DID THE APOSTLE PAUL REJECT THE SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH?

Despite the evidence that Jesus kept the Sabbath (Luke 4:16) and encouraged His followers to do the same (Matt. 24:20), and despite the evidence that Paul customarily observed the Sabbath (Acts 13, 16, 17, 18), some Bible students focus on certain passages in Paul's writings as supposed evidence that he sought to do away with the seventh-day Sabbath. The two passages that are usually presented are Romans 14:5, 6 and Colossians 2:13-17.

The Romans passage in context reads as follows:

"Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. 2. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. 3. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. 4. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand. 5. Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God" (Rom. 14:1-6).

Referring to verses 5 and 6, R. C. H. Lenski incorrectly comments: "We see no reason for refusing to assume that the distinction here touched upon refers to the Jewish Sabbath. What other day would any Roman Christian judge to be above other days? That self-chosen days are referred to is scarcely to be assumed. It is not difficult to see that a few Jewish Christians, some of them who perhaps came from the old mother church in Jerusalem, still clung to the Sabbath much as the Christians did after Pentecost."(1)

If Lenski is correct, Paul was condoning those who were disregarding the seventh-day Sabbath? Other Sunday keeping scholars disagree with Lenski,(2) and he is most certainly in error. In his writings, Paul consistently accepted the authority of the Ten Commandments as the standard of righteousness. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law" (Rom. 3:31). Paul identified the law that faith upholds as the Ten Commandments. "What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'. . . So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. . . . For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin" (Rom. 7:7, 12, 14). Christ died "so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).

It is inconceivable that one who had such a confirmed respect for the Ten Commandment law of God should summarily reject one of the commandments as no longer valid for Christians. Raoul Dederen pertinently comments: "It is to be noted, however, that the attempt to connect the Sabbath of the Decalogue with the 'days' mentioned in this passage is not convincing for everyone.(3) Who could have a divine commandment before him and say to others: 'You can treat that commandment as you please; it really makes no difference whether you keep it or not'? No apostle could conduct such an argument. And probably no man would be more surprised at that interpretation than Paul himself, who had utmost respect for the Decalogue, God's law, which is 'holy, and just, and good' (chap. 7:12). Christ, the norm of all Pauline teaching, was indisputably a Sabbathkeeper. And Paul himself, who evidently cannot be reckoned among the 'weak,' worshiped on the Sabbath 'as was his custom' (Acts 17:2, R.S.V.; cf. Luke 4:16).

"There is no conclusive evidence to the contrary. Paul was in no doubt as to the validity of the weekly Sabbath. Thus, to assume that when they were converted to Christianity by Paul, Gentiles or Jews would be anxious to give up the 'Jewish' Sabbath for their 'own day' is hardly likely. This could be expected only at some later time in the history of the Christian church, and for other reasons."(4)

A number of conclusions emerge from a careful consideration of the passage:

(1) Romans 14 is not speaking of moral issues on which we have a clear "Thus saith the Lord." Verses 1-4 clearly make the point that God accepts both the spiritually strong who eat any food as well as the weak who think they should eat only vegetables. Speaking of both groups verse 4 says, "And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand."

(2) The stronger Christians who use any kind of food are not eating that which is physically harmful. For them to do so would be a contradiction of their Christian commitment. Earlier in the epistle Paul instructs: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1). To deliberately appropriate as food that which God condemns as harmful (see Lev. 11; Isa. 65:3, 4; 66:15-17) cannot be said to be behavior that God can accept; nor is it an acceptable application of the Romans 12:1 counsel. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul seriously warns against defiling the body temple. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Cor. 3:16, 17). But in Romans 14, God accepted the diet of the non-vegetarians. The issue was not a matter of health. Since God accepted both parties, the dietary issue among the Roman Christians was a matter of indifference (adiaphora); it was not a question of right and wrong.

Paul says later in the chapter, "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love" (Rom. 14:14, 15). This parallels the remark in his epistle to Timothy: "For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. 4:4) Are we therefore to assume that slugs and snails and the kinds of flesh condemned in the Old Testament as unfit for food can now be eaten because the Christian has been given unrestrained freedom in questions of diet? Obviously not! What Paul is saying is that everything that God created as acceptable for food may be partaken of. But Paul is not condoning the eating of that which would be harmful to health whether it is specifically mentioned in Scripture or not. Since our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, imbibing that which is hurtful to health is a moral issue. The issue in Rome was not a question of health; it was a question of preference in matters that did not involve right and wrong in God's sight. But one party did not recognize that the specific dietary question was a non-issue. Vegetarians today who refrain from eating flesh for health reasons have a different motivation than did the vegetarians in the Roman church.

