ENDTIME ISSUES NEWSLETTER No. 186

“SUNDAY SACREDNESS”

Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi

Retired Professor of Theology, Andrews University

INDEX OF TOPICS OF THIS NEWSLETTER

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* Update on Recent Developments

“SUNDAY SACREDNESS”

The Essay of this Newsletter

Chapter 6 of the forthcoming book

POPULAR BELIEFS: ARE THEY BIBLICAL?

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UPDATE ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

How is the Writing of POPULAR BELIEFS: ARE THEY BIBLICAL? Coming Along?

The research and writing of the new book Popular Beliefs: Are They Biblical? is coming along well, in spite of an unexpected snag. I promised to post in this newsletter chapter 5 entitled “Purgatory.” But what you are about to read is chapter 6 on “Sunday Sacredness.” What happened! The answer is embarrassing. I forgot a folder with all the material needed to finish the chapter in the glove compartment of the UNITED AIRLINE flight from Chicago to London.

If forgetfulness is a sign of old age, then it is evident that I am getting old. But, thank God that overall my mind seems to be sharper now than ever before. My analytical thinking seems to have improved over the years. Even my body is doing exceptionally well for my nearly 70 years of age. I seem to have more energy now than I had 30 years ago.

When I think that last February several oncologists from leading cancer centers told me that I had only a few months to live, because my liver was infested with a 3 pounds cancer, I can hardly believe that my cancer is practically gone. The last Pet/Cat scan of May 30th, shows that 98% of the cancer cells have been shut down. What can I say: THANK YOU GOD FOR GIVING ME A NEW LEASE ON LIFE. I AM READY TO SERVE YOU UNTIL THE LAST DAY OF MY LIFE

Since I am in England for two weeks to speak at three weekend rallies, I decided to write this chapter on “Sunday Sacredness” while waiting for copies of the material I left on the plane. I can hardly believe it that it took me only four days to write this lengthy 40 pages chapter. The reason is partly because I researched this subject for 15 years, writing four books and numerous articles on this subject, and partly because I am enjoying a peaceful retreat in the home of Gary and Araxi Keshishian.

I have stayed about 20 times with this lovely Adventist professional couple. They have adopted me as their son, though we are of the same age. If your travel plans call for a visit or a stop in London, feel free to contact Gary and Araxi. They will offer you an enjoyable Bed & Breakfast at a reasonable price. Their email is gary@advent.plus.com. For a picture of their home, garden, and accommodation, click at this link: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/Promotions/BED&BREAKFAST.htm

A copy of the material I left on the plane just arrived. Now by God’s grace I should be able to complete the chapter on “Purgatory” before I leave England on November 5. This means that 6 of the 10 chapters are written. Obviously there is still editorial cleaning to be done, but by God’s grace I hope to complete this project within the next four months by the end of February 2008.

Financing the Printing of Popular Beliefs: Are they Biblical?

In my previous newsletters I told you that some fellow believers have promised to raise funds for the printing of this book in order to make it available to churches and individual members FREE OF CHARGE.

This means that if sufficient funds are received to cover the editing and printing costs of Popular Beliefs: Are They Biblical?, the book will be offered for only the cost of shipping and handling, that is, about $2.00 to 3.00 a copy, instead of the regular price of $25.00 for a book of this size. If the funds received cover only part of the printing costs, then the price will be adjusted accordingly.

So far we have received a few contributions. If you feel impressed to contribute to this project, feel free to contact me. I will tell you where to send your contribution, so that you can receive a tax deductible receipt.

A Renewed Sense of Purpose in my Life

As I am working on this new book an average of 15 hours a day, the conviction is developing within my heart that the Lord is prolonging my life for a purpose. He still wants to use me to make contributions to the mission of His church before I am laid to rest. One of the contributions is the writing of this timely book on POPULAR BELIEFS: ARE THEY BIBLICAL? This book may well prove to be my most important contribution to the mission of our Adventist Church.

There are million of people in our society who sincerely believe Satan’s deceptive teachings. We need to help them understand that they are sincere but sincerely wrong. They need to accept God’s saving truths before it is too late. There is no greater joy than calling people “out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Pet 2:9).

This is what the new book is all about. It is designed to help sincere people understand why some of their popular beliefs are unbiblical and why the Adventist beliefs are biblically sound and relevant to the times in which we live. This is the kind of book that hopefully you can give with confidence to anyone interested to know what is the difference between what they believe and what we Adventist believe.

The essay you are about to read on “Sunday Sacredness” is a good example of what this book is designed to accomplish. The popular belief of Sunday Sacredness shared in common by Catholics and Protestant, is widely accepted as biblical truth. Both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been promoting aggressively with homilies and pastoral letters, Sunday sacredness by appealing to its alleged apostolic origin. As you read the chapter you will note that in a gracious way I expose the fallacies of their arguments, showing that Sunday observance has no biblical authority, meaning or experience.

Some readers have suggested that the previous chapters on “The Immortality of the Soul” and “Hell as Eternal Torment,” ought to be published as separate booklets of about 50 pages, because they address timely topics in a compelling way. This may be particularly of this chapter on “Sunday Sacredness.” Many have asked me to summarize my doctoral dissertation From Sabbath to Sunday in a small booklet that lay persons can understand. Well, this is exactly what I have attempted to accomplish in this chapter.

