Where is the command to change the Sabbath?

[hobie]

A friend online who is not in the same church, had a interesting question that would be good to see what answer we find:

"We have Scripture telling us that, from the beginning, God set apart the seventh day. In Genesis 2:2–3 we are told:
By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
But God did not stop there. In the Old Testament He also declared specific Sabbaths, appointed times, and holy convocations for reasons He Himself specified in Scripture...

Some time before the fourth decade AD, Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

The one and only person who had been sent to earth as the Messiah and Savior had died and risen again.

As this surely has to be considered the most important event in human history, why did God not institute, at minimum, some kind of holy convocation for Christians ... the true believers in Christ ... to meet and celebrate what was done for us?"

What answer can be articulated to that?

 

[Webster]

There is no command in the Scriptures that changes the Sabbath from the seventh day (Saturday) to the firt day (Sunday).

There are biblical verses that Sunday keepers will use to justify it (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2, Revelation 1:10 and Colossians 2:16-17) but God's commandment to Moses and the Israelites given to them on Mt. Sinai, the 4th Commandment, still applies to us today. There's also the fact that the Catholic Church flat-out admits it changed the day of worship....quoting,

(Sabbath Truth: How the Sabbath Was Changed) In both Old and New Testament there is not a shadow of variation in the doctrine of the Sabbath. The seventh day, Saturday, is the only day ever designated by the term Sabbath in the entire Bible. Not only was Jesus a perfect example in observing the weekly seventh-day Sabbath, but all His disciples followed the same pattern after Jesus had gone back to heaven. Yet no intimation of any change of the day is made. The apostle Paul, who wrote pages of counsel about lesser issues of Jewish and Gentile conflicts, had not one word to say about any controversy over the day of worship. Circumcision, foods offered to idols, and other Jewish customs were readily challenged by early Gentile Christians in the church, but the weightier matter of weekly worship never was an issue. Why? For the simple reason that no change was made from the historic seventh day of Old Testament times, and from creation itself. Had there been a switch from the Sabbath to the first day of the week, you can be sure the controversy would have been more explosive than any other to those Jewish Christians.

History Gives Some Clues
If the change did not take place in the Scriptures or through the influence of the apostles, when and how did it happen? In order to understand this, we must understand what happened in that early church soon after the apostles passed off the stage of action. Paul had prophesied that apostasy would take place soon after his departure. He said there would be a falling away from the truth. One doesn’t have to read very far in early church history to see just how that prophecy was fulfilled. Gnosticism began to rise up under the influence of philosophers who sought to reconcile Christianity with Paganism. At the same time, a strong anti-Jewish sentiment became more widespread. Very speculative interpretations began to appear regarding some of the great doctrines of Christ and the apostles.

Historians have long agreed Constantine's conversion to Christianity was as much a political conversion as a religious one; he's also the one who first set the day of worship as Sunday. However....

Historical Accounts
Some of you may be greatly surprised by the explanation I’ve just made, and I’m not going to ask you to believe it blindly. I have before me a multitude of authorities to verify what has been said. Here are historians, Catholics and Protestants, speaking in harmony about what actually took place in the fourth century. After Constantine made the initial pronouncement and legal decree about the change, the Catholic Church reinforced that act in one church council after another. For this reason, many, many official statements from Catholic sources are made, claiming that the church made the change from Saturday to Sunday. But before I read those statements I shall refer to one from the Encyclopedia Britannica under the article, Sunday. Notice: “It was Constantine who first made a law for the proper observance of Sunday and who appointed that it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman empire.” Now you can check these statements in your own encyclopedias or go to the library and look into other historical sources.

Here is a statement from Dr. Gilbert Murray, M.A., D.Litt., LLD, FBA, Professor of Greek at Oxford University, who certainly had no ax to grind concerning Christian thought on the Sabbath question. He wrote: “Now since Mithras was the sun, the Unconquered, and the sun was the Royal Star, the religion looked for a king whom it could serve as a representative of Mithras upon earth. The Roman Emperor seemed to be clearly indicated as the true king. In sharp contrast to Christianity, Mithraism recognized Caesar as the bearer of divine grace. It had so much acceptance that it was able to impose on the Christian world its own sun-day in place of the Sabbath; its sun’s birthday, the 25th of December, as the birthday of Jesus.” History of Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge.

Looking a bit further into historical statements, Dr. William Frederick says: “The Gentiles were an idolatrous people who worshipped the sun, and Sunday was their most sacred day. Now in order to reach the people in this new field, it seems but natural as well as necessary to make Sunday the rest day of the church. At this time it was necessary for the church to either adopt the Gentile’s day or else have the Gentiles change their day. To change the Gentiles day would have been an offense and stumbling block to them. The church could naturally reach them better by keeping their day.” There it is, friends, a clear explanation by Dr. Frederick as to how this change happened. Another statement very parallel to this one is found in the North British Review.

But let’s move on to a statement from the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 153. “The church after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath or seventh-day of the week to the first, made the third commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord’s day.”

