I am posting this because I posted the following (which Steve wrote) on the sabbath on another forum. There were folks who are sabbath keepers who feel you are breaking God's commandments if you don't keep the sabbath, and think you may not even be saved because of disobedience. They have commented on it, so I am not posting it here so they can address their concerns. Dmatic is one, and has joined us in response to my invitation to come and visit and bring beliefs to the table to discuss. I think there are a couple others that may come too.
There are three very different positions that Christians have taken on the question of Sabbath observance:
1. Christians should observe the Sabbath on Saturday (as God commanded Israel to do);
2. Christians should observe the Sabbath on Sunday (as most Christians say that they do);
3. Christians observe the Sabbath spiritually, and are not obliged to observe any day of the week (neither Saturday nor Sunday) above another in the Jewish sense.
Those who hold to position #1 argue that the Sabbath, being one of the Ten Commandments, is permanent and unchanging (having been written in stone). They say that Sabbath observance was to be a perpetual sign of God's covenant with Israel to all generations, and that both Jesus and Paul kept the Sabbath. They say that we are not authorized to change the Sabbath from Saturday to some other day of the week (e.g., Sunday).
Those who hold to position #2 believe that the early church changed the observance of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, in honor of Christ's having risen on a Sunday. They refer to Sunday as "the Lord's Day," and believe that it pre-empts the Saturday Sabbath in the practice of Christians.
The third position is that the Sabbath was a type and a shadow of a spiritual rest, and that Christians observe it best by ceasing from any efforts of achieving righteousness through "works" and resting in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. The coming of the antitype (or "fulfillment of the type") brings an end to the obligation to keep the ritual that was merely its shadow. Thus, Christians, having entered into God's rest, have experienced the fulfillment of the Sabbath, and are under no obligation to observe any day of the week differently that any other.
It would appear, from the evidence of the New Testament, that the third position is correct.
Problems with the first position:
The Bible nowhere states that the ten commandments are more permanent than any other portion of the law given by Moses. In fact, one passage about the transitory and passing nature of the Old Covenant specifically calls that defunct covenant "the ministry of death. written and engraved on stones" (2 Cor.3:7). That the covenant so described is made obsolete by the coming of the New Testament is stated unambiguously in Hebrews 8:13.
The ritual practices of the law (including the observance of sacred days) have their fulfillment in Christ, and are not commanded to be continued in the New Testament. Thus circumcision, animal sacrifices, dietary restrictions and holy days no longer apply as obligations of God's people (see Col.2:16-17/ Gal.4:10-11/ Rom.14:5).
While it is true that the Sabbath was said to be a perpetual sign of the covenant that God made with Israel (Ex.31:13, 16-17), yet the same is said of circumcision (Gen.17:9-11), though we know that the latter has been pre-empted in the New Covenant by the spiritual circumcision of which the ritual was a mere type (Rom.2:28-29/ Phil.3:3/ Col.2:11), and that the religious observance of circumcision by Gentiles is tantamount to a denial of Christianity (Gal.5:2-4). How are Sabbath-keeping and ritual circumcision different from each other—if not in this, that Jesus said circumcision was more important than Sabbath-keeping in the Jewish law (John 7:22-23)?
As for Jesus and Paul keeping the Sabbath, we have no record of this. The claim is based on the many references to Jesus and Paul customarily going into the synagogue on the Sabbath days to preach. But what has this to do with keeping the Sabbath? The law never instructed the Jews to attend (or preach in) synagogues on the Sabbath. It is clear that Jesus and Paul attended the synagogue services in order to preach to the Jews who were gathered there on the Sabbaths. The other days of the week they preached in whatever other locations they found people in.
Even if Jesus or Paul did keep Sabbath holy (a matter not affirmed in scripture), it is easy enough to see this as Jesus' compliance with the Jewish ritual laws (he also was circumcised and made the prescribed pilgrimages to the temple on holy days—which New Testament believers are not expected to do). Paul may have observed Sabbath when he was among Jews, in keeping with his policy to comply with the cultural and religious sensitivities of whatever people he was trying to reach, though he said that he was free to ignore such compliance when among those for whom it was not an issue (1 Cor.9:20-21).
While we have no scriptural statement affirming that Jesus kept the Sabbath, we DO have a biblical affirmation that He BROKE the Sabbath (John 5:18). As "Lord of the Sabbath," it was no sin for Him to violate it, just as a policeman with lights and siren blaring does not commit a traffic violation when going 90 MPH. Sabbatarians insist that Jesus did not break the actual Sabbath law, but only the Jews' traditional rules about the Sabbath. But this isn't what the scripture says.
Jesus defended his disciples' breaking the Sabbath on the grounds that their action was comparable to what David did in eating the forbidden showbread, and what the priests do when they continue their regular work on the Sabbath (Matt.12:2-7). The first comparison equates Sabbath observance with the showbread ordinance (a ceremonial, not moral law).Christ confirms that Sabbath was a ceremonial, not moral, obligation by His citation of Hosea 6:6, by which He parallels Sabbath (the issue He was addressing) with the offering of sacrifices (another ritual, not moral, law).
