© 09 Colin Melbourne
Q: Why was the Sabbath switched from Saturday to Sunday?
A: It wasn’t: Ever since God gave the Fourth Commandment to Moses, the Sabbath Day has always been the Jewish seventh day of the week, which is a Saturday.
Orthodox Jews still rest from their labour on a Saturday: The Sabbath Day.
Sunday is never called a Sabbath Day in the Bible.
It is referred to as the “first day of the week” (Mtt. 28:1, Mk. 16:2,9, Jn. 20:9) and the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10).
It is unbiblical to refer to Sunday as a Sabbath.
However, many people do so because of ignorance, confusion, and habit.
Sunday is when Christians normally gather together to praise and worship God, to fellowship, and study His Word.
The Jewish Sabbath is a day of rest from labour: A Christian Sunday is a day of praise, worship, fellowship, and study. (In some predominantly Muslim nations and states, Christians gather to worship on Fridays.)
Christians did not “switch the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday”.
Saturday Sabbath observance was, and is, a distinctive mark of followers of Judaism.
The Spirit of God in the first Christian believers (who were Jews remember) led them to make a clean break with Judaism by establishing their day of praise and worship as a Sunday.
Sunday worship was initiated by the Apostles, accepted by the early Church (Acts 20:7), and continues today as a day of Christian worship, teaching, fellowship, and study.
The Apostle John calls it the Lord’s Day. (Rev. 1:10)
Contemporary Christian writers recorded that Sunday was chosen by the Apostles because Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, a Sunday. (See Epistle to the Magnesians, by Ignatius, who was a personal friend of the Apostles and martyred at Rome soon after John died.)
The New Covenant began on a Sunday, and the Day of Pentecost was also a Sunday (Acts 2:1).
This was a seismic break with the Jewish religion, and culture, which still holds to the seventh day as the Sabbath, a Saturday, as do the SDA Adventist cult.
It helped to make Christians distinct from followers of Judaism, the false religion that Jews manufactured, based on their misunderstanding of the Law and Old Testament.
Jews went to work on Sunday, Christians gathered to praise God.
The Complete Wigglesworth Teachings: Is a collection of transcripts of Smith preaching, and it is one of the best daily devotional resources you can use. His words are just as powerfully anointed today as when he spoke them.
The Jewish Law was made obsolete when Christ fulfilled it perfectly and initiated the New Covenant in His Blood. (Ro. 10:4, Gal. 3:24-25, Col. 2:14, Heb. 8:13).
Aren’t you glad that you are not under Law, but under grace? Ro. 6:14-15.
Personally, I use the biblical term the Lord’s Day for a Sunday, because it is not the Sabbath.
The Old Testament Sabbath merely “typified”, and pointed to, this dispensation where every day is a Sabbath’s rest for believers. (Heb. Chs. 3-4, Ch. 8, Heb. 10:1, Col. 2:16-17).
Christians know that every day is a true Sabbath when we rest from our own work of trying to justify ourselves before God.
Praise God we have a Gospel of grace, He did it all, and there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves: We have a perfect salvation. (Eph. Ch. 2).
Do Christians have to stop physical work on the Sabbath Day?
© 09 Colin Melbourne
