Sabbath Church Confessions

“Therefore the Jews sought more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that Yahweh was his Father, making himself equal with Yahweh” (Jn. 5:18 KJV).

Yahshua the Messiah broke the Sabbath? It is only reasonable to believe the Bible message is harmonious throughout the Scriptures, creating no contradictions. Even when writing fiction, it is a poor author who allows inconsistencies to creep into the story. When writing historical fact, this is unlikely to happen. Relative to Yahshua’s breaking the Sabbath, there are at least two possibilities which we should consider.

1. The Apostle John may have written this message as it appears in most of our English Bibles. If so, he intended us to understand that only in the eyes of the Jewish people did the Messiah break the sabbath. The following is also a likely explanation.

2. A few words may have been added or deleted, causing a reverse reading of the text. This could have happened accidentally as the scribes copied from the older manuscripts. There is also the possibility this was done purposely, by later Gentile scribes. In either case, the result would be the same, of course.

In the Scriptures there are a few places in which words have been added, thus creating an opposite meaning from that in the original. Examples of this are found in Acts 15:24 (where nine words were added), and Acts 21:25 (where eight words were added), giving an opposite meaning from that originally intended. Also, 24 words were added to 1 John 5:7,8. How is it known these words were added?

The King James translation did very well indeed. However, they were handicapped because the oldest manuscript available to them dated only to the tenth century C.E.* Since then many manuscripts have been found which date much earlier; to C.E. 325 or 350 - 600 years earlier than those used by the King’s Men. These older manuscripts do not contain the above mentioned additions. This means they crept in after C.E. 350, but before the King’s Men made their translation in 1611. After consulting the older manuscripts, most recent translators have not retained the added words named above. It is certain that the Messiah did not really break Yahweh’s Sabbath law, but at most only the traditions of the elders - traditions added to the law of Yahweh. Sin is transgression of the law (1 Jn. 3:4). Yahshua the Messiah was without sin (Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:22). He was perfect (Lk. 6:40; Heb 2:10; 5:9). Indeed if he transgressed in any way, he could not have been our Redeemer - our Savior - a sacrifice on our behalf (Heb. 9:28). It was necessary that he should be totally sinless.

He challenged his enemies to point out sin in his life - any sin - if he was a transgressor of the law. Having no evidence they called him a crazy Samaritan.

“Which one of you can rebuke me because of sin? If I speak the truth why do you not believe me? … The Jews answered, saying unto him, ``Did we not say well, that you are a Samaritan, and that you are crazy?” (Jn. 8:45-48 Lamsa).

“You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin” (1Jn. 3:5 RSV).

Yahshua the Messiah is our Passover Lamb, and the Passover lamb was to be without blemish (1 Cor. 5:7; Ex. 12:5). Many Scriptures tell us the animals offered for sin were to be without blemish (Lev. 1:3, 10; 3:1,6; 4:3, 23,28,32). Yahshua is our sacrifice for sin, so he too must have been without blemish (1 Pet. 3:18).

All this indicates Yahshua did not break the Sabbath, but broke only the traditions of the elders. And how many laws did tradition recognize in order to safe-guard the Sabbath day? One thousand five hundred twenty-one (1,521) laws for the Sabbath alone had been imposed by the elders upon the Jewish people. ** Perhaps this is why The Living Bible paraphrases John 5:18 in the following manner:

“Then the Jewish leaders were all the more eager to kill him because in addition to disobeying their Sabbath laws, he had spoken of Yahweh as his Father, ...”

The Holy Name Bible gives an interesting translation of this verse.

“Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because [they contended that] He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that Elohim was His Father, …” (bracketed words were added by the translator).

Bible commentators, even those who do not keep the Sabbath, give interesting insights into John 5:18, for example:

“They supposed that he had broken it” (Barnes Notes on the N.T., One Volume Edition; Kregel, Grand Rapids, MI; page 288).

“They had found out two pretenses to take away his life: one was that he had broken the Sabbath, … as they pretended, …” (Clark’s Commentary, Jn. 5:18).

“... the Jews were seeking to slay him, because not only in their opinion, though very falsely, he was violating … the Sabbath. … He was abrogating the petty restrictions and abolishing the unscriptural somnolence by which it had been characterized and misunderstood” (Pulpit Commentary, Jn. 5:18).

It is helpful to remember the reason for this charge against Yahshua in John 5:18. He had healed a man on the Sabbath day (Jn. 5:5-18).

On another occasion Yahshua disciples rubbed the grains of wheat in their hands and ate. The Pharisees found fault, so he replied, “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless” (Mt. 12:7). The disciples broke the traditions of the elders, but were not guilty of breaking the law of Yahweh.

