The Bible is consistent in its teaching about the Sabbath. It identified the Sabbath as “the seventh-day”. Many Christians believe that it is difficult to identify the seventh-day of the week; by implication any day could be the seventh day.
In spite of all the Biblical references on the Sabbath, the confusion still abound as some Christians either by error or ignorance have refused to accept the truth. However, some Christians are conversant with the truth yet they would not make a change. Others only rationalize the word of God. These are the justifications on the observance of another day.
• The Ten Commandments state: “Keep holy the Sabbath day.” In this case, Sunday is understood to be the Sabbath.
• All days are equal. Nothing more, nothing less.
• The Lord’s Day mentioned in Scripture is Sunday.
• The calendar was changed. No one knows which day is the Sabbath.
• Sunday is celebrated in remembrance of Christ’s resurrection.
• The law as well as the commandment to keep the Sabbath had been abolished.
• The early Church celebrated Sunday.
• Sunday is part of the Church’s tradition.
Do well to consider these questions.
• Is Sunday really the Sabbath day?
• Could it be the Lord’s Day as mentioned in Revelation 1:10?
• Are these justifications on Sunday enough to advocate for its observance as a holy day?
• Do you worship on Sunday because your Parents do? If yes, between your parents and the Bible, who should be your infallible authority?
• God created the Sabbath on the Seventh-day; He rested, blest and sanctified it. (Gen 2:1-3).
• The Sabbath is on the morrow of the sixth day. (Exodus 16:5, 23)
• The Seventh-day is the Sabbath of the Lord. (Exodus 20:10)
• The Seventh-day is the Sabbath of the Lord. (Duet 5:14)
The above Bible texts affirm that the Sabbath is the Seventh-day. Take a step further in order to identify the seventh-day. Read through these texts (John 20:1; Luke 23: 54-24:1; Mark 16:2; Matt 28:1). The following deductions can be made:
• Mary Magdalene and the other Mary could not anoint the body of Christ because the Sabbath was about to begin; this incident took place on the day of preparation, the same day that Christ was crucified (Friday). Luke 23:54.
Note: The text categorically specified that the Sabbath was about to begin; this means that the Sabbath must be the day after the crucifixion, i.e. the day after Friday.
• Again, it was mentioned that the Sabbath is the day before the resurrection. Matt 28:1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
• Generally, Christians believe that Jesus was crucified on a Friday (Good Friday) and resurrected on a Sunday (Easter Sunday). With all these references, Could there still be any more discrepancy in affirming that the seventh-day is the Sabbath and not Sunday?
The Bible may not have mentioned Sunday specifically; rather it refers to it as *“the first day of the week”. Only the New Living Translation Bible used “Sunday morning,” instead of “the first day of the week”.
The references appeared eight times in the NT. They are: Matt 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7-12; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2.
An inter-textual study on these verses would suffice. The essence is to ascertain whether they provide evidence for an apostolic practice of meeting for worship on Sunday. Most of the references are found in the gospels.
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the Tomb on the first day of the week.
The first reference to the first day of the week is found in Matt 28:1:
“Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week. . .”
Matthew is simply dating the moment when the two women came to the tomb of Jesus. When the Greek improper preposition is used with the genitive, as in this particular case, it usually means “after” (the Sabbath) . The women waited until the Sabbath ended and then early on Sunday morning went to the tomb.
There is no indication in the text that when Matthew wrote the gospel that Sunday had become a special religious day for Christians .
The Women at the Tomb on the first day of the week
According to Mark, the women waited until the Sabbath was over to buy spices and then “very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb” (16:2).
The sequence is clear: they rested on the Sabbath, after the Sabbath, went and bought the spices and then early on Sunday morning went to the tomb.
Verse 9 Jesus appeared to Mary on the first day of the week. A reference is made to Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene “early on the first day of the week” (16:9). He also appeared to two disciples who “were walking along on their way to the country” (16:12; cf. Luke 24:13-35) and He appeared to the eleven disciples themselves as they were reclining at the table” (v. 14).
Note: none of these apparitions of the resurrected Lord explicitly indicated that there was a religious activity directly associated with that day.
The women went to anoint Jesus’ body on the first day of the week. Luke uses the expression “first day of the week, at early dawn” to date the moment when the women went to the tomb of Jesus to anoint his body (24:1). “According to Luke, the reason why they waited until the first day was because they rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment” (23:56).
