Are Christians Supposed to Keep the Sabbath?

After a hard week of work, many of us fill our weekends with recreation — camping, hiking, travel and other recreation. These activities are often our great escape from the daily routine. While we are enjoying our weekends, there are others who have to work — the pilot, the mail delivery person, the utility repair person, the emergency room doctor, and the gas station attendant. There are still others who do chores around the house that couldn’t be completed during the “work” week — landscaping, washing the car, fixing the leaky faucet, or paying bills. Whether working or not working, we are quite active on our weekends. This begs the question: How does the sabbath play into our busy lives? Are Christians supposed to keep the Sabbath?

Some Christians, such as Seventh Day Adventists and Messianic Jews, would argue that we are still bound to observe a strict Sabbath on Saturdays. Reformed Presbyterian churches argue that the Christian Sabbath has shifted to Sunday [1]. Lutherans typically claim that “Sunday isn’t the Christian Sabbath, the day of rest. It’s something else” [2]. What are we to make of all of this?

Let’s take a brief journey through Scripture to find some answers. The best place to start is with the institution of the sabbath in the Decalogue (i.e. Ten Commandments). God commanded the Jews,

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. (Ex 20:8-11, ESV)

Of all the commands in the Decalogue, this is the only one that is hotly debated. Its frequent association with ceremonial laws throughout the Old Testament and its apparent omission from the New Testament as an explicit command complicate its relevance to the church. I propose, however, a simple way to understand it: The Sabbath is a universal principle, but it has different applications for God’s people in different administrations.

A Universal Principle

Embedded in the command of Exodus 20:8-11 is a direct reference to Genesis 2:2-3:

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. (ESV)

When I first read this as a kid, I thought that creating the world made God tired! I didn’t realize the theological depth embedded in it. The truth is, God does not sleep (Psa 121:4)! He does not need to take a breather, decompress, and regain strength. In fact, during His rest He continues to providentially control the entire universe, as it would collapse without Him holding it together (Col 1:17). For a human, that would be work!

So what is going on here? It’s all about analogy. God did not need to take seven days to create, nor did He need to rest, but He did so in order to establish a pattern for His “image bearers”; a seven day pattern of creation followed by consummation; of anticipation leading to fulfillment; of patience leading to paradise. This pattern permeates redemptive history, evidenced by the countless cycles of “seven” in the Book of Revelation, leading up to the final consummation. God, as the ultimate Creator and Finisher, has imbued the sabbath with universal sanctity — “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy”.

A Specific Application

While the Decalogue points out a universal sabbath principle for all nations, Jehovah commanded a specific application of it for the nation of Israel, declaring,

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 (Ex 31:16-17, ESV).

This specific application was intended to demonstrate Israel’s sanctity as a nation; that they would know that it is the Lord who sanctifies them (v13). It also served as a reminder of the rest God granted them after 400 years of harsh toil in the land of Egypt:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deut 5:15, ESV)

Accordingly, the Sabbath guided their workweek cycle, their agricultural cycle (Lev 25:4), and their 49 year (7*7) jubilee cycle (Lev 25:8). It had rigid prohibitions, such as gathering sticks (Num 15:32-35), lighting fires (Ex 35:3), cooking (16:23), and traveling (v29). Violators were condemned to death (Ex 31:15).

Stemming from a specific application of the sabbath principle, these ceremonial and civil regulations were inapplicable to the Gentiles, who were not given Israel’s law (Ps 147:19-20, Rom 2:14). Such regulations are also inapplicable to the New Testament church. Let’s see why.

The Fulfillment and Abrogation of Ceremonial Law

Having established the significance and meaning of the Sabbath, let’s identify Christ’s relationship to it. In order to do that, we must first understand His relationship to the Law. The Law was a shadow pointing to Christ. Accordingly, He is the “lamb without blemish” (1 Pet 1:19), the “temple” (Jn 2:19), our “Passover” (1 Cor 5:7), our “offering and a sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:2), and our “High Priest” (Heb 2:17). The temple and the sacrificial system of the Law were “shadow[s] of heavenly things” (Heb 8:5). Jesus said, “I am not come to destroy [the Law], but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). Jesus Christ fulfilled every shadow and type in the Law, as they all pointed to His redemptive work on Calvary. His sacrifice has initiated the “New Covenant”, which has made the Mosaic Covenant “obsolete”:

“By using the words, ‘a new Covenant,’ He has made the first one obsolete; but whatever is decaying and showing signs of old age is not far from disappearing altogether” (Heb 8:13, Weymouth).

