How was the Sabbath changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week?

The Sabbath in the Bible

Jesus, all the prophets and the disciples kept the seventh day Sabbath. The apostle Paul, who addressed lesser issues of Jewish and Gentile conflicts like circumcision, foods offered to idols, and other Jewish customs had nothing to say about the major issue of changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

So, if the change did not take place in the Scriptures, when and how did it take place? Paul had prophesied that a falling away from the truth would occur after his death (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4). And that’s exactly what happened. There were efforts to unite Christianity with Paganism and at the same time an anti-Jewish sentiment spread in that part of the world.

The Man of Sin 

About the beginnings of who changed the observance of the seventh day Sabbath to the first day of the week, Paul warned of an apostasy at his time that was working in the church. He wrote, “Don’t let anyone trick you in any way. That day will not come until people rise up against God. It will not come until the man of sin appears. He is a marked man. He is headed for ruin. He will oppose everything that is called God. He will oppose everything that is worshiped. He will give himself power over everything. He will set himself up in God’s temple. He will announce that he himself is God” (2 Thessalonians 2: 3,4).   

Paul was doubtless referring to the prophecy of Daniel 7:24, 25, regarding the “little horn” which was to come up out of Rome. This power was to “speak words against the Most High,”  and “wear out the saints of the Most High,” and “think to change the times and the law.”  In the early church, paganism crept into the church. After Paul’s death, his prophecy came to pass. There was a “falling away” from original purity of doctrine, and an induction of pagan principles and philosophies into the church.   

Constantine Enacted Sunday Observance

In A.D. 313, the Roman Emperor Constantine, a pagan sun worshiper, nominally accepted Christianity as a matter of political advantage to gain more power. He named himself Bishop of the Catholic Church and enacted the first civil law regarding Sunday observance in A.D. 321: 

“On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrate and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however, persons engaged in agricultural work may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain growing or for vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.”

– Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, vol. III, chap. 75. 

In A.D. 325, Pope Sylvester officially named Sunday “the Lord’s Day.” And in A.D. 338, Eusebius, the court bishop of Constantine, wrote, “All things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath (the seventh day of the week) we (Constantine, Eusebius, and other bishops) have transferred to the Lord’s Day (the first day of the week) as more appropriately belonging to it.”  

“The earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday is a constitution of Constantine in 321 A.D., enacting that all courts of justice, inhabitants of towns, and workshops were to be at rest on Sunday.”

Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. XXIII, p. 654

The Catholic Church Admits to Changing the Sabbath

“After Constantine made the legal decree about the change of the Sabbath, the Catholic Church confirmed his act in one church council after another. “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.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 153.

“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.” 

The Catholic Mirror of September 23, 1894.

The Catechism

“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.” 

The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine by Reverend Peter Giermann.

“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.” 

Reverend Steven Keenan’s Doctrinal Catechism.

Quotes From Catholic Literature

“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?” 

Cardinal Gibbons’ book, The Question Box, p.179.

“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.” 

Catholic Press newspaper in Sidney, Australia.

“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.” 

The Faith of Millions, p. 473.

Thus, Catholicism takes full responsibility for the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week.

The Council of Laodicea 

In A.D. 364, the church followed the dictates of Constantine, and at the council of Laodicea, passed a law requiring that Christians must “not Judaize by resting on Saturday.” God’s seventh day Sabbath, which was instituted by Him (Genesis 2:2,3; Exodus 20:8-11), was trampled by foot. And the pagan Sunday, “The Venerable Day of the Sun,” was honored by man in its place. Henceforth, it was espoused by the church, and supported, as it is in our day.   

The Catechism of the Council of Trent 

“The Church of God has thought it well to transfer the celebration and observance of the Sabbath to Sunday!” 

– p. 402, second revised edition (English), 1937. (First published in 1566). 

The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine 

The Catholic Church admits that it made the change of the Sabbath. We read: 

Q. Which is the Sabbath day? 

A. Saturday is the Sabbath day. 

Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? 

A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea, (AD 336) transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday…. 

Q. Why did the Catholic Church substitute Sunday for Saturday? 

A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday, because Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, and the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles on a Sunday. 

Q. By what authority did the Church substitute Sunday for Saturday? 

A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her! 

– Rev. Peter Geiermann, C.SS.R., (1946), p. 50. 

A Doctrinal Catechism 

Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? 

A. 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. 

– Rev. Stephen Keenan, (1851), p. 174.  

The Catholic Christian Instructed 

Q. Has the [Catholic] church power to make any alterations in the commandments of God? 

A. …Instead of the seventh day, and other festivals appointed by the old law, the church has prescribed the Sundays and holy days to be set apart for God’s worship; and these we are now obliged to keep in consequence of God’s commandment, instead of the ancient Sabbath. 

– The Catholic Christian Instructed in the Sacraments, Sacrifices, Ceremonies, and Observances of the Church By Way of Question and Answer, RT Rev. Dr. Challoner, p. 204. 

An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine 

Q. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days? 

A. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church. 

Q. How prove you that? 

A. Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest [of the feasts] by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power. 

– Rev. Henry Tuberville, D.D. (R.C.), (1833), p. 58. 

The Augsburg Confession 

“They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord’s day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appears; neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the ten commandments.” 

– Art. 28. 

Conclusion 

God warned in both the Old and New Testaments that a blasphemous power would “seek to change times and laws,” and the Catholic Church openly admits to doing that, even boasts about it. Does this not fulfill the prophecies of Daniel and Paul?   

For more on the Sabbath, check (Lessons 91-102): https://bibleask.org/bible-answers/