(Chapter 3)
The Sabbath After Christ's Death & Resurrection
Did Christ's disciples continue to keep the seventh day Sabbath after His death and resurrection? Is it even possible to know? Indeed it is! Let's take a look at what Luke tells us in the book of Acts.
"But when [Paul and his friends] departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down....And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath....And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God" Acts 13:14, 42, 44.
Here is another example, from Luke and Paul.
"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 spake unto the women which resorted thither" Acts 16:13.
"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures" Acts 17:2.
"And he [Paul] reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks" Acts 18:4.
It is of interest that even the Gentile Christians (Greeks) kept the Sabbath. It is obvious that there has been no change in days of worship yet, and that the keeping holy of the seventh-day Sabbath was inclusive of all humanity, not merely of the Jews.
Now let us move ahead in time to around the year 95 A.D.. John is all alone. He is the only disciple who has personally walked with Jesus and is still alive. He is banished to a little solitary island, the isle of Patmos. But even here in this dreary place, he finds peace in God. He says,
"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day..." Revelation 1:10
Which day is the Lord's?
"But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God..." Exodus 20:10.
In Isaiah, God says that the Sabbath is "... my holy day..." Isaiah 58:13.
In the New Testament, God still calls the seventh-day Sabbath His day: "For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day" Matthew 12:8. and "...the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath" Luke 6:5.
These texts all seem to indicate that the "Lord's day" and the seventh-day Sabbath are the same. In fact, in the Bible, no day other than the Sabbath is called "the Lord's day," except the day of judgment, which clearly does not apply within the context of this passage.
Often the claim is made that by the time John wrote Revelation, Sunday was the normal and accepted day of worship, and that this is the day He was referring to in Revelation 1:10. However, historically, this is woefully incorrect. Sunday worship did not enter the Christian world until around 300 A.D., and even then it was kept along with the seventh-day Sabbath, not in place of it. This being the case, Revelation was written approximately 200-plus years prior to the introduction of Sunday worship into Christianity. It becomes rather apparent that John could not have been referring to Sunday as the Lord's day. He could be speaking only of the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.*
John also was a Sabbath keeper, as were all the Christians at that time. They followed in the example of their Lord Jesus.
In fact, a careful look at the people and their religious beliefs in the past two thousand years or so will reveal that there have always been those who kept the seventh day holy. No other day was sanctified by Christians until some chose to compromise their standards in the latter part of the third century in order to make themselves less conspicuous. Then, in the fourth century, the Roman emperor, Constantine I, established Sunday as the universal day of rest.
In spite of this, however, God's faithful people continued to keep the only true Sabbath of the seventh day holy. God had His allegiant people in all countries at all times. Although they did not understand all that God would have liked them to, they lived up to what they understood at the time. Many of them shared their faith, including the Sabbath, with others, even in the face of certain death (see Appendix).
* Revelation was written at least a year prior to the gospel of John. At the time John wrote his gospel, he evidently regarded the seventh day as the Sabbath (John 5:9, 10, 16, 18; 7:22, 23; 9:14, 16; 19:31). In Revelation 1:10, if he was calling the first day of the week the Lord's Day, and keeping it sacred, as most wish us to believe, did he change his mind a year later and go back to keeping the true Sabbath? No, he was consistent in his faith. John kept the same seventh-day Sabbath when he wrote Revelation, as he did when he wrote the gospel of John a year later.
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