W. Robert Godfrey

It doesn't solve the problem of there being a special day in the new covenant, nor does it solve the problem that Easter as a special holiday was really not celebrated widely in the church until later.

So does the New Testament itself give us any suggestion as to what day might be in mind?

And you'll be delighted to learn that it does.

It does point several times to the first day of the week.

Now, of course, it begins that by the references to the resurrection of our Lord on the first day of the week.

That's repeated several times in the New Testament, Matthew 28, 1, Mark 16, 2, Luke 24, 1, John 20, verse 1 and 19.

So all of the Gospels talk about the first day of the week as the day of the resurrection.

And then there are other indications in the New Testament of a church resurrection.

honoring that first day, meeting on that first day, doing something special on that first day.

We see that in John 20, verse 26, one week after the resurrection, the disciples meet with Jesus on the first day of the week.

Acts 2, verse 1, we read that the disciples were gathered on the upper room on the first day of the week.

We read that also in Acts 20, verse 7,

And there's the reference to taking the collection on the first day of the week in 1 Corinthians 16 verse 2.

Now, any one of those verses taken in isolation

might not prove a great deal, but together they begin to point to a pattern of Christians gathering on the first day, acknowledging something special about the first day, pointing us then, I think, to the conclusion that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day.

And that, in fact, is the apostolic teaching and practice that the church followed.

So when Aquinas says, well, it's just a church observance, I think he's missing the point.

He's missing the point that this was apostolic practice and where the apostles established a practice that became the precept in the life of the church.

And that's why I think there was this universal practice in the early church of gathering on Sunday as the day of celebration that Christ is risen, the day of celebration that the Old Testament Sabbath is now fulfilled in the new covenant.

And that's, I think, tremendously important and an important pointer for us.