Sabbath in seventh-day churches
The seventh day of the week is recognized as Sabbath in many languages, calendars, and doctrines, including those of Catholic,[1] Lutheran,[2] and Orthodox churches.
[4] Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant denominations observe the Lord's Day on Sunday and hold that the Saturday Sabbath is no longer binding for Christians.
[12] In Rich Robinson's 2014 book, Christ in the Sabbath, he writes that: "On March 3, 321, Constantine put into law a requirement that there be public rest from work on Sundays, except for those engaged in farming.
Emperor Aurelian began a new Sun cult in 274 A.D and pagan ordinances were instituted in order to transform the old Roman idolatry and the accession of Sun-worship.
Country people, however, may freely attend to the cultivation of the fields, because it frequently happens that no other days are better adapted for planting the grain in the furrows or the vines in trenches.
So that the advantage given by heavenly providence may not for the occasion of a short time perish.Hutton Webster's book Rest Days[17] states: "This legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of the Sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in the Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred calendar… What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with increasing stringency abstinence from labour on Sunday.
"Early Christian observance of both the spiritual seventh-day sabbath and a Lord's Day assembly is evidenced in a letter from Ignatius of Antioch to the Magnesians c.
[13][18] The Pseudo-Ignatian additions amplified this point by combining weekly observance of a spiritual seventh-day sabbath with the Lord's assembly.
[21][22] Ellen G. White (lived 1827-1915) states that ecumenical councils generally each pressed the sabbath down slightly lower and exalted Sunday correspondingly,[citation needed] and that the bishops eventually urged Constantine to syncretize the worship day in order to promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by pagans.
But "while many God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they still held the [seventh-day] Sabbath".
In the 5th century, Sozomen (Ecclesiastical History, Book VII), referencing Socrates Scholasticus, added to his description:[22]Assemblies are not held in all churches on the same time or manner.
[26][27] Taddesse Tamrat has argued that this practice predates Saint Ewostatewos's advocacy of observing both Saturday and Sunday as days of sabbath, which led to his eventual exile from Ethiopia around 1337.
Some of the Russian Subbotniks maintained a Christian identity doctrinally, while others formally converted to Judaism and assimilated within the Jewish communities of Russia.
In 1650, James Ockford published in London the book The Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment, Deformed by Popery, Reformed & Restored to its Primitive Purity, which was the first writings of a Baptist defending Sabbath observance.
[37] The majority of seventh-day Sabbatarians were part of the Seventh Day Baptist church and experienced harsh opposition from Anglican authorities and Puritans.
They adopt a covenant Baptist theology, based on the concept of regenerated society, conscious baptism of believers by immersion, congregational government and the scriptural basis of opinion and practice.
[41] Seventh-day Adventism grew out of the Millerite movement in the 1840s, and a few of its founders (Cyrus Farnsworth, Frederick Wheeler, a Methodist minister and Joseph Bates, a sea captain) were convinced in 1844-1845 of the importance of Sabbatarianism under the influence of Rachel Oakes Preston, a young Seventh Day Baptist laywoman living in Washington, New Hampshire and a published article in early 1845 on the topic (Hope of Israel) by Thomas M. Preble, pastor of the Free Will Baptist congregation in Nashua, New Hampshire.
[44] In places where the sun does not appear or does not set for several months, such as northern Scandinavia, the tendency is to regard an arbitrary time such as 6 p.m. as "sunset".
[43] Frederick Wheeler[45] began keeping the seventh day as the sabbath after personally studying the issue in March 1844 following a conversation with Rachel Preston, according to his later report.
Preble was the first Millerite to promote the sabbath in print form, through the February 28, 1845, issue of the Adventist Hope of Israel in Portland, Maine.
Between April 1848 and December 1850, 22 sabbath conferences in New York and New England allowed White, Bates, Edson, and Stephen Pierce to reach conclusions about doctrinal issues.
Bates, White, Harmon, Edson, Wheeler, and S. W. Rhodes led the promotion of the sabbath, partly through regular publications.
So Elder J. N. Andrews, the best scholar they then had, was requested to study the subject and present his conclusion to the conference held at Battle Creek, Mich., Nov. 16, 1855.
It was indeed a significant experience in God's leadings (1 BIO 324.8)J. N. Andrews was the first Adventist to write a book-length defense of the sabbath, first published in 1861.
[59] The pioneers of the church have traditionally taught that the seventh-day sabbath will be a test, leading to the sealing of God's people during the end times, though there is little consensus about how this will play out.
The church has clearly taught that there will be an international Sunday law enforced by a coalition of religious and secular authorities, and that all who do not observe it will be persecuted, imprisoned or martyred.
Among which the General Conference of the Church of God (7th Day), or simply CoG7, headquartered in Salem, West Virginia, is the best-known organization.
[43] Seventh-day Sabbatarianism was a key feature of the former Worldwide Church of God, founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, and its various descendant movements.
The True Jesus Church, established in Beijing, China, in 1917, supports the seventh-day sabbath, and it has approximately two million members worldwide.