I have worked intensively to summarize my extensive research of several thousand pages in less than 50 pages. Perhaps someday this chapter could be published as a separate booklet. Such a booklet is desperately needed, because our current publications on the change of the Sabbath available at the ABC, are written by well-intentioned pastors who never had time to study and understand the historical process of the change of God’s Holy Day.

After reading this lengthy chapter, feel free to tell me whether or not we should consider publishing the chapter as a booklet, after making the necessary editorial changes. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

New Project: Sharing the Good News of the Sabbath with Words and Songs

I sense that another reason the Lord has given me a new lease on life, is to enable me to proclaim the Sabbath in a more appealing way with the help of an outstanding lyric soprano, Cristina Piccardi. She came to Andrews University recently from Brazil with her husband who is a seminary student.

When I officially met Cristina Piccardi on October 6, 2007 after hearing her singing three times during the divine service at Andrews University Pioneer Memorial Church, I immediately sensed that the Lord is providentially bringing us together to proclaim our timely message in an appealing way through words and songs. Cristina shares my Italian cultural heritage and is by far the best Adventist lyric soprano I have ever heard in all my travels. Though she is only 25 years old, she has won international awards as an opera singer. In fact, she has sang as the leading soprano with several wellknown symphonic orchestra. But after five years of opera singing, she felt the call to sing sacred music that will touch the hearts of people with God’s love.

You can enjoy a preview of Cristina’s singing by clicking at this link http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/cristina/ You can see and hear her singing one stanza of THE HOLY CITY.

We are both excited at the thought of ministering to God’s people together with words and songs. Our first seminar together will be in three weeks on November 16-17, at the Avon Park SDA Church, a 900 members congregation located near Orlando, Florida. We are both praying and preparing ourselves for this important event that will be video-recorded.

Cristina will sing for about half an hour before my Friday evening testimony and half an hour Sabbath morning before my meditation on how to keep the Sabbath to gain the greatest blessings out of it. Then on Sabbath afternoon she will give a one hour sacred concert from 4 to 5 p.m., before my final lecture entitled “The Sabbath Under Crossfire,” which deals with the latest Sabbath/Sunday developments.

If you live in the Orlando area, you do not want to miss this memorable opportunity to hear an outstanding Adventist Soprano, as well as some exciting news about the rediscovery of the Sabbath by ministers and congregations of different denominations. The rediscovery of the Sabbath is an unprecedented phenomenon of our time, which reminds us of Ellen White’s prediction that in this final hour of world history “the Sabbath will be proclaimed more fully” (Early Writings, p.33).

In fact, on December 21-22, 2007, both Cristina and myself have been invited to present the SABBATH SEMINAR with words and songs at the annual convention of the FRIENDS OF THE SABBATH, held this year in Lexington, Kentucky. The co-ordinator has informed me that for the past several years this annual convention has brought together between 500 to 700 non-SDA sabbatarians, belonging to different congregations that have recently accepted the Sabbath. We look forward to a blessed time together with sabbatarian friends of other churches.

Would you like us to Present a Seminar at your Church in 2008?

If your church wishes to explore the possibility of inviting Cristina and myself to present a seminar on the Sabbath, or Second Advent, or Christian lifestyle, feel free to contact me by phone (269) 471-2915 or by email <sbacchiocchi@biblicalperspectives.com> We will gladly mail you FREE OF CHARGE the video recording of the seminar to be taped in a few days at the Avon Park SDA Church, near Orlando, Florida. This DVD recording will give an opportunity to your church board to evaluate both Cristina’s singing and my preaching. Since seeing is believing, the best way to introduce the new format of my seminars, is to give you a chance to watch a video recording of both of us in action.

To receive you FREE DVD recording of our seminar, please email us your name, address, phone number, and church name. We will be glad to call you and give you the list of the open dates.

The cost of the seminar is very reasonable, consisting primarily of the refund of two airline tickets and two hotel rooms. We plan to design a new color flier and attractive posters, featuring the pictures of both of us. We will supply the fliers and the posters.

We have already received several invitations for 2008, but we still have several open weekends. If we hear from you in time, we will do our best to reserve a weekend for your church.

Properly promoted, the seminar can draw your community people, eager to hear Cristina singing so passionately about the love of God with her outstanding soprano voice. Her community Sacred Concerts are always well received.

SUNDAY SACREDNESS

Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi

Retired Professor of Theology, Andrews University

Chapter 6 of forthcoming book

POPULAR BELIEFS: ARE THEY BIBLICAL

A most popular belief shared in common by Catholics and Protestants is Sunday sacredness. In both religious traditions Sunday is regarded as the "Lord's Day," established by Christ and the Apostles to commemorate Christ's resurrection.

The traditional view of Sunday sacredness is being challenged today by the alarming decline in Sunday observance, In Italy, where I come from, it is estimated that only 5% of Catholics attend Mass regularly on Sunday. About 95% of Catholics go to church three times in their lives: when they are hatched, matched, and dispatched.

The situation is essentially the same in most Western countries where church attendance runs below the 10% of the Christian population. The strikingly low church attendance is seen by church leaders as a threat to the survivals not only of their churches but also of Christianity itself. After all the essence of Christianity is a relationship with God and if Christians ignore the Lord on the day which they view as the Lord’s Day, chances are that they will ignore the Lord every day of the week.

