The
Lord's Day
For the majority of Christianity, the most highly regarded day other than Christmas
and Easter is the weekly service known as the Lord's Day.
Religious leaders and enthusiasts point to scriptures like Luke 24:1, Acts 20:7 and
Revelations 1:10 in the Bible to show that the Lord's Day or references to the first day
of the week is one and the same Sunday service, and the day on which Christ was
resurrected.
On the other hand, Sabbaterians, Christians who worship on the seventh day Sabbath
and those who keep the Holy Days in Leviticus 23, breeze by the Revelations passage
ignoring it totally or rewording the passage using the phrase the Day of the Lord with the
explanation that the Apostle John was saying that he meant he was transported into the
"day of the Lord".
But are either of these approaches correct? Surely,
if one believes in the Bible as the inspired word of God, then neither can one assumed the
Sunday service is one and the same or ignore and reword the passage. Can it really be proven and is there a more
realistic possibility? Surely if the Bible
speaks of it, there had to have been a Lord's Day.
Immediately some will say, for instance, in Acts, if Luke wouldn't have mentioned
the timing, i.e. the day of the week if it hadn't been of importance. And the choice of what is taken from the scripture
is in itself a bit strange. But for the sake
of prudence and for the time being, that argument will be accepted and examine the
scripture after a little background.
The book of Acts is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. Both works are written to someone named
Theophilus, i.e. they were not written per se to be the historical documents they have now
become. Although, most religious authorities
on the Bible say the identification of Theophilus is unknown, the addressee of the books
may have been Theophilus of Antioch, the second century Christian writer, who wrote
between A.D.115-168-181. This would assume that Theophilus was a very young
man, when Acts was written or the book was written considerably later than A.D. 63 - 80
time-frame. Of course, this is mere
speculation. However, the facts that can be
gleamed from the scriptures is that Luke and maybe others of the disciples had interacted
with Theophilus, thought very highly of him and was giving him a review of what the young
man had previously been taught.
Luke 20 tells of one of Paul's missionary journey, his third, where Luke describes
visits to Macedonia, then Greece and then the return trip.
In Verse 3, Luke indicates that he and Paul were in Greece for three months. In Verse 4 and 5, he indicated the people
accompanied Paul and that
they traveled ahead and waited for them in
Troas. In verse 6 and 7, he continues:
But we sailed
away from Phillippi after the Days of
Unleavened Bread
and in five days joined them
at Troas, where
we stayed seven days. 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.
One observation that can be made about the description is Luke is being very
specific about the time-frame. For
example, he does not say that they hung
around for a couple of day after the Days of Unleavened Bread, then meet the others in
Troas. He seems to be giving the young man an
impression of their journeys, letting him know how long it took to arrive certain places
and how long they stayed in each place. Perhaps
the young man had expressed an interest in accompanying them on a trip. Luke might have even been giving himself a little
pat on the back for the endurance it took to do all that traveling.
Another observation is that Luke doesn't explain the Days of Unleavened Bread to
Theophilus, which would leave the impression that Theophilus knew what he was talking
about, i.e. he was familiar with both the observance and the time-frame.
Historians placed the time-frame of Paul's third missionary journey, between A.D.
50 - 60; some say A.D. 54, others say A.D.
57. Be that as it may, during that
time-frame, and probably any time-frame, it is very difficult to leave any place after the
Days of Unleavened Bread, traveled for five days to arrive somewhere, stay there for seven
days, have a very lengthy meeting, leave the next day and still have the day of the
lengthy meeting to have been the first day of the week.
In fact, Luke doesn't say that meeting occurred on the first day of the week.
The word day is italicized, indicating a word added to make the English read
easier. But read the passage without the word
day and the English reads just fine. The
inclusion of the word day seems to do more to satisfy the religious convictions of
the translators of the King James Bible, then it is to improve on the scripture's
readability. The same tendency is found in
the passages in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John where Christ's opened and empty tomb is
discovered by Mary Magadelene and company. All
of these scriptures are examples where the translator allowed their own religious
convictions, belief in a Sunday observance of the Lord's Day
and the resurrection day, to impact the work at
hand, namely a unadulterated translation of the Bible.
The same transgression occurs in some of the Early Christian writings, however, it
doesn't seem to be as pronounced. Perhaps the
number of people translating or the number of people who ever actually see or read the
Early Christian writings is the reason.
Remaining is the reference in Revelations 1:10.
The Apostle John begins:
I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind
me a loud voice,
as of a trumpet, saying, "I am the Alpha
and the Omega,
the First and the Last," and, "What you
see, write in a
book and send it to the seven churches
which are in
Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos,
to Thyatira, to
Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
The rest of the book is John's description of his vision. It can be noted here that the phrase, the Lord's
Day, is not italicized and from that it can be assumed that it appears in the original
manuscript. Also note, there is no mention of
when the day was observed, so it is obvious that the recipients of the book of Revelation,
the seven churches in Asia, would know to what John was referring. Let's see what the Early Church said about
the Lord's Day.
