The Eighth Day of the Week

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Is Sunday the first day or the seventh day of the week? Most American calendars position it on the far left of the page, putting it first, but since Monday is the day most of us go back to our usual routines, Sunday can feel like the very end in weekend and therefore the seventh day. But I like to bypass this dichotomy and think of Sunday as the eighth day. Let me explain.

In Old Testament scripture, the Seventh Day is called “Shabbat”,  a word that comes right out of the Genesis creation account that simply refers to the idea of “rest” (sources here, here, and here). The common English rendition of “Shabbat” is “Sabbath”. The Spanish word is “sábado” which is also the common word for “Saturday” but the Spanish for “Sunday” is “domingo”, a word that comes from a Latin phrase that means “the Lord’s Day”.

You see, early Christians referred to the Saturday “Sabbath” separately from the Sunday “Lord’s Day”. The Sabbath was an Old Testament commemoration of the Creation (and the deliverance from Egypt) while the Lord’s Day was a weekly commemoration of the day Jesus rose from the dead and since Jesus rose on Sunday, the day after the seventh day, the Lord’s Day was considered to be the eighth day.

The early Christians emphasized an eighth (rather than first) day because they saw symbolism in the number eight. In addition to pointing to the day of the Resurrection, the number “888” is the sum of the Greek numerical values of the letters in Christ’s name. There are eight phases of the moon and all of these phases together make up a resurrection cycle and serve as a symbolism of God’s light increasing gradually within us line upon line, grace upon grace. “Seven” is all about completing things (like the Creation) while “eight” is all about starting new things which is what Christ did when He atoned and brought in the New Testament and the possibility of redemption from death and sin. And this is just the beginning—Steve Reed over at ldsSymbols.com has compiled a pretty comprehensive list of the significance of the number eight and how this number is symbolic of Christ Himself.

So, I like to think of Sunday as the eighth day or “Christ’s Day”.

Now, back to the early Christians. At some point, Christendom stopped referring to the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day separately and combined them together into one weekly holy day held on Sunday. Most Christian sects now accept Sunday as the Sabbath but there are a few that contest this and make a big deal out of it. Really, though, whether it’s the seventh day or the first day or the eighth day isn’t nearly as important as the fact that God wants us to set aside one day of seven to Him.

And the promises for doing so are huge! For example, see this revelation on the Lord’s Day given in 1831 which includes phrases like “unspotted from the world”, “thy joy may be full”, and “the fulness of the earth is yours”. Isaiah said that those who “call the sabbath a delight” will “ride upon the high places of the earth” and be fed “with the heritage of Jacob”. Jesus Himself said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”

The Lord’s Day is for us and this comes back to final point about the eighth day—the math doesn’t add up. Giving the eighth day of seven to the Lord is mathematically impossible and I love that because the math has never added up with the Lord. When I think I’ve given my all to God, I somehow discover there is more of me. And thus it is with time. When we give one day of seven to God, we discover there are actually eight.