Questions about the historic continuity of the weekly cycle are of interest to two religious groups. First, those who observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath; and second, those who seek to honor the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week, calling it “the Lord’s Day.”

Christians who observe the Sabbath want to know that the day they observe is actually the seventh day of the week. However, it is uncommon for Christians who observe the Sabbath to have serious doubts that the day called Saturday, the seventh day of the week, is the Sabbath referred to throughout the Bible.

Many mainline Protestant denominations do not believe that the fourth commandment, as a reference to the seventh day of the week, pertains to Christians. But in their seeking to honor Christ’s resurrection weekly on the first day, it is of at least some concern to them to identify which day of the week it is.

The Church of God (Seventh Day) is confident that observing the commandment to keep the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath is God’s will for Christians, and that the day of the week called Saturday is the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath referred to in the New and Old Testaments of the Bible.

This is not a matter of great concern to Christians who attach no significance either to the Sabbath or to the first day of the week as a religious observance. But the majority of Jews and Christians share a common interest in preserving the weekly cycle without interruption so they can identify their respective day of worship.

Some Doubt Continuity

Some find it hard to believe that the continuity of the weekly cycle has been maintained for thousands of years. Many are of the opinion that it has not been kept accurately over the centuries.

Some believe that the Sabbath was not observed from Creation until Moses and that therefore the weekly cycle of Israel’s Sabbathkeeping was not a continuation of unbroken weeks.

Some believe that the Babylonian captivity disrupted the weekly cycle and that the dispersion of the Jews prevented its continuity after the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon.

Some believe that since there were calendar reforms subsequent to Christ’s resurrection, these changes caused the cycle to be interrupted again. In other words, they think it is impossible, as well as unimportant, to know which day of the week is the seventh day.

Some propose that the Bible itself proves that continuity of the weekly cycle was not important to God, because during Joshua’s leadership in taking the land of Canaan from its inhabitants, the sun stood still for about a day. This extra daylight period is thought to be proof that the weekly cycle was disrupted.

The Miracle of a Day

The assumption that the extra daylight of Joshua’s period confused the calendar ignores the fact that a “day” in the Bible is a night period and the subsequent daylight period. It is from sunset to sunset.

It also ignores the fact that this whole, long daylight period is not referred to in the Bible as two days, but as one day: “So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it” (Joshua 10:13b, 14a).

The fact is that God continued to hold Israel responsible for Sabbathkeeping as though there had been no long day. The weekly cycle and the Sabbath Israel observed had God’s sanction, shown by His holding Israel accountable for Sabbathkeeping throughout the Old Testament, from their deliverance from Egyptian slavery onward.

The Miracle of Manna

There is no Bible record of Sabbath observ­ance after its institution at the end of Creation until Israel’s exodus from Egypt. However, just before Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai, calling for Sabbath observance on the seventh day of the week, God positively identified with a miracle which was the seventh day of the week. This miracle continued for the forty years Israel journeyed in the wilderness.

The miracle was a food called manna, which appeared on the ground on the first six days of the week, with a double portion on the sixth day. Then no manna fell on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. If there had been any loss of continuity or identity of the Sabbath from Creation until then, God left no doubt about its identity with this forty year-long miracle (see Exodus 16:15-30; Joshua 5:11, 12; Nehemiah 9:13-15).

There were regular confrontations between God’s prophets and Israel because of their failure to observe the Sabbath. However, a remnant of people always remained faithful to God. Even when Elijah thought he alone was faithful, there were still 7,000 like him among Israel (1 Kings 19:18). The evidence does not suggest loss of continuity of the weekly cycle or Sabbath observance during the time of the judges and kings of Israel.

Sabbath After Captivity

After returning from Babylonian captivity, Ezra and Nehemiah knew which day of the week was the Sabbath and took careful note to instruct the returning Jews to observe it (Nehemiah 10:31; 13:15-22).

Josephus relates that under the leadership of the Maccabees, the Jews refused to fight with the soldiers of Antiochus on the Sabbath. These events occurred during the period between the end of the prophets (Malachi) and the first coming of Christ (see Josephus, Book XII, Chapter VI). This evidence suggests a continuity of the weekly cycle from the time of the latest Old Testament writings until the time of Christ’s ministry.

During the Ministry of Jesus

The Gospels frequently reflect on accounts of Sabbathkeeping in the life and ministry of Christ. Accounts abound in confrontations between Christ and the Jews on just about every conceivable charge the Jews could bring against Him. However, there is no record of any disagreement between Him and the Jews regarding which day was the Sabbath. It is inconceivable that the identity of the Sabbath would be a problem when the Son of God was involved weekly in attending the synagogues of the Jews on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16), giving tacit approval of the time they set aside to worship.

From Jesus to the Present

Many are confident that the apostles initiated observance of the first day of the week as a day of worship honoring the resurrection of Christ. They see this in Paul and others meeting on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7), in taking up a collection on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:2), in John’s expression “the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10), and in the admonition of Hebrews 10:25 not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some.”

This line of reasoning suggests that the Christian church is concerned to identify the first day of the week for worship from the resurrection of Christ until now. The first day of the week is observed by most Christians as a day of worship in celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.

Several questions help us put the problem regarding the preservation of the weekly cycle in perspective for the period from Christ’s death to the present:

• How likely is it that even during times of persecution, all Jewish communities scattered worldwide would lose track of which day of the week is the Sabbath?
  