President Abraham Lincoln eloquently expressed the vital function of the Sabbath for the survival of Christianity in a speech delivered on November 13, 1862. There he emphasized : “As we keep or break the Sabbath day, we nobly save or meanly loose the last and the best hope by which mankind arises.”¹ Obviously, for Abraham Lincoln, the Sabbath meant Sunday. But this does not detract from the fact that one of American’s outstanding presidents recognized in the principle of Sabbathkeeping the best hope to renew and elevate human beings.

Keenly aware of the implications of the crisis of Sunday observance for the future of Christianity, church leaders and scholars are re-examining the history and theology of Sunday in an effort to promote more effectively Sunday sacredness.

Popes’ Passionate Pleas for a Revival of Sunday Observance

In their homilies and official pronouncements, both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have made passionate pleas for a revival of Sunday observance. For example, on May 31, 1998, Pope John Paul II promulgated a lengthy Pastoral Letter, Dies Domini–The Lord's Day, where he addresses the crisis of Sunday observance. He laments that the “strikingly low” attendance to the Sunday Mass indicates that “faith is weak” and “diminishing.”² He predicts that if this trend is not reversed it can threaten the future of the Catholic Church in the third millennium. He states: “The Lord’s Day has structured the history of the Church through two thousand years: how could we think that it will not continue to shape the future?”³

Benedict XVI has expressed the same concern in his homilies and pastoral letters. For example, on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council constitution on the sacred liturgy, called “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter to Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He said: “For the first Christians, participation in the Sunday celebrations was the natural expression of their belonging to Christ, of communion with his Mystical Body, in the joyful expectation of his glorious return. This belonging was expressed heroically in what happened to the martyrs of Abitene, who faced death exclaiming, ‘Sine dominico non possumus,’ without gathering together on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist, we cannot live.”⁴

The Pope continues saying: “How much more necessary it is today to reaffirm the sacredness of the Lord’s Day and the need to take part in Sunday Mass! The cultural context in which we live, often marked by religious indifference and secularism that blot out the horizon of the transcendent, must not let us forget that the People of God, born from ‘Christ’s Passover-Sunday,’ should return to it as to an inexhaustible source, in order to understand better and better the features of their own identity and the reasons for their existence.”⁵

Sunday Sacredness Derives from its Apostolic Origin

The present “religious indifference and secularism,” manifested in the alarming neglect of Sunday observance, has convinced Benedict XVI that it is imperative “to reaffirm the sacredness of the Lord’s Day,” by returning to its “inexhaustible source” to be found in its “biblical” origin.

Benedict XVI states this belief with amazing clarity later on in the same pastoral letter to Cardinal Francis Arinze, saying: “Sunday was not chosen by the Christian community but by the Apostles, and indeed by Christ himself, who on that day, “the first day of the week,” rose and appeared to the disciples (cf. Mt 28:1; Mk 16: 9; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1,19; Acts 20:7; I Cor 16: 2), and appeared to them again “eight days later” (Jn 20:26).”⁶ Did Christ establish Sunday by resurrecting on that Day? This important question will be examined below in part 3 of this chapter.

John Paul II expresses the same conviction in his Pastoral Letter Dies Domini–The Lord’s Day, that the solution to the crisis of Sunday observance must be found in recovering of the “biblical” foundations of Sunday observance in order to keep the day holy. He wrote that today it is “more necessary than ever to recover the deep doctrinal foundations underlying the Church’s precept, so that the abiding value of Sunday in the Christian life will be clear to all the faithful.”⁶

The doctrinal foundations of Sunday observance are sought in its alleged “biblical” origin. This belief has led a host of Catholic and Protestant scholars in recent years to re-examine the origin of Sunday, in the hope of proving its biblical origin, authority and experience.⁷

A major question addressed in recent doctoral dissertations, books, and articles, is the relationship between the Sabbath and Sunday. Simply stated the question is, Did Sunday begin as the continuation of the Sabbath, thus inheriting the sacredness of the Sabbath? Or, Did Sunday begin as a new institution, radically different from the Sabbath, established by the church to celebrate Christ’s resurrection by means of the Lord’s Supper celebration?

To find an answer to this and other related questions, I spent five years at the Pontifical University in Rome, investigating for my doctoral dissertation how the change came about from Sabbath to Sunday in early Christianity. The findings of my investigation are presented in my book From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity, published in 1977 by the Pontifical Gregorian University press. This chapter represents a brief summary of the highlights of my dissertation.

Objectives of this Chapter

This chapter examines the popular belief of Sunday sacredness from a biblical and historical perspective. Attention will be given to the major biblical and historical arguments commonly used to defend the apostolic origin of Sunday observance.

The chapter divides in six major parts in accordance to the basic outline of my dissertation From Sabbath to Sunday. This means that each part of this chapter represents a summary of the fuller discussion found in a chapter of my dissertation. The seven parts of this chapter are:

1) The Theological Connection between Sabbath and Sunday

2) Jesus and the Origin of Sunday

3) The Resurrection and the Origin of Sunday

4) First Day Gatherings and the Origin of Sunday

5) The Jerusalem Church and the Origin of Sunday

6) The Church of Rome and the Origin of Sunday

7) Sun worship and the Origin of Sunday

PART 1

THE THEOLOGICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN

SABBATH AND SUNDAY

There are two major views today regarding the historical origin of Sunday and its relationship to the biblical Sabbath. The older, traditional view, which can be traced back to early Christianity, maintains that there is a radical discontinuity between the Sabbath and Sunday. Consequently Sunday is not the Sabbath. The two days differ in their origin, meaning, and experience.⁸

