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Topic: on the Lord's day
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becauseHElives
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excellent post yahsway,
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
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yahsway
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Eden, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The early christians did worship on Saturday.
In Acts 15:20, the Jerusalem council set forth 4 basic rules for the Gentiles who were turning to God. Then if you read Acts 15:21 The Jerusalem council basiclly says that these same Gentiles can learn more about the God they were turning to by hearing the Torah read and preached in every city in the synagogues every Sabbath.
verse 21- For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.
In other words, they laid the basic rules or foundations down for the Gentiles such as abstaing from sexual immorality, from things strangled and from blood (Kosher eating) and from things polluted by idols.
Then James goes onto to say that these Gentiles turning to God can go and hear the rest of the scriptures that were being preached in the synagogues in each city on the Sabbath.
Now read Ex. 20:10
but the seventh day is the Sabbath of The Lord your God.
Mark 2:28
Therefor the Son of Man Is also Lord of the Sabbath.
Jesus is actually stating equality with God the Father since the Sabbath Is the Lords Day.
Notice something.Jesus did not say the Sabbath day was changed to the 6th day of the week, nor did He ever proclaim that after His resurrection.
Acts 20:7-11 brings out something important that a lot of people do not recognize because they do not understand the Jewish calander. It says in Genesis that the evening and the morning were the 1st day.
Okay, we know that the Jewish people then and now start their Sabbath at sundown on Friday night and it is over at sundown on Saturday night.
At that time, when the sun goes down on Saturday night it is considered the 1st day of the week or Sunday.
So lets read Acts 20:7
Now on the 1st day of the week (Sunday) when the disciples came togethere to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.
Now look at verse 8
There were many Lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together.
This was because the Sun had set on Saturday night, and by Jewish reconing the 1st day of the week had started. So it was night time and thats why you have the reference to the Many Lamps in the room.
It was and still is customary for Jewish people to assemble on the Sabbath for worship and learning and then they have the Omer afterwards which means they break bread, eat a meal together. This meal in Acts 20:7 is not communion but an actual fellowship meal.
Also notice in verse 7 it says that while they were coming together to eat supper that Paul CONTINUED his message. So Paul apparently was giving a message on the Saturday Sabbath and when the sun went down and the 1st day of the week was upon them and they gathered around the supper table Paul continued his message.
And because it was night time, there were many lamps in the room to be able to see. This was Sunday, the first day of the week which began at sunset on Saturday night according to Jewish reconing of time. And Paul preached until midnight.
You see we are not taught these thing because we go by the Greek calander. But these first messianic Jews went by their calander.
And I must disagree that Sunday is a "pagan holiday" for its not a holiday at all but another day of the week.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day will always be the Sabbath day. It has not changed. God did not say the Sabbath day was made for Jewish men/women. It was only said that the Sabbath was made for MAN (or mankind) not man/mankind for the Sabbath.
When God created the Sabbath day and sanctified it and set it apart, that was looong before there was ever a Jew.
But it is a fact that Constantine did make Sunday the offical day of Christians to worship. Up until that time, most all christians still observed Saturday and still for sometime after Constantines decree, some still worshipped on both Saturday and Sunday.
So it is really by our own traditions that we worship on Sunday. But I still believe the 4th commandment of God to Remember the Sabbath day is referring to Saturday.
You see the pharisees and sadusees built fenses around Gods laws and made the laws of God burdensome. But Jesus showed us were the Sabbath day was intended to be a delight.
We as Christian enter into that eternal rest thru Jesus. But let me say this, I believe if one wants to hold their day of rest on Sunday they are free to do so, and in the same way, if another wants to observe the 7th day rest Saturday they too should be free to do so.
But I see so many in the church frown on those of us who do Honor the sat. Sabbath calling us 7th day Adventist ect.. when we are not.
We are Jewish believers in our Messiah Yeshua, Some of us who are fortunante enough go to assembly on both Sat and Sun.
We also believe as said In Is. 66:22 that
For as the New heavens and the new earth
Which I will make shall remain before Me, says the Lord,
So shall your descendants and your name remain
And it shall come to pass
That from one New Moon to another
And from one Sabbath to another,
ALL flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the Lord.