  
• If such a situation had developed, would there not be some historical record of how they agreed which day they should establish again as the Sabbath?
  
  
• In the same vein, how likely is it that during the times of Roman persecution of Christians, all the Christians in various communities throughout Europe and Asia would have lost track of which day of the week was the Sabbath or the first day of the week?
  
  
• If such a situation had developed, would there not be a historical record of how all those Christian communities came together in agreement as to which day of the weekly cycle is the first day of the week?
  
  
• How does it happen that Jews and Christians who observe the Sabbath and those who observe the first day of the week all agree which day is the seventh and which is the first?

The factual answer is not complicated! Jews and Christians agree because the weekly cycle has not been interrupted in the time between Christ’s birth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Their agreement is not because of a mutual decision to arbitrarily reestablish the weekly cycle.

What do we find? As the Roman government became concerned with the religious activities of the Christian and Jewish communities, the early church councils discussed observing the first day of the week and not observing the seventh-day Sabbath, which they considered Jewish. They admonished people who were observing the Sabbath not to do so, but instead to observe “the Lord’s Day,” meaning the first day of the week.

This indicates a keen awareness on the part of religious and civil authorities which day of the week was the first and which was the seventh. Friction and tension caused by the divergent view of first-day observance versus Sabbath observance has been constant ever since observing the first day of the week began being taught among Christians.

The Question of Calendar Changes

Another question needs consideration. Did calendar reform change the weekly cycle? Is there a record of the calendar changes that have taken place? Indeed, there is such information! Many sources supply this information in detail, telling exactly how and when the calendar was changed in different countries (they were not all simultaneous). All sources verify that the changes in the calendar did not affect the weekly cycle. The major calendar reform taking place in the Christian era was the replacement of the Julian calendar by the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

One thing is common in the adoption of the calendar reform by various countries around the world and over an extended period. A certain number of days were deleted in the monthly cycle, but no days of the week were added or deleted in any of the calendar changes as the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar. For example, ten days of October, 1582, were dropped to make the calendar coincide with the solar year. The record indicates exactly what happened so far as the weekly cycle is concerned, as well as the very days of the month that were deleted in that month of October.

History records that days were dropped only from the number of days in a month, but calendar reform did not interrupt the weekly cycle. Note the following from the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910 Edition, Vol. 3, page 740, in the article “Chronology”):

“It is to be noted that in the Christian period, the order of days in the week has never been interrupted. Thus, when Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in 1582, Thursday, 4 October, was followed by Friday, 15 October. So in England, in 1752, Wednesday, 2 September, was followed by Thursday, 14 September.”

A different number of days were dropped in England than earlier in Rome under Gregory XIII because of the two-century delay before England adopted the Gregorian calendar. During that time, as England continued under the Julian calendar, the calendar in England deviated from the solar year one more day. (See Encyclopedia Britannica, article “Calendar,” volume 4, pp. 671, 677, 1902 edition.)

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the German states in 1700, by England in 1752, by Sweden in 1753, and by Russia as late as 1918. (See Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. VII, “The Age of Reason Begins,” p. 595.)

There is no record of the seven-day weekly cycle ever having undergone a change. Hence, we can be certain of the seventh-day Sabbath or the first day of the week!

Various schemes, however, have been proposed for stabilizing the week, months, and years. Had they been adopted, they would have interrupted the weekly cycle. One such scheme had the approval of the Durants:

Ideally the calendar would have thirteen months, each of twenty-eight days, with a dateless holiday (or in leap years, two) at the close of the year. Such a one-page calendar, with rotary devices to indicate the month and the year, could serve for every month indefinitely; each day of the week would fall on the same dates every month and every year; the business year would be evenly divisible into equal months and equal quarters. But, alas, this would confuse the saints. (Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. VII, “The Age of Reason Begins,” p. 595.)

Similar systems have been seriously considered by various governments, but too much opposition is generated by such proposals. Consequently, no such scheme has been adopted simultaneously by all nations, though it has been proposed again and again.

The Rational Conclusion

So what is the rational conclusion? The weekly cycle has continued uninterrupted since Israel began observing the Sabbath in the wilderness. If it had been interrupted previously, the cycle was obviously reestablished and validated by the miracle of manna appearing six days each week, but not on the Sabbath, for forty years in the wilderness (see Joshua 5:12).

Questionable? The Sabbath as observed by the Jews was recognized as valid by our Lord Jesus Christ in New Testament times. Since then, the Christians’ and Jews’ insistence to uphold their convictions and practices to observe their respective days of worship has made it impossible for a disruption of the weekly cycle.

Why Discuss This Subject?

Some may be puzzled as to the need for this discussion. The need arises from all sorts of arguments that are made to discredit observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. One argument is that no person can be sure which day is the seventh day of the week and that Sunday is just as likely the seventh day as is Saturday. Some think that Sunday actually is the seventh day of the week.

Another argument is that “one in seven” is all that matters. When all these arguments are carefully considered, there is no valid reason for trying to discredit Sabbath observance on the basis that its identity in the weekly cycle has been lost. The Bible and history do not support such an argument.

We do well to remember the closing benediction of the Bible:

“Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14).

For hard copies, send your address and quantities to bap.orders@cog7.org.