After likening the disciples' breach of Sabbath with the priests' working on the Sabbath, Jesus anticipated the Jews' objection: "But the priests are authorized to break Sabbath in order to fulfill their duties in the work of the temple!" Jesus answers the objection before it is voiced: "But one greater than the temple is here" (Matt.12:6). In other words, if the temple work is important enough to pre-empt Sabbath observance, then so is the service of Christ (one greater than the temple), with which the disciples were occupied. In fact, even pulling an animal out of a ditch, or leading it to water were sufficiently important activities to pre-empt the Sabbath restrictions (Matt.12:11/Luke 13:15). This is because "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath" (Matt.12:12). Since we ought to be occupied with doing good at all times, every day, there can be little difference between the Sabbath and any other day in this respect. That is the point, I think, that Christ was making with His comment, "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (Matt.12:8). Why does He say "EVEN of the Sabbath"? Because He is the Lord of every day—EVEN the Sabbath. Thus the duties of His disciples, being simply to do the will of their Lord, are the same every day—even on the Sabbath day.
Problems with the second position:
To say that the early church changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday is entirely without biblical warrant. The book of Acts refers many times to the Sabbath (after the resurrection of Christ), and in every case, it is referring to Saturday. That the first day of the week may have become a preferred day for Christian meetings may be hinted at in 1 Cor.16:2 and 20:7 (though these verses do not prove this point necessarily). Yet there is no suggestion that anyone ever regarded the first day of the week to be the new "Sabbath", replacing Saturday. Actually, the earliest Christians tended to have their church meetings every day of the week (Acts 2:46/ 5:42) and Paul found no fault with those who esteemed "every day alike" (i.e., recognizing not one holy day a week, but seven holy days a week! Rom.14:5).
As for the third position:
This view recognizes the ceremonial nature of the Sabbath, and its special importance (along with circumcision) as a ritual sign of the Old Covenant. This is confirmed by Jesus' comparison of Sabbath keeping with the ceremonial laws of showbread and animal sacrifices (Matt.12:2-4, 7), and Paul's equating the importance of Sabbath with that of dietary restrictions, festivals and New Moons (Col.2:16). Such rituals are fulfilled in Christ and do not continue, as the moral laws do, to define the obligations for Christians.
Two verses that are often brought against this position by Sabbatarians are Heb.4:9 and Mark 2:27.
In the Greek, Hebrews 4:9 says that "there remains a keeping of Sabbath for the people of God." This seems to state a continuing obligation of Christians to keep the Sabbath. But the context of the passage is about the spiritual "rest" that we experience in Christ, which was predicted in Psalm 95:11, and foreshadowed both by the conquest of Canaan and by the original Sabbath (Heb.4:1-4,8). When he says, "there remains a keeping of Sabbath" for us, it is speaking of our enjoyment of the spiritual antitype of the Sabbath as our “keeping of Sabbath.” This is just the same as when Paul said, "Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast [i.e., of unleavened bread]" (1 Cor.5:7-8). As his context proves, Paul is not advocating the keeping of the Jewish Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, but its spiritual fulfillment in a life of "sincerity and truth," devoid of the "leaven of malice and wickedness." The Jewish feasts and holy days (including Sabbath) have their spiritual fulfillment in Christ. We needn't observe them in the old way any longer.
In Mark 2:27, Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." The context suggests that this simply means that God never intended to place the Sabbath in a place of importance above human needs, but intended it as a boon and benefit, not a bondage, to man. The Sabbatarians want us to understand this as an extension of duty to keep the Sabbath to all mankind, as opposed to merely Israel. This can hardly be Jesus' intention, since this would suggest that the people He was endeavoring to correct were trying to keep Gentiles from keeping the Sabbath, and that Jesus had to inform them that all men, not only Jews, were given the Sabbath law. Not only would the making of this point on this occasion be absolutely without relevance to anything that was going on there, but it would also be quite untrue. The unvarnished truth is that the command to keep the Sabbath was given only (and often) to Israel. No Gentiles were ever placed under it, unless they were servants in a Jewish home (Ex.20:10) or else they wished to become Jewish proselytes. In the latter case, they would also have to keep all the law, including circumcision and sacrifices (Isa.56:6-7).
In desperation to impose observance of the Sabbath on Christians, Sabbatarians like to point out New Testament verses that describe true Christians as those who "keep the commandments of God" (e.g., Rev.12:17/ 22:14, etc.). They seem to think of “the commandments of God” as the equivalent of the "Ten Commandments," including the command to keep Sabbath. However, there were hundreds of things commanded by God in the Old Testament, many of which (as all will agree) comprise no part of normative Christian practice (e.g., Ex.17:1/ 25:21-22/ 34:32/ Num.3:39, etc.). In the New Testament, the commandments of God are equated with the things that Jesus commanded His disciples to do (Matt.28:20), as well as the commands given to the churches by the apostles themselves (1 Cor.14:37). In none of these do we find a command concerning the Sabbath.
The simple, irrefutable fact remains that Christians have no command from Christ or the apostles to observe one day as more sacred than others. In the New Testament, we are never told that Jesus or the early Christians were Sabbatarians, nor (had they been such) that all Christians therefore have any duty to observe the Sabbath Day. One must not place upon the people of God obligations that Jesus and the apostles neglected to mention.
By Steve Gregg