The Lord's Day
- GRACE MACKINNON
Dear Grace, Why did the Christian Church change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? As you well know, the Jewish people still recognize Saturday as their Sabbath.
The
Sabbath, which means â??cessationâ? or â??restâ? in Hebrew, was the seventh day of the
week, which the Hebrews later known as the Jews were commanded
by God to keep holy. All work was forbidden and violations of the Sabbath could
be punishable by death. It was a day that was to be totally dedicated to God and
was a sign of the Covenant that He had made with His people, Israel. "Take care
to keep my Sabbath, for that is to be the token between you and me throughout
the generations, to show that it is I, the Lord, who make you holy" (Exodus 31:
13).
The strict bservance of the Sabbath was very much a part of the
early Christian Church. Jesus, of course, was Himself a Jew as were all
His first followers and, like them, practiced all the Jewish customs.
We learn, however, that during His short public ministry, the Jewish leaders,
who did not recognize Him for who He was, publicly criticized him for violation
of the Sabbath. As the Savior whom they had had long awaited, He was ushering
in a New Covenant, but they did not know it. Thus, when accused of non-observance
of the Saturday Sabbath, He could say to them, â??The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbathâ?
(Mark 2:27-28). In other words, He could change the Sabbath because He was Lord
over it; He was God.
After Jesus died, rose from the dead and ascended
to heaven, His believers, who loved Him so much, wanted to be devotedly faithful
to Him and do as He had commanded. Although He had established a hurch and a
leader to rule and guide in His name (Matthew 16:19), he had not given to them
a ready set of instructions, other than to go out and preach the Good News and
to follow the Holy Spirit who would lead them into all truth. There were no church
buildings, no New Testament, no liturgical rites. These were left for the Church
to develop, with His authority.
At the beginning, because they were still
Jewish or Judaized Gentiles, the followers of â??the Way,â? as the early believers
were called (Acts 18:25, 19:9), continued to go on the seventh day of the week
for the Temple worship and observe the Sabbath. A significant change had taken
place in their lives, however, and this would lead to a period of searching and
wondering how they were to live as Jews and at the same time follow Jesus. They
now saw Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, although still considering
themselves Jewish.
These believers in Jesus were first called Christians
at Antioch (cts 11:26). They would meet in their homes â??on the first day of the
weekâ? (Sunday) for the â??breaking of the breadâ? (Acts 20:7). This is what they
had been commanded to do by the Lord Jesus on the night of His Last Supper (Luke
22:19). With time, their new ways of worship, which were moving them further and
further away from Judaism, came to the attention of the non-Christian Jewish leaders
and the Roman Empire, who saw them as a threat. This lead to the widespread persecution
of the â??Jesus Movement,â? a group they thought to be a temporary cult that would
soon be wiped out. To their great surprise, the complete opposite happened. Against
all odds, this small band of believers grew to eventually become the religion
of the existing entire Western world.
Under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, and with the authority given to them by Christ, the Apostles eventually
replaced the Saturday Sabbath as the day that was to be dedicated to God and changed
it to Sunday, the Lodâ??s Day. There is strong evidence in Scripture and numerous
early Christian writings that Sunday was chosen because it was on that day that
Jesus had risen from the dead. For example, St. Ignatius (Ep. ad Magnes.
9) speaks of Christians as "no longer observing the Sabbath, but living
in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also Our Life rose again." In the
Epistle of Barnabas (15) we read: "Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day (i.e.
the first of the week) with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again
from the dead." Without the Easter Resurrection there would have been no faith,
for it was on that day of the week that Jesus had proven He was God.
This is J. Fraser Field, Founder of CERC. I hope you appreciated this piece. We curate these articles especially for believers like you.
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Acknowledgement
Grace MacKinnon. "The Lord's Day." (September, 2003).
Reprinted with permission of Grace MacKinnon.
The Author
Grace MacKinnon is a syndicated columnist and public speaker on Catholic doctrine. She is the author of Dear Grace: Answers to Questions About the Faith published by Our Sunday Visitor. Order online by e-mail at osvbooksosv.com or call 1-800-348-2440.
Readers are welcome to submit questions about the Catholic faith to: Grace MacKinnon, 1234 Russell Drive #103, Brownsville, Texas 78520. Questions also may be sent by e-mail to: grace@deargrace.com.
You may visit Grace online at www.DearGrace.com.