The Biblical Doctrine of the Observance of the Lord's Day and The Liberty of Conscience Regarding the Observance of The Seventh.

Part Four of: A Dialogue With A Seventh-Day Adventist, On The Nature and Significance of The Sabbath Day.

PART I. An Objective Assessment of the Lord’s Day and The Sabbath Day According to the New Testament Scriptures.

Ms. Laura Peale Argues:

[[Regarding the Lord's Sabbath: I have studied the bible upside down, backwards, and sideways and I cannot figure out how Bible-based people that want to "follow Christ" can decide to dispose of the day or move it to Sunday, the 1st day of the week.. like with other laws in the Old Testament, like unclean meats, I think that this couple Justine and Nathaniel you mentioned in Dominica are impressive with their "thus saith the Lord" attitude in their answers to all these questions and I really would love to get in touch with their community, though I do share some of your concerns too.]]

Our Reply:

Interestingly, I don’t believe that this has to be an “either or” issue. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, for example, has set an excellent example of unity by honoring both Saturday as the day of rest from the Old Testament and the Lord’s Day as the first day of the week in which the Apostles held the Lord’s Supper (the formal worship of the church). Hence, they observe both days as days of worship and rest. In this way they achieved the conversion of a great many Ethiopian Jews to the faith.

Indeed, in the church we are planning on planting in Dominica and the community we plan to form, we intend to offer worship on both Saturday and Sunday to unite Christians who disagree on this issue after the example of the Ethiopian Christians. This will likewise enable us to draw from the sizable seventh day Adventist population in Dominica in our outreach.

So, though I do understand the conviction of seventh day Sabbatarians, what I don’t understand is why those who regard the seventh day as the binding Sabbath don’t worship on the first day anyway also, after all, even if you rest on the seventh day, the Apostles clearly held worship on the first day and also collected the offering on that day, the day of Christ’s resurrection.

“On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” (Acts 20:7).

“For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.” (1 Corinthians 11:18-20). **This shows that the coming together to break bread in Acts 20 is clearly an allusion to the Lord’s Supper and something that was done every time the church got together**.

“On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.” (1Corinthians 16:2)

“I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.” (Revelation 1:9-10)

“Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.”(Mark 16:9)

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:19-23)

From these texts we can confirm several facts, hundreds of years before Constantine, directly from Scripture. These eight facts are these:

1. Christ rose from the dead in victory over death, sin, and the devil on the first day of the week.

2. Christ appeared to the first witness of His resurrection (which was subsequently the first spreading of the Good News) on the first day of the week, to a woman named Mary Magdalene.

3. Christ appeared to His Apostles on the first day of the week.

4. Christ commissioned His Apostles with the authority to preach the Gospel and forgive sins on the first day of the week.

5. Christ poured out His Holy Spirit on the Apostles on the first day of the week.

6. The Apostles met together to do these very things mentioned above, and to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Communion) on the first day of the week with the whole church.

7. The Apostles collected the tithes and offerings on the first day of the week for other churches in need.

8. St. John received his prophecy on the Last Days when He was worshipping God, on the first day of the week.

I do not think it is fair to say that those who regard Sunday as significant are without warrant.

Furthermore, even if the seventh day should be a day a rest, all of these facts would still be true for the first day of the week. So, the real question here is not whether practitioners of the Lord’s Day are willing to observe the seventh for rest, many in fact do, not only whole denominations like the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but even the average Joe who is typically off of work on both Saturday and Sunday, which has been the case for some time. Rather, the real question is whether or not seventh day Sabbatarians are still willing to worship on the first day also in accord with these eight facts from the New Testament?

Now given these facts, why would most Christians not regard the seventh day as the continuing Sabbath and instead regard the first day as either the new Sabbath, or as the appointed day in which we rest in Christ (as the Sabbath)?

One big reason is that Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, and when challenged on his Sabbath practices, frequently made clear his authority as being greater than the Sabbath command itself, this is an unusual way to speak, and it is only with regard to this Law in the Ten Commandments that He speaks in such a way.

“At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
He went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.” (Matthew 12:1-14)

Christ did not do this on this law alone of course, but this is the only one of the ten commandments to which He adds such an explanation and context, but on divorce he did away with the Mosaic permissions on both easy divorce and arguably on polygamy entirely (which was acceptable under the Mosaic Law) BUT He does so only by appealing to another book of Moses, namely the Book of Genesis (Matthew 19:8).

