Who Moved the Sabbath Day from Saturday to Sunday?
Why is there so much controversy over this one Commandment, and why do Christians have so many different reasons to why they do not keep it? If the Sabbath was moved to Sunday or abolished, there should be one clear reason that everyone agrees on, but no so!
Some say it is Ten Commandments and some say it is nine and others say all Ten Commandments are gone. And if that isn't enough contradiction, some say the Sabbath was moved to Sunday in the Bible, and yet those arguing this fallacy do not keep the Sabbath as God Commanded anyway. Hence there is no doubt that something is seriously wrong here and when you have so much confusion, you know that Satan is behind it.
Scripture informs us that Satan wants to be worshipped like the most high (Isaiah 14:12-14) and that God's Holy day of worship is the Seventh Day being Saturday. So Satan set out to do two things. One was to rob God of the worship He desired on His Holy day that He instituted at creation, and two, to institute his own day of worship in place of God's day of worship by setting up his own counterfeit Christian Church.
Satan used idolatrous sun worship from Babylonian paganism that God despised to begin implementing his plan. Babylon was the seat of Satan worship until its fall to the Medes and the Persians in 539 BC. At this time the Babylonian pagan priests left Babylon and went to Pergamos and some to Alexandria. So for many centuries after the fall of Babylon, Pergamos became the new seat of Satan (Revelation 2:12-13). Opportunity arose around 129 B.C. for the priests to leave Pergamos and go to Rome and thus Rome became the final seat of Satan and where he set up his church. Hence sun worship, which was practised on Sunday, was most prevalent in Alexandria and Rome by the time of Christ. It is no coincidence that Sun-day worship in the Church began in these exact same two locations that sun worship went! So here is very significant evidence of the origin of Sunday worship in the Church.
Church historian Socrates Scholasticus (5th century) observed this also and wrote: “For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries [of the Lord's Supper] on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this.” – Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book 5, ch. 22.
Babylonian priests rightly calculated the Romans would be willing to learn and follow their teachings. So it was not long before all of Rome was filled with their religious practices. It eventually became so pervasive that people called Rome the “New Babylon.” Early Christians also used the term Babylon as a veiled code word for a particular city, so as to avoid persecution from that pagan power. That city was also Rome. (See also 1 Peter 5:13)
When the Christian Church came along, the religious practices of Babylon followed right into the Church. Historians said it seemed as though the entire city of Rome converted virtually overnight to Christianity, but what actually happened is that the Babylonian religion was simply brought into the Church. This made it easy for followers of the Babylonian religion to convert to Christianity though it certainly was not a genuine conversion.
Some dispute that Church leaders incorporated pagan Babylonian religious practices into the Catholic Church but even Catholic historians admit it. Cardinal Newman in his Development of Christian Doctrine, pages 372, 373 says that the Church incorporated many pagan religious practices into the Church. He claims that the Church sanctified them and that made it safe to bring these practices into the Church. God of course will never accept pagan practises.
The pagan Babylonian priests had a chief priest who held the title Pontifex Maximus (translated to Latin meant that he was head pagan priest or literally the Greatest Pontiff). Most have heard the Pope called “Pontiff” and history explains where that term comes from.
Satan now began his plan to use persecution and hatred of Judaism along with his influence to cause the so called early Church fathers to switch to Sunday using the resurrection of Christ as their justification. Needless to say, there was no command from God to do this. So some in Alexandria and Rome only began the switch to avoid persecution as early as 90-120 AD before the enforced change that came about 240-270 years later.
So Satan’s plan to lay the foundation for and establish his own counterfeit church was under way. Under Satan’s direction paganism would get a new face. As the Roman Empire was near disintegration, the pagan Caesars did not want to lose their power in controlling the world, so they decided on a plan by which to keep their power and influence in the world. The Roman Caesars simply exchanged their Roman togas for religious costumes. Thus they could control the world’s governments and their economies through religion.
After Constantine defeated Maxentius in 312 AD in a battle for the throne of Rome, Satan continued in his clever plan to build his own version of a “Christian Church.” After his ascension to the Roman Throne, Constantine issued his Edict of Toleration in 313 AD to stop the persecution of the true believers in Christ. Under Constantine the Christian Church for a time found relief from persecution. Satan had now temporarily stopped his persecution of the Christian Church from without, but he would now proceed to attack the Church from within.
Under Satan's direction, Constantine set up the “Council of Nicaea” and presided as “Summus Pontifex”, the official title of a Pope. The Catholic Church claim Peter was the first so called Pope of this Papal system but it was in fact Constantine. So under Constantine as its first Pope, the Roman Catholic Institution as we know it today had its beginning.
