ONCE UPON a time, I became a Sabbathkeeper. A few years later, I came to see that keeping a day wasn't a requirement for New Covenant saints. I've since returned to Advent Christian ministry, and I am grateful to God for those who have extended a gracious welcome to one who had left their ranks. I love seventh-day Christians. What I write here should not be taken as an attack on them but merely an explanation for how my mind was changed.

In the late 1980s, while pastoring a loving congregation of Advent Christians in Ashland, Maine, I read Making Sunday Special, by Karen Mains. She argued that the Ten Commandments are perpetually binding, and that the Sabbath obligation had been transferred to Sunday. I was impressed, but wondered, "Where does the New Testament clearly teach that the Sabbath obligation applies to Sunday?"

That question led me to books by seventh-day scholars: The Forgotten Day by Desmond Ford (1) and From Sabbath to Sunday by Samuele Bacchiocchi.(2) Eventually, I was convinced by their arguments. So, Shelley and I and our two children began to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, while I continued pastoring our first day congregation.

Our early Sabbathkeeping proved to be a good experience in many ways. We would have a Sabbath-welcoming meal after sunset Friday, with opportunity for each of us, and sometimes guests, to share what God had been doing in our lives that week. Then we tried our best to unplug from stress until Saturday sunset. I felt free to do visitation on Saturday - after all, Jesus ministered on the Sabbath. But we generally aimed to have a restful day that would be spiritually refreshing.

In order to accomplish that, we avoided things such as shopping, television (other than a good nature show, or a Christian video), physical labor, and intense mental labor such as sermon preparation. In place of these, we enjoyed relaxing Christian music, reading, prayer, picnics (northern Maine weather permitting!), playing with the kids, and fellowship with Christian friends.

Some days we struggled about a particular activity, wondering if it violated the Sabbath; however, most of the time, we truly enjoyed our day of rest. The next day, we'd go to church and I'd work hard at preaching, etc., on Sunday.

Finally, I became convinced that I needed to be in a seventh-day church in order to be free to proclaim what I had come to believe. After three and a half years of a wonderful relationship with the church in Ashland, we decided to leave in order to accept a call to a Seventh Day Baptist Church (3) in Lakewood, Colorado. Thankfully, God gave us grace to part ways with our Advent Christian brothers and sisters in a peaceful, mutually-respectful way. We hated to say goodbye, but thought it was the necessary price we had to pay in order to "be true to the Sabbath."

Ironically, becoming the pastor of a SDB Church soon ruined the restful day we had discovered! We loved our new church family; but as a Seventh Day pastor, I worked hard each Sabbath! And I was not alone: many of our members drove 20-30 minutes to church in Denver traffic. Choir members had to arrive an hour early for practice. Various people prepared refreshments, set up and took down tables and chairs, staffed a full Sabbath School program, and cleaned up the building after we finished, so it would be ready for the Sunday congregation who rented from us. Such was "church" - and normally well worth the effort - but, it did not feel like a sabbath-rest! The "romance" of the Sabbath was gone for me.

I saw that seventh-day Christians, like the rest, had their problems - and maybe a few more. We sometimes found it difficult to relate to first-day Christians without awkwardness. After all, they disagreed with our major distinctive, and more than a few of them regarded us as legalists! Feeling cut off from the larger body of Christ is not universal among seventh-day Christians; but neither is it uncommon.

I saw some "lone Sabbathkeepers" struggle by themselves or with only their family, because they felt there was no acceptable seventh-day church near them - even though there were good Sunday congregations all around. One such lady from a rural area visited our church and told me it was the first time in years that she had taken Communion! A few others I met attended a seventh-day church, but were unhappy with it. Yet, because other churches near them worshipped on "the wrong day," they did not feel free to attend a more uplifting fellowship.

Certain Sabbathkeepers have a negative attitude toward Christian holidays, (4) such as Christmas and Easter, preferring Jewish holidays instead. SDBs are not generally known for this, but they sometimes draw in other seventh-day Christians who bring that sort of baggage with them.