That Christ is greater than the Sabbath can be seen also in Genesis as understood by John 1, that Christ is the Word of God by which the world was made in the span of six days, resting on the seventh.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4)

The order of days was determined by God, and likewise could only be altered by God. So, the issue is not whether Christ had the authority to make the day of His resurrection and ascension the new covenant Sabbath, but whether he actually did so or not.

Hebrews 4 also is an interesting text, because there was not only the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath, technically there were many Sabbaths under the Old Testament Law, including the year of jubilee and the various feast days (Leviticus 25:2-6). The issue for the first century Judaizers was whether or not Christians should obey all the Sabbaths, that is, all the new moons, feasts, and days of rest in order to be saved (feasts of booths, trumpets, Passover, et al).

In Hebrews 4, St. Paul teaches plainly that the Jews pursued a Sabbath rest and failed to achieve it, for Christ is the true Sabbath. For this reason the vast majority of Spirit indwelt Christians have held that Christ is the true Sabbath-rest and is honored in the commandment by OUR receiving Him through worship (Word and Sacrament ministry).

***I will from now on call this the “orthodox position” or the orthodox party, and this view is currently held by most Anglicans, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Anabaptists, the Assyrian Church of The East, and the Dutch Reformed----which is basically most Christians. **

“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:1-11)

Digression: [[Lord’s Day Sabbatarians (which are different from the orthodox position mentioned above) argue that Sunday is not just the time of the church’s meeting but is the actual Sabbath of the New Testament (These include some Anglicans, Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, and Many General Baptists, This view can also be seen among some Pentecostals and Broad Evangelical Types to a lesser extent). They would look at the above text in Hebrews 4 and focus on the words I have in bold there, that there remains “another day” for rest, and hence they regard Sunday as more than the appointed time for Christian worship, but as the actual New Covenant Sabbath]].

St. Paul also deals with questions on the Sabbath in Colossians 2 as well; telling Christians to let no one pass judgment on them in terms of a new moon or a Sabbath (both things being practiced by the Jews), for the Judaizers were claiming, just as with circumcision and the dietary laws mentioned in other New Testament letters, that Christians were opposing the Old Testament Scriptures and the Holy Law of God.

“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17)

None of this comes from a rejection of God’s Law, all Christians should believe that the whole Law of God remains in force and was not abolished, but only that the ceremonial laws (those laws pertaining to the temple system and pre-Christ worship of the OT) were fulfilled in His work on the cross and therefore only continues in Him and is no longer binding. Hence, the sacrifices were not abolished per se, but are completed in Christ’s work as the perfect sacrifice, etc.

Thus, what we see in both Hebrews 4 and Colossians 2 is an inclusion of the Sabbath with the ceremonial laws (types and shadows fulfilled in Christ). This is the only commandment among the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) that is spoken of in this way. It is clearly regarded as having had a ceremonial function in the Old Testament which was fulfilled in Christ. For those who do not think it passed away in some sense, questions must arise as to their consistency when it comes to the year of Jubilee, new moons, the festivals of the OT, and even circumcision and the sacrificial system.

Nathaniel and Justine have gone the direction of embracing all of these practices short of the sacrifices (which not even the Jews do any longer), but as a consequence they have called into question the New Testament altogether, refusing to use the name of Jesus Christ (only referring to him in the Hebrew), and have even come close to denying the Trinity. In short, they are flirting with outright apostasy because they refuse to accept the implications of what the New Testament teaches, which I suspect has a lot more to do with a distaste for the practices of historic Christianity, and less to do with any kind of “textual faithfulness.”

The Most Important Text on This Issue:

Romans 14 though is the most important text on this issue and must be answered by those who make a big deal on this for either side of the debate.

“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:1-12)

In this text, St. Paul is quite clear, that there are those who are acceptable Christians within the Church who eat only vegetables, and those who eat meat, those who regard one day in seven as above the rest, and those who regard all days in a week as equal, and none is to be judged lesser in the church for each does so in devotion to God and will be judged by Him.

This text pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of the whole matter. If St. Paul regarded the seventh day being observed as the Sabbath in the same way the Jews had regarded it, and believed it should be a test for fellowship, he could not have written these words in Romans 14. No hardcore Sabbatarian would say that a person who regards each day as equal is to be accepted in fellowship and communion as if all was fine, and yet here St. Paul DEMANDS it of us.

I can accept those who hold to the seventh day, or a vegetarian diet, or abstain from alcohol even if I disagree, because Christ demands me to do so out of obedience in order to maintain unity.

Those who cannot be united to those who regard each day alike and eat all meats, are sectarians and rebels against both the words of Christ and his Apostle St. Paul. If we all take Scripture as seriously as we say, then we would obey the words of Paul that require us to be united in spite of differences on this particular issue.