The more recent view, which is articulated by Pope John Paul II himself in his Pastoral Letter Dies Domini–The Lord’s Day, maintains that Sunday began as the embodiment and “full expression” of the Sabbath. Consequently the day is to be observed as a biblical imperative, rooted in the Sabbath commandment itself.⁹

Traditional View: Sunday was Established by the Catholic Church

According to the traditional view, which has been held by the Catholic Church and accepted by those Protestant denominations which follow the Lutheran tradition, the Sabbath was a temporary Mosaic institution given to the Jews, abrogated by Christ, and consequently no longer binding upon Christians today. Christians adopted Sunday observance, not as the continuation of the biblical Sabbath, but as a new institution established to celebrate Christ’s resurrection by means of the Lord’s Supper celebration.

This explanation virtually has been regarded as an established fact by Catholic theologians and historians. Thomas of Aquinas, for instance, makes this unambiguous statement: “In the New Law the observance of the Lord’s day took the place of the observance of the Sabbath not by virtue of the precept [Sabbath commandment] but by the institution of the Church and the custom of Christian people.”¹⁰

In his dissertation presented to the Catholic University of America, Vincent J. Kelly similarly affirms: “Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days, as holy days.”¹¹

Even the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) emphasizes the discontinuity between Sabbath and Sunday observance: “Sunday is expressly distinguished from the Sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the Sabbath.”¹²

Recent View: Sunday is the Continuation and “Full Expression” of the Sabbath

Recently there have been both Catholic and Protestant scholars who have argued for an apostolic origin of Sunday observance. According to these scholars, the Apostles themselves chose the first day of the week as the new Christian Sabbath at the very beginning of Christianity in order to commemorate Christ’s resurrection.

This view is defended at great length by Pope John Paul II in his Pastoral Letter, Dies Domini–The Lord’s Day, which was promulgated on May 31, 1998. In this lengthy document (over 40 pages) the Pope makes a passionate plea for a revival of Sunday observance by appealing to the moral imperative of the Sabbath commandment. For the Pope Sunday is to be observed, not merely as an institution established by the Catholic Church, but primarily as a moral imperative of the Decalogue. The reason is that Sunday allegedly originated as the embodiment and “full expression” of the Sabbath and consequently should be observed as the biblical Sabbath.¹³

John Paul departs from the traditional Catholic position presumably because he wishes to challenge Christians to respect Sunday, not merely as an institution of the Catholic Church, but as a divine command. Furthermore, by rooting Sundaykeeping in the Sabbath commandment, the Pope offers the strongest moral reasons for urging Christians “to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy.”¹⁴

The attempts made by the Pope and other Church leaders to ground Sunday observance on the Sabbath commandment, raises this important question: “If Christians are expected to observe Sunday as the Biblical Sabbath, why should not they observe the Sabbath in the first place?” What was wrong with the biblical Sabbath that needed to be changed to Sunday? To apply the Sabbath Commandment to the observance of the first day of the week, Sunday, can be confusing to say the least, because the Fourth Commandment enjoins the observance of the seventh day, not of the first day. This confusion may explain why many Christians do not take the observance of Sunday seriously.

John Paul speaks eloquently of the theological development of the Sabbath from the rest of creation (Gen 2:1-3; Ex 20:8-11) to the rest of redemption (Deut 5:12-15). He notes that in the Old Testament the Sabbath commandment is linked “not only with God’s mysterious ‘rest’ after the days of creation (cf. Ex 20:8-11), but also with the salvation which he offers to Israel in the liberation from the slavery of Egypt (cf. Deut 5:12-15). The God who rests on the seventh day, rejoicing in His creation, is the same God who reveals his glory in liberating his children from Pharaoh’s oppression.”¹⁵

Being a memorial of creation and redemption, “the ‘Sabbath’ has therefore been interpreted evocatively as a determining element in the kind of ‘sacred architecture’ of time which marks biblical revelation. It recalls that the universe and history belong to God; and without constant awareness of that truth, man cannot serve in the world as a co-worker of the Creator.”¹⁶

Sunday as the Embodiment of the Sabbath

In the light of these profound theological insights into the Sabbath as being a kind of “sacred architecture” of time that marks the unfolding of God’s creative and redemptive activity, and as the defining expression of our relationship with God, one wonders how does the Pope succeed in developing a theological justification for Sunday observance? He does this by making Sunday the embodiment and full expression of the biblical Sabbath.

For example, John Paul without hesitation applies to Sunday God’s blessing and sanctification of the Sabbath at creation. “Sunday is the day of rest because it is the day ‘blessed’ by God and ‘made holy’ by him, set apart from the other days to be, among them, ‘the Lord’s Day.’”¹⁷

More importantly, the Pope makes Sunday the “full expression” of the Sabbath by arguing that Sunday, as the Lord’s Day, fulfills the creative and redemptive functions of the Sabbath. These two functions, the Pope claims, “reveal the meaning of the ‘Lord’s Day’ within a single theological vision which fuses creation and salvation.”¹⁸

The Pope maintains that New Testament Christians “made the first day after the Sabbath a festive day” because they discovered that the creative and redemptive accomplishments celebrated by the Sabbath, found their “fullest expression in Christ’s Death and Resurrection, though its definitive fulfillment will not come until the Parousia, when Christ returns in glory.”¹⁹

The Pope’s attempt to make Sunday the “extension and full expression” of the creative and redemptive meanings of the Sabbath is very ingenious, but it lacks biblical and historical support. There are no indications in the New Testament that Christians ever interpreted Sunday to be the embodiment of the creative and redemptive meanings of the Sabbath. From a biblical and historical perspective, Sunday is not the Sabbath because the two days differ in authority, meaning, and experience.

