Old Testament: Jeremiah 17:19-27
Psalm 97, 99, [100] * 94, [95]
Epistle: Romans 7:13-25
Gospel: John 6:16-27
“…do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy.” Jeremiah 17: 25
It was written in stone as the fourth of Ten Commandments, “…Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…” What is “the Sabbath?” The word itself comes from the Hebrew word “shavat” which is “to rest” and the basic meaning is to stop and set apart.
According to Exodus 20: 8-11, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week on which the Israelites were to rest in remembrance of God’s six day creation of the universe, and then “rested” on the seventh day. When, and why did the Sabbath, now referred to as “The Lord’s Day,” change from the 7th day to the 1st day of the week? To answer that, we must look at the first few hundred years after Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.
During the very first century A.D., Paul and other apostles went about preaching the gospel. Paul traveled widely throughout the eastern Roman Empire and believed in bringing the “good news” to Jews and non-Jews alike, despite the fact that during this period of time, Christianity was an “illegal religion.”
In the Roman Empire, Sunday was a day of rest. Many in the New Testament Church continued with the Old Testament practices, including the Sabbath. Other early believers wanted to distance themselves from Judaism and “blend in” to the society around them. In 321 A. D. an edict was put into place by Constantine I that legalized Christianity and protected the first day of the week, thus becoming the first “Sunday law.”
During the Reformation period, Sabbath laws were enacted in England. These laws filtered over to the American colonies and placed on the statute books of all the colonies. Sabbath laws in America were still in place as late as the 20th century. Constantine’s edict and the Sabbath laws were a matter of religious legalism.
Sunday did not replace Saturday as the Sabbath. The Lord’s Day is a time when believers gather to commemorate His resurrection, which occurred on the first day of the week. Paul wrote in to Romans 7:22 “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.” The Sabbath or Lord’s Day is not what one does on the outside; it’s about who one trusts on the inside.
Rhonda Johnston
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