THURSDAY IS THE LORD’S DAY TOO!
Cecil Hook

Although the first day of the week became a special day for assemblies in the early churches, it was not in response to a command or a binding example. Our inclination toward legalism has led us to try to bind it as a special day to be given to God. We have demanded certain activities on that day and limited their practice to it. This conviction is based upon supposed inferences.

In pre-Christian times in the Roman Empire, kuriakos, (the lord’s) signified imperial or belonging to the lord, the emperor. As the empire became Christian, it is not surprising that they would modify belonging to the lord to relate to Christ as a part of their protest against Caesar-worship.

As time went by, many of the rules of the Sabbath were transferred to the first day of the week, but this was rejected in the Reformation by Luther and Calvin. Calvin even proposed to adopt Thursday in the place of Sunday. (See International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 1919-20)

May we rightly consider Thursday as the Lord’s day? Yes, Thursday is the Lord’s day!

At the end of the persecutions in 325 A.D., because the first day of the week was so special to the Christians, Constantine, the Emperor, made it a holiday (holy day) throughout the empire. That accommodation has greatly influenced the Western world and has been a blessing to the disciples through succeeding centuries. The wide acceptance of that holiday has given it a respected authenticity. As with other accepted practices, efforts to authenticate it by the Scriptures came after the fact through scholasticism. The term “Lord’s day” is used only once in the Scriptures (Rev. 1:10), and in that instance it was not referring to the first day of the week but to an epoch.

There are two questions that we must ask and answer. First, do the Scriptures demand that the first day of the week be a sanctified day for disciples? Second, was the first day referred to in the Scriptures as the Lord’s day?

The first day of the week is mentioned in inspired church history only twice. That point should arouse enough suspicion about its sanctity to cause us to reexamine the matter. When Paul made his way to Troas, the disciples had a gathering and a meal with their honored guest (Acts 20). There is nothing to indicate that this was more than a special meeting or that it was, or became, a regular practice. It is recorded that they met to break bread. “To break bread” is translated from a Hebrew idiom which means “to partake of food” as in the eating of a meal. There is nothing that would indicate that this meal was the communion. An uncertain premise destroys the validity of any conclusion based upon it.

The other mention, 1 Cor. 16:1f., does not relate either to a ritual or to an assembling of disciples on that day.

Since no law concerning a certain day is given in the New Testament Scriptures, it is only by specious logic that men try to make an ordinance of it. Such is an effort to define laws so that we may be justified by keeping them.

Not only were the apostles silent about obliging us to keep certain days, they actually warned us about observing days. “You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain” (Gal. 4:10). Read the entire context of “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival ora new moon ora Sabbath” (Col. 2:16). Paul did not add, “Except for the Lord’s day which is the first day of the week.”

True apostolic teaching puts keeping of days and the eating of foods in the realm of indifference along with circumcision. Paul permits the weak brother to respect days but not to bind his scruple on others or condemn those who do not hold his conviction. He writes:

“One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:5f).

Paul does not permit either side of the day-keeping controversy to pass judgment on the other. It is the whole person, not certain days or hours, who is sanctified. Every day is raised to the highest plane making us no closer to God or more priestly at one time than another.

If the Lord’s day is a specific day, then we would have to say it is the Sabbath because of Jesus’ own claim, for he himself declared, “For the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath (Mt. 12:8).

There are numerous instances in the Bible where “the day of the Lord” is used to denote, not a specific day of the week, but his coming in judgment, wrath, vengeance, or retribution to offenders or in deliverance for his people. This term is translated into the possessive form in only one place in apostolic writings, making it “the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10) rather than “the day of the Lord.” They mean the same thing.

In the spirit, John the apostle was transported in vision into the future to see the things that would transpire in the epoch of “the Lord’s day” or “the day of the Lord.” This was not a day of the week, but it was the manifestation of the Lord against the Jewish nation who had rejected him, and it was the time of his vindication of his saints. This judgment was about to transpire—“what must soon take place”—indicating that Revelation was written before 70 A.D. John was seeing in vision what is referred to as “the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:25).

If you have a problem with what I am saying, let me ask you a few questions. Is Sunday holy? Is one day spiritual and another secular? Are some obligations bound on one day but loosed on the next? Are some actions holy if performed on a certain day but profane if done on another?

Stephan Bilak, one of our missionaries in Eastern Europe, recently gave me a wallet calendar from the Ukraine. They number their days downward instead of across and have the seventh day in red instead of the first day. In the Ukraine would we sin in keeping the seventh day instead of the first day?

Our real problem is in binding the Lord’s Supper to the first day of the week and limiting it to that day. Is the Supper sanctified or is the day? Our limiting it to Sunday only is without command, precedent, or inference. There is no clear example in Scripture of the Supper being observed on the first day of the week. In Acts 20:7 they met to break bread, but there is no certainty that it was the Supper rather than a common meal. Since it was, according to Roman time, after midnight when the bread was broken, it was done on Monday instead of Sunday. Moreover, in an indisputable example Jesus initiated the Supper on a Thursday.

In a sense all days (all time) are holy because our whole lives are dedicated to God. That sanctification is not segmented into days or time spans. It is not time that is sanctified, but the person who can say, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

Anything that is holy can be profaned. Being holy, the Jewish Sabbath could be profaned by labor on that day. Can Sunday be violated by labor or travel? Since it is people who are holy and not days, how can their sanctity be violated? It is by sin, a breach of their holiness. But sin is not related to any time span. When we sin, we violate our holiness rather than that of a day. If missing a Sunday assembly is a sin, it is a lacking of sanctification rather than the profaning of a holy day.

Please understand that I am not disparaging the need for assembling with disciples, nor am I discouraging communion on Sunday. We all need the support we gain from sharing with those of like faith. I am saying, however, that what is done on Sunday is no more effective than if it were done on Thursday or any other day.

Man was not made for the Sabbath: so Jesus did not bind the keeping of that day at all costs as a legal obligation. The Sabbath was made for man, for God set apart a day to fill the need of man, not to work against his best interest by its inflexibility. In similar manner, assemblies are designed to meet the needs of disciples, but the day and hour of such gatherings is not specified as a law.

Again, the recognition of Sunday as a secular holiday in our society is a wonderful blessing. It makes it more convenient for us to assemble, and it gives social recognition to Christianity that the earliest disciples did not enjoy. To us who were brought up going to assemblies each Sunday the day seems to have a special hallowed nature. But while Sunday is the Lord’s day, it is neither a holy day nor The Lord’s Day.

Looking back to Calvin’s proposal—Is Thursday the Lord’s Day? Yes! But so is Friday, Saturday, and all other days. Thursday, like Sunday, is the Lord’s day but not The Lord’s Day.—1350 Huisache. New Braunfels. Tx. 78130

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Religion can satisfy neither man nor God unless it satisfies the intelligence. Intelligence, motivated by its conclusion of faith, leads one to hunger and thirst for right emotionally. The desire to do what is right is a fundamental virtue without which one cannot be acceptable to God.—Cecil Hook in Free as Sons