Sabbath / Sunday: Their spiritual Dimensions in the Light of Selected Jewish and Christian Discussions

The Sabbath as the central commandment of the Law relates all of Judaism to God, to creation, to redemption, and to the final fulfillment of the promises in the eternal Sabbath of the end-time. However, early in the inception of Christianity, Sunday replaced the Sabbath as the day of worship for Christians.;This dissertation is a study of the various aspects of the Sabbath in order to gain a deeper insight into Jesus' relationship to the day and to understand the implications of his appropriation of the Sabbath to himself. Scholars have not looked significantly into Jesus and the Sabbath from the point of view of its meaning in Judaism.;Rabbi Abraham Heschel gives insight into the Sabbath in his description of the day as a window into eternity bringing the presence of God to earth; Rabbi Andre Chouraqui contends that the Sabbath is the essence of life for Jews. According to S. Bacchiocchi when Christianity separated from Judaism by the second century, Sunday worship was established as an ecclesiastical institution. In contrast, H. Sturcke advocates a Christological view of Jesus' relationship to the Sabbath and considers observance of Sunday as initiated by the resurrection appearances. W. Rordorf presents Sunday Eucharist as the tradition practiced in the early Church and confirmed in the writings of the Church Fathers. The Catholic theologian Jean Danielou S.J. explains that, for the Christian, the Hebrew Scriptures are a type of the fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ and contends that the Paschal Mystery is the Passover from the power of sin and death to new hope and life.;I have concluded that in appropriating the Sabbath to himself, Jesus as a Jew in a Jewish milieu, is definitively indicating that the Sabbath is no longer the recurrence of a twenty-four hour time-frame, that all of the aspects of the Sabbath are now in his person, and that the presence of God is found in mercy and love. Jesus' death, resurrection, and first of the week resurrection appearances confirm that the promised glory has become a reality in him and his teachings are the new Law of grace. This initiated Sunday as the new time of Eucharistic worship.