Saturday or Sunday? That is the Question (BFM #14)
Text: Romans 14:5-9; Colossians 2:16
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Texts)
We recently got a little booklet delivered to us in the church mail. The booklet was 32 pages long and was titled What is Patriotism in the United States? Well I love to read, especially patriotic things, so I began to read this little booklet, but soon enough alarms started going off in my head. Something wasn’t quite right about it. So I stopped reading it and looked at who published it, and sure enough it was published by the General Counsel of 7th Day Adventists. Now don’t ask me why a Baptist Church is getting things from a 7th Day Adventist organization. We get things from all sorts of non-Baptist religious organizations in the mail, usually it’s from Charismatic or Pentecostal churches, and they usually end up in the same place this little booklet ended up. In the trash can in my office. Again I don’t know why we get these things, who ordered them, or corresponded with these groups, or what, but we do. And that’s exactly why we are going over the BFM. We are Christians first and foremost, but we are also Baptists, and there is a reason for this. Now the reason that I even brought that book we got in the mail up, is because today we are looking at article 8 of the BFM – the Lords Day. The 7th Day Adventists claim that in order to be faithful to the Lord we must keep the Sabbath; which was originally Saturday, while every other Christian denomination says that we should worship on Sunday. So if you have your BFM with you, look at article 8 with me and follow along as I read what it says (Read).
So what is the Lord’s Day? And are we; as New Testament Christians, bound to the Sabbath as the Israelites were under the Old Covenant?
In our texts, both from Romans and Colossians, the context is dealing with Christian liberty. They are both dealing with how we are free in Christ. Now it’s important that we understand what was happening when Paul wrote these letters. We need to look at the historical context. All of the first converts to Christianity were Jewish, and then later on Gentiles began to be born again and receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. But as Paul went about preaching the Gospel and planting these Gentile filled churches, there were groups of people that followed him around as well. They were called Judaizers; and what they did was – they would follow Paul, and after he started a new church and got things going, they would come into the church and tell the new believers that it was all well and good, but in order to be “real” followers of God, they had to obey the Old Testament practices – specifically the ritual of circumcision, but sometimes other things, like the dietary laws of the Torah, or observing the Sabbath Day.
So Paul responds to this false teaching in our texts, but also in the book of Galatians. Turn with me to Galatians 2:1-16 (Read). Look at that last verse again, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by faith n Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; for by the works of the Law, no flesh shall be justified.”
So again the point is we are free in Christ. Turn with me to Romans 7:2-4 (Read), and now look at Romans 8:1-3 (Read). So the purpose of the Law was to point us to Christ, so that those who believe will be saved, turn with me to Romans 10:4 (Read). The end of the law. We can take that 2 ways. We can say that because Jesus fulfilled the Law, we need not worry about fulfilling it, and we can also say that the end of the Law is justification, and since Christ fulfilled it, we who are in Him are also justified. The Bible tells us that we could never fulfill the Law because of the weakness of our flesh. We are born into sin, we all like sheep have gone astray. There is none righteous, no not one. We were all dead in trespasses and sin. God knew this already. He was there in the Garden when Adam sinned. He knew it when He gave the Law to Moses. So the purpose of the Law was never to be a means of salvation for man. Its purpose was to point us to the One who brought salvation to man. Jesus Christ our Lord!
And so let’s take all this and look at the Sabbath. The purpose of the Sabbath was to remember. God told Moses, “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” It was a day of remembrance and it was a holy day. The Jews were to remember their covenant with the Lord. But Jesus came and fulfilled the Law. And put an end to it for those of us who believe in Him. In Luke 6 we see the disciples plucking grain and eating it, and the religious crowd came to Jesus and said, “Hey they can’t do that, it’s the Sabbath.” And do you remember what Jesus told them? He said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Now the BFM clearly states that the Lord’s Day is the 1st day of the week (Sunday), but the Bible clearly teaches that the Sabbath was the 7th day of the week (Saturday). So what happened to make Christians begin worshiping on Sunday rather than Saturday? The resurrection that’s what!
In Luke 24 it says, “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” Jesus was resurrected on Sunday; the 1st day of the week. Now turn with me to Acts 20:7 (read), and let’s quickly look at 1st Corinthians 16:2 (read). The apostles and the very first Christians began meeting on Sunday, the 1st day of the week, rather than on Saturday, as was the Jewish custom.
Now I want to make this clear, because I don’t want you to misunderstand our freedom in Christ. The 4th Commandment, REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY! Is the only one of the 10 commandments that isn’t found in the New Testament; it isn’t reiterated in the NT. And so; even though we are free in Christ, God still expects us to live holy lives, for He Himself is holy. So what this means is that this day of rest, given in the Law of the Old Testament has been fulfilled for the believer in Christ.
Now I know I’m going through a lot of Scripture today, but I want you to see this, so turn with me to the Book of Hebrews chapter 3 (Read Heb. 3:1 – 4:16). How do we enter into that promised rest? By faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath!
And so the Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a day that was instituted by Christians, to remember and commemorate the resurrection of the Lord. It’s not the Sabbath, Jesus is our Sabbath. And it’s on this day (Sunday) that we gather to worship Him, to praise Him, to hear His Word proclaimed and taught. We do this because this is what the apostles did, and what the first Christians did. But you know what? You are free to worship the Lord on any day you choose. In-fact our text from Romans says just that.
It says if you want to observe a special day, you do it to the Lord, you want to observe every day, you do it to the Lord, you don’t want to observe a special day, you do it to the Lord. That’s not saying that you shouldn’t come to church. The Bible is clear that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and it just so happens that this building is where we have chosen to gather together and worship. The Church is not this building, and if you think that, then you need to get that out of your head, the Church is the people of God. But as the people of God we have chosen this building to gather together and worship on the Lord’s Day, that’s why you should be here on Sunday.
But I will say this; if you want to worship the Lord on Saturday, or Wednesday, or Thursday… or whenever, then no one should judge you, as long as you’re worshiping the Lord, just don’t forsake the assembling of the saints. But you can worship on any day of the week. Where judgment comes in is if you are trying to earn your salvation for obeying a requirement of the Law by observing a specific day of the week. If you think you’re going to go to heaven because of your faithful church attendance, you’re mistaken. That’s having faith in something you’ve done. If you think you’re going to go to heaven by observance of the Law, then you’re mistaken. The Bible is clear that we are incapable of fulfilling the Law, and it’s a slap in the face to Jesus to say that He didn’t so we must continue to try and do so. You see, Jesus has already fulfilled the Law, He met all of God’s righteous requirements, and when we have faith in Him, we enter into that promised rest.
We are only saved by faith in Christ. Christians should want to be in the assembly of the saints, and it just so happens that we assemble for worship on Sunday; the Lord’s Day, just like Christians have always done. The reason people go to the house of the Lord is because they love Him. I go and see my mom in the nursing home because I love her. We go to MariJo’s folks because we love them, and we want to be around them. And Christians should love the Lord, and they should love God’s people and they should want to be around them, they should want to fellowship with them; they should want to hear the Word of God proclaimed and taught. You are free to worship any day you choose, but it is the Lord’s Day that we have decided to worship corporately as a body of believers.
