Resolving Concerns—Which is Proper Lord’s Day
Which is Proper Lords Day
Seventh Day Adventists object to our celebrating the Sabbath on Sunday. They point out that the Lord told Moses, “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath Day, to…
Which is the Proper “Lord’s Day”?
Seventh Day Adventists object to our celebrating the Sabbath on Sunday. They point out that the Lord told Moses, “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it Holy.” For thousands of years, Saturday had been observed by the Jews as their Sabbath. They feel that we break the commandment of the Lord by not celebrating the Sabbath on Saturday.
The word Sabbath originates from the Hebrew verb shabbath, meaning “to rest from labor.” The Sabbath is the day of rest. The seventh day, Saturday, therefore became the day on which the Sabbath was observed.
During the times when the Mosaic Law applied to the Lord’s people, there were strict laws laid down concerning Sabbath day observance. Exodus 31:14-17 informs us that a man was to be put to death for not keeping the Sabbath day holy. Exodus 35:3 informs us that those abiding by the Old Testament Sabbath should not “kindle fire” on this holy day. All food, according to Mosaic Law, was to be prepared the evening before the Sabbath. Also the Jews observed the seventh month of every year, and also every seventh year (the year of Jubilee) wherein all debts were forgiven.
These old things were done away with the advent of the Savior and his gospel. Hebrew 8:13 tells us, “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”
In Revelation 1:10, John refers to Sunday, the first day of the week, as “The Lord’s Day,” and it was on the Lord’s day that the disciples gathered following his resurrection. It was on the following Sunday they met together (John 20:26) and the scriptures affirm that the sacrament was observed on “The Lord’s Day” (Acts 20:7). The collection for the saints was made on the Lord’s day (1 Corinthians 16:2).
Our authority for observing the Sabbath on Sunday comes from D&C 59:12 which was received by the prophet Joseph Smith on a Sunday in 1831. The Lord said to Joseph, “But remember that on this, the Lord’s day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord.” The Lord therefore identifies Sunday as the appropriate day of worship – “this, the Lord’s day.”
An “oblation” is an offering of sacrifices or of any charitable contribution to the Church. Elder Bruce R. McConkie defined an oblation in its highest sense as “giving full devotion to the Lord, of offering him a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (Mormon Doctrine, 541-42).