Which Day Is
The True Sabbath?
by Stan LaBruna
It is commonly believed amongst Christians that when Jesus died
on the cross the Law of God was
nullified and the Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday
because Jesus was resurrected on
Sunday. Is this what the Bible teaches? Let's see for ourselves:
During the sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke these words, "Think
not that I am come to destroy
the Law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments,
and shall teach
men so, he shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven: but
whosover shall do and
teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven." (Matt 5:17-19, KJV).
Wow, not what most would expect to hear from Jesus' mouth, but
nevertheless very accurate.
With minor variations in wording you will find this passage in
every translation of the Bible.
So Jesus is telling us until all things are fulfilled, God's Law
is still intact. So we must ask our-
selves: Has Jesus returned yet? Do we have a new heaven and new
earth yet? Has all prophecy
been fulfilled? The answer to all these questions is no, so we
must conclude that the Law is still
in full force and effect in all its aspects including the
commandment concerning the Sabbath.
So who established the Sabbath anyway? Was it God the Father or
Jesus the Son? The first
chapter of the gospel of John tells us that it was the Word
(Jesus) who created the universe
(vs 3, also see Col 1:14-17). So it was the same member of the
Godhead who was later revealed
as Jesus who created the universe and established the Sabbath
and blessed and sanctified it
(Gen 2:3).
It might surprise you to learn that the Sabbath was first
revealed to the Israelites as a test
commandment before it was incorporated into the Ten
Commandments. In Exodus 16:4-5 & 29
we read: "Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain
bread from heaven for you; and the
people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I
may prove them, whether
they will walk in my law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that
on the sixth day they shall
prepare that which they bring in; it shall be twice as much as
they gather daily...See, for that
the Lord hath given you on the sixth day the bread of two days;
abide ye every man in his place,
let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." Here God is
telling us He is able to judge our
overall attitude towards keeping His law by the way we keep or
do not keep the Sabbath.
In Exodus 31:13-17 we read that the Sabbath is a perpetual
covenant and sign between God
and His people. In Romans 2:28,29 and 11:1-36 we see that God
considers Gentile believers to
be spiritual Jews and we are grafted into Israel. In Galatians
3:6-9 and 27-29 we also see that
God considers the faithful, regardless of their ethnic origins
to be the children of Abraham.
Since believing Gentiles are considered by God to be spiritual
Jews who are grafted into Israel
and the spiritual children of Abraham, the Sabbath is also our
perpetual covenant and sign with
God that He is our God and we are His people.
That God actually encourages Gentiles to keep the Sabbath is
shown in Isaiah 56:2-7 which
says that Gentiles that join themselves to the Lord should not
consider themselves separated
from His people and Gentiles that keep the Sabbath would be
received by the Lord into His
house and within His walls. This foreshadows John 14:2 where
Jesus tells us there are many
mansions in His father's house.
Hebrews 4:1-11 tells us that the weekly Sabbath is symbolic of
the millennial rest that wll
commence with the return of Christ. Verse 9 says, "There
remaineth therefore a rest to the
people of God." The Greek word translated "rest" is sabbatismos
(i.e., a keeping of the Sabbath)
and we know from Romans 2 and 11 and Galatians 3 that the term
"people of God" no longer
refers exclusively to physical Israel.
Scripture tells us it was Jesus' custom to keep the Sabbath
(Luke 4:16) and that He taught on
the Sabbath (vs 31). Furthermore, Jesus actually referred to
Himself as "Lord of the Sabbath".
You will find this in Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28 and Luke 6:5.
In Matthew 12:38-40 when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees to
validate His ministry with a
sign, He told them the only sign He would give them would be the
sign of Jonah; that He would
be in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights. Most professing
Christians believe the tradition that
Jesus was crucified and buried late Friday afternoon and
resurrected early Sunday morning.
If you believe this, you are rejecting the only proof that Jesus
was who He said He was because
you can't fit 3 days and 3 nights between Friday afternoon and
Sunday morning.
Since Scripture shows us and reaffirms over and over again that
the day we know as Saturday
is the Sabbath, you're probably asking yourself at this point,
"Where did the tradition of Sunday as
the Sabbath come from?" Before I answer that question, let's
read something from Daniel 7. This
is the prophetic chapter that symbolizes human governments with
beasts. The first three beasts
( the lion, the bear and the leopard) represent the governments
of ancient Babylon, Persia and
Greece. The fourth beast, which is introduced in verse 7, is
called "dreadful and terrible, and
strong exceedingly". This beast represents the Roman government.
We are going to start our
reading at verse 23: "Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be
the fourth kingdom upon earth,
which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the
whole earth, and shall tread it
down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this
kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:
and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from
the first, and he shall subdue three
kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and
shall wear out the saints of the
most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be
given into his hand a time
and times and the dividing of time" (vss 23-25). The most
significant thing in these verses is the
mention of the beast's intention to change times and laws. The
times and laws it took upon itself
to change were the laws of God and the timing of the observance
of the Sabbath.
In 321 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine, who professed to be a
Christian, but actually was a
practicing pagan, made an edict declaring the Day of the Sun
(i.e., Sunday) to be the Christian
Sabbath. His choice of Sunday as a special day of worship was
not surprising because the god
he really worshipped was Sol Invictus, the Roman sun god. In
363, the Laodicean Council of the
church that later became known as the Roman Catholic Church,
ratified Constantine's edict with
an edict of their own. That edict said, "Christians must not
Judaize by resting on the Sabbath,
but must work on that day, resting rather on Sunday. But if any
be found to be Judaizing, let them
be declared anathema from Christ."
So this is the actual origin of Sunday as the Sabbath. Besides
the fact that it is doctrinally wrong,
it is motivated by anti-Semitism and that is a place where true
believers don't want to go.
Jesus said you cannot serve two masters (Matt 6:24; Luke 16:13).
The one you obey is the one
who is your master. So we have a choice: we can submit to Jesus
and obey His commandment
concerning the Sabbath, or we can submit to Constantine, as many
in traditional Christianity have,
and obey his commandment concerning Sunday. This brings to mind
something else Jesus said,
"...in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men...laying aside the
commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men... making the
word of God of none effect
through your tradition (Mark 7:6-8, 13). Brethren and seekers, I
urge you not to worship the Lord
in vain, but in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
This article is the first in a series of articles on the
weekly and annual Sabbaths. The next
article in this series will deal with Scriptures that are
commonly taken out of context to validate
the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath.
