The Lord’s Day

LORD’s DAY, THE (ἡ κυριακὴ̀ ἡμέρα, the Lord’s day, the day belonging to the Lord). The expression is found in the Bible only in Revelation 1:10, where John states that he “was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” when he received a divine commission to write the Book of Revelation. The adjective kyriakos, however, also occurs in 1 Corinthians 11:20 in the expression, “the Lord’s supper.” As will be shown, “the Lord’s day” is used frequently in other early Christian writings to designate Sunday, the first day of the week, observed from the time of the apostles as a day of Christian worship. Outline I. The origin of the Christian Sunday Many people believe that the origin of the Christian Sunday is identical with the origin of the Heb. sabbath, and that the sabbath was changed either by Jesus Himself or by His apostles from the seventh to the first day of the week (Wilbur F. Crafts, The Sabbath for Man, p. 376; R. L. Dabney, The Christian Sabbath, pp. 6-8; J. P. Hutchison, Our Obligation