The Christian Sabbath

The issue about the Christian Sabbath or the Lord’s Day is perplexing for many Christians. Are we to keep the Sabbath? What is the day of its observance? Has the Old Testament Sabbath been abolished so that we should no longer mind it? What is the relationship between the Old Testament Sabbath and the New Testament Lord’s day? Did God really change the day when His people should worship Him? These are some of the pressing questions that we need to face in dealing with the Lord’s day. Nonetheless, it is not a topic without great importance.

However, a faithful study of God’s infallible word will allow us to see the principles behind Sabbath-keeping and God’s very reason for appointing it throughout the Old and New Testaments. Here, we will see a glaring, clear, and praise-invoking truth on how God masterfully instituted the Christian Sabbath.

The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith sums it up in this statement:

“As it is the law of nature that in general a proportion of time, by God’s appointment, be set apart for the  worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he hath particularly appointed a day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto Him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, is called the Lord’s day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.”[i]

Progression in the Divine Revelation
Without a doubt, the LORD instituted the Sabbath at the creation. After six days of His magnificent work, He rested on the seventh day. This established a day of rest for all of our labors. He set it apart as holy unto Him (Genesis 2:3). Therefore, this day must be revered and all creation is bound to observe it.  Now, when the LORD gave the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mt. Sinai, He wrote it in two tablets of stone with His finger emphasizing the power and authority by which the LORD gave it to the Israelites (Exodus 31:18). Any student of the Word knows that the Law was given in view of God’s redemptive act for Israel (Exodus 20:2).

The Old Testament’s progressive revelation paints for us a glorious redemption that is to come.

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However, a close reading of the fourth commandment, a comparison of the same Law in the book of Exodus and Deuteronomy, will unfold the progression of God’s revelation in giving it for His people to observe.

Exodus 20:8, 11 - Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth… and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 – Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath. 

We may observe that Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, attached to the Sabbath in the book of Exodus the reason for keeping it, which is primarily as a creation ordinance, ‘For in six days the LORD made…’ While in Deuteronomy, he emphasized the Sabbath day as a Redemption ordinance ‘you were slave… the LORD brought you ought… therefore the LORD commanded you to observe the Sabbath.’  

The fourth commandment is not now only limited to the people resting in the seventh day from all their work as the LORD did, but according to the redeeming work of the LORD by His power when He saved them from slavery. Now, if in the Old Covenant, there were a progression, a progressive revelation on the purpose why Israel had to keep the Sabbath day, should we not expect that there would be further progression in the New Covenant administration? The divine revelation leaves us with a truth that we must carefully articulate concerning the Sabbath as a Creation and Redemption ordinance, lest we walk through the testaments blind to God’s intention in ushering his people to the Great Sabbath. The Old Testament’s progressive revelation paints for us a glorious redemption that is to come.

Picturing Sabbath Typology
The New Testament unmistakably tells us that the Sabbath along with the festivals and the new moon is a mere shadow of what is to come, the new creation in Christ (Colossians 2:16-17). In these texts, “Paul abrogates the observance of the seventh day, but not the moral principle involved in the Sabbath command.[ii] The Old Testament Sabbath is a type of what is to come. So where is the anti-type or the substance? The answer is who. Colossians 2:17 points to Jesus Christ as the one who has the substance, for it belongs to Him. 

The Seventh-day Sabbath, which foreshadows the First-day Sabbath in Christ, is passing away. The positive law of the Sabbath being the seventh day had been abolished, but the principle of Sabbath-keeping remains the same. It is not the true Sabbath of the New Covenant people of God. As R.L Dabney strongly argues, “The law is not repealed; it cannot be. But Paul has shown that it is changed. To what day is the Sabbath changed, if not to the first: no other day in the week has a shadow of a claim. It must be this, or none; but it cannot be none; therefore it must be this.”[iii]

Aside from God’s prerogative in determining the day that His people should worship Him and the New Covenant saints’ observance of the Lord’s day as the Christian Sabbath (Acts 20:7, I Corinthians 16:1-2), the LORD vividly illustrated for us how the Sabbath was changed to Lord’s day. As Dr. Sam Waldron states, “It is now evident why the Lord’s day must be viewed as the Christian Sabbath. The institution of the Sabbath at creation, the inclusion of the Sabbath in the Decalogue, and the continuation of the Sabbath principle in the Lord’s day demands this.”[iv]

…while we are waiting diligently for the final rest that is to come, we anticipate it by resting on the day that He appointed for us to rest from all of our labors and to rest in Him, that is the Lord’s day.

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Proclaiming the Lord’s Victory
The Scripture tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ victoriously rose from the dead on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19). The resurrection day is described as the glorious day where Jesus Christ, having risen from the dead, completing His work of atonement for His people, entered His rest in glory. The psalmist writes about Jesus Christ, who is the “stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalms 118:22). Peter cites this verse in Acts 4:11 referring to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The first day of the week, the resurrection day of our Lord ushered the beginning of the New Age, the New Creation (II Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). 

Another significant verse that is worthy of close attention is Hebrews 4:9, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (NASB). This verse has been interpreted against any form of Sabbath-keeping; they misunderstood it as the final rest that will culminate on the Lord’s second coming. Hence, no particular day is necessary to be called as the believers rest in God.  However, the author here changed the Greek word that he uses for the idea of rest from katapausis (cp. 3:11, 18; 4:1, 3, 5, 10, 11) to sabatismos (4:9). So, why a sudden change of word in verse 9? John Owen comments “he calls it ‘sabbatism,’ to express both the rest itself and the observation of another day likewise, as a  pledge and token of that other rest of God, and our spiritual interest therein…and what day this is hath been declared, namely, the first day of the week.” (John Owen, A Commentary on Hebrews, 1478) The author simply tells us that while we are waiting diligently for the final rest that is to come, we anticipate it by resting on the day that He appointed for us to rest from all of our labors and to rest in Him, that is the Lord’s day.

Some might ask how could this alter the Creation ordinance of the Sabbath. The answer is startling; it is because “[n]othing less than a new creation is sufficient to account for the passing of the seventh-day Sabbath institution of creation”[v]. The Seventh-day Sabbath, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, is associated with the old creation, and the First-day Sabbath, the Lord’s day, which is from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, is associated to the new creation.

The power of God displayed in the resurrection of Christ is more than enough to convince us that as the Lord entered His rest on the first day of the week, so His people should be glad to commemorate it in his day. The principle of sabbath commemoration is the same and binding for all people at all times for it “ought not to be relegated to the ancient shadows, but are equally applicable to every age.”[vi] The day has changed but the obligation to keep it is unchanged. The Lord’s day demands the people of God to celebrate His triumph as they anticipate His return which will be their eternal rest (Hebrew 4:9-11). This is a day of joy for “God designed the Sabbath as a means of our enjoying Him. On Sabbath, you will find exquisite pleasure in God.”[vii]

How is your view of the Sabbath and of the Lord’s glorious resurrection affected by what you have read?

SOLI DEO GLORIA!

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[i] 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith 22.7

[ii] John Pipa, The Lord’s Day. 90 (Emphasis in the original)

[iii] Quoted by John Pipa, The Lord’s day. 120 (Emphasis Added)

[iv] Sam Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith. Epub. 314

[v] Sam Waldron, The Lord’s Day: Its Presuppositions, Proofs, Precedents, and Practice. Epub. 84

[vi] John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion. Chapter VIII. 32

[vii] Pipa, 12