The Puritans on the Sabbath

I think that it can be argued that the Fourth Commandment is the most-ignored among the ten, even among Christians. Or should I say especially among Christians? After all, it is we who should best understand the significance of the Sabbath. 

Here is what the commandment says: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" (Exodus 20:8-11). 

So we notice several things here. First, the origin of the Sabbath is not in the commandment. That is a common error regarding this commandment, that it began with Moses. No, God Himself relates it back to his own actions in the creation: "On the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because, on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" (Genesis 2:2-3). Surely we understand that this is not a description of the weariness of God. Such an idea doesn't even make sense. Rather, it is a description of His enjoyment of the completion of His work, like the artist who steps back to enjoy the painting that he has just finished. 

Second, Christians strangle every discussion of the Sabbath by wrangling over what we are and are not allowed to do on that day. That discussion misses the point. It also ignores what the description that God Himself gives us in His word: "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken" (Isaiah 58:13-14). The Sabbath has never been about rules. That was the error of the Pharisees, which turned the Sabbath into a burden. 

The Sabbath was God's plan for His people to have joy, both in the work that we have done establishing His dominion in a fallen world, but especially in the work that He has done in redeeming us from the curse that sin has placed on us and our work! 

The Puritan Stephen Charnock, in his book The Existence and Attributes of God, chastised the Christians of his day, in words that apply even more to today's Christian, "A sleight and weariness of the Sabbath was a sleight of the Lord of the Sabbath and of that freedom from the yoke and rule of sin that was signified by it."

Joy! Not drudgery! 

Pentecost and the Christian Sabbath

In Leviticus 23, God reveals to Moses the holy festivals that He has given to Israel for His worship. He introduces these festivals with a renewal of the Sabbath: "Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do not work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places" (Leviticus 23:3). That opening may strike us as odd, because we don't think of the Sabbath as feast day. However, it is significant, because it sets the context of what is to follow, a not accidental introduction. 

Moses then describes the Passover, perhaps the most important of the Jewish festivals. Then the Feast of Firstfruits, a holiday much like our American Thanksgiving. 

Then, in verse 15, God turns to the Feast of Weeks, better known to us by its Greek name, Pentecost. "You shall count seven weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord" (Leviticus 23:15-16). So fifty days was to be counted from the Sabbath of Passover. That would be seven weeks, each ending on the seventh day. Then one more day, the first day of the eight week. "You shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations" (Leviticus 23:21). 

So we have the account of instructions to Moses, in which he was to celebrate the day of Passover, the anniversary of the day that the angel of death passed over every Israelite household that was marked by the blood of a sacrificial lamb. To whom did that point? To Jesus, the Lamb of God who would mark the elect with blood so that God's judgment would pass over us. Then another holiday is commanded, following seven Jewish Sabbaths plus one day. What happened on the day to which the feast pointed? The coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) as the gift to His people from the resurrected and ascended Christ. 

That next day was Sunday, just as Sunday was the day on which Jesus rose from the dead, and just as the Apostles made Sunday the day of Christian gathering and worship (Acts 20:7 and I Corinthians 16:2). After a transitional period in Acts, we never see again a Christian activity on a Saturday. 

Did the Apostles use the word "Sabbath" for that day? No. We can grant that without affecting the argument presented here. However, we have a saying in America: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck." In the same way, as Moses foretold the shift of the Sabbath from the last to the first day of the week and the Apostles treated the first day like the Sabbath, then it is the Sabbath, whether the word occurs there or not. 

John Owen on the Sabbath as a Day of Worship

"Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because, on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" -Genesis 2:1-3 

At the completion of the creation week, it was culminated by a day of rest. Which is not to say that God was tired. Rather, the implication is a cessation for the sake of enjoying the product of the preceding labor. For which enjoyment, God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy (KJV, "sanctified it"). We must ask what those actions mean for God. To bless that day was to make it a source of blessing, not to Himself, since God can never be more blessed, but for those to whom He gave it, the humans, male and female, the creation of whom would be recapitulated in the next verses. To sanctify it, or to make it holy, again, cannot be for His own sake, because God is the standard of holiness, the standing apart from mere creation. So, again, His action could only be for the man and woman, created the previous day. 

