Chapter 2: The Commandment They Changed
The Missing Command
Over 2.3 billion Christians1 Pew Research Center, "The Global Religious Landscape," December 18, 2012. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/. Pew Research Center, "The Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population," July 11, 2013. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/. Pew Research estimates approximately 2.38 billion Christians globally as of 2023, with the vast majority (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant denominations) observing Sunday worship. gather every Sunday for worship. Fifty-two weeks per year. That's 104 billion worship services annually.
Based on precisely zero biblical commands to do so.
Not one verse commanding Sunday worship exists in Scripture.
The Question Behind the Question
Some readers will already be thinking: "Are you saying a day matters more than Christ?"
This frames the wrong question. Scripture never poses "Christ or commandments" as a choice. It presents them as inseparable:
"If ye love me, keep my commandments."
"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
"And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
The word is "and," not "or." The remnant is identified by those who keep the commandments of God and have faith in Jesus. Both, together, as one unified faithfulness.
But which commandments? Some argue these are "New Testament commandments" (believe in Jesus, love one another), not the Ten Commandments. Revelation itself answers this:
"Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."
Compare to the fourth commandment:
"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day."
The First Angel's message quotes the fourth commandment nearly verbatim. The angel calls all humanity to worship the Creator, using the specific language God used when establishing the Sabbath. This isn't coincidence. When Revelation speaks of "the commandments of God" in the context of the final remnant, it points directly to the Decalogue, specifically highlighting the commandment that identifies the Creator.
Salvation is by grace through faith alone. Sabbath-keeping doesn't save anyone. Christ saves. But what does faithfulness to Christ look like for those who are already saved? Does loving Him include keeping the commandments He wrote with His own finger?
The question isn't "Christ or calendar." The question is: "What does Christ Himself command?"
The Commandment God Wrote in Stone
The Ten Commandments are God's moral law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai. These weren't suggestions or cultural guidelines. God personally wrote them in stone with His own finger (Exodus 31:18), the only Scripture God physically wrote rather than dictating through prophets. They've stood as the foundation of moral law for over three thousand years.
Nine of them are obvious enough that virtually any culture recognizes them:
- No other gods before Me
- No graven images
- Don't take God's name in vain
- [This is the one Christendom changed]
- Honor your father and mother
- Don't murder
- Don't commit adultery
- Don't steal
- Don't bear false witness
- Don't covet
The fourth commandment starts with "Remember":
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
"The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."
The Sabbath is specifically the seventh day--not the first, not a day of personal choice, not the day tradition observes. Scripture leaves no room for substitution.
Before Sinai, Before Israel
Some object: "The Sabbath was a sign given to Israel at Sinai. It doesn't apply to Gentile Christians."
This objection overlooks where the Sabbath began.
The fourth commandment doesn't say "I am now creating a new institution." It says "Remember the sabbath day." You remember something that already exists. The commandment points backward:
"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
The seventh day was blessed and sanctified at Creation, not at Sinai:
"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
Genesis 2 predates Sinai by approximately 2,500 years. There were no Jews yet. There was no Israel. There was no covenant at Sinai. There was only God, Adam, Eve, and a blessed, sanctified seventh day.
The Sabbath was made for humanity, not for Israel alone:
"The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."
The Greek word is anthropos: humanity, mankind, the human race. Jesus didn't say "the Sabbath was made for the Jews" or "for Israel" or "for the Old Covenant people." He said it was made for man--all humanity.
Yes, the Sabbath was later given to Israel as a covenant sign (Exodus 31:13-17). But a sign can be given to a specific group while the underlying reality remains universal. The rainbow was given to Noah as a sign (Genesis 9:12-13), yet rainbows aren't only for Noah's descendants. Sinai incorporated an existing Creation ordinance as a covenant sign; it didn't invent the Sabbath.
The distinction matters because "Sinai-only" would make the Sabbath a temporary institution like circumcision. But Creation-origin places it with marriage, another institution established in Genesis 2 that no one claims expired at the cross.
Every Calendar on Earth Agrees
Open any calendar: English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, or Chinese. Doesn't matter.
