- It Is Written

A Monument in Time
We have come to think of relentless
activity as noble, but something is
broken in the way we spend our time.
I believe somebody is purposely trying
to keep us incessantly occupied,
because if we stopped the endless
cycle of activity for even a few moments,
we would discover something amazing:
the presence of God.
Pastor Shawn Boonstra, a native of British Columbia,
is the former speaker/director for It Is Written
International Television. He appeared weekly on
the It Is Written television program and was also
the host of a daily Internet devotional series called
A Better Way to Live. He graduated with a degree
in political science from
the University of Victoria,
f
and later attended Andrews University, where he
gained theological training. He has held more
than 30 major evangelistic meetings around
the world and has written more than a dozen
books. His clear grasp of Scripture and his
warm, dynamic presentation style have been
an inspiration to many as he has shared
sha
the Word of God with millions. To find your
local It Is Written station, watch the current
program or an archive of past programs
online, and explore free online Bible
studies, please visit:
www.itiswritten.com
ISBN 9781937173029
A Monument in Time
SHAWN
BOONSTRA
Discovering the Joy of the Sabbath
by
Shawn Boonstra
and Pacific Press Publishing Association
Editor: Clifford Goldstein
Cover Design & Layout: Fred Knopper
Cover Photos: www.photos.com
Text Typeset: 11 pt. ITC New Baskerville
Copyright 2011 by It Is Written. All Rights Reserved.
Additional copies of this book and a
host of other spiritual resources are available
from It Is Written. For more information call
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Unless otherwise noted, all Bible texts are from the
New King James Version, copyright 1979, 1980, 1982
by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.
Or from The New International Version, NIV®
Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™
Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Printed in the United States of America
by Pacific Press Publishing Association
Nampa, Idaho / Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
www.pacificpress.com
ISBN 9781937173029
Contents
Fakes and Frauds.......................................................... 5
Cosmic Con Job........................................................... 6
In the Beginning.......................................................... 7
The Sabbath Commandment...................................... 9
The Joy of the Sabbath.............................................. 12
Didn’t Jesus Change the Sabbath?............................ 15
What About Those Other First-Day Texts?............... 20
Then Why Sunday?.................................................... 24
A Works Trip?............................................................. 26
Does the Day Really Matter?...................................... 28
A Pause for Peace....................................................... 30
Fakes and Frauds
Have you ever heard the name Frank Abagnale? For
decades he was one of the world’s most notorious and
successful con men and forgers. His story was so amazing
that it was eventually made into the movie Catch Me If You
Can, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks
and Leonardo DiCaprio (DiCaprio played Abagnale;
Hanks played the FBI agent who caught him).
During one of his many scams, Abagnale faked being
a doctor in a Georgia hospital for two years—not just a
doctor, but the supervisor of a wing of doctors. No one
suspected him being anything other than the MD that the
fake certificate on the wall said he was.
He walked around with all the authority and power
that comes with having a medical doctor’s license, even
though most of the time he merely scribbled his name
on the patients’ charts. The only time he came close to
getting caught was when an infant almost died of oxygen
deprivation because “Frank Conners, MD” had no idea
what a “blue baby” was.
There’s no question that the misuse of the symbols of
power and authority can have negative consequences. And
this is especially true in the world of faith, which is rife
with counterfeits and frauds. What’s worse, it’s not just that
people are committing frauds, but they are also victims of
it.
5
A MONUMENT IN TIME
Cosmic Con Job
According to the Bible, things like fraud, con jobs, and
imposters didn’t begin on Earth. The first trickster wasn’t
some ancient merchant with his finger on the scales. It
wasn’t even Jacob pretending to be his brother Esau in
order to steal the blessing from his blind father, Isaac.
(Genesis 27:1-20) No, it goes much further back, to Lucifer
himself in Heaven.
And what did he attempt to do?
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened
the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit
on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most
High.’” (Isaiah 14:12-14)
Notice, Satan tried to be like God. He wanted the
authority and power and prerogatives of “the Most High.”
This same principle appears throughout the Bible.
Look at this biblical depiction of another one of Satan’s
deceptions, this time through a surrogate.
“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not
come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is
revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself
above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits
as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (2
Thessalonians 2:3-4)
Again, the attempt to be God. There’s a power here
seeking to place himself in the position of the Lord Himself,
just as Satan had tried in Heaven. Of course, neither Satan
nor the proxy depicted here in Thessalonians can actually
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
take the place of God, just as Frank Abagnale, aka “Frank
Conners, MD” could not do the work of a real doctor. The
best they can do, instead, is usurp the symbols, the signs,
and the outward trappings of those positions in order to
fool and con people.
