Does The Bible Say Sunday Is The Lord’s Day?

The term “Lord’s day” is found in only one place in the Bible where John wrote, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet,” (Rev. 1:10 NASB2020).

Many Bible commentators and teachers have written that the Lord’s day is Sunday. The Pulpit Commentary writes, “The expression occurs here only in the New Testament, and beyond all reasonable doubt it means “on Sunday.” This is, therefore, the earliest use of the phrase in this sense.” Clarke’s Commentary says it is “the first day of the week, observed as the Christian Sabbath, because on it Jesus Christ rose from the dead; therefore it was called the Lord’s day, and has taken place of the Jewish Sabbath throughout the Christian world.” Barnes’ Notes says, “The word rendered here as “Lord’s” (κυριακῇ; kuriakē), occurs only in this place and in 1 Corinthians 11:20, where it is applied to the Lord’s supper. It properly means “pertaining to the Lord”; and, so far as this word is concerned, it might mean a day “pertaining to the Lord,” in any sense, or for any reason; either because he claimed it as his own, and had set it apart for his own service, or because it was designed to commemorate some important event pertaining to him, or because it was observed in honour of him…If the Jewish Sabbath were intended to be designated, the word “Sabbath” would have been used.” Barnes listed a number of Christian writers who wrote that the first day of the week (Sunday) is the Lord’s day.

From available commentaries, the authority ascribed to Sunday as the Lord’s day seems to be from the writings of men rather than the Scriptures. But there are strong grounds to believe that Apostle John never had the first day of the week (Sunday) in mind when he used the term κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ (kyriakē hēmera; Lord’s day). This assertion is borne out of the following facts:

• John was one of the Jewish converts by Jesus Christ from Judaism to Christianity. The Holy Scriptures he read was the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) which is today known as the Old Testament by Christians. His writing would therefore be influenced by the language of the Tanakh.
• In the first century CE, Sunday was not observed as a day of worship.
• The word “Lord’s day” has a biblical basis. It was used by God in reference to the Sabbath day: “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honourable, and if you honour it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.’ For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isa. 58:13-14 NIVUK, emphases added by me). Here, God called the Sabbath day His holy day, a day which should be set apart to honour Him. Earlier on, God had said in Exod. 35:2 that His people should regard the Sabbath day as a holy day. The word “holy” here means “set apart” for rest and worship in honour of God. It was a common knowledge at the time of the return of the exiles from Babylon that the Sabbath day was the LORD’s holy day, a day He had set apart right from the time of creation (Gen. 2:2-3). Hence Nehemiah called it “the holy day” (Neh. 10:31).
• John must have been at the scene where Jesus Christ told the Pharisees that he was the Lord of the Sabbath day (Matt. 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5). This means that he owns the Sabbath day. It is his prerogative to do what he wills on that day. When John later called a day “the Lord’s day,” no other day can be said to be in his mind than the Sabbath day.

Evidently, if there was any day known to John as the LORD’s holy day or the Lord’s day, it couldn’t be any other day than the Sabbath day.  The theology of Sunday as the Lord’s day came from the fantasies of men which they put in their writings beginning in the second century CE. Their teaching was not based on any scriptural fact. But we have seen from the few passages above that the Sabbath day was what John termed the Lord’s day in Rev. 1:10.

Is It The Day of The LORD?

There are some people who teach that the “LORD’s day” is another term used by John for “the day of the LORD.” But this cannot be accepted as an informed teaching. Going by the contexts in which “the day of the LORD” has been used, it cannot be the day John said he was worshipping God in the Spirit, when God gave him a series of revelations. A cursory look at some of the passages where the “day of the LORD” is used leaves no one with any doubt that they don’t refer to the same day.

“Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Because of this, all hands will go limp, every heart will melt with fear. Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labour. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame. See, the day of the Lord is coming – a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger – to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.” (Isa. 13:6-9 NIVUK).

“Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light – pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?” (Amos 5:18-20 NIVUK).

“Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (Rev. 6:15-17 NIVUK, emphasis added).

It was on the Lord’s day that John was told that the things which will happen on the day of the Lord were still in the future (Rev. 1:19). Conclusively, therefore, the “Lord’s day” cannot be the same as the day of the Lord.