WHAT ABOUT SUNDAY WORSHIP?

    Well, what about Sunday worship? Is this right, wrong, or not an issue? My understanding from my study is that it is not an issue. It is neither right nor wrong. It is always right to worship God, in association with other believers as often as possible. In Acts 2:42-47 the early church was in worship every day. If it were possible, such daily worship would be ideal. But we have busy lives to lead which makes daily corporate worship impractical. Yet we need time for corporate worship to supplement our daily experience. We must not neglect corporate worship. (Heb. 10:25) It is not wrong to worship on Saturday and neither is it wrong to worship on Sunday, Wednesday, or any other day! Keeping a Sabbath for reflection and spiritual growth is healthy and should be encouraged. But the message of the New Testament and the rest of the Bible makes it clear that the day of the week on which worship takes place should not be binding or mandated for Christians.[1]

    There are those who make Sunday into a binding Sabbath requirement. As I understand the Scriptures, Sunday Sabbatarianism is just as problematic as Saturday Sabbatarianism. It is not wrong to observe a day. It is wrong to judge others for their decisions regarding observance or non-observance of days. It is wrong to, in any way, get such practices confused with salvation.

    How did it happen that most Christians started worshipping on Sunday, then? It was interesting for me to discover the early church process with this. In an exhaustive study on the issue of Sabbath and Sunday, D.A. Carson edits a book entitled From Sabbath to the Lord’s Day. This book is a scholarly and highly technical work that examines the early church fathers and their views about the Sabbath and Sunday worship.

    From 100 A.D. forward the earliest Christians unanimously met on Sunday. This was a universal practice among Christians. No one considered it a Sabbath. But virtually all Christians met on that day. This historical reality is much earlier than Adventists have taught. These Sunday worship gatherings were universally accepted practice among the disciples of the apostles. It is unthinkable that this could have happened without having been the general practice during the apostolic era. Again I want to say that the early Christians thought it was a good day to meet because it celebrated the resurrection, but they did not associate it with a change of the seventh-day Sabbath. Some, however, continued to meet on the seventh-day Sabbath. These were mostly the Jewish Christians. Others, mostly Gentiles, did not. They gave the reasons that we have previously discussed. Clearly, they understood the teachings of Paul and the rest of the Bible as we have just studied. The Sabbath was a permissible option, but not binding on Christians.

    However, there was a need to gather for corporate worship. Because many of the Jewish Christians would still attend synagogue on the Sabbath, there was a need to set aside another time when other Christians, including the Gentile Christians, could gather for their own private meetings. This became Sunday. Our first record of this reference was in 107 AD. That is only 11 years from the time of John’s reference to the Lord's day in Revelation 1:10 It is quite probable that John was referring to Sunday when he mentioned that day—not because of any sacredness attached to it, but because it was the common meeting day for Christians.[2]

    In 140 A.D. Justin Martyr held a detailed dialogue with Trypho, a Jewish critic of the Christians. In this debate, he explains why the Christians do not observe any Sabbaths. He refers specifically to the Pauline Scriptures we have examined in this book. His arguments were based on the fulfillment of the Law in Christ, specifically the Sabbath. This detailed theological explanation to a Jewish critic clearly demonstrates how the early Christians believed. He was writing from the city of Ephesus where John had been the pastor/leader. This discussion took place only 44 years after the death of the Apostle and demonstrates what he considers to be the universal understanding of Christians at that time.3 The idea that the Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday by the Catholic Church in later years is not borne out by the historical record.

    The early Christians had some sentimental attachment to the first day of the week as well. Not only did the Lord rise on that day, but of the seven appearances of Jesus to his disciples, five were on the first day, and in the other appearances, there is no specific mention of which day they took place. Also that year, the feast of Pentecost was on the first day of the week. The Christian Church was born on a Sunday.[4] But this did not mean they attached sacredness or Sabbath qualities to that day. There were no appeals to the Ten Commandments attached to Sunday. Even much later when Constantine made the first Sunday Law, it was just a law to forbid work on that day, and it was a law that would benefit everyone. Pagans did not take Sunday off before that time. It was not a blending of Paganism and Christianity at all. It was a Christian day that Constantine used to benefit his empire. It was welcomed by Christians and Pagans alike as a break from work. It made worship more convenient, but it was not a law based on Sabbath law at all. In fact, the farmers were exempt. They could continue their work. This, of course, was strictly forbidden in the Old Covenant Sabbath laws, especially in the Ten Commandments. There was no changing of Sabbath to Sunday by Constantine as I had been taught.

    There was some anti-Jewish sentiment at that time. Some have suggested that since the Jews were in trouble with the government, the Christians tried to distance themselves from the Jews by getting away from the Sabbath so as to avoid persecution. But the records from that era do not indicate a people who did anything because they were trying to avoid persecution for the cause of Christ. The examples are myriad of Christians standing boldly for their faith in spite of the threat of death. If this had been a conviction for them, they would have stood for it. But they were not convicted about the Sabbath, as is clearly evident in their literature.

