SUNDAY OR THE SABBATH DAY?

 

It is clear from the Bible that Jesus and all the Apostles kept the seventh day Sabbath on a day we commonly refer to as "Saturday" while many Christians of today do not. Some observe Sunday as the sabbath day while others say that observance of the day is unnecessary. In this article we'll investigate some arguments in support of observing the Sabbath day rest on Saturday.

So why, if at all, should Christians observe the original Sabbath?

1. The Sabbath was in God’s original plan  – The sabbath day was in God's plan from creation. The sabbath was instituted before the fall of man. Genesis 2:2 says “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” This portion shows us why the sabbath was instituted, and it is because God rested on the day. God did not rest on Sunday or on any other day. God blessed the sabbath day and sanctified it (that is, God set it apart from the other days: it is not like other days). God declared the sabbath holy. To ignore the day and to set up another day instead, is to take the prerogatives that belong to God for only God can make something holy. It is an act of rebellion and revolt against God. The Sabbath day, apart from just serving as a day of rest also serves to remind us God is our creator.
   
2. The Sabbath was made for man  - Mark 2:27 say, "And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath". Jesus makes no distinction between the Jews and the gentiles. He simply says the Sabbath was made for man.  Mathew Henry’s commentary says, “The Sabbath is a sacred and Divine institution; a privilege and benefit, not a task and drudgery.” Even those who oppose the sabbath admit that at least one day of rest in a week is necessary.
   
3. Gentiles are encouraged to keep the Sabbath - Isaiah 56:6-7 says “Also the sons of the foreigner Who join themselves to the LORD, to serve Him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants— Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast My covenant. Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” As you can see, the requirement for entry into the assembly of God for the gentiles (non-Jews) is that they should keep the sabbath. Galatians 3:28 says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
   
   
4. The law hasn’t passed away – Mathew 5:17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven". Paul says in Romans 3:31 “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.” How are we to establish the law if we do not keep the whole law? James 2:10 says "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." The law is indivisible. We either Keep the whole law or we are guilty of breaking the whole law.
   
   
5. Grace and the law work together for salvation – One of the arguments fronted by the Sunday keepers is that the Christians are no longer under the law but under grace. Paul made it abundantly clear that grace does not nullify the law. Romans 3:31says “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.” During the great tribulation, God’s people will be identified with two things: Keeping the commandments of Good and having the faith of Jesus. We read that in Revelations 14:12 “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” The phrase “we are not under the law but grace” in Romans 6:14 does not mean that we shouldn’t keep the law, rather, it means that we are not under the wrath or  penalty of the law, but under grace.”
6. To love God is to keep his commandments – We cannot claim to love God when we do not keep the commandments. According to 1 John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” Jesus said in Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”
7. The Sabbath is Part of the Ten Commandments – Other Christians say that they uphold the laws of God except the Sabbath because they claim that the Sabbath is ceremonial. But the Sabbath is not ceremonial because it was established by God before there was sin. All the ceremonial laws were given after the fall. Again, the forth commandment is part of the ten moral laws of God. No ceremonial laws are part of the ten commandments. The ten commandments are indivisible, you either keep them all or you're guilty of breaking them all. This is what we read in the book of James, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." There is no reason why God would include a ceremonial law among His eternal law, moral laws. All the apostles of Christ kept the commandments, none of them was accused of breaking the Sabbath. Paul mentions that as according to the law, he was blameless. For Paul to claim that he upholds the laws of God and not uphold the Sabbath, the Jews would have stoned him immediately.
8. Jesus expected his end-time followers to be keeping the Sabbath still – Jesus himself kept the Sabbath. He went to the temple as was his custom. In Mathew 4:20 Jesus told his disciples to pray that their flight “may not be in winter or on the Sabbath” indicating that he acknowledges that they will still be keeping the sabbath at the end times. Again, in Revelations 12:17 we find two identifying marks of true Christians the end times: They keep the commandments of God and they have the testimony of Jesus. Again we see the that the law and grace work together in perfect harmony in the plan of salvation.
   
9. Sunday is not the Lord’s Day; the Sabbath is – In Mathew 12:8 Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (NIV). Nowhere does Jesus even hint that he is the lord of Sunday. Sunday was declared the "Lord's Day" by man and not by God.
   