And this leads into one of the greatest deceptions
and cons in the history of the world—one that millions
of sincere and faithful Christians have fallen for because,
quite frankly, they don’t know what’s behind it.
It has to do with the Bible’s first, broadest and most
universal symbol of the authority and power of our Creator,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Beginning
Notice the first words of the Bible. They don’t say
anything about the death of Jesus on the Cross. They
don’t say anything about the Second Coming of Jesus in
“the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 24:30) They don’t say
anything about “loving your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark
12:31) They don’t say anything about the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead. They don’t say anything about the
Lord’s Supper, or about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem,
or about the promise of eternal life in a new heaven and a
new earth. (Revelation 21:1) There’s nothing about any of
them, though each is an important biblical teaching.
Instead the Bible begins with the doctrine upon which
all those other teachings rest—and that is creation. “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
(Genesis 1:1)
Creation is the opening act, the first principle, and
the foundation upon which all else in Scripture follows,
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because all that follows in Scripture becomes meaningless
if severed from the Lord as Creator.
After all, what do the most basic Christians beliefs—
salvation, the Cross, eternal life—mean apart from God as
our Creator? What are we saved from in a godless universe?
From what are we saved if God doesn’t exist? If atheistic
evolution explains us, then what is the Cross other than
another murdered Jew, one of the hundreds of thousands
whom the Romans killed that way?
How do we understand the fall of humanity into sin
apart from God as our Creator? What have we fallen from,
and to what are we restored? Apart from the biblical
account of origins, Christian beliefs—from the Cross to
the Second Coming—become nonsense.
Another crucial point is that Scripture intricately ties
Jesus as Creator with Jesus as Redeemer. John opens his
gospel with words that unmistakably point to Christ, the
Redeemer, as Christ the Creator:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing
made that was made.” (John 1:1-3)
All things that were made—that is, all things that were
created—were created by Jesus Christ.
Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, makes a similar
point. Talking about Jesus as Redeemer, he says, “For by
Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that
are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones,
or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were
created by Him, and for Him.” (Colossians 1:16, 17)
In Christian theology, Christ’s authority, Christ’s power,
and Christ’s efficacy as the Redeemer arise only from His
role as Creator. In every sense possible, a major pillar of New
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
Testament theology rests on Jesus as Creator. Christianity
without Christ as the Creator is Christianity without Him
as Redeemer. And without Christ as Redeemer, we have
nothing. We might as well seek salvation in Harry Potter or
Jason Bourne as in Jesus Christ.
Hence, we can see the importance of creation in all
Christian theology. That point is so crucial, so basic, that
God has given us an in-your-face reminder of it every week.
It’s called the Sabbath, and more than anything else, it
points to our creation, because on this great truth, and
that alone, all these others truths exist.
In fact, God has commanded that we take one-seventh
of our lives—one-seventh!—in order to especially remember
that He is our Creator—something that He didn’t do for
any other Christian teaching simply because no other
Christian teaching has validity apart from this one.
That’s how important this doctrine of creation is, and
the Sabbath remains its most perpetual, enduring and
basic symbol.
The Sabbath Commandment
Most people know the amazing story of the giving
of the Ten Commandments to the newly freed Hebrew
people. Among those commandments was the fourth, the
Sabbath commandment, and it reads:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of
the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy
son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor
thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days
the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
10 A MONUMENT IN TIME
and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath
day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
Clearly, that commandment goes directly back to the
creation of the world, of “the heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is.” The link is even more apparent
when you read the creation story itself. In the Genesis
creation account, God created the earth and sky, and all
that’s in them, in six days. After the work of creation was
completed, what happened next?
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the
host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which
He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His
work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work
which God created and made.” (Genesis 2:1-3)
Notice these two points: First, God blessed and
sanctified the seventh day before the entrance of sin, before
the fall of Adam and Eve. The seventh day, a sacred and
holy time, comes from a perfect world, one in which there
was no sin, no fall, and hence no symbols of sin or the fall
or the redemption of humanity.
Second, the seventh day as a holy day predated the
Jewish nation by thousands of years. The seventh-day
Sabbath existed long before the Jewish people did. That
the Jews took hold of the Sabbath day and have adhered
to it is, of course, undeniable. But that no more makes
the seventh-day Sabbath exclusively Jewish than a family
deciding to start celebrating Christmas means Christmas
becomes exclusively its own. As with the Sabbath, it was
there all along; the family just took advantage of it, that’s
all.