(3) In Romans 14:5, 6, Paul treats the controversy over days in a similar manner. The question was not a moral issue as it would have been if one of the Ten Commandments was being questioned. The Sabbath and worship are not even mentioned in the passage. The observance of the days in question, whatever days they were, was not a matter of right and wrong. The Lord accepted both parties, those who observed the days and those who did not. In the light of Matthew 24:20, the Lord could not have accepted anyone who did not honor His Sabbath day, as Jesus had honored it during his life on earth (Luke 4:16) and as Paul himself honored it (Acts 13, 15, 17, 18).

(4) Roul Dederen has pointed out that there seems to have been a clear connection between the observance of days in Rome and the vegetarianism of the weaker Christians. Those who were abstaining from eating particular foods "in honor of the Lord" seem to have been those who were observing particular days in honor of the Lord (verse 6). Dederen's suggestion is that there was a party in the Roman church that chose to refrain from certain foods on certain days which they regarded as religious fast days. He writes: "Paul's statement in Romans 14:2, 'One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables' (R.S.V.) is curiously analogous to his thought in verse 5, 'One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike' (R.S.V.). He mentions the two cases together, and later in the chapter he declares that a man should not be judged by his eating (verses 10-13), which may imply that Paul is referring to fast days. It appears quite probable from the context that Paul here is correlating the eating with the observance of days. Most likely--although it is impossible to ascertain this--the apostle is dealing with fast days in a context of either partial or total abstinence.

"Here again the Essenes may have caused the problem It is certainly significant that besides abstaining from meat and wine--at least at times--they were also very specific in the matter of observing days. They sanctified certain days that were not observed by the general stream of Jews. . . .

"Some pertinent observations emerge now that could well tie in the matter of diet with that of esteeming certain days above others. The Essenes scrupulously abstained from meat and wine--at least at times. They added certain feast days to the regular Jewish calendar. The discussion over the point existed in Jewry prior to the advent of Christianity. Could it be that the controversy was carried over into the Christian church and finds itself reflected in Romans 14? In this case, the practice of the weak may be compared with the early Christian custom indicated in the Didache of fasting twice every week. Is it not significant, and relevant as well, that we have in this document too a matter of diet and days connected in a controversial issue?"(5)

The Didache or Teaching that Dederen cites is a late first- or early second-century document.(6) It reveals a controversy in the Christian church over fast days. The relevant statement reads: "Your fasts must not be identical with those of the hypocrites. They fast on Mondays and Thursdays; but you should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays."(7) The hypocrites are a reference to the Jews whose fast days were Mondays and Thursdays.(8) By contrast, Christians were to Fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.

We know that in Jesus' day there was a controversy over fasting. (See Matt. 6:16-18; 9:14, 15; Mark 2:18; Luke 5:33-35.) In fact, in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the Pharisee prayed, "I fast twice a week" (Luke 18:12). It seems that it would not be unusual for the fasting controversy of Jesus' day to carry over into the early Christian church with lively discussion as to which days would be the most appropriate for fasting.

Some have suggested that the days referred to in Romans 14:5, 6 were the ceremonial feast days of the Jewish religious year. (See Lev. 23; Num. 28, 29.) Although this is a possibility, the suggestion seems to be ruled out by the fact that these days were feast days, not fast days. Paul's discussion of the controversy over days (Rom. 14) is associated with his discussion of abstinence from food. Hence it seems that Dederen's suggestion of the presence in the Roman church of an ascetic group like the Essenes who were insisting on abstinence from certain foods on certain days is the most likely explanation.

At all events, the passage gives no warrant for the conclusion that Paul rejected the seventh-day Sabbath.

A second passage that is often cited as evidence that Paul rejected the seventh-day Sabbath is Colossians 2:13-17. In the New American Standard Bible, the passage is translated as follows:

"13. And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14. having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. 16. Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day-- 17. things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ."