Catholicism Takes Credit for the Change
St. Peter's Square and BasilicaNow a quote from the Catholic Press newspaper in Sidney, Australia. “Sunday is a Catholic institution and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. From the beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.”

The Catholic Mirror of September 23, 1894, puts it this way: “The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”

To point up the claims we’re talking about, I want to read from two Catechisms. First, from the Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine by Reverend Peter Giermann. “Question: Which is the Sabbath day? Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day. Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church in the Council of Laodicea transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”

Second, from Reverend Steven Keenan’s Doctrinal Catechism we read this: “Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day; a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”

Then from Cardinal Gibbons’ book, The Question Box, p.179, “If the Bible is the only guide for the Christian, then the Seventh-day Adventist is right in observing Saturday with the Jew. Is it not strange that those who make the Bible their only teacher should inconsistently follow in this matter the tradition of the Catholic Church?”

One more statement taken from the book, The Faith of Millions, p. 473. “But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn’t it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible and not from the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Yes, of course, it is inconsistency but this change was made about fifteen centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text from the Bible. That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair.”

Like I said, the Roman Church flat out admits it changed the day of worship from Saturday and Sunday and they also mock Sunday-keeping Protestants for worshiping on the day they set.

 

[jswauto]

There is no command

✦ 1. Constantine or Hebrews 4 ✦​

Great historical material you shared — but none of it actually answers Hobie’s friend’s question, because the question is not “Who changed the Sabbath?” The question is: Why didn’t God institute a Christian holy convocation after the resurrection?
And the answer is simple:

Because the resurrection itself inaugurated a new kind of rest —​

the rest Hebrews 4 calls “God’s rest.”
The New Testament never commands Christians to keep the Mosaic Sabbath, and therefore it never commands Christians to “change” it. The Sabbath was the sign of the Old Covenant (Ex. 31:13–17). Christians are under the New Covenant, whose sign is the Spirit, not the Sabbath (Eph. 1:13–14).
The early church worshiped on the first day of the week long before Constantine — because:

• Christ rose on the first day
• Christ appeared to the disciples on the first day
• the Spirit descended on the first day (Pentecost = Sunday)
• the new creation began on the first day
• John calls it “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10)

This wasn’t a “change of Sabbath.” It was the birth of a new creation rhythm centered on the resurrection.
Hebrews 4 explains why: The Sabbath was a shadow, and Christ is the substance. The true rest is not a day — it is Jesus Himself.
So the real answer to Hobie’s friend is not found in Catholic councils or Constantine. It’s found in Hebrews: Christ fulfilled the Sabbath, and the resurrection inaugurated the Lord’s Day.

✦ 2. Hebrews 4 Breakdown ✦​

(The missing piece in every Sabbath debate)
Hebrews 4 teaches three layers of rest:

✦ 1. Creation Rest (Genesis 2)​

God rested because His work was finished. This is God’s rest — not a human command.

✦ 2. Mosaic Sabbath (Exodus 31)​

The Sabbath was the sign of the Old Covenant, given only to Israel. It was a shadow pointing forward (Col. 2:16–17).

✦ 3. Christ’s Rest (Hebrews 4)​

This is the true Sabbath rest:

• “There remains a Sabbath‑rest for the people of God.” (Heb. 4:9)
• “Whoever has entered God’s rest has rested from his works.” (Heb. 4:10)

This rest is:

• entered by faith, not by calendar
• grounded in Christ’s finished work, not creation week
• the fulfillment of the Sabbath shadow
• the New Covenant reality

Hebrews does not command Christians to keep the seventh day. Hebrews commands Christians to enter Christ’s rest.
This is why the New Testament never “changes” the Sabbath — it transcends it.

✦ 3. Chart: Sabbath vs Rest vs Lord’s Day ✦​

Category	Mosaic Sabbath	Christ’s Rest (Hebrews 4)	Lord’s Day (Sunday)
Origin	Creation week → Mosaic covenant	Christ’s finished work	Resurrection of Jesus
Covenant	Old Covenant sign (Ex. 31:13–17)	New Covenant reality	New Covenant worship pattern
Commanded?	Yes, for Israel	Yes, for all believers	No command, but universal apostolic practice
How Observed?	Ceasing from labor	Faith in Christ	Worship, fellowship, breaking bread
Purpose	Shadow of rest	Actual rest	Celebration of new creation
Binding on Christians?	No (Col. 2:16–17)	Yes — enter by faith	Yes — apostolic example, not law
Fulfillment	Christ	Christ	Christ’s resurrection

 

[jswauto]

holy convocation for Christians

The irony Hobie is that Hebrews 4 answers the Sabbath question far more directly than any historical source ever could. The issue isn’t Constantine, councils, Catholic doctrines, or catechisms — it’s covenant. The Sabbath was the sign of the Old Covenant; the Spirit is the sign of the New. The resurrection didn’t “change” the Sabbath because the New Covenant doesn’t have a Sabbath command. It has a Sabbath fulfillment — Christ Himself. And the early church didn’t invent Sunday worship; they simply gathered on Resurrection day: the day the new creation began.