From Early Church Writings
In his Epistle to the Magnesians, written between
A.D. 30 - 107, Ignatius writes, in a passage
explaining the correct and spiritual manner in which the Sabbath should be kept says the
following of the Lord's Day:
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].[22] Looking
forward to this, the prophet
declared,
"To the end, for the eighth day," on which our
life both sprang
up again, and the victory over
death was
obtained in Christ whom the children of
perdition, the
enemies of the Saviour, deny, whose
god is their
belly, who mind earthly things, who are
"lovers of
pleasure, and not lovers of God, having a
form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof.
Ignatius states that the queen of days is the Lord's Day, and by inference that the
Sabbath is the king of days, the phrase, "after the observance of the Sabbath"
is a ranking of days. The phrase is ambiguous
if taken as an indication of when the day was observed--how long after the
observance of the Sabbath--fifteen minutes
later, a few hours later, at sundown?
In the Epistle of Barnabas, in a passage describing the proper keeping of the
Sabbath, there is the following:
"Your new
moons and your Sabbaths I cannot endure."[23]
Ye perceive how
He speaks: Your present Sabbaths
are not
acceptable to Me, but that is which I have made
[namely this][24] when giving rest to all things, I shall make
a beginning of
the eighth day, that is, a beginning of
another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day
with joyfulness,
the day also on which Jesus rose again
from the dead.
Note again the reference to an observance of the eighth day. Although Barnabas doesn't refer to it, the
translators would have us believe this is proof that the Lord's Day, i.e. the Sunday
observance thereof, was observed from early times.
Both the Constitution of the Apostles and the Teaching of the Apostles, or the
Didache, mention a Lord's Day observance, but gives no information about when it was
observed.
The first indexed reference in the Constitutions, Book II, Section VII, Paragraph
LVII is a description of a church assembly
which includes celebration of the Lord's Supper. There
is no reference to it as the Lord's Day nor that it occurred on the first day of the week. It is not a general assembly of the church members
as the description expressly states:
...but let the
door be watched, lest any unbeliever,
or one not yet
initiated, come in.
This would indicate that the assembly was only
for baptized Christians, i.e. it could have been a Passover service or a service from a
religion similar to Christianity.
The Bible suggests that there was some kind of insurrection and departure from the
New Testament Church by people who wanted to look like the rest of the world. There are several scriptures which alluded to this
fact.
1 Cor 10:18-22 (NKJV):
Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the
sacrifices partakers of the altar? What am I saying then? That an
idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that
the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons
and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with
demons. You cannot drink the cup of
the Lord and the cup of
demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table
of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we
stronger than He?
1 John 5:2-5 (NKJV):
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God, and
everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is
begotten of Him. By this we know that
we love the children of
God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this
is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His
commandments are not burdensome. For
whatever is born of
God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has
overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes
the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Jude 1:3 - Jude 1:4 (NKJV)
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning
our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you
exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was
once for all delivered to the saints. For
certain men have
crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this
condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God
into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:16-19(NKJV)
These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their
own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people
to gain advantage.
But you, beloved, remember the words
which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the
last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.
These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the
Spirit.
The rest of the world was practicing Mithraism,
the religion of the Roman Empire.
This religion, whose beginnings have been traced
to the ancient Persians, had as its god, Mithras, the god of light, truth, and loyalty to
covenants. The rites, rituals and doctrines
of the religion had many similarities to Christianity such as purification through a
ritualistic baptism and a ceremony in which the faithful drank wine and ate bread to
symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays
were held sacred and the birth of the god was celebrated on December 25th. The god is even said to have died and been
resurrected.
In his First Apology, Justin Martyr, A.D. 110-165 is the first of the Early
Christian writers to allege that Christ died on a Friday and was resurrected on the
following Sunday. Others who were of the same
opinion were either his disciples or disciples of his disciples. In this Apology he describes a religious service:
And on the day
called Sunday, all who live in cities
or in the
country gather together to one place, and
the memoirs of
the apostles or the writings of the
prophets are
read, as long as time permits; then,
when the reader
has ceased, the president verbally
instructs and
exhorts to the imitation of these good
things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as
we before said,
when our prayer is ended, bread and
wine and water
are brought and the president in
like manner
offers prayers and thanksgivings, according
to his ability,
and the assent, saying Amen; ...
Note that Justin does not use the term "The Lord's Day." Why not? Writing
several years after the Apostle John, why wouldn't Justin have used the same popular term? Could this be because he is not speaking about the
same day?
In his Dialogue with Trypho, he alleges that the holy days were initiated because
of sin. His knowledge of Old Testament and
Jewish traditions is filled with errors.
