Chapter 2: The Commandment They Changed

The Missing Command

Over 2.3 billion Christians1 Pew Research Center, "The Global Religious Landscape," December 18, 2012, 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, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/07/18/geographic-distribution-of-christians/. 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 Commandment God Wrote in Stone

Ten Commandments. God wrote them with His own finger (Exodus 31:18), not through Moses, a prophet, or an angel.

Nine of them are obvious enough that virtually any culture recognizes them:

  1. No other gods before Me
  2. No graven images
  3. Don't take God's name in vain
  4. [This is the one everyone changed]
  5. Honor your father and mother
  6. Don't murder
  7. Don't commit adultery
  8. Don't steal
  9. Don't bear false witness
  10. 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."

Exodus 20:8-11

"The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."

Not the first day. Not any day you choose. Not the day your church traditionally observes. The seventh day.

Every Calendar on Earth Agrees

Open any calendar. English calendar. Spanish calendar. Russian calendar. Arabic calendar. Chinese calendar. Doesn't matter.

What's the seventh day of the week?

Saturday.

The word "Saturday" comes from "Saturn's day" in English, Other languages reveal something striking:

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 SƔbado, 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

Chronology deep dive on the unchanged week: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/week-unchanged

The Commandments They Restructured

But changing the day isn't all they did.

Daniel 7:25 prophesied a power would "think to change times and laws," 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.

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
1No other gods before meI am the Lord thy God
2No graven images[Omitted from list]
3Don't take God's name in vain#2: Don't take name in vain
4Remember the Sabbath (seventh day)#3: Keep holy "the Lord's Day"
5Honor father and mother#4: Honor father and mother
6Don't murder#5: Don't kill
7Don't commit adultery#6: Don't commit adultery
8Don't steal#7: Don't steal
9Don't bear false witness#8: Don't bear false witness
10Don'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 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..."

Exodus 20:4-6

Walk into any Catholic church. What do you see? Statues. Icons. Images. Before which people kneel, pray, and light candles.

The commandment forbidding this practice was buried.

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."

Exodus 20:17

One verse. One subject (coveting). One commandment.

The catechism splits it into two:

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."

Times changed: Sabbath moved from Saturday to Sunday. Laws changed: Second commandment buried, tenth commandment split.

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 really 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. Historical records confirm Thursday, October 4, 1582 was followed by Friday, October 15, 1582; the weekly cycle remained unbroken. Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar January 1918; Greece in March 1923. In each case, dates were skipped but the weekday sequence continued without interruption.

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.

The Jews have kept continuous, unbroken Sabbath observance for over three millennia. If Saturday were wrong, they'd have noticed by now.

The Question No One Can Answer

The challenge that shatters every defense:

Show me one verse, anywhere in Scripture, commanding Christians to worship on Sunday instead of Saturday.

Not a verse suggesting it might be nice. Not a verse where someone happened to meet on Sunday. Not a theological argument inferring it from silence.

A command. Like Exodus 20:8-11 is a command.

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:

"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."

Colossians 2:16-17

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."

Exodus 31:16-17

The Hebrew word is olam: eternal, everlasting, 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.

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."

Isaiah 66:22-23

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, you'd expect:

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 very 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.

Meanwhile, Paul's established custom was Sabbath worship (Acts 17:2).

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 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 Roman Catholic Church authorized it. And the Roman 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).

Same Tabernacle. Different locations. 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

But here's where seekers often stumble: 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: Dead in sin ā†’ Law reveals the disease ā†’ Faith receives the cure ā†’ New creation emerges ā†’ Spirit writes law on heart ā†’ 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:

Roman Catholic Church (1.3 billion members): Sunday worship Eastern Orthodox (220 million): Sunday worship Protestant denominations:

Add them up. Roughly 2.3 billion Christians worshiping on Sunday.4 Pew Research Center, "The Global Religious Landscape," December 18, 2012, 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, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/07/18/geographic-distribution-of-christians/. 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? 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."

Matthew 7:13-14

Many go the broad way. Few find the narrow way.

Majority doesn't equal correctness. It usually means deception is working.

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."

