1st Day • SUNday

Below are listed the 8 verses in the New Testament that mention the 1st day of the week, Sunday. Please notice that not one mentions the 1st day as a holy day or a replacement commandment for the 4th commandment, the 7th day sabbath. Sunday, in Scripture, is the first of the six working days of each week and the 7th day of each week is the holy sabbath rest according to the 4th commandment in the moral 10 commandment law of God.

THE ROMAN CHURCH

Romanists have persisted in bringing against Protestants the charge of heresy, and willful separation from the true church. But these accusations apply rather to themselves. They are the ones who laid down the banner of Christ, and departed from the faith once delivered to the saints.

Satan well knew that the Holy Scriptures would enable men to discern his deceptions and withstand his power. It was by the word that even the Saviour of the world has resisted his attacks. At every assault, Christ presented the shield of eternal truth, saying, “It is written.” To every suggestion of the adversary he opposed the wisdom and power of the word. In order for Satan to maintain his sway over men, and establish the authority of the papal usurper, he must keep them in ignorance of the Scriptures. The Bible would exalt God, and place finite men in their true position; therefore its sacred truths must be concealed and suppressed. This logic was adopted by the Roman Church. For hundreds of years the circulation of the Bible was prohibited. The people were forbidden to read it, or to have it in their houses, and unprincipled priests and prelates interpreted its teachings to sustain their pretensions. Thus the pope came to be almost universally acknowledged as the vicegerent of God on earth, endowed with supreme authority over Church and State.

The detector of error having been removed, Satan worked according to his will. Prophecy had declared that the papacy was to “think to change times and laws.” [Daniel 7:25.] This work it was not slow to attempt. To afford converts from heathenism a substitute for the worship of idols, and thus to promote their nominal acceptance of Christianity, the adoration of images and relics was gradually introduced into the Christian worship. The decree of a general council finally established this system of popish idolatry. To complete the sacrilegious work, Rome presumed to expunge from the law of God the second commandment, forbidding image worship, and to divide the tenth commandment, in order to preserve the number.

The spirit of concession to paganism opened the way for a still further disregard of Heaven’s authority. Satan tampered with the fourth commandment also, and essayed to set aside the ancient Sabbath, the day which God had blessed and sanctified, and in its stead to exalt the festival observed by the heathen as “the venerable day of the sun.” This change was not at first attempted openly. In the first centuries the true Sabbath had been kept by all Christians. They were jealous for the honor of God, and, believing that his law is immutable, they zealously guarded the sacredness of its precepts. But with great subtlety, Satan worked through his agents to bring about his object. That the attention of the people might be called to the Sunday, it was made a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ. Religious services were held upon it; yet it was regarded as a day of recreation, the Sabbath being still sacredly observed.

Constantine, while still a heathen, issued a decree enjoining the general observance of Sunday as a public festival throughout the Roman empire. After his conversion, he remained a staunch advocate of Sunday, and his pagan edict was then enforced by him in the interests of his new faith. But the honor shown this day was not as yet sufficient to prevent Christians from regarding the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord. Another step must be taken; the false Sabbath must be exalted to an equality with the true. A few years after the issue of Constantine’s decree, the bishop of Rome conferred on the Sunday the title of Lord’s day. Thus the people were gradually led to regard it as possessing a degree of sacredness. Still the original Sabbath was kept.

The arch-deceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather the Christian world under his banner, and to exercise his power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and world-loving churchmen, he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were held, from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened from all the world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed.

The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself “above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.” [2 Thessalonians 2:4.] He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest-day for man. It was designed to keep the living God ever before the minds of men as the source of being and the object of reverence and worship. Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to his law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator.

Protestants now urge that the resurrection of Christ on Sunday, made it the Christian Sabbath. But Scripture evidence is lacking. No such honor was given to the day by Christ or his apostles. The observance of Sunday as a Christian institution has its origin in that “mystery of lawlessness” which, even in Paul’s day, had begun its work. Where and when did the Lord adopt this child of the papacy? What valid reason can be given for a change concerning which the Scriptures are silent?