That distinction is essential, because there are some, influenced by antinomianism and dispensationalism, who claim that the Sabbath, as the day came to be called, was for God alone, and the human elements were created under the law for Israel, not the church, and that it was never properly a day of worship. Yet the words applied, and the attributes of God, preclude the use of the Sabbath for Himself. 

As Puritan John Owen comments on the passage, "'Sanctified' is further instructive in the intention of God, and is also explanatory of the former [word, i. e., 'blessed']. For suppose still (and the text will not allow us otherwise) that the day is the object of this sanctification, and it is not possible to assign any other sense of the words, than that God set apart by His institution that day to be the day of His worship, to be spent in a sacred rest unto Himself, which is declared to be the meaning of the word in the decalogue" (A Treatise on the Sabbath). "He set it apart to sacred use authoritatively, requiring us to sanctify it in that use obediently." 

Owen continues by pointing to Exodus 16:22-23: "On the sixth day, they [i. e., Israel] gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, 'Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord...'" Owen remarks, "The reason of it is plain and evident, for, there being a previous institution of the seventh day's rest (the observation of which was partly gone into disuse), and the day itself being then to receive a new peculiar application to the church state of that people [i. e., Israel], the reason of the people's act, and the rulers' doubt, and Moses' explanation, is plain and obvious." 

Yet, Owen did feel a need to deny that the Mosaic law added ceremonial elements to the sabbath, though he denied that the Sabbath, per se, was part of those Mosaic ceremonies. "The command of the Sabbath, in the renewal of it in the wilderness, was accommodated to the disciplinary state of the church of the Israelites. I admit, also, that there were such additions made to it, as to the manner of its observance and the sanction of it, as might adapt it to their civil and political state, and thus bear a part in that ceremonial instruction, which God, in all His dealings with them, intended... It is no argument, therefore, that this command was not in substance given before to mankind in general, [simply] because it has some modifications added in the decalogue to accommodate it to the existing state of the Hebrews." 

Owen's comments point us to the formulation of the Fourth Commandment, as it is found in Exodus 20:8-11 [emphasis added]: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Not only does the commandment begin with a command to "remember," but it the makes explicit what is to be remembered, that is, the actions of God on the seventh day of creation. 

Furthermore, though Owen does not mention it, I would refer the reader to Leviticus 19:30: "You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord." The keeping of the Sabbath is explicitly connected to their revering of His sanctuary, making that connection explicit, though still not exclusive. 

The Sabbath and God's Creation Rest

When I discuss the Sabbath with antisabbatarians, one of their frequent responses is to claim that the Sabbath was created by the Fourth Commandment, which, they assert, means that it ended with  the abrogation of the ceremonial law at the completion of the cross work of Jesus. 

First, let me say that I agree that the ceremonial law was abrogated exactly because it was completed in the coming, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. However, no, the Sabbath was not part of the ceremonial law. Nor did it begin with the giving of the Fourth Commandment. Were murder, adultery, or thievery merely ceremonial prohibitions because they were framed in commandments? I hope that no one would say so. 

In response to that assertion, I say that, even if that abrogation applied to any of the commandments, it would not apply to the Sabbath, because, contrary to the assertion of the antisabbatarian, it was not created by the Fourth Commandment. God initiated the Sabbath day in Genesis 2:2-3, when He rested from creation work: "On the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation." In response, I usually get something like, "But that doesn't say Sabbath; it was a onetime thing." 

Really? 

That response shows that the antisabbatarian has rarely made any effort to to study the matter. Rather, he is just repeating slogans that he has been given to dismiss the discussion. 

We find this in Exodus 31:13-17: "You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, 'Above all, you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between Me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.'" 

God Himself explicitly ties the continuing Sabbath to His rest from the six days of creation. 

The Anti-Sabbatarian Use of Colossians 2

In almost every discussion of the abiding nature of the Christian Sabbath, my experience has been that the anti-Sabbatarian will refer to Colossians 2:16: "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath." The argument is that Paul here is telling us that the Sabbath is adiaphora, a matter of preference only. 

What I have never had was an anti-Sabbatarian who mentioned the next verse, Colossians 2:17: "These are the shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." 

