The early Church kept the Sabbath day holy according to the teachings of the Bible Ac ; In this process, there was something inevitable—that was a conflict with the Roman religion. The Roman imperial family abhorred the Jews who believed in Judaism.
The Romans believed in many different gods, and from their polytheistic view of religion, it was hard to understand the Jews who believed in the one and only God—Jehovah, and the Jews were reluctant to follow the Roman orders using their religion as an excuse. To the Romans, Christianity seemed to be a sect of Judaism because it was also a monotheistic religion; Christians believed in Jesus as the Savior, and kept the seventh day as the Sabbath just as the Jews did.
So, the people of the Church in Rome were unable to avoid persecution from the Romans, and they made efforts to inform them of the difference between Christianity and Judaism. In this process, they came to accept Sunday, which the Romans observed, as the day of worship.
Sunday was the day set aside for the worship of Mithra, the sun god. Mithraism, an offshoot of the Persian religion Zoroastrianism, was introduced to Rome around the 1st century B. Around the time when Christianity spread in Rome, Mithra the sun god had already been raised to the status of the patron deity of the emperors and the empire, and Mithraism had been recognized as the most predominant and influential religion in Rome.
This helped the Christians to be identified with Judaism and allowed early Christians to gain legitimacy with the Roman government. The Roman government's suppression of the Jews made it increasingly difficult for the Christians to be associated with the Jews. Therefore, some Christians in the early second century tried to distance themselves from Judaism by observing Sunday. The pagans of the time, the majority, observed the first day of the week in honor of their sun god.
By switching to observing the first day of the week, instead of the seventh, the Christians accomplished two things: they distanced themselves from Judaism, and they made it easier for pagans to become Christians. This change to observing the Sabbath on Sunday, the first day of the week, had absolutely no biblical support and in time the Christians began growing from a minority religion to the majority.
The evolution of worship happened over time as not all Christians immediately began embracing the first day of the week as a holy day.
The earliest evidence of a Christian worship service occurring on Sunday is dated between about ad and ad , probably in the city of Rome. For several centuries, some Christians kept Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, Saturday, while others kept Sunday holy.
By the s, Sunday observance was the norm and almost universal in the rapidly growing Christian church. When has the majority ever been right? As the poet says: "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
So, dear friend, the issue is not, are you right? It is not so much what you or what I think about this question, but "What is truth? The Word of God is our only source of truth. James James Yes, a man may say, You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
James James But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? James James For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Galatians 4v8 But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods.
Paul is telling the church at Galatia that he was concerned that the church members were looking to keep the ceremonial law — the ceremonial law added by the Pharisees. Christ disdained some of the ceremonial rules such as ritual washing and unreasonable rules about Sabbath-keeping that made the Sabbath a burden.
Even today some people wish to return to such ceremonial law — and that disguises or camouflages the true commandments of God as displayed by the Ten Commandments. This is an odd argument because the Sabbath was established at creation — some 2, years before the first Jew.
The laws of God — the Ten Commandments -- were in place from creation. Doing away with one of the Ten Commandments by claiming that the commandment is Jewish brings one to wonder why those same self-described Christians do not desire to do away with the other nine of the Ten Commandments.
When did it become okay for Christians to murder, lie, steal, commit adultery, or covet? Exodus Exodus [8] Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
If Christian antinomians and other non-believing antinomians spent as much time seeking how to worship and honor God as they do in trying to avoid doing what God says, those individuals and indeed our entire society would be better off.
The next time you hear someone put forth the argument that the seventh-day Sabbath is void, remember these points — and understand that by avoiding the seventh-day Sabbath, such persons are distancing themselves from their Creator. Pray for them, and pray for the strengthening of those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath that they might more fully understand the will of God.
The Sabbath is a day to cease our creating, working with the creation, and appreciate what God has done in the world and is doing in us. Genesis 2. Elaborate food preparation is to be done on the day before the Sabbath so that there is no baking or heavy cooking on the Sabbath. Exodus The Sabbath is a time to lay our burdens down and rest. We should not do any servile work on the Sabbath.
This includes our entire family, even our servants and beasts of burden and strangers who live among us. Jeremiah 17; Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. We should be reverent and show God that we love, honor, and respect His authority.
Psalms Psalms God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.
The Sabbath should be a day of delight and rejoicing, a day which we forsake our thoughts and words for God's thoughts and words. Isaiah 56, The Sabbath is a time to do good and visit and comfort the sick. We should do spiritual work on the Sabbath, serving others. John 5. The Sabbath is a time of prayer. Acts Acts And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spoke to the women which resorted thither.
The Sabbath is a time to reason with others about spiritual principles, and for ministers to teach the word of God. The Sabbath is a time for Singing. Tim Martens is the pastor of the Northwest Arkansas congregation. Prior to becoming a pastor, he has had successful careers in business and education as well as being a newspaper columnist. Skip to main content. The second definition of antinomian according to Merriam-Webster: 2: one who rejects a socially established morality Secular antinomians reject the establishment of moral norms established by society.
What is the Sabbath day? Why keep the Sabbath at all? The Sabbath honors our Creator Genesis 2v Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. Creation of earth completed. God stopped working because His physical creation was finished. God rested on the seventh day. Isaiah 40v28 Have you not known?
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