Christian Message Boards: Why a first Day 6

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Posted by Brother Paul (Member # 7959) on :

In the Epistle of Barnabas, the writer most likely being a Messianic Jew, which in a sense we all are, which was written around 100 A.D., we see reflected an early tradition of the followers of “the Way” where he says, “we also worship on the first day, which is the eighth day“! To this author this implies this real or psuedo-Barnabas also kept the seventh day Sabbath, while still keeping what the Church has always called “the Lord's day“, as did many early Christians of Hebrew descent. Certainly there is nothing wrong in this, for surely it’s motive is the glorification of God and His Christ.

Likewise in the Didache, as well as the Letters of Ignatius, both written around 110 A.D., the writers make further reference to Christians coming together on the first day of the week! It had nothing whatsoever to do with the Sun, neither was it a compromise with pagan practices as a result of pressure from Roman Catholicism, or Emperor Constantine, who wouldn’t even be born for another two centuries, neither of which were politically, or physically, established as any kind of dominating influence, or ruling power, at that time. We worship on this day in memory and celebration of the resurrection, celebrating the victory won for us over sin and death at the cross, and we do so in the unity of the Spirit, to bring glory to the LORD God our Father.

Later, but still hundreds of years before the Post-Constantinian accusation made by more modern Sabbatarian groups, Justin Martyr writes, “the first day after the Sabbath, remaining first of all days, called however the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and remaining the first“. His contemporaries elsewhere (see Irenaeus, and Bardasian) refer to “the Lord’s Day of resurrection“ as being the 1st day of the week! How the elders and learned ones of groups like the Ellen G. White-ists can know these truths and hold them back from their flocks is beyond me. On occasion, it has caused me to question the sincerity of these leaders in Christ!

This unending historical confirmation continues in other Churches through Clement, and Tertullian, up to around 200 A.D., which again is clearly a century before the birth of Constantine. Shortly after this, around 225 A.D., Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, says that the Lord’s Day upon which Christians worship “is both the first day and the eighth day“! See the significant connection to the Old Testament revelation?

Now beloved do not believe the spirit of deception any longer, it should be apparent, if you have the light of the Holy Spirit in you, that this tradition of gathering together on the first day of the week has occurred since the birth of the Church, right up through our present time! But if you prefer to gather for worship on the seventh day, the Lord bless you, for I would be the least of all to judge you as to whatever day you keep so long as you keep it unto the Lord, but likewise, these others must repent from this prejudice that has been subtly planted, defiling their hearts, whereby they would accuse those brethren who keep another day unto the Lord as being under the mark of the beast.

Now then, the Scriptures revealed to us this mystery. Just as the Angel of Lord, who spoke to Moses, is also YHVH, so the Son is also YHVH, revealing the Father to mankind. He is the perfect manifest presence of “God with us". He is Adonai ha’Shabbat, the Lord of the Sabbath, and “in Him“ is our shabbat, or rest. Shabbat for those born of God’s own Spirit, under the New Covenant, does not depend on a day, or a moon, or on a ritual, but on the efficacious and vicarious atonement that He Himself made for us, when we burdened the Servant with our sins (Isaiah 53), and it is He Himself who blots out our sins for His name's sake, according to His good pleasure, in the accomplishment of His will to-usward. All who come unto Him shall find rest, for He who is faithful has promised! Only those who trust in, rely on, and cleave to Messiah, may enter into this most glorious rest, for only they know that He is able to do it, and has done it, and so they cease from striving in their own works to obtain eternal life by the merit of their own inadequate attempt at righteousness, and rest instead in His. Behold this is the stumbling block to many, as it was for those Jewish people who stumbled at the stumbling stone, for they sought it by trying to establish their own righteousness! Blessed is the person who’s only Rock is the Lord!

Brother Paul