“Wherefor it is lawful to do well [by healing] on the sabbath days” (Mt. 12:10-12)

“... the scriptures cannot be broken; …” (Jn. 10:34,35).

Scripture cannot be broken. The Greek word is luo; the same broken as in John 5:18. Since Scripture cannot (or should not) be broken, we can safely conclude that Yahshua the Messiah did not break the Scriptural law of the Sabbath - only the traditions of the elders which had been added to the Sabbath laws.

* Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson, page 6.

** From Sabbath to Sunday, by Samuele Bacchiocchi; The Pontifical Gregorian University Press, Rome; page 33.

CONFESSIONS ABOUT SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Also see:

Quotable Notes and Notable Quotes

Article by Kenneth M. Hoeck

ROMAN CATHOLIC

"Is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers (1917 edition), p. 72-73 (16th Edition, p 111; 88th Edition, p. 89).

"For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the [Roman Catholic] church outside the Bible." Catholic Virginian, October 3, 1947, p. 9, article "To Tell You the Truth."

Who Made Sunday Holy?

"Written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, this Divine code (ten commandments) was received from the Almighty by Moses amid the thunders of Mount Sinai...Christ resumed these Commandments in the double precept of charity--love of God and of the neighbour; He proclaimed them as binding under the New Law in Matthew 19 and in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5)....The (Catholic) Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord's Day....He (God) claims one day out of the seven as a memorial to Himself, and this must be kept holy..." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, "The Ten Commandments", 1908 edition by Robert Appleton Company; and 1999 On-line edition by Kevin Knight, Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04153a.htm

"Question: How prove you that the church had power to command feasts and holydays?

"Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church. "Question: Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?

"Answer: Had she not such power, she could not a done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; -she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day of the week, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism On the Obedience Due to the Church, 3rd edition, Chapter 2, p. 174 (Imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York).

"Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. ‘The day of the Lord’ was chosen, not from any direction noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church's sense of its own power....People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically...keep Saturday holy." St. Catherine Church Sentinel, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995.

"Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday....Now the Church...instituted, by God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday." Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About, 1927 edition, p. 136.

"Question - Which is the Sabbath day?

"Answer - Saturday is the Sabbath day.

"Question - Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

"Answer - We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday." Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50, 3rd edition, 1957.

"Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day - Saturday - for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes. Did Christ change the day'? I answer no!"

"Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons." James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Md. (1877-1921), in a signed letter.

"Q.- How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?

"A.- By the very act of changing Sabbath into Sunday which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church. "Q.-How prove you that?

"A.-Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power." An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, composed by Henry Tuberville, p. 58.

"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." John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936 edition, vol. 1, p. 51.

"Question. What warrant have you for keeping Sunday preferably to the ancient sabbath which was Saturday?

"Answer. We have for it the authority of the Catholic church and apostolic tradition.

"Question. Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath?

"Answer. The Scripture commands us to hear the church (St.Matt.18:17; St. Luke 10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess 2:15. But the Scripture does not in particular mention this change of the sabbath.

"St John speaks of the Lord's day (Rev 1:10) but he does not tell us what day of the week that was, much less does he tell us what day was to take the place of the Sabbath ordained in the commandments. St.Luke speaks of the disciples meeting together to break bread on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7. And St. paul (1 Cor.16:2) orders that on the first day of the week the Corinthians should lay in store what they designated to bestow in charity on the faithful in Judea: but neither the one or the other tells us that this first day of the week was to be henceforth a day of worship, and the Christian Sabbath; so that truly the best authority we have for this ancient custom is the testimony of the church. And therefore those who pretend to be such religious observers of Sunday, whilst they take no notice of other festivals ordained by the same church authority, show that they act more by humor, than by religion; since Sundays and holidays all stand upon the same foundation, namely the ordinance of the church." Catholic Christian Instructed, 17th edition, p. 272-273.

"Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the (Roman catholic) Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath." John Gilmary Shea, American Catholic Quarterly Review, January, 1883.

"The Catholic church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday....The Protestant World at its birth found the Christian Sabbath too strongly entrenched to run counter to its existence; it was therefore placed under the necessity of acquiescing in the arrangement, thus implying the (Catholic) Church's right to change the day, for over three hundred years. The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day, the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church as spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant World." James Cardinal Gibbons in the Catholic Mirror, September 23, 1983.

Whose Day of Worship is Sunday?

"They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason....The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of Sabbath observance....The author of the Sunday law...is the Catholic Church." Ecclesiastical Review, February, 1914.

"The Sunday...is purely a creation of the Catholic Church." American Catholic Quarterly Review, January, 1883.

"Sunday...is the law of the Catholic Church alone..." American Sentinel (Catholic), June, 1893.

