TREATISE ON "THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK"

    The question of the proper day of the week for the worship of the followers of Christ has, from time to time, been raised, and to that issue our comments are now directed.  It is our proposal to show that the New Testament as well as other ancient (but non-inspired) documents attest to the fact that the church of primitive times (i.e., when the apostles were living) met for the regular weekly meetings on Sunday, as opposed to Saturday (as was consecrated under the law of Moses).  We intend to do this by appealing to the New Testament first and then to the writings of the (so-called) Church Fathers, prominent church members of times near to those in which the events described in the inspired record took place.
    Let us begin with the biblical testimony on this matter.  As Paul was in the city of Troas, the Bible describes his actions thus:  "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight" (Acts 20:7).  It has been argued that this gathering was for the purpose of eating a common meal, thus the reference to their 'breaking of bread'; but this has never been argued by the leading scholars of the New Testament, but by those with a desire to shore up a particular doctrine which deviates from the notion that they assembled for the purpose of eating the Lord's Supper and etc.  It must be noted that the disciples were in the habit of assembling on the first day of the week, and that the words of this verse indicate this clearly.  The verse says that Paul preached to these brethren on the first day of the week when 'they came together', that is, they were in the habit of coming together then and it was that which occasioned his address.  There should be no question, based on the clear words of the passage, that Sunday was the day of assembly.  The word "Sabbath" means "seventh", and if their gathering was on the "seventh" they would not have called it "the first".  We know from I Corinthians 11 that they did partake of common meals when they assembled for worship, so even if one rejects the idea that this 'breaking of bread' is a synecdoche (i.e., a rhetorical figure of speech in which the whole is put for a part, or a part for the whole), the particular day of their gathering should be seen clearly as Sunday, and not as Saturday.  The Jews marked the beginning of their "day" as the point at which the Sun set on the previous day (as we mark time), thus the First Day of the Week would have begun at sunset on Saturday evening; this, then, would have Paul beginning his sermon on what we would consider Saturday evening at sunset and ending it around midnight, or near to 12:00 A.M. on our Sunday morning.  We further see that he was planning to leave Troas sometime after dark on Sunday evening or on into the next day (as we count time), i.e., Monday.  John, (in Revelation 1:10) referred to the day of worship as "the Lord's day".  This distinguished the day of worship for Christians (i.e., Sunday) from the day held sacred by the Jews (i.e., Saturday).
    The Sabbath day and its observance was clearly commanded for the Jews, being a part of the Ten Commandments.  It was variously observed and rejected by them throughout their history.  It must be noted that the Old Law was given expressly to the Israelites, and was never intended to be a Universal covenant.  Hear Moses:  "Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you..." (Deuteronomy 4:1).  That specific reference was here made to the Ten Commandments, one of which commanded Sabbath observance, we see from the verse itself, but we see it again in the next chapter:  "And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.  The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb"  (Deuteronomy 5:1-2).  Unto whom was he speaking?  Israel.  The next verse is even more specific concerning the recipients of this covenant, excluding their fathers and all other nations:  "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day" (Deuteronomy 5:3).  This was Moses' law, what we call the Old Testament (or, at least part of the Old Testament).  Of this law Paul wrote, "...Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross" (Colossians 2:14).  The law enjoining the Sabbath was removed by the Cross of Jesus, therefore the Sabbath was removed.  The principle has no more force than the authority behind it, and the authority supporting the principle (i.e., the Sabbath) has been removed.  Though efforts are made to separate the Old Law into various parts, there are no Divine separations to be found in the Bible, and we therefore recognize none.