I still believe the Lords Day spoken of by John is that great and terrible day in which who will be able to stand? John did stand in the midst of that and saw that day. I believe Johns reference to saying that He was in the Spirit on the Lords day was a heads up for us. For it is also spoken of in Daniel, Malichi and by other prophets.
Its a conformation to what the other prophets spoke about that day. Shalom
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Eden
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As a Christian, I have heard it said how Sunday is a pagan holiday and that Constantine changed the day of worship from Saturday Jewish Sabbath to Sunday Christian Sabbath. But the subject is more complicated than just Constantine.
The early Christians clearly understood that Jesus was Lord or Owner of the Sabbath and since they now had the resurrected Lord, they had Someone Greater than the Sabbath. They now had the Lord of the Sabbath.
So they understood that the weekly Sabbath had passed in which the Messiah had NOT yet come. Now the early Christians worshipped the Lord in spirit and in truth EVERY DAY.
At first these early Christians broke bread DAILY in the homes of Christians, but later as Christians GREW IN NUMBER, it became also a matter of LOGISTICS of HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO MEET AT THE SAME TIME AND PLACE, and so these early and later Christians came upon CHOSING the first day of the week as their FESTAL day because that was the day that Jesus also became Redeemer and that was the day on which Jesus resurrected.
So gradually the DAILY breaking of bread evolved into meeting on the first day of the week as the Christian FESTAL day of celebration when they came together to break bread and listen to preaching to be encouraged in the faith. And that’s how the early Christians ended up CHOOSING the first day of the week as they regular meeting time, using the time rhythm of a week to meet, not because they HAD TO ANYMORE now that the Lord of the Sabbath was Himself here instead of just the Sabbath (“the sabbath is made for man, not man for the sabbath”), but because a fixed day to meet became necessary on which people could count as a meeting day. And so the first day of the week was settled on.
And so this first day of the week also became known by the early Fathers of Christianity and the Christian community as “the Lord’s Day” as opposed to the Sabbath Day.
In that case, the apostle John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”, meaning on the day that they were by then accustomed to meet instead of the Saturday Sabbath where the Lord was still not being acknowledged as having come yet. They therefore celebrated “on the Lord’s day” and that’s the day on which John had his visions:
Revelation 1:10
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.
With love, Eden
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temporal garment
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Jesus has opened my spiritual eyes wider today, I am begining to operate in my gift of the spirit and it is the best most alive feeling I've ever had. I am free to be myself. When the truth of God's light shines their is no blinding it. If we believe.
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Eden
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Yes, Thunderz7, the author of the booklet does touch on those verses, and he seems to be of the opinion, as I currently am also, that already the early Christians understood that the weekly Sabbath was fullilled in Jesus who was our Sabbath rest.
And also, that Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath, and now we have the Lord Himself who is GREATER than the weekly Sabbath in which we rested from our labor, and now we rest in Him, our Greater Weekly Sabbath.
And also, now we worship God in spirit and in truth, having access to the Holy Spirit, so that our worship is NO LONGER CONFINED to just one day of the week but He is worshipped and thanked and talked to and thought about on ALL days of the week.
So right away to early Christians, they understood that the weekly Sabbath of rest was a SHADOW and FIGURE of things to come, namely of the REAL, LIVING Sabbath rest which is Jesus, and hence they saw no further need to worship on this weekly Sabbath.
This did not mean that they should no longer assemble for worship, but the New Testament (NT) instead records that they broke bread DAILY in the houses, and also how, on the first day of the week, they came together to break bread.
Furthermore, it was now more difficult for Jewish believers to go to the synagogue and worship at the Jewish synagogue because the Jews did NOT believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and so that would INHIBIT the free expression of worship in song and praise and words.
All of these things together militated for the early Christians to come together and break bread, and over time, to facilitate this, and to make sure everyone was there on the same day, the early Christians ended up choosing the first day of the week as their non-mandatory day to come together to break bread and preach and teach the word of Jesus.
And one reason why they would have settled on the first day of the week would have been because it was the day of Jesus’s resurrection and they commemorated that day by assembling on that day.
Also, initially, the early Jewish Christian community KEPT BOTH days, they kept the Saturday Sabbath on which they worshipped Jesus as CREATOR and they kept the Sunday Sabbath on which they worshipped Jesus as REDEEMER.
