THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SEVENTH DAY IN THE BIBLE

CHRISTIANITY

Since the first century, Christians have had different opinions on the concept of SABBATH, or the keeping holy the SEVENTH day of the week, as the appointed day of rest, as it is commanded in the Torah.

THE TORAH

The Torah or Law, claimed to have been given by almighty GOD to Moses, clearly commands on the Tablet of the Ten Commandments, to keep the Seventh Day as Day of Rest, and to keep it ‘holy’:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to YHWH your God.

On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11For in six days YHWH made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Exodus 20:8-11

Even though this Law was given to Moses, many centuries after creation, the precedent to sanctify the Seventh day as the Holy Day of Rest, pre-existed this time and it is mentioned in the creation story of Genesis:

“Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished”

Exodus 2:3

We do not have written records of the Sabbath being kept by the patriarchs, and even though ‘seventh day’ followers say they did, because it is written in Genesis, they seem to forget that this was given as revelation to Moses, much later, but all these details were most likely unknown to pre-mosaic Hebrews.

Regardless, the keeping of the Sabbath was reinstated, as a religious day of rest. Not just a day of leisure, but as a HOLY DAY, meaning, sanctified with prayer and reading of the Scriptures, and communal worship in family. And it is reported that GOD was intransigent with it:

“Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death.”

Exodus 31:15

THE NEW TESTAMENT

That there were exaggerations in the application of this law, it is evident in the words of Lord JESUS.

On one occasion, when confronted with the traditional Jewish intransigency on the Sabbath, Jesus said:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Mark 2:27

Jesus made this remark when his disciples

were challenged for picking up seeds while walking, and also showed the same disapproval when criticized for curing a man on a Sabbath (Matthew 12:10).

Most definitely, looks like Jesus would not have approved the killing of a person for not keeping Sabbath, as it says in Exodus 31:15, but He certainly kept it, and recommended his keeping:

Jesus kept the Sabbath (Mark 6:2; Luke 4:16, 31; 6:6; 13:10).

Jesus said that it was important to keep all the commandments of GOD, and commanded to keep them, which included the Sabbath.

(Matthew 5:17-19; John 15:10)

PAUL’S LETTERS

In one of Paul’s letters, however, it is said that we are not bound to ‘Sabbaths’ or ‘New Moons’:

“16Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. 17These are a shadow of the things to come”

Colossians 2:16-17

Here the expression ‘Sabbaths’ is not referring to the one ordered in the Ten Commandments, but to the ‘rest days’ of festivities that accompanied certain religious feasts in the old days, like the ones for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Day of Atonement, or Feast of the Tabernacles. These days are also referred as Sabbatons, and are not part of the universal commands that were given in the Ten Commands, but in the national religious holidays given only to ISRAEL.

Certainly, the worth of a man should not be measured only by the keeping of a religious day, but by the whole compliance to the will of GOD in morality above all. A man who is immoral, will be always a sinner in enmity with GOD, regardless whether he keeps the Sabbath or not, and the same in the opposite case; if a man is morally righteous, will continue being so, even if he does not keep the Sabbath.

GOD judges the essence, not the appearance.

CONCLUSION

The keeping of the Sabbath fell in disuse, slowly but surely, as more gentiles entered the Christian church and were more impressed by the resurrection of Lord JESUS, and the rejection of Judaism as a religion, and thus, Sunday replaced the divinely ordained ‘Seventh Day’, and Christianity constituted itself into a totally different religion from Judaism.

As an overall, according to the Bible, the Seventh Day of the week is the divinely appointed Holy Day for all humanity, and the only one clearly and openly commanded in the Bible, and never abrogated by Jesus; instead of the ‘traditional’ Sunday, adopted by the gentile Christians, as well as prayers to saints, and images.

OFR.