From Sabbath To Sunday – Who Changed it?
The Scripture says; Deu 5:12-14 “Guard the Sabbath day, to set it apart, as יהוה your Elohim commanded you. ‘Six days you labour, and shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of יהוה your Elohim. You do not do any work – you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant rest as you do.” We (Messiah Fellowship) have to decided to believe and obey The Truth as written in the Scriptures.
The following are quotes from Catholic writings and their officials regarding their perceived authority to change The 7th day Sabbath to Sunday. (You decide.)
“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (Saturday Sabbath to Sunday) was her act... And the act is a MARK of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things.” H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons.
“Sunday is our MARK of authority. . .the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact” Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1,1923.
The Catholic Mirror (a publication by Cardinal Gibbons) Sept. 2, 1893- “…the Redeemer, during His mortal life, never kept any other day than Saturday.”
The Catholic Mirror Sept. 9, 1893- “Nor can we imagine any one foolhardy enough to question the identity of Saturday with the Sabbath or seventh day, seeing that the people of Israel have been keeping the Saturday from the giving of the Law, A.M., 2514 to A.D. 1893 (to the present day)…”
The Catholic Mirror Sept.9, 1893- “We deem it necessary to be perfectly clear on this point….The Bible- the Old Testament- confirmed by the living tradition of weekly practice for 3383 years by the chosen people of God, teaches, then, with absolute certainty, that God had, Himself, named the day “to be kept holy to Him“- that the day was Saturday, and that any violation of that command was punishable with death.”
Martin J. Scott- Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927) “Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday …. Now the Church … instituted, by God’s authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday.“
John Laux- A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1 936) “Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days.”
(See article, “The Names of the Days of the week“)
Peter R. Kraemer- Catholic Church Extension Society (1975), Chicago, Illinois. “Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts:”1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.”2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws. “It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible.“
“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.” Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today (1868), p. 213
“Reasoned and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday Catholicism and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible. –James Cardinal Gibbons. Catholic mirror, December 23, 1893
“Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the Church ever did, happened in the first century. The holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. “The day of the Lord” was chosen, not from any direction noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church’s sense of its own power …. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become Seventh-day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy.” (Saint Catherine Church Sentinel, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995.)
“Sunday is a Catholic institution and its claim to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles …. From 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, Sydney, Australia, August, 1990.)
Question: How prove you that the church had power command feasts and holydays?
Answer: By the very fact of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and keep most other feasts commanded by the same church. (See article, “Christian Holi-Days“)
Question: Have any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals precept?
Answer: Had she not such power, she could not a done that in which all modern religionists agree with her;-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the way, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day of the week, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority. “-Stephen Keenan, a doctrinal catechism, p. 174
“It was the Catholic church by the authority of Jesus Christ, which has transferred this rest to Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Therefore the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the Catholic church.” – Mgr, Segur Plain Talk about Protestantism of today page 213 (See article, “6 Reasons Why The Roman / Latin “Jesus” Cannot be Messiah“)
“If protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church.” Albert Smith, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the cardinal in a letter of Feb. 10, 1920.
Protestants do not realize that by observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the Church, the Pope. -Our Sunday Visitor», 5 February 1950.)
“1. Is Saturday the 7th day according to the Bible and the 10 Commandments?
“I answer yes.
“2. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the 7th day, Saturday, for Sunday, the 1st day?
“I answer yes.
“3. Did Christ change the day?
“I answer no! Faithfully yours, “J. Cardinal Gibbons” Gibbons’ autograph letter.
“From this we may understand how great is the authority of the church in interpreting or explaining
to us the commandments of God- an authority which is acknowledged by the universal practice of the whole Christian world, even of those sects profess to take the holy Scriptures as their sole rule of faith, since they observe as the day of rest not the seventh day of the week demanded by the Bible, but the first day. Which we know is to be kept holy, only from the tradition and teaching of the Catholic church.” – Henry Gibson “Catechism Made Easy” No 2 ninth edition volume one pp. 341, 342 Authoritative quotations on the Sabbath and Sunday.
“Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday Catholicism and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible. -James Cardinal Gibbons. Catholic mirror, December 23, 1893
“The Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her Founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant, claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. -The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Aug. 14, 1942, p.4
No such law in the Bible “Nowhere in the bible do we find that Jesus or the apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is, the seventh day of the week, Saturday. Today, most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the [Roman] church outside the bible.” Catholic Virginian, Oct. 3, 1947
Two following quotes are from, Rome’s Challenge “Why do Protestants keep Sunday?”
“The Adventists are the only body of Christians with the Bible as their teacher, who could find no warrant in its pages for the change of day from the seventh to the first. Hence their appellation,” Seventh-day Adventists. “They’re cardinal principle consists in setting apart Saturday for the exclusive worship of God, in conformity with the positive command of God Himself, repeatedly reiterated in the sacred books of the Old and New testaments, literally kept by the children of Israel for thousands of years to this day, and endorsed by the teaching and practice of the Son of God while on earth.” -Rome’s Challenge, page two
“Is not yet too late for Protestants to redeem themselves. Will they do it?… will they indeed take the written word only, the Scripture alone, as their sole authority and their sole standard? Or will they still hold the indefensible, self contradictory, and suicidal doctrine and practice of following the authority of the Catholic church and wear the SIGN of her authority? Will they keep the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, according to Scripture? Or will they keep the Sunday according to the tradition of the Catholic church, -Rome’s challenge, page 31