Difference in Authority

The difference in authority lies in the fact that while Sabbathkeeping rests upon an explicit biblical command (Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:8-11; Mark 2:27-28; Heb 4:9), Sundaykeeping derives from an interplay of social, political, pagan, and religious factors. I have examined these factors at length in my dissertation From Sabbath to Sunday. The lack of a biblical authority for Sundaykeeping may well be a major contributing factor to the crisis of Sunday observance that John Paul rightly laments.

The vast majority of Christians, especially in the Western world, view their Sunday as a holiday to seek personal pleasure and profit rather than a holy day to seek divine presence and peace. I submit that a major contributing factor to the secularization of Sunday is the prevailing perception that there is no divine, biblical command to keep Sunday as a holy day.

The lack of a biblical conviction that Sunday should be observed as the holy Sabbath day may well explain why most Christians see nothing wrong in devoting their Sunday time to themselves rather than to the Lord. If there was a strong theological conviction that the principle of Sundaykeeping was divinely established at creation and later “inscribed” in the Decalogue, as the Pope attempts to prove, then Christians would feel compelled to act accordingly.

Difference in Meaning

John Paul recognizes the need to make Sundaykeeping a moral imperative and he tries to accomplish this by rooting the day in the Sabbath commandment itself. But this cannot be done because Sunday is not the Sabbath. The two days have a different meaning and function. While in Scripture the Sabbath memorializes God’s perfect creation, complete redemption, and final restoration, Sunday is justified in the earliest Patristic literature as the commemoration of the creation of light on the first day of the week, the cosmic-eschatological symbol of the new eternal world typified by the eighth day, and the memorial of Christ’s Sunday Resurrection.²³

None of the historical meanings attributed to Sunday require per se the observance of the day by resting and worshipping the Lord. For example, nowhere does Scripture suggest that the creation of light on the first day ought to be celebrated through a weekly Sunday rest and worship. Even the Resurrection event, as we shall see, does not require per se a weekly or annual Sunday celebration.

The attempt to transfer to Sunday the biblical authority and meaning of the Sabbath is doomed to fail because it is impossible to retain the same authority, meaning, and experience when the date of a festival is changed. For example, if a person or an organization should succeed in changing the date of the Declaration of Independence from the 4th July to the 5th of September, the new date could hardly be viewed as the legitimate celebration of Independence Day.

Similarly, if the festival of the Sabbath is changed from the seventh to the first day, the latter can hardly memorialize the divine acts of creation, redemption, and final restoration which are linked to the typology of the Sabbath. To invest Sunday with the theological meaning and function of the Sabbath means to adulterate a divine institution by making a holy day out of what God created to be a working day.

Difference in Experience

The difference between Sabbath and Sunday is also one of experience. While Sundaykeeping began and has remained largely the hour of worship, Sabbathkeeping is presented in Scriptures as twenty-four hours consecrated to God. In spite of the efforts made by Constantine, church councils, and the Puritans to make Sunday into a total day of rest and worship, the historical reality is that Sunday observance has been equated with church attendance. John Paul II acknowledges this historical reality in chapter 3 of the Pastoral Letter entitled “The Day of the Church. The Eucharistic Assembly: The Heart of Sunday.” The thrust of the chapter is that the heart of Sunday observance is the participation in the Mass. He cites the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says: “The Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life.”²¹

The end of Sunday church services marks for most Christians also the termination of Sundaykeeping. After church, they go in good conscience to the shopping mall, a ball game, a dance hall, a theater, etc. It came as a surprise for me to discover that even in the “Bible Belt” many shops open for business as soon as the church services are over. The message is clear. The rest of Sunday is business as usual.

Sunday Hour of Worship Versus Sabbath Day of Rest and Worship

The recognition of this historical reality has led Christopher Kiesling, a distinguished Catholic Liturgist, to argue for the abandonment of the notion of Sunday as a day of rest and for the retention of Sunday as the hour of worship.²¹ His reasoning is that since Sunday has never been a day of total rest and worship, there is no hope to make it so today when most people want holidays, not holy days.

By contrast, celebrating the Sabbath means not merely attending church services but consecrating its twenty-four hours to the Lord. The Sabbath commandment does not say, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy by attending church services.” What the commandment requires is to work six days and rest on the seventh day unto the Lord (Ex 20:8-10). This means that the essence of Sabbathkeeping is the consecration of time. The act of resting unto the Lord makes all the Sabbath activities, whether they be formal worship or informal fellowship and recreation, an act of worship because all of them spring out of a heart which has decided to honor God.

The act of resting on the Sabbath unto the Lord becomes the means through which the believer enters into God’s rest (Heb 4:10) by experiencing more fully and freely the awareness of God’s presence, peace, and rest. This unique experience of Sabbathkeeping is foreign to Sundaykeeping because the essence of the latter is not the consecration of time but rather church attendance, especially the partaking of the eucharist.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, we conclude that the Pope’s attempt to make Sunday the theological and existential embodiment of the Sabbath is doomed to fail, because the two days differ radically in their authority, meaning, and experience.