Spirit of Prophecy, Volume 4, p. 53.3-57.1

EGW Writings: https://egwwritings.org/read?panels=p140.183&index=0

SUNDAY LAW

Will any body of men bring upon themselves the displeasure of the Lord by framing a law for the observance of a spurious sabbath, and then compelling obedience to this law? Will they insult God by profaning His holy day, and assuming authority, as gods, to exalt the first day of the week to be observed by all?

How can men set aside the true Sabbath, when they know that God came to our world and from Sinai’s mount in awful grandeur proclaimed His law to be observed in commemoration of the day He had ordained as a day of rest—a day ever to be kept as a memorial of God as the Creator of the heavens and of the earth? He made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh day, and was refreshed. He sanctified the seventh day because that in it He had rested. He instituted the Sabbath as a memorial pointing to the fact that He was the Creator of the world, the Monarch of the universe. The Lord has given to men the day that He has chosen to be observed by all the world and regarded as a sacred rest day.

In the twentieth of Exodus we find the commandments that God has given as Ruler of the world. All who set one of these aside, and present in its place the observance of a day that bears no sanctity, will be dealt with by Jehovah as usurping an authority that infringes upon His divine prerogatives. The Sunday sabbath, a child of the papacy, is set forth to be observed as the Lord’s Sabbath; and to obey this human law would compel men to transgress the laws of Jehovah. Human enactments that conflict with the laws of God bear not the stamp of divine approval.

We should remember with what awe-inspiring authority God has set apart the sacred Sabbath as a memorial by which men shall acknowledge that He is God and beside Him there is none else. In the closing verses of the thirty-first of Exodus, God speaks, for we read:

Exodus 31:12-18 (KJV) “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbathsye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”

Whoever of the human family will dare to defy the Lord God will pay the penalty by meeting the great Lawgiver over His broken law. The Word has gone forth. It is not the Word of a human power, but of Almighty Authority, of a living and true God. Will man dare trifle with the sacred law of Jehovah, and place in its stead a common workday that marks the beginning of the week for the transaction of ordinary business? Who will venture to meet Jehovah over His broken law?

The Creator has with His own authority given you His Sabbath to observe; and yet human agencies will attempt to set aside the Seventh-day Sabbath, which commemorates God’s holy work of creating the world in six working days, and resting on the seventh day. How can men dare assume the authority of Jehovah, and represent themselves as God, to change times and laws?

I call the attention of thinking men to these things. Dare you continue to take a human enactment that bears not the stamp of divine approval, and place it before the people as something to respect and honor? Will you substitute a counterfeit in place of the true and genuine? Will you thus meet God over His broken law, and stand with threats of persecution and severe punishment against the people whom you regard as criminals because they choose to obey the law of Jehovah in place of a spurious sabbath that man has created?

The patient tenderness with which God instructed the Israelites and prepared them for receiving His law, is revealed in the nineteenth of Exodus: “Ye have seen,” He declared, “what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings.” (Quote verses 4-9.)

God desired to be near His people in order that they might realize the terrible majesty of His power and the sacredness of His law; and so in mercy He drew near and caused a thick cloud to separate Him from their sight, that they might not be destroyed by the presence of His glory. Through the thick cloud they could hear His voice.

The habitations of men were not chosen as the place where God would speak His law. He chose not the magnificent palaces of the wealthy, but led His people to the foot of Mount Sinai, so that they might be surrounded by His created works while He appeared at the top of the mount. Far removed from all that man had built in pride and self-glorification, the Israelites were made to realize man’s utter insignificance in the presence of the Almighty. (Quote Exodus 19:17-24.)

Then the ten commandments were spoken.

It would be well to keep these commandments, in printed form, in plain sight in every house.

—Letter 154, 1906 • 21MR, p. 87.10-89.6

EGW Writings: https://egwwritings.org/read?panels=p72.604&index=0

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