In the Old Testament (OT), God set aside the Sabbath day as the day His people should worship. God rested on the 7th day and commanded men to do likewise. The Jews observed the Sabbath from Friday 6 pm to Saturday 6 pm. Nothing in the NT explicitly teaches that any change was to occur. Why then do most Christians worship on Sundays? Is this right or wrong? Does it really make a difference which day we choose? Considering that the Sabbath is part of the 10 Commandments, should we not observe it?
Seventh Day Adventists are among the most vociferous of Sabbath keepers. Some even believe that Sunday worship will be part of the future mark of the beast. This, however, is not even worthy of comment. This article addresses the relevant scriptures addressing the question of worshiping on Sunday vs. Saturday.
This article investigates the claims of the Seventh Day Adventist Church regarding the Sabbath Day. My main purpose is to provide answers to Christians who may have heard their teachings or read their literature, and are now questioning whether they are in disobedience to God.
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The 10 Commandments
Seventh Day Adventists believe that the Sabbath was instituted in the Garden of Eden and practiced ever since, but was only made official under the Law. My Adventist friend once told me that God used to walk with Adam in the cool of the day … wait for it … every Sabbath day. Now God did rest on the 7th day, but there is no evidence that anyone observed it as a rest day until Moses.
Exodus 20:8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Deuteronomy 5:12. Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.
Here is how Seventh Day Adventists interpret Exodus 20:8. They zoom in on the word “remember”, and they say that God was trying to refresh the Israelites’ memory of when the Sabbath was first initiated and practiced. According to them, God is saying to them:
“Remember how I implemented the Sabbath day in the Garden of Eden. Remember it, don’t forget. Now make sure you keep it holy, OK … or I’ll kill you (LOL just kidding. No I’m not).”
Observe that Deut. 5:12 which provides a parallel account of the 10 commandments, does not use the word “remember”, which kinda blows the Seventh Day Adventist interpretation out of the water. God was not reminding them of what happened in the Garden of Eden, but rather appealing to them to remember to observe the Sabbath every time Saturday arrived. It is no different from saying “Remember to swipe your time card at work”. This is not a reminder of a time when the first time card was swiped, but rather a reminder that every time you get to work, to swipe the card. It’s no different from saying “Swipe your time card”. Thank God for parallel scriptures.
Moral Law vs Ceremonial Law
Seventh Day Adventists also distinguish between the moral law and the ceremonial law. Although nowhere in the Bible is such a dichotomy made, it is easily recognized that certain laws are moral in nature while others are ceremonial. However they claim that the 10 Commandments represent the moral law, and the rest of the Pentateuch is the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law was temporary and no longer applicable, whereas the moral law is forever binding.
This Seventh Day Adventist interpretation does not explain why Jesus cited Deut. 6:5 (Love God with all your heart) and Lev. 19:18 (love your neighbor as yourself) – ceremonial laws as far as Seventh Day Adventists are concerned – when asked what the greatest commandment was. Why didn’t Jesus quote one of the 10 commandments?
Seventh Day Adventists place too high an emphasis on the 10 commandments. According to them this was God’s law whereas the rest were Moses’ law. 2 Tim. 3:16 makes no distinction between God’s Word spoken or written directly by God, and God’s Word spoken or written via human means. They are equally inspired. The Bible never makes a distinction between the moral and ceremonial laws. The first 5 books of the Bible are collectively called the Law, and the terms Law of God, Law of Moses and their equivalents are used interchangeably in the Bible. According to the NT, the entire Law collectively has “passed away”, since Jesus fulfilled it (Matt. 5:17.18).
This includes the 10 Commandments. 2 Cor. 3:3 makes reference to laws given on tablets of stone – an obvious reference to the 10 Commandments – calling it the administration of death. This verse teaches that NT believers do not live by such commandments but rather by the Spirit of God. In Romans 7, Paul discussed the inadequacy of one of the 10 commandments to help him to live holy.
This does not mean that the 10 Commandments are irrelevant, but they are not the means of godly living. When we live by the Holy Spirit we will fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law which is God’s holiness. The commandments are a good gauge to test if we are truly living in the Spirit. It is important to note that all 10 Commandments are quoted in the NT epistles with the exception of the 4th one pertaining to the Sabbath. Why would the writers of the Bible do such a thing?
Let no one judge you
Let’s look at some other scriptures.
Colossians 2:13-17
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
14 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;
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Colossians 2:13-17 states that we are not to be bound by the observance of any day including the Sabbath day. Because the KJV uses the plural “days”, Adventists claim it was not referring to the weekly Sabbath, but the other Jewish feast days. Of course if that were really the case, Paul missed a really good opportunity to teach us to keep the Sabbath. Even if it were plural, its meaning could not be limited, but must include all Sabbaths. The Sabbath Day was abolished by Christ’s death on the cross – plain and simple.
