An Open Letter to Christian Pastors and Theologians: A Call to Return to the Biblical Sabbath | DouglasHamp.com
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17).
Such is Doug Hamp's determination to put believers under the Mosaic Law, his seditious Judaizing went as far as sending an open letter to "Christian pastors and Theologians" in 2018 in a call to return to what he termed as "the biblical sabbath".
Seventh-day (Saturday) Sabbatarianism is a legalistic belief that the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:8-11 should be strictly observed. It is practiced by various sects such as Seventh-day Adventists, Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, Church of God (Seventh Day), the Hebrew Roots Movement and other Torah observant groups.
Hamp's Geiermann Subterfuge
Hamp:
"The Bible never changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day; the Catholic Church openly admits they changed it. '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."Geiermann referred to the Synod of Laodicea (AD 364), a minor convention in historical Christianity consisting of about thirty members from local churches in the Middle East:
Canon 29: "CHRISTIANS must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ." {1}
The Roman Catholic church are guilty of many heresies and perversions of the scriptures, but they cannot legitimately take credit for reinstituting the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. The practice of Sunday worship pre-dates the Synod of Laodicea and can be found in both the New Testament and the early Church Fathers.
Hamp: "Paul’s Acts 20:7 message took place in the evening of the first day of the week, which was Saturday evening from sundown until midnight (biblical days begin after sunset not at the Roman-established midnight). Nevertheless, even if his teaching had taken place Sunday evening, that would still not constitute a change in the Sabbath. Setting aside an offering on the first day (cf. I Cor 16:2) likewise would not constitute a change. The first day of the week, not Sabbath, was when they would handle money. John being in the Spirit on the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10) is not a change in the Sabbath; God declares His day is the Sabbath. 'Call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable.' (Isa 58:13) There simply is no New Testament directive to abandon the Sabbath. None."
In Judaism the days of the week are not named, they are simply referred to as the first day, second day, third day, etc. The first day of the week, Sunday (
Yom Rishon) begins after sundown on Saturday. Paul's message in Acts 20:7 therefore took place on the first day, i.e. the day after the Jewish Sabbath. The first day of the week is the Lord's Day (Revelation 1:10) i.e. the day of the Lord's resurrection. In the New Testament there is no evidence that the Jewish Sabbath was observed by Christians; rather all the evidence suggests that
the first day was reserved for worship, almsgiving, and the Lord's Supper. Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2 cf. John 20:19-26). Paul's practice was to reason with (evangelize) unconverted Jews and Greeks in the synagogue every Sabbath. (Acts 17:2; 18:4 cf. Acts 13:5,13-52, 16:13).
Apart from the above scriptural support, evidence that the early church worshipped on the first day of the week is overwhelming. (Deuteronomy 19:15).
The Didache (c. 50-120 AD)Chapter 14.
Christian Assembly on the Lord's Day. But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. {2}
The Epistle of Barnabus (c. 70-132 AD)
Barnabas 15:9: Wherefore also we keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which also Jesus rose from the dead, and having been manifested ascended into the heavens. {3}
Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 AD)
First Apology: CHAPTER LXVII -- WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRIS- TIANS.
And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. {4}
Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD)
(Letter to the Magnesians 8
Chapter IX.-Let Us Live with Christ.
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death-whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master-how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead. {5}
Tertullian (c. 200AD)
Chapter XIII.-- THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING THE SUN MET BY A RETORT.
Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. {6}
Didascalia Apostolorum (c. 225 AD)
Chapter XXVI
Cease therefore, beloved brethren, (p. 113) you who from among the People have believed, yet desire (still) to be tied with the bonds, and say that the Sabbath is prior to the first day of the week because that the Scripture has said: In six days did God make all things; and on the seventh day he finished all his works, and he sanctified it [Ex 20.11; Gen 2.2-3]..
But the Sabbath itself is counted even unto the Sabbath, and it becomes eight (days); thus an ogdoad is (reached), which is more than the Sabbath, even the first of the week.
Origen (229 AD)
Commentary on John Book II
Hence it is not possible that the rest after the Sabbath should have come into existence from the seventh of our God; on the contrary, it is our Saviour who, after the pattern of His own rest, caused us to be made in the likeness of His death, and hence also of His resurrection. {7}
Acts 20:7 Commentaries Clarke:
"Upon the first day of the week - What was called κυριακη, the Lord's day, the Christian Sabbath, in which they commemorated the resurrection of our Lord; and which, among all Christians, afterwards took the place of the Jewish Sabbath.. They who, professing the Christian religion, still prefer the Jewish Sabbath, have little to support them in the New Testament. How prone is man to affect to be wise above what is written, while he is, in almost every respect, below the teaching so plainly laid down in the Divine word. {8}
Alford: ἐν τῇ μιᾷ τ. σαββ.] We have here an intimation of the continuance of the practice, which seems to have begun immediately after the Resurrection (see John 20:26), of assembling on the first day of the week for religious purposes. (Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 67, p. 83, says, τῇ τοῦ ἡλίου λεγομένῃ ἡμέρᾳ πάντων κατὰ πόλεις ἢ ἀγροὺς μενόντων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνέλευσις γίνεται.) Perhaps the greatest proof of all, that this day was thus observed, may be found in the early (see 1Corinthians 16:2) and at length general prevalence, in the Gentile world, of the Jewish seven-day period as a division of time,—which was entirely foreign to Gentile habits. It can only have been introduced as following on the practice of especial honour paid to this day. But we find in the Christian Scriptures no trace of any sabbatical observance of this or any day: nay, in Romans 14:5 (where see note), Paul shews the untenableness of any such view under the Christian dispensation. The idea of the transference of the Jewish sabbath from the seventh day to the first was an invention of later times. {9}
Ellicott: "This and the counsel given in 1Corinthians 16:2, are distinct proofs that the Church had already begun to observe the weekly festival of the Resurrection in place of, or, where the disciples were Jews, in addition to, the weekly Sabbath." {10}
Benson: “The whole of the ceremonial law of Moses being abrogated by Christ, (Colossians 2:14,) Christians are under no obligation to observe any of the Jewish holydays, not even the seventh-day sabbath. Wherefore, if any teacher made the observance of the seventh day a necessary duty, the Colossians were to resist him. But though the brethren in the first age paid no regard to the Jewish seventh-day sabbath, they set apart the first day of the week for public worship, and for commemorating the death and resurrection of their Master, by eating his supper on that day; also for the private exercises of devotion. This they did, either by the precept or by the example of the apostles, and not by virtue of any injunction in the law of Moses. Besides, they did not sanctify the first day of the week in the Jewish manner, by a total abstinence from bodily labour of every kind. That practice was condemned by the council of Laodicea, as Judaizing.” {11}
If pastors and teachers have any wisdom whatsoever, they will reject Hamp's call to return to the "biblical sabbath" and follow the example of the scriptures and the early Church Fathers.
1. CHURCH FATHERS: Synod of Laodicea (4th Century) (newadvent.org.
2. Didache. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (translation Roberts-Donaldson). (earlychristianwritings.com)