Thus the Sabbath, both in Genesis and Exodus, not
only links the seventh day to God as Creator, but also
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
11
stresses that He blessed the day and made it holy. The
commandment in Exodus isn’t teaching for the first time
about the sacredness of the seventh-day Sabbath as a
memorial of creation. Instead, the commandment is simply
telling the Jews to “remember” what was already known,
that the seventh-day Sabbath was a sacred memorial of
creation, having been blessed and made holy at the end
of the creation week. This point is revealed in Exodus 16,
before Sinai.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to
keep my commands and my instructions? Bear in mind that the
Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day He
gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the
seventh day; no one is to go out.’ So the people rested on the seventh
day.” (Exodus 16:28-30)
All this occurred about three or four weeks prior to the
giving of the law at Sinai, proof positive that the Sabbath
wasn’t first introduced there.
Thus, what we see in the Bible is that the first thing
that God created holy, the first thing that God “sanctified,”
or declared holy, was not a hill, a shrine, or a place—but a
block of time, the seventh day.
“Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because
in it He rested from all His work which God had created and
made.” (Genesis 2:3)
Look at how much sense that makes. After all, if God
had made one specific place holy—a hill, a spring, a city—
not all people would have easy access to it. They would have
to travel to worship there. But time comes to us, instead of
us going to it.
Once a week, at a thousand miles per hour—the
approximate speed at which the Earth rotates on its axis—
the Sabbath circles the globe. Arriving on one sundown,
12 A MONUMENT IN TIME
leaving on the next, the seventh day washes over the planet
each week. We never have to seek it. The day always finds
us! Meanwhile, look at history. Holy cities can be burned.
Holy people can be killed. Holy shrines can be looted. But
time is beyond all that. You can smash all the clocks in the
world, but time marches on, out of our reach even though
we are immersed in it.
Therefore, by making a special time holy, God has
made the Sabbath invincible, placing it in an element that
transcends any devices of mankind. Armies can sack cities,
rulers can ban pilgrimages, but no one can keep away the
seventh day. We can no more stop the Sabbath than we can
the phases of the moon.
The Sabbath has been called “a monument in time”
and “a palace in time.” Only those who keep it can know
for themselves what a blessing it is to spend time in such a
wonderful place as a palace.
The Joy of the Sabbath
One of the greatest ironies of life in the 21st century is
this: Everything we have seems to go faster and faster: fast
computers, fast cars, fast airplanes, fast cell phones...faster,
faster, faster. With the mere flick of cell phone or click of a
mouse, we can do what once took weeks, months, or even
longer.
Twenty five years ago, scientists were amazed that
a massive mainframe computer could process a billion
pieces of information a second (a gigahertz), about 2.5
times slower than the speed of the average laptop today.
In a few years, a few billion computations a second won’t
be fast enough to run most programs. Some computers
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
13
are now computing in teraflops (a trillion calculations per
second). Eventually, CPU speeds measured in gigahertz
will be as antiquated and outdated as 5.25-inch flat floppy
drives are now.
And though we’re moving at speeds our ancestors would
have deemed miraculous, even supernatural, most people
complain about the same thing—there’s not enough time
in the day or week.
We’re harried, burned-out and deep-fried in time
because no matter what we do and how fast we do it, and
no matter where we go or how fast we get there, there’s still
more to do, more places to go and not enough minutes
in which to do it. If days were 40 hours it wouldn’t matter,
would it? We’d still feel as if we need more, right? Time
is a tyrant that demands all we have, and we never have
enough.
And yet, here’s an amazing gift: Thousands of years
ago, the Lord gave humanity a commandment created
to protect us from this tyrant. The Lord carved out an
inviolable and indestructible refuge from this insatiable
silent rush of time that casts us all along in its unrelenting
flow.
Of course, we’re talking about the Sabbath commandment, the one that started in Eden. Think about it:
If God deemed that humans, in a perfect sinless world,
needed a Sabbath rest—what about all of us immersed in
a fallen world where greed, avarice and the desire to get
ahead all but dominates just about everything?
So often in the hustle and bustle of life, in the rush to
make money, to advance careers and to get ahead—who
gets left behind but spouses, children and loved ones? God
is telling us, “No, I don’t want that to happen, and hence
I have carved out this refuge for you, this ‘monument in
14 A MONUMENT IN TIME
time,’ where the boss, the bills and the things that dominate
you the rest of the week are not allowed in.”
Imagine a wealthy and successful businessman
approaching the final days of his life. As he looks back over
the many decades, he says to himself, “If I had to do it all
over, I wish I would have spent more time at work and less
time with my wife and kids.”
Not likely, is it? Who, toward the end of their life,
wishes they had spent less time, not more, with their family
and loved ones? How many wish they had spent less time
chasing money and more time with their family? The
Sabbath gives us a block of time, every week—and without
exception—that can be dedicated in a special way to the
ones we love and care about the most.
