The Seventh Day Adventists insist that Christians should set aside the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) for rest and worship instead of Sunday.  Moreover, the Seventh Day Adventists believe that the change from the Sabbath to Sunday, which most Christians call “the Lord’s Day”, is evidence that the Catholic Church has “apostatized”, or abandoned orthodox belief in God.  The founder of the Seventh Day Adventists, Ellen Gould White, taught that in the last days, Sunday worship would be “the mark of the Beast.”[1] So then, the task before us is to defend the practice of Sunday worship in the Catholic Church against those that say that it is of the devil.

Some Background Information

First, let’s get some background information on the Sabbath.  We see in the book of Exodus that God commanded His people to set aside the seventh day of the week to rest from work.[2]   The Jews observe the Sabbath rest from sunset on Friday through Saturday’s sunset, which corresponds to God “resting” on the seventh day after He created the world (Gen 2:3).[3]  This day is called the “Sabbath”, from the Hebrew root “SBT” (“sabbat”), which means “to cease to do”, or “to rest”.[4]

Binding and Loosing the Gentiles

So why don’t Catholics, and most other Christians, worship and rest on the Sabbath?   To begin to answer this question, we must remember that Jesus gave his Apostles authority to “bind and loose”:  “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Matthew 18:18.  We see the first major example of the exercise of this authority at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, where the Apostles and other leaders of the Church gathered together to decide what parts of the Law of Moses to enjoin upon the new gentile Christians.[5] The apostles decided that the gentile Christians should refrain from eating the meat of strangled animals, blood and food that had been offered to idols, as well as refrain from sexual immorality.  Note that the Apostles did not mandate worshiping or resting on the Sabbath.

St. Paul further “loosens” the gentile Christians (that’s us, by the way) when he tells the Colossians by letter to let no one judge them on whether they keep the Sabbath:

“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.  These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ”. Colossians 2:16-17

Resurrection Appearances

It is important to note that Jesus’ Resurrection and His subsequent appearances to the gathered apostles happened on the first day of the week, Sunday.  In fact, the Scriptures do not record any appearances on the Sabbath after the Resurrection [Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2 & 9, Luke 24:1, John 20:1 & 19].[6] In other words, Jesus appeared to his disciples when they were gathered together to pray.  And when was that?  On the first day of the week.

When Did Early Christians Worship?

We have scriptural evidence that the early Church celebrated the Eucharist (the Breaking of the Bread), listened to preaching and even took up collections for the poor at their gatherings on Sunday, first day of the week.  Here are some examples from the New Testament:

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and he prolonged his speech until midnight.  Acts 20:7

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come. 1 Corinthians 16:2

 “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying…” Revelation 1:10

 We also see the Apostles and other disciples gathered for prayer and worship on the first day of the week when the Holy Spirit fell upon them on the feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover Sabbath (Acts 2:1).

 Conclusion

It is important to remember that Jesus, after having been accused of breaking the Sabbath law, said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. [7]  You see, man has a need to rest and man has a need to worship, but God does not have these needs.  The Church of the New Testament, exercising the authority given to it by Jesus, began to worship on the first day of the week in order to memorialize and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.  They did not throw away the institution of the Sabbath rest, but rather, they saw it’s fulfillment in Jesus’ resurrection.  The Sabbath is a memorial of God’s act of creation, while the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, is a memorial of His act of redemption.  And that’s why we worship on Sunday.

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Quotations From The Church Fathers

The Didache

“But every Lord’s day . . . gather yourselves together and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. 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.”

Didache 14 [A.D. 70]

The Letter of Barnabas

“We keep the eighth day [Sunday] with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.”

Letter of Barnabas 15:6–8 [A.D. 74]

Ignatius of Antioch

“[T]hose who were brought up in the ancient order of things [i.e. Jews] 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.”

Letter to the Magnesians 8 [A.D. 110]

Justin Martyr

“We too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined [on] you—namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your heart. . . . How is it, Trypho, that we would not observe those rites which do not harm us—I speak of fleshly circumcision and Sabbaths and feasts? . . . God enjoined you to keep the Sabbath, and imposed on you other precepts for a sign, as I have already said, on account of your unrighteousness and that of your fathers . . .”

Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 18, 21 [A.D. 155]

“But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first 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.”

First Apology 67 [A.D. 155]

Footnotes