W. Robert Godfrey

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.

There's another pointer, I think, to help us think about this, and that's in the book of Hebrews.

The book of Hebrews, specifically in Hebrews 3 and 4, is looking carefully at the matter of the call to enter into the rest of God.

It's a meditation on Psalm 95.

And Psalm 95, you know, begins as a great call to worship and a great celebration of God as king and shepherd of his people.

And then Psalm 95 suddenly shifts in the middle of it, if you're acquainted with that psalm.

I'm always interested when churches sing Psalm 95 as a call to worship.

It's a great call to worship if you stop at the right time.

Otherwise, the psalm shifts in the middle, and as it's quoted there in Hebrews 3, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.

Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart.

They have not known my ways as I swore in my wrath.

they shall not enter my rest."

It's really a fairly terrifying statement there of God's anger with his people because of their faithlessness and disobedience, and the consequence is that they will not enter his rest.

They die in the wilderness.