Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

The question is, did Jesus or did someone else change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday and make of the first day of the week the Christian Sabbath? The New Testament gives us no clear statement as to what happened or how it happened. All we know is that already in New Testament times Christians celebrated worship on the first day of the week and that they called it “the Lord’s Day” (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10). It is hard to imagine how any Jew would tamper with something so sacred as the Sabbath. Certainly the disciples would never have done it on their own. One can only imagine Jesus himself doing it, and then only if he had a profound sense of his having divine authority. Could we possibly imagine that Lord’s Day worship was something that gradually evolved because someone thought it was a meaningful idea and after a while it gradually caught on? Never! The Sabbath had been established by divine authority, and only by divine authority could it have been changed. The old Sabbath would only come to an end when the anointed Son of God brought in the final Sabbath of the last day, the day of the Lord. If the first Christians worshiped on the Lord’s Day, it was because they believed that Jesus, by his resurrection, had brought in the final age.