How interesting, too, that the seventh-day Sabbath is
the only institution, along with marriage, that comes from
a pre-fall world. Both existed prior to sin, both come to
us from an unfallen world, and both are inherently about
relationships.
No marriage worth the name “marriage” can exist
without time spent with each other, because only through
time spent together can a relationship deepen and grow.
Though marriage needs more than the Sabbath, the day
does provide an opportunity for special time together. It’s
time that—if protected from the weekly distractions of the
world—can greatly strengthen the marriage bonds. And
in a day and age when marriages are falling apart, how
wonderful to have this block of time wrapped in such a
special package!
By partitioning for us a special portion of time each
week, the Sabbath affords us an opportunity to use this time
for what we’ll never regret, such as building relationships
with those we love and care about.
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
15
Again, folks might regret time wasted on an endless
number of things, but who’s going to regret time spent on
forging bonds with family and friends? The Sabbath gives
us that chance by carving out one-seventh of our lives that
can be used just for that, again allowing nothing “worldly”
to intrude.
Here’s how one writer expressed his experience with
the Sabbath and family:
“I love to walk with my boy through the wooded trails where we
live. We can take our time and enjoy what we see because there’s
no rush to meet business appointments or to turn on my word
processor. Nothing secular is allowed to intrude. My two-year-old
son loves to run and yell and laugh and collect sticks and rocks
and fallen apples. The richest, happiest, most precious moments
of my existence have been on Sabbath afternoons, where I have the
freedom to frolic leisurely with my son. Few sounds touch my heart
more than his uninhibited shrieks and laughter as he romps free
like a little lamb. Sabbath gives us a sacred break, valued beyond
money.” (Clifford Goldstein, Pause for Peace, p. 35)
No question, the Sabbath provides us with a wonderful
experience each week to rest in Him, and in that rest we
can enjoy in a special way the blessings He has given us. It’s
a wonderful experience, and only those who enter into it,
into this “monument in time” can fully appreciate what a
joy it really is.
Didn’t Jesus Change the Sabbath?
Of course, the words written above naturally release
a host of questions, such as: “Didn’t Jesus change the
seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday? Isn’t Sunday the day we
now keep in honor of the resurrection of Jesus? Why do
16 A MONUMENT IN TIME
most Christians keep Sunday instead of the seventh day?
Isn’t the keeping of the seventh day an attempt to work
your way into Heaven? And, besides, does it really matter
which day we keep?”
Those are fair enough questions, and we’ll look at each
one. First, we so often hear that Jesus Himself changed,
or nullified, the seventh-day Sabbath by His actions and
words. This is a common argument, and one that many
well-meaning people have used and still use today. But is it
correct?
Let’s look at some of those Sabbath incidents with
Jesus. As we do, the questions we need to ask ourselves are,
“Is Jesus teaching that the Sabbath is to be done away with
or changed to another day? Or is Jesus teaching the people
how to keep the Sabbath properly?”
These are two radically different positions, and the
answer would bring us to radically different conclusions in
regard to the importance of the Sabbath. The first would
mean that the seventh-day Sabbath is, indeed, abolished—
replaced with another day. The latter would mean that
Jesus is teaching us how to best keep it—powerful proof of
its continued validity!
In the book of Matthew, chapter 12, we see two incidents
in which Jesus and the religious leaders clashed over the
Sabbath. Again, as we read, we need to ask this question:
“Is His purpose to invalidate the seventh-day Sabbath, or to
reinforce it by showing us how it is to be kept?”
“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath.
His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain
and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,
‘Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.’
He answered, ‘Haven’t you read what David did when he and
his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
17
he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not
lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read
in the law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate
the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater
than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean,
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the
innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’” (Matthew
12:1-8)
A number of points stand out. First, though they
accused Jesus of doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath
(picking grain), one can read the Old Testament from
beginning to end and find nothing prohibiting what they
did. The issue wasn’t whether the disciples broke a biblical
command, which they didn’t, but whether they broke some
man-made regulation, which they did.
Second, the issue for Jesus was mercy and compassion;
people were hungry and needed some food. That’s the real
issue here, not some strict man-made rule that, if followed,
would have left his disciples hungry (you just didn’t run into
the nearest 7-11 back then when your stomach growled).
Third, if Jesus had intended to use this incident to
abolish, weaken, or change the Sabbath, then why didn’t
He say something about that? What a perfect opportunity
to have said, “The Sabbath is Old Covenant; we are
entering a New Covenant, therefore, we don’t need to
keep it anymore” or something similar?
Instead, what He actually said was, “For the Son of Man
is Lord of the Sabbath.” Those would be very strange words
were seeking, in any way, to abolish, lessen, or change the
Sabbath to another day. If anything, those words strengthen
the validity of the seventh-day Sabbath.
