The Da Vinci Code Echoes the False Charge of the Seventh Day Adventists

Robert Langdon, a key character in the best selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, says, “Originally, Christianity honored the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but Constantine shifted it to coincide with the pagan’s veneration day of the sun….To this day most churchgoers attend services on Sunday morning with no idea that they are there on account of the pagan sun god’s weekly tribute-Sunday.” (pp. 232-233.)

In carefully reading the book of Acts, which gives the early history of the church, it can be seen that the early church did not honor, or observe the Jewish Sabbath. Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. Mark records, “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.” (Mark 16:9.) The body of Jesus lay in the tomb on the Sabbath, or on our Saturday, but very early on the first day of the week it was raised from dead. Jesus appeared to many on that first day of the week (Mark 16:9; Matt. 28:9; Luke 24:13-34; John 20:19-25).

The beginning of the church, or the kingdom of heaven, was on the first day of the week (Acts 2:1-47). The apostles were told to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them and clothed them with power. Ten days after the Lord’s ascension the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles in the city of Jerusalem. Luke by inspiration records, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” Devout Jews were in Jerusalem to observe the Passover (Feast of Unleavened Bread, Exo. 23:15) and Pentecost. The latter feast was known in the Old Testament as the Feast of Weeks (Exo. 34:22; Deut. 16:10) or Feast of Harvest (Exo. 23:16), or the Feast of the First Fruits (Exo. 23:16; Num. 28:26). Pentecost, which means fifty, was fifty days after the Passover feast and always fell upon the morrow after the Sabbath which would be the first day of the week.

The early church met regularly (Acts 2:42). At the beginning they assembled on a daily basis (Acts 2:46), but they always met on the first day of the week to partake of the Lord’s Supper. We read, “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight” (Acts 20:7.) It is interesting to observe that the apostle Paul, one of the Lord’s ambassadors, arrived in Troas a week earlier, but stayed there in order to meet with the saints on the Lord’s day in order to break bread, or to observe the Lord’s supper. Thus, he put apostolic approval on the Lord’s Supper’s being celebrated on the first day of the week. There is no authority for partaking of it on any other day. The burden of proof rests upon those who practice otherwise (Col. 3:17).

We know from the command given by the apostle Paul to the churches of Galatia as well as the church in Corinth that they met on the first day of the week to give as they had been prospered. Paul commanded, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.” (1 Cor. 16:1-2.) The literal meaning is that upon the first day of every week the saints were to lay by in store as God had prospered them.

There is nothing in the history of the church that indicates in anyway that the early church originally honored the Sabbath. Since there was opportunity to teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath, Paul often went there to argue, preach and persuade the Jews concerning the Christ (Acts 13:14-51; 17:1-3; 18:4). He was not observing the Sabbath, but preached that it, along with the entirety of the law of Moses, was nailed to the cross (Col 2:14-17).

But did Constantine change the day to be observed from Saturday to Sunday as the Seventh Day Adventist teach? No, he did not. Constantine made a religious practice, i.e., of Christians’ observing the first day of the week, a civil observance. Philip Schaff wrote,

In this matter, as in others, the accession of Constantine marks the beginning of a

new era, and did good service to the church and to the cause of public order and morality. Constantine is the founder, in part at least, of the civil observance of Sunday, by which alone the religious observance of it in the church could be made universal and could be properly secured. In the year 321 he issued a law prohibiting manual labor in the cities and all judicial transactions, at a later period also military exercises, on Sunday. He exempted the liberation of slaves, which as an act of Christian humanity and charity, might, with special propriety, take place on that day. But the Sunday law of Constantine must not be overrated. He enjoined the observances, or rather forbade the public desecration of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis, familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshippers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians. There is no reference whatever in his law either to the fourth commandment or to the resurrection of Christ….

The fact that Constantine made the first day of the week legal does not mean that he changed the day observed from Saturday to Sunday. Christians had been meeting on the first day of the week for almost three centuries before Constantine came along. His making the day legal helped to ease some of the difficulty of Christians meeting to worship.

Pliny, governor of Bithynia, Asia Minor, A.D. 106-108, wrote to the Emperor Tragan concerning Christians that “They were wont to meet together on a stated day before it was light, and sing among themselves alternately a hymn to Christ as God….When these things were performed, it was their custom to separate and then to come together again to a meal which they ate in common without any disorder.” (Canright, D. M., Seventh Day Adventism Renounced, p. 215.)

Eusebius, the historian, A.D. 324, said, “I think that he [the Psalmist] describes the morning assemblies in which we are accustomed to assemble throughout the world.” Canright continues to quote saying, “By this is prophetically signified the service which is performed very early and every morning of the resurrection day throughout the world.” (Ibid.)

The Lord’s day has always been the first day of the week, regardless of what man calls that day. John said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,” (Rev. 1:10.) Let each of us worship with the saints on the Lord’s day.