The Early Church's View of the Sabbath

The Day of Rest
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Biblical Teaching About Time

—An online book about rest and worship—
By Dr. Al Franzmeier

Chapter 7

The Sabbath And The Early Church
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After Jesus ascended, the newly formed church began to reach out, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. As she did so, she struggled to understand the implications of what Jesus had done. Initially, even the Apostles themselves did not grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ work. Some, like Peter, insisted that the church continue to make full use of the Old Covenant rituals and seasons. Gradually, however, they came to realize that the church was the new Israel and she must now live in the freedom won for her by the life, death and resurrection of her Lord. Ultimately, the church expressed this new teaching by replacing worship on the seventh day with worship on the eighth or first day, the day upon which Jesus rose. Thus Sunday became the great symbol of the church that worships the risen Christ on the day of his resurrection.

Missionary work among the Jews

With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem during the Jewish Festival of Pentecost (fifty days after the Passover, during which Jesus had been crucified), the church grew rapidly. Soon thousands of Jews openly confessed their faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah and risen Savior. With such growth came new responsibilities to care for widows and other needy people, as Jesus had instructed. Among the team of seven chosen to lead up this work was a man named Stephen. Stephen was a remarkable person, described by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles as “a man full of God’s grace and power.” Through him God did signs and wonders, the same as through the Apostles. Because of this, Stephen soon found himself challenged by members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, former Jewish slaves from North Africa and Asia Minor. They accused him of speaking blasphemy, denouncing both the temple and the Torah and of saying that Jesus would return to destroy the temple and change the traditional customs of Moses (Acts 6:8).

None of that was true. The charges were false and trumped up. The Apostles taught nothing like that. The charges were pulled out from something Jesus had said something about the temple’s destruction. Early in his public ministry, during the Passover Festival, Jesus found merchants selling cattle, sheep and doves for the various required sacrifices in the courts of the temple. Moneychangers also had booths for exchanging Roman money into the Jewish currency accepted by the temple authorities. That was when he drove them out and scattered their coins (John 2:12-25).

He did it again early in the Passover week in which he was crucified (Matthew 21:11-13) It seems that as soon as he left that first time, the merchants set up shop again, of course with permission from the temple authorities. The first time the Jews demanded he show them some sign to prove he had authority to do what he did. The second time they openly plotted to kill him.

In the same chapter in which he recorded this incident at the temple, John recorded the very first sign that pointed to Jesus as God’s long awaited Messiah. That sign was Jesus turning about a hundred twenty gallons of water into the best wine anyone had ever tasted. This was a sign that the Bridegroom had come to cleanse his bride and present her to his heavenly Father, without stain or blemish, as the Apostle Paul later taught (Ephesians 5:25-28). The thing about signs and wonders (miracles, following the lead of the Latin translation of the Bible) is that when God does them they are not seen as such without faith in him. In this case, Jesus did give them a sign that did not come to pass until later.

His resurrection on the third day was that great sign. He said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” John pointed out that Jesus’ disciples did not understand this until he was raised from the dead. Then they recalled what he had said and gained insight into the Scripture that had foretold his resurrection (John 2:20-22).

The Scripture referred to is Psalm 16:9-11. In it God says he will not let his Holy One see decay. Instead he will enjoy eternal pleasures at God’s right hand.

But let’s get back to why those charges of blasphemy were laid on Stephen. At Jesus’ trial he was accused of plotting to destroy the temple, based upon what he had said years before (Matthew 26:57-68). The plot worked then and so later, when Stephen insisted that Jesus was the risen Messiah, the Jews of the Synagogue of the Freedmen decided to use it again (Acts 6:8-15).

They were successful this time. Stephen and all Christian teachers among them were now labeled as heretics, out to destroy everything that the Covenant stood for. These Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah; consequently they had to reject any teaching that saw him as the fulfillment of the Sabbath, the sacrifices and the other festivals.

Undeterred, the Apostles continued to proclaim the risen Christ. In turn, the Jewish leaders attempted to stop them with imprisonment and threats. They could not and thousands more joined the ranks of believers.

Likewise, the Apostle Paul, on his missionary journeys, following the example of Jesus, chose the Sabbath as the day upon which to challenge the unbelief of the Jews and proclaim the Gospel. For instance, Luke writes that in Corinth every Sabbath Paul “reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:3-5). This was the best approach, because that was the day when Jews assembled to worship and study the Scriptures.