This is one of those cases where the context is so obviously contrary to the argument being made that it is painful to hear yet again. In verse 16, the items mentioned are food rules, of which there are none ion Christianity, except to avoid meat sacrificed to idols, unlike the many rules in Judaism; to festivals, of which there are none prescribed in Christianity, but several in Judaism; new moons, which are celebrated in Judaism, but not in Christianity; and finally the Sabbath. According to the opponents, Paul rejected the Mosaic rules of Judaism for three things, but left the fourth to be taken generally. Context matters! 

This is confirmed in verse 17, where Paul refers to these ceremonies of Judaism as completed in Christ. As he said to the Galatians, why hold on to the shadows when we have now received the reality? And what is the reality of the Sabbath? 

"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck the heads of grain and to eat. But, when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, 'Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.' He said to them, 'Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath'" (Matthew 12:1-8). 

If the Sabbath, as such, had been abrogated, this was the opportunity for Jesus to say so. Yet, He didn't. Why? Because, He says, He is the Lord of the Sabbath. Not was. That is why the writer of Hebrews can tell us that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9). It would have been silly for Jesus to claim to be the Lord of something which was passing away!

If a person were to argue that the code of Moses added ceremonial elements to the Sabbath, then he would be correct. However, if he were to assert that there is no Sabbath apart from those Mosaic elements, then he would be wrong. That is what Paul addresses in Colossians 2:16. If a Christian celebrates the Sabbath without the Jewish ceremonial elements, then he should be free from the judgment of others. Paul neither says nor implies that the person is thereby freed from the Fourth Commandment. That would be to be guilty exactly of that of which his critics accused him, of being an enemy of the Law (e. g., Acts 18:13). 

God's Rest and His Blessed Sabbath for His People

I want to relate two passages of Scripture here. 

The first is Genesis 2:1-3: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation." This passage is well-known and straightforward. After six days of creative work, God rested on the seventh day. Not literally, of course, since God cannot tire. However, using an anthropomorphism, Moses describes God in terms that his readers could understand. Notice that God is not described as resting from everything, but specifically from the work of creation. The physical universe and its denizens were complete, as He had designed them to complement one another. 

However, one phrase is consistently overlooked: "and made it holy." That phrase necessarily relates to men, since God need do nothing in relationship to Himself to be holy. We will come back to that. 

The second passage is Hebrews 4:1-13: "Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as He has said, 'They shall not enter My rest,’ although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.' And again in this passage He said, 'They shall not enter My rest.' Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again He appoints a certain day, 'Today,' saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.' For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." 

This passage is the theological explanation of what Jesus said during His earthly ministry: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). 

There is a claim often made by anti-Sabbatarians that the Sabbath was part of the law of Moses, and was, therefore, abrogated along with the other ceremonies, such as the sacrifices and the food laws. When in response I have pointed to the reference from Genesis 2, these people have claimed that, since the word "Sabbath" isn't used in it, this passage refers only to an act of God, not to the continuing Sabbath. However, look at what I have already mentioned from Genesis 2:3, that God made the day holy. That can only refer to men's use of it, since God cannot do anything unholy. Also, notice in Hebrews 4 that the author there relates the rest awaiting believers in Heaven to God's rest, which, in turn, is withheld from unbelievers. It is even explicitly called a Sabbath rest in verse 9! How, then, can anyone claim that the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment is different from God's rest in Genesis? 

To my mind, the logic of Hebrews 4 requires us to believe in the continuing validity of the Sabbath for Christians, not as a burden, but as a blessing intended for us by Jehovah, the Lord of the Sabbath, the preincarnate Jesus (Matthew 12:8).

Justin Martyr on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath

I often find myself in the middle between two camps regarding the Christian and the Sabbath. On one side, I have the Seventh-Day Adventists, who believe that there is virtually no discontinuity between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sabbath, including the necessity of maintaining the seventh-day as the Sabbath. In contrast, the opposite side is those who hold that there is such a radical discontinuity that there is no Sabbath for the Christian. 

My personal view is that of classical Protestantism, a rejection of both opposing sides, such as is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith XXI:7: "As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him:

Justin Martyr

which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath."

