WHY SUNDAY is CHRISTIAN

Almost 150 reasons from the Bible why Sunday is Christian -- a Super-
Quick Summary

Every pastor needs a copy.

Every Christian needs to know.
Every Sunday should be a joy.

This is the Overview script for a topic in the free commentary available at
http://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary
It is a mere summary of many ideas, and needs the full S&S commentary to
supply the back-up details.
Before saying 'That point is not correct; this statement is in error', read the back-
up details to each point in the full commentary.
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Summary: Many fallacies surround Sunday. Some people think that the Catholic
church simply 'chose' Sunday, and that there is no Biblical evidence for Sunday
gatherings of Christians. I give over a 100 reasons why that is false. Others regard
Sunday as a mere second-best imitation of Saturday Sabbath and so think of
Sunday as a 'Christian Sabbath' and as somehow illegitimate. This overview
merely touches on those lies, but the full commentary explores legalism,
cultishness and doctrinal error in detail. If Christians understood the Biblical
basis for Sunday as the true holy day, the divinely chosen day of the everlasting
covenant, the day more holy than Saturday, church attendance might re-become
imporant and for better reasons.

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15 Happy Birthdays on Sunday!

•You go to bed on Saturday night, and you can say to yourself "tonight, the Light
of the World will be born".
•Then you wake up Sunday morning and you can say "Happy birthday, God's
firstborn son, the Light of the World, born on the first day of the week of
creation!"
•You can then look around, in the new-born light, and say "Happy birthday
creation! You were brought to light on the first Sunday!"
•You can look up and say "Happy birthday Christ, you were the Alpha at day
one,
•and you will be the Omega on day eight, a Sunday".
•"Happy birthday, new creation, you'll be born on day eight, a Sunday".
•And then you can also say "Happy birthday church!" -- The spirit-filled
church was thrice born on a Sunday -- first when the disciples received the
spirit breathed on them,
•and when the Great commission was given on a Sunday, with authority and
signs to go with it.
•and then when the spirit was poured out on Pentecost Sunday,
•"Happy birthday, all you in the first resurrection, going to be born into the
new life on a Sunday".
•"Happy birthday, all who are to be in the second resurrection, also born into
glory on a Sunday!"
•"Happy Birthday Jesus" "Today I have begotten thee as My Son in whom I
am well pleased.
•"Happy birthday Jesus, raised on a Sunday to new earthly life",
•"Happy birthday Jesus, ascended to the throne, reborn into glory into new
heavenly life, on a Sunday".
•"Sunday was your Victory Day" -- not just raised from death to die again, but
exalted as Conqueror over Death, never again subject to Death.

What a glorious feeling of newness, new life, happiness and celebration!

Yes, Sunday is a birthday celebration, a dozen birthday celebrations rolled into

one; a time for rejoicing in creation, in re-creation, in new birth, and in victory; in
spirit and in resurrection.

Resurrection

More than one Christian resurrection happened on a Sunday, apart from Jesus
•Eutychus
•and John.

Baptism

More than one baptism occurred on a Sunday

•Lydia
•and the Philippian jailer

Ascension

More than one ascension occurred on a Sunday

•Jesus' ascension
•Our ascension

Sunday, the Day of the Spirit

The Christians were there ready-gathered for Pentecost day -- that was a
Sunday, because the Old Testament makes it clear that Pentecost was 'the day
after the sabbath'.
•Sunday soon gets tied up with Pentecost Day spiritual gifts, and Christian
 gathering Day
•Then there are several references where Pentecost and church meeting
occurred on the same page
•Acts 20
•1 Cor. 16
•or where the practice of the spiritual gifts and (Sunday) church meetings
are treated together
•1 Cor 14
•Revelation 1 -- 'Revelation' is a gift at work
-- It is as if Sunday was set aside as a day to practice the spiritual gifts, to
remember the first passover Sunday, to keep the gifts alive.

Sunday has had multi-facetted significance from the earliest times.

Counting

I have tried to count each reason separately, since one incident might illustrate
several reasons.