While one could argue for a future millennial re-instantiation of some ceremonial aspects of Jewish Law (e.g. Ezek 40, 45), including the Sabbath (Isa 66:23), Hebrews 8 makes it clear that such ceremonial requirements have “disappeared” in our current covenant administration.

The Early Church and Paul

We see evidence of this abrogation shortly after the birth of the church. Many of the early Christians were gentiles who were confused about the Mosaic Law. They rightly asked, “What part of the Law is now necessary for us as new gentile converts?” Much of this confusion was due to early Jewish Christians still performing many ceremonial duties and pushing their observance onto others. The apostles prayerfully met in Jerusalem to get the Spirit’s guidance in the matter. The Holy Spirit revealed the following:

Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood … we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment … For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things
(Act 15:19-28 KJV)

Notice that within the newly established guidelines for converted Gentiles there is no mention of keeping the sabbath or any other holy day. The “necessary things” that remained in continuity were related to idolatry, fornication, and diet. In fact, Paul later writes the following chastisements to those who impose sabbaths and holy days on other Christians:

Let no one, therefore, be judging, you,––in eating and in drinking, or in respect of feast, or new moon, or sabbath, Which are a shadow of the things to come … If ye have died, together with Christ, from the first principles of the world, why, as though alive in the world, are ye submitting to decrees, Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch
(Col 2:16-21, Rotherham)

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
(Gal 4:9-11 ESV)

For Paul, the feasts, holy days, new moons and sabbaths were all a “shadow of things to come”. They pointed the Jews to Jesus Christ, finding their realization in His finished work. Accordingly, Paul encouraged believers to focus on the realities that the Law pointed to, not on the Law itself. We have freedom from the curse of the Law through faith in Christ (Gal 3:13-14). We now live by faith, not by stringent regulations.

Faith and the Sabbath Rest

The author of Hebrews concurs with Paul, tying the sabbath motif directly to faith:

For we who have believed enter that rest … 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. (Heb 4:3-10, ESV)

This passage indicates that all of Israel’s promises of rest in the Promised Land, which they continually failed to realize, pointed forward to the believer’s rest in Christ; a rest which is partly realized now by our faith in Christ, but will be fully realized in the consummation. “We who have believed enter that rest” (Now), yet “there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God” (Future). The life of faith ceases the futile struggle to find true rest in the Mosaic Law, and instead finds true rest in the finished work of Christ — “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his”.

Love and Law in the New Testament

If the Mosaic Law is fulfilled in the New Testament through our faith in Christ, does this mean that all laws are abrogated? The answer to this is an unequivocal “No”. When we say that the Mosaic Law is abrogated we are speaking of the ceremonial and civil applications of the Law that were applied specifically to Israel, and administered through Moses. However, nine of the Ten Commandments in the Decalogue are undisputed moral laws which have existed for all time for all people. It has always been wrong to kill, lie, covet, and dishonor your parents, long before Israel was formed. These have always been wrong because they have always been misaligned with God’s nature – which is Love (1 Jn 4:16). Paul told the Romans:

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Rom 13:8-10 ESV)

In Paul’s mind, love practices the moral law (cf. Mt 22:37-40). Love does not lie, steal, kill, or covet because these sins violate relationships with other people. The difficulty at hand is Paul’s omission of the sabbath in the above passage (Romans 13), even though he mentions five of the Ten Commandments. In Ephesians, he also upholds the commandment to honor our mother and father, the “first commandment with promise” (Eph 6:2). In addition, we already saw in Acts 15:20 that we are to refrain from any form of idolatry. The only commandment from the Decalogue that really remains in question in the New Testament is the Sabbath. This begs the question: Is the sabbath commandment part of the moral law? Would nine of the Ten Commandments be universally morally binding, and one of the Ten be non-moral and non-binding?

Due to the clear moral nature of 90% of the Decalogue, and the sabbath’s relationship to creation, I propose that the sabbath is still a universal moral command. The question is, how does it apply in the church age? Is it only an internal spiritual concept fulfilled by our faith or is there an external practice involved still? Is it tied to corporate Christian worship?

