Bob Prichard

Topic(s): Church, World Religions, Worship

God gave the Sabbath day to Israel to remind them of their Egyptian bondage. He made this covenant at Mount Sinai with Israel alone. Moses said, “The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day” (Deuteronomy 5:3). The fourth commandment told the Jews, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Many other rules and regulations accompanied the keeping of the Sabbath day, including animal sacrifices, which everyone recognizes are no longer required today. God did not intend for man to continue to keep the Sabbath and the other ceremonial laws given to Israel. He gave these laws to prepare for the better New Testament covenant. “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). Paul tells us, further, that in His sacrifice for us, Christ was “blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Colossians 2:14).

“Sabbath” refers to the seventh day of the week. Rather than meeting on the seventh day of the week, however, it is clear from the examples that we find in the New Testament, that the early Christians met on the first day of the week, known as the Lord’s day or Sunday. It is not correct to call Sunday “the Christian Sabbath,” which would be equivalent to calling it the “first day-seventh day.”
Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week (Luke 24:1-8). The Lord then established His church on Pentecost, a Sunday. Since that time (not hundreds of years later, as some claim), Christians have met on the first day of the week to worship God. Every example we have in the New Testament is of Christians meeting on the first day of the week to worship God. The first day of the week observance of the Lord’s Supper was so important that the apostle Paul “tarried seven days” in Troas so that he might be able to partake of the Lord’s Supper with the Christians there (Acts 20:7). There is no indication in the text that Paul or the Christians at Troas observed the Sabbath while they were waiting for the first day of the week to come.

Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, saying, “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Giving to God’s work was one of their regular “first day of the week” activities. The early Christians “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). The apostles’ doctrine included meeting on the first day of the week to break bread (partake of the Lord’s Supper). Jesus kept the Sabbath day, the Passover, and all the rest of the laws under the old covenant, because He was a Jew, and lived under Jewish law. We now live under His new covenant, which did not come into effect until after His death. The New Testament does not command, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”