•Counting to 1, 8, 15, 22, 43, 50, 500, 1000. These are all multiples of Sunday,
and important in the Bible.
•Day 1 is all about a New Beginning
•Day 8 is all about a new beginning, after one whole old week.
•Day 15 is the beginning of the third week of the month, and this is marked by the
Full Moon.
•The New Domestic Year on day 22
•Day 22 was a High Sabbath at Atonement
•Day 43 after 6 weeks of uncleanness
•Month 43
•Year 43
•50 days and 50 years are alike
•Day 50 is the day after 7 sevens
•Year 500 is 'Seventy Sevens'
•The Millennium is 20 Jubilees

Logic

Here are a few logical arguments to show that Sunday is the Christian Day...
•We hear a great deal in the Bible about the first day of the week
•No Christian significance is given to the seventh day,
•The majority of gospel references to sabbath are of Jesus breaking it
•and no other day of the week gets any airplay.
•Early church history, as early as the first century, is full of references to the
Christian Sunday,
•but not of Saturday-keeping.
•Sunday was called 'the Lord's day' in very early church history,
•like in Revelation 1,
•probably because it was the day on which the Christians gathered to eat 'the
Lord's supper'.
•The only two times the New Testament uses that adjective 'Lord's', are those
two names -- the Lord's Day, and the Lord's Supper.

Passover

Passover required a Lamb or kid separated from the flock

•The Sunday after Passover, was Christ's Salvation from Death just as the
Israelites were saved from Death at Passover.

Harvest Festivals and Imagery

Sunday is also a day of first-crops & first-fruits, and then full harvest ingathering.
•That's like day 1 and then day 8 of creation.

Firstfruits is a harvest festival, marking the early first-fruits.

•Passover Sunday was Christ's Salvation from Death

•Passover was Peter's Salvation Sunday, too
•The Old Testament, says to present 'the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest...
on the morrow after the sabbath'
•The term 'first fruits' in the New Testament is tied-in to the 'first-day' through
resurrection.
•1Co 15:20 But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the firstfruits
of them that are asleep.
•Rev 14:1-4 And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on the mount Zion,
and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand...the firstfruits
unto God and unto the Lamb.
•Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection

•Christ was the First-born from the dead

Pentecost Firstfruits

•Pentecost followed Passover (the first of the grain harvest), after 50 days, and
represented the first of the fruit harvest
•It was always a Sunday in the time of Christ, and the disciples were 'gathered
together' on Pentecost Sunday.
•It marks the first mass evangelism by the apostles. Three thousand souls were
'reaped' that first day of the Christian Church.
Tabernacles Full Harvest Ingathering

•The Old Testament Feast of Ingathering at Tabernacles has an eighth day, a

high Sabbath, the most holy day after a lesser sabbath.
•The gift of the Holy Spirit was announced on the great day of the feast of
tabernacles, the eighth day.
•It is like a full harvest to follow the firstfruits
Rev 20:5-6 The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be
finished.
•Ingathering reminds us of our resurrection day when 'we will be gathered
together unto him'. 'Harvest', prophesies resurrection.
•Angels gather us together
A Fellowship Meal Gathering Later

Cleansing Days

Sunday is also the time of literally 'clean' new starts. By comparison, it makes
Saturday look 'unclean'.
•In the Old Testament, it was quite common to set aside a full seven-days, a week
of uncleanness, before being declared clean for day 8 -- a whole new start.
•The temple had a seven-day cleansing period;
•so did houses with mildew;
•people with leprosy
•or from blood
•or with sores;
•Nazirites under vow;
•and even Miriam,
•as if God had spat in her face.
•It's even in the New Testament, where the fulfilment of a vow followed a week
of purification.
•There are similar cleansing periods after the birth of a child,
•and this theme is taken up in the New Testament, when Luke mentions a 40 day
period after the resurrection of Christ, before his ascension. Luke draws
attention to that Old Testament cleansing period after the birth of a son.
•In Revelation the birth of the son who is to rule is described in terms of his
being raised to the throne of God. It therefore describes the resurrection and
ascension of Christ (after a 40 day period) rather than the birth of the baby
Jesus.

