On May 31, 1998, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter about Sunday keeping, titled "The Lord's Day," which has important implications for Sabbath observers. In his papal letter, John Paul appealed to the authority of the Fourth Commandment, which sanctifies the Sabbath day, to give legitimacy to Sunday keeping. He also advocated civil enforcement for a Sunday rest.

Seventh-Day Adventist historian, Samuel Bacchiocchi, comments on the papal letter: "Historically, the Catholic Church has taught that Sunday observance is an ecclesiastical institution different in meaning and function from the Sabbath. John Paul departs from the traditional Catholic distinction between Sabbath and Sunday in order to make Sunday observance a moral imperative mandated by the Decalogue itself" (Endtime Issues #2: Sabbath under Crossfire, January 1999, page 3).

John Paul writes, "It is the duty of Christians therefore to remember that, although the practices of the Jewish Sabbath are gone, surpassed as they are by the 'fulfillment' which Sunday brings, the underlying reasons for keeping 'the Lord's Day' holy-inscribed solemnly in the Ten Commandments-remain valid, though they need to be reinterpreted in the light of the theology and spirituality of Sunday.... Jesus, as 'Lord of the Sabbath' (Mk. 2:28), restores to the Sabbath observance its liberating character, carefully safeguarding the rights of God and the rights of man. This is why Christians, called as they are to proclaim the liberation won by the blood of Christ, felt that they had the authority to transfer the meaning of the Sabbath to the day of the Resurrection.... For several centuries, Christians observed Sunday simply as a day of worship, without being able to give it the specific meaning of a Sabbath rest. Only in the fourth century did the civil law of the Roman Empire recognize the weekly occurrence, determining that on 'the day of the sun' the judges, the people of the cities and the various trade corporations would not work" (op. Cit. pages. 22-23, emphasis added throughout).

Bacchiocchi refutes the Pope's assertions: "John Paul recognizes the need to make Sunday keeping a moral imperative and he tries to accomplish this by rooting the day in the Sabbath commandment itself. But this cannot be done because Sunday is not the Sabbath. The two days have a different meaning and function. While in Scripture the Sabbath memorializes God's perfect creation, complete redemption, and final restoration, Sunday is justified in the earliest Patristic literature as the commemoration of the creation of light on the first day of the week, the cosmic-eschatological symbol of the new eternal world typified by the eighth day, and the memorial of Christ's Sunday Resurrection. None of the historical meanings attributed to Sunday require per se the observance of the day by resting and worshipping the Lord.... The attempt to transfer to Sunday the biblical authority and meaning of the Sabbath is doomed to fail because it is impossible to retain the same authority, meaning, and experience when the date of a festival is changed" (Endtime Issues #6, Washington Post, January 25, 1999, page 6).

Pope Urges Use of Civil Law to Enforce Sunday

More ominous than the theological use of the Fourth Commandment to back Sunday keeping is the pope's appeal to enforce its observance through civil law.

John Paul wrote, "When, through the centuries, she [the Catholic Church] has made laws concerning Sunday rest, the Church has had in mind above all the work of servants and workers.... In this matter, my predecessor Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum spoke of Sunday rest as a worker's right which the State must guarantee.... Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy" (op Cit. page 24).

Sabbatarians rightly are concerned about the Pope's decree. In a Washington Post article, "When is the Lord's Day?", Bill Broadway summarizes sabbatarian concerns: "An article in the current issue of Liberty, a Seventh-day Adventist magazine attacks Pope John Paul II's recent apostolic letter on observing the Sabbath on Sunday as 'highly flawed' and says the pope is trying to use 'the strong arm of the law' to enforce Sunday as an official day of worship" (January 23, 1999).

Bacchiocchi commented in that same article, "We are concerned that we will not be able to enjoy our own day of worship.... If the Catholic church wants to enforce church attendance by imposing penalties on those who don't attend regularly, that's their prerogative. What's troubling to me is that the pope expects civil governments to support the church plan by passing civil legislation.... Although the United States historically has supported the separation of church and state, countries in Europe and other parts of the world have not. And many nations have large Catholic constituencies that might influence government policy-for example, restoring or reinforcing laws against operating a business on Sunday."