    What did the non-inspired writers near to the time of the First Century church have to say about the day of worship observed by the church?  While noting that they were but men, and writing without the Divine assurance of truth (i.e., inspiration), we may turn to them for an accurate account of what the church did, and we do so now.  We begin with a work called THE DIDACHE, a work in Greek which was lost from early on until it was discovered in Constantinople in 1873.  Its author is unknown, but its antiquity is unquestioned, having been quoted by other ancient writers.  In the Didache, (14:1), we read, "On the Lord's own day, gather together and break bread and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions, so that your sacrifice may be pure".  The significance of "the Lord's own day" is seen in that it distinguished "the Lord" (i.e., Jesus) and His "day" from any other "day" that may have been observed.  It was a "day" identified with Him.  This unknown and uninspired teacher gave this command to the church in language suggesting that there was no controversy concerning its propriety.  He did not support it with argument, so as to indicate that there was some controversy or digressive movement who would oppose it.  In THE LETTER OF BARNABAS, again uninspired, (15) we read, "Further, then, it is written about the sabbath also in the Ten Words which God uttered to Moses face to face on Mount Sinai, 'And treat the sabbath of the Lord as holy with clean hands and a pure heart.' And in another place he says, 'If my sons keep the sabbath, I will let my mercy rest upon them.'  He mentions the sabbath at the beginning of the creation: 'And in six days God made the works of his hands, and ended on the seventh day, and he rested on it and made it holy.'...Further he says to them, 'Your new moons and sabbaths I cannot endure.' You see what he means:  it is not the present sabbaths that are acceptable to me, but the one that I have made, on which, having brought everything to rest, I will make the beginning of an eighth day, that is, the beginning of another world.  This is why we also observe the eighth day with rejoicing, on which Jesus also rose from the dead, and having shown himself ascended to heaven". Our point from this reading is that the church then worshipped on, not the 'seventh' day, but the 'eighth day', the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.  The New Testament tells us that this was Sunday.  As we note that Sunday is the first day, it is also the day immediately after the 'seventh', and thus the distinction between sabbath observance and the "Lord's Day" is made clear.  In THE LETTERS OF IGNATIUS, TO THE MAGNESIANS (9:1-2) we read, "If, then, those who lived in ancient ways attained a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath but observing the Lord's Day, on which our life too rose through him and his death (which some deny) -- a mystery through which we came to believe, and because of this we endure, so that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher, how shall we live without him to whom even the prophets, being his disciples in the spirit, looked forward as their teacher?..."  Mention of the worship of the church on the first day of the week is also made by Justin (Apol. 1, 67.3) and in Pliny, who noted that the church was accustomed to gather "on a certain day before daybreak".
     These writings carry no divine weight, but they are offered as history, a record of what the church did by members of the church who lived then.  It is clear, from divine and human testimony, that the church of the first century met for worship on "the first day of the week".  Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians (the first), wrote:  "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.  Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come" (16:1-2).  It has been suggested that the church did not meet "upon the first day of the week", but rather every Christian was to, the Sabbath having passed, at home lay by a portion of his weekly profits to be donated to the Lord's work.  Several objections to this may be offered, we shall note but a few.  The purpose for this 'laying by' was that Paul, upon his arrival in Corinth, would not have to 'gather' the money up.  If this was something each member did privately, in his home, would not Paul have had to gather it all the same?  If, as we learned from Acts 20:7, the church was in the habit of gathering on Sunday anyway, they brought this money to the assembly and offered it then there would be no need to have Paul 'gather it' when he came.    Further, there is no mention of the brethren counting the weeks' profit and laying it by at home.  There is no mention of them having observed the Sabbath.  Indeed, there is elsewhere mention of the brethren regularly coming together (11:33 -- for the purpose of 'breaking bread').  This seems to identify the time of their assembly, i.e., the 'first day of the week'.  The book of Hebrews has as its main theme the end of the Old Law and the institution of the New.  God speaks by His Son (1:1-2).  His Son is the mediator of a better testament than that of Moses (7:22).  He is a superior High Priest to the high priesthood of the Mosaic Law (8:1-5).  He has established a better covenant (8:7).  This better covenant replaced the old covenant (8:7-12).  "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect...He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:1, 9-10).  The Sabbath was authorized under the "old", that which was removed.  The Lord's Day was the day of worship under the new, the better covenant, the law whereby we are saved.  We would offer the advice of this same inspired writer to remember the assembling of the saints, as opposed to "forsaking" it either through negligence or Sabbath observance (10:25), reminding the reader of the punishment for willful sinning after having received a knowledge of the truth (10:26ff).