PART 2

JESUS AND

THE ORIGIN OF SUNDAY

A popular view defended recently by several scholars is that Christ paved the way for the abandonment of the Sabbath and the adoption of Sunday keeping instead, by His messianic claims and His provocative method of Sabbath keeping, which caused considerable controversy with the religious leaders of His day.

A noteworthy example of this view is the symposium From Sabbath to the Lord’s Day (1982), produced by seven British/American scholars and sponsored by the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research in Cambridge, England. This symposium is generally regarded as the most scholarly defence of Sundaykeeping in our time. The authors maintain that Christ transcended the Sabbath law by His messianic claims. He acted against the prevailing Sabbath traditions in order to provide His followers with the freedom to reinterpret the Sabbath and to choose a new day of worship, better suited to express their new Christian faith.

The fundamental problem with this view is that it grossly misinterpret the intent of Christ’s controversial Sabbath activities and teachings, which were clearly designed, not to nullify, but to clarify the divine intent of the Fourth Commandment. Christ acted deliberately against prevailing misconceptions of the Sabbath, not to terminate its observance, but to restore the day to God’s intended purpose.

It should be noted that whenever accused of Sabbath breaking, Christ refuted such charge of Sabbath breaking by appealing to the Scriptures: “Have you not read . . .” (Matt 12:3-5). Christ never conceded to have broken the Sabbath commandment. On the contrary He defended Himself and His disciples from the charge of Sabbath breaking by appealing to the Scriptures.

The intent of Christ’s provocative Sabbath teachings and activities was not to pave the way for the abandonment of the Sabbath and adoption of Sunday keeping, but rather to show the true meaning and function of the Sabbath, namely, a day “to do good” (Matt 12:8), “to save life” (Mark 3:4), to loose people from physical and spiritual bonds (Luke 13:16), and to show “mercy” rather than religiosity (Matt 12:7).

By showing these vital functions of the Sabbath, Christ proved that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Our Lord’s choice of words in this text is significant. The verb “made—ginomai” alludes to the original “making” of the Sabbath and the word “man—anthropos” suggests its human function. Thus to establish the human and universal value of the Sabbath, Christ reverts to its very origin, right after the creation of man. Why? Because for the Lord the law of the beginning stands supreme.

This memorable affirmation alone suffices to refute the claim that Christ paved the way for the abandonment of the Sabbath and adoption of Sunday, because He established the permanent validity of he Sabbath by appealing to its original creation when God determined its intended function for the well-being of mankind.

The Sabbath and the Savior in Luke

To appreciate more fully the relationship between the Savior and the Sabbath, it is necessary to study the Sabbath material found in all the Gospels and in Hebrews. Since this is not possible within the limited scope of this chapter, we will briefly focus only on the Sabbath in Luke and in Hebrews. The complete study is found in chapter 4 “The Savior and the Sabbath” of my book The Sabbath Under Crossfire.

Luke opens his account of Christ’s ministry by describing Him as as an habitual observer of the Sabbath: “On the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom” (Luke 4:16;NIV). Apparently Luke intended to set Christ before his readers as a model of Sabbathkeeping, because he speaks of Christ’s customary Sabbathkeeping in the immediate context of His upbringing in Nazareth (“where he had been brought up”—v. 16). This suggests that the allusion is especially to the custom of Sabbath observance during Christ’s youth.

The word “Sabbath” occurs in Luke’s Gospel 21 times and 8 times in Acts.²² That is approximately twice as often as in any of the other three Gospels. This surely suggests that Luke attaches significance to the Sabbath. In fact, Luke not only begins but also closes the account of Christ’s earthly ministry on a Sabbath by mentioning that His entombment took place on “the day of Preparation and the Sabbath was beginning” (Luke 23:54). A number of scholars recognize in this text Luke’s concern to show that the Christian community observed the Sabbath.²³

Lastly, Luke expands his brief account of Christ’s burial by stating emphatically that the women “rested on the sabbath in obedience to the commandment” (Luke 23:56b—NIV). Why does Luke present not only Christ but also His followers as habitual Sabbathkeepers? The answer is that Luke intended to set before his readers Christ as “a model of reverence for the Sabbath.”²⁴ Such a model discredits Benedict XVI’s claim tht “Sunday was not chosen by the Christian community but by the Apostles, and indeed by Christ himself.”

The Sabbath in Hebrews

The discussion of the Sabbath in Hebrews is crucial to our study because it shows the understanding and experience of the Sabbath by the New Testament church. The relationship between the Sabbath and the Savior is established by the author of Hebrews by linking together Genesis 2:2 with Psalm 95:7,11. By means of these two texts the writer of Hebrews explains that the Sabbath rest offered at creation (Heb 4:4) was not exhausted when the Israelites under Joshua found a resting place in Canaan, since God offered again His rest “long afterwards” through David (Heb 4:7; cf. Ps 95:7).

Consequently, God’s promised Sabbath rest still awaited a fuller realization which has dawned with the coming of Christ (Heb 4:9). It is by believing in Jesus Christ that God’s people can at last experience (“enter”—Heb 4:3,10,11) the “good news” of God’s rest promised on the “seventh day” of creation (Heb 4:4).

Obsolete or Remaining?

Does Hebrews teach that the Sabbath, like the temple and its services, lived out its function with the coming of Christ? Or did the Sabbath acquire fresh meaning and function with His coming? Let us now look at what Hebrews has to say on this point.