I met more than one Sabbathkeeper who seemed proud of his "stand for God's eternal moral law" (especially, the fourth commandment!), and then fell into very serious sin (cf. 1 Cor 10:12). I counselled a Seventh-day Adventist man who was "well-established in the Sabbath truth" who eventually was exposed for an adulterous affair that had continued for years. It was tragic. From conversations with them, I gathered that part of his rationalization process was: "Why should I feel too badly about breaking the seventh commandment, when even famous Christians like Billy Graham and Chuck Swindoll go on breaking the fourth?" (5) It seemed that his self-righteous Sabbath mindset was partly to blame for his fall. I began to think Sabbathkeepers, especially SDA's, face a greater temptation toward spiritual pride.

A year or so after becoming a SDB pastor, I ran into a challenge to Bacchiocchi's theory about how the vast majority of Christians could have been persuaded to abandon the Sabbath for Sunday. His theory was based on two discoveries: the Roman Empire had passed laws against Sabbathkeeping, which were aimed at persecuting the Jews; and at the same time, certain early Christians in Rome were affected by anti-Jewish sentiments. Bacchiocchi suggested that these factors led Christians at Rome to distance themselves from anything Jewish, and to forsake the Sabbath for Sunday. They justified the change saying it commemorated the first day of creation and Jesus' resurrection. Sunday was already respected, due to the popularity of sun-worship cults; therefore, the move would have been quite "politically correct." And since the church at Rome enjoyed a certain prestige (perhaps because Paul and Peter had been martyred in Rome), Bacchiocchi suggested that almost all churches followed the lead of the bishops of Rome, who said Sabbathkeeping was not proper for Christians.

Originally, I thought this made good sense, partly because it fit with my "conspiracy view" of Church history, which tended to blame everything that was wrong in Christendom on the Church of Rome. (6) Then in the providence of God, I met a Russian Orthodox priest. I found that I knew almost nothing about Eastern Orthodoxy, and was prompted to study its history and teachings. What I found made Bacchiocchi's suggested scenario seem impossible.

Here was the problem: Orthodoxy has had a long line of metropolitan patriarchs (big city bishops). The Eastern churches looked to their own "metropolitans" as the guardians of true Apostolic practice, and originally viewed the bishop of Rome on a par with those patriarchs (later, after the Roman bishops claimed universal authority, the Eastern Church split from the Roman Church).

For eastern churches to abandon the Sabbath, if it was their original custom, would have been a very obvious, dramatic reversal Of an Apostolic practice (according to Bacchiocchi's view). But how could church leaders at Rome succeed in persuading thousands of congregations in the East, as well as the West, to switch their day of assembly, if those churches had started out meeting every seventh day - and accomplish it as early as the second or third century!

It seemed impossible to me that the Eastern Orthodox, who had suffered for their faith, would have been willing to change such a basic feature of their church life, merely because a distant bishop at Rome said they should do so! Of course my feeling about the impossibility of that happening did not disprove Bacchiocchi's thesis. But it did force me to rethink Biblical interpretations which had led me to adopt seventh-day Sabbathkeeping in the first place.

Another thing I learned about Eastern Orthodoxy challenged me. Despite the differences between it and Roman Catholicism (e.g., the Orthodox practice immersion, do not exactly teach transubstantiation, do not require priestly celibacy, etc.), there was one thing that was much the same: the highpoint of their worship is a weekly Sunday celebration of communion. Both Catholic and Orthodox communion liturgies seem to have added layers of elaborate ceremony and ideas about the bread and wine actually becoming the body and blood of Christ to the original Lord's Supper. But, I began to wonder if their common practice might date back to a first century Chnstian custom. That custom would have been the first-day meetings we find mentioned in the New Testament.

Three texts might indicate a pattern of first-day meetings. These are viewed by seventh-day Christians as "proof texts" taken out of context. They contend that Acts 20:7, rather than indicating a practice of regular first-day meetings with communion, was a one time special gathering of believers to share a meal with Paul before he left their region. 1 Corinthians 16:2, they say, instructed believers to set aside an offering at home each week, rather than telling them to bring it to church on Sunday. Finally, they believe that the "Lord's day" of Revelation 1:10 is not a reference to Sunday, but refers instead to the seventh day, or to the eschatological Day of the Lord - i.e., the time connected with the glorious return of the Lord Jesus to the world.

By themselves, these three texts may not appear conclusive. However, when I considered them in the light of early Christian writings and practice, they were very difficult to dismiss. There is mention of a weekly first-day communion service in Christian writings of the second, third, and fourth centuries, such as in those of Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache. ("From Sabbath" 221-298) Some refer to Sunday as "the Lord's Day" (cf. Rev. 1:10); and some write against Sabbathkeeping.