It is that last clause, regarding the change to the first day of the week that I wish to address. It is exactly the point of conflict between orthodox Protestants and the Seventh-Day Adventists regarding the Sabbath. Adventists place the blame at the feet of Constantine, the Roman emperor who legalized the Christian faith in the Empire. 

However, we have the testimony of Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) to the contrary: "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things" (1 Apol 67.3). Church History simply does not support Adventist claims on the subject.

Noah and the Sabbath Principle

Noah and the Ark

A major argument used by anti-sabbatarians to support their claim that the Sabbath was a Jewish ceremony and not for Christians is that the Sabbath didn't appear in Scripture before the giving of the Ten Commandments. That reasoning equates the doctrine with the word, like the cults that deny the Trinity, just because the word doesn't appear in Scripture. 

But the question they avoid is whether the concept appears before Exodus 20. As I say here, it first appears in Genesis 2:2-3, when God blesses the seventh day in honor of His completion of the Creation. But, as I will argue in this post, that verse is not the only place that we find the Sabbath in the pre-Mosaic scriptures. 

One of the antinomian views is that non-Jews are obligated to obey only the Noahide laws, i. e., those rules given to Noah, the progenitor of the postdiluvian humanity. While I deny that assertion, in this case it is actually self-refuting. 

In Genesis 5:28-29, we have this part of the account of Noah: "When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, 'Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.'" Lameck, the father of Noah, prophesies that his son would bring relief from work and toil to his descendants. Notice the exact language of Genesis 3:18-19, God's curse on Adam: "Thorns and thistles it [i. e., the ground] shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

How is this not a Sabbath rest? And does that not make the Sabbath a part of the so-called Noahide laws?

The Sabbath in the Pre-Mosaic Period

Anti-Sabbatarians often argue that the Sabbath was part of the Mosaic ceremonial law, and was, therefore, abrogated by the incarnation, atoning work, and resurrection of Jesus. I addressed that argument in part here.

One of the reasons that I disagree with that argument is that the Sabbath was not created by Moses, unlike the actual ceremonies, such as the sacrifices or the priesthood. Rather, the Sabbath was a creation mandate, established by God in the creation period of Genesis: "On the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" (Genesis 2:2-3). Thus the Sabbath was not a Mosaic ritual, but was rather a creation mandate, just as marriage was.

Generally, the response I get is something to the effect of, "Then prove that anyone celebrated the Sabbath between the creation and Moses." There is so little thought put into that statement that it is obvious that they are merely repeating something that they have been told. The reason I don't believe that it is the result of study is that it is an argument from silence that cuts both ways: if I can't prove that people kept the Sabbath during that period, neither can the anti-Sabbatarian prove that they didn't. Additionally, even if the argument were correct, it is not to the point. The failure of the people to keep the commandment is not proof that the commandment was... Well, was what? Good advice? The anti-Sabbatarian doesn't say. They also don't say why failure to obey the land sabbaths didn't abrogate that law (Leviticus 26:45, II Chronicles 36:21).

Now lets fast-forward to Moses, in the receiving of the Ten Commandments. What we notice is that eight of the Commandments begin with "you shall" or "you shall not." The Fifth Commandment starts with"honor." However, only the Fourth Commandment begins with "remember." "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" (Exodus 20:8-11). Remembering involves something that existed in time before our effort to remember it. The commandment even refers to the creation in its phrasing. Therefore, that one word proves that the Fourth Commandment wasn't creating the Sabbath; it was restoring it.

Colossians 2:16: Did Paul Abolish the Fourth Commandment?

In my dealings with anti-sabbatarians, i. e., those who claim that there is no Christian Sabbath, they almost always bring up Colossians 2:16: "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath." The claim is that Paul here says that there is no binding requirement for Christians to honor the Sabbath. In general, my response is twofold, first, that it is not at all Pauline to dismiss one of the Ten Commandments so flippantly, and second, that the reference to food, drink, festivals, and new moons, all indicate that Paul is addressing the Jewish ceremonies, not the Sabbath per se. Unless someone wants to claim that Paul also intends to tell us that we don't need to eat food or drink fluids. Anyone want to try that?

However, I also want to add a biblical argument to my logic.