Until, eventually, for reasons of persecution and excommunication of Christians by the Jews and because the Gentile Christian community had NO SUCH Saturday Sabbath tradition, and because the Gentile Christian community is the one that GREW FIRST (while we wait for Israel and Judah to also be included in the church at Jesus’s Second coming), eventually the early Christian community ended up meeting on the first day of the week to assemble themselves, NOT because they esteemed any one day anymore, but because they needed to assemble and worship together and be taught:
Hebrews 10:25
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Be blessed, Eden
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Thunderz7
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Eden,
I really liked the thought in
quote:
1. John was carried in the Spirit to the time when the Lord Jesus ruled as King of kings and John was actually there, in the Spirit, so John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.
YHWH created time and is not subject to it.
HE is, was, and is to come.
Revelation 1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
Revelation 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 4:8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
John saw this, and actually even sat with HIM in heavenly places.
Have you come across anything in the book that deals with these verses?
Romans 14:5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Colossians 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
be blessed in Jesus
T7
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yahsway
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Eden, I agree with most of what you said.
But as far as NOT having any food coming in for the yearly Sabbath, there was food stored up during the years previous to take care of All the community during this particular yearly rest.
Israel was to set apart every 7th year by letting the land go uncultivated.
The crops and harvest that were reaped during this year were considered the common possession of ALL the peoples and their animals.
Ex. 23:10-
Six years you shall sow your land and GATHER IN its produce. but the 7th year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the Poor of your people may EAT; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat.
The Israelits stored the food up because of the law that God commanded concerning letting the fields rest and lie fallow.
You can see the same principle applied in the weekly Sabbath of the OT when Moses told the Israelits to store up double of the manna on the 6th day so as to have enough food for the 7th day Sabbath which was thier day to rest.
Now I believe that we are free to set aside Sat or Sun as a day of rest, this is up to the individual.
My grandmother who was a Free Will Baptist, would do NO work on Sunday. She would not cook, she cooked the day before enough for Sunday. She would not wash clothes or allow us to when we were at her house on Sundays. She attended church Sun Morn and Eve. She said it was the Sabbath and she believed she was to do no work.
She enjoyed the day by fellowship with other believers, eating what she cooked the day before, and rested also.
Some today would say she was "Old Fashioned" in her beliefs. She never wore a pair of pants, never would go to a movie theater, wore a hat in church to cover her head, and so on.
She set Sunday aside as her Sabbath day because for the church, that has been our traditional day of gathering. But she believed in the principle set forth by God that for 6 days we work, and on the 7th we rest for it does a body and soul good. She did not do it out of trying to be "rightous" before God. These were her convictions as how she interpreted the word of God.
She passed away in 1993 at the age of 88. I miss her terribly. She was my praying grandmother. But I know I will see her again someday. I have that promise from the Father.
I have to go to work now. I am a nurse at a nursing Home. I will try to expound more on this later. There are also more Sabbaths in the scriptures that deal with the 7 feasts of the Lord.
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Eden
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Hi, everyone. I have learned a few more things about the Israelite Sabbath than I consciously knew before reading this book.
When I spoke or thought about the Sabbath, I was usually just thinking about the WEEKLY SABBATH.
But in addition to the weekly Sabbath, the Israelites had a YEARLONG SABBATH, which occurred after SIX YEARS have passed, and in the SEVENTH YEAR, the field is not plowed or sown but lies fallow.
Then, in the EIGHTH YEAR, the field is PLANTED and PLOWED, but because it is the year of planting, the HARVEST DOES NOT COME until the NINTH year when the Israelites ate of the new fruit again. This was the YEARLY SABBATH.
And, in addition to that, the Israelites had a JUBILEE SABBATH, which occurred on every 50th YEAR, after SEVEN YEARLY SABBATH had passed, the next year was JUBILEE SABBATH (I think, I’m doing this from memory, from what I THINK I have read and learned).
So now my mentality about the Sabbath has expanded considerably, and now I know it is not just about the WEEKLY Sabbath but also about the YEARLY Sabbath, and also about the JUBILEE Sabbath.
And here is the kicker: all these Sabbath-types PICTURE a CONSEQUENCE of the Lord Jesus coming to earch and dying for us on the cross.
