Are Christians bound to keep the seventh-day sabbath, or is Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, the Christian day of worship? The related question of whether Scripture alone is the rule that would decide this is treated in the Sola Scriptura topic; here the question is the day itself, and by what authority it is kept.
23 verses are cited on this page. Each one links to its chapter in the Greek text.
And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed with them.Acts 20:7
Luke dates the assembly by the day and names its purpose in one clause. The disciples gather on the first day, and they gather to break bread.
On the first day of the week let every one of you put apart with himself, laying up what it shall well please him.1 Corinthians 16:2
Paul directs a weekly collection on the first day, which presumes they were already assembling then. The words are par heauto, by himself, which is the strongest objection here: Paul may mean each person setting money aside at home rather than a collection taken at an assembly. The day is still the point. He picks the first day and argues for it nowhere, which is how a practice already settled gets mentioned in passing.
...the same day, being the first day of the week... Jesus came and stood in the midst.John 20:19
The risen Christ appears to the gathered disciples on the first day.
And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh...John 20:26
Eight days later, that is, the following Sunday, again gathered, again appearing.
I was in the spirit on the Lord's day.Revelation 1:10
A day already named as the Lord's within the New Testament.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.Colossians 2:16-17
Paul forbids anyone to judge Christians over sabbath observance, and calls it a shadow whose body is Christ.
For one judgeth between day and day: and another judgeth every day: let every man abound in his own sense.Romans 14:5-6
Paul treats the observance of days as a matter where Christians may differ, not as a commandment binding all.
You observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest perhaps I have laboured in vain among you.Galatians 4:9-11
Paul is alarmed at Gentile converts taking up the calendar of Jewish observance.
The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also.Mark 2:27-28
Christ asserts authority over the sabbath itself, which is not the language of a mere observer.
For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath.Matthew 12:8
Lord of it, which is authority over the day rather than exemption from it. A lord may keep a thing, change its observance, or fulfil it, and the claim is what the sabbath controversies in the Gospels are actually about.
There remaineth therefore a day of rest for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, the same also hath rested from his works, as God did from his.Hebrews 4:9-10
The word here is sabbatismos, a sabbath keeping, and it appears once in the New Testament. The rest that remains is not a day on a calendar but a state entered through Christ, which is the argument the whole chapter has been building.
Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.Matthew 5:17-18
The strongest text for the law's permanence, and the hinge is the last clause. Not till heaven and earth pass, full stop, but till all be fulfilled. Christ says in the same breath that he came to fulfil, which is what the letter to the Hebrews then argues at length he did.
Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.Revelation 14:12
Cited to show the commandments still bind at the end, and they do. What the verse does not do is specify which day, and the same book calls the first day the Lord's day without argument.
And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven.Matthew 16:19
The authority claimed for such a determination. No verse commands the change of day; the real question is who had authority to make it.
...whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven.Matthew 18:18
The same authority given to the apostles together, to bind and to loose.
For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things.Acts 15:28
The apostolic Church exercising exactly this authority over observance, and notably not imposing the sabbath.
The moral substance of the commandment stands: a day belongs to God, for worship and for rest. What has changed is the day, and honesty grants at once that no verse of the New Testament commands the change. The Adventist is right about that much, and no Catholic should pretend otherwise. But Christ declared himself Lord of the sabbath (Mark 2:28), Paul forbade anyone to judge Christians over sabbaths and called them a shadow whose body is Christ (Colossians 2:16-17), and the apostolic council laid no sabbath obligation on Gentile believers (Acts 15:28-29). Meanwhile the New Testament already shows Christians assembling to break bread on the first day (Acts 20:7), setting money aside on it (1 Corinthians 16:2), and calling it the Lord's day (Revelation 1:10), and the earliest writers outside Scripture, the Didache, Ignatius, and Justin, describe the Sunday assembly as settled practice. So the Adventist argument that the Church, and not Scripture, determined the day is partly correct, and that is not an embarrassment but the point. If Scripture alone were the rule, the seventh-day case would be strong; whether Scripture alone is the rule is the question the Sola Scriptura topic takes up. The Catholic answer is that Christ gave his Church authority to bind and loose, that she exercised it from the apostolic age in gathering on the day of the Resurrection, and that the same authority by which the canon of Scripture was settled also settled the Lord's day. It is kept on the first day because that is the day the tomb was found empty, the day the Spirit came at Pentecost, and the day the Lord stood among his disciples and said, Peace be to you.