The seventh-day Sabbath, observed from Friday evening to Saturday evening, is an important part of the beliefs and practices of seventh-day churches. These churches emphasize biblical references such as the ancient Hebrew practice of beginning a day at sundown, and the Genesis creation narrative wherein an "evening and morning" established a day, predating the giving of the Ten Commandments (thus the command to "remember" the sabbath). They hold that the Old and New Testament show no variation in the doctrine of the Sabbath on the seventh day. Saturday, or the seventh day in the weekly cycle, is the only day in all of scripture designated using the term Sabbath. The seventh day of the week is recognized as Sabbath in many languages, calendars, and doctrines, including those of Catholic, Lutheran, and Orthodox churches.
It is still observed in modern Judaism in relation to Mosaic Law. In addition, Oriental Orthodox churches, and specifically the Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, are known to observe the Sabbath on Saturday, in addition to the Lord's Day on Sunday, an ancient Christian practice deriving from the Apostolic Constitutions.
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. On the other hand, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, as well as many Episcopalians, have historically espoused the view of first-day Sabbatarianism, describing the Sabbath as being transferred to the Lord's Day (Sunday), the first day of the week, merged with the day of Christ's resurrection, forming the Christian Sabbath.
"Seventh-day Sabbatarians" are Christians who seek to reestablish the practice of all early Christians who kept the Sabbath according to normal Jewish practice. They usually believe that all humanity is obliged to keep the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath, and that keeping all the commandments is a moral responsibility that honors, and shows love towards God as creator, sustainer, and redeemer. Christian seventh-day Sabbatarians hold beliefs similar to that tradition that the change of the sabbath was part of a Great Apostasy in the Christian faith. Some of these, most notably the Seventh-day Adventist Church, have traditionally held that the apostate church formed when the Bishop of Rome began to dominate the west and brought heathen corruption and allowed pagan idol worship and beliefs to come in, and formed the Roman Catholic Church, which teaches traditions over Scripture, and to rest from their work on Sunday, instead of Sabbath, which is not in keeping with Scripture.
The sabbath is one of the defining characteristics of seventh-day denominations, including Seventh Day Baptists, Sabbatarian Adventists (Seventh-day Adventists, Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, Church of God (Seventh Day) conferences, etc.), Sabbatarian Pentecostalists (Soldiers of the Cross Church, and others), Armstrongism (Church of God International (United States), House of Yahweh, Intercontinental Church of God, United Church of God, etc.), modern day Hebrew Roots movement, the Seventh-Day Evangelist Church, the True Jesus Church, among many others.
Biblical Sabbath
The sabbath was first described in the biblical account of the seventh day of creation. Observation and remembrance of the sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments (the fourth in the Eastern Orthodox and most Protestant traditions, the third in Roman Catholic and Lutheran traditions). Most people who observe the first-day or seventh-day sabbath regard it as having been instituted as a perpetual covenant: "Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant." () (see also , ) This rule also applies to strangers within their gates, a sign of respect for the day during which God rested after having completed creation in six days (, ).
History
Early church
In contrast to the majority of Christian denominations, Seventh Day churches see the adoption of Sunday as the Sabbath as a late development that would not have been recognised by the Early Church. Seventh Day Adventist theologian Samuele Bacchiocchi argued for a gradual transition from the Jewish observation of the Sabbath on Saturday to observation on a Sunday. His contention was that the change was due to pagan influence from the pagan converts, to social pressure against Judaism, and also to the decline of standards for the day. From Sabbath to Sunday (1977), He claims that the first day became called the "Lord's Day" as that was the name known as the sun-god Baal to the pagans so they were familiar with it and put forth by the leaders in Rome to gain converts and got picked up by the Christians in Rome to differentiate themselves from the Jews, who had rebelled, and the Sabbath. According to Justin Martyr (lived 100 to 165), Christians also worshiped on Sunday because it "possessed a certain mysterious import". Seventh-day Adventists point out the role played by either the Pope, or by Roman Emperor Constantine I in the transition from Sabbath to Sunday, with Constantine's law declaring that Sunday was a day of rest for those not involved in farming work. In Rich Robinson's 2014 book, Christ in the Sabbath, he writes that:
According to R. J. Bauckham, the post-apostolic church had diverse practices regarding the sabbath.
