Not too long ago I was brought into a discussion about Sabbath, where I was presented with some really bad history, essentially that it was Constantine who changed the day of worship to Sunday. I remembered a portion of Frank James lectures on the early church, so my initial response was, "sorry I've heard otherwise." The following is research I did over the next couple of days.
"Paul was concerned about the worship of the Corinthians church. In 1st. Corinthians 14, he gives his council about how 'orderly worship' ought to take place. This is not something that emerged later, but it appears in apostolic times. How did the early church worship? What went on? How did it work itself out?
Well the obvious first thing to mention is that the church service too place on a Sunday. That was of course the same day that Christ arose from the grave, so the early church met on Sunday."
- Dr. Frank James III. Introduction, Early Church Life, and Apostolic Fathers. Lecture. Reformed Theological Seminar
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I
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The early church:
The Lord's day -
"The expression "Lord's Day" (GK. Kyriake hemera), found only in Christian sources, first appears in Rev. 1:10 as a designation of the first day of the week. It is not to be confused with the eschatological "day of the Lord" (hemera tou kyriou). The most plausible explanation of the term is that it derives from the parallel expression "Lord's Supper" (1 Cor. 11:20), since the early Christians gathered on the first day of the week to celebrate this meal as the culmination of their corporate worship. An account of an early (late 50's) Lord's Day service is found in Acts 20:7-11, beginning with the words "on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread." Christians chose the first day of the week for worship undoubtedly because Christ rose on that day and met with the gathered disciples at the time of the evening meal. At this time He ate and drank with them (Lk. 24:41-43; cf. Acts 10:41), renewing the table fellowship that He had shared with them on the night on which He was betrayed. Hence the Lord's day worship is the Christian festival of the Resurrection, in which Christians, like the original disciples, have fellowship with one another and with the risen Christ whom they trust as Savior and worship as God.
This conclusion throws light on Paul's reference to the first day of the week when writing to the Corinthians about a collection for the Jerusalem church: "On the first day of the 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 Cor. 16:2). Paul did not choose the first day above other as peculiar to the situation of the Corinthians: he said that he gave the same instructions to the churches of Galatia (v. 1). Nor does the idea of regular saving of money imply that it must be done on the first day of the week. Hence there must have been some other reason, understood by Paul and his reader, why he expressly designated the first day. Since in a later letter (2 Cor. 9:12) he called the collection set aside on this day a leitourgia, i.e., a ministration of a sacred character, the choice of the day definitely point to its religion significants."
Geoffry W. Bromiley. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. p.158
Revelation 1:10-11
"I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” NKJV
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II
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These letters and documents hold a well preserved record of the church meeting on the Lord's Day.
The Didache (late first century or early second century) (14.1)
Is an indication of the widespread practice of Sunday worship being in place in the first or early second century, citing regular Christian meetings on 'the Lord's Day.'
Barnabas. (late first century or early second century) (Epistle 15.9)
"We celebrate the eighth day with joy, on which Jesus rose from the dead, and, after having appeared [to his disciple], ascended to heaven."
Ignatius. (died 108 A.D.) To the Magnesians 9 (ANF 1:63)
"Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath, but the Lord’s Day, in which our life is blessed by Him and by His death."
"Consequently, if the people who were given to obsolete practices faces the hope of a new life, and if these no longer observe the Sabbath, but regulate their calendar by the Lord's Day, the day, too, on which our Life rose by His power and through the medium of His death - though some deny this; and if to this mystery we owe our faith and because of it submit to sufferings to prove ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Teacher: How then can we possibly live apart from Him whom, by the working of the Spirit, even the Prophets were disciples and to whom they looked forward as their Teacher? And so He, for whom they rightly waited, came and raised them from the dead."
Justin Martyr (103-165 A.D.) First Apology 67 (ANF 1:186)
"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 Saviour on the same day rose from the dead."
Clement of Alexandria (192 AD)
"A Christian, according tot he command of the Gospel, observes the Lord's day, thereby glorifying the resurrection of the Lord." (Strom. VII. p. 744)
"The Lord's day is the eight day." (Strom V. p. 600)
"Having reached this point, we must mention these things by the way; since the discourse has turned on the seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and the latter properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of work. For the creation of the world was concluded in six days." (Strom VI.)
*Stromata, or Miscellanies
Tertullian (200 AD) Answer to the Jews, Chapter 4
“The Lord’s Day is the Holy Day of the Christian Church. Though we share with the sun-worshippers the observance of Sunday, we are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathen. We celebrate the day after Sabbath in destinction of those who call that day their Sabbath.”
