Jesus wants man to keep the Sabbath as it is part of the Ten Commandments[1] and Jesus said that man must keep the Ten Commandments to have eternal life: “A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.’ ”[2] When is the Sabbath? How to keep the Sabbath?
Man has sin, and sin leads to death[3]. God is eternal. If man dies, then God and man cannot be together as there will come a time when man will not be with God. For man to be with God, man must have eternal life. Hence, man having eternal life is man being with God in terms of time.
In obedience to Jesus, the disciples and the apostolic church kept the Sabbath. Luke 23.54-24.1 records that after Jesus’ death, his disciples kept the Sabbath: It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The womenwho had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. Matthew 24:15–16 records that Jesus expected his disciples to be keeping the Sabbath in 70 A.D. when the Roman army under General Titus would be desecrating the temple: “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. The apostolic church kept the Sabbath. Acts 13.13-14 records that Paul and his companions “went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.” Acts 13.44 records: The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. Acts 16.13 records: And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. Acts 17.2 records: And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures… Acts 18.4 records this about Paul: And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. John foresaw the believers living in the last days still keeping the Ten Commandments: Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.[9] Hebrew 4.9 affirms that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”
When Is The Sabbath?
The Bible reckons a day as the interval between evenings. This is the natural way of reckoning day as sunset is observable while today’s way of reckoning day from midnight to midnight is only possible with the invention of the clock as midnight is not observable. Throughout Genesis 1, an evening and then a morning is said to constitute a day. In Leviticus 23:32 the Day of Atonement starts “on the ninth of the month at evening” and is to be celebrated “from evening until evening”. Mark 1:21-31 records that “immediately on the Sabbath” Jesus entered the synagogue and began to teach. After teaching, he had an encounter with a man with an unclean spirit during which he cast out the unclean spirit. After this incident, he left the synagogue and visited the house of Simon. There he healed Simon’s mother-in-law of her fever and after that she waited on them. Hence, even up to the time of Jesus, the Bible continues to reckon a day from evening to evening. If the Bible were to reckon a day as it is done today – from midnight to midnight – then the synagogue service would have begun at midnight, and the casting out of the unclean spirit and the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law would have happened in the wee hours of the morning, all of which would have been totally bizarre.
God instituted the Sabbath by sanctifying the day following the six days of creation: By the seventh day God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.[4] Subsequent Sabbath days fell on every succeeding seventh day. From its institution to the exodus from Egypt, even if the day were forgotten, God reminded the people of Israel of it through the dropping and withholding of manna:
Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, “This is what the LORD commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’” So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.” Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. Then the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” So the people rested on the seventh day.[5]
From the exodus from Egypt to the ministry of Jesus the day could not have been forgotten because the religious leaders of Israel in that period enforced the keeping of the Sabbath stringently. And if the day kept by the Jews as the Sabbath at the time of Jesus were wrong, perhaps due to the Babylonian captivity, Jesus would have corrected it. He did not. He confirmed the day kept by the Jews as the Sabbath was the correct day by his own keeping of the Sabbath on the same day the Jews kept as the Sabbath:
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.[6]
Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people.[7]
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach.[8]
At the time of Jesus, two calendars were in use i.e. the Hebrew calendar and the Julian calendar. The Hebrew calendar, which has been used by the Jews since antiquity, is a seven-day cycle calendar and it remains unchanged until today. Hence, the seventh day of the week at the time of Jesus in the Hebrew calendar continues to be the seventh day of the week today in the Hebrew calendar. The seventh day of the week in the Hebrew calendar today coincides with Friday evening to Saturday evening of the Gregorian calendar universally used today. The Jews today still keep the Sabbath on Friday evening to Saturday evening of the Gregorian calendar. Hence, using the Hebrew calendar, the Sabbath day today falls on the day that coincides with Friday evening to Saturday evening of the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar was promulgated by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. It was also a seven-day cycle calendar. At the time of Jesus, the seventh day of the week of the Hebrew calendar coincided with Friday evening to Saturday evening of the Julian calendar. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII changed the Julian calendar by making the date after the 4th of October to be the 15th of October (instead of the 5th of October). However, the seven-day cycle was untouched. 4th of October 1582 was a Thursday and 15th of October 1582 was a Friday. This changed calendar became known as the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, because the seven-day cycle has been maintained, the Friday evenings to the Saturday evenings of the Gregorian calendar today are the seven-day cycle successions of the Friday evenings to the Saturday evenings of the Julian calendar at the time of Jesus (which coincided with the days kept by Jesus and the Jews as Sabbath days). Hence, using the Gregorian calendar, the Sabbath day today also falls on Friday evening to Saturday evening.
The day the Bible reckons as the Sabbath can be deduced from Matthew 28.1-6: Now after the Sabbath, towards the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb… the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said…” This record says that Jesus resurrected on the day immediately after the Sabbath. It is universally accepted that Jesus resurrected on Sunday. Accordingly, the Bible reckons Saturday as the Sabbath.
How To Keep The Sabbath?
The Sabbath is observed by, first, resting. Exodus 20:8-10 commands: “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 of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.” However, if livelihood demands it, it is permissible to work on the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:1-8 Jesus’ disciples picked heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath and the Pharisee condemned them for doing what was “not lawful” to do on the Sabbath. In their agrarian society, picking heads of grain was work. As the disciples did that because they were hungry, Jesus said that they were “innocent”.
Second, the Sabbath is observed by refraining from secular activities. Isaiah 58:13-14 teaches: “If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, then you will take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Third, the Sabbath is observed by assembling together to worship God. Leviticus 23:3 lays down this: “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work; it is a sabbath to the Lord in all your dwellings.” Jesus in Luke 4:16 went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day where the word of God was read. Acts 13:44 records that almost the whole city of Antioch in Pisidia gathered on the Sabbath to hear Paul and Barnabas preached the word of the Lord.
Fourth, the Sabbath is observed by doing God’s work or good deeds. In Matthew 12:11-12 Jesus met a man whose hand was withered. And they questioned Jesus, asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”– so that they might accuse Him. And He said to them, “What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? “How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep! So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” He stretched it out, and it was restored to normal, like the other. In Act 16:13 Paul spent the Sabbath looking for a place of prayer where he could preach to those who had gathered there.
Misconception About The Sabbath
- Does Acts 20.7 say that the apostolic church observed Sunday?
- Does 1 Corinthians 16.1-3 suggest that the apostolic church observed Sunday?
- Does Romans 14.5-6 say that the Sabbath can be on any day?
- Does Exodus 31:16 say that the Sabbath is for the Jews only?
What’s Next?
Read on about another command of Jesus to enable man to choose whether to love God and be with him: Repent And Be Righteous – Why? What Do They Mean?
[1] Ex 20:8-11.
[2] Lk 18:18-20.
[3] For the wages of sin is death… (Rom 6.23) and the wrath of God that destroys sinful man: See, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it. (Is 13.9)
[4] Gen 2.2-3.
[5] Ex 16.21-30.
[6] Lk 4.16.
[7] Lk 4.31.
[8] Mt 1.21.
[9] Rev 14.12.