Explaining the pope's agenda, Bacchiocchi writes, "The influence of the Pope in the international arena is far greater than most people realize. At present the Holy See maintains full diplomatic relations with over 160 nations. It receives and sends ambassadors all over the world. It has signed formal agreements with sovereign nations. It participates in dozens of international organizations concerned with moral, social, humanitarian, and cultural affairs.... This mixture of religious and political goals can be detected in reading the pastoral letter where John Paul calls Sunday rest as a religious and social necessity. For example, he writes, 'The link between the Lord's Day and the day of rest in civil society has meaning and importance which go beyond the distinctly Christian point of view.' By calling for a civil Sunday legislation on the basis of the common good of all humanity, John Paul knows that he can gain considerable support for his agenda from the international community of nations" (op. Cit. page 4).

Sunday Observance Legislated in A.D. 321

Sunday rest legislation goes back to Emperor Constantine, who by A.D. 321 had already sided with the Catholic Church. He decreed in that year, "Let all judges and all city people and all tradesmen rest upon the venerable day of the sun."

Some 45 years later, the Catholic Church found itself powerful enough to issue a decree banning Sabbath keeping by Christians and enforcing Sunday observance. In the Synod of Laodicea, canon 29 reads, "Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord's Day, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found Judaizing, let them be anathema from Christ" (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. XIV, page 148). John Paul is then merely carrying out an order of obligatory Sunday keeping which the Catholic church had established many centuries ago.

From Constantine's decree in A.D. 321 onwards, keeping the Sabbath has meant hostility and sometimes outright persecution from the Catholic Church. During the Middle Ages, in several places Sunday keeping was enforced and Sabbath observance was banned under the pain of death. For instance, writing about the Paulicians, who according to their book The Key of Truth, kept the Sabbath, historian Rufus Jones says, "During a period of one hundred and fifty years, these Christian churches seem to have been almost incessantly subjected to persecution, which they supported with Christian meekness and patience.... And in this, as well as former instances the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church" (Church History, 1837, page 187). The Paulician(s)...developed under the leadership of Constantine of Mananali in 640 and continued to have a strong religious impact in Eastern Europe up to the to 12th century, where they become identified with the Bogomils (cf. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1983, "Paulicians," page 1,053).

The "incessant persecutions" due to Sabbath keeping are prophesied to increase in the final days. One of the end-time signs God gives in Scripture is a prophecy about enforcing a universal change from the Sabbath and Holy days to man-made religious holidays.

We read in Daniel 7:23-26 about the end-time scenario, "The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth [the Roman Empire], which shall be different from all other kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, trample it and break it to pieces. The ten horns are ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom. And another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the first ones, and shall subdue three kings. He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time. But the court shall be seated, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it forever, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High."

Notice this all occurs during the last days, right before Christ returns. The terms, "times and law" are not very clear in the New King James Version, but they are in other translations. The Amplified Bible captures the real meaning, "He shall...think to change the time [of sacred feasts and holy days] and the law." The Expositor's Bible Commentary explains, "His program will include a revision of the calendar; this seems to be implied by 'to change the set times' (zimnin, lengths or periods of time)." The Jerome Commentary translates the phrase "shall intend to change times and law" in Daniel 7:25 as, "'thinking to change the feast days and the law.'" And then goes on to say, "On Antiochus IV Epiphanes' efforts to do away with the Jewish feasts, the Sabbath, and the whole Mosaic Law, see 1 Mc 1:41-64." Since Antiochus Epiphanes is a type of the end-time dictator, it follows that in the last days, the new leader patterned after him shall proceed along a similar line.

Roman Church's Calendar

Significantly, the Catholic Church already has its own "calendar" which vies with the biblical one. In his letter, John Paul writes, "Paul VI emphasized this importance once more when he approved the new General Roman Calendar and the Universal Norms which regulate the ordering of the Liturgical Year" (op. Cit. page 2).

As Europe further unites, the pope clearly wants Sunday keeping to be enforced by the Catholic countries in the European Union. Already, 11 of the 15 states of the European Union have Sunday laws. They are not strongly applied now, but John Paul's admonition to "strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy" is a harbinger of things to come. The Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1994 states, "In respecting religious liberty and the common good of all, Christians should seek recognition of Sundays and the Church's holy days as legal holidays" (Point 585).

The year 2000 should prove to be interesting, as it is both a Jubilee and a Millennial year. John Paul wrote in the same pastoral letter, "The coming of the Third Millennium, which calls believers to reflect upon the course of history in the light of Christ, also invites them to rediscover with new intensity the meaning of Sunday.... On the threshold of the great Jubilee of the year 2000, it has been my wish to offer you this Apostolic Letter in order to support your pastoral efforts in this vital area" (op. Cit. page 2).

According to prophecy, further enactment of Sunday legislation will eventually take place and we should especially watch what Europe would do about it in the future. WNP