There is no question that the author clearly teaches that Christ’s coming has brought about a decisive discontinuity with the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. In chapters 7 to 10, the writer of Hebrews explains at great length how Christ’s atoning sacrifice and subsequent heavenly ministry have replaced completely the typological (“copy and shadow”—Heb 8 :5) function of the levitical priesthood and its Temple. These services Christ “abolished” (Heb 10:9). Thus they are “obsolete” and “ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13).

But, does the writer of Hebrews place the Sabbath in the same category, viewing it as one of the “obsolete” Old Covenant institutions? This is indeed the conclusion drawn by people like Benedict XVI, who are eager to trace the origin of Sunday to Christ Himself, but a careful study of the passage proves otherwise.

The “sabbatismos—Sabbath rest” is explicitly and emphatically presented, not as being “obsolete” like the Temple and its services, but as being a divine benefit that still “remains” (Heb 4:9). The verb “remains—apoleipetai” is a present passive tense which literally translated means “has been left behind.” Thus, literally translated, Hebrews 4:9 reads as follows: “So then a Sabbath-keeping has been left behind for the people of God.”

Professor Andrew Lincoln, one of the contributors to the scholarly symposium From Sabbath to the Lord’s Day, has established that the term sabbatismos was used both by pagans and Christians as a technical term for Sabbathkeeping. Examples can be found in the writings of Plutarch, Justin, Epiphanius, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the Martyrdom of Peter and Paul.²⁵ Lincoln found that in each of the above instances “the term denotes the observance or celebration of the Sabbath. This usage corresponds to the Septuagint usage of the cognate verb sabbatizo (cf. Ex 16:23; Lev 23:32; 26:34f.; 2 Chron 36:21) which also has reference to Sabbath observance. Thus the writer to the Hebrews is saying that since the time of Joshua an observance of Sabbath rest has been outstanding.”²⁶

The fact that according to Hebrews 4:9, the observance of Sabbath “remains” for believers in Christ, compellingly discredit Benedict XVI’s claim that the first Christians showed their belonging to Christ by celebrating Sunday.

The Meaning of the Sabbath Rest

Is the author of Hebrews merely encouraging his readers to interrupt their secular activities on the Sabbath? Considering the concern of the writer to counteract the tendency of his readers to adopt Jewish liturgical customs as a means to gain access to God, he could hardly have emphasized solely the physical “cessation” aspect of Sabbathkeeping. This aspect yields only a negative idea of rest, one which would only serve to encourage existing Judaizing tendencies. Obviously then, the author attributes a deeper meaning to the resting on the Sabbath.

This deeper meaning can be seen in the antithesis the author makes between those who failed to enter into God’s rest because of “unbelief—apeitheias” (4:6, 11)—that is, faithlessness which results in disobedience—and those who enter it by “faith—pistei” (4:2, 3), that is, faithfulness that results in obedience.

The act of resting on the Sabbath for the author of Hebrews is not merely a routine ritual (cf. “sacrifice”—Matt 12:7), but rather a faith-response to God. Such a response entails not the hardening of one’s heart (4:7) but the making of oneself available to “hear his voice” (4:7). It means experiencing God’s salvation rest not by works but by faith, not by doing but by being saved through faith (4:2, 3, 11). On the Sabbath, as John Calvin aptly expresses it, believers are “to cease from their work to allow God to work in them.”²⁷ This expanded interpretation of Sabbathkeeping in the light of the Christ event, negates any attempt to make Sunday the continuation of the Sabbath, thus inheriting the sacredness of the Sabbath.

PART 3

THE RESURRECTION

AND THE ORIGIN OF SUNDAY

The most popular argument used to defend the apostolic origin of Sunday, is Christ’s Resurrection and Appearances on the first day of the week. In view of its popularity and importance, careful consideration must be given to this argument.

In his Pastoral Letter Dies Domini–The Lord’s Day, John Paul II affirms that the earliest Christians “made the first day after the Sabbath a festive day, for that was the day on which the Lord rose from the dead.”²⁸ He argues that though Sunday is rooted in the creative and redemptive meaning of the Sabbath, the day finds its full expression in the Resurrection of Christ. “Although the Lord’s Day is rooted in the very work of creation and even more in the mystery of the Biblical [Sabbath] ‘rest’ of God, it is nonetheless to the Resurrection of Christ that we must look in order to understand fully the Lord’s Day.”²⁹

Vital Importance Attributed to Resurrection

Numerous scholars argue that the Resurrection and Appearance of Christ on the first day of the week constitute the fundamental biblical justification for the origin of Sunday worship.³⁰ Since John Paul II offers a concise summary of this argument, I will respond primarily to his comments.