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Did the early church meet on the Sabbath day
The Lord’s Day
In the very early days of the church, the believers met every day. There was no one day that was more important than any other. After the persecution of Acts 8, that stopped and things changed. So on which day did they meet after that?
There are a number of scriptures which suggest that the early church met on the 1st day of the week.
Revelation 1:10
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day
Historically the Lord’s Day is understood to be Sunday, the first day of the week, the day in which Jesus rose from the dead, and also the day on which the Holy Spirit came. Sunday was a day the Romans used to worship their sun god and later on, Caesar. As a result the Adventists accuse Evangelicals of sun worship when they choose to observe Sunday. However worshiping on a Sunday was a Christian tradition that dated back to the apostles. The Romans called it Caesar’s day, since they honored him on that day. In protest the Christians called it the Lord’s Day – the day in which they worshiped their risen Lord. Who cares what the Romans did? I certainly don’t worship any idols on a Sunday.
The Lord of the Sabbath
Mark 2:28
28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.
Seventh Day Adventists use Mark 2:28 to argue that the Lord’s day is in fact Saturday. They interpret that verse to mean that Jesus owned the Sabbath, therefore the Sabbath was His day or the Lord’s day. “Huh?” you wonder. In the context what Jesus was really saying was that, as Lord, He could do as He pleased on the Sabbath. Also in Rev. 1:10 the possessive genitive is not used in the Greek i.e. the day was not the possession of the Lord, but a day set aside to worship Him. I think most reasonable students of scripture can easily spot the scripture twisting when they see it.
Evidence from scripture
1 Corinthians 16:2
2 On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come. [NOTE the KJV says gatherings instead of collections].
From the inception of the church, the disciples gathered on Sundays. This was apostolic tradition. In 1 Cor. 16:2, Paul urged the believers to bring their offerings which would be collected on the first day of the week – implying that people gathered on Sunday. Seeking to explain away this passage, Adventists use the KJV translation to claim that Paul wanted no gathering of people on Sunday.
Paul, who had appealed to the Corinthians time and time again concerning their relief offering, was just about tired of their procrastination. He planned to come to them and on his visit he would pick up the money they would have already collected. What Paul did not want was a gathering or collection of money to take place when he got there. He wanted that taken care of in advance. The gathering which was to take place on the first day of the week was indeed a gathering of people, not a gathering of money. Simple. This is not a sleight of hand argument I’m using, it’s simple English.
Acts 20:7
7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
In Acts 20:7 we see Paul preaching and the disciples gathering on the first day of the week. Surely the Adventists can’t explain away this verse. This is how they interpret it.
Since the Jewish day ran from sunset to sunset, they claim that Paul started preaching on Saturday afternoon (still the Sabbath), but due to the length of his sermon, continued after 6 pm (the first day of the week) onto midnight. That would seem an adequate explanation if one really believed Paul preached for over 6 hours, and if one were unaware of the Greek and Roman definitions of the day.
The Greek day ran from sunrise to sunrise, whereas the Roman day, just like ours, ran from midnight to midnight. So which system was used in the NT? In Matt. 20:1-16, Jesus gave a parable where an employer hired people to work from the 1st to the 12th hour. This only makes sense if Jesus used the Greek system. “This is just a parable”, they counter. Well look at Luke 23, depicting events during Jesus crucifixion.
Luke 23:44-45
44 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
According to Luke 23:44, 45, an unusual astronomical event took place on the day of Jesus crucifixion. At the 6th hour, the sun became black dark. There is nothing unusual about the sun being darkened on the 6th hour of the Jewish day since at midnight the sun only shines on the other half of the world. Luke was clearly using the Greek system. Also in Acts 2:15, if Peter was using the Jewish system, what he said in effect was, “How could these men possibly be drunk? It is only 9 pm. People don’t get drunk at 9 pm.” Obviously Peter used the Greek system. The latter 2 passages were both recorded by Luke as was Acts 20:7. Thus Paul actually started preaching on Sunday night and continued till after midnight (all in the first day, sorry my Adventist friends).
“Aha, but Paul’s custom was to meet on the Sabbath”
Acts 17:2
2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,
To their credit the Seventh Day Adventists appeal to Acts 17:2, where Paul went into the synagogue on the Sabbath as was his custom. But Evangelicals have a better explanation of this verse than Seventh Day Adventists have of the previous verses mentioned. The synagogue was not open on Sundays, so Paul had to go whenever people were there. What was Paul’s custom? Observing the Sabbath or becoming all things to all men (including the Jews) that he might win them (1 Cor. 9:20)? This is a rhetorical question.
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Christian Liberty
Rom. 14:4-6 give us liberty to choose our day of worship. The NT demands none. The Sabbath laws have passed away and Christian tradition has been to gather on Sundays. However we are free to worship whenever we desire. What we ought not to do is condemn others over differences in this regard.