the Sabbath

Father Mateo (Father.Mateo@catinfo.cts.com)
21 Nov 95 17:44:00

##
# Hello Father Mateo. I am a non denominational christian (ex-roman
# catholic) can you please explain the biblical authority for the abandoning
# of the seventh day sabbath practice. Thank you.
#
##[RM=>FM]
Dear Robert,

(As a backdrop for this message to you, please read two recent
messages sent to: Damon Wasson, subject: listen to the Church, both
posted 6th November, 1995. Thank you.)

"He who sat upon the throne said, `Behold, I make all things new!'"
(Revelation 21:5) --- "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come!" (2nd
Corinthians 5:17). Saint Paul wrote his epistle to the Galatians to
rebuke them for listening to preachers who advocated slipping back
into the ritual observances of the Old Covenant (Galatians, passim).
Among those old observances for which Paul rebuked them were "days and
months and seasons and years" (Galatians 4:10). If they return to
observing such things, the Apostle warns them, "I am afraid I have
labored over you in vain" (verse 11).

Obviously, this does not mean that Christians no longer must observe
the Commandment, "Keep holy the Sabbath day." But for Christians, the
people of the New Covenant, the Sabbath day is Sunday, the day of Our
Lord's Resurrection. In this we differ from the people of the Old
Covenant, the Jews, who celebrate their Sabbath on Saturday.

A cursory reading of the four Gospels shows that one of the principal
objections urged by the authorities against Our Lord Jesus Christ was
that He broke the Jewish sabbath. In some, His alleged failure to
observe the sabbath was their chief reason for refusing to believe:
"This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath" (John
9:16).

Jesus' self-defense was also an implicit affirmation of His equality
with the Father, who through Moses had originally established the
observance of sabbath: "The Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath"
(Mark 2:28, Matthew 12:8, Luke 6:5). Roughly put, his words mean,
"God started the sabbath; God now interprets and modifies it."

Christ has prolonged and assured His living, teaching, sanctifying
Presence among us in every place and every age through His Body which
is the Church (Colossians 1:18, 24).

The Church is Christ's fullness, His Body (Ephesians 1:23). [Right
here I must tell you that when Catholics meditate on these Scriptures,
when we read "Church", we think "people", 900 million of us in union
with our Bishops and Christ's Vicar the Pope.] The Church of the
living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1st Timothy 3:15).
Through the Church, God's manifold wisdom is made known (Ephesians
3:9). Glory is given to God in the Church and in Christ Jesus
(Ephesians 3:21), in the members and in their Head (Ephesians 4:15f).
Christ is our Head and we are His members because He is our Savior and
cherishes us, sanctifying and washing us clean in the waters of
baptism with the preaching of His Word. This mystery of our union
with Christ illumines every member of the Church, but it shines most
splendidly in married couples because their marriage in Christ is the
very symbol and living reminder of His life giving union with all of
us, His Church (Ephesians 5, passim).

The Body of Christ, His Church, is not a disorganized multitude, an
OKHLOS. It is a people with appointed leaders, a LAOS. Jesus trained
His first leaders, ordained them, and commissioned them: "All
authority has been given to me a heaven and on earth. Go, therefore,
teach all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, until the end of the
world" (Matthew 28:18-20).

To his emissaries, Jesus said: "He who hears you, hears me; and he who
rejects you, rejects me; and he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent
me" (Luke 10:16).

The Apostles well understood that in teaching and directing the
Christian people, they exercised God's own authority. So in the first
general meeting of the Apostles after Pentecost, convened in Jerusalem
to deal with problems of the church of Antioch, they wrote to
Antiochenes of their decision in these words: "It has seemed good TO
THE HOLY SPIRIT and TO US...." (Acts 15:28). Relying on this same
God-given authority, the Church changed the day of weekly sabbath (the
word means not "seventh" but "rest") from Saturday to Sunday. St.
Paul speaks of Sunday meeting (1 Cor. 16:2), and so does St. Luke
(Acts 20:7). Before the year 100, the "Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles" (Didache, xiv, 1) commands Sunday Mass attendance. In
mid-second century, St. Justin wrote: "Sunday is the day on which we
all gather in a common assembly, because it is the first day, the day
on which God, changing darkness and matter, created the world; and it
is the day on which Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead."
(First Apology, 67).

The "why" of the change of the Lord's Day from Saturday to Sunday is
expressed by St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second
century: "Those who walked in ancient customs came to a new hope, no
longer sabbathing but living the Lord's Day, on which we came to life
through Him and through His death." (Letter to Magnesians, 8,1).

By the sixth century, another reason for Sunday observance besides the
Lord's Resurrection became important in Christian piety: the descent
of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost had taken place on a Sunday.

Church law on Sunday observance enters the picture between the sixth
and the thirteenth centuries, simply confirming a Christian tradition
already five centuries old.

I hope this answers your question. Thank you for using our service.


Sincerely in Christ,
Father Mateo

--- Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. ---

##MMR 2.46#. !link RM 11-04-95 21:18

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