If Luke was advocating for the religious observance of a particular day, that would be Sabbath and not Sunday. Interestingly, when the two men appeared to the women they referred to the resurrection of Jesus as taking place on “the third day” (24:7).
Jesus appeared to two of His disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) In the incident, the first day is not mentioned but the context indicates that it was Sunday because Luke introduces the narrative stating that it took place “on the same day”, the day when Jesus resurrected (24:13). Besides, the disciples said to Jesus, “It is the third day since these things happened” (24:21).
They avoided any explicit reference to the “first day of the week” calling it the “third day”. As an act of hospitality, they invited the stranger over to pass the night with them and to entertain him.
During the meal Jesus took the bread, blessed it and gave it to them (24:30). At that moment their eyes were opened and they recognized in the stranger their Lord; then he “vanished from their sight” (24:31).
This is hardly a celebration of the Eucharist and neither does it provide the “basis for making a connection with an invocation for the risen Lord to be present in the Eucharistic celebration”.
In Luke, meals are often “the site for revelatory discourse and the prospect of genuine fellowship characteristic of the kingdom of God”.
Also in keeping with other meal scenes in the Gospel of Luke, once he is at the table, Jesus’ role shifts. He is no longer the honored guest but the host of the meal and it is in this role that he distributes the bread.”
The incident serves to reaffirm the fact that the Jesus who died is the same who is now alive. That message was conveyed by the two disciples to the eleven who were in Jerusalem.
The time for Jesus’ apparition to the eleven disciples narrated in Luke 24:36-49 is not given. Jesus asked for food not as a religious act, for instance to celebrate the Eucharist, but to demonstrate that he was alive, that he had resurrected from the dead (24:41-42).
There was no evidence here of a religious act celebrated during a sacred day. Luke “has used the well-attested tradition of Jesus’ eating with his disciples after the resurrection (Jn. 21:13; Acts 1:4; 10:41) to stress the reality of his presence with them, and he has not developed allusions to the feeding of the multitude or the Last Supper.”
Mary Magdalene Visits the tomb on the first day of the week. John records a visit of Mary Magdalene to the tomb of Jesus “on the first day of the week” (20:1).
Verse 19 Jesus appeared to His disciples on the first day of the week. Later on, in “the evening of that day, the first day of the week” (20:19), Jesus appeared to His disciples who had gathered together in a room.
What was the gathering for? “They gathered for fear of the Jews.” This was neither a religious meeting nor a service taking place on that Sunday evening rather it was a security measure put in place by the disciples.
Note: they locked themselves up in the upper room. Thomas was not present at this occasion and when informed by the others about the resurrection of Jesus he was doubtful. “After eight days” Jesus appeared to the disciples again and Thomas was with them (20:26).
This would have probably been the following Sunday night. All other manifestations of Jesus to the disciples had taken place during the same day he was resurrected but this one is dated to a week later on the first day of the week.
If John was assigning a particular significance to that fact, he did not express it, giving the impression that he was simply dating the event.
However, some Christians have concluded that “Jesus appeared to the disciples only on the first day of the week; by implication, Sunday must be unique”.
John tells about another manifestation of Jesus to the disciples without informing us concerning the day of the week in which it took place (John 21:1-14).
The chief purpose of this particular apparition was “to reinstate Peter as a legitimate member of the apostolic band after his tragic betrayal of the Master”.
The day had no particular significance in itself. Most of the references to the “first day of the week” in the gospels designate the specific day in which Jesus was resurrected and appeared to the disciples.
The fact that not all of Jesus’ manifestations to the disciples occurred on the first day of the week should alert us against claiming that the day was holy because of his post-resurrection appearances on that day.
Jesus was with the disciples forty days after his resurrection but there is no hint in the New Testament to suggest that during that time he met with them during the “first day of the week” for worship.
There is no such evidence found in the gospels to support the idea that the early apostolic church associated the “first day of the week” with religious services or activities, or that the day was beginning to replace the seventh-day Sabbath as a day of worship.
In addition, if there was any significance attached to the first day of the week, Jesus would have made mentioned of it. And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24, 5)
Jesus instituted the ordinance of the “Lord’s supper” before His ascension because of its significance to Christendom. There is no argument that Jesus had made all the necessary provisions for man’s salvation. If observance of Sunday was one, He would have sanctioned its observance too.
The first day of the week is mentioned in Acts 20:7 in the context of Paul’s short stay in Troas on his way to Jerusalem. This was unquestionably a religious gathering for the purpose of breaking bread.
