The Best of Complements

If the early believers did not honor the seventh day Sabbath (as so many say), then it certainly matters very little what day believers gather together. But if they did, and if those gatherings were full of spiritual and prophetic meaning, then the Sabbath is just as important to New Covenant Israel as it was to Old. While it would be strange if it weren’t, given its importance in the Old Covenant scriptures (which is all the church had in the beginning), so many say it isn’t. And what they point to more than any other fact of history is the way the early church observed the first day of the week.

However, what if all these fine scholars have missed something very significant? What if the two days, the Sabbath and the First Day (Sunday), were not in competition for the affection and loyalty of the early believers? What if they actually complemented each other?

Today, Sunday certainly has the sanction of an enormous weight of tradition, but in the first centuries of the church it was something else, something very special. It was the complement of the Sabbath, fulfilling another need in the lives of individual churches and believers beyond the weekly Sabbath rest. The day of the Savior’s resurrection was both festive and instructive, a day clothed with vision of His eternal reign to come.

The Weight of History

To understand what we find in these ancient documents, we have to go further back, all the way back to when God called His people out of Egypt. At Mount Sinai, He gave them the Law that established them as a distinct and peculiar people. In that Law, the day itself did not begin at midnight, but at sundown — as one day was ending a new day was beginning.1 This is the basis of all reckonings of time in the New Covenant scriptures, too. Acts 20 records the famous breaking of bread in the city of Troas, where the unfortunate boy, Eutychus, fell out of the upper window sound asleep. The gathering began at sundown, immediately upon the end of the Sabbath. Remember, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week.

Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together. (Acts 20:7-8)

The “Teachings of the Twelve Apostles,” a document dating somewhere between 80 and 120 AD, taught this very thing:

But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.2

Not long after this, a new thing developed. Sometimes those in smaller communities would travel to a nearby larger community that could accommodate a “First Day Festival.” We know this from several accounts, the first by Ignatius, who died in 107 AD:

And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s day as a festival, the resurrection-day...3

The Epistle of Barnabas, written around 130 AD, emphasizes the joyful aspect of this festival — and the reason for it:

Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.4

The gathering of believers all around is seen in this quote from Justin, born about 110, and writing this about 150:

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits… Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly.5

Obviously, Sunday was not their day of rest, for if it were they would not travel so far to gather together in one place on that day. Sunday was a festival day after the Sabbath, which they also kept. In a story that happened just a few short years after this, the Hebrew reckoning of days is clearly part of the church’s understanding. In Smyrna, Polycarp was martyred, uttering his celebrated words before the Roman ruler of that place in 155 AD:

And when the proconsul pressed him, and said, “Swear, and I will release thee, revile Christ;” Polycarp said, “Eighty and six years have I served him, and in nothing hath he wronged me; and how, then, can I blaspheme my King, who saved me?”6

Immediately before this in the account of his final days, the author notes two key terms relating to the Sabbath: the “day of preparation” and the “great Sabbath.”

Having, therefore, with them the lad, on the day of the preparation, at the hour of dinner, there came out pursuers and horsemen, with their accustomed arms, as though going out against a thief.

And when he had finished his prayer, having made mention of all who had at any time come into contact with him, both small and great, noble and ignoble, and of the whole catholic church throughout the world, when the hour of his departure had come, having seated him on an ass, they led him into the city, it being the great Sabbath.6

These two terms are both found in the New Covenant. The day of preparation is the day before the Sabbath, when all is made ready so all can rest on that day. The great Sabbath specifies the Passover, just as in John’s gospel:

The Jews therefore, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. (John 19:31)

Tertullian again writes of festivals on the first day of the week in about 200 AD: