The Catholic Sabbath

In the spirit of serving God and following Christ’s example, what are commonly called the “ten commandments”  become central to the life of a christian. Christ said “If you love Me, keep my commandments.”¹  One of the most overlooked and underrated of these is the fourth one. It is the Sabbath command. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…”  

Nearly all self-proclaimed Christians keep the Catholic Sabbath (aka Sunday), even those who readily reject the paganism of the Catholic church.  Is there a better way?  Absolutely! 

 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it”  (Exodus 20:8‭-‬11). 

The “seventh day” that is referred to here is without question the day that we in modern times call “Saturday” not “Sunday.”  Sunday is and always has been the first day of the week. It is no secret that the Catholic church changed the holy Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday² (at least for those adhering to the Catholic church). 

For a Christian to consider Sunday to be the Sabbath is to validate the assumed authority of the Catholic church to change the day that the Creator Himself declared to be holy.  For a non-Catholic to hold this view is self-contradictory. If the Catholic church has the authority to declare Sunday the Sabbath, then why does a Christian reject their authority in other matters?  

It is simple logic. 

Christ Himself, while He walked this earth two thousand years ago, kept the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath.  If He had not, He would have violated His own law and that of the Father.  Such actions would have defiled Him as the Spotless Lamb of God, and sabotaged the eternal plan of redemption for mankind.   If He had changed the holy day from “Saturday” to “Sunday” that would have been as grievous an offense as committing adultery.  

“For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers You have gone away from My ordinances And have not kept them. ‘Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ Says the Lord of hosts…”  (Malachi 3:6‭-‬7). 

What about the early church?

Didn’t the early church begin meeting on Sunday after the new covenant was ushered in? 

  

This idea comes from John 20:19. “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”   

The first day of the week referred to here is obviously Sunday, and the day that Christ first appeared to the disciples. The reason the apostles were assembled on this day is because it was the fourth day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasts for seven days, with a holy convocation on the first day and the last day (Leviticus 23:6-8). 

Then there is  Acts 20:7. “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.”  Here the disciples had a meal together on Sunday. Paul used the opportunity to address them one last time before leaving.  That’s it! There is no mention of this day being a special day, or the new Sabbath. 

Finally, there is 1 Corinthians 16:2 “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.”  Paul was instructing the congregation at Corinth to take up a collection for the brethren in Jerusalem who were subject to a famine. He instructed them to do this on Sunday so as to not defile the Sabbath (Saturday) by amassing money or goods.  There are six days on which such things may be done, and Paul chose one of them.  

The simple fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever in the Bible of the early church regularly meeting on Sunday, or considering that day to be the Sabbath. 

Didn’t Christ’s resurrection occur on Sunday morning?

Matthew 28:1 “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.”  (And He was already risen). 

Mark 16:2  “Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.”   (And He was already risen).

Luke 24:1  “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.”  (And He was already risen).

John 20:1 “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”   (And He was already risen). 

None of these passages say that Christ rose from the tomb on Sunday morning; but only that by early Sunday morning the tomb was empty.  The only verse in the Bible that even indicates He rose on Sunday morning is Mark 16:9  “Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.”

This is a gross mistranslation of the Greek. Ἀναστὰς δὲ πρωῒ πρώτῃ σαββάτου ἐφάνη πρῶτον Μαρίᾳ τῇ Μαγδαληνῇ ἀφ᾽ ἡς ἐκβεβλήκει ἑπτὰ δαιμόνια. This is translated literally “When was risen, now early the first of the week He appeared first to Mary…”  That is to say, He was risen. He appeared first to Mary on the first of the week (Sunday). 

These passages do indeed leave some room for His resurrection being at a time earlier than Sunday morning.  

Now let’s do a little bit of math.  If Christ was crucified on a Friday and was in the tomb for three days and three nights as He foretold, then when would His resurrection be? Friday night would be night #1, Saturday would be day #1, Saturday night would be night #2, Sunday would be Day #2, Sunday night would be night #3, Monday would be day #3, so the resurrection would take place late in the afternoon on Monday.  Well that doesn’t make any sense!  