In his Pastoral Letter John Paul II writes: “According to the common witness of the Gospels, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead took place on ‘the first day after the Sabbath’ (Mark 16:2,9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). On the same day, the Risen Lord appeared to the two disciples of Emmaus (cf. Luke 24:13-35) and to the eleven Apostles gathered together (cf. Luke 24:36; John 20:19). A week later—as the Gospel of John recounts (cf. John 20:26)—the disciples were gathered together once again when Jesus appeared to them and made Himself known to Thomas by showing him the signs of His Passion. The day of Pentecost—the first day of the eighth week after the Jewish Passover (cf. Acts 2:1), when the promise made by Jesus to the Apostles after the Resurrection was fulfilled by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-5)—also fell on a Sunday. This was the day of the first proclamation and the first baptisms: Peter announced to the assembled crowd that Christ was risen and ‘those who received his word were baptized’ (Acts 2:41). This was the epiphany of the Church, revealed as the people into which are gathered in unity, beyond all their differences, the scattered children of God.”³¹

Numerous Catholic and Protestant scholars concur with John Paul in attributing to Christ’s Resurrection and appearances on the first day of the week the fundamental reason for the choice of Sunday by the Apostolic church. In his doctoral dissertation on the origin of Sunday, Corrado Mosna, a Jesuit student at the Pontifical Gregorian University who worked under Vincenzo Monachino, S. J. (the same professor who monitored my dissertation), concludes: “Therefore we can conclude with certainty that the event of the Resurrection has determined the choice of Sunday as the day of worship of the first Christian community.”³²

The same view is expressed by Cardinal Jean Daniélou: “The Lord’s Day is a purely Christian institution; its origin is to be found solely on the fact of the Resurrection of Christ on the day after the Sabbath.”³³ In a similar vein, Paul Jewett, a Protestant scholar, writes: “What, it might be asked, specifically motivated the primitive Jewish church to settle upon Sunday as a regular time of assembly? As we have observed before, it must have had something to do with the Resurrection which, according to the uniform witness of the Gospels, occurred on the first day of the week.”³⁴

In spite of its popularity, the alleged role of the Resurrection in the adoption of Sunday observance lacks both biblical and historical support. A careful study of all the references to the Resurrection reveals the incomparable importance of the event,³⁵ but it does not provide any indication regarding a special day to commemorate it.

Harold Riesenfeld notes, “In the accounts of the Resurrection in the Gospels, there are no sayings which direct that the great event of Christ’s Resurrection should be commemorated on the particular day of the week on which it occurred.”³⁶ Therefore, “to say that Sunday was observed because Jesus rose on that day,” as S. V. McCasland cogently states, “is really a petitio principii [begging the question], for such a celebration might just as well be monthly or annually and still be an observance of that particular day.³⁷

Let me briefly mention seven major reasons which discredit the alleged role of Christ’s Resurrection in the adoption of Sunday observance.

(1 ) No Command of Christ or of the Apostles

There is no commandment of Christ or of the apostles regarding a weekly-Sunday or annual Easter-Sunday celebration of Christ’s resurrection. We have commands in the New Testament regarding baptism (Matt 28:19-20), the Lord’s Supper (Mark 14:24-25; 1 Cor 11:23-26) and foot-washing (John 13:14-15), but we find no commands or even suggestions to commemorate Christ’s Resurrection on a weekly Sunday or annual Easter-Sunday.

(2) Christ Made no Attempt to Establish a Memorial of His Resurrection

Had Jesus wanted to memorialize the day of His Resurrection, the ideal time to institute such a memorial would have been the actual day of His Resurrection. Important divine institutions like the Sabbath, baptism, Lord's Supper, all trace their origin to a divine act which marked their beginning. But on the day of His Resurrection Christ performed no act to institute a memorial of His Resurrection. He did not tell the women and the disciples: “Come apart and celebrate My Resurrection?” Instead He told the women “Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee” (Matt 28:10) and to the disciples “Go . . . make disciples . . . baptizing them” (Matt 28:19). None of the utterances of the risen Savior reveal an intent to memorialize His resurrection by making Sunday the new day of rest and worship.

The silence of the New Testament on this matter is very important since most of its books were written many years after Christ’s death and Resurrection. If by the latter half of the first century Sunday had come to be viewed as the memorial of the Resurrection which fulfilled the creation/redemption functions of the Old Testament Sabbath, as the Pope claims, we would expect to find in the New Testament some allusions to the religious meaning and observance of the weekly Sunday and/or annual Easter-Sunday.

The total absence of any such allusions indicates that such developments occurred in the post-apostolic period as a result of an interplay of political, social, and religious factors, which I have examined at length in my dissertation From Sabbath to Sunday.

(3) There is no Easter-Sunday in the New Testament

The Pope’s claim that the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection on a weekly Sunday and annual Easter-Sunday “evolved from the early years after the Lord’s Resurrection”³⁸ is negated by the absence of Easter-Sunday in the New Testament. It is a known fact that for at least a century after Jesus’ death, Passover was observed not on Easter-Sunday, as a celebration of the Resurrection, but on the date of Nisan 14 (irrespective of the day of the week) as a celebration of the sufferings, atoning sacrifice, and Resurrection of Christ.

The repudiation of the biblical reckoning of Passover and the adoption of Easter-Sunday instead, is a post-apostolic development which is attributed, as Joachim Jeremias puts it, “to the inclination to break away from Judaism”³⁹ and to avoid, as J. B. Lightfoot explains, “even the semblance of Judaism.”⁴⁰

The introduction and promotion of Easter-Sunday by the Church of Rome in the second century caused the well-known Passover (Quartodeciman) controversy which eventually led Bishop Victor of Rome to excommunicate the Asian Christians (about A. D. 191) for refusing to adopt Easter-Sunday.⁴¹

Indications such as these suffice to show that Christ’s Resurrection was not celebrated on a weekly Sunday and annual Easter-Sunday from the inception of Christianity. The social, political, and religious factors that contributed to the change from Sabbath to Sunday and Passover to Easter-Sunday are discussed at length in my dissertation From Sabbath to Sunday.