Verses 13 and 14 are speaking of God's forgiveness of the believer's sins made possible by Christ's death on the cross. Some would have us believe that the law was nailed to the cross. But this is not what the text is saying. It was our indebtedness in view of our having broken the law that was nailed to the cross. Verse 14 may be translated, "Blotting out the handwriting in decrees which was against us which was contrary to us, and he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross." The "handwriting" (Greek: cheirographon) refers to a bond or certificate of debt.(9) The certificate of debt was "in decrees" (Greek: tois dogmasin). God had decreed that "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Jesus took the death which was ours so that we can have the life which is His. (Compare Romans 5:15-21.) "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24). "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6). "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). It was our guilt born by Jesus Christ that was nailed to the cross. As we have noted above, the law remains as the standard expression of God's righteousness. Christ died "so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).

Not only did Jesus suffer for our sins on the cross, he disarmed Satan and his cohorts and publicly displayed to the world and the universe the evil demons that they are. "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it" (Col. 2:15).

Verse 16 adds the corollary: No one can now judge the believer in regard to ritualistic eating and drinking or in respect to the sacrificial observances involved in the practice of the ceremonial law. "These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (verse 17).

The phrase "a festival [feast] or a new moon or a sabbath" (Col. 2:16, RSV) is an idiomatic or stylized reference to the ceremonial sacrifices offered in the ancient Israelite sanctuary or temple. The Old Testament background is in Numbers 28 and 29 and Leviticus 23, in which the burnt offerings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly are listed. There were five yearly feasts, involving seven ceremonial sabbaths. The seven ceremonial sabbaths were:

(1) The first day of the feast of unleavened bread (Lev. 23:7).

(2) The last day of the feast of unleavened bread (Lev. 23:8).

(3) The feast of weeks, 50 days after the feast of unleavened bread (Lev. 23:21).

(4) The feast of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:24, 25).

(5) The day of atonement on the 10th day of the 7th month (Lev. 23:27-32).

(6) The first day of the feast of tabernacles (Lev. 23:35).

(7) The last day of the feast tabernacles (Lev. 23:36).

Seven Old Testament passages use some form of the phrase "feasts, new moons, sabbaths" (1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 2:4; 8:12, 13; 31:3; Neh. 10:33; Eze. 45:17; Hosea 2:11). Consistently these passages refer to the burnt offerings to be offered weekly, monthly, and yearly. Usually the feasts specify only the three pilgrimage feasts (Unleavened Bread, Weeks or Pentecost, and Tabernacles). The sabbaths must, therefore, include the ceremonial sabbaths--otherwise Solomon, for example, would have failed to offer burnt offerings on the days of Trumpets and Atonement.

"Then Solomon offered up burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord that he had built in front of the vestibule, as the duty of each day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses for the sabbaths, the new moons, and the three annual festivals--the festival of unleavened bread, the festival of weeks, and the festival of booths [tabernacles]" (2 Chron. 8:12, 13). If the "sabbaths" mentioned in the passage did not include ceremonial sabbaths, Solomon would have failed to offer the stipulated burnt offerings on the feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, because the feasts as listed exclude these two ceremonial sabbaths.

The word sabbath (whether singular or plural) in the phrase "feast, new moon, sabbath" specifies the burnt offerings for weekly and annual (ceremonial sabbaths). Colossians 2:16, 17 is simply teaching that the sacrifices offered weekly (sabbath), monthly, or yearly were a "shadow" pointing forward to Christ (see Heb. 8:5; 10:1), which lost their significance at the cross. Now no one has a right to judge those who reject these ceremonial observances which pointed forward to the sacrifice and heavenly ministry of Jesus Christ. The phrase "feast, new moon, sabbath" is simply a stylized way of referring to the temporary ceremonial observances that typified the work of our Savior.

Although the special animal sacrifices commanded for the weekly Sabbath (Num 28; Lev. 23) no longer have significance, the weekly Sabbath itself remains as a perpetual memorial of Creation (Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20:8-11; Matt. 24:20; Heb. 4:9) and a sign of sanctification (Ex. 31:13) and redemption (Heb. 4:9-11).

