Sunday Worship: Mark of the Beast?

Let me apologize at the outset for including this vibrant Christian Church among such suspect company. But what about Sunday?

On What Day of the Week did the Apostles Worship?

The Bible reports that the Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week:

"Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb." (Matthew 28:1).

“Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen....Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.” (Mark 16:2-9).

"Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared." (Luke 24:1).

"Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb." (John 20:1).

The Lord again sanctified the day upon which He rose by appearing to the disciples:

“Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'” (John 20:19).

The Holy Spirit also testified, falling upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost, which was a Sunday:

"Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD." (Leviticus 23:16).

The New Testament reports, without explanation, that the early church met on the first day of the week:

"Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight." (Acts 20:7).

"On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come." (1 Corinthians 16:2).

John, writing approximately 62 A.D., refers to "the Lord's day:"

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet..." (Revelation 1:10).

Thus far the Bible evidence. Let's fast forward a hundred years or so, and we find the church still meeting on Sunday, the first, or eighth, day of the week:

"And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things...But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration." (First Apology of Justin Martyr, Chapter 67).

"For, lo, wherever we are, we are called after the one name of Christ -- namely, Christians. On one day, the first day of the week, we assemble ourselves together, and on the days of the readings we abstain from sustenance." (Bardesanes, A Treasury of Early Christianity, edited by Anne Fremantle, p. 346)

"Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfullness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead." (Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter 15).

This is the Lord's day:

"If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death — whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master — how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead." (Ignatius, Letter to the Magnesians, Chapter 9).

"On the Lord's own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure." (Didache, 14).

The explanation offered by these later, fallible authors for the Christian practice of Sunday worship is consistent with the pattern described, but not explained, within the pages of Scripture. The practice itself is apostolic.

Jesus Christ spent Saturday in the tomb. Does the church worship a dead Christ, or a living one?

The Old Testament Sabbath was two things: it was a day of rest, and also a "holy convocation:"

"Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings." (Leviticus 23:3).

As indicated above, the "holy convocation" of the Christians is Sunday, the first or eighth day of the week. The logic of Sunday Sabbatarianism declares that, as goes the "holy convocation," so goes the day of "solemn rest." But the logic for Sunday as a day of rest is lacking; God did not rest the first day of creation, nor is the eighth day on which the Lord rose from the grave a day of inactivity. Some in the early church observed both, Saturday as a day of rest and Sunday as a day of "holy convocation:"

"But keep the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection." (Apostolic Constitutions, Book 7, Section 2, XXIII.)

There is, however, a natural synergy between the holy convocation and the day of rest; it is not surprising they should converge.

There were also, from the earliest times, some who held every day equal; Paul mentions them:

"One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. " (Romans 14:5-6).

"So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. " (Colossians 2:16-17).

In time anti-semites within the church, in gross violation of Paul's command not to judge another believer in these matters, forbade resting on the Saturday Sabbath. But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; those who prefer this day of rest, and also prefer to shift the "holy convocation" of the Christians to this day, should not judge others either.

When the Lord said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27), He implies that the Sabbath rest is a beneficial institution, designed by God for man's good. Man's constitution has not changed in the intervening period. Yet no claim of righteousness can attach to any such observance, because Paul said, "You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain." (Galatians 4:10-11).

Objections

Some people object: Jesus cannot have been crucified on Friday and risen on Sunday, because this would not be three days. But by the Jewish count, where a part of the day counts as a whole day, three days need not be 72 hours:

The 72-hour count for three days assumes that the start point and end point of a 'day' are variable. One can start the count at any point: 2 a.m. for instance, provided only the count ends at 2 a.m. of the next day, comprising 24 hours. But the Jewish count assumes that the start point and end point of a day are fixed, not variable. Because God began his day-count in Genesis with 'evening,' the enumeration of days must begin at that point, and partial days cannot be lumped together to make a whole; 'evening' and 'morning' make the whole, and a "part of the day is as the whole of it." Therefore, though the interval from Friday to Sunday does not make 72 hours, it is three days.