In the light of those references, when I read Acts 20:7 concerning the believers coming together on "the first day of the week" in order to "break bread," it wasn't hard to see a link. If Christians in Troas gathered on the Sabbath, why was there no mention of Paul's meeting with them that day? It says they gathered on the first day, not merely to hear Paul, but for a fellowship meal/communion service, at which Paul happened to be available to speak. That fit well with my suspicion that the custom of a Sunday Communion service in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches might have a first century origin. Weekly cornmunion on Sunday was nowhere commanded, but it seemed to have been common.

The idea that most early Christians had a weekly communion service also fits with Paul's remark in 1 Corinthians 11:20 where he remarks sarcastically, "When you come together in one place it is not to eat the Lord's Supper ... " Paul's point is that they were doing it all wrong. Evidently, however, whenever they came together, their meeting usually included the Lord's Supper. But on what day did they meet? A likely answer is found in the same epistle, where Paul instructs them to contribute a portion of their income on the first day of each week (1 Cor 16:2).

Sabbathkeepers resist the idea that this indicates regular Sunday meetings. They contend that the Greek phrase par heauto literally means to set it aside "by oneself," at home. That makes little sense. Paul asked them to do this weekly collection of funds so that there would be no need for a collection when he arrived (16:2c). A setting aside of funds at home would not eliminate the need for a collection of all funds when Paul came!

And why would he specify a particular day for a private setting aside? There is no apparent reason for that, though seventh-day scholars grope for one. In the light of all the early references to first-day Christian meetings, 1 Corinthians 16:2 is more easily interpreted as another indication that the Gentile churches (if not also some Jewish Christian assemblies) were meeting on Sundays, at which time they would break bread and receive an offering. The phrase par heauto need not be interpreted in a rigidly literalistic manner. It seems to refer to a Sunday collection at church, rather than putting it aside at home.

It became apparent to me that seventh-day writers expended a lot of energy attempting to explain away the significance of those New Testament texts which indicate first-day Christian meetings - partly because they were unwilling to view them in the light of references to Sunday meetings in the early post-apostolic writings.

Before I adopted Sabbathkeeping, I came to view the Ten Commandments as "the moral law." I was influenced by Puritan writings and by Catechisms which use the Decalogue as the chief summary of moral duty. Eventually, however, I came to believe that Christians create confusion when they say or infer that "the Law" is the Ten Commandments.

When the New Testament speaks of "the law," it often means the whole Mosaic Law - the five books of Moses, with their myriad of commands (e.g., Jn. 8:5, referring to Lev. 20:10). Sometimes "the law" means the entire Old Testament (cf. 1 Cor. 14:21 quoting Isa. 28:11-12; 1 Cor. 14:34, perhaps alluding to Gen. 2; and Jn. 10:34 quoting Ps. 82:6). Jews often referred to three basic sections of the Old Testament; and, we see this usage in our Lord's statement, " ... all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me" (Lk. 24:44).

According to a Jewish encyclopedia (which I happened to find in the SDB denominational center library), there are 613 laws in the Law or "Torah" (Genesis through Deuteronomy). The rabbis debated which was the greatest, the second greatest, and on and on to the least important commandment. Many rabbis agreed that the "least" of the commandments was Deuteronomy 22:6-7 (cf. Matt. 5:17-20). (7) They certainly would never have classified one of the Ten Commandments as least important.

Our Lord was asked, "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?" He chose none of the Ten Commandments, but rather Deuteronomy 6:5 - "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is Leviticus 19:18 - "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." He went on to say, "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 22:34-40).

I realized that to think only of the Ten Commandments as "God's law" was inaccurate. To call them "the moral law" was also misleading. I found that there were many moral issues not addressed by the Decalogue, which were forbidden by other portions of the law (e.g., premarital sex, rape, sorcery, homosexual acts, incest, bestiality, mistreating the helpless, kidnapping, etc.). I might have wished that God had divided the commandments into neat categories; but he had not chosen to do so - even in the Decalogue. Though nine of its commandments plainly deal with moral issues, the fourth seemed to be classified by Paul as ceremonial (cf. Col. 2:16-17). More about that later.