Strangely enough, it is unknown from whom Justin Martyr learned Christianity. His own account of his conversion from Platonism
to Christianity is only that it was taught to him by an old man he met while alone in a
forest. The name of the old man is never
given. The details of what he was told about
the law or prophets are
unknown. The
point to be made here is that there is no link between he and the Apostles or any disciple
of theirs.
The terminology in Justin's description of a religion ceremony is quite
significant. The term "president"
implies an elected office. This is
significant because one element of Gnosticism was that they did not take kindly to
authority. Some believed that authority
was derived from the counterfeit God who created and governed the world. Others believed that authority blocked one's
arrival to gnosis. Because of these beliefs,
it was the norm in Gnostic worship for lots to be drawn to decide who, for that occasion,
would take the role of priest, offer the sacrament, read from the scriptures or deliver
the sermon. It is far more likely that the
service Justin Martyr described was some type of Gnostic service.
Yet, it is also Justin Martyr who is one of the first writers to discuss the
duplication and desecration of the Christian doctrine by demons. One passage he talks about the cup of Christ
being duplicated in the mysteries of Mithras. In
his Second Apology, he states:
For I myself,
when I discovered the wicked disguise
which the evil
spirits had thrown around the divine
doctrines of the
Christians, to turn aside others from
joining them,
laughed both at those who framed these
falsehoods, and
at the disguise itself, and at popular
opinion...
This may have been a retraction of his previous
statements and an admittance of having at one time been deceived. Before closing his Second
Apology, he names the doctrine of Simon Magus:
And I despised
the wicked and deceitful doctrine
of Simon of my
own nation. And if you give this
book your
authority, we will expose him before all
that, if
possible, they may be converted.
Another retraction? Perhaps. However,
it may have been too little too late. But it is not meant herein to retract from the life
of Justin Martyr. As his name indicates, he
was martyred, in the defense of Christianity.
Conclusion
The Sunday observance of the Lord's Day was influenced by the pagan Mithraism
religion of the Roman Empire. As most of
references in the Bible and in Early Church writings to the first day of the week have
been attached to them by proponents of the Sunday observance of the Lord's Day, there
doesn't appear to be a direct link with the day observed by the Apostles.
Still again, since it is mentioned both in the Bible and the Early Church writings
so often, one would think that it would be an exact indication of when it was observed. And indeed, it had been written down. The reference to the observance of the eighth day,
provides us with a clue. Leviticus and other
scriptures in the Old Testament describes the festival which in Judaism is called Shmini
Atzeret, a one day festival observed after the seven days of Sukkot, the Feast of
Tabernacles. Shmini Atzeret, apparently has
no defined meaning in Judaism, except that it means "gathering of the eighth
day". Due to the Sunday observance,
those Sabbaterian Churches that celebrate this day referred to it as "The Last Great
Day".
Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret are both autumn festivals, so how could they relate to
Christ's resurrection? This is the most
interesting point. The Bible indicates that
the Passover was observed on the fourteen day of the second month--the second month in the
Jewish year is Nisan, the supper for which is was eaten the evening before. If one believes the Gospel account, Christ was
crucified the following day or Passover day after having observed the Passover supper the
previous evening. The Early Church observed
the Passover on the 14th of Nisan. In A.D. 30. the 14th of Nisan occurred on a Wednesday. The only sign given proving Christ was the Messiah
was the sign of Jonah--he would be in the ground, three days and three nights and then
rise again. This would mean that Christ rose
on Saturday, the Sabbath, making the resurrection day a Saturday. In A.D. 30, Shmini
Atzeret also occurred on a Saturday.
Of course, the Holy Day calendar changes from year-to-year, i.e. the Passover does
not occur on the same day every year. But
this doesn't affect the signs. The
resurrection day always occurs on whatever day of the week corresponds with three days
after the Passover. When Passover, the 14th
of Nisan is on a Monday, as it was the year 2004, the
resurrection day is on a Thursday. When
Passover is on a Saturday, the resurrection day is on Tuesday.
If one believes that the Holy Day season pictures God's plan, then the acid test
for this conclusion regarding the Lord's Day must stand up. The next milestone in God's which Jesus Christ'
must fulfill is His Return. The Feast of
Trumpets pictures Christ's Return. Then Jesus Christ will usher in the Millennium,
pictured by the Feast of Tabernacles. The
First Day of the Feast of Tabernacle
begins on the same day on the resurrection day. And lastly, Shmini Atzeret, the "gathering of
the eighth day" also begins on the same day of the week as the resurrection day. This pictures the end of the millenium, the White
Throne Judgment and ultimately Christ turning over the Kingdom to His Father.
In the final analysis, there is no need to reword scripture. God's Word and His Holy Days stand on their own.