The concept of sacred time has been largely lost in our society today. Most people treat every day the same. Jobs are worked 7 days a week. Sports are played 7 days a week. Hobbies are enjoyed 7 days a week. Shopping is done 7 days a week.
Even many professing Christians treat all days alike. On Sunday, many hurry out of church to head to the restaurant or turn on the sports game and get back to their normal routines.
What does the Bible say about this? Is there such thing as sacred time that God has appointed in order to be set apart exclusively for His service and worship?
The Bible and our Confession say “Yes” in their teaching on the Sabbath Day! Just as God tells us the what, who, how, why, and where of worship, He also tells us the when of worship. Our Confession deals with this in Chapter 22, Paragraphs 7-8.
Paragraph 7 teaches the precept of the Sabbath Day. Paragraph 8 tells us the practice of the Sabbath Day. In other words, in these paragraphs we have the doctrine and the application of the Sabbath Day for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Precept of the Sabbath Day
Paragraph 7 teaches us three important truths concerning the precept of the Sabbath Day.
I. God has placed in the hearts of all people that a certain amount of time should be set apart to publicly worship Him.
Paragraph 7 begins by stating, “As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God’s appointment, be set apart for the worship of God,”. The law of nature, i.e. the moral law of God imprinted on the hearts and souls of all God’s image-bearers, teaches us that there are set times to worship God. Richard Barcellos states, “Time set apart for special service to God is written on our hearts.”[1] This has been by God’s appointment, not ours.
The concept of sacred time, then, is not uniquely Christian. Every religion in the world prescribes set times for worship. From Islam to Druidism, all observe holy days that are to be sanctified for the worship of their god(s). In fact, even before Moses penned the Pentateuch, Assyrian and Babylonians observed the Sabbath Day for the worship of the seven planets![2]
This just proves that the work of the law still remains in the hearts of sinners. Though they distort and misunderstand that law, they still know that they were made to worship God and a proportion of time needs to be set aside to do that.
II. God has placed in His Word the particular time when we are to publicly worship Him.
Paragraph 7 goes on: “so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto him,”.
All men may know that time needs to be given to the worship of God, but they don’t know exactly when. Only a positive command or a command added to the law of nature can tell us this. In other words, although general revelation informs us on the principle of sacred time, only special revelation gives us the particular time. We can’t know exactly when God commands us to worship Him by looking at the stars or listening to our consciences. Instead, we need God to specially reveal this to us.
And God has revealed this to all mankind when He first created the world. We are told in Genesis 2:2-3, “2And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.”
God rested on, blessed, and sanctified the seventh day of the creation week. He marked it out as a special, holy day. He didn’t do this merely for Himself; He did it to set an example for all His image-bearers to follow. In imitation of God, we are to rest on, bless, and sanctify one day in seven (or once a week) for a sabbath to be kept holy to the Lord.
As such, all men in all places at all times are obligated to do this! Adam was obligated to do this. Noah was obligated to do this. Abraham was obligated to do this. Moses was obligated to do this. David was obligated to do this. Christ was obligated to do this. And we are obligated to do this.
So, the Confession here teaches that the Sabbath Day is a creation ordinance that is binding upon all mankind, no matter their covenant, culture, or creed.
III. God has the prerogative to change the specific day we are to publicly worship Him.
The Sabbath command is unique in that it is made up of both natural/moral and positive elements. The principle of “one day in seven” is natural/moral and is therefore unalterable. The specific day, however, is positive. It was not embedded into the fabric of creation and written on man’s heart but was sovereignly appointed by God.
Therefore, if God so desired, He could bless another day and make it holy. And Christ, as the God and Lord of the Sabbath, did just that! While keeping the Sabbath principle of one in seven the same, Christ changed the Sabbath Day from Saturday (the seventh day) to Sunday (the first day) when He rose from the dead and inaugurated the new creation.
The Confession states that the 7th Day Sabbath was part of the former days of the old creation: “which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week,”
The Confession also states that the 1st Day Sabbath is part of the latter days of the new creation: “and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord’s day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.”
Edmund Clowney states, “The celebration on the seventh day has been transformed by Jesus’ resurrection. Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness in his resurrection glory accounts for the shift in the New Testament from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week.”[1]
When Jesus accomplished a new redemption and brought in a new creation at His resurrection from the dead, God changed the public day of worship from Saturday to Sunday or from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week in commemoration of it. He abolished 7th day observance and set up 1st day observance. In this way the natural and moral principle of the command is preserved throughout human history while the positive element is changed to reflect the new redemptive-historical realities for the people of God.
What biblical evidence is there for this? Where in the Bible do we see this change in the day taking place? While this is not explicitly stated, we should see this change taking place because of these five necessary inferences and historical truths:
1.) The stated end of the seventh day Sabbath in OT prophecy.
