They met on Sunday and never called it the sabbath.
We see in Acts chapter 2 that the first church service was on Sunday (the day of Pentecost they were all with one accord in one place and received the outpouring of the Holy Ghost). And, the first public evangelism meeting was also held on Sunday out in the street after the Holy Ghost was poured out in the upper room (Acts 2:14-36)
Acts 20:7
The first day of the week, the Apostles came together to break bread
1 Corinthians 16:2
Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him
None of which either establishes Sunday sacredness or abrogates the 4th commandment as it reads.
Apparently the Holy Spirit did not lead them to meet on Saturday and call it the sabbath.
Why would He do that, since it had already been firmly established by engraving the tables of stone with His own finger?
The seventh day of the week was blessed and sanctified by God. The Israelites were commanded to keep the Sabbath holy.
"One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.” (Exodus 12:49)
However, no command for Christians to keep the Sabbath is found in the New Testament.
Sure there is:
Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. (1 Corinthians 7:19)
These verses are frequently used to prove that the Sabbath rest was instituted prior to its inclusion in the Mosaic Law. However, there is no command in this passage to keep the Sabbath nor was it practiced prior to the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. These verses merely document God’s resting from His work on the seventh day.
The question presumes that for a law to be in existence, there must be some exact account in Scripture of a man having observed or having been taught that law. This presumption is wholly illogical.
It also implies two claims: First, that the Sabbath was instituted in a Jewish setting. This claim is intended to prepare the way for the next, that the Sabbath was made only for the Jews.
Texts like Exodus 16:29 and Nehemiah 9:13,14 are supposed to neutralize the statement in Genesis 2:2,3 and effectively expunge it from the record. But does one Scriptural statement do that to another? No. When one text appears to contradict another we may be sure that we have made a mistake in our interpretation of one or the other of the texts. Genesis 2:2,3 stands firmly as a testimony that God rested on the seventh day of the first week of time and then and there blessed it. Thus we are prepared at the outset to believe that whatever Exodus 16:29 and Nehemiah 9:13,14 teach, they do not teach contrary to Genesis 2:2, 3.
Exodus 16:29 is part of the narrative of the giving of the manna, which was to be collected each day for the six working days, with twice as much to be collected on the sixth day, because God gave no manna on the seventh day. But some of the Israelites, contrary to God's command, went out on the Sabbath day to collect it. This caused the Lord to inquire of Moses: "How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days." Ex. 16:28,29.
Nehemiah, long afterward, recalls what God did for Israel in bringing them out of captivity, declaring in part: "Thou came down also upon mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and made known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and, commanded them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant." Neh. 9:13,14.
These passages deal with essentially the same incidents and are so similar in construction that they may be considered together. Let us note certain phrases:
- "The Lord bath given you the Sabbath." Ex. 16:29.
- "Gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments." Neh. 9:13.
- "Made known unto them thy holy Sabbath." Neh. 9:14.
The answer to the objection before us is found clearly revealed in the second of these three phrases. If, as claimed, the construction of the first and the third phrase requires the conclusion that the Sabbath law did not exist before the Exodus, then the construction of the second phrase requires us to conclude that the wide range of statutes, laws, and commandments that were formally stated at Sinai did not formerly exist. Therefore, not only would it have been no sin to work on the seventh day, previous to the Exodus, but it would have been no sin, previous to Sinai, to have done any of the things prohibited by the various laws and commandments which God "gave them" at that time.
But no one will claim that it would have been right to do the latter, for he agrees that nine of the Ten Commandments are an expression of eternal moral principles. When, at Sinai, God commanded, "Thou shall not commit adultery," it might be said, in one sense of the word, that He then gave Israel the law against sexual immorality. It was the first formal proclamation of that principle to the newly formed nation that stood in need, at the outset, of a clearly expressed code of laws. But no one believes for a moment that previous to the giving of that law against adultery from the flaming mount, there was no divine ban on adultery and therefore no sin in indulging in immoral acts.
Even so with the Sabbath law. It, along with the other great precepts of the Ten Commandments, and many other statutes, was formally made known to Israel as they began their national life. The long darkness of Egypt had quite blurred their understanding of God's will. Now by the light of the pillar of fire, God made dear to them all His requirements, including the Sabbath.
God declares, "I made myself known unto them [The Israelites], in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt." Eze. 20:9. Would the objector reason from this text that God did not exist before the Exodus? No. Then why contend that the Sabbath did not exist before that time simply because God then made it known to Israel? The facts are that the knowledge both of God and of the Sabbath had largely faded from the minds of the Israelites during their long Egyptian bondage.
Only a word needs to be said in reply to the claim based on the fact that the Scriptures are silent about anyone's keeping the Sabbath before the Exodus. The few pages of the Bible that precede the account of the Exodus cover some twenty-five hundred years. Obviously, only a few highlights of the long record could be penned. Chiefly, Moses sought to provide it running narrative to connect creation with the events that followed the fall of man, on down through the Flood, the call of Abraham, the rise of Israel, and their exodus from Egypt. Little is mentioned of the religious activities in which men engaged during those twenty-five hundred years. To present this silence of Scripture as proof against the seventh day Sabbath is to rely on an extremely weak argument.
Those who promote the importance of Sunday generally include in their reasoning that man needs a recurring day of worship each week, but they do not set any bounds of time or place on that claim. Hence those who lived before the Exodus were in need of such a recurring day. Seeing they were, would God fail to provide for that need? Indeed, did He not do that very thing when, at creation, He set apart for a holy use the seventh day? And do we need to find a specific mention of their keeping that day before we reasonably conclude that holy men like Enoch, Noah, and Abraham kept that holy day? In fact, what other conclusion would be reasonable?
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