What The Bible Teaches About Sunday

How many times do you think that the Bible makes reference to Sunday??? It must be in the hundreds, right? Wrong. The Bible doesn’t actually use the word Sunday. In the New Testament, the phrase “the first day of the week” is used ONLY eight times. In the Old Testament we find only two references to the “morrow after the Sabbath,” which was an annual observance of the first day of the Feast of Weeks, this yearly observance always fell on a Sunday.

ONCE A YEAR, THIS SUNDAY WAS KEPT...Most people are unaware that the first day of an important Old Testament annual festival called the "Feast of Weeks," (Leviticus 23:15,) was mistakenly used to "prove" observance of a weekly Sunday.

The first day of the Feast of Weeks (or Sabbaths) always began on the “morrow after the Sabbath” during the Days of Unleavened Bread. From that once a year Sunday, they were commanded to count off seven consecutive Sabbaths (this is why this festival is called "the Feast of Weeks") 7 weeks x7 is 49 days, and on the fiftieth and final day of the Feast of Weeks (or Sabbaths) they kept Pentecost.

All of God’s festival days were religiously observed by Christ and by the Jews of Christ’s time and you will soon see how the whole world misused the first day of the the Feast of Weeks to “prove” a false weekly Sunday observance.

In reality, the Bible actually destroys the Sunday argument. If you literally read Matthew 28:1, it says “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first of Sabbaths (Sabbaton is a plural word, 4521) came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher...” HERE IS WHERE THE MISUNDERSTANDING LIES... Why does the Bible use a plural word here, “the first of Sabbaths?”

Let’s examine the real reason why the word “Sabbaths” was used in the original and not "Sabbath" in the singular. The Jews were fully familiar with this particular annual Sunday in question. The "first of Sabbaths" or better put, "The first day of the Feast of Sabbaths" had been kept by them for thousands of years! But, the rest of the world was ignorant of God's system of Holy Days...so they made a crucial mistake. The Bible translators didn't understand why the original word used in this scripture was SABBATON or WEEKS (or Sabbaths)! Read the scripture now, with the understanding that this Sunday is the first day of the FEAST OF WEEKS.

“As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week” is translated incorrectly. Literally, “mian sabbaton” can only mean The “first (day) of Weeks” or the “First (day) of Sabbaths.” Do you remember how the “morrow after the Sabbath during the days of Unleavened Bread” was the first day of the Feast of Weeks or "Feast of Sabbaths!!!" God was not trying to establish a new weekly Sunday observance. This exact Sunday in question here was the morrow after the Sabbath during the days of Unleavened Bread! Was it not???

Yes God had always begun this prescribed Festival with a Sunday. An annual Sunday observance, does not justify a weekly observance. We don't have the right to make those kinds of changes. To start keeping Sunday based on this “proof” is like keeping your birthday every week or keeping the fourth of July every week! NO, we don’t do that because annual holidays only fall once a year...

In fact, all the places where the New Testament uses “mian sabbaton“ or “the first (day) of Sabbaths,” align exactly time wise to the annual Jewish observance of the first day of the Feast of Weeks. Which had been kept for 1000s of years, it is certainly no coincidence!

For example, 1 Corinthians 16:2-8 uses mian sabbaton, and says, “On the First of Weeks, let each of you put by himself, storing up whatever he is prospered, that there not be then collections when I come....But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost.” In context, it is obvious that Paul had kept the Feast of Weeks and he was would wait till the festival was over to keep the 50th day, Pentecost before he left Ephesus. Pentecost was last day of the Feast of Sabbaths. The context proves the case.

CHANGING THE SET TIMES AND LAWS...

Daniel 7:25 says,
“He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.”

What are the set times and laws??? If we look at the Bible, the only set times authorized by God are the Saturday Sabbath, and the Holy Days. (Leviticus 23) But surely the Sabbath must be long done away with by now...since we are under the New Covenant and are no longer required to keep the commandments...right??? NO! Wrong.

The futuristic book of Revelation describes the people of God in the end time, as those who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” The fact that God’s people are commandment keepers in the future is repeated three times in the book of Revelation. (Revelation 12:17, Revelation 14:12 and Revelation 22:14)

The Commandments, contrary to popular opinion, are not done away with. The Saturday Sabbath, contrary to popular opinion, is not done away with. Many long years after Christ’s death the apostle John wrote, “He that saith, I know him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” John 2:4 If you don’t keep the commandments, you don’t know Christ. And Christ proclaims in Matthew 7:22-23 that He does not know anyone who transgresses the law!

And even in the Old Testament, it says, He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination to God." Proverbs 28:9 Christ relates that EVEN IN THE FUTURE the law will still be in effect. Read what Christ will say to all who come up to Him in the future and claim to do Christian works “in his name, but work iniquity. (Iniquity is from anomia, meaning to transgress the law).

“Many will say to me in that day, (the future) Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:22-23 plainly says that Christ does not have a relationship with those that “work iniquity,” so it would be wise to know what iniquity literally means!

The word iniquity is used 15 times in the New Testament. The Bible gives us a definition in l John 3:4. “Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”

“ANOMIA” IS TRANSLATED "INIQUITY" IN MATTHEW 7 AND "TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW" IN 1 JOHN 3:4! But, they are both from "Anomia."