"Sunday is a Catholic institution and its claim to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles....From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first." Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August, 1900.

"It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church." Priest Brady, in an address reported in The News, Elizabeth, New Jersey, March 18, 1903.

Who Are We Reverencing, Bowing and Paying Homage to by Keeping Sunday Holy?

"The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the Church had changed...the Sabbath into Sunday, not by command of Christ, but by its own authority." Canon and Tradition, p. 263.

"From this we may understand how great is the authority of the church in interpreting or explaining to us the commandments of God - an authority which is acknowledged by the universal practice of the whole Christian world, even of those sects which profess to take the holy Scriptures as their sole rule of faith, since they observe as the day of rest not the seventh day of the week demanded by the Bible, but the first day. Which we know is to be kept holy, only from the tradition and teaching of the Catholic church." Henry Gibson, Catechism Made Easy, # 2, 9th edition, vol. 1, p. 341-342.

"It was the Catholic church which...has transferred this rest to Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Therefore the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the (Catholic) church." Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, p. 213.

"Sunday is our mark or authority...the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact." Catholic Record of London, Ontario, September 1,1923.

"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (Saturday Sabbath to Sunday) was her act...And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things." H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons.

"I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ The Catholic Church says: ‘No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.’ And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church." father T. Enright, C.S.S.R. of the Redemptoral College, Kansas City, in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, February 18, 1884, printed in History of the Sabbath, p. 802.

"Protestants...accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change...But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that...In observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope." Our Sunday Visitor, February 15, 1950.

NON-CATHOLIC & PROTESTANT CHURCH CONFESSIONS

ANGLICAN

"And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day....The reasons why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church, has enjoined it." Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, vol. 1, p. 334, 336.

BAPTIST

"There was never any formal or authoritative change from the...seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance." William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day, p. 49.

"There is nothing in Scripture that requires us to keep Sunday rather than Saturday as a holy day." Harold Lindsell, editor, Christianity Today, November 5, 1976.

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.

"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question...never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history....But what a pity it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!" Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of the "Baptist Manual", in a paper read before a New York ministers' conference, November 13, 1893, and reported in New York Examiner, November 16, 1893.

SOUTHERN BAPTIST

"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God....The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought....Not one of the ten words [commandments] is of merely racial significance....The Sabbath was established originally [long before Moses] in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam." Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, August 15, 1937.

"The sacred name of the Seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument. (Exodus 20:10 quoted)....On this point the plain teaching of the Word has been admitted in all ages....Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day of the week--that folly was left for a later age, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh." Joseph Judson Taylor, The Sabbath Question, p. 14-17, 41.

CHRISTIAN CHURCH

"I do not believe...that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plan reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath is changed, or that the Lord's Day came in the room of it....There is no divine testimony that the Sabbath was changed..." Alexander Campbell, in The Washington Reporter, October 8, 1921.

CHURCH OF CHRIST

"...the seventh day is the only sabbath day commanded, and God never repealed that command. If you would keep the Sabbath, keep it; but Sunday is not the Sabbath....It is the Seventh day not the first day that the command refers to." G. Alridge, editor, The Bible Standard, April, 1916.

"Finally, we have the testimony of Christ on this subject. In Mark 2:27, he says: 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' From this passage it is evident that the Sabbath was made not merely for the Israelites, as Paley and Hengstenberg would have us believe, but for...that is, for the race. Hence we conclude that the Sabbath was sanctified from the beginning, and that it was given to Adam, even in Eden, as one of those primeval institutions that God ordained for the happiness of all men." Robert Milligan, Scheme of Redemption, (St. Louis, The Fethany Press, 1962), p. 165.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND

"The Lord's day (or Sunday to him) did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was wholly abrogated, and the Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because they (early Christians) for almost three hundred years together kept that day which was in that commandment." Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium; cited in Source Book For Bible Students, p. 577.

"There is no word, no hint in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday....Into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters....The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands on exactly the same footing as the observance of Sunday." Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments, p. 52, 63, 65.

"Many people think that Sunday is the Sabbath. But neither in the New Testament nor in the early church is there anything to suggest that we have any right to transfer the observance of the seventh day of the week to the first. The Sabbath was and is Saturday, and not Sunday, and if it were binding on us then we should observe it on that day, and on no other." Pastor Lionel Beere, in Church and People, September 1, 1947.

CONGREGATIONALIST

"...the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath." Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Sermon 107, vol. 3, p. 258.

"Much has been made of the attitude of Christ in speech and deed toward the Sabbath. Some have imagined that by words He uttered and by deeds He did He relaxed the binding nature of the old command. This view, however, is to absolutely misunderstand the doing and the teaching of Jesus." G. Campbell Morgan, The Ten Commandments, p. 50.