    It was not until Augustine in the fifth century that any connection was made between the Ten Commandments and  Sunday keeping. Even then the connection was loose. The day of the Sabbath was considered ceremonial. This view was made more prominent by Thomas Aquinas in later centuries. The reformers, Calvin and Luther, were careful to state that the Sabbath was not binding on Christians, but they saw merit in taking a day for rest and worship. It was not until the English Reformation that the Decalogue Sabbath began being promoted. The chief proponents of this were the Puritans. They began to teach that the Sabbath (although they called Sunday the Sabbath) was not abolished, and they instituted strict rules according to the Old Testament regulations. This, of course, affected the other religious English groups, such as the Methodists and the Baptists.

    Many of these groups came to America, and New England became known for strict Sabbath (Sunday) observance. It was there that one group, the Seventh-day Baptists, took it a step further and started keeping Saturday as the Sabbath. If the Old Testament Sabbath is binding on Christians, they reasoned, we should also keep the right day. It was the Seventh-day Baptists who influenced Joseph Bates, who in turn influenced Ellen G. White, and Seventh-day Adventism was born. Adventists are still primarily arguing with the "Puritans" over which day is the real Sabbath, rather than whether or not this is an issue in the New Testament for Christians. In arguing about which day is the Sabbath, the message of Scripture and the message the early church clearly had in mind, has been missed altogether.[5]

    Is it wrong to keep a Saturday Sabbath? No, it is not. Romans 14:5-6 makes it clear that observing days or not observing days is not an issue. It is the judgmentalism associated with it that is forbidden. We must not judge one another over these things or make salvation issues out of them. Imagine that you are on a business trip abroad for your job which has caused you to be separated from your family for several months. You miss your family and long for a meaningful time together even though you are apart. Your travel budget allows you to spend two hours once a week on the telephone with your family. So you set up a time when the whole family will gather around the telephone for this family communion. It becomes the highlight of your weekly schedule. Let’s say that your family meets at home every Tuesday evening for your call, and it is early Wednesday morning for you when you are in the other country. Even so, this scheduled time is a wonderful and vital time for your family. Time flies by, and eventually, you return home. It is so good to be back together! But do you keep on meeting every Tuesday evening now that you are back face-to-face? No. There is no longer a need for a scheduled appointment now that you are face-to-face! However, if you choose to do so because this special family time became a special tradition while you were overseas, you might decide that you will keep the Tuesday evening date. Great idea! But now that you are back face to face all the time, is it mandatory that this weekly meeting happen? No, of course not! You might find another time that works better for you. You might move it to Wednesday nights sometimes, or Friday nights. Maybe sometimes there could be several family meetings during the week. Now that you are back home face to face, it is not required that you meet at the same time in the same way. It is permissible, but not required. 

    The same is true of the weekly Sabbath. The Sabbath reminds us of God’s original intent that we are human beings, not human doings. He created us for a relationship with Himself. So it was in the days of old, that the Sabbath pointed forward to the One who would come and restore that relationship with the Father. Every week the Children of Israel would physically rest to remind them of and to point forward to these truths. But once Jesus came and restored that relationship with God and sent His Holy Spirit to live in us and to provide that continual rest relationship, we do not need to keep the day anymore. It is okay to do so as long as no judgment is attached to keeping it. But it is not required. In the Old Covenant, the Seal of God was the Sabbath, in the New, it is the Holy Spirit. Do you get the connection? Now we are not asked to remember the Sabbath but to remember Jesus. “In remembrance of Me,” said Jesus.

    I continued to pray in earnest about these things. Paula and I made this a subject of great soul-searching and continued research. The whole study hit me so hard that I would wake up in the middle of the night and call out to God. “Lord, please do not let me be deceived. I want to be your faithful follower.” I would go to the church very early in the morning during those months of intense study and prayer. Upstairs in the sanctuary of the church, I would sit down and play the piano and sing praises to the Lord. I privately called this my “Upper Room.” It was the place I met God every day long before daylight and before anyone was around. There I would pour out all my fears and struggles to Jesus. Often I would weep and cry out from the very depths of my being. At times I would cry with deep sobs. There is no way to describe the anguish I felt. At times the fears of my youth were so intense that I would literally feel panic. What if I was wrong? What about all the dear people in the church. What if I led them astray and would be

responsible for their being lost because I took a wrong turn. I experienced a sense of torture and agony during those days.