The "food and drink" (Col. 2:16, RSV) may refer to the meal and drink offerings that were presented to God along with the burnt offerings (see Num. 28:2, 5, 7, 9, 13, 14, etc.). Or they may refer to ritualistic eating and drinking or abstaining from eating and drinking of the kind referred to in Romans 14:1-6. Or they may refer to eating or not eating food that had been offered to idols (1 Cor. 8).

The force of the passage (Col. 2:13-17) is that, since Christ has died for our sins, and we have now been forgiven, ceremonial, ritualistic observances that foreshadowed aspects of his sacrificial and mediatorial ministries have been done away, and no Christian should allow himself to be judged in respect to these ceremonial observances. Paul was not abolishing the weekly Sabbath which, according to the book of Acts, he consistently observed.

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WHEN AND WHERE DID SUNDAY OBSERVANCE BEGIN

The history of the early Christian Church establishes that worship services on Sunday, associated with a progressive rejection of the seventh-day Sabbath, began in Rome during the second century A.D. While most Christians around the Mediterranean world were still observing the Sabbath, there grew up in Rome a veneration of Sunday. Gradually this practice spread from Rome to other places. By the early medieval period, Sunday observance of one sort or another was quite common in the eastern empire as well as in the west. There were three closely related reasons for this development beginning in Rome and spreading from there to other Christian centers:

1. In the second century the Sabbath was made a fast day, while Sunday was a feast day.

Among the Jews the Sabbath was never a day of fasting, sadness and gloom. For them it was a festival occasion. In Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28, the Sabbath is included among the Jewish feast days. The apocryphal book of Judith says: "And she [Judith] fasted all the days of her widowhood, save the eves of the sabbaths, and the sabbaths, and the eves of the new moons, and the new moons, and the feasts and joyful days of the house of Israel."(10) The book of Jubiless issues a stern warning to the person who fasts on the Sabbath: "And every man who does any work thereon, or goes a journey, or tills (his) farm . . . or whoever fasts or makes war on the Sabbaths: The man who does any of these things on the Sabbath shall die. . . ."(11)

In the second-century Roman Christian church, the practices of Easter weekend were gradually transferred to every weekend of the year. Friday and Sabbath were fast days, while Sunday was a day of feasting and rejoicing in view of the resurrection of Christ. The result was that the Sabbath became a day of fasting and gloom by contrast with Sunday which was a day of joy and pleasantness.(12)

Early in the third century, Tertullian wrote of the Roman Christians: "Anyhow, you sometimes continue your Station [fast] even over the Sabbath, -- a day never to be kept as a fast except at the passover season, according to a reason elsewhere given."(13)

The evidence suggests that toward the end of the second century the Roman Church had begun to transfer the fasting practices of Easter weekend to every weekend of the year, by which Friday and the Sabbath were fast days, and Sunday a feast day. The gradual effect of this was to depreciate the Sabbath and exalt Sunday.

By the time of the Spanish Synod of Elvira (c. A.D. 306) weekly Sabbath fasting was the custom in the West: "We have decided that the error be corrected, so that we celebrate extensions of the fast every Sabbath day."(14)

In the early fourth century, while various places in the West were treating the Sabbath as a fast day, this was not the custom in the East. By the fifth century, the weekly Sabbath fast was a fixed custom in Rome. The reason is clearly brought out in the following statement of Pope Innocent I (402-417):

"A very clear reason shows why one should fast on the Sabbath. For if we celebrate the Diem Dominicum to show reverence for the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ not only on the day of Easter, but indeed also from one weekly cycle to another one, if we assemble together for the commemoration of that very day, and fast on the sixth holiday, we must not omit the Sabbath, which comes between the sadness and the joy of that period."(15)

Just as the Sabbath of Easter weekend was a fast day, so, it was reasoned, must be every Sabbath day of the year. The result was the denigration of the Sabbath to the level of a day of sorrow and mourning, by contrast with Sunday which was a day of Christian joy and rejoicing. The practical effect on Christians was to lead them to turn away from the Sabbath and to exalt Sunday as the special feast day memorializing Christ's resurrection.