Certainly the Ten Commandments were central to God's covenant with Israel, but not separate from the whole Law. And the Sabbath was a peculiar sign of that Old Covenant, which God made with the nation (Ex. 31:12-18). In a sense, obedience to every commandment - even the ceremonial - was a moral issue for those who lived under the administration of the Mosaic Law. That law was in force from Sinai to Calvary (Gal. 3:16-25; 4:4-7; Eph. 2:14-16). But the New Testament informed me that certain laws were never intended to be forever binding on God's people - at least, not binding "in the letter." We " ... have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:6). Literal obedience to certain laws was no longer demanded of Christians.

The Law required animal sacrifice. But Christians approach God through the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, thereby fulfilling the spirit of the Law. The Law required circumcision on the eighth day. We don't obey that command literally, but have a "circumcision ... Of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter" (Rom. 2:29). Under the Law, it was forbidden to yoke an ox with a donkey. The application for New Covenant saints, is "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). The Law required a seventh-day Sabbath-rest, but we find true spiritual rest in Christ himself (Matt. 11:28-30). These are the new applications for old commandments.

I began to understand that Christians are under "the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2; 1 Cor. 9:21). He had sent forth His Apostles to "make disciples of all nations ... teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19-20, NIV). We find those commandments in the Gospels, as well as in the rest of the New Testament (cf. Jn. 16:12-13; 1 Cor. 14:37). I saw clearly that the Lord Jesus is our New Covenant Mediator and Law-giver, replacing Moses. (8)

I came to believe that, when Paul said we are "not under the Law," he meant more than what the Puritans might have thought he was saying - i.e., that we are freed from trying to be saved by lawkeeping, or liberated from the burden of trying to keep the law without the Holy Spirit's help. Paul was actually saying that we're no longer under the Mosaic system with its 613 commandments and corresponding curses and penalties. If that is so, where is the evidence that Sabbathkeeping is regarded as a duty in the New Covenant Scriptures?

Paul often went to the synagogue, or to some other Jewish meeting, on the Sabbath during his missionary journeys (e.g., Acts 13:14,42-44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4). However, it became obvious to me that he was targeting synagogues as a missionary strategy, not because he felt bound to keep the day holy (cf. 1 Cor. 9:19-20). There, on any Sabbath, he had a ready-made audience of people who were acquainted with the Old Testament Scriptures, which predicted Messiah's coming, death and resurrection. If some want to follow Paul's example, they need to go to the nearest Jewish synagogue next Sabbath, and preach Jesus!

But what did Paul specifically teach about the Sabbath? He said, " ... let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ" (Col. 2:16-17). In that statement, he covers yearly religious festivals, monthly new moons, and weekly Sabbaths. All these foreshadowed Christ, he says; therefore, we should not allow anyone to judge us in regard to these things. They are no longer an issue! Jesus is the Great Reality; we need not be concerned about symbols - we have Him!

Sabbathkeepers sometimes try to interpret the "sabbaths" of Colossians 2:16-17 as being the yearly sabbaths, the annual religious festivals. However, Paul already mentioned those in the passage. It would be senseless repetition for him to mention them again. Obviously, by "sabbaths" or "a Sabbath day" (NIV) he means the weekly sabbaths. Bacchiocchi himself made this point in From Sabbath to Sunday. In a later book, The Sabbath in the New Testament, he reverted to the idea that the sabbaths Paul mentions are the yearly festivals. It appeared that he was running from the plain sense of Colossians 2:16-17, just as I had been.

Finally I concluded that I had been wrong about the Sabbath being a moral obligation for Christians. It was an Old Covenant ceremonial practice that was no longer required.

According to Hebrews 4, a sabbath-rest remains for the people of God (v. 9, NIV), but I could see that it was not a mere 24-hour day. After hearing many explanations, here's what I concluded: God's rest, mentioned in Genesis 2:1-3 and Hebrews 4:10, began on the seventh day of creation week, but it continues even today. It was God's rest of great satisfaction as he beheld the very good creation he had made.

