The Bible teaches that believers are to keep the seventh day Sabbath because of the following facts:
A- The seventh day Sabbath is God’s commandment.
God wrote the fourth commandment with His own finger: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work. … For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is: … wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8–11).
B- The seventh day Sabbath was made for all people not just the Jews.
Some Christians call God’s fourth commandment the “Jewish Sabbath.” But nowhere is this expression found in the Bible. The seventh day is called “the sabbath of the Lord,” and it is never called “the sabbath of the Jew” (Exodus 20:10). Luke, a Gentile writer of the New Testament, writes of the “nation of the Jews,” “the people of the Jews,” “the land of the Jews,” and the “synagogue of the Jews” (Acts 10:22; 12:11; 10:39; 14:1). But he never writes of the “sabbath of the Jews.”
Christ said, “the sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27). Adam and Eve were the only two people who existed when God actually established the Sabbath (Genesis 2:2,3). There were no Jews in the world until over 2,000 years later, so it was never meant just for the Jews. Jesus uses the term “man” in the general sense, referring to all mankind.
C- The Sabbath is not about just keeping any day of the week.
Genesis describes the origin of the Sabbath like this: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. … And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:1–3).
Which day did God bless and sanctify? Could any of the other six be kept holy? No, because God commanded not to rest on those days but to work. The seventh day is different from all the other days because it has God’s blessing and it is a memorial to His creative work.
D- How can we locate the seventh day Sabbath today?
Some reject the seventh day Sabbath and claim that we cannot know which day it falls on today, therefore, picking any day is okay. But this is wrong. Here are four proofs that identify the true Sabbath.
1: According to Scripture, Christ died on Friday and rose on Sunday, the first day of the week. Most churches acknowledge this by observing Easter Sunday and Good Friday (Luke 23:52–56).
Jesus died on the day before the Sabbath – the“preparation day.” The women rested over the Sabbath “according to the commandment” which is, “the seventh day,” Saturday. The next verse says, “Now upon the first day of the week, …they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices … And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre” (Luke 24:1, 2).
2: The calendar has not been changed so as to confuse the days of the week. Just as we know that Jesus and His followers observed the same day as Moses, we can be positive that our seventh day is the same day Jesus observed.
Pope Gregory XIII did make a calendar change in 1582, but it did not interfere with the weekly cycle. Pope Gregory changed Friday, October 5, 1582, to be Friday, October 15, 1582. Thus, he did not affect the weekly cycle of days what soever.
3: The Jews have observed the seventh day from the time of Abraham, and they still keep it today.
4: Over 100 languages on earth use the word “Sabbath” for Saturday.
E- Jesus and the apostles observed the seventh day Sabbath.
Jesus made it His custom to keep each Sabbath by attending worship services (Luke 4:16). He said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17-18).
Christ’s disciples kept the Sabbath after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (Luke 23:56; Acts 13:14, 42-44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4). There’s no mention in the New Testament (written up to sixty years after Christ’s death) of changing or eliminating the seventh day Sabbath.
F- Baptism is meant to memorialize the Resurrection.
It is true that Jesus rose on a Sunday. But nowhere does the Bible say that we should keep Sunday holy. Many other wonderful events occurred on certain days of the week, but we have no command to keep those days holy either. Baptism is the memorial of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Paul wrote: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
G- The Sabbath will be observed throughout eternity.
“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 66:22, 23).
For more on the Sabbath, check (Lessons 91-102) of our Bible Lessons.
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