What's the seventh day of the week?
Saturday.
The word "Saturday" comes from "Saturn's day" in English. Other languages preserve the connection:
- Hebrew: Shabbat (Sabbath)
- Arabic: As-Sabt (The Sabbath)
- Russian: Subbota (Sabbath)
- Spanish: Sábado (Sabbath)
- Italian: Sabato (Sabbath)
- Portuguese: Sábado (Sabbath)
- Greek: Savvato (Sabbath)
- Polish: Sobota (Sabbath)
- Bulgarian: Sabota (Sabbath)
- Armenian: Shabat (Sabbath)
Over 100 languages call the seventh day "Sabbath" in their own tongue.2 William Mead Jones, The Chart of the Week and the World's Chronology (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1889). Jones catalogs Sabbath-related words in 108 languages spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The examples provided (Hebrew Shabbat, Arabic As-Sabt, Russian Subbota, Spanish Sábado, etc.) are independently verifiable through standard etymological dictionaries. While Jones' work is frequently cited in Sabbath literature, comprehensive primary verification of each language's etymology would strengthen the claim beyond the commonly accepted examples. The seventh day never moved. It's still Saturday. It's always been Saturday.
If God meant Sunday, He wrote the wrong day.
If God meant "any day you want," He should have said "one day in seven," but He didn't. He said "the seventh day."
Words have meaning. When God writes "the seventh day" with His own finger in stone, "the seventh day" means the seventh day.
Side-by-side Scripture vs. tradition: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/sabbath-sunday.html
Chronology deep dive on the unchanged week: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/week-unchanged.html
The Commandments They Restructured
But changing the day isn't all they did.
The prophet Daniel, writing over 500 years before Christ, foretold a power that would "think to change times and laws." Daniel 7:25 prophesied this precisely, and the plural is significant. We've seen the time change: seventh day to first day, Saturday to Sunday. But what about the laws?
That power (identified in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 as the Roman Catholic Church) would establish a mark of its authority. Sunday worship enforced by law, distinguishing those who follow human tradition from those who keep God's commandments. The details unfold in chapters ahead, but the foundation is here: the day was changed, the law was altered, and accepting that change means accepting the authority that made it.
A catechism is an official teaching manual used to instruct believers in church doctrine. What appears in a catechism isn't one priest's opinion; it's the institution's authorized teaching. Compare what God wrote in stone with what the Catholic catechism teaches children to memorize:
The Bible vs. The Catechism
| # | King James Version (Exodus 20) | Catholic Catechism |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | No other gods before me | I am the Lord thy God |
| 2 | No graven images | [Omitted from list] |
| 3 | Don't take God's name in vain | #2: Don't take name in vain |
| 4 | Remember the Sabbath (seventh day) | #3: Keep holy "the Lord's Day" |
| 5 | Honor father and mother | #4: Honor father and mother |
| 6 | Don't murder | #5: Don't kill |
| 7 | Don't commit adultery | #6: Don't commit adultery |
| 8 | Don't steal | #7: Don't steal |
| 9 | Don't bear false witness | #8: Don't bear false witness |
| 10 | Don't covet (entire verse) | #9: Wife / #10: Goods [Split] |
Count them. The Bible has ten. The catechism has ten. But they're not the same ten.
The fourth commandment opens with a unique word: "Remember." No other commandment begins this way. God does not say "Remember not to murder" or "Remember not to steal." Those commands are stated as straightforward prohibitions. But for the Sabbath, God begins with "Remember"--as if He knew this would be the commandment His people would be pressured to abandon.
The Deletion
The second commandment (three verses of explicit prohibition against graven images) disappeared from the short-form catechism that Catholic children memorize.* The Baltimore Catechism (standard U.S. Catholic instruction from 1885-1960s) lists: "1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain..." The graven images prohibition is omitted from the numbered list entirely, although Catholic apologists claim it's "included within" the first commandment, but the explicit prohibition does not appear in what children memorize. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), Part III, Section 2. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7B.HTM
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God..."
