“Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; . . . And he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.'” (Revelation 21:1-2,5)
Did the Church in its history make Sunday into the Sabbath Day? Not according to Matthew Gallatin, who makes it quite clear that the Christian keeping Sunday as a Holy Day had nothing to do with transferring the meaning of the Sabbath to Sunday. Sunday was a special day to Christians for a very particular reason. Sunday is the day of the resurrection and as such is the first day of the new creation promised by God. Saturday remained in the Liturgical life of the Church as the Sabbath rest, and on Saturday, Christ rested in the tomb following His crucifixion. When He arose from the dead, He gave new meaning to the first day of the week, which became the first day of the New Creation.
Gallatin writes:
“Here’s the truth, according to the early Church: Saturday is the Sabbath. The early Church recognized it as a holy day, in that it is the day that commemorates God’s resting after the creation of the world. Also, the Church revered it as the day on which Christ descended into hell, shattering its gates and freeing mankind forever from the bonds of death.
But the early Church also understood that the act the Sabbath commemorates–the creation of the world–has been infinitely surpassed in the continuing work of God, the new creation, which St. John describes: ‘Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away’ (Revelation 21:1). When does this new universe begin? On the day of Christ’s glorious Resurrection. For on that day, God established the foundations of this new world, a world that includes eternal life for mankind. It was on the day of His Resurrection that Christ our God rose in the flesh, forever making possible our union with Him. By the power of His resurrection, man is blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and may live in oneness with the Father under the earnest of those new heavens, in that new earth.
Now, the old creation was commemorated on the day of its ending–on Saturday. But the new creation will never pass away. Thus, it must be commemorated on the day of its wondrous beginning. And that day, the day on which God chose to raise Christ and gloriously change the universe forever, is not Saturday, but Sunday. The ancient Church often referred to Sunday as the “eighth day,” the day that takes us beyond this awesome, but temporal and fading realm that the Sabbath remembers, into God’s eternal day.
The Church recognizes its first allegiance must belong to the new, everlasting Kingdom, not to the old. Thus, the faithful of Christ proclaimed Sunday as their day of highest worship. Saturday remained a day for spiritual meditation and reflection, a day to thoughtfully prepare for the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection.” (Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells, pp. 59-60)
Fraternized 