Posted on 05/12/2013 5:55:26 PM PDT by narses
Full Question
Until recently, I always thought Catholics worshiped on the Sabbath, and that the early Church moved the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Is this true? Answer
This is a common misunderstanding. Catholics do not worship on the Sabbath, which according to Jewish law is the last day of the week (Saturday), when God rested from all the work he had done in creation (Gen. 2:2-3). Catholics worship on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week (Sunday, the eighth day); the day when God said "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3); the day when Christ rose from the dead; the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles (Day of Pentecost). The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "The Church celebrates the day of Christ’s Resurrection on the ‘eighth day,’ Sunday, which is rightly called the Lord’s Day" (CCC 2191).
The early Church did not move the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Instead "The Sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday, which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ" (CCC 2190). Sunday is the day Catholics are bound to keep, not Saturday.
We see evidence of this in Scripture:
On the first day of the week when we gathered to break bread, Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day, and he kept on speaking until midnight (Acts 20:7). On the first day of the week each of you should set aside and save whatever one can afford, so that collections will not be going on when I come (1 Cor. 16:2). Let no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or with regard to a festival or new moon or Sabbath (Col. 2:16). The Catechism also says:
By a tradition handed down from the apostles which took its origin from the very day of Christ’s Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord’s Day or Sunday. The day of Christ’s Resurrection is both the first day of the week, the memorial of the first day of creation, and the "eighth day," on which Christ after his "rest" on the great Sabbath inaugurates the "day that the Lord has made," the "day that knows no evening." (CCC 1166)
Other CCC references to the Lord’s Day: 349, 2174, 2175, 2191
Answered by: Peggy Frye
Got Scripture to back that up?
So Jesus doesn't actually save to the uttermost those who come to Him?
Hebrews 7:25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
Acts 2:42-47 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
The Jews were the first to claim the Sabbath and it has always been on Saturday, so, somebody moved it.
If you are embracing willful sin, then you are NOT drawing near to Him. The Law is there to point out our deficiencies so that we may draw close to Him. Ignoring the Law, making void the Law or otherwise marginalizing it does not make one a better Christian. But you go ahead.
Actually the Sabbath has been with us since Creation. See Genesis 2:1-3. God made a covenant with the Jews to bring His word to the world and the Law was put in stone.
And as shown by the description of the New covenant and the description of the kind of laws that were abrogated, and by His contrasting reiteration of 9 of the 10 commandments, absent the 4th, God knows how to manifest in what way the new cov. was "Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers," and what manner of laws were typological shadows, which type the 7th day sabbath corresponds to by nature, and is. "For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world." (Hebrews 4:3)
But while it is incongruous that the 4th commandment not be repeated if keeping it was a salvific issue, all the while statements are given that make sabbath-keeping part of the ceremonial law, and we are to walk in the light of the new covenant, yet you do not simply allow him that "regardeth one day above another" to do so unto the Lord," (Rm. 14:5,6) but condemn all who do not keep the 7th day in the light of what is taught under the new covenant.
Thus only 7th day sabbath keepers are saved, which is a mark of a cult, and which adherents often are looking for a way to exalt themselves over the competition. However, it is unlikely you believe the lost will suffer eternal torment either, but which is what i fear for those who exclude all from salvation who do not keep the 7th day.
So, someone still moved it, right? Well, I guess we could say it has never moved, it is just not practiced by anyone not keeping that day Holy.
There is nothing “ceremonial” or “shadow”y about the Sabbath. It was a straight-forward commemoration of the Creation of the universe. A pretty awesome event. We are given this one day to worship God and His Goodness and reflect on our duties to Him. You have free will. Take a pass if you wish.
Cyril of Jerusalem
“Fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans or into Judaism, for Jesus Christ has henceforth ransomed you. Stand aloof from all observance of Sabbaths and from calling any indifferent meats common or unclean” (Catechetical Lectures 4:37 [A.D. 350]).
Council of Laodicea
“Christians should not Judaize and should not be idle on the Sabbath, but should work on that day; they should, however, particularly reverence the Lord’s day and, if possible, not work on it, because they were Christians” (Canon 29 [A.D. 360]).
John Chrysostom
“[W]hen he [God] said, ‘You shall not kill’ . . . he did not add, ‘because murder is a wicked thing.’ The reason was that conscience had taught this beforehand, and he speaks thus, as to those who know and understand the point. Wherefore when he speaks to us of another commandment, not known to us by the dictate of conscience, he not only prohibits, but adds the reason. When, for instance, he gave commandment concerning the Sabbath— ‘On the seventh day you shall do no work’—he subjoined also the reason for this cessation. What was this? ‘Because on the seventh day God rested from all his works which he had begun to make’ [Ex. 20:10-11]. . . . For what purpose then, I ask, did he add a reason respecting the Sabbath, but did no such thing in regard to murder? Because this commandment was not one of the leading ones. It was not one of those which were accurately defined of our conscience, but a kind of partial and temporary one, and for this reason it was abolished afterward. But those which are necessary and uphold our life are the following: ‘You shall not kill. . . . You shall not commit adultery. . . . You shall not steal.’ On this account he adds no reason in this case, nor enters into any instruction on the matter, but is content with the bare prohibition” (Homilies on the Statutes 12:9 [A.D. 387]).
