Is Sunday worship a sin and disobedience to God?
Is the worship accepted or not?
Sunday is not Sabbath.
Hold on for a long answer
THE SEVENTH DAY
In Exodus 20:8-11we read: ⁸”Remember the SABBATH DAY, to keep it HOLY. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall NOT DO ANY WORK, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. ¹¹For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY; therefore the Lord BLESSED the SABBATH DAY and made it HOLY.
HOLY is here translated from the Hebrew word qadash (kaw–dash’) which means in this case (piel) to set apart as sacred, consecrate, dedicate; to observe as holy, keep sacredb; to honour as sacred, hallow; to consecrate.
A day different (set apart, or separated) from the other days on which no work should be done.
THE FIRST DAY
It was on the first day of the week that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome discovered that the tomb was empty and Jesus was risen.
Mark 16:1-6 — ¹When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. ²Very early on the FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. ³They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” ⁴Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. ⁵Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. ⁶And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. HE HAS RISEN; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.
In the evening of that same day Jesus appeared to the disciples.
John 20:19 — So when it was evening on that day, THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
The believers at Troas came together on the first day of the week
Acts 20:6-7 — ⁶We sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas within five days; and there we stayed seven days. ⁷On THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight.
Apparently the Galatians and the Corinthians were also already used to come together on the first day of the week as we can read in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2: ¹Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. ²On THE FIRST DAY OF EVERY WEEK each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.
So we see that since the open tomb and Jesus resurrection was discovered on the first day of the week, the followers of the Christ were also meeting on the first day of the week.
WHERE DID THE SABBATH GO?
There can be no doubt that Christ, His disciples, and the first-century Christians kept the seventh-day Sabbath. Yet, today, most of the Christian professing world keep Sunday, the first day of the week.
We know that the early church was also meeting on Sunday, the first day of the week, but who abolished the sabbath?
The Christians during the apostolic era, from about 35 to 100 A.D., kept Sabbath on the designated seventh day of the week and also came together on the first day of the week (Sunday)
For the first 300 years of Christian history, when the Roman emperors regarded themselves as gods, Christianity became an “illegal religion,” and God’s people were scattered abroad
On that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and THEY WERE ALL SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE REGIONS of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. (Acts 8:1)
Judaism, however, was regarded at that time as “legal,” as long as they obeyed Roman laws. Thus, during the apostolic era, Christians found it convenient to let the Roman authorities think of them as Jews, which gained them legitimacy with the Roman government.
However, when the Jews rebelled against Rome, the Romans put down their rebellion by destroying Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and again in A.D. 135. Obviously, the Roman government’s suppression of the Jews made it increasingly uncomfortable for Christians to be thought of as Jewish.
At that time, Sunday was the rest day of the Roman Empire, whose religion was Mithraism, a form of sun worship. Since Sabbath observance is visible to others, some Christians in the early second century sought to distance themselves from Judaism by observing a different day, thus “blending in” to the society around them.
During the Empire-wide Christian persecutions under Nero, Maximin, Diocletian, and Galerius, Sabbath-keeping Christians were hunted down, tortured, and, for sport, often used for entertainment in the Colisseum.
CONSTANTINE MADE SUNDAY A CIVIL REST DAY
When Emperor Constantine I (a pagan sun-worshipper) came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made the first Sunday-keeping law.
His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7, A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)
The Sunday law was later 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. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 2 [Edinburgh, 1876] 316).
Cardinal Gibbons, in Faith of Our Fathers, 92nd ed., p. 89, freely admits, “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of the seventh day (sabbath), a day which we (the Catholic Church) never sanctified.”
Again, “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).
Most “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).
Further we read: “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [Sabbath to Sunday] was her act… And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things” (H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons).
And later again “Sunday is our mark of authority… the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact” (Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1, 1923)
So to answer the questions:
— Is Sunday worship a sin and disobedience to God?
No worshipping God can be done on any day of the week, and as we have seen the early church came together on the first day of the week (Sunday).
Worshipping on Sunday is therefore no disobedience, but not keeping the seventh day as a sabbath is!
Since the calendar was also changed, I would not know anymore what the seventh day really is. Some churches keep it on Saturday but that too is not correct, as the Jews before had a moon calendar that started again with the first day of the week and of the month every new moon.
So if on the old calendar, it became the first day of the month (that was in the same time also the first day of the week) the day before that could have been the 3rd day of the week. And because their month was 28 or 29 days this could change every month.
— Is the worship accepted or not?
True worship (in spirit and in truth) to God will always be accepted.
No matter the day of the week
— Sunday is not Sabbath.
This is correct the early church observed the Sabbath (as resting day) and came together to honor God on the first day of the week (Sunday).
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