Catholic churches contain statues, icons, and images. Worshippers kneel before them, pray, and light candles. Catholics distinguish between veneration (honoring saints) and worship (due to God alone), a theological distinction the Church articulates carefully. The question isn't whether Catholics believe they're worshiping statues; most don't. The question is why the explicit commandment forbidding images was removed from the short-form catechism that children memorize. Intent may be sincere; the restructuring of the commandments is documented fact.
The Split
But you can't delete a commandment from a list of ten without the count coming up short. So they split the tenth commandment into two.
God wrote this as one commandment:
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."
This is one verse with one subject (coveting) forming one commandment.
The catechism splits it into two:
- 9th Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"
- 10th Commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods"
They surgically split one verse into two commandments.* Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), Part III, Section 2, Articles 9-10, treats these as distinct commandments: "the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another's goods." This follows Augustine's 5th-century numbering adopted by the Roman Catechism of Trent (1566), which differs from the traditional Jewish and Protestant enumeration. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7B.HTM
Delete one. Split another. The count stays at ten. The content changes.
The Pattern
"Think to change times and laws."
The times changed when the Sabbath moved from Saturday to Sunday--the only commandment God told us to "Remember." The laws changed when the second commandment was deleted, the fourth commandment was altered from "the seventh day" to "the Lord's Day," and the tenth commandment was split in two to keep the count at ten. Three systematic changes to God's law, all from the same source.
This isn't ancient history. This is what Catholic children are taught today. This is what 1.3 billion people believe now.
And it fulfills Daniel's prophecy to the letter.
"But we lost track of the weekly cycle!"
Some argue that calendar changes (particularly the Julian to Gregorian switch in 1582) disrupted the weekly count. We can't know which day is the seventh, they claim.
This is demonstrably false.
The Gregorian calendar reform skipped ten dates (October 4, 1582 was followed by October 15, 1582), but the days of the week continued unbroken. Thursday, October 4, was followed by Friday, October 15; the weekly cycle was not touched.3 Pope Gregory XIII's bull Inter gravissimas (February 24, 1582) instituted the calendar reform. The text confirms the reform concerned only the annual calendar (correcting the Julian drift from the solar year) while explicitly preserving the weekly cycle. Historical records confirm Thursday, October 4, 1582 was followed by Friday, October 15, 1582. Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar January 1918; Greece in March 1923. In each case, dates were skipped but the weekday sequence continued without interruption. For scholarly treatment, see J.J. Coyne et al., eds., Gregorian Reform of the Calendar (Vatican City: Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1983).
Different nations adopted the reform at different times: Russia in 1918, Greece in 1923. If the weekly cycle had been disrupted, these countries would have different "Saturdays" than the rest of the world. However, they do not.
Modern calendar experiments confirm the week's resilience. Revolutionary France replaced the seven-day week with ten-day "décades" from 1793 to 1806; underground churches continued meeting every seventh day until Napoleon restored the traditional week.4 Matthew Shaw, Time and the French Revolution (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011). The Soviet Union tried both a five-day week (1929) and a six-day week (1931). After eleven years of failure, Stalin restored the seven-day week in 1940.5 Eviatar Zerubavel, The Seven Day Circle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 33-43. If totalitarian states with complete social control could not abolish the weekly cycle, no ancient calendar reform could have done so either.
The Jews have kept continuous, unbroken Sabbath observance for over three millennia. Their calendar has never lost a week. Their seventh day is our Saturday.
Biology confirms what history preserves. Modern chronobiologists have discovered "circaseptan rhythms": seven-day biological cycles that exist independently of any social or environmental weekly cue.6 Franz Halberg and colleagues at the University of Minnesota Chronobiology Center documented circaseptan (about-weekly) rhythms in biological systems. Primary literature: F. Halberg et al., "Chronobiology," Annual Review of Physiology 31 (1969): 675-725; F. Halberg et al., "From Biologic Rhythms to Chronomes," Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. Chronobiology (1993). For accessible synthesis: Jeremy Campbell, Winston Churchill's Afternoon Nap (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 75-79. Campbell notes: "Rhythms of about seven days arose in living creatures millions of years before the calendar week was invented." The biological significance of seven-day rhythms remains debated; some researchers attribute them to circadian rhythm interactions rather than independent endogenous cycles. Lab rats reject transplants on seven-day cycles without exposure to human calendars. Single-celled algae millions of years old display intrinsic seven-day rhythms. The weekly cycle has no astronomical basis (unlike day, month, or year), yet it persists throughout biology.