Look at Ezekiel 45:17: "It shall be the prince’s duty to furnish the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel." That prophet uses exactly the same wording in regard to temple ceremonies as Paul uses to the Colossians. Paul's word choices are not random. Rather, by using specific Mosaic terminology, the Apostle expects his readers to understand the same Mosaic ceremonies.

Therefore, I cannot accept the use of Colossians by the anti-sabbatarian, because it is inconsistent with the word usage of Scripture.

The Continuing Validity of the Sabbath, as Demonstrated by Israel's Exile

In discussions about the Sabbath, I often get challenged by people, often from dispensationalist backgrounds, who claim that the Sabbath was part of the Mosaic ceremonial law, an was, therefore, abrogated by the cross work of Jesus.

And I agree with the part about the abrogation of the Mosaic ceremonies. they pointed to the atonement purchased for His people by Jesus, and, therefore, have no place in the lives of Christians. However, I firmly deny that the Sabbath was part of those ceremonies.

rather, the sabbath was a creation ordinance, together with marriage and productive labor. We see it in Genesis 2:3: "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation." Other than to deny it, I have never gotten a coherent explanation as to why that reference is not to the Sabbath.

The problem with that objection is what Moses actually does say in the Fourth Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" (Exodus 20:8-11). So Moses tells us that God's declaration in Genesis 2:3 is the basis for the Fourth Commandment. It is not the other way around, as these dispensationalists claim.

The implication of this is that the claim of these same people that the Sabbath was part of, and, therefore, abrogated with, the Mosaic ceremonies is unbiblical. Some of them go on to add, to reinforce their weak abrogation argument, that there is no record of the celebration of the Sabbath between Genesis and Exodus. Well, that is an argument from silence, and is insufficient evidence with no other biblical support. Also, even if correct, it is not to the point. The failure of the people to obey the command does not abrogate the command. We see this in regard to the land sabbaths (Leviticus 25:1-7). We are explicitly told that Israel never obeyed the command to give the land a rest every seven years, so those missed land sabbaths are the basis of their seventy years of exile in Babylon (II Chronicles 36:21).

I think this brief case refutes any view of the Sabbath as an abrogated ceremony, or that failure to obey it is proof that it was nonbinding.

The Continuing Obligation of the Sabbath Defended: Colossians 2:16

"Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath" (Colossians 2:16). 

I often get caught between two opposite in discussions regarding the continuing obligation of the Sabbath. On one side are the Seventh-Day Adventists, who claim that the Jewish Sabbath has continued in the Christian dispensation. I oppose their claims, and have addressed them here. On the other side are those who claim that there is no Sabbath of any kind for the Christian. Those folks are generally of two kinds. the first is those who claim that "Jesus is our Sabbath," so that there is no longer a Sabbath day. I have addressed that here. Others are of a dispensationalist type, who claim that the Sabbath was a Mosaic ceremony, and, therefore, abrogated by its fulfillment in the cross work of Christ. I have addressed that here.

Now, there is a third type that I want to address. That is those who hold that Sabbath-observance is now voluntary, no longer a commandment. These folks like to cite the verse quoted above, Colossians 2:16. 

Such folks claim that the Sabbath was a ceremony of the Jews, and, therefore, no more binding on Christians than are circumcision or the Passover. If a Christian profits from observing them, then he is free to do so. However, no one is required to observe that Sabbath any more than he is the other Jewish ceremonies. 

There are three main objections to that claim. First, the Sabbath was a creation ordinance, initially announced shortly after the creation of the first humans: "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" (Genesis 2:3). While it is certainly true that the Law recognized the Sabbath, the claim is false that the Sabbath was created under the Law. That's why the writer of Hebrews could tell us, "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). Especially considering the effort of that author to show the superiority of Christ over the Mosaic ceremonies, his insistence that the Sabbath remains is especially telling!

Second, look at the rest of the verse in Colossians. "Questions of food and drink." Where do we find rules about food? In the Mosaic ceremonial law. "With regard to a festival or new moon." Where do we find the creation of ceremonies and the celebration of the new moon? Again, in the Mosaic ceremonies. Therefore, when Paul here mentions Sabbaths, does the grammar not compel us logically to infer that he means Jewish Sabbaths? That would be seventh-day Sabbaths, not the first-day Christian Sabbath. Also, if we fail to make that distinction, then we put Paul in contradiction with Hebrews. 