Right after that incident, Matthew tells of a miraculous
Sabbath healing by Jesus:
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“Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and
a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to
bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to heal
on the Sabbath?’ He said to them, ‘If any of you has a sheep and
it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and
lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep!
Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’ Then he said to
the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ So he stretched it out and it was
completely restored, just as sound as the other.” (Matthew 12:913)
Notice the words of Jesus: “Is it lawful to heal on the
Sabbath?” Jesus then talks about what one would do on the
Sabbath if one of their animals fell into a ditch.
The issue, again, is compassion and kindness—even
to animals—on the Sabbath. And if so with animals, then
how much more with human beings? What is the issue:
Changing the Sabbath, or keeping it properly? The answer
is obvious.
Jesus performs a miracle, and instead of focusing on
the miracle, the religious leaders focus on the fact that it
was done on the Sabbath—an attitude that reveals their
twisted and distorted understanding of the Sabbath. And
it was this that Jesus came to change: The wrong attitudes
about the Sabbath and about how to keep it. It was not to
change the day of the Sabbath itself.
After all, if Jesus were seeking to change the Sabbath to
another day, or abolish it, these incidents would have given
Him the perfect opportunity. Instead, in both cases, as in
all the Sabbath conflicts between Jesus and the religious
leaders, the issue was never over whether the Sabbath should
be kept, but over how. Why would Jesus show people how
to properly keep a day that was about to be abolished or
changed?
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19
In his famous talk to the disciples about the destruction
of Jerusalem—which would occur about 40 years after His
death—Jesus said the following:
“But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on
the Sabbath day.” (Matthew 24:20)
Had Jesus intended for the Sabbath day to be abolished,
why would He have warned His followers about fleeing on
that day if it were no longer sacred?
Notice, too, the following words of Luke. Talking about
some female followers of Jesus and what they did after His
death, Luke wrote:
“And the women also, which came with Him from Galilee,
followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how His body was
laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and
rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon
the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto
the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and
certain others with them.” (Luke 23:55 - 24:1)
Two crucial points stand out as worthy of notice. First,
the women who followed Jesus “rested the Sabbath day
according to the commandment.” Which commandment?
The fourth, of course, the seventh-day Sabbath. If during
His earthly ministry, Jesus had abolished it, or transferred
it to the first day, these women obviously knew nothing
about it.
Second, notice how the first day of the week is indeed
mentioned in these texts, but in direct contrast with the
Sabbath. On “the first day of the week” the women came
to the tomb in order to bring more spices. Nothing was
said about the first day of the week taking the place of the
seventh as a holy day. Nothing.
It was simply mentioned in order to show the
time frame of the events surrounding the death and
20 A MONUMENT IN TIME
resurrection of Jesus. Nothing in these texts, or any other
ones (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16; John 20:1) dealing with
the events surrounding His death and resurrection imply
that the first day had, in any way, replaced the seventh-day
Sabbath.
What About Those Other First-Day Texts?
This mention of the first day in the gospels is exemplary
of the other few references to the first day in the New
Testament in that nothing is said about the first day being a
replacement for the seventh day.
Many look to John 20:19 as an early example of the
seventh day being replaced by the first. The verse focuses
on the followers of Jesus, still in disarray over His death,
and still uncertain about His resurrection. “Then, the
same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when
the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled,
for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and
said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
Was this a worship service held in honor of Jesus’
resurrection on the first day of the week, as some argue?
No, the text says nothing about that. They were there, not
to celebrate the resurrection, but because they were fearful
of the leaders who had hounded Jesus and His disciples
from the start.
In John 20:20, Jesus showed them “His hands and His
side,” indicating that, until He appeared in their midst,
they were still somewhat uncertain that He had been
resurrected. Thus, why would they be celebrating the
resurrection when, until He appeared to them, they still
weren’t sure it had happened?
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21
In fact, the only text in the New Testament that talks
about any kind of worship service on the first day of the
week is Act 20:7. “Now on the first day of the week, when
the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready
to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his
message until midnight.”
Does this teach, as many claim, that the seventh-day
Sabbath had been replaced by the first day of the week as
the new day of worship?
One argument is that the “breaking of bread” referred
to in the text is the Lord’s Supper; hence, this was a worship
service on the first day of the week; hence, the seventh-day
Sabbath was abolished and replaced with Sunday. Not so
fast, though.
Of the 15 times the phrase “to break bread” is used
in the New Testament (in various verbal forms), only
twice does it refer to the Lord’s Supper. The majority of
references deal merely with eating.
Acts 2:46, for instance, talks about the followers of
Christ “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and
breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with
gladness and simplicity of heart” (emphasis supplied).