As we saw earlier, the OT prophesies that in the latter days the Sabbath day will be kept by God’s New Covenant people (Isaiah 56). But the OT also prophesies that the Sabbath day will cease! Richard Barcellos states, “The Old Testament clearly prophesies the abrogation and cessation of ancient Israel’s Sabbaths. It does so in Hosea 2:11, which says, ‘I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her New Moons, her Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts.’”[2]
He then goes on to show that this prophecy is fulfilled in the days of the inaugurated New Covenant. The context of Hosea 2 proves this. But the NT also bears witness to this. Colossians 2:16-17 is one such place: “16Therefore 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. 17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
More will be said on this passage later, but I think it is teaching us that all of Israel’s Sabbaths (whether weekly or occasionally) were fulfilled and laid to rest by Christ. In other words, the Sabbath given to Israel in its specific old creation and Old Covenant forms has been done away with. Barcellos states, “. . . The Sabbath as given to the people of Israel under the Mosaic covenant has been abolished.”[3]
According to the apostle Paul, the shadowy Old Covenant version of the Sabbath Day has ceased. Specifically, the “7th” Day Sabbath has passed away. But the substantial New Covenant version of the Sabbath Day has taken its place. That is the “1st” Day Sabbath Christ instituted at His resurrection from the dead!
2.) The steady dissolution of the seventh day in the NT.
During the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sabbath Day was on the seventh day of the week.
- Luke 4:16: “And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read.”
- Matthew 28:1: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.”
This is true even throughout the book of Acts.
- Acts 13:14: “And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.”
- Acts 18:4: “And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.”
But we know that everything associated with the old creation and old covenant was beginning to pass away at the inauguration of the new creation and new covenant of Jesus Christ.
- Hebrews 8:13: “In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
It was only a matter of time (AD 70 to be exact) when the old creational/covenantal order of worshipping and serving God would finally end at the destruction of Jerusalem and be completely replaced by the new creational/covenantal order in Jesus Christ. This included the abolition of animal sacrifices, dietary laws, the theocratic kingdom, and the seventh day Sabbath.
3.) The special activities on the first day.
Very important events occurred on the first day of the week (Sunday) in the early church which indicate the uniqueness and holiness of the day.
A.) Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week.
Mark 16:9 simply summarizes what all four Gospel accounts teach concerning when Jesus’ resurrection took place: “Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.”
B.) Jesus revealed Himself in a special way to His disciples on the first day of the week.
- John 20:14: “Having said this, she [Mary Magdalene] turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.”
- Matthew 28:9: “And behold, Jesus met them [Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women, Luke 24:10] and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.”
- Luke 24:13-15: “13That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.”
- John 20:19: “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
- John 20:26: “Eight days later [counting inclusively from the resurrection], His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”
C.) The Spirit of God was poured out and the first Christian church was officially established at Pentecost on the first day of the week.
Acts 2:1: “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.”
The outpouring of the Spirit, the preaching of the gospel in various languages, the salvation and baptism of about 3,000 people, and the establishment of the new temple of God in Jerusalem all happened on Pentecost, which was on Sunday, the first day of the week.
Roy H. Lanier, Jr. comments, “This day of ‘Pentecost’ literally means ‘fifty days.’ It was a special feast of the Jewish Law which was to be observed fifty days after their Passover Feast. It is to be ‘on the [day] after the sabbath’ (Leviticus 23:11, 15). So, the day on which the apostles received the Holy Spirit and began their work in preaching the gospel [I would also add, and in organizing the first church] was on a Sunday.”[1]
D.) The early church regularly met for corporate worship on the first day of the week.
We are never told that the church of the risen Lord Jesus Christ met on the 7th Day Jewish Sabbath to worship God.
Matthew Poole comments, “Nor indeed do we read in all the Scripture of any congregation of Christians on the Jewish sabbath, . . . we have not so much as one instance after the resurrection of any congregation, where Christians only [my emphasis] were assembled upon the Jewish sabbath.”[2]
It was the apostle Paul’s custom to go into the Jewish synagogues on the 7th Day Sabbath not for corporate worship but for public evangelism. He went to preach the gospel to Jews who needed to hear that Jesus their Messiah had come (Acts 13:14, 42-44; 16:13; 17:1-3; 18:4; See also Acts 9:20; 13:5; 14:1; 17:10, 17; 19:8).
But the custom of the apostolic church was to meet on the 1st Day Sabbath to worship God through Jesus Christ their Lord. Two passages make this clear:
- Acts 20:7: “On the first day of the week, 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.”
The church in Troas gathered together on the first day of the week to hear Paul preach the Word of God and to break bread, which is most likely a reference to taking the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26; Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:23-24).
- 1 Corinthians 16:1-2: “1Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 2On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.”
I think the most likely interpretation is that the churches in Galatia and Corinth were in the habit of gathering together “On the first day of every week” to worship God. When they did so, they were to place their offerings into a common treasury for easy pick-up when the apostle Paul visited them.
E.) The sacred nature of the first day.
The Lord Jesus Christ has special ownership of the first day of the week. This is because it is called “the Lord’s Day” by the apostle John in Revelation 1:10: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,”.
This is not referring to a special day in the year or the final day of judgment but to the first day of the week. As we will soon see, the testimony of the early church to this is indisputable. And from what we have already seen concerning the work and worship of Christ on the first day of the week, it makes perfect sense that Sunday takes on the official title of “The Lord’s Day”.