    Every time, after much prayer and wrestling with God, the Scriptures would come to my mind with even greater clarity. I would claim Luke 11:11-13 over and over, day after day. Jesus says when we ask for the Holy Spirit, He will come to us. He will not send deception. Many times I would agonize with God and pray that He would lay me to rest rather than let me be deceived or let me dishonor His cause. The more I persisted, the more the Lord reassured me through His promises and His Word. Galatians 5:1 would come to mind with great clarity: Stand fast (firm), therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

    This process went on for months. At times I would awake at 2:00 a.m. in a panic, terrified that I was going to be lost or would lead others astray. I would start pouring my heart out to the Lord and claiming His promises. Each day I would go to the “Upper Room” and wrestle with God. Each day I would come out of those times refreshed, filled with the Spirit of God, and resting in Jesus on my Sabbath. The words of the Bible would come to life for me. The fear would disappear and the peace of God would flood my soul.

    Greater clarity would come to me as I studied the Word. Those sections of the Bible that I had always had to explain away were now alive and full of joy and truth for me. Each day the same pattern occurred. I would wake up in fear, cry out to God, head to the secret place, my “upper room,” to meet with Him and pour out my heart to Him.

    Each day the promises and truths of God’s Word, the peace and the joy, would flow over me. I can’t say exactly how long this went on, but I know it was many months. Then one day, during my prayer time, God got through to me. It was not an audible voice, just a clear voice in my mind, as if He had spoken out loud to me. “Where is all the fear coming from, Greg? It is coming from the Adventism of your childhood! Where is the joy, peace, and freedom coming from? It is coming from My Word and from time spent with Me in this place! Fear is not from Me. My perfect love casts out fear.” Suddenly it all became clear. The battle inside me was over. The Spirit of God had set me free. I recognized the bondage I had been in all my life. The veil had fallen from my eyes!

    Meanwhile, Paula was coming to the same conclusions on her own. We knew that God was calling us to a deeper walk with Him that would involve stepping out of all that meant security for us. We’d thought at first that God might want us to remain in the church and work for change. However, as we prayed more and more, we became uncomfortable with that option. We are a team that God has gifted to reach the unchurched. In addition, we have been given leadership and teaching gifts. To know the truth and to just sit on it and hope for change did not seem to fit the way God had wired us. We were willing to do so, however. It sure would be less traumatic.

    The other side of the issue for me was the responsibility I have to teach the truth. I am a flawed human being, with so many frailties, but God is doing great work in my heart. I cannot live a double life. I am not an eloquent speaker or a flashy personality. The only things I have going for me are my convictions and my love for Jesus. If I cannot speak from the core of my experience with Jesus, I am nothing.

    Paula and I also felt convinced that it would be wrong to continue to represent an organization that we no longer believed represented truth. To continue to serve in it would be to lend credibility to its claims. We had many wonderful friends in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We were grateful for our conference president, associate pastors, staff, elders, volunteers, and so many others who had supported us and gone out on a limb to help us try to build a church for a new generation. We did not want to hurt them or the Foster Memorial Church that we loved so much and had given so much of our hearts to over the past eight years. But we knew we had to follow the Lord’s leading. We recognized that there would be those who would strongly disagree with our understanding of Scripture and our sense of calling. But we knew that we were not responsible to them. We were responsible to God. We could not remain evangelical Adventists. The box of Adventism excluded too many of God’s people.

    While the implications of these discoveries were frightening, there was also a sense of eager anticipation as we looked forward to what God had in mind for us. We were being asked to live on the ragged edge of faith. We had to trust in God’s promises as never before. We were truly learning to live by faith and rest in Jesus, our Lord and Friend. For us, this was no longer just theory, but it was an actual faith experience. It became trust in God’s Word and reliance on Him and Him alone. This was to be Sabbath rest on a daily basis. We were grateful that God had entrusted us with His truth and allowed us to put Him to the test. Despite our fears, we were confident of the future. Where God leads, He provides. We were about to embark on a Fantastic Adventure In Trusting Him – FAITH.

[1] Dale Ratzlaff, Sabbath in Crisis, Glendale, AR, 1990, pp 13-14. There are really three schools of thought in regard to the Sabbath. There is a small group, which includes the SDAs, that teaches that the Sabbath has continuance in the New Testament. A second group teaches a transference theology and states that the Sabbath command is still binding, but the sacredness of the day was transferred from Sabbath to Sunday. (This was actually a much later development in the Christian church. Early Christians did not teach either of these first two concepts.) Finally, there is a larger group of Christians that teach that Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath and the Law. He is our Sabbath rest.

[2] H. M. Riggle, Sabbath and the Lord’s Day, (Glendale AZ: Life Assurance Ministries) pp. 114-135.

[3] Ibid. pp 121-130.

[4] Ibid, pp. 142-143.

[5] D.A. Carson, From Sabbath to the Lord’s Day: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Investigation (Eugene OR, 1999) pp 221-341. This book, edited by Carson, details the history of Sunday observance and the theological understanding of the church from the time of the apostles to the present day. The SDA view of the Sabbath and history does not stand up to the historical evidence