“Breaking bread” here, as in most instances in the New
Testament, doesn’t mean the Lord’s Supper; it simply refers
to the eating of meals. Also, Acts 20 suggests that Paul is
breaking bread alone: “When he had come up, had broken
bread and eaten...he departed.” (Acts 20:11) The verbs are
in the singular, so Paul is obviously not participating in a
Communion service, and nothing in the whole section says
a word about wine.
Doesn’t the text still indicate a Sunday worship service?
If Luke used the Jewish ways of reckoning days, which is
from sundown to sundown, which he probably did, then
22 A MONUMENT IN TIME
the assembly talked about in the text really happened
Saturday night, after the sun had set (Paul talked “even till
daybreak”).
If Paul began preaching a Sunday morning sermon, it
would have been a very long day, because he went on until
midnight. Most likely, they held this all-nighter because he
was to depart in the morning.
Finally, as with all the references to the first day of the
week, nothing here indicates that it was a sacred time to
gather in order to honor the resurrection of Jesus. And
even more so, nothing indicates that it was a replacement
for the seventh-day Sabbath.
Throughout the rest of the New Testament, the first
day appears in only one other text, when Paul wrote to the
Corinthians about a relief offering for the poor in Judea.
It reads:
“On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside
a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that
when I come no collections will have to be made.” (1 Corinthians
16:2)
Again, as with every other reference to the first day,
nothing is implied about it being a sacred day to honor
the resurrection of Jesus, or that it is a replacement for
the Sabbath. Nothing is said about worship. Scholars and
historians aren’t sure why Paul mentioned that day in
particular to collect the offering for the poor, but the text
itself offers no evidence, whatsoever, of Sunday now being
the day that supersedes the Sabbath.
Finally, what about John, in the book of Revelation,
when he writes that: “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day”?
(Revelation 1:10) Doesn’t that prove Sunday worship in
the early church?
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
23
First, not all scholars agree on what that phrase even
means. Second, as we have seen, no New Testament
reference ever gives Sunday a sacred character, or depicts
it as a new covenant replacement for Sabbath. Third, just
because for years Sunday has been called “the Lord’s Day”
by Christians doesn’t make it the Lord’s Day any more than
the belief that the Earth was the center of the universe
made it the center of the universe.
It’s hardly honest or fair to read back into a text
something that the Bible itself never calls it. The best
evidence we have from the Bible on the meaning of “the
Lord’s Day” is, in fact, that it is referring to the seventhday Sabbath. Why? Because the Sabbath commandment
in Exodus says that the seventh day “is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God” (Exodus 20:10), or the Lord’s Day. The Lord
calls the seventh-day Sabbath, “My holy day” (Isaiah 58:13),
or the Lord’s Day.
And finally, in three gospels, Jesus, the Lord, called
Himself “Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:8; Mark
2:28; Luke 6:5) It is His, the Lord Jesus’ day. Or simply “the
Lord’s Day”—a phrase never used in the Bible in reference
to the first day of the week.
In a book called The Lord’s Day, written by a man who
dedicated his life to promoting Sunday worship, the author
said flat out:
“We must admit that we can point to no direct command
that we cease observing the seventh day and begin using the first
day.” (James Wesberry, The Lord’s Day, Broadman Press, 1986,
p. 100).
24 A MONUMENT IN TIME
Then Why Sunday?
The natural question is, “If there is no biblical evidence
for Sunday, then why do most denominations worship on
that day instead of the seventh day?”
The answer lies buried in antiquity. Historical evidence
does show a move away from the seventh day to the first
day in the early centuries of the Christian church. Volumes
have been written on the topic, with different positions
taken.
The best scholarship, at this point, seems to be the
following: The early Christian church was a sect of Judaism,
or at least deemed that way by the Romans. The founder,
Jesus, was a Jew. The earliest followers were all Jews. It used
the Jewish Bible. It originated in the land of the Jews. It
followed many Jewish practices, including the seventh-day
Sabbath.
The only problem was, the Romans hated the Jews,
who were constantly revolting against their rule. Over the
years, as more and more Gentiles began joining the church
ranks, the church wanted to disassociate itself as much as
possible from the “unpopular” Jews. The one practice that,
more than any other, distinguished the Jews as Jews was—
yes—the seventh-day Sabbath.
Because many of the pagans who were becoming
Christians kept Sunday (the day of the Sun), over time,
Sunday started to slowly replace the seventh day until the
seventh-day Sabbath was all but lost to history, at least in
the Christian church.