Ms. Laura Peale Retorts that:

[[The Bible tells us that God never changes.]]

We Answer Thus:

Correct, but the idea of a change from seventh day to first-day Sabbath would be the same idea as the Laws of Moses permitting easy divorce only to be changed by Christ back to marriage’s original intent as only breakable on grounds of adultery (and possibly also abandonment, see 1 Corinthians 7).

“And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”’ (Matthew 19:3-9)

So too the Sabbath was separated by God from its function under the Mosaic covenant to its original purpose in Christ as the True Word of God that created the world and rested as Lord of the Sabbath at Creation on the Seventh Day, and likewise rested as our Redeemer on the First Day (In His Resurrection),and we as Christians find our Sabbath rest by resting in Him as The Lord, a rest which the Jews failed to find (Hebrews 4).

Another example of this sort of "recovering" of the truth of the Law is in the law pertaining to not yoking an ox and an ass together (Deuteronomy 22:10), this law does practically make sense as the plow would not function right, but St. Paul understands this law as applying to believers not marrying unbelievers fundamentally and in principle (2 Corinthians 6:14). This is not St. Paul “changing” the Law but revealing its true meaning from the beginning (i.e. the spirit versus the letter). Further, the law which prohibits a man from muzzling an ox while he treads the grain (Deuteronomy 25:4), which also makes practical sense, is applied by St. Paul to paying ministers of the Gospel a fair wage (1 Corinthians 9:9-14). Once again, this is the true meaning of the law which the Jews missed in their focus on following the letter in order to earn their own salvation.

Not only this, but Christ Himself did away with the Temple, the sacrifices, and priesthood, and other aspects of the ceremonial law (just read the entire book of Hebrews). Did a change in these laws indicate a change in God? No, because Christ and His Apostles actually revealed their true meaning, as it was intended from the beginning. Indeed, Christ is the true meaning and fulfillment of the Temple, Priesthood, and Sacrifices and everything associated with that system.

This view does not require a change in God, or even a change in the essence of God’s commands. After all, working six days and resting on one of the seven is not denied by any of the Christians in this debate, for they all have practiced this in reality. Rather, the debate is over the nature of the rest and which day it is to occur in light of the resurrection. To argue that these people are antinomians who just disregard the Law of God is both unfair and inaccurate.

For the orthodox party, resting on the Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ by being Baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection, by professing faith in Him, by calling upon His name, by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and by caring for poor and needy Christians.

Christ did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, and to reveal the full and true meaning of certain laws (Matthew 5:17-19). I already brought up the example of the laws regarding divorce and the permission of polygamy in the OT and the dietary laws, both of which are clearly addressed and “changed” in the New Testament, not because God’s moral nature changed, but because those laws were always intended to be either temporary or symbolic of a greater reality in Christ. This is why Christ made clear that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

PART II. A Critical Response to The Historical Claims Regarding The Lord’s Day and The Sabbath.



Ms. Laura Peale States that:

[[ ....there isn't one text in the Bible saying we should honor Sunday instead of the Lord's Sabbath (admitted by the Catholic church at the council of Trent...The protestants lost that trial because they were still honoring Sunday, which is the mark of the Pope's authority as Christ on earth. ... You can read their own words here: https://www.sabbathtruth.com/sabbath-history/denominational-statements-on-the-sabbath/id/catholic)

Also, we have history to tell us the origin of Sunday rest & worship. Starting with worship of the Sun god in the times of the tower of Babel. The practice carried through, until Constantine issued a decree March 321 to make Sunday a day of rest from labor, saying Christians should rest and celebrate because Jesus rose on the 1st day of the week (This was to unite his kingdom to bring peace between the pagans and Christians, because Sunday is the pagan resurrection day of Tammuz).

The Catholic church went so far as to take the 7th day out of the original 10 commandments. Are you aware of this? Look in one of their catechisms and you will see that they removed the 2nd commandment, shortened the 4th (to make it nonspecific), then split the 10th command into two!! Ugg. -- Reminds me of the little horn in Daniel 7:25 and Revelations beast of the Sea that blasphemes God (claims to be God). ]]

We Rebut Thusly:

There is no specific text saying that Sabbath changed from one day to another, this is true.

…..BUT…….

Neither is there any Word from God that says that women can partake of communion, is there?