The Missing Command
The question that started my own investigation:
Where is the verse, anywhere in Scripture, commanding Christians to worship on Sunday instead of Saturday?
No verse suggests it. No passage establishes a pattern from one Sunday gathering. No argument from silence can justify the change.
Show me a command. Quote a verse. Give me chapter and verse like Exodus 20:8-11.
The responses to this question fall into predictable patterns:
Response 1: "Jesus rose on Sunday, so we celebrate that."
Did Jesus command you to change the Sabbath because He rose on Sunday? Where's that verse? Jesus also ascended on a Thursday (Acts 1:3-9, forty days after resurrection Sunday). Should we worship on Thursday too?
The resurrection is worth celebrating. But celebration doesn't authorize commandment-breaking. If God wrote "the seventh day is the Sabbath" in stone, and Jesus said "Think not that I am come to destroy the law" (Matthew 5:17), when did resurrection grant permission to rewrite the Ten Commandments?
Response 2: "The apostles met on the first day of the week."
Acts 20:7 mentions a meeting on the first day of the week. One meeting. Paul preached until midnight because he was leaving the next day (Acts 20:7-11). This was a farewell service, not a weekly pattern or a commandment.
Meanwhile, Paul's regular custom? He worshiped on the Sabbath (Acts 17:2).
Acts 13:14: Paul preaches on Sabbath. Acts 13:42: Gentiles ask him to preach "the next sabbath." Acts 13:44: "The next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God."
If Paul was teaching Sunday worship, why did the Gentiles ask him to wait a whole week to preach again? Why didn't Paul say, "Come back tomorrow, for we worship on Sunday now"?
Because they didn't. They kept the Sabbath.
Response 3: "Colossians 2:16 says Sabbath is just a shadow."
The verse reads:
"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."
Paul's saying don't let anyone judge you for keeping the Sabbath. He's defending Sabbath-keepers from criticism, not abolishing the Sabbath.
And even if he meant the ceremonial sabbaths (feast days) were shadows, that doesn't touch the seventh-day Sabbath established at Creation (Genesis 2:2-3) before sin, before Jews, before the law was given at Sinai.
The Tabernacle's architecture proves the distinction. The Ten Commandments (including the fourth) were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies (Exodus 40:20, 1 Kings 8:9). The ceremonial laws were written in a book and placed beside the Ark, outside (Deuteronomy 31:26). God physically separated what was permanent from what was temporary. The Sabbath commandment rested in His presence with "Thou shalt not murder," not in the outer court with feast regulations.
The Creation Sabbath isn't a shadow of things to come; it's a memorial of what already happened. "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth... and rested the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11). Therefore, it cannot be a shadow of future events when it memorializes past creation.
And if the Sabbath was temporary, why did God call it perpetual?
"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."
The Hebrew word is olam: eternal, everlasting, and perpetual. No expiration date. No "until Messiah comes." No "until the resurrection." Forever.
God doesn't use words carelessly. When He says perpetual, He means perpetual. When He says forever, He means forever. The same word (olam) describes God's own existence (Psalm 90:2). If "perpetual" doesn't mean permanent for the Sabbath, it doesn't mean permanent for God either.
Some object that other laws also use "perpetual" language, such as the anointing oil in Exodus 30:31. The distinction is that ceremonial elements were types pointing forward to Christ; when the antitype arrived, the type ceased. The Sabbath points backward to Creation, not forward to fulfillment. See Appendix B, Objection 9 for detailed analysis.
And if the Sabbath was abolished at the cross, why does it exist in eternity?
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD."
