The Lord’s Day

Revelation 1:10 reveals that John received the vision of Revelation on “the Lord’s day.” The Bible only identifies Sabbath as the “Lord’s day.” In Isaiah 58:13 God claims the Sabbath as “my holy day,” and Jesus repeated this claim when He said, “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2:28). According to the Bible, therefore, John received the visions of Revelation on the Sabbath! In contrast, the earliest unequivocal reference to the “Lord’s Day” as Sunday appears in the second century apocryphal Gospel According to Peter, where the day of Christ’s resurrection is termed the “Lord’s day.”

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What Day is the Sabbath?

The word Sabbath literally means “rest,” and the Bible says that God blessed and sanctified, or set apart as holy, this first Sabbath rest day as a memorial of His finished work of creation. This is why the fourth commandment begins with a call to remember the seventh-day Sabbath rest.

Is Sabbath a Christian Holiday?

The Biblical Sabbath has always been the seventh day of the week, what we call Saturday. However, the “Christian Sabbath” is today almost universally recognized as Sunday, the first day of the week. This day of worship dates back to the convergence of religious and political power under the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages.

Sabbath Rest: A Common Experience

From its first mention in Genesis 2, the Sabbath is presented as a day of rest to be shared and experienced with others. The prophet Isaiah revealed that the Sabbath was intended not just for the Jewish community, but also for the “sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord” (Isaiah 56:6). God created the Sabbath to be a blessing for all people!

Sabbath Rest and Social Justice

Throughout history, the Sabbath has provided an opportunity to combat and, at least to some degree, dismantle the distinctions of socio-economic status within human society. Thousands of years ago people were already talking about the Sabbath as a day that would be a blessing to society. Few people would argue that human society today desperately needs these same Sabbath blessings.