The Sabbath vs Christian Worship

The author of Hebrews warns us to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb 10:25), as gathering for corporate worship is critical for our life of faith. The early church gathered daily in homes to practice the Christian disciplines (Acts 2:46). Yet, there is scriptural evidence that they gathered in a larger gathering on Sunday, the first day of the week. This is a fitting day for such a gathering, as it is the day Jesus was resurrected. Many Christians even call it the “Lord’s Day” [3]. From the below verses, you’ll find that it included preaching, the giving of offerings, and the breaking of bread, perhaps referring to communion (Compare with 1 Cor 10:16 and Acts 2:46):

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. (Act 20:7 ESV)

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. (1Co 16:2 ESV)

Given this evidence, we should strive to continue the Sunday worship tradition established by the early church. However, while Sunday worship is an opportunity to corporately reflect on our faith-based rest in Christ, is this to be equated with the sabbath proper? Or is Sunday worship something else?

In the Old Testament, failure to keep the weekly sabbath was always related to a failure to rest, and never a failure to assemble for corporate worship. While the sabbath command is called a “holy convocation” (i.e. gathering) in Leviticus 23:3, it was only to be practiced “in all your dwelling places“. It was to be a convocation of families in their own homes, where they were to cease from all work, including travel. There is no hint that they were commanded to travel considerable distances each week to gather in the national place of worship (the tabernacle or the temple) and perform corporate worship, as outlined in passages such as Deuteronomy 12 or Deuteronomy 16. Such worship was prescribed only for rest-days associated with annual feasts (Ex 12:16, Lev 23:24, Num 29:12), but not for the regular weekly sabbath.

Of course, by Jesus’s time, Jews did meet in synagogues on the sabbath to read from the Torah (e.g. Lk 4:16). However, synagogues were a later development in Jewish history, not originating during the time of the sabbath commandment. There is no mention of such practices or facilities in the Old Testament. We should not place too much emphasis on the practices of the generation of Jewish leaders that were consistently scolded by Jesus for hypocrisy and man-made traditions. In addition, any “Jewish” practices we see Jesus complying with in the Gospels are just that — Jewish practices (either prescribed by God or not) which were still in place prior to the resurrection of Christ and birth of the church. We must not forget that Jesus was a Jew!

Nevertheless, Ezekiel prophesies a Messianic-era Sabbath, during which “the people of the land shall worship” corporately at the gate of the temple (Ezekiel 46:3). This may provide the tie between Israel’s weekly sabbath and the Christian worship gathering on Sunday, given the interpreter’s view on inaugurated eschatology. If it does, then it implies that Christians should observe the sabbath on the same day as their corporate worship. This leads to my next point.

The Sabbath Principle Today

We have established that there is a scriptural precedent for corporate Sunday worship. We are to gather each week for preaching, communion, taking offerings, and other corporate spiritual practices. We have also established that there is a universal sabbath principle still in effect today. We are to work six days and rest on the seventh day. Finally, we observed Ezekiel’s promises that, in the eschaton, the Sabbath is tied to corporate worship, not just individual rest. This suggests that the reformed view is the correct view.

Nevertheless, legalistic notions of time, place, and practice are nowhere to be found in the New Testament, especially in Paul’s writings. Paul states in Romans 14:

In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God. (Rom 14:5-6 NLT)

While Paul may have agreed that Sunday is the logical fulfillment of Ezekiel’s Sabbath, in this passage he left room for flexibility, perhaps for those who need to labor on Sunday for reasons of necessity. In Paul’s mind, it is equally acceptable to regard a different day, other than Sunday, as holy because of the faith based freedom we have in Christ. Even in the Old Testament, prescribed sabbath rests were not limited to the seventh day of the week (Lev 23:24). There were other days of the week that could be declared as sabbaths. If you work a typical Monday to Friday job, your sabbath would be encompassed in the classic Saturday-Sunday weekend. If you are constrained to work a job that crosses the weekend, then your sabbath would be a day during the week. There is no condemnation in Christ. Your outward practice of rest is now a mere reflection of the 24/7 inward rest that you already have by faith. Whatever you do, you must be fully convinced and fully committed to the sabbath principle.

Practical Application

What activities do we perform on our sabbath day? What do we refrain from? These questions could lead to an endless debate. For Israel’s specific use case, the prohibitions were very strict. Being a heavily worked agricultural society, they were to refrain from even the smallest acts of labor, including cooking food, as well as travel. They were also a holy nation with an outward sanctity to be observed by all nations. Even their diet was very strict, filled with prohibitions against eating various unclean animals. However, in Christ, all foods have now been declared clean, as long as they are consumed with thanksgiving (Mk 7:19, Acts 11:9, 1 Tim 4:3-5). Similarly, I propose that many activities that would have been “non-restful” for Israel could be potentially “restful” in Christ, if they somehow cause us to appreciate our spiritual rest and the Giver of that rest. Below are some simple rules of thumb.

