Even though my first question upon reading the Bible for myself (lo, these many 60+ years ago) was "why don't we observe the Sabbath on Saturday?", the truth was mis-represented to me for years. (Not on purpose, I'm sure. It was simply a matter of believing what we are told and repeating that misconception.)
It's easy enough to blame it on the Catholic church or the Emperor Constantine, and while there is truth in that, the reality is that we each have a brain and a conscience, and we should be coming to our own conclusions, based on scripture and not on any one else's tradition or interpretation.
Yes, it is historically true that Constantine mandated a "Day of Rest" based on his personal practice of sun-worship. To debate that would be less than honest. Call it what you may, but the very definition of the Hebrew word "sabbath" means "rest." Even good old WikiPedia has that information readily available:
On March 7, 321, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued a civil decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating:
All judges and city people and the craftsmen shall rest upon the venerable day of the sun. Country people, however, may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in trenches. So that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish.
As the "church" became less Jewish and more gentile, followers began (for various political reasons) to distance themselves from the Jewish tradition of observance on the 7th day. By the second century, some church fathers were already admonishing their followers to abandon certain practices such as circumcision and Sabbath observance, lest they appear to be "too Jewish" and bring down the wrath of the government upon the church.
Some may claim that the Catholic church had no hand in this, but the historical documents speak for themselves:
The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day..."
The Catholic church itself has confirmed this in their own publications: “The Catholic Church, … by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).
And, that begs the question: Why - at the Protestant Reformation - did the Protestant faction not return to sabbath worship on the 7th day? The Catholic church goes so far as to reference this fact, claiming that by so doing:
“Protestants do not realize that by observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the Church, the Pope” (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950).
It does make one wonder, does it not?
I have even heard it said, by way of excusing oneself from Sabbath observance, "Well, Jesus is my sabbath rest so I can rest any day I want." Sounds good, doesn't it? Yes, scripture does say that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. You will hear no argument from me on that point. (To deny that would be to deny the truth of scripture in Matthew 12:3-8.) But to say Jesus Himself has somehow replaced the gift of Sabbath observance is to completely miss the point of Sabbath! Not the very least is the fact that scripture cannot contradict itself, and it has already said in Deuteronomy 13 - You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.
Read the whole chapter and you will see that the premise is that anyone saying anything different is a false prophet. If Jesus is the Son of God and Messiah, he can't also be a false prophet. So that argument does not fly with me, for obvious reasons.
The BibleProject gets it mostly right when they say:
As followers of Jesus, we aren't required to follow the laws given to Israel by God exactly. These were given at a specific time to a specific people group for a specific purpose. Yet the wisdom of those laws is enduring, and the law of the Sabbath is pure gold. It is not a commandment we are bound to; it’s a promise we’re invited to.
I would disagree with "we aren't called to follow the "laws" given to Israel," because if we claim to be a follower of God, then we are also called to be "set-apart", and "a light to nations", just as Israel was back at Sinai. After all, it is 1 John 5:3 that we show our love for Him by our obedience, and goes on to state that His laws are not a burden...
And that's in the New Testament, folks.
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