The Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday?
No commentsIt is very interesting to me how many people do not realize the Sabbath was instituted at Creation by our Lord Jesus as the Seventh day of the week. It is also very interesting the arguments used against the Sabbath. Here are a few of them:
“The Sabbath was done away with at the cross, we are now under grace and do not need to keep the sabbath.”
“I keep the Lord’s day”
“The Sabbath was for the Jews”
“I keep Sunday in honor of Christ’s resurrection”
Some very interesting arguments… in this article we will study the Bible and find out what it truly says about the Sabbath and whether or not the Sabbath(Saturday) is still a binding law or if it has indeed done away with.
Well what better place to start then the beginning? Lets turn to Genesis 2:2-3
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3.)
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all His work which God created and made.
God has just finished creating the world, He now sanctifies and makes the Seventh day holy and rests on the seventh day.
We find that this is the only day of the week God pays special attention to, no other day/s are hallowed(made holy).
Exodus 20:11
8.)
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Notice God doesn’t say “and make it holy” – God has already made it holy, God is indeed the only one who can make a day holy, or anything else for that matter. God is telling us to recognize His authority in making the seventh day holy… could it be that by disregarding this, by keeping sunday we are disregarding God’s holy authority, His power and His word?
How does the bible say to keep the sabbath holy?
9-10.)
Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
It is quite clear according to the Bible that the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week.
But wasn’t the day changed somewhere in history? Didn’t Christ nail the law, the sabbath to the cross when He died?
The fact is the sabbath was changed. In 321 A.D. Constantine proclaimed the first national sunday law. Constantine was no dummy, he did this for a reason. He intended to unite Christianity and paganism. At this time there were many pagans worshiping the sun and even so-called Christians who claimed they were honoring the day Christ arose from the dead. So Constantine concluded that if he should succeed in uniting paganism and Christianity into one group he would strengthen his empire.
Despite all this many Christians still kept saturday and sunday. One historian wrote
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.”
Aside from Rome and Alexandria the keeping of the sabbath during the 5th century was still universally prevalent. But in time sunday-keeping became more prominent. And now today the majority of Christians world-wide keep sunday.
This is how sin and compromise find their way into the church… the devil works smoothly and almost imperceptibly. One writer considering the history of the Church writes
Little by little, at first in stealth and silence, and then more openly as it increased in strength and gained control of the minds of men, ‘the mystery of iniquity’ carried forward its deceptive and blasphemous work. Almost imperceptibly the customs of heathenism found their way into the Christian church. The spirit of compromise and conformity was restrained for a time by the fierce persecutions which the church endured under paganism. But as persecution ceased, and Christianity entered the courts and palaces of kings, she laid aside the humble simplicity of Christ and His apostles for the pomp and pride of pagan priests and rulers; and in place of the requirements of God, she substituted human theories and traditions. The nominal conversion of Constantine, in the early part of the fourth century, caused great rejoicing; and the world, cloaked with a form of righteousness, walked into the church. Now the work of corruption rapidly progressed. Paganism, while appearing to be vanquished, became the conqueror. Her spirit controlled the church. Her doctrines, ceremonies, and superstitions were incorporated into the faith and worship of the professed followers of Christ.”
The devil was able to, through the papal system instigate a false day of worship, a substitute to the holy day created and sanctified by God. But he did not at once attempt to rid the world of sabbath keepers, had he done so many would have, I believe, stood up for what the truth. Instead however satan seduced them into keeping both saturday and sunday holy and as time went by he was able to smoothly and almost imperceptibly remove the keeping of the sabbath from almost all of the Christian world. God didn’t change the day. The Lord says in Malachi 3:6:
I am the LORD, I change not
The Lord doesn’t change… he says “I am the same yesterday, today and forever”
If we go back to Daniel 7:25 we see a prophecy of the Papal declaration of Sunday worship.
And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
The sabbath is both a time and a law, in fact it is the only commandment which is both a time and law. Notice the prophecy says “he will think”, it does not say “he will”. Daniel is clear the Papal power had no authority to institute sunday worship and it was not by God’s direction.
But we are no longer under the law, but under grace
Interestingly the only part of the law anyone is worried about doing away with is the 4th commandment. Nobody believes the whole ten commandments were done away with, think about it, most of us still believe that it is still wrong to murder, commit adultery, steal etc etc. However many use this verse to claim that we no longer have to keep the law, or more clearly, the sabbath.
