THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER
"Search the scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. " (John 5:39)

VOLUME 5, NUMBER 2, JANUARY 16, 2005

UPON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK

PART 6

            I hope you are enjoying this series – the text of a lecture I am scheduled to give in February.  I enjoyed researching it, writing, it, and now, presenting it in this form to you.

            Let us consider the third major assertion made by Seventh-Day Adventism.  That false system of belief teaches that the change from Saturday to Sunday as the day of worship came about as the result of apostasy, that the Roman Catholic Pope officially changed the day for the apostate church, and that those who have been faithful to the Word of God have continued to keep the Sabbath as a holy day and the day of worship.  Let us notice several examples of such teaching.

            In Who are Seventh-Day Adventist? This view is clearly set forth in the following manner.

            “In the early centuries of the Christian Church a great apostasy set in (2 Thess. 2:3-4), and as men and women lost their hold on the true God, the Creator of the heavens and earth, they gradually turn to a popular festival day of paganism – Sunday.  The emperor Constantine, half pagan and half Christian, promulgated the first law in support of first-day observance.  Later on the Roman Catholic Church placed its official stamp on Sunday as the weekly day of worship, and essayed to transfer to Sunday the sanctity heretofore attached to the Seven-day Sabbath (67-68).”

            In The Gospel For Today, Foy E. Wallace, Jr. cited The Early Writings of Mrs. Whirw, p. 26.  She wrote, “I saw that God had not changed the Sabbath, for He never changes.  But the pope had changed it from the seventh day to the first day of the week, for he was to change time and laws (349).”

            In the pamphlet, Amazing Facts That Affect You, Number One, the following question and answer are found:

            “Well, if Sunday-keeping isn’t in the Bible, whose idea is it anyway?  Answer: God predicted that it would happen, and it did…Misguided men of long years past tampered with God’s holy law and announced that God’s holy day was changed from Sabbath to Sunday.  This error was passed on to our unsuspecting generation as gospel fact.  Sunday-keeping is a tradition of uninspired men, and breaks God’s law which commands Sabbath-keeping.  Only God can make a day holy.  God blessed the Sabbath, and when God blesses, no man can reverse it (5).”

            Earlier in this presentation evidence was given from the  historically reliable documents that make up the New Testament, that from the beginning the church regularly assembled upon the first day of the week for worship.  In fact, two of the acts of worship were peculiar to the first day of the week, with each Christian partaking of the Lord’s Supper and contributing to finance the work of the church.  Thus, long before the days of Constantine, Emperor of the Western Empire from 312 to 324 and sole Emperor of the entire Roman Empire from 324 to 327, the church was meeting on the Lord’s Day.  Constantine had nothing whatsoever to do with choosing the day of worship for the Lord’s church.

EXTRA-BIBLICAL SOURCES

            Extra-biblical sources, such as the writings of The Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, provide us with a wealth of additional evidence that the Lord’s church met for worship upon the first day of the week, and not upon the Sabbath day.  From the pen of Ignatius, in his Epistle To the Magnesians, written sometime between 110 120, we find, “If therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death…” (62).

            In the Epistle of Barnabas, thought to be from the early second century, we read, “Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead” (15).

            One of the best known examples of this evidence is found in The First Apology of Justin, believed to have been written in the 150’s.   “And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things.  And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost.  And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permit; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things…But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.  For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to your also for your consideration.” (67).

One more installment to go.  It will be next week, Lord willing.

                                                            Greg Litmer