Why the Change?
Since the example of Christ and the apostles is clear, we may wonder: when did “mainstream” churches begin to observe Sunday instead of the seventh-day Sabbath as a day of rest? Notice: “Tertullian (202ad) is the first writer who expressly mentions the Sunday rest: ‘We, however (just as tradition has taught us), on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude, deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil’” (article: “Sunday,” The Catholic Encyclopedia). That was not until 202 ad, more than 170 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ!
Later, in the fourth century ad, the Roman emperor Constantine enforced Sunday worship throughout his empire. Constantine had been a pagan sun-worshiper. He gave the following edict in 321 ad: “On the venerable day of the Sun let all magistrates and people… rest” (article: “Sunday Legislation,” Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge).
Disobedience to the emperor’s command could mean death to Sabbath-keeping Christians. Just a few years later, the Roman church also passed a startling decree at the Council of Laodicea. It declared: “Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, resting rather on Sunday. But, if any be found to be judaizing [keeping God’s Sabbath], let them be declared anathema from Christ” (A History of the Councils of the Church, p. 316). Christian Sabbath-keepers were labeled as heretics.
Both the government and the churches moved against Christian Sabbath-keepers. Yet the true Christianity of the first century—which never stopped following Christ’s example of keeping the fourth commandment—has continued to this day, in spite of persecutions over the centuries. Millions in the United States today forget that many of the first American settlers crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the 17th century in search of religious freedom in the colonies of North America. Thousands came to Rhode Island to take advantage of its royal charter, granted in 1663 by King Charles II of England, which guaranteed religious freedom in the colony. To this day, that charter remains on display in the Providence, Rhode Island statehouse.