Has God set aside a Day to Remember Him?...

The Day to Remember

We all have them. Those special days that live in memory - good ones, painful ones; all significant.

It's the same when we look at religious belief, for all religions have their special days. For Christians, Christmas holds special affection, and Easter. Or Sunday - that weekly recurring day on which Christians worship. It's deeply entrenched in the traditions of the Church and indeed without Sunday observance you would rarely be classed as "Christian".

Of course, it hasn't always been so. The first three centuries of Christianity witnessed a running battle between those who wanted to observe Sunday, and those who wished to retain the apostolic practice of the seventh day or Sabbath. The Sunday-keepers won. Every Christian worth his or her salt, however, will want to follow what God reveals in Scripture. So, what does God's Word teach?

Sunday observance has become so much a part of Christianity that it is often called "the Sabbath". An article on Sunday trading from the Lord's Day Observance Society [LDOS] emphasizes this: "God did not create the Sabbath day [the writer applies this to Sunday], and bless it, for it to be sacrificed on the altar of secularism and greed". And further, "The aim of the LDOS is to help people find a fuller sense of God's purpose concerning the one day in seven which He commanded us to remember and keep Holy".

Now this is strange, as LDOS are in fact promoting Sunday! Have a look at your Bible. In Exodus 20 verse 8 this command is applied to "the seventh day". It's a historical remembrance of the specific day on which God rested from creation - the seventh day (v. 11). Moses sums up thus: "...[God] rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy". But Pope John XXIII (Mater et Magistra) based his reason for Sunday observance on this same false premise that Sunday equals Sabbath.

By every scrap of credible research the seventh day is the twenty-four hours ending at sundown on Saturday. And through the intervening centuries time has, despite the vagaries of the calendar, not been lost or gained.

Does it Matter?

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)'s Sabbath Symbolism

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in "A New Song for the Lord", New York: Crossroad Herder, 1996, p. 69-71:
"What is the real and valid content of the [Saturday] Sabbath? ... I would like to try to focus briefly on three main points."

  1. "To start with, it is fundamental that the Sabbath is part of the story of creation. One could actually say that the metaphor of the seven-day week was selected for the creation account because of the Sabbath. By culminating in the sign of the Sabbath, the creation account clearly shows that creation and covenant belong together from the start, that the Creator and Redeemer can only be one and the same God. ... Thus the Sabbath calls first of all for deep respect and gratitude toward the Creator and his creation."

  2. "The Sabbath is the day of God's freedom and the day of human participation in God's freedom. ... [The Jubilee year,] the great Sabbath of the festival year thus reveals what the objective of every Sabbath is: anticipation of the society free of domination, a foretaste of the city to come. On the Sabbath there are no masters and no servants; there is only the freedom of all the children of God and Creation's release from anxiety. ... For this reason the Sabbath is the heart of social legislation. ... The book of Chronicles (2 Chron. 36:21) even teaches us that Israel's exile occurred because she ignored the regulations of the Jubilee Year, the Great Sabbath, and hence disregarded the basic law of creation and of the Creator. Looking back, all other sins seem secondary in the face of this fundamental unfaithfulness, in the face of locking oneself into the self-made world of work which negates God's sovereignty."

  3. "The Sabbath is the anticipation of the messianic hour, not only its thoughts and desires but in concrete action. Only by living according to the form of the messianic age do we open up the doors of the world for the time of the Messiah. We also become practiced in the way of life of the world to come. Irenaeus would say: We are getting used to God's way of life just as he got used to us during his life as a human.

History records how the Church in the fourth century changed the time for weekly worship from Saturday to Sunday. But does it really matter? Isn't "one day in seven" - (though most Christians say it must be none but Sunday!) - just as pleasing to God?

Well, the evidence of the New Testament is that the primitive church continued to worship on the Biblical ("Jewish") Sabbath. It didn't cross their minds to change to Sunday! After all, they knew what Daniel had been inspired to write about the rebellious "little horn": "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" (ch 7:24-25).

Even the Gentile churches (e.g. Acts 18:4) observed the seventh-day Sabbath. Towards the end of his ministry the great "Apostle to the Gentiles" Paul - claimed: "Neither against the law of the Jews ... have I offended at all" (Acts 25:8 see also ch. 28:17). The seventh-day Sabbath was central to that Law! So since the end of the Book of Acts someone changed it.

The argument that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday is a fiction. The argument that "one day in seven" is just as pleasing to God is also a deceptive fiction. For there's not a shred of evidence in the New Testament that any other day including Sunday - was an acceptable replacement for the Sabbath!

This is entirely logical, for God has always defined how He ought to be worshipped. Indeed both the House of Israel and the House of Judah were removed from their national territory because they substituted other days for worship in place of those revealed to them. It does make a difference!

The seventh-day Sabbath was introduced at the creation of man: "So God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it" (Genesis 2:3). That's the only day for weekly worship that God has ever revealed! In fact, when Israel was formed as a nation God made the seventh day a sign that helped identify His people: "...it is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed" (Exodus 31:17).

The New Testament

Jesus cast aside all the silly restrictions which the Pharisees had added to God's original Law of the Sabbath. "The sabbath", he said, "was made for man" (Mark 2:27) - for both Jew and Gentile. Clearly, he doesn't "do away" with the Sabbath"! Indeed throughout the New Testament, observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is assumed. No text urges or even hints at observing Sunday! The texts which have been used to suggest this are clearly explained, text by text, in our booklet Why Do You Observe Sunday? You are invited to request a free copy.

The early Christians continued, with new understanding, to worship on the seventh-day Sabbath, and indeed on the various Holy Days revealed in Leviticus 23. No way would they dare "to change times and laws" (Daniel 7:25)! But along the way the organized church grew powerful enough to do just that.

They had the audacity to flaunt their usurped carnal authority in the face of God, Moses, Jesus Christ, the Apostles and indeed all of God's people through the millennia!

The Roman Catholic position is summed up by St Thomas Aquinas: "[Sunday replaced Sabbath] by the institution of the Church and the custom of the Christian people". And Catholic author J. G. Shea stated: "Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath".

In today's world, the observance of God's Sabbath may draw - even from Christians! - ridicule, spite, persecution, loss of job and even death as anciently, for example, under Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century. But Jesus never said His way would be easy, but "promised" such rejection.

If you have truly been drawn to repentance then certainly this is one Bible teaching that you must examine. What's important is not what you have done all your life, or what your pastor or denomination teaches, or what you would like to do. It's God's revealed Word - the Scriptures - that alone must govern our belief.

In Paul's words, "Examine yourself whether you are in the faith"!

To comment on this article or request more information, please contact James McBride by e-mail at the comment form below.

For PDF or mailed copy, see CGOM. Excerpt from New Horizons Volume 2 No. 2, March/April 1998. Edited by James McBride of the Churches of God, United Kingdom.

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