Who is observing the wrong Sabbath?

Who got it right on the Sabbath? Is it Friday, Saturday or Sunday? This is a debate that will never end. BRIGHT MHANGO adds some insights into the issue.

“Everyone who goes to church on Sunday praises Satan. Only those who praise on the Sabbath (seventh) day praise God,” one Adventist posted on his Facebook page.

If God made only one day as day of prayer and yet there are several ‘Sabbaths’ around: Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Rastas and Adventists, and Sunday for most of the Christians, who is getting it right? Who is observing the wrong Sabbath?

Sabbath loosely translates as “desisting from.” It is a day that the Abrahamic religions, that is, the ones that trace their roots to Abraham, set aside to honour their God. There are three Abrahamic religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Without fearing judgment or argument, there is overwhelming evidence for the Adventist Sabbath.

Starting with Genesis 2:1-3: “Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. . . And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.”

Again when God was handing down the commandments he stressed it.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.” (Exodus 20: 8 – 11)

And some purists insist that God said his law can never change and to back this they cite Matthew. 15:13 which warns that what God hath planted cannot be uprooted.

That Sabbath day is Saturday, according to Jewish tradition, and it has been like that up until recently. Even Jesus, who John 15:10 reports that he kept his ancestors commandment in his youth, observed the Sabbath faithfully.

The observance of Sunday as the Sabbath was by decree of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 321 AD. He decreed the Christian religion to be the religion of the state to settle religious controversy.

He issued an edict in March, 321 AD saying: “Let all the judges and townspeople, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun: but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture: because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines: lest, the critical moment let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven.”

The day of the sun being the pagan day of worship then, Constantine himself was not a Christian at the time he made the Sunday decree and was obviously influenced by his pagan roots.

From Constantine, Sunday caught on. As at now, the International Standardisation Organisation’s standard number ISO 8601 recognises Sunday as the last day of the week, and almost all of the world’s Christians are Sunday observers.

Those who rest on Saturday quote Malachi 3 verse 6 saying that God does not change and he never changed his usual Sabbath prescription. Jesus, the son of God also decreed on John 15:10 that he had been keeping God’s law faithfully, which means he observed the original Sabbath.

Paul, whose theology dictates most of the Christian dogma today, was also faithful to the Saturday Sabbath as evidenced by Acts 18 verse 4.

So what justification is there to back the masses that rest on what is actually the first day of the week, the day God started work?

Some scholars write that Sunday was opted because Jesus rose on that day.

Romans 14:5-6 (NIV) says “One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

To Sunday worshipers, it does not matter which day one picks, what counts is the honour.

Robin Brace, arguing on http://www.ukapologetics.net/sundayworship.htm, trashed the Seventh Day Adventists, saying there is nothing wrong with observing Sunday.

“If Christians prefer to assemble on the seventh day (Saturday) they do no wrong, but the danger is in the legalism and judgmentalism of other Christians, which so often seems to accompany seventh-day observance,” argues Brace.

In Revelation 1:10, the apostle John described himself as being “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” Most writers have thought he was referring to Sunday, so that our use of “the Lord’s Day” as a term for Sunday comes from this verse, writes Dr. John Bechtle on christiananswers.net.

When Paul wanted to collect an offering from the church at Corinth, he asked them to gather the money on the “first day of the week” (1 Cor. 16:2). And when he wanted to meet with the believers at Troas, the gathering took place “on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread” (Acts 20:7).

The transfer of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday was gradual but sure. Saturday was viewed as a Jewish thing and it all depends on the way one takes the Old Testament, for Adventists, the Old Testament plays a big role in influencing them while many Protestants focus on Christ.

There is also no evidence that the day God started work was Sunday. Who was there to record? Maybe God’s day is equal to a year and the whole of our calendar might be skewed.

If God has his day, however, and he wants each creature to obey it as a condition for salvation, then two of the Sunday, Saturday or Friday observers are marked for sure fire.