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The writings of the
Early Church Fathers are not scripture, but
they do tell us what the first generations
of Christians did and why. The early church
held the traditions and customs passed down
to them from the apostles who built up the
church and established Christian doctrine.
The command to observe the seventh day
Sabbath is the only one of the Ten
Commandments not repeated after the
resurrection. The writers of the New
Testament repeated the nine moral
commandments of the decalogue (the Ten
Commandments), but never repeated the
Sabbath commandment as binding.
The Apostle Paul wrote over
one-third of the New Testament and never
even once commanded anyone to keep the
seventh day Sabbath. None of the other
apostles did either.
Sunday, “the Lord’s Day” was
the first day of the week and it was the day the church regularly
gathered for worship and the Lord’s supper in remembrance of Christ’s
resurrection. (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19, 26;
Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 11:20-22; 16:2; Rev. 1:10). The writings
of the Early Church Fathers confirm that the church meet on Sundays,
the First day of the week contrary to the claims of many Seventh-day Sabbatarians who
say that
Sunday worship was not instituted until the fourth century.
Acts 20:7 is the clearest text in the New Testament stating that Sunday
was the early church’s regular gathering day. The church met on the
first day of the week to break bread, which was the common meal
associated with the communion service (1 Cor. 11:20-22). The
Lord’s Supper had been commanded by Jesus (Luke 22:19), and it was
observed regularly by His Church (Acts 2:42; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 10:16).
The church probably met at night because the first day of the week was a
normal work day and most people had to work during the day. Paul knew he
was leaving them (most likely) for the last time so he prolonged his
message until midnight. This
was not a Sabbath gathering.
Sabbatarians will often say this was a Saturday night gathering and not
a regular church meeting at all. Can you imagine if the passage said, “On the
[Sabbath], when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked
with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his
speech until midnight” what they would be saying about the meeting? They
would say it was obviously a Sabbath meeting that lasted into the night.
The Sabbath was not transferred to Sunday either. Every day is a Sabbath rest
for believers who put their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation
(Matt. 11:28-30; Heb. 4:9-11).
From the writings
of the New Testament, we know that
Sabbath-keeping was not made a requirement
for the Christian Church.
The church fathers tell us that Christians
had the custom of meeting on the First day
of the week contrary to the Jewish Sabbath
which they all believed had been fulfilled
and brought to an end by Jesus Christ our
Lord.
THE DIDACHE (The Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles, Chapter XIV) - A.D. 90
“Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day: 1.
But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves
together, and break bread, and give
thanksgiving after having confessed your
transgressions, that your sacrifice may be
pure. 2. But let no one that is at variance
with his fellow come together with you,
until they be reconciled, that your
sacrifice may not be profaned. 3. For this
is that which was spoken by the Lord: In
every place and time offer to me a pure
sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the
Lord, and my name is wonderful among the
nations.”
THE EPISTLE OF
BARNABAS - A.D. 100
“Wherefore,
also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness,
the day also on which Jesus rose again from
the dead.”
PLINY’S LETTER -
A.D. 107
Pliny was governor of
Bithynia, in Asia Minor, from A.D. 106-108.
He wrote in A.D. 107 to Trajan, the emperor,
concerning the Christians. This is what he
said, “They were wont to meet together, on a
stated day before it was light, and sing
among themselves alternately a hymn to
Christ as God....When these things were
performed, it was their custom to separate
and then to come together again to a meal
which they ate in common without any
disorder.”
THE EPISTLE OF
IGNATIUS - A.D. 107 (The apostle
John appointed Ignatius, also called
“Theophorus” as bishop/overseer to the
church in Antioch in the late first century).
“Be not
deceived with strange doctrines, nor with
old fables, which are unprofitable. For if
we still live according to the Jewish Law,
we acknowledge that we have not received
grace....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.”