Others object: the Christians adopted the first day of the week as their day of assembly because they wanted to worship the Sun, whose day it was on the Roman pagan calendar. The week is not a natural time cycle based on any recurring astronomical event; it is not native to paganism nor universally observed. If the Roman list of consecrated days is to be determinative, we must avoid meeting on 'Saturn's day,' inasmuch as Saturn was a dour, child-murdering deity.

Others object: Sunday worship was borrowed from Mithraism. But Mithraism only appears in the latter part of the first century A.D.; it is younger than Christianity, not older. The relationship of this Roman military cult to any earlier religion, such as Zoroastrianism, is like the relationship 'Kwanzaa' holds to Africa. This new religion became very popular in the second and third centuries. Early evidence about Mithraism is scant, though speculation abounds. Similarities between this military cult and Christianity are vastly overstated (Mithras was born from a rock, not a virgin), and if and when real, might well be borrowings by the younger from the elder religion. Something must first exist before it can be borrowed.

Others object: Paul and his companions preached at Jewish synagogues on the sabbath:

"Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down...Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience." (Acts 13:13-16).

Gentile god-fearers attached to the synagogue were also present on these occasions. But this is an evangelistic outreach, not a Christian communion service.

It is objected: Constantine ordained Sunday-keeping, therefore it is pagan not Christian:

"Accordingly he enjoined on all the subjects of the Roman empire to observe the Lord’s day, as a day of rest, and also to honor the day which precedes the Sabbath; in memory, I suppose, of what the Savior of mankind is recorded to have achieved on that day. And since his desire was to teach his whole army zealously to honor the Savior’s day (which derives its name from light, and from the sun), he freely granted to those among them who were partakers of the divine faith, leisure for attendance on the services of the Church of God, in order that they might be able, without impediment, to perform their religious worship." (Life of Constantine, Eusebius, Book Four, Chapter 18).

Constantine's religious affiliation is a moving target. With family ties to solar monotheism, he ended life as a baptized Christian. For whose convenience was this provision enacted? Who wanted to observe Sunday: solarists, Christians, or both? If Sunday worship is established in the Book of Acts, then this enactment is a concession to his Christian subjects. There is nothing in it prohibiting either Jews or Christians who preferred seventh-day worship from observing Saturday as a day of rest or a holy convocation.

While it would have been better to avoid this excessive entanglement of church and state, it is an unfortunate reality that most people are not self-employed and thus not at liberty to grant themselves time off. State-mandated days off were not Constantine's innovation; the old Roman pagan calendar marked each day as a day the law-courts were open for business, or a market-day, or a rest day. This complex system, described in Ovid's 'Fasti,' did not employ the Jewish seven-day week. It was religiously motivated, on such complex pagan considerations that the priests sometimes resorted to posting tablets around the forum explaining on which days various people were to keep the feasts. How the Roman state could be justified in continuing to impose pagan rest days on an increasingly non-pagan population is left unexplained by Constantine's detractors.

The coin shown above, with emperor Constantine on one side and Sol Invictus holding a globe on the other, is the kind of thing that fosters suspicion of Constantine's motives. But when the fortunes of battle had thrust this man into the government of the empire, pagans still comprised the majority of the populace. Does anyone think he should have stamped out paganism, disenfranchising most of his citizenry? Only a furious despot like Pol Pot would have tried; it would have been wrong.

Soul Sleep

In Paradise

William Miller based his system of prophecy on Daniel 8:14, "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." His followers expected the end of the world in 1843, later revised to October 22, 1844. When that day came and went, "'Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before,' one Millerite recalled. 'We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.'" (When Time Shall Be No More, Paul Boyer, p. 81). From the ashes arose Seventh Day Adventism.

End Times

A similar process: a failed prophecy, followed by 'spiritualization,'— is now going on with reference to radio broadcaster Harold Camping's failed prediction of Judgment Day on May 21, 2011:

Harold Camping

Date of Christmas

Why do Christians celebrate Jesus' birthday suspiciously close to the Winter Solstice? A calendar that survives from fourth century Rome lists December 25th as "Natalis Invicti" (birth of the unconquered one). Though 'invictus,' 'unconquered,' was a common epithet, could this be the unconquered sun? Was December 25th a birth-day borrowed from this luminary?

Bible Evidence

Is an autumn date for the nativity more likely?

On What Day was Jesus born?