Sunday became the day of worship
Some years after Jesus returned to heaven Christians started to worship on Sunday. Initially in Jerusalem they were so excited about what had happened and what it meant that they gathered daily, both in the temple and in one another’s homes (Acts 2:42-47). At this stage, they also observed Sabbath as the day of worship. It was not until much later that we read of believers gathering for worship and Bible study “on the first day of the week” in the Roman colony town of Troas (formerly Troy) in Asia Minor (Acts 20:6-8).

That was the time that Paul kept on preaching and teaching so long into the night that a young man fell asleep in the window and dropped from the third story to his death. The young man’s name was Eutychus, a name that means ‘fortunate.’ He was indeed fortunate, for we also read that he was restored to life when Paul put his arms around him. Some Sunday worship service!

Paul taught his mission churches to meet for worship on Sundays. In his instructions to the churches about raising money for persecuted believers in Jerusalem, Paul wrote in a circulating letter, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made” (1 Corinthians 16:1-3). That first day was now seen as the Lord’s Day, the day on which to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection, as well as his promise to return. He closed that same letter with an Aramaic phrase Marana tha, which means “Our Lord come” (1 Corinthians 16:22). Some early church fathers saw this rather as Maran atha, which means “Our Lord has come." Still other scholars translate the phrase as “Our Lord is coming." Perhaps the Apostle intended all three. In any event, the coming of Christ and his promised second coming were now celebrated on the day that came to be known as the Lord’s Day.

As the first century ended, the Apostle John closed his great revelation with these words: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” Revelation 22:20). John had received this revelation when he was “in the Spirit” on the Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10). The Greek term for the Lord’s Day is Hemera Kyriakè. The word Kyriakè means “belonging to the Lord.” It designates something as particularly belonging to or pertaining to the Lord. Here it refers to Sunday as “the Lord’s day.” The Apostle Paul also used it in 1 Corinthians 11:20 to speak about the “Lord’s Supper” as the central act of Christian worship. Kyriakè differs from the word Paul used to speak about the day when the Lord will return (1 Thessalonians 5:2), the Day of the Lord (Hemera Kyriou).

I’m pointing out that the Greek word for Lord—Kyrios—has two different ways of saying ‘of the Lord.’ When Kyrios ends with a feminine genitive (genitive means ‘belonging to’), it refers to the day of the week that particularly belongs to the Lord, Sunday. When it ends with a masculine genitive it refers to that final day when the Lord will return. That day is also his, of course.

That Day of the Lord, the day of judgment when time as we now know it will end, will come as a thief in the night. However, for now, each Sunday is the Lord’s Day, the day when the church openly gathers to celebrate his first coming, to be blessed by his present coming in the Word and the Supper and to anticipate the Day of the Lord when he will return to complete the great work of salvation. On Sunday the church receives a foretaste of the marriage feast that is yet to come (Luke 13:28-30).

Shortly after the first century ended, in a short book called The Didache or Doctrine of the Apostles, we find these words: “On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins, so that your sacrifice may be pure.”

It may therefore be said that the Lord’s Day constitutes the Church. It may also be said that those who think it their duty to abandon Sunday to keep the Sabbath instead, are in effect, denying the Messiah-ship of Jesus and the New Covenant in Him. The New Testament Church never transfers the Sabbath laws from the Old Covenant (Colossians 2:13-22). In the days of the Old Covenant some mistakenly came to believe that they were gaining God’s favor by observing certain days or seasons. To slip back into such thinking, the Apostle Paul said, made them slaves again. They were not living, acting and believing as adopted children of God. They had not even learned the basic ABC’s about God’s great work in Christ. True children are free in Christ from all such rules, regulations, days and seasons. Those things served a valid purpose at one time, but now that Christ himself has come, they are free to live in him and to serve him with heart and soul.

Nevertheless, for the Jewish believer, it must have been sad to lose the Sabbath. It was a wonderful time each week for the family to gather, to rest and relax, to pray and to hear God’s Word. And think about those other big festivals, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Those were great times, like vacations and big family gatherings, as well as wonderful worship times.

Of course, the early Christians knew that we still need times to celebrate God’s great acts of mercy, be together and be with family. That’s why Sunday became their Sabbath and over the years other Christian festivals replaced the Old Covenant ones. Today we Christians have three major festival seasons and a number of minor ones, built around the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We’re talking about Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. We’ll get to that, all in due time.