Constantine was a devout sun worshipper and a shrewd political genius and his plan was to unite paganism and Christianity to strengthen his disintegrating empire. Constantine knew that pagans throughout the empire worshiped the sun on “the first day of the week,” and that many Christians especially in Rome and Alexandria had switched to Sunday to avoid persecution. So Constantine developed a plan to unite both groups on the common platform of Sunday keeping. So on March 7, 321 A.D., he passed his national Sunday law.
Those claiming that the Sabbath was moved to Sunday say it is also the Lord's Day despite scripture revealing the Sabbath to still be on the day we call Saturday. Lucium who was an early church historian exposes this lie also, as he wrote it was in the fourth century when Christians begun calling Sunday the Lord's Day and of course against the will of God.
In 330 A.D., Constantine moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople preparing the way for the Roman Catholic Popes to reign in Rome as the successors of Constantine. As the Roman Church grew in power, it opposed Sabbath observance in favour of Sunday sacredness and made the day change official in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363-364). So Constantine’s law resulted in the final change of the Sabbath to Sunday.
Around 364 AD, the Roman Catholic Church outlawed resting on the Sabbath in the Council of Laodicea when they decreed 59 Canon laws. Here is the final law.
Canon XXIX: “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.” (Percival Translation).
While resting on the Sabbath was outlawed in favour of resting on Sunday as per Constantine’s Sunday Law, Cannon law 16 was also issued by the Bishops in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363-364) that confirms that Christians were in fact still worshipping on the Sabbath.
Canon XVI: “The Gospels are to be read on the Sabbath [i.e. Saturday], with the other Scriptures.”
The fact that the council of Laodicea found it necessary to deal with this issue verifies that more than 330 years after the cross that there were many Christians who were still observing the Sabbath according to the Commandment.
Four hundred years after the death of Christ and one hundred years after Constantine’s linking of Church and State by his Sunday law edict, Rome and Alexandria were the only places in the world where many Christians kept only Sunday and not the true Sabbath. Why? Because this is where the pagan practices of Babylon landed after it was conquered. And what was the dominant pagan practice that the Babylonian priests brought with them? Sun worship which was done on Sun-day! See the history of Sunday worship for more.
So one can understand why Rome and Alexandria did not bother to keep the true Sabbath as they had not done so for 200 years. Throughout the entire history of the changeover from Sabbath to Sunday, Rome and Alexandria had worked together. Alexandria provided the philosophical reasons for the changes and Rome provided the decrees and anathemas. Constantine’s help was given only to the worldly Church leaders at Rome and those Christians that resisted the errors that were being introduced into the Church met with his opposition. “Unite with the bishop of Rome or be destroyed,” was Constantine’s position.
“Great as were the favors which Constantine showed to the church, they were only for that strong, close-knit, hierarchically organized portion that called itself Catholic. The various [so-called] heretical sects could look for no bounty from his hands.” – Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, page 105.
The change of the Sabbath to Sunday was totally completed by the seventh century as the Popes consolidating their enormous power persecuted all who resisted their innovations. Those found keeping the Seventh day Sabbath were tortured and burnt at the stake. By the time the Protestant reformation began, the Sabbath had almost been murdered out of existence by this Apostate Church. But God had a plan and scripture says that God would raise a remnant of His original Church to restore His Commandments. Sabbath keeping denominations has now spread to more than 530 other denominations, and the count of Sabbath keeping Churches continues to grow as we get closer to the end times as those who truly love God search out the truth instead of perpetuating the last excuse they heard.
So Who Moved the Sabbath to Sunday?
You can see why some have different answers as to who moved the Sabbath to Sunday. It was Satan who planned the change, and while he used many people over hundreds of years to achieve his goal, it was the Papacy that enforced the final law with the death penalty.
God also calls the Catholic Church Mystery Babylon and one should now know why. It was through the origins of Babylon that Satan brought about a change to God's law and brought many other pagan practise’s into the Church. See Catholic Church paganism for more.
God told us in Daniel 7:25 that the Papal Church would change His law and there can be no doubt Satan was behind it. Despite this, most Christians do not want to know and fight with all their heart, might and soul to see how many different reasons they can come up with to avoid this one Commandment and many of these reasons even contradict each other. So Satan claps his hands with his victory over the Christian Church and achieving his goal, and keeping so many in the dark on this one special Commandment that is a sign that defines the worship of our Creator and that we are His Holy children!
You can read more detail on the Constantine and origin of Babylon and sun worship and did Constantine change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday from these pages.
Since God has been robbed of the worship He desired for most of Church history because of the counterfeit day Satan instituted, what is God going to do about it? The beast that enforces the mark is the Catholic Church, and they say their mark was the ability to change the law of God and have most of the Protestant world follow her. And Revelation 14:12 says those who do not get the mark of the beast endure tribulation but keep the Commandments of God through Christ like faith. Could the mark from the beast be the final climactic event over this century long issue that defines who we worship? Do we worship God according to His Commandment or on the day Satan instituted through the Roman Catholic Church?