In the new heavens and new earth, where sin is destroyed, death abolished, and everything made new, it is prophesied: "from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship."
The Sabbath exists in eternity. Before Creation, at Creation, throughout history, and into the new earth.
How can something be a "shadow" that pointed to Christ if it continues forever after Christ's work is complete? Shadows don't persist after the reality arrives. But the Sabbath does because it was never a shadow; it is the eternal memorial of the Creator.
The Sabbath wasn't abolished. It was stolen.
Response 4: "We worship on Sunday in honor of the resurrection."
This is the most common argument, so let's examine it thoroughly.
Yes, Jesus rose on the first day of the week. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all record it. Nobody disputes that.
What they don't record: a single command to change the day of worship.
If the resurrection was supposed to replace the Sabbath with Sunday worship, Scripture would record it. Jesus would have announced the change during His 40 days of post-resurrection teaching (Acts 1:3). The apostles would have commanded it in their letters. Paul would have mentioned it when addressing church practices. The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) would have included it when giving instructions to Gentile converts.
None of that exists. Not one verse.
What about the verses they cite?
Acts 20:7 "Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them." One meeting. Paul was leaving the next day, so he preached until midnight. This was a farewell service, not a weekly pattern. The next verse shows Paul walking nearly 20 miles on Sunday; hardly treating it as a day of rest.
1 Corinthians 16:2 "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store." "Lay by him in store" means that's at home, not at church. The Greek (par' heauto) means "by oneself." Paul was telling them to set aside famine relief money at home so it would be ready when he arrived. A one-time collection, not a worship service.
If Paul believed the resurrection changed the day of worship, why did he keep worshiping on Saturday for the rest of his life? Was he confused about his own theology?
We commemorate events on their date, not their day of the week. Passover (the feast commemorating Israel's deliverance from Egypt) is kept on the 14th of Nisan, regardless of which day of the week it falls on. If resurrection logic applied, Passover would be kept on whatever day of the week the original exodus happened. But it's not. We keep the date.
The resurrection happened on a specific date in history. It doesn't follow that every Sunday becomes a weekly resurrection celebration, especially since God already designated a weekly holy day and never rescinded it.
Who authorized the change? None of them: not Jesus, not the apostles, not Scripture.
The Catholic Church authorized it. And the Catholic Church admits it.
Response 5: "If you keep the Sabbath, you have to keep circumcision and all the Jewish laws."
This is the "package deal" argument: that the Sabbath is part of Mosaic ceremonial law, so keeping it requires keeping circumcision, dietary laws, feast days, and animal sacrifices.
God Himself answered this objection with the Tabernacle's design.
The Ten Commandments were written by God's finger on stone and placed inside the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 31:18, 40:20). The ceremonial laws (including circumcision, feast regulations, and sacrificial ordinances) were written by Moses in a book and placed beside the Ark (Deuteronomy 31:26).
The same Tabernacle held them in different locations, reflecting different categories.
The moral law (inside the Ark) defines sin for all humanity: "by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20). The ceremonial law (beside the Ark) pointed forward to Christ's sacrifice and was fulfilled when He said "It is finished" (John 19:30).
If the Sabbath were ceremonial, God would have placed it with circumcision: outside the Ark. Instead, He positioned it with "Thou shalt not murder", and "Thou shalt not commit adultery": inside the Ark, in His presence.
The "package deal" argument collapses the distinction God architecturally established. Paul could tell Gentiles they didn't need circumcision (Galatians 5:6) while maintaining that the law still defines sin (Romans 7:7). These were always different categories. God said so with His furniture arrangement.
Where Do Other Laws Fit?
If the Sabbath is moral law because it was established at Creation (Genesis 2:2-3), what about other practices that also predate Moses?
Tithing: Pre-Mosaic, Affirmed by Christ. Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek 430 years before Sinai: "And he gave him tithes of all" (Genesis 14:20). Jacob continued the practice: "Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee" (Genesis 28:22). And Jesus affirmed tithing should continue: "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matthew 23:23). Tithing isn't ceremonial temple support; it predates the temple by centuries and reflects an eternal principle: acknowledging God as owner of all.