And, finally, I have one question of logic, rather than Scripture. Considering that the Sabbath was a commandment, not just some Pharisaic tradition, can we really imagine that Paul would so blithely dismiss one of the Ten Commandments? I cannot believe that he would.

The Christian Sabbath Vindicated from Adventism

As a history book, comparable to Samuel and Kings in the Old Testament, the Acts of the Apostles is not a good place to base ones doctrine. That isn't an issue of error; Acts is as inerrant as is the rest of Scripture. Rather, that isn't its purpose. Acts is Luke's record of what the Apostolic church did, not what it taught.

For example, we have the record of the worship activities of the apostolic church. We know that they gathered at the Temple for their social meetings (there were house church meetings in Jerusalem during the same period). However, a meeting is not the same thing as a worship gathering. When we are told that they gathered for worship, that activity occurred in the home gatherings, not the Temple. Notice that contrast in Acts 2:46: "Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes." Thus, they gathered at the Temple for community, but not for worship.

Instead, we find this record: "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight" (Acts 20:7; see also I Corinthians 16:2). We find, not on the seventh day, as Adventists claim, but on the first day of the week, the church gathered together for communion (the breaking of bread) and for teaching. Nor can this be described as a special occasion, because Paul himself says (verse 20), "I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house." It was exactly in these home meetings that Paul was accustomed to teach the word to his fellow Christians.

Adventists like to point to the references to Paul's attending the synagogues on the seventh day. And he certainly did so. Yet, they consistently ignore what else those references tell us. He is not recorded as speaking to Christians in any of those occasions - not even one. In each case, he proclaims the word to the Jews. That is, his attendance at the synagogues was for the sake of evangelism. And, in a mixed community, where would he find Jews? Well, at the synagogue, of course, and on the seventh day. The whole Adventist argument is built on a very weak argument from silence, and committing the fallacies of cherry picking and moving the goalposts. Yet they claim that their teaching on the Sabbath is the distinguishing mark between the true Bride of Christ and the Great Whore. Surely such an important doctrine would require more proof than questionable exegesis!

A doctrine should never be based on an historical reference, absent reinforcement from explicit teaching texts. Yet, the Adventist can provide none. After the Christians are expelled from the synagogues in Acts, we never see another reference to a Christian gathering, whether at the Temple or at a synagogue, or any activity on the seventh day of the week. Paul never mentions one. Peter never mentions one. John never mentions one. And - most telling of all - the Epistle to the Hebrews never mentions one, even though much of it is devoted to Jewish law and worship. Not once in any of them.

Jesus on Tribulation and the Christian Sabbath

In Matthew 24:20, we have a very interesting statement by Jesus: "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath."

I believe that Matthew 24 is about the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. However, for any person who holds that He is describing the end of history, its significance is even greater,

First, when He says "your flight," of whom is He speaking? Christians. Note that His comment is in response to the questions of His disciples in verse 3, and spoken privately to them.

Second, He explicitly states "Sabbath."

Therefore, logic requires that we take His statement to mean that he expected the Sabbath still to have significance to Christians in the future, a minimum of forty years after He made His statement. A minimum of two-thousand years if you place the events at the end of history.

This clearly disproves that the Sabbath was only for Jews, or was a Mosaic ceremony that ended with the cross work of Christ. It is a permanent ordinance, not a typological ceremony, disproving the oft-repeated but never-proven assertion that "Jesus is our Sabbath."

The Sabbath Must Last Through Our Mortal Existence

A common objection that I hear to the Fourth Commandment is that "Jesus is our Sabbath." It's a slogan, not something the speakers have ever actually thought through. Where does the Bible say that? What would it mean for Jesus to be our Sabbath? And, if Jesus fulfilled the Fourth Commandment, such that it is now abrogated, what about the rest of the Commandments?

What is the purpose of the Sabbath? There are several ways to answer that question. I will focus on just one in this article.

God answers this question in two places. Through Moses in Exodus 31:13, He said, "Above all you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you." And again in Ezekiel 20:12, "I gave them My Sabbaths, as a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them." Both verses emphasize the role of the Sabbath as an occasion for God to sanctify us, to make us more like Him.