Circumcision

•The eighth Day circumcision, a cleansing ceremony after 7 days of being

uncircumcised,
•is replaced by a heart circumcision, the spirit-cleansing.
•You can also argue that the circumcisions of Isaac,
•John the Baptist
•and Jesus fell on the eigth day of important feasts. These are pivotal figures in
the New Covenant of righteousness by heart circumcision.
•The seven days of unleavened bread, cleansing the old yeast from the
household, gives way to the eighth day of a 'brand-new lump'
•-- the Christian life.

Transfiguration

•The day of transfiguration was an eighth day.

•Our transfiguration will take place on our ascension day, presented clean and
spotless as a bride.

Since the New Testament refers to and fulfils the Old Testament rituals of
cleansing in such ways, and just as we know that all important events are
timetabled according to the feasts of Israel, so we can deduce that Sunday is
meant to be a clean start for everyone, a great high day of ceremonial importance,
of cleansing and newness.

High Sabbath

Sunday was already highly honoured in the Old Testament. Indeed, a feast
Sunday which followed an ordinary sabbath was called a high sabbath, an
especially holy day,
•like the 8th day of tabernacles, which had started with a sabbath, and was a
Sabbath to follow a sabbath, a 'great' Sabbath.
•like the Pentecost Sunday, the 50th day after 7 counted off weeks. You get a
high Sunday sabbath, immediately after an ordinary sabbath.
•You get the same Old Testament theme with the Jubilee announcement, the
gospel good news of 'the year of God's favour'. It was the year after the
previous 49 years. The so-called seven 'weeks (or sabbaths) of years' were
building up to the one most important year in most people' s lifetime -- it is by
analogy, the Sunday following the seventh Saturday, and was a further
sabbath year to follow an ordinary sabbath year.
•In fact the Christian era itself, began when Christ said 'the Jubilee
announcement is being fulfilled as I speak',
•A Second-Advent Jubilee is hinted at in prophecy.

'Today'

•The first advent Jubilee is described under the term 'Today' -- "today, if you
hear his voice do not harden your hearts",
•"my beloved son, today I have begotten you",
•"this is the day which the Lord has made",
•"This is the day of salvation",
•with "today" called "another day", appointed after the seventh day of creation
-- that is, a Sunday.
There were seven days of creation, and then the Scriptures speaks of another day
called "today", an eighth day, a Sunday, the Christian Sunday.

Healing Meetings

Sunday is also a day of healing.

•Christians began healing meetings as soon as the sabbath ended, very early
on in the Gospels. In the synagogue, the Jews were liable to forbid healing on
the sabbath, but the crowds crowded at Jesus' door immediately the sabbath
ended and he healed them all.
•This seems to be mentioned more than once in the Gospels -- about 6 extra
times.
•=Mar 1:32-33
•=Mat 12:15
•=Luk 13:10-14, 17
•=Joh 9:14, Joh 9:35
•=Mat 4:23
•=Mar 3:4-7, 10
•There was also a gathering 'on a one day' when Jesus healed a cripple.

Meeting on a Sunday

Sunday therefore became a day of meeting. It is quite simply untrue that Sunday
gathering was invented after the New Testament era.

You can't believe arguments that put the 'change' from Saturday to Sunday at a
late date, as if to lessen Sunday worship, when you have many witnesses in the
New Testament to Christian assembly on the first day of the week.

There was an official church declaration concerning Sunday much later in church
history, but that can't be relevant, and it concerned the question of whether or
not to rest on the Sunday. People who bring up that non-Biblical heresy, are
distracting us from the Bible, and from the relevant Biblical fact, that Christians
gathered on Sunday.

There are far more references to Christians gathering on a Sunday than you
realise.
•You probably know about the gathering on resurrection Sunday,
•but there is also another one a week later,
•and there was also the previous Sunday when according to law, the Passover
lamb must be separated, when his enemies decided he should certainly be
killed.
•Anointing Sunday, when Mary anointed Jesus' body for burial
•The Christians were there ready-gathered for Pentecost day -- that was a
Sunday, because the Old Testament makes it clear that it was 'the day after
the sabbath'.
•And there was a gathering on Ascension Sunday
•And don't forget the day we will be gathered unto him in the air -- A second
Biblical Christian Sunday gathering on an Ascension Sunday!
•There was the prayer meeting during a later passover, for instance,
•which was answered when Peter was released from prison, in a replay of
Jesus beating death and emerging from its dungeon, on a Sunday.
•They gathered on the first day, in Corinth.
•They gathered on the first day in Troas.