By the time Roman Catholicism became the official
religion of the empire, Sunday—instead of the biblical
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
25
Sabbath—was firmly embedded in its tradition. The
following quotes, just a few of many, are all taken from
Roman Catholic publications, and help explain the
background of the change of the seventh-day Sabbath to
the first day of the week:
“Now in the matter of the Sabbath observance the Protestant
rule of Faith is utterly unable to explain the substitution of the
Christian Sunday for the Jewish Saturday. It has been changed.
The Bible still teaches that the Sabbath or Saturday should be kept
holy. There is no authority in the New Testament for the substitution
of Sunday for Saturday. Surely it is an important matter. It stands
there in the Bible as one of the Ten Commandments of God. There
is no authority in the Bible for abrogating this Commandment, or
for transferring its observance to another day of the week.
“For Catholics it is not the slightest difficulty. ‘All power is
given Me in heaven and on earth; as the Father sent Me so I
also send you,’ said our Divine Lord in giving His tremendous
commission to His Apostles. ‘He that heareth you heareth Me.’ We
have in the authoritative voice of the Church the voice of Christ
Himself. The Church is above the Bible; and this transference of
Sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday is proof positive
of that fact. Deny the authority of the Church and you have no
adequate or reasonable justification for the substitution of Sunday
for Saturday...” (The Catholic Record, Sept. 1, 1923)
“Q. Have you any other way of proving that the [Roman
Catholic] Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
“A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in
which all modern religionists agree with her;—she could not have
substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for
the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which
there is no Scriptural authority.” (Stephan Keenan, A Doctrinal
Catechism, 3rd American ed., rev.; New York: T.W. Strong, late
Edward Dunigan & Bro., 1876, p. 174.) Quoted in Seventh-
26 A MONUMENT IN TIME
day Adventist Bible Students’ Source Book (Review and Herald
Publishing Company, Hagerstown, MD, 1962, p. 886.)
Though today, in the climate of a better relationship
between Catholics and Protestants, Rome’s tone about
the Sabbath has changed, even if the point remains valid:
The Bible does not teach anything about the seventh-day
Sabbath, a commandment of God, abrogated or transferred
to the first day. Sunday, often referred to as the “Christian
Sabbath,” is in fact neither Christian nor the Sabbath.
A Works Trip?
But isn’t keeping the seventh-day Sabbath legalistic, a
“works trip”—the practice of people who don’t understand
that we are saved by the righteousness of Jesus for us, a
righteousness credited to us by faith and apart from the
works of the law?
Didn’t Paul write: “Where, then, is boasting? It is
excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires
works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we
maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the
works of the law”? (Romans 3:27-28)
It is common to hear that argument, that those who
keep the seventh-day Sabbath are legalists, trying to work
their way to Heaven. The irony of that charge, however, is
laughable. Think about it: How is it that the one commandment
devoted to rest, the one commandment that specifically expresses
rest, the one commandment that gives us a special opportunity
to rest, has been turned into the universal symbol of salvation by
works?
How much sense does that make? In fact, far from
being a symbol of works, the Sabbath is the Bible’s most
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
27
fundamental symbol of the rest that God’s people have
always had in Him—from the pre-fall world of Adam and
Eve’s Eden, to the New Covenant rest that God’s followers
have in Christ’s work of redemption for them.
“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of
God” (Hebrews 4:9). The Sabbath has always been a realtime manifestation of the rest that Christ offers to all (see
Matthew 11:28).
After all, anyone can say that they are resting in Christ,
and anyone can say that they are saved by grace. But the
keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath is a visible expression
of that rest—a living parable of what it means to be covered
by His grace. Weekly rest from secular, worldly works stands
as a symbol of the rest in the completed work of Jesus for
His people.
“For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from
his own works, as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:10)
Obedience to this commandment is a way of saying:
“Hey, we’re so sure of our salvation in Jesus, we’re so firm
and secure in what Christ has done for us, that we can—in
a special way—rest from any of our works because we know
what Christ has accomplished for humanity through His
death and resurrection.”
It would seem that by obeying the commandments
against stealing, or covetousness, or idolatry, or murder,
folks could be accused of legalism—salvation by works—if,
indeed, anyone can be justly accused of legalism by obeying
God’s law.
When was the last time you heard of someone keeping
the commandment against adultery or stealing being
accused of working their way into Heaven? Yet people are
accused all the time of trying to work their way to Heaven
because they rest—rest!—on the seventh-day Sabbath!
28 A MONUMENT IN TIME
Does the Day Really Matter?
OK, maybe the seventh-day Sabbath is the biblical
Sabbath and there is no evidence for keeping Sunday...
...but does it really matter?
Think back to Frank Abagnale’s bogus MD. It was a
usurpation of authority and power that was not really his
to begin with. Did it matter? Absolutely.