"...it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath....The Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday....There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday." Dr. R.W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton & Mains), p. 127-129 (Some editions, p. 106-107).

AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALIST

"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day of the week for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." Dr. Layman Abbot, in Christian Union, June 26, 1890 (January 19, 1882).

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST

"There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day 'the Lord's Day.'" Dr. D.H. Lucas, in Christian Oracle, January 23, 1890.

"The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change." First Day Observance, p. 17, 19.

"'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the seventh to the first day.' Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.'" Alexander Campbell, in The Christian Baptist, February 2, 1824, vol. 1, #7, p. 164.

ENGLISH INDEPENDENT CHURCH

"Sabbath in the Hebrew language signifies rest, and is the seventh day of the week...and it must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." Charles Buck, A Theological Dictionary, p. 403.

EPISCOPALIAN

"We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy, catholic, apostolic church of Christ." Bishop Symour, Why We Keep Sunday, Article 12.

"Sunday (Dies Solis, of the Roman calendar, 'day of the sun,' because dedicated to the sun), the first day of the week, was adopted by the early Christians as a day of worship. No regulations for its observance are laid down in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even enjoined." A Religious Encyclopedia, vol. 3, (New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1883) p. 2259, Article "Sunday".

"The Bible commandment says on the seventh day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday." Philip Carrington, Archbishop of Quebec, Canada, in Toronto Daily Star, October 26, 1949. "The observance of the first day instead of the seventh day rests in the testimony of the Catholic church and the church alone." Hobart Church News, July 2, 1894.

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL

"The day is now changed from the seventh to the first day....but as we meet with no Scriptural direction for the change, we may conclude it was done by the authority of the church." Explanation of Catechism.

LUTHERAN

"They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, as having been changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue...Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!" Philip Melanchthon, Augsburg Confession of Faith, article 28, approved by Martin Luther in 1530, as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Henry Jacobs, editor (1911), p. 63.

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday." Dr Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church (1843), p. 186.

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel. In other words, they insist that Sunday is the divinely appointed New Testament Sabbath, and so they endeavor to enforce the Sabbatical observance of Sunday...These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect." John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday?, p. 15-16.

LUTHERAN FREE CHURCH

"For when there could not be produced one solitary place in the Holy Scriptures which testified that either the Lord Himself or the apostles had ordered such a transfer of the Sabbath to Sunday, then it was not easy to answer the question: Who has transferred the Sabbath, and who has had the right to do it?" George Sverdrup, A New Day.

UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH

"We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with the other..." The Sunday Problem, a study book of the Church (1923), p. 36.

METHODIST

"The Sabbath was made for man; not for the Hebrews, but for all men." E. O. Haven, Pillars of Truth, p. 88.

"The reason we observe the first day instead of the seventh is based on no positive command. One will search the Scriptures in vain for authority for changing from the seventh day to the first." Clovis G. Chappell, Ten Rules For Living, p. 61.

"It is true there is no positive command for infant baptism...Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But from His own words, we see that He came for no such purpose. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it only on supposition." Amos Binney, Theological Compendium, p. 180-81.

"There is no intimation here that the Sabbath was done away, or that its moral use superseded, by the introduction of Christianity. I have shown elsewhere that, 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,' is a command of perpetual obligation." Adam Clarke, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, vol. 2, p. 524.

"Take the matter of Sunday....there is no [New Testament] passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day." Harris Franklin Rall, in Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p. 26.

"But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, he [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken....Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other." John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., John Emory, editor (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25, vol. 1, p. 221.

"When Christ was on earth He did nothing to set it [the Sabbath] aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was - in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age....

"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?" Dwight L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting (Fleming H. Revell Co.: New York), p. 46-48.

PENTECOSTAL

"'Why do we worship on Sunday? Doesn't the Bible teach us that Saturday should be the Lord's Day?'...Apparently we will have to seek the answer from some other source than the New Testament." David A. Womack, "Is Sunday the Lord's Day?" in The Pentecostal Evangel, August 9, 1959, #2361, p. 3.

PRESBYTERIAN

"A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matthew 24:20, Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day. But the final destruction of Jerusalem was after the Christian dispensation was fully set up. Yet it is plainly implied in these words of the Lord that even then Christians were bound to strict observation of the Sabbath." Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 4, p. 621.

"The Sabbath is a part of the decalogue--the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution....Until, therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand....The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath." T.C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, p. 474-475.

"For the permanency of the Sabbath, we might argue for its place in the decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting." Thomas Chalmers, D. D., Sermons, vol. 1, p. 51.

Also see:

Quotable Notes and Notable Quotes

Article by Kenneth M. Hoeck

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