That explains what the writer of Hebrews meant (Hebrews 4:9), when he wrote, "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." We do not yet experience that rest in this life because we are not yet fully sanctified, a process that continues through the rest of our mortal existence. Therefore, the Sabbath must also continue for just as long.

The Christian Sabbath: A Continuing Delight

I have dealt with the Sabbath in three different ways in past posts. One was its continuing validity under the New Covenant. The Second was the proper observing of it. And the third has been to defend the Fist-Day Sabbath from attack by seventh-day sabbatarians, such as the Seventh-Day Adventists. My emphasis this time will be on its continuing validity.

One form of attack on the Sabbath is from an erroneous application of the true principle that the Mosaic ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ's atoning work, and are, therefore abrogated. This is why we no longer sacrifice lambs or treat some foods as unclean (another issue with the SDA's). The reason that the application of this true principle to the Sabbath is erroneous is because the Sabbath was not part of the ceremonial law (thought there are laws regarding the Sabbath).

Before I address that, there is one side issue I want to address. I often hear, "Jesus is our Sabbath." Really? Where does Scripture say that? Did Jesus perfectly fulfill and complete the Law? Of course. But in what way is the Fourth Commandment different from the other nine in that respect? Is Jesus our not-murderer? Does that mean that we are no longer bound by the Sixth Commandment? Obviously not! "Jesus is our Sabbath" is just one of those slogans that has been repeated so often without challenge that it is merely accepted as a truism. Well, I am challenging it. Show me the Scripture.

But back to my intended point.

What this objection fails to acknowledge is that the Sabbath wasn't a ceremonial ordinance (though it did gain some ceremonial adornments in the Mosaic economy). Rather, it was a creation ordinance: "On the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" (Genesis 2:2-3). The Sabbath day had its origin, not with Moses, but with God in the original creation! That's why the commandment says, not "observe," but "remember" (Exodus 29:8). One remembers by looking back on something, not by beginning it.

Furthermore, we know that the Sabbath became an Israelite custom before it was inaugurated by Moses. Note Exodus 16:23, 25-26, four chapters before the Fourth Commandment: "Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning. [But] eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none." We have Moses's applying the Sabbath to the collection of manna, even before the commandment is given in chapter 20. Therefore, it was a practice among the people already!

I don't know why there is a special hatred of the Sabbath among today's Christians, even among those who claim to be Bible-believing. Why do we not want a day to enjoy the Lord and our families, without the burdens of our regular lives, as lawful as those burdens might be? God expects one day out of seven focused on Him, not on earning money or secular entertainment. I consider that to be a wonderful gift, not a restriction!

Godly Men Love God's Sabbath

When talking about the importance of the Sabbath, I have noticed that most Christians will make a dismissive remark about its being ceremonial law. That statement is false, since the Sabbath long preceded the time of Moses (Genesis 2:2-3). Even more, though, it ignores the role the Sabbath played in the rest of the Old Testament. The godly people of Israel valued the Sabbath. In fact, that quality is used in the Old Testament as a distinguishing mark between pious and nominal Israelites.

Before the Babylonian exile, God, speaking through the Prophet Jeremiah, warned the people of Israel, "If you do not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched" (Jeremiah 17:27, but look at the whole passage from 21 to 27). Yet, we know that Judah ignored the warning, and it was fulfilled in the sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586BC.

After the exile, the governor of Israel - appointed by the king of Persia, but God's man - Nehemiah, remembered these words, and tried to start the restoration of Judah on better footing. First, he recognized the pattern of Sabbath desecration: "In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food. Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself! Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, 'What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath'" (Nehemiah 13:15-18). Both the Jews themselves and the foreigners resident among them were trampling God's day, just as their ancestors had in the time of Jeremiah. They had learned no lessons from their seventy years of exile.

So, he commanded reforms: "As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I stationed some of my servants at the gates, that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day. Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice. But I warned them and said to them, 'Why do you lodge outside the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.' From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath. Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates, to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love" (Nehemiah 13:19-22). This passage shows both the binding nature of the Sabbath for the people of God and the responsibility of the civil magistrate to fence the day from abomination.