IGNATIUS of Antioch - A.D. 110
“Be
not deceived with strange doctrines, nor
with old fables, which are unprofitable. For
if we still live according to the Jewish
Law, we acknowledge that we have not
received grace....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.... Let
us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath
after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days
of idleness; for “he that does not work, let
him not eat.”...let every friend of Christ
keep the Lord’s day as a festival, the
resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all
the days [of the week]” “Epistle of Ignatius
to the Magnesians,” (The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, pp. 62-63).
“If
those who have been brought up in the
ancient order of things [i.e., converted
Jews] have come to the possession of a new
hope, no longer observing the Sabbath but
living in observance of the Lord’s day, on
which also our life has sprung up again by
him and his death … how shall we [i.e.,
Gentile converts] be able to live apart from
him, when even the prophets themselves—also
his disciples— waited for him in the Spirit
as their Teacher?” (Letter to the Magnesians
9)
“It is absurd to profess Christ
and to Judaize. For Christianity did not
believe into Judaism, but Judaism into
Christianity.” (Letter to the Magnesians 10)
THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS - A.D.
120
“Incense is a vain
abomination unto me, and your new moons and
Sabbaths I cannot endure. He has, therefore,
abolished these things. When he speaks of
the first day of the week, Barnabas says:
"Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day
with joyfulness, the day, also, on which
Jesus rose again from the dead’” (Chapter
25).
JUSTIN MARTYR (written
from Rome) - A.D. 140.
Justin
states in chapter 67 of his first Apology,
entitled, “Weekly Worship of the Christians,
“writing to the pagan emperor: “...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 permits; then, when the reader
has ceased, the president verbally
instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of
these good things. Then we all rise together
and pray, and, as we before said, when our
prayer is ended, bread and wine and water
are brought...But Sunday is the day on which
we all hold our common assembly, because it
is the first day on which God, having
wrought the change in the darkness and
matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our
Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”
(The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, pp.
185-186; First Apology 67).
“Is there
any other matter, my friends, in which we
[Christians] are blamed [by the Jews] than
this: that we do not live according to the
Law, are not circumcised in the flesh as
your forefathers were, and do not observe
Sabbaths as you do?” (Dialogue with Trypho,
a Jew 10).
“The new law requires you
to keep perpetual Sabbath, and you [Jews],
because you are idle for one day, suppose
you are godly, not understanding why this
command was given to you. If you eat
unleavened bread, you say the will of God
has been fulfilled. The Lord our God does
not take pleasure in such observances. If
there is any perjured person or thief among
you, let him cease to be so. If any
adulterer, let him repent. Then he has kept
the sweet and true Sabbaths of God.”
(Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew 12).
“Moreover, that God enjoined you to keep the
Sabbath, and imposed on you other precepts
for a sign ... because of your
unrighteousness and that of your fathers,
... these words of his can prove to you.
They are narrated by Ezekiel thus: ‘I am the
Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and keep
My judgments, and take no part in the
customs of Egypt; and keep my Sabbaths holy;
and they shall be a sign between me and you,
that you may know that I am the Lord your
God. In spite of this you rebelled against
me and your children did not walk in my
statutes nor keep My judgments to do them:
which if a man do, he shall live in them.
But they polluted My Sabbaths. ... I led
them out before the eyes, and I lifted up my
hand to them in the wilderness, that I would
scatter them among the heathen, and disperse
them through the countries; because they had
not executed my judgments, but had despised
my statutes, and polluted my Sabbaths ...
Therefore I gave them ... statutes which
were not good and judgments whereby they
shall not live’” [Ezek. 20:19-26]. (Dialogue
with Trypho, a Jew 21).
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS - Church life in the
2nd Century
“On the day of the
resurrection of the Lord--that is, the
Lord’s Day--assemble yourself together
without fail, giving thanks to God and
praising Him for those mercies God has
bestowed upon you through Christ.”
IRENAEUS - A.D. 155-202
“The Mystery of the Lord’s Resurrection may
not be celebrated on any other day than the
Lord’s Day, and on this alone should we
observe the breaking off of the Paschal
Feast.”
DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF
CORINTH IN GREECE - A.D. 170
Dionysius was Bishop of Corinth, the Church
which Paul raised up and to which he gave
the command about Sunday collections, in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. He says:
“We passed this
holy Lord’s Day, in which we read your
letter, from the constant reading of which
we shall be able to draw admonition.”
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Bk. 4,
Chapter 23.
CLEMENT OF
ALEXANDRIA, in Egypt - A.D. 194
Clement, writing around A.D. 194 says: “He,
in fulfillment of the precept, keeps the
Lord’s day when he abandons an evil
disposition, and assumes that of the
Gnostic, glorifying the Lord’s resurrection
in himself” Book 7, Chapter 12.
TERTULLIAN of Africa, wrote around
A.D. 200
In his Apology, Chapter
16, Tertullian says: “We solemnize the day
after Saturday in contradistinction to those
who call this day their Sabbath, and devote
it to ease and eating, deviating from the
old Jewish customs, which they are now very
ignorant of.”
“Others, with greater
regard to good manners, it must be
confessed, suppose that the sun is the god
of the Christian, because it is a well-
known fact that we pray towards the east, or
because we make Sunday a day of festivity”
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, p. 123.
Christianity Today: When did the
Christian church switch the Sabbath from
Saturday to Sunday? August 8, 2008
“No specific names or dates are
associated with the church’s shift from
observing the holy day on Saturday to
observing it on Sunday. At first, especially
when many Christians were converted Jews,
their holy day was Saturday. However,
because the Resurrection and the beginning
of Creation had both occurred on the first
day of the week (Sunday), the church soon
observed that day instead. (More Gentiles
were becoming Christians as well, which
contributed to a desire to shake off Jewish
customs.) By the end of the first century,
Sunday worship was the norm. We can assume
the change caused some friction, for in
Colossians 2:16 Paul admonishes, “Therefore
do not let anyone judge you by what you eat
or drink, or with regard to a religious
festival, a New Moon celebration or a
Sabbath day.” It’s important to note that
the Sabbath was not simply moved; Christians
altered the observance as well as the day.
Hallmarks of the early Christian “Lord’s
day” celebration, according to Justin Martyr
(ca. 100-ca. 165), included readings from
Scripture (particularly the Gospels), a
sermon, communal prayer, and Communion—very
different from Jewish Sabbath observance. By
Jewish standards, Christians don’t keep the
Sabbath at all.” [1]
Sabbatarians will tell you that the early
church kept the Sabbath until Constantine
but the historical record says otherwise.
Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, one of the
Seventh-day Adventist’s top scholars wrote
in an E-mail message to the “Free Catholic
Mailing List” on February 8, 1997, and said;
“I differ from Ellen White, for example, on
the origin of Sunday. She teaches that in
the first centuries all Christians observed
the Sabbath and it was largely through the
efforts of Constantine that Sundaykeeping
was adopted by many Christians in the fourth
century. My research shows otherwise. If you
read my essay “HOW DID SUNDAY-KEEPING BEGIN”
which summarizes my dissertation, you will
notice that I place the origin of
Sundaykeeping by the time of the Emperor
Hadrian, in A. D. 135.”
Dr.
Bacchiocchi could not find any evidence from
the writings of the Early Church Fathers that
said the early church kept the Sabbath. All
of the evidence shows that the early church
set apart Sunday, the first day of the week
for breaking bread and worship since the
time of the apostles.
The day
we go to church is a matter of personal
choice. No one has the right to tell you
Sabbath-keeping is a requirement for
Christians living under the New Covenant.
There is no
command anywhere in the New Testament for
Christ’s followers to keep the seventh day
Sabbath from the Old Covenant. New converts
were never required to keep it. In fact,
there is no command for Christians to keep
any day of the week holy in the New Covenant (Matt. 11:28-30; 12:1-8; Acts 15:1-20;
Col. 2:14-17; Gal. 4:10-11; Rom. 14:5-12; Eph. 2:11-18;
2 Cor. 3:3-11; Heb. 3:7-4:13; 8:6-9:4; 10:23-25).
References:
1.
When did the Christian church switch the
Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? by Elesha
Coffman.
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