A significant number of scholars find here clear evidence of the early Christian practice of having religious services on the first day of the week. But a look at the text indicates that the issues are much more complex and that consequently we should be more careful before drawing conclusions.
First and foremost, was this a regular church meeting? The evidence shows that it was not. The church came together to listen to Paul who was leaving the following day.
To conclude that this incident describes a habitual practice of the church is to read into it later ecclesiastical practices which were not in existence during the apostolic church era.
Second, at what time of the day was the meeting held? The passage suggests that it did not take place on Sunday morning or even Sunday afternoon. It was an evening meeting.
Study the justifications below:
• “The reference to the use of lights and to the prolongation of the service past midnight, even till daybreak.”
• “The deep sleep of Eutychus, makes it obvious that this was a night gathering”.
The fact that the breaking of the bread took place after midnight also suggests that this was an evening meeting; otherwise they could have broken the bread during the day.
Third, to which day of the week is the phrase “first day of the week referring to”?
This may sound like a strange question, but it is necessary to raise it because the meeting took place during the evening.
The answer will depend on the system/calendar that Luke used in his reckoning. The Jewish system reckons that a day begins and ends at sunset? In that case, the service took place on Saturday night. If he follows the Roman calendar that reckoned that a day begins from midnight to midnight? In that case the meeting took place on Sunday night but the breaking of the bread would have occurred after midnight, on early Monday morning.
The text is not clear and therefore wisdom should be applied as not to use it to support a particular theory of Sunday observance in the early church.
Luke 23:56-24:1 suggests that Luke used the Jewish system rather than the Roman. The women rested on the Sabbath from sunset to sunset and after the Sabbath bought the spices.
But, whatever is the case, the fact remains that the text does not consider Sunday to be a holy day during which the church met for religious activities.
It may have been a celebration of the Lord’s Supper but that is not totally clear since it took place after midnight and there is no mention of prayers or wine.
Some Christians teach that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the “first day of the week” makes it a day of worship.
Acts 2:44-46 has this to say: “every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” The breaking of bread mentioned in this text may be the same as “Lord’s Supper”.
The early disciples broke bread on daily basis. The emphasis was on the ordinance itself and not on the day. In view of this supposition, celebration of the Lord’s Supper is not a criterion to making a day “holy”.
Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done.
However, the gathering was exceptional-a farewell gathering for the great missionary (Paul) and his traveling companions not a regular worship.
This is probably the earliest reference to the first day of the week in Christian writings and is mentioned in the context of Paul’s collection for the saints in Jerusalem.
Paul urged the Corinthians to have the offering ready before his arrival: “On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come”. (1 Cor 16:2).
The obvious question is, why did he select Sunday as the day when the money was to be set apart?
Some find here “the first piece of evidence to show that Christians observed that day, though there is no reason to doubt that it was their custom from the first.”
But the answer to the question is not that simple.
First, there is absolutely nothing in the text or its context to suggest that Paul considered the first day of the week a special holy day for Christians to assemble for worship.
Closer to the truth are those who argue that “it is doubtful whether there is any liturgical significance in this mention of the first day of every week, except that the week was plainly introduced to the Gentile churches from the earliest days”.
It is a special pleading to suggest that one should not exclude from the text the possibility of a regular assembly on that day.
Second, setting the money apart was to be done at home and not in a public meeting. In fact nothing is said about taking the money to the Christian assembly on that very same day. It is true that the collection is a religious act of worship (Rom 15:27), but Paul is not saying that this is connected in any way with the religious nature of the first day.
One should not presuppose that religious acts were limited to one day a week in the church.
Third, the reason for separating the money at home was that Paul did not want a “last-minute, superficial scraping around for funds as an unplanned off-the-cuff gesture.”
We still have to deal directly with the question of the specific reference to the first day of the week.
The truth is that no specific reason is given by Paul for the selection of that particular day. Whatever reason we may give will be imported into the text from some other sources or from our own preconceived ideas.
The text itself, as suggested, does not indicate that its selection was based on the sacredness of that day. Hence the suggestion made by some that the reason may have been of a pragmatic nature-that it may have been a pay day in imperial Rome.
It could also be that by “first day of the week” Paul simply meant every week; in other words, he was “encouraging others among his churches to set aside funds weekly in an orderly fashion so that when he arrived there would be a full allotment for the saints”.
The Sabbath day is the seventh-day. It has not been changed.
