Keeping the 4th Commandment -

Is the Sabbath for today?

Is the Sabbath for today? If the fourth commandment is to be kept today, by today's Christians, then why are we celebrating the first day of the week - Sunday?

These are difficult questions for a Christian today to not only ask, but to understand, and then once understood, sometimes can be more difficult to keep! If you decide, after studying the reasons for keeping the Sabbath, that you would like to also keep this commandment given by YHVH, then you may find yourself cast off by your Sunday-keeping friends and even family. But we must all ask ourselves....who are we to serve - ourselves, our friends, family & church - or the God we claim to serve?

First of all, let's look at where the Sabbath is first mentioned in the Scriptures. In Gen. 2:2,3 it says: "on the seventh God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it".  And in Exodus 20:8-11 it says, "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; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, 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 the seventh day; therefore The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

Many in the Christian world believe that this Sabbath day of rest was merely a shadow of things to come, and therefore, as an ordinance to be observed, has simply passed away in light of a new and better covenant instituted by Yahshau (Jesus). However, stop here a moment and ask yourself this - has God's involvement and his rest in creation ceased to be relevant? Is it no longer important? Yahweh's creational work now, as before is just as significant as in the days of the ancient Israelites.

So where does the word Sabbath come from anyway? Well, the Aramaic word for Sabbath is "sabbaata" (singular). This was adopted into the Greek so that the word sabbata in Greek also means "Sabbath". Many of the Greek speaking population did not understand the origin of the word sabbata as it sounded like the plural of an imaginary Greek word "sabbaton". Then there is the concept of "week" which was often represented in both Hebrew and Greek by the same word - sabbath. In Hebrew it also has the meaning of a day of rest, ceasing or resting from weekly labor.

Only One Day is Holy

The Sabbath Day, and only the Sabbath Day was made Holy by God at the time of creation. This is God's Holy Day - did you catch that? THE SABBATH IS GOD'S HOLY DAY - not an invention, or property of Israelites, Jews or Sabbath-keeping Christians!! In Isaiah 58:13-14 of the RSV it says: "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My Holy Day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the Holy Day of The Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways  or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in The Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of The Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 58:13-14 RSV)

Wow! By simply doing what God says to do - honoring the Sabbath, He will make us ride upon the heights of the earth and will feed us our heritage of our fathers! What more could a person desire? Surely, the Sabbath Day is an identifying sign - a 'mark' that a person is identified by - a mark of His true people. Consider this scripture in Ezekiel 20:11-12 "I gave them My statutes and showed them My ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. Moreover I gave them My Sabbaths, as a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I The Lord sanctify them."

Ok, so maybe you're not convinced....you say - that's the 'OLD TESTAMENT'. So let's look at the New Testament and see what scripture says about the Sabbath.  Think about this - what day of rest .... what day of worship .... did the Savior keep? What day of rest...what day of worship....did all the apostles keep, and the first followers of Yahshua and the thousands upon thousands up until the 3rd century? They were ALL Sabbath keepers and would never have observed the heathen "sun-worship day".  Consider these scriptures: Mark 1:21  "And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught." and again in Mark 6:2 "And on the Sabbath He began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard Him were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to Him? What mighty works are wrought by His hands!"

And those that were called Christians continued to observe the Sabbath after the crucifixion of Jesus. As we see in Acts 13:42-44 "As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. And when the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered together to hear the word of God."

As you can plainly see, the seventh day never stopped being God's Sabbath! It has always been observed by Christians who base their Christianity on the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. In fact, when the Messiah returns, all people, of all nations, will learn to observe not only God's weekly Sabbath, but all the Feast Days of the Lord!

"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. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, says The Lord." (Isaiah 66:22-23 RSV)

So how did the Sabbath come to be thrown by the way-side by the Christians from the third century up to our present time? How did the pagan Roman empire accomplish this corruption in this, the most holy day of rest into a 'venerable day of the sun' - a change that has been blindly accepted by all the Christian profession churches and people since the third century? Check out our article here on "Sun Worship and the Early Church".