What if He meant that He would be in the tomb, parts of three days and parts of three nights? Let’s plug that into the equation and see if it runs. If Christ was crucified on a Friday, that would make Friday as day #1, Friday night as night #1, Saturday as day #2, Saturday night as night #2, Sunday morning as day #3. There you have it!  Three days and two nights!   Oh wait…a Sunday night resurrection is still not a Sunday morning resurrection is it? NOPE!   

If Christ did not rise early Sunday morning then when did He?

If Christ was crucified on a Wednesday afternoon then He would have been “cut off in the midst of the week” as was prophesied, He would have been put in the tomb late on Wednesday, as John 19:31 rendered it “…that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. 

The Sabbath referred to here is the annual Sabbath that is called the First Day of Unleavened Bread, and not the weekly which always occurs on Saturday. Christ would have been in the tomb on Wednesday night as night #1, Thursday would be day #1 and the high day referenced above, on which the women would have been unable to purchase the annointing spices, Thursday night would be night #2, Friday would be day #2, and the day on which the women would have bought and prepared the spices before they “rested on the Sabbath” (weekly Sabbath), Friday night would make night #3, Saturday would make Day #3.  So there we have three days and three nights, ending on Saturday afternoon shortly before sunset.  This is when Christ would have risen, and that would leave the tomb empty “very early in the morning” on Sunday.     

Didn’t God start His church on Sunday with the giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost? 

“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1‭-‬4). 

   

There are two schools of thought as to which day of the week Pentecost can fall on, and what day of the week it was on in the year that Christ died.  

If one counts the fifty days to Pentecost beginning with the Sunday after the weekly Sabbath that occurs during the Days of Unleavened Bread, that always puts Pentecost on a Sunday,  not every Sunday.  This would not make every Sunday special, just as you would not consider every Wednesday to be special because Christ died on a Wednesday once.

  

The other way to determine the day of Pentecost is to count fifty days from the day after the annual Sabbath– the first Day of Unleavened Bread.  This can place the day of Pentecost on a Sunday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday.  Since Christ was crucified on a Wednesday, the first Day of Unleavened Bread would have been on a Thursday.  So that year, Pentecost would have occured on a Friday.  

Either way, even if the day that the holy spirit was given to the early church happened to be on a Sunday, the Bible gives no indication whatsoever that this would be an acceptable reason to change the holy Sabbath day that the Creator Himself instituted at Creation. 

What about the Lord’s Day?

This term comes from Revelation 1:10.  “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet.” The Greek text κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ does indeed seem to mean “The day belonging to the Lord.”  A reference to Sunday or “the first day of the week” seems to be absent.  It is only through Catholic tradition that this meant Sunday, and not the true Sabbath.

 

Why does any of this matter?

Is it really that big of a deal which day we rest on?  Yes, it is that big of a deal to the Creator and to His Son.  The keeping of the Sabbath on the proper day is a sign of the covenant between us and Him. Without that covenant we are dead men walking. 

The Sabbath was not a law given by Moses...he simply passed on what the Almighty God Himself commanded.  But don’t take my word for it!  Read Exodus 31:12-18 for yourself.  

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: “Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.”’ And when He had made an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God”  (Exodus 31:12‭-‬18, NKJV).

The importance of this rings true just as much if not more so, under the New Covenant.  Christ did not do away with the Sabbath. He kept it faithfully Himself. For those of us who profess to be His servants, we would do well to follow His example.    

Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater

The rejection of the Saturday Sabbath has been for some Christians a tool of alienation from the paganism of Talmudic Judaism.  Though this tactic may seem justified, it is wholly unnecessary. God created the Sabbath some 2300 years before the existence of a Jew.  When He gave the Sabbath to the tribe of Judah after the exodus from Egypt; He also gave it to the other 12 tribes of Israel.  These tribes today are predominantly the peoples of western Europe and the USA.³  Together with those from other nations and families of the earth who have been grafted into spiritual Israel,⁴ we have just as much inheritance in the Saturday Sabbath as do the Jews.  

What does the Almighty have to say about those who do not keep His Sabbaths?

“Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them”  (Ezekiel 22:26).     

“Therefore ‘Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty’”  (II Corinthians, 6:17‭-‬18). 

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:9‭-‬10).

*All Scripture references are New King James Version unless otherwise noted

¹ John 14:15

² https://www.biblesabbath.org/confessions.html

³ The Biggest Missing Persons Case of All Time

⁴  Galatians 3:28-29