The Bible Evidence for Keeping the Seventh Day Sabbath
1-God instituted the Sabbath at Creation- He blessed and sanctified the seventh day 2000 years before the existence of Jews. And this is the only supporting reason for our weekly time cycles (Genesis 2:2,3).
2-God made the Sabbath for the benefit of mankind (Mark 2:27).
3-Abraham and his descendants kept all of God’s commandments, including the seventh day Sabbath (Genesis 26:4,5).
4-God required Moses and the children of Israel to keep His Sabbath law before He handed down the Ten Commandments (Exodus 16:4, 26-30).
5-God reinforced His Ten Commandments-in stone, with His own finger, to magnify their divine moral importance to the children of Israel, who had lost evidence of their true nature over four hundred years of captivity. And He placed special emphasis on remembering His seventh day Sabbath.
The Sabbath Commandment stated: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8–11).
Also, the Lord said, “hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God” (Ezekiel 20:20). And He called the Sabbath, “my holy day” (Isaiah 58:13).
6-Jesus declared, “For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8). Jesus, our supreme example, while on earth made it His custom to keep the seventh day Sabbath by attending worship services (Luke 4:16).
7-When Jesus prophesied about events that would take place forty years after His death (about the destruction of Jerusalem), He underscored the fact that His followers should still be observing His sacred weekly Sabbath day (Matthew 24:20).
8-Jesus said, He didn’t come to destroy the law, but to fill it to the fullest spiritual meaning. He emphatically declared that not one “jot or title” would be changed until heaven and earth pass away (Matthew 5:17,18).
9-Christ’s disciples kept the Sabbath after the Crucifixion and taught the converted Gentiles to keep it as well (Luke 23:56; Acts 13:14, 42-44; 16:13; 18:4). There is no mention in the New Testament (written up to 60 years after Christ’s death) of changing or eliminating the seventh day Sabbath.
10-The Old Covenant contained the Ten commandments (Exodus 24:4,7-8; Deuteronomy 31:24-26). And the New Covenant contains the Ten Commandments (Jeremiah 31:31-33; Hebrews 8:8,10).
11-The Sabbaths that were abolished at the cross were the 7 annual Jewish sabbath feasts (Colossians 2:14-17; Ephesians 2:15), which were also called sabbaths (Leviticus 23). These were in addition to, or “besides the Sabbaths of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:38). Their main significance was in foreshadowing, or pointing to, the cross and ended at the cross.
12-God’s redeemed people – will celebrate and worship on the sabbath in the new heaven and new earth for all of eternity (Isaiah 66:22-23).
There is no suggestion anywhere in the Scriptures that Jesus, His Father, or the apostles ever—at any time changed the holy seventh day Sabbath to any other day. About 300 years after the resurrection, people changed God’s holy day of worship from the seventh day Sabbath (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday). And this mistake was passed on to our time as fact. However, God blessed the seventh day Sabbath, and when God blesses, no man can “reverse it” (Numbers 23:20).
Also see: Who changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday and when?
For more on the Sabbath, please check (Lessons 91-102) of the Bible Lessons.
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