What about in the grand scheme of things—the biggest
of all, in fact—that of creation and of God as Creator (and
let’s face it, you can’t get much bigger than that!)
If, as we’ve seen, the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign of
God’s authority, power and office, then any attempted
usurpation of that sign strikes at the very heart of God’s
authority, power and office. To take the specific sign
of God’s role as Creator, a sign He instituted Himself at
creation, and to replace it with something else, represents
a flagrant attack against His authority.
It strikes at the most basic level possible, that of Creator,
the position upon which all else He has done depends.
The only step further back is to God Himself and, as we
saw, Satan wanted to usurp that role right from the start.
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened
the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit
on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most
High.’” (Isaiah 14:12-14)
Of course, unable to do that, he usurped the most
basic sign of God’s power and authority—the seventh-day
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
29
Sabbath—and replaced it with a day that has no biblical
sanction at all.
Thus, looking at it that way—yes, the day does matter.
According to the book of Revelation, God is calling people
to “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea,
and the fountains of waters.” (Revelation 14:7)
That is, to worship Him as Creator (notice, too,
how closely linked the language is to that of the fourth
commandment, in Exodus 20: “For in six days the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, the sea...”)
Right along with that call to worship, the Lord as
Creator is the warning against those who worship the beast
and his image.
“If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his
mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the
wine of the wrath of God...” (Revelation 14:9, 10)
In the final days, there will be a blatant division of all
humanity: Those who worship God, the Creator, and those
who worship the beast and his image (and thus get the
infamous “mark of the beast”).
The key element in this division is worship. Either we
worship God as our Creator, or we worship the beast and
his image.
And, in the midst of this warning about the beast and
the mark of the beast, Revelation describes God’s faithful
people:
“Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep
the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” (Revelation
14:12)
They keep the commandments of God and, of all the
commandments, only one, the Sabbath, shows why we
should worship God—and that’s because He “made the
heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them.”
30 A MONUMENT IN TIME
Of course, no one is asserting that the good people
who keep Sunday are seeking to usurp God’s authority. On
the contrary—most know nothing about what was behind
the change to Sunday and would be horrified to know the
truth. Nor are people who worship on Sunday, as opposed
to the seventh-day Sabbath, under any kind of divine
condemnation.
The fact remains, however, that the seventh-day Sabbath
is the sign of God’s power and authority, a sign that goes
back to the creation itself, and thus the change to Sunday
remains the most blatant usurpation of that authority. If
that’s not important, what is?
A Pause for Peace
Nevertheless, putting aside for now all the deep
theological questions about power and usurpation and
authority, we come back to the experience of the Sabbath,
this “monument in time,” this “pause for peace.”
Who doesn’t need a “monument in time”? Who doesn’t
need a “pause for peace”? God’s Sabbath offers us all that,
every week, without exception. It gives us the opportunity
to step back, unwind, relax, enjoy our family and friends,
recalibrate, reassess, and refocus on what matters in life.
What other commandment gives us a weekly respite
from the crushing worldly weights of our existence? What
other commandment opens for us the opportunity, for a
full day, to delight in our Lord with no secular interruptions
allowed?
What other commandment gives us the freedom to say,
“I am God’s, first by creation, then by redemption, and for
DISCOVERING THE JOY OF THE SABBATH
31
an entire day I can especially rejoice in my creation and my
redemption”?
What other commandment allows us to sing with the
psalmist:
“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad
in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
Only those who have experienced the Sabbath for
themselves can know the joy that comes with it.
Why not enter into this sacred time each week?
Experience for yourself the joy that God offers us in this
ancient expression of the rest that we have in Christ, our
“Lord of the Sabbath!”
A Monument in Time
We have come to think of relentless
activity as noble, but something is
broken in the way we spend our time.
I believe somebody is purposely trying
to keep us incessantly occupied,
because if we stopped the endless
cycle of activity for even a few moments,
we would discover something amazing:
the presence of God.
Pastor Shawn Boonstra, a native of British Columbia,
is the former speaker/director for It Is Written
International Television. He appeared weekly on
the It Is Written television program and was also
the host of a daily Internet devotional series called
A Better Way to Live. He graduated with a degree
in political science from
the University of Victoria,
f
and later attended Andrews University, where he
gained theological training. He has held more
than 30 major evangelistic meetings around
the world and has written more than a dozen
books. His clear grasp of Scripture and his
warm, dynamic presentation style have been
an inspiration to many as he has shared
sha
the Word of God with millions. To find your
local It Is Written station, watch the current
program or an archive of past programs
online, and explore free online Bible
studies, please visit:
www.itiswritten.com
ISBN 9781937173029
A Monument in Time
SHAWN
BOONSTRA