You can really see where the church(es) went astray from the plain sense of the Scriptures here. They stood it all on its head in an irrational catechism and rejected the clear text.
If one covenant that is supposed to be everlasting is not, how do you hold that any covenant is everlasting ?
The Catholics claimed they moved it from Saturday to Sunday. It was done early on in the first century as pagans entered the churchs. There is nothing Biblical about the move. The Sun worshipers were thrilled I’m sure as the day was changed.
Of course, the argumentation is flawed — unless one is willing to accept alternate views to that held by the Popes of Rome as to where the Catholic Church inheres. We Orthodox Christians, will, of course dispute the catholicity of those in communion with the Papal Throne of Rome, and claim for ourselves the title of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (cf. the Reply of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1848), and likewise the monophysites (Copts, Jacobites and Armenians) and the Nestorians (the Assyrian Church of the East) will claim to be the catholic church spoken of in St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letters.
All of us worship on Sunday (in Greek Kyriake = the Lord’s Day), and have done so from long before the Popes of Rome started claiming universal jurisdiction (which claim those of us in the East largely ignored, even when Rome was still in communion with us), cf. the testimony of the Didache, St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Justin the Philosopher (called in the West “Justin Martyr”). As the Synaxarion of Pascha I posted earlier testifies, it was the Holy Apostles to transferred the dignity of the sabbath to the Lord’s Day, not the later local council of Laodicea as the Latins seem to claim — the earlier dating agrees with the fact that St. Ignatius of Antioch and the Didache both speak of Sunday worship as a well established fact over a century before Laodicea.
In the end times will all people have one day that the world system will deem as a ‘sabbath’? ... no one will be able to do anything so a false messiah and god can be praised? .. I don’t know how that could work right now.... but if the Muslims, jews and christians all agree? Whoa..... Pick the opposite day and do observe it quietly in your house....
maybe it will be more subtle as satan does this-than just one sabbath day...kind of like the ‘whatever you have been doing , keep doing it... like right now?
Your linked page there talks about the book written by Ellen G. White that heavily bashes the Catholic Church, called "The Great Controversy".
Just as an interesting (and ironic) aside, the SDA denomination is actually closer in one of their distinctive beliefs to the Catholic Church than they are to some mainstream Protestant denominations, and that is the fact they also do NOT believe in the "once saved, always saved" teaching of some Protestant groups. Like Catholics, SDA's also believe that people can lose their salvation (state of grace) through their own free-will choices.
Regarding "666", one other interesting aside someone has pointed out (sort of tongue-in-cheek) was that after hearing the teaching of Jesus on "eating His body" (the Eucharist) in John 6, many of his disciples at the time said that that teaching was just too hard to take, and this very sad verse follows that discourse:
After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. John 6:66
Wrong; under the new cov. required annual religious observances of "days, and months, and times, and years" are not upheld, and no OT specific day of worship is mandated while holydays, or the new moon, or the sabbath days are distinctly stated to be a a shadow of things to come. (Col,. 2:16)
It is simply unreasonable to suppose the 4th commandment would not be reiterated or repeated while the rest are, and the only teaching regarding Christian observance of the 7th day is that which makes it part of the ceremonial laws, and a shadow of the rest that believers are given in Christ, and that the only specific day the NT church met together was the 1st day.
And based on your past statements, it does not appear you think a believer has freedom in the issue if he will be saved.
Time to enter my daily rest now!
Not just legalism but likely cultism, in which the real or imagined faults of the competition are invoked to justify the elite esoteric group of cultists, while their error is more critical than the evangelical churches they exclude from salvation.
Have a God night
>> Regardless of whether the memorial feast was observed before or after midnight, one can be assured that it took place on Sunday, because it was “on the first day of the week” that the disciples met “to break bread.” <<
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Absolutely false!
It was most assuredly not sunday, but saturday night, which is biblically the first day of the week, and the only time that any disciple of Yeshua met “on the first day of the week!”
The “Jewish” method of measuring time is the only method used by Yeshua’s followers for the first two centuries after his resurrection.
If it says “on the first day of the week” in God’s word, it was saturday night by pagan measure.
Havdalah, on saturday night, was a part of the closing of their day of worship, and often lasted into the wee hours if Paul was present.
“Legalism” is a word offered by Satan to describe those who sufficiently love Yeshua to keep his commandments that he wrote on their hearts.
I have been referred to as many things but never satan.
my brother read somewhere that Catholics/Christians simply choose Sunday over Saturday to differentiate themselves from the Jews...
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