Indeed, only men are ever mentioned as ever partaking of it, such as at the Last Supper. Does this mean we should exclude women from the Table? Of course not, because we hold to the practice, as you have stated, of Scriptura Scripturae Interpres (Scripture interprets Scripture). So we can use other scripture texts and principles of rational deduction to determine that women should also partake of the Supper (and I would also include children in that), and I would submit that both the Orthodox Party and the First-Day Sabbatarians both have textual reasons and theological arguments for their positions, and it is not all just papist nonsense ( I have demonstrated some of those textual arguments already).

As an example, you bring up the sun-god worship and Sunday, but the first day of the week, as opposed to the Sabbath, was the day in which Christ rose and the Apostles held worship long before Constantine called it Sunday (not to mention that Saturday is named after the pagan deity Saturn, I only bring this up to show how unimpressive that point is and I doubt you would be convinced that this made a case against the seventh day as the Sabbath, it works both ways).

Indeed, the Puritans who held that the first day was the New Covenant Sabbath would agree with Seventh day Adventists that “Sunday” was a pagan invention and instead chose to call Sunday “first-day,” and they did the same for the calendar, refusing to use pagan names for the months instead calling them “first month, second month, et al.”

Also, I don’t think the Protestants lost the Council of Trent, if anything; the Catholics lost the Council of Trent when they anathematized the Gospel and showed themselves to be under the dominion of Antichrist in the medieval papacy. The Reformers brought the Word of God back to the people in their own language, they restored the doctrine of salvation by Grace through faith alone, they restored the honor of marriage (especially for the clergy), and cut out the various idolatries and superstitions which had been promulgated by the papists. This was no loss, it was a victory. The failure of the Protestants, was not in being persecuted by the papists, but in failing to unify with one another.

As far as Constantine, the Eastern Church rightly calls him St. Constantine because of his great work for Christ’s church. Too many have unfairly critiqued him, largely due to the Anabaptists and Gnostics (especially “The Da Vinci Code” types). St. Constantine’s vision at the Milivan bridge was clearly a divine revelation and prophecy, He stopped the persecution of Christians, defunded pagan institutions, built and funded churches, oversaw the council of Nicaea, and was the one who suggested the terminology we recite to this day that Christ was of the same substance as the Father (Homoousios) in the Nicene Creed. He did great things for God, even though, like King David and Solomon, he was a flawed man struggling with palace intrigue, wrongly exiling St. Athanasius, and compromising in order to keep His Empire together. Like King Asa, he was a good king, but did not take the altars down from the high places (1 Kings 15:14) and his ascendency was universally celebrated by Christians at the time and for good reason, not to mention the building of the greatest church in Christendom, the Hagia Sophia, and protecting holy sites in Palestine, such as the holy sepulcher (where Christ was buried and revealed Himself at the resurrection), indeed a church stands there on that site to this very day because of such a great patronage on the part of the imperial family.

Much of the negative press against St. Constantine came from the Mennonite theologian Dr. Howard Yoder in the 1970s and 1980s and his critique soon entered into popular culture, his critique assumed that it was wrong for Christians to be involved in the state and for the state to defend Christianity and enforce Biblical Law (a view held by basically all Anabaptists like Yoder). Anti-Christian secularists and Gnostics soon jumped on this bandwagon because they wanted to spin the narrative that Christianity today was just an invention of corrupt governments in Rome. Meanwhile the Eastern Church goes to the other extreme by not only calling him a saint, but also a saint equal to the Apostles in authority which gave the Byzantine Empire’s Emperor carte blanche when it came to his official governmental acts, which was obviously an error also. Neither extreme is accurate.

What I find most ironic though about this Seventh day critique of St. Constantine is regarding the Law of God itself. St. Constantine began the practice of punishing heretics (such as the Arians) with capital punishment or exile, along with pagans, adulterers, homosexuals etc (information we have from the church father St. Eusebius in his work Ecclesiastical History). This is something the Law of God requires, for blasphemers and adulterers and those who practice sorcery were punished under the Law of Moses. Indeed, it was out of a respect of the Law of God and the reign of Jesus Christ that the Laws of God were implemented at the level of the state to punish idolatry, sexual immorality, and various forms of wickedness. Where is the praise for St. Constantine by seventh-day Adventists in this area? He by far was more honoring of God’s law in more areas than nearly any Christian leader with his authority and we are to dismiss him because of this issue of the Sabbath only? (I speak as from your perspective)

Indeed, by the time you get to the laws of Justinian I and the canon law of St. Gregory the Great (the last “good” pope according to Calvin) in the west, you have an enshrining of many laws straight from the Laws of Moses. Obviously they added and changed things over time, as I believe the office of the Papacy became Antichrist (the Man of Sin) and likely reigned as such until the end of the Papal States in the late 1800s. This however, did not negate the many great laws and works of Christians through the centuries, even during times when the popes were a real threat to true religion. It is irresponsible for Christians to dismiss many of these great and Godly examples because of differences we might have with them on one point or another.