Eusebius
"From the beginning, Christians assembled on the first day of the week. It was called the Lord's Day by John in the Apocalypse. They met on the Lord's Day for the purpose of religious worship, to read the Scriptures, to preach and to celebrate the Lord's Supper."
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III
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Evidence from the NT
1 Corinthians 16:2
"According to v. 2 the money was to be set aside by each individual Corinthian and then collected at each home on the first day of the week, that is, Sunday. We have evidence here that the day of religious duty and worship for the Christian, even in Paul's time, was Sunday, no the Jewish sabbath. Acts 20:7 is clearer on this point (cf. Rev. 1:10)." - Ben Witherington III. Conflict and community in Corinth... pg. 315
Colossian 2:16
"The general purport of Colossians 2:16 is that the distinctive holy days of the Old Testament are no longer binding on holy days of the Old Testament are no longer binding on New Testament believers because "these are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however is found in Christ" (v. 17). Hence v. 16 would seem to be referring primarily to obsolete Old Testament ordinances, of which the seventh-day Sabbath was one, and probably the feast-day Sabbath was another."
- Gleason L. Archer, Jr. New International Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties. pg. 240
Acts 20:6-7 (they met on the first day of the week)
"But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days.
Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight." NKJV
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IV
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Paul's reflections on the absence of the Jewish Sabbath.
Romans 13:9-10, Colossians 2:14-16, Romans 14:5-6, 13
We know that Judaizing was a prominent theme in Galatians. Paul addresses the fulfillment of the Law in Galatians 3:19-26, essentially now Christians live by faith, not by Torah. In Romans 13:9-10 we find that 'love fulfills the law,' and in Romans 14:5-6 it implies no day is more holy than another, accepting a day of worship is an act of faith, which is a theme in the latter parts of Romans, . In Colossians 2:16, Paul urges believers to not accept judgment (most likely from Judaizers) based on Sabbath practice, and in Romans 14:16 to also stop judging each other.
In Hebrews 10:25, which was written to a Jewish-Christian community, you find evidence of that not everyone was coming to the service on Sunday. (1) Earlier in Hebrews ch. 3-4 this topic of Jesus being greater than Moses, and Jesus as great High Priest was discusses in length, along with rest from law, phrased in a somewhat humorous paradox 'of actively and vigorously seeking and pursuing rest.' (2) In 8:1-13 we find a new covenant in place of the old (cf. Jer 31:31-34), and this covenant is an adequate entity in itself. (3) The book was to provide comfort and encouragement to Jewish Christians who were struggling with persecution, and also who were defecting back to institutions and rituals of the Old Testament, which are fulfilled in the work of Christ. Commentators have argued that in the eyes of its author, going back to such institutions is apostasy.
(1) Laurie Guy. Introducing Early Christianity: A Topical Survey of its Live, Beliefs .p 121
(2) Ben Witherington III. Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians: A Socio-Retorical Commentary on the p. 183
(3) Jim Girdwood, James Girdwood, and Peter Verrkuyse. Hebrews. pg. 138-139.
A summery of how Sabbath finds fulfillment in Jesus, in Tom Wright's 'Scripture and the Authority of God', via Scot McKnight.
1. In the OT Sabbath was a strong commandment, it was the day YHWH took up abode in the temple of creation (here he chimes in with John Walton) and asked image-bearers to enjoy that same rest.
2. Sabbath shows that history is going somewhere, it is a temporal sign that creation is headed toward that final rest, and it is sacred time.
3. Sabbath has to be connected to Jubilee, and therefore to justice and compassion for the poor, and that means Sabbath and Jubilee point us toward the restoration of creation.
4. Jesus thought the entire Sabbath principle pointed toward himself. Time was fulfilled in him; a new kind of time begins with him. Paul does not seem to care about Sabbath, and he observes its absence in Romans 13:9; Col 2:14-16; Rom 14:5-6. I have to be brief: it’s about time’s fulfillment. Sacred time finds its way to Jesus Christ and new creation.
5. To continue celebrating sabbaths is to focus on the signposts when we have already arrived. Thus, “Come to me and I will give you rest.” You don’t need the alarm clock when the sun is flooding the room with its light.
6. The early Christians didn’t transfer Sabbath to Sunday. (because Sabbath was fulfilled)
7. We don’t need to back up into a Sabbatarianism.
8. We “celebrate” instead of “rest” — a kind of celebration rest. We reserve this day for new creation life. Music, the meal, family, service, peace, justice, love — these are the notes of Sunday for those who see the fulfillment of Sabbath in Jesus.
