In
the fifties, when I was a child, Sundays were a day of rest. No shops opened on
a Sunday – except for the little corner grocery shop which opened just Sunday
morning. Nobody worked on a Sunday unless they were on the TV, or in the emergency
services, hospital, pubs and the like. Streets were eerily quiet.
Sunday for us was a day of rest, and many
people attended church followed by a traditional Sunday lunch of perhaps roast
beef and Yorkshire pudding followed later by tea of salmon sandwiches and cake in
the late afternoon. Sunday was for watching the TV, walking in the park, or, if
we were especially blessed, a trip to the seaside. All in all, Sunday was the
sabbath, a day of rest.
How different today! With shops opening on
Sundays, it is one of the busiest days of the week. Perhaps it shows that
British people are no longer as religious as they used to be.
But wait! Wasn’t the sabbath to be held on
the last day of the week, not the first? How did it change to Sunday? And, come
to that, are Christians commanded to keep a sabbath?
The Jewish sabbath was, and still is, on the seventh
day of the week, that is Saturday. The keeping of a sabbath was part of the ten
commandments. “Remember the sabbath day to keep it sacred. You are to labour
and do all your work for six days, but the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah
your God. You must not do any work . . .” – Exodus 20:8-11.
Do Christians have an obligation to keep the
ten commandments?
Many would say yes, and indeed the ten
commandments give us a good guide to live by. But the ten commandments are part
of the whole Law code given through Moses by God to govern their nation. This ‘handwritten
document’ consisted not only of the ten commandments, but also laws dealing
with the setting up of the Aaronic priesthood, sacrifices at the tabernacle
(later the temple), moral conduct, cleanliness, and the judicial punishment for
breaking the Law. Over six hundred laws in all.
It is interesting to note that this Law code
ended for Christians when Christ died. Colossians 2:13, 14 tells us: “He kindly
forgave us all our trespasses [against the Law] and erased the handwritten
document that consisted of decrees and was in opposition to us. He has taken it
out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake [or ‘cross’, Authorised
Version Bible]. Thus, when Jesus died, the law was fulfilled, and ended.
So we are not obligated to keep the Law,
including the ten commandments. If we were, we would be trotting off to
Jerusalem every so often to offer an animal as a sacrifice! However, we do
learn from the Law that God hates murder, the profaning of his name, idolatry,
sexual immorality, adultery, theft, and other things. The Law tells us how
Jehovah thinks.
Furthermore, the Bible does not give a command
for Christians to set aside one day of the week for rest and worship.
Colossians 2 goes on to say in verses 16 and 17: “Therefore, do not let anyone
judge you about what you eat and drink or about the observance of a festival or
of the new moon or of a sabbath. Those things are a shadow of the things to
come, but the reality belongs to the Christ.”
But many Christians still keep Sunday, the
first day of the week, as a sabbath. Why Sunday?
In 321CE pagan emperor of Rome, Constantine
the Great, made a law: “On the venerable day of the sun let the
magistrate and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.
In the country, however, persons engaged in agricultural work may freely and
lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is
not so suitable for grain growing or for vine planting; lest by neglecting the
proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.” – Schaff’s
History of the Christian Church, vol. III, chap. 75.
Notice that Constantine called it ‘the
venerable day of the sun.’ Hold on! That’s sun worship, isn’t it?
Yes, in ancient Rome, the day of the sun-god
(named Sol, from which we get words like solar for sun) was Sunday.
Incidentally, the day of the birth of the sun-god was on the day of the winter solstice,
December 25th. But that’s another story. Sun worship was alive and kicking, and
Constantine was obviously a devotee, and he wanted to honour his sun-god on a
Sunday. Of course, Christians would not want to get involved in worshipping the
sun-god.
Not long after that law was passed, the
Catholic church decreed that the first day of the week should become a sabbath
observance for Christians. That was at the council of Laodicea, Phrygia
Pacatiana in Asia Minor in about 363-364CE when approximately thirty clerics
got together to work out the basics of the Catholic church, and particularly
the conduct of Catholics. Among the different edicts decided upon, canon 29
states: “Christians must not judaize by resting on the sabbath, but must work
on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and if they can, resting then as
Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema
from Christ.”
The Lord’s day? That was Sunday, the first
day of the week. Was it chosen in honour of Jesus being raised from the dead on
the first day of the week? Or was it chosen because it was already law that
people should rest on the ‘day of the sun’?
So, do Christians have to keep a
sabbath? The answer from the Bible is no. But, of course, it is not wrong to
set aside one day every week for rest and worship if a person so desires.
Let no-one judge.
