Are We Required to Attend Church on Sunday?

The very fact that we have to address this question, even in evangelical circles, demonstrates the true measure of the church’s worldliness. It is not a superstitious attachment to days, but respect for the Lord’s generous service to us, that gives us one day in seven to be swept into the drama of redemption. When the holy day is reabsorbed into the common week, the church is bound to be reabsorbed into the world’s bloodstream.

In the Old Testament, the weekly Sabbath is anchored in creation (Ex 20:8-11) and God’s redemption of Israel from Egypt (Dt 5:12-15). The apostolic church met on Sunday, “the first day of the week,” also identified as “the Lord’s Day” (Jn 20:19, 26; Ac 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2; Rev 1:10). 

After the apostles, the twin dangers of antinomian neglect of the weekly assembly and “Judaizing” legalism already reared their head. Addressing the latter problem, Ignatius reminds the Magnesians, “If then, those who lived in antiquated customs came to newness of hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but living in accordance with the Lord’s day—on which also our life arose through him and his death (though some will deny it), and by this mystery we received the power to believe…(Mag. 9:1). At the same time, the Lord’s Day continued to occupy its princely status in the weekly schedule. Constantine declared it an official day of rest in 321, launching a civil application of the fourth commandment that lasted even into twentieth-century Europe and the United States.

In the medieval church, myriad regulations—civil and ecclesiastical—had been attached to the Lord’s Day, along with a host of celebration, holidays, and rituals that Scripture does not authorize. The Reformers rejected this return to the shadows of the law. In fact, Luther tended to distinguish sharply between the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. Yet he called each Lord’s Day “a little Easter.” It is not the day itself that sanctifies, but the ministry of the Word. For that very reason, though, his Larger Catechism insists upon the regular participation in the weekly assembly.

Calvin saw a threefold purpose for the Sabbath institution: 

1) as a sign of the final rest that would come with Christ; 

2) to maintain church order, and 

3) to offer relief for workers. 

Calvin’s view (Institutes 2.8.31-32) is essentially the same that can be found in Luther’s Large Catechism.  Keep Reading >>>

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