Dietary Distinctions: Pre-Mosaic, Prophesied to Continue. Noah knew the clean/unclean distinction 1,600 years before Moses: "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two" (Genesis 7:2). Peter still hadn't eaten unclean food 25+ years after the cross: "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean" (Acts 10:14). And Isaiah prophesies judgment on swine-eaters at Christ's return: "They that sanctify themselves...eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD" (Isaiah 66:17).
Feasts: Ceremonial Shadows, Fulfilled in Christ. Unlike Sabbath, tithing, and dietary laws, the seven annual feasts were instituted at Sinai (Leviticus 23), not before. They required temple sacrifices, Levitical priests, and pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Paul calls them "a shadow of things to come" (Colossians 2:17). The spring feasts found their fulfillment in Christ's first coming: Passover in His death (1 Corinthians 5:7), Firstfruits in His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20), Pentecost in the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4). We no longer sacrifice lambs; Christ is our Passover lamb. The ceremonial requirements ended at the cross, though understanding the feasts illuminates prophecy.
Feasts and prophecy explainer: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/feasts-and-prophecy
The Distinction Summarized: Moral law (Ten Commandments, inside the Ark) defines sin for all humanity, perpetual and written by God's finger. Pre-Mosaic principles (tithing, dietary) were established before Sinai, affirmed in the New Testament, and reflect God's eternal wisdom about stewardship and health. Ceremonial law (feasts, sacrifices, outside the Ark) pointed to Christ, fulfilled at the cross, no longer required as rituals.
Law types decoder: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/law-types-decoder
The Grace and Law Question
Seekers often stumble at one point: Paul writes that we're "not justified by the works of the law" (Galatians 2:16), yet Revelation describes the end-time saints as those who "keep the commandments of God" (Revelation 14:12). Both statements are Scripture. How do they fit together?
The answer lies in Paul's complete argument, not the fragments often cited. Follow the arc through Romans:
Romans 3:20: "By the law is the knowledge of sin." The law diagnoses the disease. It cannot cure it.
Romans 3:28: "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." No amount of commandment-keeping earns salvation. The debt is too vast; our righteousness too bankrupt.
Romans 6:1-2: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid." Paul immediately anticipates the abuse of grace. If works don't save us, should we stop trying? His answer is emphatic: God forbid.
Romans 6:14-15: "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid." "Not under the law" means not under its condemnation, but not released from its requirements. The grace that justifies also transforms.
Romans 8:4: "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The culmination: the Spirit doesn't abolish the law's righteousness but fulfills it in us. What we couldn't do through striving, the Spirit accomplishes through indwelling.
The sequence: One begins dead in sin. The law reveals the disease. Faith receives the cure. A new creation emerges. The Spirit writes the law on the heart. Obedience flows from transformation.
Paul addressed legalism: the attempt to earn what can only be received. Revelation describes the fruit of the saved: commandment-keeping as evidence of transformation, not means of earning. These aren't contradictions; they're different stages of the same journey.
And Paul's own practice proves he never abolished the Sabbath:
Acts 17:2: "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures."
Acts 18:4: "And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks."
If Paul believed the Sabbath was abolished, his "manner" (his established custom) contradicts his theology. But if he understood that grace enables rather than negates obedience, his practice makes perfect sense. He kept the Sabbath because the Spirit was fulfilling the law's righteousness in him.
The remnant doesn't keep commandments to be saved. They keep them because they are saved; and the evidence of saving faith is a transformed life where God's law is no longer external burden but internal delight.
The Denominations All Agree (on Sunday)
Survey Christianity. Over 2.3 billion people identifying as Christians:
The Catholic Church (1.3 billion members) observes Sunday worship. Eastern Orthodox (220 million) observes Sunday worship. Protestant denominations observe Sunday worship:
- Baptist (100+ million)
- Methodist (80+ million)
- Lutheran (75+ million)
- Presbyterian (50+ million)
- Anglican/Episcopal (85+ million)
- Pentecostal (280+ million)
- Non-denominational (millions)
Add them up. Roughly 2.3 billion Christians worshiping on Sunday.7 Pew Research Center, "The Global Religious Landscape," December 18, 2012. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/. Pew Research Center, "The Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population," July 11, 2013. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/. Pew Research estimates approximately 2.38 billion Christians globally as of 2023, with the vast majority (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant denominations) observing Sunday worship.