Samuele Bacchiocchi writes: "That the Church of Rome was the champion of the Sabbath fast and anxious to impose it on other Christian communities is well attested by the historical references from Bishop Callistus (A.D. 217-222), Hippolytus (c. A.D. 170-236), Pope Sylvester (A.D. 314-335), Pope Innocent I (A.D. 401-417), Augustine (A.D. 354-430), and John Cassian (c. A.D. 360-435). The fast was designed not only to express sorrow for Christ's death but also, as Pope Sylvester emphatically states, to show 'contempt for the Jews' (execratione Judaeorum) and for their Sabbath 'feasting' (destructiones ciborum). (16)

2. Anti-Semitism

"Following the death of Nero, the Jews experienced a setback. Military, political, fiscal, and literary repressive measures were taken against them on account of their resurgent nationalism, which exploded in violent uprisings in many places. Militarily, the statistics of bloodshed provided by contemporary historians, even allowing for possible exaggerations, are most impressive. Tacitus (c. A.D. 33-120), for instance, reports having heard that 600,000 Jews were besieged in the A.D. 70 war. Dio Cassius (c. A.D. 150-235), states that in the Barkokeba war of A.D. 132-135, some 580,000 Jews were killed in action besides the numberless who died of hunger and disease."(17)

Bacchiocchi points out that "under Vespasian (A.D. 69-79) both the Sanhedrin and the high priesthood were abolished; and under Hadrian . . . the practice of the Jewish religion and particularly Sabbathkeeping were outlawed."(18)

Bacchiocchi writes: "Literarily, a new wave of anti-Semitic literature surged at that time, undoubtedly reflecting the Roman mood against the Jews. Writers such as Seneca (died A.D. 65), Persius (A.D. 34-62), Petronius (died c. A.D. 66), Quintilian (c. A.D. 35-100), Martial (c. A.D. 40-104), Plutarch (c. A.D. 46-after 119), Juvenal (died c. A.D. 125), and Tacitus (c. A.D. 55-120), who lived in Rome for most of their professional lives, reviled the Jews racially and culturally. Particularly were the Jewish customs of Sabbathkeeping and circumcision contemptuously derided as examples of degrading superstition."(19)

Christians were motivated to separate themselves from the Jews in the minds of the populace and rulers. They wrote against Jewish legalism and began to attack the Sabbath. Writing from Rome about the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr condemned Sabbath observance and provided the earliest account of Christian Sunday worship services:

"And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen. . . . But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration."(20)

Thus Sunday observance began in Rome in the middle of the second century A.D. Opposition to the religion of the Jews was a factor in the depreciation of their Sabbath and the gradual substitution of Sunday.

3. Pagan sun worship contributed to the development of Sunday veneration among Christians.

Sun worship was one of the oldest practices in the Roman religion. From the early part of the second century A.D., the cult of Sol Invictus was very influential in Rome and other parts of the Empire. The emperor was regarded and worshiped as a Sun-god.

The planetary week was in common use in ancient Rome from the beginning of the Christian Era. The days of the week were named from the heavenly bodies as follows: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. The day of the sun began the series and was regarded as the most important day.

Christian converts from paganism tended to cling to their veneration of the Sun and, therefore, of Sunday. In early Christian art and literature the image of the Sun was often used to represent Christ, the true "Sun of righteousness." "In the earliest known Christian mosaic (dated c. A.D. 240), found below the altar of St. Peter in Rome, Christ is portrayed as the Sun (helios) ascending on the quadriga chariot with a nimbus behind His head from which irradiates seven rays in the form of a T (allusion to the cross?). Thousands of hours have been devoted to drawing the sun disk with an equal-armed cross behind the head of Christ and of other important persons."(21)

Bacchiocchi points out that early Christians ceased to pray facing Jerusalem. Instead they faced the sunrise (East). Christians adopted the pagan feast of the dies natalis Solis Invicti (the birthday of the Invincible Sun), December 25. Most scholars are convinced that the Church of Rome introduced and championed Sunday. Various Sun cults were present in Rome by the early second century. Their symbology was soon influencing Christian literature, art, and liturgy.(22)

The historical evidence establishes quite conclusively that, although the Sabbath was still kept by many Christians around the Roman world in the second century, the trend in Rome (and, as we shall see, also in Alexandria) was toward depreciation of the Sabbath and the exaltation of Sunday. The three main factors that led to this development were: (1) the Sabbath fast introduced in Rome in the second century; (2) anti-semitism; (3) the influence of pagan religion on Christianity, since new converts tended to retain some of their old attachments to veneration of the Sun and the day of the Sun.