The First Baptist Church of Granada Hills

            The Church is an institution.   And like all institutions it has a certain way of doing things.  For those who have attended a church for any length of time, many of its idiosyncrasies fade from awareness, hiding in plain sight.  And yet, every now and then, it’s appropriate and helpful to ask why a church does what it does.  Why do churches generally adorn their buildings with crosses?  Why do churches tend to arrange their seating facing forward towards a single point of focus?  Why do the prayers said in the midst of church services generally end with the words “… in Jesus’ name, amen”?

            One of the most widely received (and yet dimly recognized) hallmarks of the local church is its penchant for convening on Sunday morning.  There are, of course, congregations that meet on Wednesday and others that gather on Friday night, but by and large most Christians do their explicit, corporate worshipping on Sunday.  Why?  Why this day and not Saturday, the Sabbath indicated in the Old Testament, a day that was declared holy and on which the Jews of Jesus’ time gathered for services in the synagogues?

            To understand the reasons for Christianity’s preference for Sunday over the Sabbath (Saturday) one needs to have at least some understanding of the Sabbath in its Biblical context.  Originally, the Sabbath was largely intended to be a social institution, not a religious one.  The earliest references to the Sabbath (Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 16:23 & 20:8-11) indicate that it was to be a day of rest from work that was enjoyed by all people—from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor.  As such the Sabbath served as a leveler reminding the Israelites that even the most destitute of people possessed dignity and were worthy respect, and in this particular instance respect took the form of leisure time.

            On a seemingly unrelated point, prior to the year 586 B.C., the only divinely authorized religious center among the Israelites was the Temple in Jerusalem. It was at the Temple that people offered their sacrifices to God and where they tended to locate His presence in some vague sense.  Since there was only one Temple and many people desirous to avail themselves of its services, it operated all week long, even enjoying a special dispensation from the Lord allowing its priests to perform their religious duties on the day of rest (Matthew 12:5). 

            But when the bulk of the Hebrews were dragged away into exile in Babylon, they were separated from the Temple and thus could no longer offer their sacrifices.  As a result, a number of notable rabbis came to the conclusion that if one simply could not sacrifice animals to God, prayer and study of the Torah would have to suffice as a surrogate.  Thus, slowly, the synagogue system came into being and proliferated throughout the Jewish community in exile.  When the Babylonian exile ended and the Jews returned home, they brought the synagogue system with them, now placing it alongside the Temple as a part of their religious devotion.  And while the Temple once again operated throughout the week, the busyness of everyday life essentially ensured that large communities of believers would congregate at the synagogue when they had the time, that is, on the Sabbath.

            When in the fullness of time God sent His Son, Jesus, to live and die and live again for our salvation, Christ brought the Law to its proper conclusion: all the symbols and ideas which the Law conveyed to the Hebrews found their consummation in the person and work of Jesus.  As the Apostle Paul wrote, “No one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a new moon or a festival or a Sabbath day—things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17).  As such, the specific legal strictures of the Mosaic Law no longer had any authority over the people of God.  If a man was so inclined he could eat pork, wear garments of mixed fabrics, not be circumcised, and even exert himself on Saturday.  In fact, the Bible has some rather harsh words for those who felt obligated to obey the Old Testament Law as part and parcel of their devotion to God. (Galatians 3:10; 4:10-11)  As a result of this newfound freedom, the faithful properly understood that the necessity of Sabbath observance had been done away with and thus the honor given to Saturday among the Jewish people as both a day of rest and, ever since the Exile, a day of devotion began to fade within the Church. 

            In place of a rather wooden devotion to the Sabbath it seems that very early on Christians began to gather on Sunday morning as a way to commemorate Jesus’ victory over the grave which had take place on this day.  Paul spoke to a body of believers on Sunday in the book of Acts (20:7) and later he urged the Corinthian Christians to gather money for missions work on the first day of the week (again, Sunday), presumably within the context of a worship service.

            This policy of meeting for worship on Sunday in honor of the Lord’s resurrection continued beyond the Apostolic age, being found in the extra-biblical writings of early Christians.  Ignatius of Antioch wrote a series of letters at around AD 100 in which he stated, “those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death.” (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians [Shorter Version], Chapters 9)  This same idea is also found in a document entitled the Epistle of Barnabas (again, written at around AD 100) which declares, “we Christians keep the eighth day for joy, on which also Jesus arose from the dead” (15:9).  The “eighth day” here is no doubt the day after the seventh (Saturday) which would make it the first (Sunday) as this was the day on which Christ rose from the dead.

            That’s it; no devious plan of some half-converted Roman emperor, no diabolical scheme to separate the Church from the will of God, just faithful Christians choosing to remember Jesus’ triumph over death week after week.  This was the tradition handed down from the Apostles to the early Church and this is the tradition that the early Church has handed down to us.  So the next time you enter a church on Sunday, smile, for Jesus is risen!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.