Tell me, exactly why would one commandment out of the ten, written by God’s own hand be done away with? We have already established that God does not change. Also the fact that God wrote the law in stone shows perfection or eternal unchangingness. Tell me, why is it that the one and only commandment which begins with the word “remember” would be done away with?
But you know what the really sad part is? The next verse clearly puts this argument to rest, it does away with the idea that we no longer need to keep the law.
Romans 6:15
What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
And also Romans 6:1-2
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
We are only “not under the law” when we are in Christ, and when we are in Christ we will keep His commandments, ALL His commandments, not the ten commandments with the ten percent discount.
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
Christ says to keep the commandments even as He did… how did Christ keep them, or maybe a better question is how many of them did He keep? ALL! Christ kept the sabbath and if he is commanding us to keep the commandments as He did then that includes the Sabbath.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
Christ showed us by example, in His life how we are to live. Part of that example was to keep the sabbath, now if it was good enough for our Lord Jesus Christ, then how can we do otherwise? “Is the servant greater than his master?”
Also going back to the law being done away with. The bible says in 1 John 3:4
Sin is the transgression of the law
“Being under grace” is not a license to sin, but pardon for our guilt and punishment. But we cannot receive it while in sin, Christ came to “save us from our sins” not in them – it is clear in this context that none of the law is less binding now then it was in Christ’s day.
“I keep Sunday in honor of our Lord’s resurrection”
And I can keep Friday in honor of His death. But if the bible says otherwise than I am sinning for:
Sin is the transgression of the law
It really doesn’t matter how good my intentions are, if God says to keep the sabbath and I am keeping Friday, I am wrong and as long as I knowingly disobey I am living in sin. So with that is there any biblical support of keeping sunday in honor of Christ’s resurrection? Anti-sabbatarians will tell you there are… lets see what the bible says.
Sunday-keepers may tell you “we keep sunday to commemorate Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection” – Is there biblical support to commemorating Christ’s death, burial and resurrection? Yes there is.
Romans 6:4 says:
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Baptism is a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection, there is however no biblical support of sunday-keeping as such a commemoration. If you ask a sunday-keeper to produce a text in the bible which supports this “honoring of Christ’s resurrection” by keeping sunday, they will not be able to give you one, because there is none. There is not one verse which even remotely suggests such an idea… they will however present you with the verse which says:
Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
Okay so this is the famous day, the disciples are gathered on sunday in honor of Christ’s resurrection… that isn’t what the bible says. The bible says a few verses back in John 20:9
For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
The disciples didn’t know he was going to rise from the dead so there is no way they were celebrating his resurrection, as up until the latter end of this verse when Christ appears in the room they do not even know He is going to rise from the dead. So there goes that theory… in fact the disciples where gathered more in hiding than anything else. They were definitely not celebrating anything…
Also in Luke 24:36-37
And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.
All three of the gospels are clear that the disciples were not expecting Christ’s resurrection, so much so that they feared it was a ghost and not really Him. Based on such there is again no way they were gathered in the upper room to celebrate the first sunday service in honor of a resurrection they at this point did not even know would happen.
It amazes me that scholars and preachers will even suggest such an idea, if they read the chapter in context they would see what is going on and there would be no way they could believe such an idea, however if they do know this truth and they are hiding it from their congregation or peers that is a grave error.
It is said Billy Graham acknowledged the truth of the sabbath but sadly added
If I were to teach this truth, I would lose most of my listeners
That is sad, we will sacrifice the truth because we will lose listeners? What good are those listeners if they are only listening because they like what they hear? God’s bible is 100% truth, we don’t pick and choose what we like and remove what we don’t like. We teach the whole bible and if that offends somebody than that is between them and God because it is God’s book. The bible says in Matthew 5:19:
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
It is sad that men feel they can warp the bible, leave passages out or add to the biblical teachings to suit their hearers. God cannot bless a person who does this and He certainly cannot save a man who teaches “his own version” of the bible.
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
The truths I have shown you in this article are not my own, they are straight from the bible, you can lookup the texts yourself and study it out. The truth is not popular, in fact it can hurt, it can be inconvenient and may as in John’s case get you into a life and death situation:
John 8:40
But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
In the next part I will dispute, using the bible, other popular sunday arguments. If this article was a blessing to you please post your comments or send us a message. We strive to provide the undiluted truths of the bible, whether they are popular or not.
Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Sabbath/Sunday, papal church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
