Love Under Fire

Sunday Observance

Sunday observance is a custom that originated with Rome, and she claims it as the sign of her authority. The spirit of the papacy—of following worldly customs and honoring human traditions above the commandments of God—is seeping into the Protestant churches and leading them to the same work of exalting Sunday that the papacy has done before them. LF 233.4

Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances backed by secular power were the steps by which the pagan festival reached its position of honor in the Christian world. The first legal effort to enforce Sunday observance was the law that Constantine enacted. Though it was basically a heathen statute, the emperor enforced it after he accepted the forms of Christianity. LF 233.5

Eusebius, a bishop who tried to gain the favor of princes and who was the special friend of Constantine, claimed that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. He offered no proof from Scripture. Eusebius himself unwittingly admits that this claim was false. “All things,” he says, “that it was our duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's Day.”² LF 233.6

As the papacy became established, it continued to exalt Sunday. For a time people still regarded the seventh day as the Sabbath, but steadily a change came in. Later the pope directed the parish priests to warn violators of Sunday that their behavior could bring some great calamity on themselves and their neighbors. LF 233.7

When the decrees of church councils were not enough, the church called on the secular authorities to issue a decree that would strike terror to the hearts of the people and force them to stop working on Sunday. A synod held in Rome reaffirmed all previous decisions and incorporated them into church law. The civil authorities in nearly all Christian countries enforced them.³ LF 234.1

Still the lack of scriptural authority for Sunday keeping was embarrassing. The people questioned the right of their teachers to set aside the declaration, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God,” in order to honor the day of the sun. To make up for the lack of Bible testimony, the church had to resort to other proofs. LF 234.2

About the close of the twelfth century, a zealous advocate of Sunday visited the churches of England. Faithful witnesses for the truth resisted him, and his efforts were so fruitless that he left the country for a time. When he returned, he brought with him a document that claimed to be from God Himself. It contained the needed command to observe Sunday, with awful threats to terrify the disobedient. This precious document, he claimed, had fallen from heaven and was found in Jerusalem on the altar of St. Simeon, in Golgotha. But in fact, the pope's palace at Rome was the source. In all ages, the papal hierarchy has regarded frauds and forgeries as acceptable. (See Appendix, note for page 27.) LF 234.3

But despite all efforts to establish Sunday sacredness, Catholics themselves publicly admitted the divine authority of the Sabbath. In the sixteenth century, a papal council declared: “Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and has been received and observed not only by the Jews, but by all others who claim to worship God, though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord's Day.”⁴ Those who were tampering with God's law were not ignorant of what they were doing. LF 234.4