Break from your regular job!

A job that requires you to work seven straight days is asking you to violate the sabbath principle. That’s just not right! Your sabbath day should be a break from your regular job. Those of us who work a nine to five Monday to Friday job are good here, as our whole weekend is sabbatical in nature. For those who are homemakers, and consider homemaking their “job”, this is a little tricky. They should perhaps coordinate with other family members to make sure they have a day when they can take a break from their regular routine. If they cook everyday, maybe it means someone else cooking or going out to eat (a practice we love to do on weekends).

Get some sleep!

On your day off, take some time to actively rest. Sleep in that day, or take a nap at some point. Having enough sleep helps to improve health. Harvard Medical claims that sleep provides cells and tissues the opportunity to recover from the wear and tear of daily life. Many of the major restorative functions of our bodies occur almost exclusively during sleep. [4]

Engage in stress relieving activities!

Our world is in a mental health emergency. Our stress and anxiety levels are at an all-time high. While breaking from the job and getting some sleep both help reduce stress, we may need to do other activities to help refocus our minds. For some, that’s exercise (which is technically “work”). For others, it’s yard work (which is also technically “work”). For others, it’s vacation, hiking and camping (which all entail some “work”). These activities may be an invigorating break from our regular vocations. Plus, the mental and physical health benefits are astronomical! [5]

Do good!

Remember the law of love? Love does good to others even if such good requires “profaning” a sabbath day. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and allowed his hungry disciples to winnow grain on the Sabbath (Luke 6:1-10), demonstrating that “mercy” is more important than sacrifice. It’s perfectly okay, and often very spiritually refreshing, to serve someone on your day off.

Conclusion

Remember, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27). God set up the sabbath to rejuvenate humanity. God wants us to take care of ourselves, avoid workaholism, and reduce stress in our lives. He wants us to have a designated day to sit back and reflect on the work we have completed, as He did on the seventh day of creation. On the flip side of the coin, God wants our personal sabbath to not be about us, and our own self-absorption and pleasure. It should be an honorable, holy and delightful day filled with God-ward reflection and gratitude (Isa 58:13). So let’s strike a balance. Let’s avoid bondage to legalism, but let’s also avoid indifference and negligence.

Now go get some rest! 

I’ll close with a great quote from one of my favorite devotionals.

God ordained that one day in seven be restful (Genesis 2:2; Exodus 20:11). That’s God’s provision for our well-being, for our good (Mark 2:27). There are profound spiritual, physical, and emotional benefits in setting aside a day each week to rest in order to honor God. It could be Saturday, Sunday or every day! (Acts 2:46). But Christians are not required to keep the sabbath as specified in the Old Testament. [6]

KT Sim, Our Daily Bread

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References:

[1] Westminster Confession of 1646: Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day. CHAPTER XXI. OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP, AND THE SABBATH DAY. Secions VII and VIII. https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/ccc/westminster/Of_Religious_Worship.cfm

[2] Robert Rimbo, “Sunday,” The Lutheran 20 (May 2007): 43.

[3] According to Revelation 1:10, John experiences his visions on the “Lord’s Day”. Nevertheless, There is no evidence that “the first day of the week” was ever called “the Lord’s Day” before Revelation was written. In addition, the New Testament always calls Sunday “the first day of the week.”  Due to the highly apocalyptic nature of Revelation, the compatibility of the possessive dative (Revelation 1:10) and genitive case (Other uses of “Day of the Lord”), and and the consistent identification of the apocalypse as the “Day of the Lord” in both Testaments, I propose that John is claiming to be prophetically translated to see the future “Day of the Lord”. In this translation, He is seeing the future unfold around Him and ecstatically recording it. This is not altogether different than the experience Paul recounts in 2 Corinthians 12:2.

[4] http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/need-sleep/whats-in-it-for-you/health

[5] Check out: The Health and Social Benefits of Recreation: An Element of the California Outdoor Recreation
Planning Program. Found at https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/management/upload/1536_ca-health_benefits_081505-2.pdf

[6] KT Sim, Our Daily Bread. online at: https://ourdailyjourney.beta.ourdailybread.org/news-for-you/you-choose-q-what-does-it-mean-to-keep-the-sabbath-day-holy/