But since God knew the future, including how his perfect creation would be marred by sin and the curse (Gen. 3), we might have expected him to be troubled, rather than "resting" in the satisfaction of what he had made. How could he rest, knowing what would happen to it? Presumably because he had predetermined to redeem it from the consequences of sin (1 Peter 1:18-20). Thus it appears that God the Father was resting in the saving work he would accomplish through his Son! (9)

This is the rest into which we can enter. It is a true, lasting rest in Christ, by which we cease from our own works and rest upon his finished work (Heb. 4:10). Elsewhere, we are assured that by coming to Christ and submitting to his "yoke" (His Lordship), we will find rest for our souls (Matt. 11:28-30). That is the spiritual reality which the Old Testament Sabbath beautifully foreshadowed.

Beyond that, of course, there are practical lessons in the fourth commandment - e.g., we need to regularly take a break from work, and spend time with the Lord. Under the Old Covenant, this time for rest and worship was to be strictly observed every seventh day. However, I learned that as New Covenant people of God, we have passed out of our "childhood" into a mature stage of "sonship" (cf. Gal. 3:23-4:7, NKJ or NIV), and are free to apply the principles of the Sabbath law, as we are guided by the Holy Spirit, without being bound to the "letter" of the Law (Gal. 4:9-10; Rom. 7:6).

One might compare this with strict bedtime rules that a mother may enforce for her three year old son. This is good for him; and yet, when he grows to maturity, he will be freed from the old rule of childhood related to bedtime. Naturally the mother hopes he will understand the principles behind the old rule, and will keep the "spirit" of them. For example, he shouldn't abuse his health by staying up until 2:00 a.m. every night - even though she understands there may be a good reason to stay up that late, or later, at times. This is similar to the difference between the letter and the spirit of the Sabbath commandment, it seems to me.

We need regular rest and time for worship and Christian fellowship. However, we are not bound to use a particular day to meet these practical needs, nor are we required to fulfill them on the same day. For those who are working hard at church, that day may not be possible!

We are commanded to assemble regularly together with other Christians for worship and mutual encouragement (cf. Heb. 10:16-25), and to carry out Christ's commission to make disciples, baptize and teach them (Matt. 28:18-20), and to frequently gather at His Table to give thanks and remember Him, until He returns (1 Cor. 11:23-26). However, which day we do those things is not the important issue. It's more important that we learn to love God and one another and bear each other's burdens, and so forth (Matt. 22:36-40; Gal. 6:1-2,10; Jn. 13:35). God wants us to be free to focus on the things that matter most!

Thank God, becoming a Sabbathkeeper did not require that I abandon the Gospel. I never kept the day perfectly enough to become self-righteous. I have always fallen enough short of total sanctification that I have known it is only by grace that I could be accepted by a holy God, and that this grace is entirely based on the perfect obedience and atoning death of Jesus.

As a Sabbathkeeper, I reasoned that God sees the hearts of first-day Christians, and knows that they "walk in the light they have." Through their faith in Christ, they are "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6), and are not condemned for their "unbiblical practice." (10) Now that I am a first-day pastor again, I hope my friends who remain committed to Sabbathkeeping will be able to regard me with that attitude.

Please, let no one suppose that I intend to contradict the moral absolutes of God's Word or deny the necessity of obedience and holiness. I believe that we are freed from certain Old Testament practices, but that we must obey the "law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). Any who call him "Lord," yet practice lawlessness, are lost (Matt. 7:21-23).

May I remind my first-day readers: we are not to look down on our brothers and sisters who consider one day more sacred than another (Rom. 14:1-10). If we have opportunity to share our views with them, we need to speak the truth in love. Most of them keep the Sabbath in order to please God, and I believe He delights in their intent, even though he no longer requires his children to keep a day. Indeed, "the Lord looks upon the heart." I'm glad He does.

Seventh-day and first-day Christians belong to the same Lord and have no other hope but his free grace. May we rest in Him and be gracious to one another.

1. Dr. Ford came to the U.S. from Australia, and became a popular Seventh-day Adventist preacher and college professor. But when he dared to disagree with their "Investigative Judgment" doctrine, he was defrocked. He and Pastor Roy Gee have an independent seventh day church and ministry, Good News Unlimited, in Auburn, CA. They are living proof that Sabbatarians can avoid legalism and be winsome Christ-centered communicators. <BACK TO TEXT>

2. Dr. Bacchiocchi and his books about the Sabbath are highly respected among various seventh-day denominations. He has even been a speaker for the Lord's Day Alliance, a Sunday-Sabbatarian group! He himself is Seventh-day Adventist. <BACK TO TEXT>

