There has been a woman coming to our church every week during our coffee shop hours who has a peculiar set of beliefs. It sounds like she went to church for a while but then was challenged with some different ideas that sort of blew her away. One of the ideas she has is that even as New Testament Christians we need to keep the Sabbath as the Jews in the Old Testament did.
So the question remains, why do we worship on Sunday rather than Saturday? The simple answer is Christ, the more complicated explanation is what follows.
Moses was given the 10 commandments upon the Mount Sinai as the people of Israel were gathered around the base of the mountain. Moses came down the mountain with the decalogue in hand with one of the commandments as:
“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. 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. For in six days the LORD
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
It was quite customary for the Jews to gather on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, to worship God. They would cease to work and gather at the synagogue on Saturday to teach. This is what Jesus did as well (Matthew 12:9; John 18:20) and so did the apostle Paul (Acts 17:2; 18:4). So if in the Old Testament and the New Testament we see Jews, Jesus and Paul worshipping on the Sabbath why do we no worship on Sunday instead?
Let’s look first at the ten commandments as a whole. Nine of these ten commandments were re-instituted or re-declared again in the New Testament; all of them but the commandment to keep the Sabbath. Instead, Jesus declared that he was Lord of the Sabbath; “for the Son of Man is the lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8).
Upon the completion of creation is when God first instituted the day of rest, the seventh day. God, however, does not get tired and does not need rest or to take a break. So why does the Scripture say he rested? The answer is Jesus’ very own words in Mark 2:27; “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” God established this day or rest for His people, not
because God needed a break, but because man is mortal and tires easily and needs a time to refocus. This was seen as a time of renewal for man.
In the Old Testament system of law it was required to keep theSabbath as part of the overall moral, legal, and sacrificial system by whichthe Jewish people satisfied their fear of the Lord. Everyone needed to followthe teaching on keeping the Sabbath or when a person was in sin for breaking the Sabbath they would be punished.
The Change of Days as Evidenced in the New Testament
The New Testament has plenty of evidence to support the idea that the Sabbath does not need to be followed based upon the same conditions that it was in the Old Testament.
Romans 14:5-6 are probably the clearest of the verses that explain this:
One person esteems one day as betterthan another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fullyconvinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
The entire passage of Romans 14:1-12 is worthy of study. Nevertheless, the instructions from the apostle Paul are that each person should be convinced in their own mind about which day they observe for the Lord. If the choice for the seventh day Sabbath were a requirement then the choice would not be man’s but God’s.
Colossians 2:16-17 also lends support to the idea:
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Notice here that time sequence is mentioned. A festival is yearly, a new moon is monthly, and a Sabbath is weekly. No one is to judge in regard to this. The Sabbath is defined as a shadow, the reality is Jesus. Jesus
is our Sabbath.
Acts 20:7 is sort of the capstone on the issue for me:
On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
The first day of the week is Sunday and this is the day the people gathered. This passage can easily be seen as the church meeting on Sunday. It has two important church functions within it: breaking bread (communion) and a message (preaching). Additionally, Luke did not use the Jewish system of counting days: sundown to sundown. He used the Roman system: midnight to midnight. This is a subtle point that shows the Jewish Sabbath system was not the one utilized by Luke.
One might also consider Galatians 4:9-10 where Paul warns against going back under the law by insisting upon the legal requirement of special days.
In many churches today the phrase “Lord’s day” is used to describe Sunday, the same as it was in the second century.
Hopefully this is convincing enough that the church does not have to meet on Saturday, the Old Testament day of rest. If anything at all, we have the freedom (Romans 14:1-12) to worship on the day that we choose and believe we should. No one should judge us upon which day we meet, just as we should not judge anyone else upon the day they meet. We are all free under Christ, not under the bondage of the law (Romans 6:14).