The WEEKLY Sabbath is a picture of Jesus who is now our Sabbath rest, seeing He is LORD of the Sabbath and is MUCH BIGGER than the Sabbath. He who INSTITUTED the Sabbath is the Lord Jesus Himself, so now we have HIM who was foreshadowed by the WEEKLY Sabbath.
The Christian ceases from his own works, or rests, meaning the Christian no longer tries to bring his OWN righteousness to God to see if he qualifies for glory, but the Christian sees that God can and will ONLY ACCEPT the sacrifice and pain endured by His Son JESUS on the cross to pay for us that we may rest from our own works, meaning we no longer try to justify ourselves to God with our OWN works, we know it is useless, and we experience REST, no longer try exhaustively to present and justify ourselves before God with our own works.
The YEARLY Sabbath, I thought pictured the first 6 days or 6,000 years of creation since Adam and Eve, and AT THE END of the 6TH YEAR Jesus CAME.
Then the SEVENTH YEAR was the first thousand years since Adam and Eve and equates to the YEARLY SABBATH or the rest found by ALL Christians who believe in EVERY nation, for the FIRST THOUSAND YEARS grace is available through Jesus’s work on the cross.
That’s the SEVENTH year part of the YEARLY SABBATH. This equates in time from Jesus’s resurrection to about 1,000 A.D. It was the FIRST THOUSAND YEARS of the kingdom of God, where Jesus rules over His church from heaven, alongside His Father YHWH.
Then the EIGHTH YEAR part of the YEARLY SABBATH is a SECOND THOUSAND YEARS, during which the grace of God STILL CONTINUES TO dig around the roots of every human tree of humanity. This is represented in shadow or figure by the EIGHTH YEAR during which the LAND WAS PLOWED AND SOWN.
But the FRUIT or crop did not reappear in the land until the NINTH YEAR when the Israelites ate of the new fruit of the land again.
That seventh year and eighth year probably represent the length of the dispensation of grace after Jesus’s resurrection. And THEN COMES the NINTH YEAR in which the fruit is eaten again in the land. So that was pictured by the YEARLY Sabbath.
And also, in the SIXTH year, the Israelites already had to TRUST GOD that He would PROVIDE for them in the SEVENTH YEAR AND IN THE EIGHTH YEAR.
The Israelites were REQUIRED to not just keep this WEEKLY Sabbath, but the Israelites were ALSO REQUIRED to keep the YEARLY Sabbath, and that canNOT have been an easy task for Israel to have had to do. To believe God for one’s family of four for the next two years by NOT PLOWING AND SOWING in the 7th year and knowing in the SIXTH year that there would be NO FOOD COMING IN FOR TWO YEARS, until the NINTH year, that must have taken A LOT OF FAITH. All this was a picture of the SEVENTH and EIGHTH year since Adam and Eve would be a PERIOD WHICH REQUIRED FAITH IN THE SAME GOD, this time for the NINTH year, when they ATE OF THE NEW FRUIT IN THE LAND, which is the millennial period.
That is the YEARLY Sabbath, something I had never really thought about before until I read this little booklet by Paul K. Jewett, called THE LORD’S DAY.
Be blessed everyone. There IS a God and His Name is YHWH of Israel.
Eden
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yahsway
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Hi Eden, I would be interested to know what you learn from his book and possibly discuss why he believes that the first day of the week is the Lords Day.
I have done my own study on this for several years but its always interesting to see where someone else is coming from even if we do not agree.
In any event, it does help us to dig deeper into the scriptures more and thats a good thing eh?
Be blessed
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Eden
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Hi, yahsway. Thanks for adding that part to the discussion. Your answer made me want to look in the Greek Septuagint LXX to see what Greek expression was used for THE DAY OF THE LORD that you quoted from the Old Testament, compared to the expression used in “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” said by John (from Bethsaida, I think, not from Bethesda) in the New Testament.
I also like your addition that THE DAY OF THE LORD of the Old Testament verses mean THE SAME THING as THE LORD’S DAY of John.