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. Emperor Constantine then enacted the first Sunday Laws, for "the venerable Day of the Sun" in 321 A.D. On March 7, 321, the Roman emperor Constantine I issued a decree making Sunday a day of rest from labor, stating:
Hutton Webster's book Rest Days states:
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 110. The Pseudo-Ignatian additions amplified this point by combining weekly observance of a spiritual seventh-day sabbath with the Lord's assembly. If Pseudo-Ignatius dates as early as 140, its admonition must be considered important evidence on 2nd-century sabbath and Lord's Day observance. According to classical sources, widespread seventh-day sabbath rest by gentile Christians was also the prevailing mode in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Ellen G. White (lived 1827-1915) states that ecumenical councils generally each pressed the sabbath down slightly lower and exalted Sunday correspondingly, 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". Bauckham also states some church authorities continued to oppose this as a judaizing tendency.
In the 4th century, Socrates Scholasticus (Church History, Book V) stated:
In the 5th century, Sozomen (Ecclesiastical History, Book VII), referencing Socrates Scholasticus, added to his description:
Middle Ages
The "Sabbath in Africa Study Group" (SIA), founded by Charles E. Bradford in 1991, holds that the sabbath has existed in Africa since the beginning of recorded history. Reviewed in 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. Emperor Zara Yaqob convened a synod at Tegulet in 1450 to discuss the sabbath question.
Sects, such as the Waldenses, retained sabbath observance in Europe during the Middle Ages. In Bohemia, as much as one quarter of the population kept seventh-day the sabbath in 1310. This practice continued until at least the 16th century, when Erasmus wrote about the practice.
The Unitarian Church condemned Sabbatarianism as innovation (forbidden by the Transylvanian law on religious toleration) in 1618. The last Sabbatarian congregation in Transylvania disappeared in the 19th century and the remaining Sabbatarians, who were known as "Somrei Sabat" (the Hungarian transliteration of the Hebrew words for "Sabbath observers") joined the existing Jewish communities, into which they were eventually absorbed. Sabbatarianism also expanded into Russia, where its adherents were called Subbotniks, and, from there, the movement expanded into other countries. Some of the Russian Subbotniks maintained a Christian identity doctrinally, while others formally converted to Judaism and assimilated within the Jewish communities of Russia. Some of the latter, however, who had become Jewish, although they and their descendants practiced Judaism and had not practiced Christianity for nearly two centuries, still retained a distinct identity as ethnic Russian converts to Judaism until later.
A small number of the anti-Trinitarian Socinian churches of Eastern Europe and the Netherlands adopted the seventh day as the day of worship and rest.
Reformation At the time of the Protestant Reformation some Anabaptists, such as Oswald Glaidt, argued that the seventh day should be observed as the sabbath and that Sunday sabbath was an invention of the Pope. Andreas Karlstadt defended the observance of the seventh day of the week. Martin Luther differed from him as he believed that Christians were free to observe any day of the week, provided it was uniform. His defense of the Sabbath, and others among the Anabaptists, caused him to be censured as a Jew and a heretic.
Seventh-day Sabbatarianism was revived in 17th-century England. Early advocates included the Elizabethan Seventh-Day Men, the Traskites (after John Traske, 1586–1636), Dorothy Traske, Hamlet Jackson, and Thomas Brabourne. 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. The book generated such a nuisance that the mayor of Salisbury, the city where Ockford lived, asked the president of Parliament for guidance on how to handle the work; a parliamentary committee determined that all copies should be burned without giving the opportunity for James Ockford to defend them. Only one copy has escaped, kept today in a library in Oxford. The majority of seventh-day Sabbatarians were part of the Seventh Day Baptist church and experienced harsh opposition from Anglican authorities and Puritans. The first Seventh Day Baptist church in the United States was established in Newport, Rhode Island in 1671.
Modern churches
Seventh Day Baptists
Seventh Day Baptists are Christian Baptists who observe seventh-day Sabbath, as a holy day to God. They understand that observance is as a sign of obedience in a covenant relationship with God and not as a condition of salvation. 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.
The first known Seventh Day Baptist Church was the Mill Yard Church established in London, where the first service took place in 1651, led by Peter Chamberlen. M.D. "the Third". The first records of church activities were destroyed in a fire; the second record book is in possession of the Seventh Day Baptist Historical Library and Archives, the local church continues its activities to this day. Immigration to the British colonies in North America also included Seventh Day Baptists, the couple Stephen and Anne Mumford were the first Seventh Day Baptists in the Americas and with five other Baptists who kept the Sabbath, establishing in 1672 the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in the Americas, located in Newport, expanding into other territories.