In Revelation 1:10, the adjective translated “Lord’s” literally means “belonging to/owned by the Lord”. Every day is the Lord’s, but this day belongs to Him in a special way. Even in the Greek language today, the name for Sunday is this exact same adjective: Κυριακή!
The only other place in the Bible this word is used is in 1 Corinthians 11:20: “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.” Just as the Supper belongs in a special way to the Lord Jesus Christ, so does Sunday. It is His Table as it symbolizes His sacrificial death on the cross, and it is His Day as it marks His earth-shattering resurrection from the dead and the pouring out of His Spirit on His people!
The fact that the first day of the week in NT times belongs in a special way to the Lord Jesus Christ is very similar to how the seventh day of the week in OT times belonged in a special way to Yahweh. The Sabbath Day in the OT is called by a similar title: it is “the day of the Lord” or “the Lord’s day”.
- Isaiah 58:13: “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day [literally, My holy], and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD [literally, the holy of the LORD] honorable;”
The Sabbath Day in the OT belongs exclusively to the LORD (Yahweh). It is His holy day, and it was to be hallowed and honored by His OC people. The same is true for the Sabbath Day in the NT. It belongs exclusively to the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrected and reigning Lord of the Christian Sabbath. It is His holy day, and it is to be treated as holy by His NC people.
F.) The strong testimony of the first day in the early church.
It is undeniably clear that the early Christian church, following apostolic precedent, believed the first day of the week was the Lord’s Day and met on that day for corporate worship. Although it cannot be said that all the great theologians of the early church explicitly articulated the confessional view of the Sabbath found in paragraphs 7 and 8, it can be said that they all considered Sunday “The Lord’s Day” and held it in high and holy esteem. And I think many of them embraced the basic elements of the Christian Sabbath.
In what follows, I have provided a sample of their statements in chronological order regarding the first day of the week.
- The Didache, AD 100: “On every Lord’s Day—His special day—come together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure” (Didache 14:1).
- Ignatius, AD 107: “Those, then, who lived by ancient practices, arrived at a new hope. They ceased to keep the Sabbath and lived by the Lord’s Day, on which our life as well as theirs shone forth, thanks to Him and His death, though some deny this” (Magnesians 9).
- Ignatius, AD 107: “And after the observance of the Sabbath, 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]” (Magnesians 9).
- Pliny the Younger, AD 112: “this they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before sunrise and reciting an antiphonal hymn to Christ as God, . . . After this, they went on, it was their custom to separate, and then meet again to partake of food, but food of an ordinary and innocent kind” (Letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan).[3]
- Barnabas, AD 131: “Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead” (Epistle of Barnabas 15:9).
- Justin Martyr, AD 155-157: “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, . . . 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” (The First Apology 67).
- Dionysius of Corinth, AD 170: “Today we have kept the holy Lord’s day, on which we have read your letter, which we shall ever possess to read and to be admonished, even as the former one written to us through Clement.” (Epistle to the Romans, II).
- Tertullian, AD 200: “We have nothing to do with Sabbaths, new moons or the Jewish festivals, much less with those of the heathen. We have our own solemnities, the Lord’s Day, for instance, and Pentecost. As the heathen confine themselves to their festivals and do not observe ours, let us confine ourselves to ours and not meddle with those belonging to them” (On Idolatry, Chapter 15).
- Athanasius, AD 345: “The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation” (On Sabbath and Circumcision 3).
- Theodoret, AD 448-452, concerning the heretical Ebionites: “They keep the Sabbath according to the Jewish law, and sanctify the Lord’s day in like manner as we do” (Compendium of Heretical Accounts 2:1).
Conclusion
- The OT prophesied that in the latter days the Sabbath would cease and yet at the same time would continue on.
- The seventh day Sabbath passed away and was replaced by the first day Sabbath due to the resurrection of Christ from the dead and the new creation He inaugurated.
- On the first day of the week, Christ rose from the dead, met with His disciples, poured out His Spirit, established the church, gathered His people for worship, and sanctified the day to be uniquely His.
- The early church clearly honored and set apart Sunday as the Lord’s Day and saw it as the holy day of corporate worship.
Therefore, in Christ the new creation has come; the New Covenant has been cut; the new temple has been laid; and the new day has dawned to rest in and worship our conquering King!
[1] Richard Barcellos, Getting the Garden Right, 194.
[2] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Volume I, 477 footnote 1.
[3] Roy H. Lanier, Jr., “Rather Than On The Sabbath She Worships On The Lord’s Day”, http://www.thebible.net/introchurch/ch28.html.
[4] Matthew Poole, comments on John 20:26.
[5] Pliny the Younger was a Roman governor (of now modern-day Turkey, where the churches Peter wrote to) writing to Emperor Trajan. This letter is one of the earliest surviving Roman documents referring to the Christian community.
[6] Edmund Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments, 63.
[7] Barcellos, Getting the Garden Right, 195-196.
[8] Ibid.
