’s day.

    But the problem lies in the way the Sabbath has been combined by the church over the centuries. I say the the Lord’s Day is work day! God began to create on a Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. It is the beginning of be productive, not an excuse to watch football.

    So two points, there is some requirement if you follow apostolic precedent, second feel free to work second shift or do like the Christians in Egypt do and go to church at 5:00 am so they can work a full day on Sunday!

    • http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

      Johnny,
      Interesting idea about apostolic precedent. But apostolic precedent can only take us so far as there are numerous things we can do as part of the church today which was impossible to do as part of the church in the NT era. Like make comments on blog, for example.

      I think maybe the principle can work in reverse also. Just because the apostles did something in their time and culture does not mean that we should do it also, since we live in a different time and culture.

    • http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

      Alan,
      Absolutely true. I was only trying to explain why many “Institutional churches” do not meet on Saturday as their “primary” day.

    • http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

      Mark,
      I don’t think it would be our Saturday evening, but would be our Sunday morning. Before Sunrise on Sunday.

      Jews didn’t have a different first day of the week than the Romans. the Sabbath, or Saturday, was still the seventh day.

      So by Jewish calculation, I suppose it was still the seventh day, but by Roman calculation, it was early in the morning on the first day.

  • http://www.magyarbattila.hu Sandor Balog

    I understand that God, in His Ten Commandments, commanded the Hebrews to work six days and then not to work on the seventh day, in remembrance of God’s creative work. The Hebrews obviously started to count their six plus one day week from the day they were given this divine injunction. By continuity, Christians took over that kind of counting the days of the week but, with the time, wanted to separate themselves somehow from that custom of the Jews. They created their own tradition in this regard and put the day of Jesus’ resurrection as a basis. The Lord’s day in Rev 1:10 seems to relate to Judgment Day rather than to a certain day of the week. There are other references made to the first day of the week, where the word ”first” can also be rendered as ”one”, thus meaning ”on one [day] of the week”. However, in the case of Acts 20:6, 7 it seems that, in Troas, Paul and the disciples came together on the first day of the week, since most scholars agree that Paul was in Troas between 49 and 55 CE. If we add to the last day (Nisan 21) of the 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread 5 plus 7 days, we come to two different years (52 and 55 CE), of which the year 52 CE seems to be more appropriate, and we get the first day of the week (today we call that Sunday) being the 13th day after Paul left Philippi. Mentioning the Feast of Unleavened Bread seems only to be a time marker, as Jesus didn’t instruct His disciples to continue keeping the Jewish feasts. Breaking the bread on the first day of the week doesn’t relate to keeping any special feast but a common meal. The Jewish religion has nothing to do with Jesus, since they don’t accept Him as the Son of God and the Messiah. In fact, they regard Him as a liar and impostor. Thus, we, Christians, shouldn’t deal too much with their belief. Many Christians tie keeping Sunday to the day of Jesus’ resurrection. As Jesus was resurrected on a Friday (March 28 /Nisan 18/, 31 CE /3791 as per the Hebrew calendar/), this belief seems to be groundless. The truth rules out any debate on Jesus’ resurrection on Saturday or Sunday.:-)

    • http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

      Sandor,
      I need to touch up on my one/first translations to know how to respond. Interesting food for thought, though!

  • http://www.magyarbattila.hu Sandor Balog

    It may not seem too fair but, reading the posts sent in response to Jeremy’s blog, I still would recommend my article entitled “How Could Jesus Spend Three Days and Three Nights in the Tomb?” available at http://www.faithreaders.com/article-details.php?article=16869 that reveals the exact dates of the major events of Jesus’ earthly life. The article is rather long but addresses as many aspects of the subject as possible. Depsite this obvious endeavor, a theological review where I submitted this article of mine rejected to publish it because “it doesn’t provide a scholarly treatment of the subject”. Please check it out for yourself. BTW if my article revealing and proving facts that have not been known till the very date is not scholarly enough, how scholarly are those articles on this topic, WHICH HAVE NEVER EVER BEEN WRITTEN?!:-)

  • http://jonjourney.blogspot.com Jon

    I’ll add some from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_in_Christianity

    It seems those in Rome or close to Rome celebrated more on Sundays, where in other parts of the world Christians continued to celebrate on the Sabbath.

    “In the 4th century, Socrates Scholasticus Church History book 5 states:[6]

    For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this. The Egyptians in the neighborhood of Alexandria, and the inhabitants of Thebaïs, hold their religious assemblies on the sabbath, but do not participate of the mysteries in the manner usual among Christians in general: for after having eaten and satisfied themselves with food of all kinds, in the evening making their offerings they partake of the mysteries.
    ”

    In the 5th century, Sozomen Church History book 7, referencing Socrates Scholasticus, states:[7]

    Assemblies are not held in all churches on the same time or manner. The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria. There are several cities and villages in Egypt where, contrary to the usage established elsewhere, the people meet together on Sabbath evenings, and, although they have dined previously, partake of the mysteries.

    Constantine’s infatuation with the Sun may have something to do with why Sunday won out.

    However I suspect we are on the same page that we can and should worship every day.

    • http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

      Jon,
      Thanks for the extra information. I love wikipedia! I really wish we could write a Bible Commentary like wikipedia. But it would get full of crazy ideas and would probably be too long to be of any use to anyone.

      But I have always dreamed of a “crowdsourced” Bible commentary.

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