Denominational Testimony
Author: Professor Walter J. Veith, PhD
Publish date:
Summary: Members of many Protestant denominations recognize that choosing Sunday as the day of rest is unBiblical.
 
This article is part of a series. We recommend that you first read: What is the Seventh-Day Sabbath?, Why Sunday?.
 

Members of many Protestant denominations recognize that Sunday is not the day of rest found in Scripture.

Anglican

Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism Volume 1: 334, 336:

And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh, but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day...The reasons why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the [Catholic) church has enjoined [ordered) it.

Rev. Lionel Beere, Church and People (September 1, 1947):

Many people think that Sunday is the Sabbath, but neither in the New Testament nor in the early church, is there anything to suggest that we have any right to transfer the observance of the seventh day of the week to the first. The Sabbath was and is Saturday and not Sunday.

Baptist

Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, sermon at Baptist Ministers' Convention (Saratoga, NY. August 20, 1893), as quoted in Charlene R. Fortsch, Daniel: Understanding the Dreams and Visions (British Columbia: Prophecy Song, 2006): 363:

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but the Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions...Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament—absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week...What a pity that it [Sunday] comes branded with the mark of paganism and christened with the name of the sun-god, then adopted and sanctified by the papal apostasy and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism.

Congregationalist

Robert William Dale, The Ten Commandments (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1884): 100-101:

It is quite clear that however rigidly or devoutly we spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath... The Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine Command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday ...There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday.

Dr. Lymen Abbot, Christian Union June 26, 1890):

The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament.

Disciples of Christ

Dr. D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle (January 23, 1890):

There's no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day "the Lord's Day."

Episcopalian

Bishop Seymour as quoted in Kevin Morgan, Sabbath Rest (TEACH Services, 2002): 13:

We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy catholic apostolic church.

Manual of Christian Doctrine: 127:

Is there any command in the New Testament to change the day of weekly rest from Saturday to Sunday? None.

Lutheran

Augustus Neander and Henry John Rose, The History of the Christian Religion and Church (New York: Stanford and Swords, 1848): 186:

The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.

The Sunday Problem (1923): 36, as quoted in Kevin Morgan, Sabbath Rest (TEACH Services, 2002): 45:

We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish [not exclusively Jewish, but given to all God's people] Sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first 3 centuries never confused one with the other.

Methodist

Amos Binney, The Methodist Book Concern (New York, 1902):

It is true there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from His own words, we see that He came for no such purpose.

Harris F. Rall, Christian Advocate (July 2, 1942): 26:

Take the matter of Sunday...there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day.

Presbyterian

Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments: 63, 65:

Into the rest of Sunday, no Divine Law enters ... The observance of Ash Wednesday, or Lent, stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday

Nathan L Rice et al., The Christian Sabbath (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1863): 60.

A change of the day to be observed, from the last day of the week to the first. There is no record, no express command, authorizing this change.

Southern Baptist

Joseph J. Taylor, The Sabbath Question (F.H. Revell Co., 1914): 14-17, 41:

The sacred name of the seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument...Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day or the week—that folly was left for later ages, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh.

Ahead to Boasts of the Roman Church about Sunday

Back to Constantine and the Sabbath

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