The claim that Constantine “changed the Sabbath” needs to be weighed carefully, especially since there is no scriptural or apostolic instruction that ever authorizes such a change. In the Torah, the Sabbath is clearly the seventh day, set apart (qodesh) at creation itself and given as a covenant sign—later described as ʿôlām (עוֹלָם), meaning enduring or everlasting (Exod. 20:8–11; 31:16–17). This foundation matters. Neither the Passover-centered remembrance of the bread and the cup, nor the early practice of gathering on the first day, ever suggests that the holiness of the Sabbath was transferred to another day.
The real shift comes much later, during the fourth-century Constantinian period. In 321, Constantine issued a decree establishing rest on “the venerable day of the Sun” as a matter of imperial civil law. This was not a reinterpretation of Scripture, but a political decision that followed Roman custom rather than the biblical calendar. Church councils soon reinforced this direction by discouraging Sabbath rest as “judaizing,” applying pressure where Scripture had given none.
Historically, then, what is often called a “change of the Sabbath” is not rooted in Torah or apostolic teaching. It is the result of late-imperial law and institutional enforcement that made Sunday rest normal, while the seventh-day Sabbath itself remained unchanged in the text. This left later believers—though speaking of themselves as one body—to inherit a tension between Scripture and tradition that was never fully resolved.
[16] Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.[17] It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
Lexical Witness: עוֹלָם (ʿôlām, H5769)
Brown-Driver-Briggs Definition:
- long duration, antiquity, futurity
- for ever, everlasting, perpetual
- ancient time (past)
- continuous existence (future)
- indefinite or unending future
Part of Speech: Noun, masculine
Root: from H5956
Literal Sense: “that which is concealed; the vanishing point,” used idiomatically for enduring time
Strong’s H5769 — עוֹלָם (ʿôlām)
Properly: concealed, time out of mind (past or future); practically, eternity—frequently rendered everlasting, perpetual, for ever.
The Holy Bible. American Standard Version. Exodus 20:8–11; 31:16–17.
Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Hendrickson, 1996. Entry for עוֹלָם (ʿôlām), H5769.
Constantine I. “Edict of 7 March 321 A.D.” Codex Justinianus 3.12.2. English translation preserved in later Roman law compilations.
“Sunday Law.” Church of God Wiki, https://churchofgod.wiki/en/Sunday_Law
Laodicea, Synod of. “Canon 29.” 4th century. Church Fathers, New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3806.htm
Rordorf, Willy. Sunday: The History of the Day of Rest and Worship in the Earliest Centuries of the Christian Church. S.C.M. Press, 1968.