Now if we apply the translation to "anomia" in Matthew 7:23, we see what Christ was saying, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that transgress the law.”

This word “iniquity” doesn’t sound as serious as “transgression of the law” BUT IT IS FROM THE SAME WORD. Iniquity means “violation of law, wickedness, transgression of the law, unrighteousness.” So, since the law requires that we observe the 7th day of the week, the Sabbath, then would keeping Sunday be O.K. with Christ? Is breaking the Sabbath O.K. with Christ? No, because breaking the fourth commandment is transgression of the law...."iniquity." If you keep Sunday, the first day of the week, Christ would say, "I never knew you, depart from me, you that transgress the law."

The true reason the day of worship was changed is that the Catholic church so decreed it. Here is where the effort to change the set times and laws came from... Read the Catholic quotes in yellow below. These are their own words explaining why they changed the day of worship to Sunday.

"Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
"A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday." Peter Guierman, The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957 ed.), p. 50. Copyright 1930 by B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis.

(If the Catholic church on it’s own authority, changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday without God’s sanction, it would be a sin to observe the first day of the week rather than the commanded seventh day of the week....)

“Catholic Confessions about Sunday.”

They say,

"You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." Cardinal Gibbons (for many years head of the Catholic Church in America), The Faith of Our Fathers (92d ed., rev.; Baltimore: John Murphy Company), p. 89.

"Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday." Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About (New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons) p. 136.

"If you follow the Bible alone there can be no question that you are obliged to keep Saturday holy, since that is the day especially prescribed by Almighty God to be kept holy to the Lord." F. G. Lentz, The Question Box (New York: Christian Press Association, 1900), p. 98.

Let’s be blunt, the Catholic Church is very open about the fact that they changed Saturday worship to Sunday. The Catholics claim responsibility for Sunday keeping, and they laugh at Protestants who say they take their teaching from the Bible, yet they keep Sunday, a day which is neither taught nor commanded in the Bible.

Catholics have never denied that the Bible teaches Saturday observance. Protestants may not want to admit it, but unarguably, all protestants keep Sunday based solely on the authority of the Catholic Church....but they don’t go around saying “We just blindly followed the tradition of the Catholic church on the Sunday issue.” Instead they say, “Christ was resurrected on a Sunday and that is why I observe Sunday.” But what if Christ was not resurrected on a Sunday?

What if the Bible proves that Christ was resurrected late on Saturday afternoon, before Sunday even began? The Sunday argument would simply and completely fall flat on it’s face, wouldn’t it? Let's see if the proof is there...

The Simple Proof that the Resurrection was not on a Sunday.

What did Jesus say was the sign of His Messiahship? “...An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matthew 12:39-40

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary says that Jesus was placed upon the stake at the third hour or 9 A.M. our time. He died six hours later, which would make his death fall at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Can we get three days and three nights out of Friday afternoon around 3pm to early Sunday morning? Let’s see...

THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS…

Friday, 3:00 p.m. to Saturday, 3:00 p.m. = one day and one night.

Saturday, 3:00 p.m. to Sunday, 3:00 p.m. = two days and two nights.

Sunday, 3:00 p.m. to Monday, 3:00 p.m. = three days and three nights.

Three days and three nights is Monday afternoon! What happened here??? Most people have been taught that Christ died on Good Friday in the afternoon and resurrected on Sunday morning, but astoundingly, it is not possible for that configuration to add up to three days and three nights. What is the explanation of this mystery? The Bible will resolve this for us!

Remember that Christ had to be in the grave for three whole days and three whole nights or He is not the Messiah! We know that He was the Messiah. We know that He did not get this wrong! It was the only SIGN of His Messiahship that He gave.

The first misunderstanding comes when individuals assume that Christ died on a Friday. Why do they think it was a Friday? Because the Bible says He died on the “preparation” day, before the Sabbath...but look a little closer! John 19:30-31 says,

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the stake on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day)”.

UNDERSTANDING HIGH DAYS…(HOLY DAYS)

A most important point is missed here! He died on the preparation day of a High Day. A High Day is an annual HOLY DAY, not the weekly Sabbath! Read it again for yourself, “for that Sabbath day was an high day” A “high day” or “Holy Day” can fall on any day of the week, not just on a Saturday. The Holy Day spoken of in this place is the “first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread” which fell on a Thursday the year that Christ died.

The preparation day for the first day of Unleavened Bread that year was on a Wednesday. They were in a hurry to get Christ down off the stake and buried before the Holy Day arrived at Sundown. (Just as the Jews begin to observe the weekly Sabbath starting Friday evening at Sundown, all days, including Holy Days begin the evening before.)

If Christ died late on a Wednesday afternoon, three days and three nights later would be late on Saturday afternoon. This would explain why the two Marys got down to the tomb “in the end of the Sabbath” and He was already gone.. (Matthew 28:6) He is not here: for he is risen...” This explains all. At the end of the Sabbath, Christ was already risen. This fulfils the three full days and three full nights required for the sign of His Messiahship.

Christ was resurrected late on a Saturday afternoon, when they got down there at the end of the Sabbath, he was already gone. The Sunday argument has fallen flat on it’s face! Some say, “What difference does it make which day I keep, as long as I keep one day holy?” What does Jesus Christ say? “For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Matthew 12:8 Who should you obey, God or man's traditions?

“Jesus answered and said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men...." Mark 7:6-8