This is the basis for the Westminster Larger Catechism (question 117): "The sabbath or Lord's day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to betaken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God's worship: and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day." Though the day has been changed from the seventh to the first, the Sabbath principle is just as binding as it was to Jeremiah and Nehemiah.

God Has Sabbath Blessings for the Christian!

When I defend the confessional (and scriptural) view of the Sabbath, one of the most-common arguments I get is, "Jesus is our Sabbath. We rest in Him." Yet, when I ask where Scripture says that, I get only dodges, generally of the ad hominem sort. I would know that, if I weren't such a legalist, they say. In my mind, a response like that is actually a concession that the person has no evidence for his claim. Just because, like some children would say.

Yet, I would say there are two very clear scriptures against that view.

The first is Hebrews 4:9: "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." In the last (or near-last) book of the New Testament, the writer tells us, not that the Sabbath  has been fulfilled, but rather that it yet awaits the Christian!

The other is Revelation 14:13: "I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Blessed indeed,' says the Spirit, 'that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!'" When do we achieve the fullness of Sabbath rest? Not two-thousand years ago, in the salvation work of Jesus. Rather, we achieve it when we die in the Lord. That is when the futility and labor of the Curse (Genesis 3:17-19) are done away. Only when Jesus returns will the intermediary step of death no longer be necessary.

I am sympathetic with a desire to dismiss legalism. However, how can obedience to a blessing (Mark 2:27) be legalism? God gives us a day to be free from the drudgery of our daily labor, to focus on joy, peace, and rest with Him: "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken" (Isaiah 58:13-14). Rather than legalism, I would suggest that my anti-sabbatarian brethren have a sinful inability to enjoy our God!

The Connection Between Election and the Continuing Sabbath

"Since therefore it remains for some to enter it...,  there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. Let

Paul at Corinth

us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience." 
- Hebrews 4:6-11

A common objection to the continuing ordinance of the Sabbath is that Jesus has fulfilled it, because Christians find our spiritual rest in Him alone. While I certainly agree with that premise, I think it is an unwarranted leap of logic to go from there to the abrogation of the Sabbath.

Note the words of the author of this epistle, quoted above: there "remain some to enter..." That is, there were - and still are - elect members of Christ who have not yet found their spiritual rest in Him. I have, as millions of Christians down through history have. However, there is an unknowable of number, ordained by God (Acts 13:48, 18:10), who have not yet heard the Gospel or responded to it. There still remains a rest for them, when they respond as they are ordained to do.

That is why the Sabbath cannot have been fulfilled, in an abrogating sense. The redeeming work of Christ has been finished, which is why the types pointing to it have been abrogated. However, that is not to what the Sabbath day points. Rather, its fulfillment is when the last believer finds his spiritual rest in that finished work of Christ. That is necessarily a progressive, historical process. And that necessarily means that its type, the Sabbath, cannot yet have ceased.

While it is beside my point here, I do not want to be taken to imply that this typological role of the Sabbath is its only purpose.

Jesus and the Continuing Ordinance of the Sabbath

Jesus made a curious statement as part of His Olivet discourse: "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath" (Matthew 24:20). I consider this to be a reference to the chaos surrounding the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. However, my point below is even greater for those who insist that He is talking about some future tribulation.

The reason that this sentence strikes me is because of His reference to the Sabbath. So many Christians claim that He fulfilled the Sabbath, so that it has no continuing significance. They often, but improperly, cite Colossians 2:16 to support this view.

However, the words of Jesus here indicate that He, at least, had no expectation of the cessation of the Sabbath. He anticipated that Christians would still be honoring it, and the concomitant command to cease from labor, at least forty years after He spoke these words!

This sentence is a major difficulty for the dispensationalist. First, he has been taught, erroneously though it be, that the Sabbath was part of the Law, and we "are under grace, not under Law" (Romans 6:14). Therefore, his hermeneutical presuppositions make no allowance for the future Sabbath. Second, he has been taught that Matthew 24 is about a tribulation that will happen just before the return of Jesus, sometime in the future. Therefore, by his own theological axioms, the words of Jesus require a continuing recognition of the Sabbath for at least two thousand years since the words were spoken. This one sentence completely overturns the dispensational hermeneutic.