By Thomas Cesar

“I [John] was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Revelation” 1:10 (KJV)

When John declared that he was in spirit on the Lord’s Day, or “the Day of the Lord,” what was he referring too. Was it a day of the week, a twenty-four-hour period, or something else?

It is common among believers to say, “I will see you at church on the “Lord’s Day”. The person hearing these words commonly understands that this means Sunday. Bible commentators often render the same definition.  But, is this the meaning of the phrase “the Lord’s Day” as used in the Bible? What is the interpretation according to the Scriptures?

We learn from Gen 2:1-3, that God created the heavens and the earth and all therein and on the seventh day He rested. We further learn this seventh day is identified in Exo 16:26 as the Sabbath. The Sabbath today is also commonly called Saturday, a name derived from the Roman god Saturn.

So, Sabbath being the seventh day ends a week. The very next day begins a new week and is therefore the “first day” of the week. This is exactly how the Scriptures describes this day of the week. “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb”. (Matt 28:1.) This usage of the first day of the week is consistent in other historical accounts in the following verses: Mk 16:2, 9; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1, 9; Acts 20:7; and 1 Cor16:2. 

So, we come back to the question, what is the definition of the “Lord’s Day”?  If it is not referring to a twenty-four-hour day of the week, what is the meaning according to the Bible? The first occurrence of this phrase, the Lord’s Day or day of the Lord is found in Isaish.

Isa 2:10 “Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of His majesty, 11 The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 12 For the Lord of host has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and it shall be brought low;”

The prophet goes on to give further understanding to this phrase the “Lord’s Day”.                               

Isa 13:6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come! 7.Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt, 8. They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them: they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame. 9. Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it…13. Therefore, I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place, as the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of His fierce anger.

Zephaniah has much to say about the day of the Lord. Chapter 1:14 he writes:

“The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter; the night man cries aloud there. 15. A Day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. 17 I will bring distress on mankind. So that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. (Other accounts of this day are found in Ezk. 13:5; Joel 1:15, 2:1, 11; 3:14, 4:14; Amos 5:18,20; Obed. 15; Zeph 1:7, 14; Mal 4:5)

This description of the “Day of the Lord”, is obviously not one of a twenty-four-hour day, but of a period of a time of judgement upon the earth. It is the day of wrath later referred to in the New Testament.

In the opening words of John, the Baptist to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matt 3:7 he says, “When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!” Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” These teachers would have known all the words of the prophets who wrote about this coming judgement of wrath.

So, coming back to what John wrote in Revelation 1:10. He is “in spirit on the Lord’s Day” and is told to write what he sees. What he sees and writes about is the fulfilment of all the prophesies of the past in detail. He uses word wrath eleven times in Revelation.

Now, how does this coming “day of wrath” effect those who are under grace in “the body of Christ” at this time? Paul writes in Eph 3:1, “For this reason I Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace was given to me for you.” Paul uses the word grace over 100 times in his letters.

What does Paul say to those of us under this grace regarding the coming “day of wrath”? In 1 Thes 1:9

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”

Paul goes on to explain to these believers in Chapter 5:2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4. But you [Thessalonians] are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to overtake you like a thief.” (Synonyms for overtake include encompass, enclose, befall. i.e., not engulfed by a storm) Paul then says in vs. 9. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In 2 Thessalonians the believers were misled to believe that the day of the Lord had begun and were shaken in mind because Paul had already assured them, they would not be a part of that judgement. In 2:1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered with Him, we ask you brothers, 2 not to be shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. He assures them that this can not happened until the lawless one [Antichrist] is revealed and there is a falling away. Neither of these had taken place.  In 2:1 Paul reiterates what he had shared in his first letter, that there would be a gathering together to Him before the day of the Lord comes.

We also find this judgment executed by the Son of Man in the book of Revelation. In 1:10 – 18 where the Son of Man is described. This description matches Dan 10:5-6 for judgement in the latter days. The expression “your people” in Daniel is referring to Israel, not “the Body of Christ.” And, finally in Rev 14:14 “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.”

                                                                                                                                    TEC, 12/2023