3. There are only about 100 Seventh-day Baptist churches in the U.S., and some of those are quite small. Their denominational center is in Janesville, Wisconsin, and it is staffed by some of the nicest Christians I have ever met. Though not nearly as well known as the Seventh-day Adventists, their movement dates back to the 1650s in England, and to 1671 in this country. SDAs didn't appear until after the Adventual Awakening Of the 1840s. They actually learned about the Sabbath from SDBs. <BACK TO TEXT>

4. Ralph Woodrow, a former Sabbathkeeper, has written helpful books in which he recants his former Saturday resurrection and anti-Christmas positions. You may write him at: Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association, Box 124, Riverside, CA 92502. He is living proof that ex-Sabbatarians can also be winsome preachers of the Gospel! <BACK TO TEXT>

5. It is significant that Sabbath breaking never appears in New Testament warning passages which say that those who persist in sins such as adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, idolatry, drunkenness, sorcery, thievery, etc., will not inherit the kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21). Under the Old Covenant, Sabbath breaking was a very serious sin. After Christ's death and resurrection, it was not an issue. <BACK TO TEXT>

6. One of the things which made me susceptible to SDA arguments for the Sabbath was that, like them, I held a historicist view of prophecy, believing that the Roman Catholic papal office was the ultimate fulfillment of the Antichrist predictions (I am no longer strictly historicist). SDAs pointed me to Daniel 7:25, explaining that the "little horn" who would "intend to change times and law" were popes who thought they had authority to change the Sabbath to Sunday. However, according to Bacchiocchi (the SDA champion of the Sabbath), the change of day happened before there were any "popes" around! If later bishops of Rome made statements about the papacy having authority to change the day, they were not claiming it was a post-apostolic change. They assumed that Peter was the first pope, who changed the day by his authority. <BACK TO TEXT>

7. Interestingly, Deuteronomy 22:6-7 seems to have been based on an ecological concern: be careful not to kill off the species by eating the mother bird. <BACK TO TEXT>

8. We see a parallel between Moses and Jesus suggested by "event-matching" in Matthew's Gospel: Jesus comes out of Egypt (cf. Matt. 2:15 with the Exodus), goes through a baptism (cf. Matt. 3:16 with the Red Sea crossing and 1 Cor. 10:2), and ascends a mountain to give His Law (cf. Matt. 5:1ff with Moses' ascent to receive the Decalogue on Mt. Sinai). The concept behind these parallels is that Jesus replaces Moses as the Mediator/Prophet for God's people (cf. Acts 3:22-23). <BACK TO TEXT>

9. This idea was suggested to me by The Sovereign Grace Message, Pastor E.W. Johnson, P.O. Box 7464, Pine Bluff, Ark. 71611-7464; and by "Entering God's Rest" by Rodney Nelson, 15022 N.E. 36th St., Vancouver, Wash. 98682-8323. <BACK TO TEXT>

10. Unfortunately, SDAs have the idea that a "final crisis" will come when observing Sunday, rather than the Sabbath, will actually be the "mark of the beast" (Rev. 13:16-18). This makes them less sure, even now, about the spiritual status of believers who do not keep the seventh day. More tragically, other things in the traditional SDA belief system make it hard for even the conscientious Sabbathkeeper to be sure of salvation. Some of their authors are aware of this, and are writing some helpful things about grace and assurance. <BACK TO TEXT>

All Scripture quotations are from the NKJV, unless otherwise indicated.

Bacchiocchi, Samuele, From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investgation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University Press; distributed in the USA by the author, 1977).

Ford, Desmond, The Forgotten Day (Newcastle, CA: Desmond Ford Publications, 1981).

Carson, D.A., editor, From Sabbath to Lord's Day: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Investigation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981).

Zens, Jon. "This is My Beloved Son: Hear Him," Searching Together, n.d. My interaction with Jon Zens was significant in my theological pilgrimage on this issue. For information on back issues, contact Searching Together, Box 548 St., Croix Falls, Wis. 54024, (715) 755-3048.

NOTE: This article was originally published in the Advent Christian journal, Henceforth, 22:1 (Spring 1995): 27-40. All content has been retained, with the exception of typographical errors which have been corrected, and the layout of the material in a style more suitable for internet viewing (paragraph divisions remain substantially unchanged). The links provided in the END NOTES and in the BIBLIOGRAPHY have been added for the benefit of the reader.