Catholics, historically, have no problem with Sunday being a replacement for the Biblical Sabbath. “The Church changed the day,” they say, and that settles it for them.
Protestants, on the other hand, who claim to believe in Sola Scriptura (The Bible and the Bible only), must either admit that the seventh-day Sabbath is God’s designated time for rest and worship, or find a Bible reason for the change.
Some resort to throwing out the whole Law entirely. “We are not ‘under the Law’!”, they exclaim. This does not really solve the matter, as Jesus’ kingdom is one of righteousness, and how can righteousness be established by throwing out the standard of righteousness?
One other popular explanation is to say that the Apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, changed the day to Sunday. They would have us believe that the change happened right away in the early Church, and was consistently followed thereafter. It is this excuse that this book was designed to deal with.
Waggoner digs into the historical records, using sources written by Sunday-keepers, to show that the change from Sabbath to Sunday was slow and gradual, and was facilitated by the Church’s increasing adoption of paganism: pagan philosophy, pagan ideas, pagan rites and ceremonies.
Contents
- Introductory
- Antiquity, Universality, and Nature of Sun Worship
- Apostasy from Jehovah Worship to Sun Worship
- Apostasy Leads to Sabbath Desecration
- Heathen Influences in the Church
- The Eclectic Philosophy
- Neo-Platonism
- Origen’s Part in Paganizing the Church
- Results of the Philosophical Handling of the Bible
- The Church Completely Paganized
- Pagan Response to the Church’s Advances
- Constantine
- Constantine, the Church and Sunday
For those who have never studied this history, the book provides a good overview of the forces that were at work to cause this “breach” in the Law. 104p