Biblical commands for Sunday worship? There are zero.
Now add the minority who keep Saturday:
- Seventh-day Adventists (~21 million): Saturday Sabbath
- Seventh Day Baptists (~50,000): Saturday Sabbath
- Church of God (Seventh Day) (~200,000): Saturday Sabbath
- Messianic Jews (hundreds of thousands): Saturday Sabbath
- Ethiopian Orthodox (50+ million): Saturday and Sunday (compromise)
The Sabbath-keepers exist. They're a tiny remnant compared to 2.3 billion Sunday-keepers.
But numbers don't determine truth.
Jesus said:
"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
Many go the broad way. Few find the narrow way.
Majority doesn't equal correctness. Jesus said it wouldn't.
What Jesus Kept
Let's see Jesus' practice:
"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read."
The phrase "as his custom was" indicates not occasional worship or convenient attendance but established custom. This was his regular pattern on the Sabbath day.
What day did Jesus worship on? He worshiped on Saturday.
What did Jesus teach about the law?
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
Heaven is still there. Earth is still here.
Not one jot or tittle has passed from the law.
Including "the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."
Jesus kept Saturday. He said He didn't come to destroy the law. He said not the smallest letter would pass until heaven and earth disappear.
And when Jesus prophesied about Jerusalem's destruction, an event that would happen 40 years after the cross, He said:
"But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day."
If the Sabbath was abolished at the cross, why would Jesus tell His disciples to pray about fleeing on it four decades later? He assumed they would still be keeping it. He expected Sabbath observance to continue long after His resurrection.
So when did Sunday become acceptable?
The Silence That Screams
What the New Testament does not contain:
- No verse saying "the Sabbath is now Sunday"
- No verse saying "worship on the first day instead of the seventh"
- No verse saying "the resurrection changed the Sabbath"
- No apostolic council decision to change the day
- No command from Jesus authorizing the change
- No rebuke of seventh-day Sabbath keepers
- No explanation for why God's written commandment no longer applies
The silence is deafening.
If God intended a change this massive (rewriting one of the Ten Commandments affecting billions of people), wouldn't He mention it?
If Sunday worship is God's will, why does the entire New Testament never command it?
If the seventh day no longer matters, why does Revelation identify the end-time remnant as those who "keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 12:17)?
The Test Is Mathematical
Return to the equation:
- Biblical commands for Sunday worship: 0
- Christians keeping Sunday: 2,000,000,000
- Biblical commands for seventh-day Sabbath: Multiple (Exodus 20:8-11, Leviticus 23:3, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Isaiah 58:13, etc.)
- Christians keeping seventh-day Sabbath: ~75-100 million (including Ethiopian Orthodox, Adventists, Messianic Jews, etc.)
The majority follows tradition with zero biblical support. The minority follows a commandment God wrote in stone.
The discrepancy is worth examining.
The Simplicity Test
Which reading requires fewer assumptions?
The Sabbath position rests on one fact: God wrote "the seventh day is the Sabbath" in stone, and the seventh day is Saturday.
The Sunday position requires multiple unproven claims: that the resurrection changed the worship day (nowhere stated in Scripture), that the church has authority to change God's law (a human assertion), and that God accepts the substitution (nowhere confirmed).
One reading takes God at His word. The other requires explaining why God wrote the wrong day, or why He changed His mind without telling anyone. God said "seventh day." The seventh day is Saturday. No verse reopens that case.
The Biblical Pattern from Creation to Revelation
The seventh-day Sabbath wasn't invented at Sinai for the Jews. It was established at Creation for all humanity.
"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
God rested on the seventh day. God blessed the seventh day. God sanctified (set apart as holy) the seventh day.
