Sunday Sabbath

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 1, 2008 under Ask the Pastor |

A visitor to our website writes:

I’ve just one question I’d like you to consider as your time and interest allows. The reward/ condemnation for failing to consider are eternal in nature. Why do you worship on and/or observe the Sabbath on Sunday? God clearly stated in Exodus 20 as the Fourth Commandment that the Sabbath (seventh day of the week ­ Saturday) shall be kept holy, He blessed and sanctified the Sabbath.

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Dear friend,

Thank you for writing. I am glad to answer your question.

Our church family believes – as I’m sure you’ll agree – that we are to live lives of worship to God at all times. But we gather together to corporately worship Him on Sunday primarily because of the example given the church by the apostles in the Scriptures.

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The commandment of God regarding the Sabbath is found in Exodus 20:8-11. God Himself speaks and says; “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 in the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Ex. 20:8-11).

I believe that there is a perpetual obligation upon all people to keep this commandment, and to honor God’s day of rest. I believe this because of the fact that the Sabbath commandment is based on the example of God’s own rest on the seventh day of creation. God Himself rested on the seventh day; and He expressly sanctified it and blessed it as a part of His creative work (Exodus 2:2) – and did so long before the Ten Commandments were given to Israel through Moses. All people are obligated by God’s word and example to observe His rest in accord with His pattern: that is, to work six days, and rest on the seventh. That pattern is intrinsic to God’s work of creation; and is a part of who we are made to be.

But it is also my conviction that it’s the keeping of the pattern – and not the specific day – that is called for in God’s creative act in Genesis. The keeping of the specific day as defined by the fourth commandment as given through Moses – that is, Saturday – was intended by God to be a sign to a specific people: Israel. We have no recorded incident in the Scriptures prior to the giving of the Law – that is, from the time of Adam’s creation to the time God gave this commandment through Moses – in which anyone is described as having either observed the Sabbath, or as having been sanctioned for having broken it. (This isn’t to say that the Sabbath wasn’t blessed by God, or that it wasn’t obeyed. It’s just to say that there’s no clear example that specifies a particular day of the Sabbath until the time of Moses.) But when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and were given instructions regarding the eating of mannah, God told them, “Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD” (Exodus 16:23). That day was Israel’s first appointed Sabbath day; and He specified that particular day to them as the Sabbath long after He created the world. In Ezekiel 20:12, He says, “Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.” God thus stamped the people of Israel as His own by giving them the specific Saturday Sabbath – among others Sabbaths – to keep.

I also believe that Jesus didn’t come to put that commandment aside. He didn’t come to put a single jot or tittle of the Law aside; but rather, He came to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). As Hebrews tells us, “We who have believed [that is, upon the work of Christ on the cross] do enter that rest . . .” (Hebrews 4:3). And I believe that that’s why, when we come to the New Testament – after Christ has come and has completed His sacrifice for us – we see that the situation regarding the Sabbath is clearly different. The New Testament example is that of the man or woman in Christ observing the Sabbath on first day of the week rather than the last.

There is no New Testament “command” in the Scripture that says that we must now worship on Sunday. But we DO have the example, clearly endorsed by the apostles, of the believers gathering together on Sunday. This is clearly shown in two specific passages. In Acts 20:7, it says that Paul preached a long sermon to the Christians in Philippi “. . . on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread . . .” Also, in 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul gives instructions concerning the collections made for poor Christians; “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.” The verse prior to that last one suggests that this was a command given not just to this one particular church, but also to the other churches of Galatia. And yet, the “Sabbath” (that is, the seventh day sabbath) was still spoken of as distinct from this day, since, for example, Paul reasoned with the Jews and Greeks in the synagogue “every Sabbath” (Acts 18:4; see also 13:14, 27, 42, 44, 15:21; and 16:13).

The first day of the week, then, began to be observed by the early Christians following the resurrection of Jesus and after Pentecost. Jesus is said to have risen on the first day of the week (John 20:1); and it was on this day that we find that the disciples were gathered together to have received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4. (Pentecost was reckoned by counting fifty days from the Sabbath of the offering of the new grain on Passover [Leviticus 23:15-16] – making it the first day of the week.)

Many believe that, because it was the day on which the Lord was resurrected, Sunday eventually came to be referred to as “the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10). Though not authoritative, the late-first or early-second century “church manual” known as The Didache testifies to this as the accepted gathering day for believers when it says, “And on the Lord’s own day gather yourselves together and break bread and give thanks . . .” (paragraph 14).

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Now, please know that if another brother or sister in Christ disagree with me on my view of a Sunday Sabbath, I certainly respect their right to do so. Saturday is their day to observe the Sabbath rest if they wish. But I don’t believe any Christian should be troubled by the suggestion that their soul is under eternal threat because he or she does not observe a Saturday Sabbath.

If one were to suggest that observing the Sabbath on any day other than Saturday was a sin of such a terrible nature, then they would have to be consistent with the implications that would follow. They would then have to say that the largest share of the professing church (which, for the past two-thousand years, has gathered together on the first day of the week) has been unspeakably negligent; having engaged in a sin that has put nearly all of its members at risk of eternal damnation.

You would also have to say that many of the leaders of the early church were dreadfully negligent – negligent in fact to the point of being culpable for the eternal loss of countless souls! This would be because they had gathered together in Jerusalem to settle the question of which aspects of the Jewish ceremonial law the believing Gentiles were required to keep; but they sadly neglected to mention a crucially important requirement – that they must observe the Sabbath on the last day of the week (Acts 15:1-35)! Yet, we see no mention of it at all.

What’s more, one of the guiltiest men in all of church history would have to be the apostle Paul. He told his brothers and sisters in Christ that they had liberty with respect to the day they chose (Romans 14:6-7). And what’s more, he told other Christians not to allow anyone to judge them “in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17). You would have to say that his words have led untold millions throughout the centuries to neglect the Saturday Sabbath – and thus suffer eternal loss!

Of course, any such an idea is ridiculous! No, dear friend. The day we honor the Lord is something for which God has given us liberty. It’s about Christ – not about the specific day. And for my part, I will “stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,” and I will not “be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).

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Let me close with one more thought. If we rest our hope for salvation upon the full sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross – and on Him alone – then we should not then judge and condemn another brother and sister in Christ who likewise trust His cross, but who feels led to observe a different day than we do. We would, in effect, be fighting a battle against the grace of God through Christ – and would be seeking to place people back under bondage to the Jewish ceremonial law.

Paul wrote these words with regard to a different matter of controversy; but I believe the principle would absolutely apply to the whole matter of the day of the Sabbath: “But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: ‘As I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.’ So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way” (Romans 14:10-13).

I say, let’s enter fully into the liberty we have in Christ; and concern ourselves instead with more important things than on what day another brother or sister in Christ worships. God has given them liberty in the observance of that day – whether it is Saturday or Sunday. Instead, let’s rejoice with them and encourage them in their day of worship. If we do so, we will be taking our stand on God’s grace – and that’s the only safe place to stand.

Thank you again for your letter.

In Christ’s love,
Pastor Greg

(All Scripture quotes are taken from the New King James Version.)