Who Changed The Sabbath?
According to the prophet, what was to be the attitude of Christ toward his Father’s law?
“The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will magnify the law, and make it honorable” (Isa. 42:21).Christ tells us how long the law will last: “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled”
(Matt. 5:18).The Encyclopedia Britannica tells of the earliest recognition of Sunday laws: “The earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of Constantine in 321 A.D., enacting that all courts of justice, inhabitants of towns, and workshops were to be at rest on Sunday (venerable day of the sun) with the exception in favor of those engaged in agricultural labor” (Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Sunday). So Who Tried To Change The Law Of God?
“Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (A.D. 321) that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work” (Encyclopedia American, art. Sabbath).
The prophet Daniel tells of a power that would arise in the world and try to change the commandments of God: “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things” (Daniel 7:8). “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them” (Daniel 7:21).
“And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and think to change times and laws:” (Daniel 7:25).
The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893:
“The Catholic Church,...by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism, 3rd ed., p. 1743: “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 have 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, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies
(1936), vol. 1, p. 51: “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.”Questions and answers from The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine by Peter Geiermann, C. SS. R., page 50, third edition, 1913, a work which received the “apostolic blessing” of Pope Pius X, Jan. 25, 1910:
“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. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”
There were other steps that were also taken to get this established in all churches.T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18, 1884: “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.”
Hobart Church News (Episcopalian), July 2, 1894: The observance of the first instead of the seventh day rests on the testimony of the church, and the church alone.”Prof. E. Brerwood, of Gresham College, London (Episcopal), wrote: “It is commonly believed that the Jewish Sabbath was changed into the Lord’s day by Christian emperors, and they know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed by the eastern churches three hundred years after our Savior’s passion” (Treatise on the Sabbath, page 77).
The following is a quote from The Bible Sabbath Association booklet Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions about Sunday: “Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York ministers’ conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner, Nov. 16, 1893: “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....Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament--absolutely not.
“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!”
Mr. Morer, a learned clergyman of the Church of England, says: “The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath [Seventh Day], and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted that they derived this practice from the apostles themselves” (Dialogues on the Lords’ Day, page 189).
The historian Socrates, who wrote about the middle of the fifth century, says: “Almost all the churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath [Seventh Day] of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refused to do this” (Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chapter 22).
Dr. Neander gives this view: “Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday, very early, indeed, into the place of Sabbath. 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....” (Church History, page 168).
Sir Wm. Domville reports: “Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the sabbatical edict of Constantine in A.D. 321” (Examination of the Six Texts, page 291).
From GOD:
Exodus 20:8-11:
“But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”
(Matthew 15:9)
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”Hebrews 4:4, 8-10:
“For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”Genesis 2:2
“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”Revelation 22:14:
“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”Luke 6:46:
“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”
“But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”
(Matthew 15:9)
Dear reader, which day will you keep?
If you are a servant of the Lord, your duty is to obey Him.HOME | BELIEF | LITERATURE | EMAIL US
Affiliated with
7th Day Church of God
3103 Pioneer Ave. S.E., Cedar Rapids, IA 52403
e-mail: shinelt@mchsi.com
All information on this site is free for public use if used without being edited.