Certainly John was an Israelite, the son of Zebedee, from Bethsaida on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, so John must have HEARD MANY TIMES about THE DAY OF THE LORD of the Old Testament variety in the synagogue. So to an Israelite such as John, THE LORD’S DAY must have meant the same thing?
yahsway, I also liked your comment that Sunday was mostly referred to in the New Testament as “the first day of the week” and NOT as “the Lord’s day” as is in Revelation by John. And I can add that John in his GOSPEL OF JOHN, to my recollection, DOES NOT ONCE USE the expression THE LORD’S DAY to mean the “first day of the week.”
Well, that’s my piece of gospel for the day, but I’m just at the beginning of the book THE LORD'S DAY, by Paul K. Jewett, which may be more about how the Israelite Sabbath came to be the Christian Sunday, which, by the title of the book, Jewett apparently calls THE LORD'S DAY.
But I don't know yet WHY, because I'm only at the beginning yet of the book. It will be interesting to see what he, Jewett, talks about in this regard, if anything.
Be blessed, yahsway,
Eden
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yahsway
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Joel 2:11
The Lord gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One (Jesus) who executes His word. For THE DAY OF THE LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?
Zeph. 1:7
Be silent in the presence of the Lord God: For THE DAY OF THE LORD is at hand, For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests.
This is in Rev 8 When He opened the 7th seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Malachi 3:2
But who can endure THE DAY of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears? For He is like refiners fire and like launders soap.
Acts 2:20 (taken from Joel 2:21-32)
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon to blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome DAY OF THE LORD.
1Thess. 5:2
For you yourselves know perfectly that THE DAY OF THE LORD so comes as a thief in the night.
John recieves a supernatural revelation of The Lords Day. Notice verse 10 of Rev. "I was in the "Spirit" on "THE Lords Day." This is the awesome and terrible Day of the Lord. I personally do not believe John was telling his readers that it was a day of the week for most all your NT scriptures calls Sunday "the first day of the week" John is actually there, in the Spirit and is recieveing visions and revelations about "The Day of the Lord" which is a futuristic event.
Notice verse 17 of Rev 6
"For the GREAT DAY OF HIS WRATH has come, and who is able to stand?" This is the same thing said in Malachi 3:2 "Who can endure THE DAY of His coming? Who will be able to stand?
The Day of the Lord is not a day of the week. Every day of the week as we know days is His. But the Day of the Lord is like no other day. And John was there on that "the Lords Day". And he wrote it down for us in the book of revelation.
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Eden
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Hi, everyone. I am currently reading a book on how the Israelite Sabbath came to be held for Christians on Sunday, the first day of the week.
Some Christians have proposed that The Lord’s Day means the time when the Lord Jesus rules as King of kings over the earth from Jerusalem, that THAT will be The Lord’s Day.
Others have said that The Lord’s Day was the first day of the week, or Sunday. This booklet by Paul K. Jewett traces how the Israelite Sabbath came to be the fist day of the week for the Christians. How and where did that happen? It looks like interesting reading.
Here is one scripture which mentions the Lord’s day:
Revelation 1:10
I {John on the island of Patmos} was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.
Now, that phrase, “ I {John on the island of Patmos} was in the Spirit on the Lord's day” can either mean one of three things in my view (before having read the book yet):
1. John was carried in the Spirit to the time when the Lord Jesus ruled as King of kings and John was actually there, in the Spirit, so John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.
2. Or, it may be that the phrase, “I {John who was on the Greek island of Patmos} was in the Spirit on the Lord's day” means that John meant the Israelite sabbath or Saturday since John was an Israelite Christian and John had always been taught that the LORD YHWH's day was always the Israelite Sabbath or Saturday.
3. Or, the phrase, “I {John on the island of Patmos} was in the Spirit on the Lord's day” can mean that the Israelite Christian John was already referring to the first day of the week, or Sunday, as the day on which Jesus began to be worshipped instead of on the Israelite Sabbath.
I’ve just started to read Paul K. Jewett’s book, THE LORD’S DAY, in which he describes how the Israelite Sabbath came to be the first day of the week for Christians (except for Seventh Day Adventist Christians who still keep the Israelite Sabbath day as their day of worship and denounce Sunday worship).
Hopefully I will be able to share a few good tidbits from his book here in this Topic, but if you have any ideas or comments on this Topic already, please feel free to post your ideas.
Be blessed and stay saved.
“O taste and see that the LORD is good {tastes good).”
Eden
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