Luke 4:16

The phrase "as his custom was" indicates not occasional worship or convenient attendance but established custom. Regular pattern. The Sabbath day.

What day did Jesus worship 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."

Matthew 5:17-18

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."

Matthew 24:20

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.

Which group is in deception?

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.

Genesis 2:2-3:

"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. Non-Jews. Keeping the Sabbath. 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. 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, "Don't wait a week. Come back tomorrow, we worship 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 - Paul's regular custom:

"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures."

The phrase "as his manner was" confirms this was his regular practice, his established custom. Paul kept Sabbath as a pattern.

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:

Revelation 1:10:

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day..."

Which day is the Lord's day? Let God define it:

Isaiah 58:13:

"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.

Mark 2:27-28:

"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.

Key Questions

The following questions demand an answer:

  1. Which day is the seventh day of the week?

Open a calendar. Count to seven. What day is it? If it's not Saturday, show me a calendar where it's something else.

  1. What does Exodus 20:8-11 command?

"The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God."

Seventh or first? Saturday or Sunday? Sabbath or Resurrection Day?

  1. Where did Jesus command the change?

He said the opposite: "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law" (Matthew 5:18).

  1. Where did the apostles teach Sunday as the new Sabbath?

They didn't. Paul kept Sabbath as his established custom throughout the book of Acts.

  1. If God established the Sabbath at Creation (Genesis 2:2-3) and it continues in the new earth (Isaiah 66:22-23), when exactly did it become optional?

The Sabbath spans from Creation to eternity. Show me the biblical verse that voids it for the 6,000 years of human history in between. If you can't find that verse, you've just discovered the Sabbath never changed.

  1. If 2.3 billion people can be wrong about this, what else are they wrong about?

Because if Sunday has zero biblical support, and 2.3 billion Christians do it anyway, what does that say about the reliability of mainstream Christianity?

The math is simple. The question is whether you're willing to follow it.

Questions to Answer

If the commandment says "the seventh day" and every calendar shows Saturday as the seventh day, how can Sunday be the Sabbath?

When God wrote with His own finger "the seventh day is the Sabbath," did He mean the sixth day or the first day? If words have meaning, Saturday isn't negotiable.

What is 2,000 years of tradition worth if it contradicts God's written commandment?

Jesus kept Saturday. Paul kept Saturday. The apostles kept Saturday. When did it become acceptable to change what God wrote in stone?

When God said "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God," did He include a footnote authorizing His church to change it later?

Read Exodus 20:8-11 again. Find the permission to transfer it to Sunday. How many times must you read it before you admit it's not there?

We should ask ourselves how much evidence is required before we test the seventh day for ourselves.

One Saturday. That's all it takes to discover whether God blesses obedience to what He actually commanded versus what 2.3 billion people assume He meant.

If Paul wrote "let no man therefore judge you...in respect of the sabbath days" in Colossians 2:16, doesn't that prove the Sabbath is optional?

Read the full context. Paul lists "holyday, new moon, sabbath days": the exact sequence describing ceremonial observances in 1 Chronicles 23:31, 2 Chronicles 2:4, and Hosea 2:11. These ceremonial sabbaths pointed forward to Christ. The weekly Creation Sabbath points backward to Creation (an event already completed, not a shadow awaiting fulfillment). Greek lexicons confirm sabbaton can mean ceremonial sabbaths or the weekly Sabbath; context determines meaning. For the full lexical breakdown, see Appendix B.

The Complete Comparison

Need the complete Sabbath-versus-Sunday comparison chart? See Appendix A.

The summary:

Seventh-Day Sabbath (Saturday)Sunday Observance
āœ“ Commanded by God in stoneāœ— Zero biblical commands
āœ“ Kept by Jesus as "custom"āœ— Never mentioned by Jesus as new day
āœ“ Practiced by apostles regularlyāœ— Not taught by apostles
āœ“ Spans Creation to new earthāœ— Began 300 years after apostles
āœ“ Based on "Thus saith the Lord"āœ— Based on church tradition
āœ“ Identifies remnant (Rev 14:12)āœ— the Roman Catholic Church's "mark of authority"

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. Whose authority are you following?

Now let's see what the Roman Catholic Church has to say.