10. The Sabbath will be kept in the millennium – During the thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth, after the second coming, we see the Sabbath shall still endure. Isiah 66:22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the LORD, “So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the LORD.”

This list is by no means exhaustive but we hope it provides enough grounds for one to shift their allegiance from the traditions of men and towards God's chosen and blessed day of rest and worship. There is for example a fringe minority who claim that the calendar has been changed so much over the centuries that it is impossible to know with certainty which day of the week the original Sabbath was kept. This argument has effectively been refuted, but the question is, if it was known which day it is, would they keep it?

To make a case as to whether Christians today are not required to keep the sabbath, one has to either prove that the the entire Ten Commandments is null and void, or that the law of God should he upheld except the fourth commandment. But, as we have already seen above, non of these claims line up with scripture.

 Let's now turn our attention to addressing some reservations or counterarguments that you may have heard of, or ascribe to:

Refuting Counter-Arguments

Those who oppose keeping the Sabbath have to either prove that the Sabbath is not part of the ten commandments or that the entire ten commandments have been done away with. None of these arguments are supported by the scripture as we’ll see below.

1. Not in the New Testament - The Sunday Keepers may argue that the forth commandment is the only commandment that cannot be found in the new testament – It is true that the Sabbath law is not emphasized in the new testament. But this is because the New Testament was written largely in Jerusalem by the apostles who themselves were sabbath keepers (and everyone else was keeping the Sabbath, Jews and Christians alike) therefore was no need to emphasize it. We shouldn't make an argument from silence, because that would mean that anything not expressly forbidden is encouraged and that is just a flawed argument.
   
2. The Sabbath is for the Jews - Some claim that The Sabbath is for the Jews only – The Sabbath was in fact instituted before there was a Jew on Earth, how could it be for the Jews? Jesus said in Mark 2:27 that the sabbath was made for man (not Jews). We have already looked at Isaiah 56:6-7, Genesis 2:2, Mathew 4:20 and Isiah 66:22 all of which refute this claim.
3. A shadow of things to come - There is the claim that Sabbath is a shadow of things to come – Colossians 2:16 – 17 says “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” Many people have miss-interpreted this verse to mean that the Sabbath is a shadow of better things to come. But this verse wasn’t addressing whether Christians should keep the Sabbath or not. It was about fasting. You see, the Jews, the Pharisees and the Jebusites used to hold regular communal fasts but they couldn’t agree amongst themselves on which days to hold the fast and how often. The argument was which day should the fast be observed. Again distinction must be made between the Seventh Day sabbath and other sabbaths i.e the 7 year sabbath etc. A quick check of the context should make it clear.
4. Jesus abolished the law - Other people claim that Jesus abolished the law - Mathew 5:17 reads “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled (NKJV). 1 John 3:4 says, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.(KJV)" We see that sin cannot be defined without the law. So, to claim that the law passed away is to claim that there is no longer sin and there's no longer need for salvation. In another place it says, "because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression." Again note that it says that "the law brings about wrath", which is to say that "breaking the law brings about wrath" for the law itself is holy and blessed. 
5. We are not under the law - Some say that we shouldn't keep the Sabbath day because we are not under the law but under grace, quoting Romans 6:14. The best understanding of this scripture is that we are not under the punishment/penalty of the law, but we're under grace, that is, all our sins are freely forgiven and we're given power over sin. It doesn't mean that we do not have to keep the law (The 10 Commandments of God) because that would mean that we'd be "nullifying the law by faith" (Romans 3:31) to which the same author says, "God forbid!"

Ultimately, the whole debate boils down to "what then shall we do with the Ten Commandments of God as Bible-believing Christians today?". There are only two options: either we keep the law or we violate it. It's my hope that you chose the former. Now, we know that by our own human effort we can't keep the laws of God. We also know that salvation doesn't come by any means other than by grace through faith in Jesus. But on the question of whether Christians should keep the law of God or not, there's only one scripturally defend-able position and that is to keep the Law of God. 

Notice, throughout this article, we didn't refer to the law of God as the nine commandments. We cannot pick and choose which of the ten commandments to keep (James 2:10), neither can we change them (Deuteronomy 4:2), for we have not the power to. Christians must ultimately choose whether to obey God or the traditions of men.