Ms. Laura Peale States That:

[The Catholic church went so far as to take the 7th day out of the original 10 commandments. Are you aware of this? Look in one of their catechisms and you will see that they removed the 2nd commandment, shortened the 4th (to make it nonspecific), then split the 10th command into two!! Ugg. -- Reminds me of the little horn in Daniel 7:25 and Revelations beast of the Sea that blasphemes God (claims to be God).]

We Reply:

This is not entirely false nor is it entirely true. To start, it is well known that from the times of the early church there were debates between Christians and even among the Jews themselves over the numbering of the commandments. In Scripture, the commandments are not referenced by a number (e.g. command one, command two, command three, et al.). The phrase “ten commandments” does not even show up in Scripture specifically. Indeed, chapter numbers and verse numbers did not exist in the Greek and were not quite what they are today in our Bibles in the original Hebrew either (though their scribes did numbered columns for copying purposes).

To be clear, these early debates were not that these commands were not valid, but ONLY how they should be numbered. There were mainly three different schools of thought among both Jews and Christians as to the numbering and how many “tables” of the Law there are (typically first table refers to laws regarding God and second table refers to law pertaining to man/neighbor).

Some believed that the “do not make unto me any graven image” was part of the same command “thou shall have no other gods” as idolatry is most often associated with false worship. Hence, some Christians such as Lutherans, Catholics, and St. Augustine (with whom I usually agree), typically held that the Sabbath is the Third Commandment, not the Fourth. By contrast, St. Ambrose (Augustine’s teacher), Anglicans, Presbyterians/Reformed, and Baptists (and all of their theological descendants such as the seventh day Adventists, Methodists, Pentecostals, etc) held that the Sabbath was the Fourth Commandment. For those who held that the first commandment included idolatry, they only got to the traditional ten by splitting coveting into two separate commandments (which has some warrant in the text), into “coveting neighbor’s wife” versus “coveting neighbors' goods” as separate commands due to an apparent difference in severity. St. Augustine also felt that coveting was unique among the commandments because it was the only command that prohibited something that was purely of the heart or mind and not an external act (which is indeed true), and so even speaks of a spiritual “third table” of the law (which a bit much in my opinion).

I personally agree with the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, and St. Ambrose that the Sabbath is the Fourth Commandment and that all coveting is one commandment. I believe so because St. Paul refers to coveting in Romans 7 as if it was one command and I believe that “Graven image” is different than simply worshipping other gods because the idol of the golden calf was a false image of the One True God (Yahweh-Elohim) according to the text in Exodus and not merely of a pagan deity.

This disagreement is ancient and was also a disagreement among the Jews, so it is not really fair to say that this was about “removing the Sabbath.”

I have a pretty decent library and own copies of nearly every confession, creed, and catechism ever penned for a church, including a Catholic Catechism, below I have a quote from the Roman Catholics on the application of the Sabbath law today right from the Catechism, which I immediately pulled down after reading that part of your email.

from page 529 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“On the Lord’s Day and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound….to abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God, the joy which is proper to the Lord’s day, or the proper relaxation of mind and body.”

“Every Christians should avoid making unnecessary demands of others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day.”

Granted, this is not the position of the seventh-day Adventists or Messianic Jews, but that is not the same as saying faithful Catholics don’t believe the Sabbath command continues in some way in the New Covenant for Christians. They do believe it does and they teach that it does.

All Christians believe that that the command continues in some way; either in our receiving of Christ on the Lord’s Day, or that the Lord’s Day is now the actual Sabbath day, or that Saturday is still the Sabbath day. Of those that observe Saturday (the seventh day), some also observe the Lord ’s Day (first day), and others only observe the seventh day, but this has been the case since the beginning.

But all in all, we are forbidden from breaking fellowship over this issue (Roman 14), and we are expected to meet on the Lord’s Day as a church for Holy Communion regardless of whether other days are observed or not. This is the firm teaching of the New Testament, as I have shown.

What this says about your church and the sort of Christians you have known, I cannot say. But I can say that those who refuse fellowship on the basis of this issue are in serious sin.

Okay, I have as thoroughly answered your questions and given my understanding as I possibly could especially given my current schedule.

Feel free to ask me questions as they arise, I wrote this for your benefit, for even if you disagree, I hope you can see my heart as one called to teach, and to love others.

You would be welcomed in our community, regardless of our differences.

In Christ,
Joshua.

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