The Lord's Day

•Revelation 1
•The day of the Lord -- Our salvation

Contrast: We have already covered 4 contrasts

•Cleanness on the eighth day, after Uncleanness on a Sabbath

•High Holiness on Sunday, after lesser holiness on a Sabbath
•Health on Sunday, after Sickness on a Sabbath
•Resurrection on Sunday, after Death on a Sabbath

..but there are 3 more...

•Contrast: Celebration on Sunday with Tribulation on a Sabbath

•tribulation on the sabbath.
Again you can look to the Old Testament to see trouble predicted for a
Sabbath Day -- Because Israel had violated the sabbaths, God would
violate them on a sabbath, yet restore them as the dawn, the next day, a
Sunday.
•You can say on a Sunday, "Come, Lord Jesus, come!", because when on
resurrection day, Jesus returns to raise the dead, it is figuratively a
Sunday, the day following the tribulation on the sabbath.
•This is our salvation day, as earlier it was his.

• Contrast: Restoration and Rebuilding on Sunday with Destruction and Exile

on a Sabbath

• Contrast: Rest on Sunday with Labour on a Sabbath

•We look forward to the High Sabbath Rest yet to come
Tribulation and labour followed by resurrection new-life, is all birth-imagery, an
image of sudden change and maximal contrast.

So Sunday is birthday, is clean, is high, is holy, is Biblical and prophetic, is spirit,

is resurrection and is Christian.

The Distinct Day

•The Sunday was most especially distinctly non-Jewish -- like other non-
Jewish Christian practices, such as not using a Jewish head-veil, not
mourning the dead in Christ, not circumcising, not keeping the Law of Moses,
not condemning by the letter of the Law, not giving alms in public, not
praying in public, not sacrificing, not requiring the temple, not clinging to
Jerusalem, not excluding the Gentiles, not rejecting Jesus, not rejecting the
spirit.
•The Sunday was distinctly Christian,
God seemed to want a clear distinction, a new wine skin, a new piece of clothing,
including a distinctly Christian day.
•Sunday-keeping will again be an issue in the End-Times.

Now that was a super-quick overview of some (140) of the Biblical reasons for
why Christians meet on Sunday.

You don't have to celebrate Sunday as if it were a Jewish legal sabbath. It is not.
I am not wanting you to replace one legalism with a second legalism; but I want
to let you know why Sunday is special, and why it is Christian. I would be happy
to see you in church or out of church on a Sunday, or taking a day off, or not
taking a day off. But I do want you to enjoy Sundays. And, very importantly, I do
want to warn you against any cultish propaganda that Saturday was a proper
'Christian' day or that you 'certainly' 'must have' a day of rest, or that you 'must
attend church on Sundays'. The seventh day is certainly not the full story, either
in the Old Testament or in the New; and legalism is certainly not the Way of
Christ.

Of course you can expect some people always to be a killjoy -- they will argue,
they will quibble, they will say 'no that wasn't a Sunday' or 'it was actually a
Saturday' -- so I have given over 66 times the legal witnesses required to establish
the Biblical precedent for the Christian Sunday. By the time you quibble that
some appear to be double counted, and some depend upon others, and this
expert or that comes to a different conclusion, you will still be left with far more
than two or three completely reliable Biblical witnesses. And my question is 'Why
haven't these so-called experts told you this much already?' There are modern
Jews who have a vested interest in interpreting their feast days in an anti-
Christian manner; there are cults with a vested interest in interpreting Saturday
worship and commandment keeping into even the New Testament Scriptures;
and not even the church itself has a great record of specifying the religious
calendar (like Easter or Christmas) on the correct dates; so I want to give you
new arguments, which could at least stand alongside any other Biblical
interpretations.

For the full details, get hold of a copy of Smith and Smith Comparative Scripture
Commentaries. Download a copy for your pastor!