The Lord’s Day
Published by Rob Skiba May 20, 2014 at 3:36 PM
So I watched the Sabbath debate between Jim Staley and Chris Rosebrough:
I found it interesting that Chris, like SO MANY others who disagree with keeping the Sabbath spent so much time quoting “Church Fathers” instead of Scripture to support his view. So, I decided to look into it myself, based on his statements and the explanations given on sites like this one: http://www.bible.ca/H-sunday.htm, which boldly claims right at the top of the page…
Saturday (Sabbath) or First day? What day did early Christians worship on??? The first day (Sunday) IS THE LORD’S DAY!
Indeed, the site has a wealth of quotes from the first five centuries AFTER Christ and the writings of the Bible. It also includes a bunch of quotes from modern scholarship as well. It seems to me easy to understand why things went off track as pagans began to get saved and then take the reigns of doctrine, divorcing themselves from the Hebrew understanding of Scripture. By the way, it should be noted that it was the Hebrews who actually wrote the Bible (including the New Testament – even the parts written in Greek), so they just MIGHT have known a bit more than those who were later interpreting it through recently pagan eyes… at least in my opinion anyway.
Things get progressively worse the further away we find ourselves from the first century, so I want to focus on the earliest quote they provided in the above website:
90AD DIDACHE: “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.” (Didache: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Chapter XIV)
Interesting thought: In 90AD (which was about the time of John’s writing the book of Revelation – at least according to some), what would “the Lord’s Day” have meant to them?
All through the Old Testament – which was the Bible of the 1st Century Believers – what day is CONSTANTLY ascribed to YHWH (aka “the LORD”) as a day He Himself set apart to be Holy?
Exodus 20:10a But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God:
Exodus 20:11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Exodus 31:13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.
Leviticus 19: 30 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 23:3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
So uhmmmm…. whose day is it? Sabbath is clearly the “Lord’s (YHWH) day.” Not one Apostle would have thought any different. In fact, indeed we see them always keeping it! Yes, even our beloved Apostle Paul preached his message of Grace in GENTILE towns on the Sabbath day:
Acts 13:
13 Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John, however, left them and went back to Jerusalem.
14 They continued their journey from Perga and reached Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.
15 After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any message of encouragement for the people, you can speak.”
Acts 13:
42 As they were leaving, the people begged that these matters be presented to them the following Sabbath.
43 After the synagogue had been dismissed, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who were speaking with them and persuading them to continue in the grace of God.
44 The following Sabbath almost the whole town assembled to hear the message of the Lord.
I like the way Clint Branham put it on his web site dealing with the same topic: http://awakenedchurch.com/sabbath/cbb/the-sabbath
The book of Acts covers the timeframe from the ascension of Jesus until Approx AD 61. This is plenty of time to record the change from Sabbath to Sunday.
As a matter of fact there are 84 worship services on the Sabbath recorded in Acts (Act_13:14; Act_13:44; Act_16:13; Act_17:2; Act_18:4; Act_18:11) If Sabbath was changed/changing to Sunday wouldn’t it have been recorded in Acts???
Now, of course, it is easy for us to fall into error when we put all of our trust in ENGLISH translations that passed through multiple generations of previously pagan Gentiles who consistently did all they could to distance themselves from all things considered “Jewish” and we end up with renderings of text such as this:
Acts 20:
7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
Like most, I thought it was talking about Sunday. That is until I looked at the Greek for myself. And I would encourage you to do the same. See:
First Day of the Week or First of the Sabbaths?
The phrase, “first day of the week” comes from the Greek, “mia ton sabbaton.” If you don’t believe what I have written above, go find someone who speaks Greek fluently and has NO DOG IN THE SABBATH DAY HUNT (in other words, don’t prejudice the results) and simply ask them, what “mia ton sabbaton” means. I guarantee you they will NOT say “first day of the week.” Try it. I dare ya.
Finally, even if we were to assume that the “Lord’s day” was changed to Sunday because of Yeshua, how then do we explain:
Mark 2:
27 And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath:
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.
How many Lords do we have? If you are tempted to say that Yeshua is also referred to as “lord” just as His Father is, are they in conflict? Do the Lord Yeshua (Jesus Christ) and the Lord YHWH have two separate days? I think not. Yeshua said that He and His Father are ONE (John 10:30). Thus, we have only one Lord who has one day. Therefore, I can only conclude that the “Lord’s day” is the Sabbath and it is and always was the 7th day of the week.
I like how Jim Staley ended the debate essentially with this (paraphrased) question,
“Will you put your doctrine in the Church Fathers or that of the Father of the Church?”
– Rob Skiba
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