This happened at Creation. It was before the fall, before sin, before Jews existed, before Moses, and before the Ten Commandments were written in stone. The Sabbath is as old as the world itself.
Isaiah 56:6-7 prophesies Gentiles keeping Sabbath:
"Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer..."
Strangers, gentiles, and non-Jews who keep the Sabbath are welcomed to God's holy mountain.
Isaiah 66:22-23 describes the new earth, where Sabbath continues:
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD."
All flesh will worship every Sabbath in the new earth. The Sabbath spans from Creation (Genesis 2) to the new earth (Isaiah 66).
If God established the Sabbath at Creation and it continues in the new earth, when exactly did it stop mattering? Show me the verse that voids it for the 6,000 years in between.
The Apostles' Unbroken Practice
Let's trace the apostles' actual practice, not later church tradition:
Acts 13:42-44 - Gentiles request Sabbath preaching:
"And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath... And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God."
Note: The Gentiles specifically asked for the message "the next sabbath" (seven days away). If Paul taught Sunday worship, this was his perfect opportunity to say, "Come back tomorrow. We gather on Sunday now."
He didn't. They waited for the Sabbath.
Acts 16:13 - Paul seeks Sabbath worship place:
"And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither."
Paul's custom was seeking out Sabbath worship, even in cities without synagogues.
Acts 17:2 confirms "as his manner was," confirming Paul kept Sabbath as a pattern, not an exception.
Acts 18:4 - Paul preaches every Sabbath for 18 months:
"And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks."
Verse 11 adds: "And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them."
Eighteen months. That's approximately 78 Sabbaths. Paul had 78 opportunities to introduce Sunday worship to the Corinthian church. He didn't. He kept teaching on Sabbath.
If Sunday was the new Christian day of worship, Paul's silence is inexplicable. But if the seventh-day Sabbath remained God's commandment, his practice makes perfect sense.
The Question of "Lord's Day"
Some claim "the Lord's day" in Revelation 1:10 means Sunday. Let's examine that:
"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day..."
Which day is the Lord's day? Let God define it:
"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day..."
God calls the Sabbath "my holy day." The Sabbath belongs to the Lord.
"And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath."
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He's not Lord of Sunday; Scripture never makes that connection. But He explicitly claims lordship over the Sabbath.
So when John says he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day," which day has Scripture identified as the Lord's? The seventh-day Sabbath.
The Complete Comparison
Need the complete Sabbath-versus-Sunday comparison chart? See Appendix A.
Here is the summary:
| Seventh-Day Sabbath (Saturday) | Sunday Observance |
|---|---|
| ✓ Commanded by God in stone | ✗ Zero biblical commands |
| ✓ Kept by Jesus as "custom" | ✗ Never mentioned by Jesus as new day |
| ✓ Practiced by apostles regularly | ✗ Not taught by apostles |
| ✓ Spans Creation to new earth | ✗ Began 300 years after apostles |
| ✓ Based on "Thus saith the Lord" | ✗ Based on church tradition |
| ✓ Identifies remnant (Rev 14:12) | ✗ the Catholic Church's "mark of authority" |
What Does This Mean for You?
If you've been worshiping on Sunday your whole life, this chapter might feel unsettling. That's understandable. Nobody wants to discover they've been following tradition instead of Scripture.
The question isn't whether you knew. Most Christians have never examined this topic because no one told them there was anything to examine. The question is what you do now that you've seen the evidence.
God doesn't condemn honest ignorance. He works with sincere hearts. But once light comes, it brings responsibility. The Sabbath isn't about earning salvation; Christ alone saves. It's about what faithfulness looks like after salvation. It's about whether we follow "Thus saith the Lord" or "Thus saith the Church."
The comparison table above presents the facts. You can verify every Scripture reference. You can test every claim. The choice of how to respond belongs to you.
When Cardinal Gibbons says you won't find "a single line" commanding Sunday in the entire Bible, and the Roman Catholic Church openly admits they changed it by their own authority, the question of authority becomes inescapable.
The next chapter presents what the Church itself has to say.