The Sabbath
By Rev. Esper Ajaj
“Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us
which was contrary to us; And He has taken it out of the way; having nailed it
to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and power, He made a public
spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. So let no one judge you in food
or drink or regarding a festival or new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of
things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Col. 2:14-17)
Some
religious sects teach that we should worship God only on Saturday. For example, Ellen White, the founder
of The Seven Day Adventist Movement, said, “Any one who worships on Sunday is
an apostate.” Should Christian
worship the Lord on Saturday or on Sunday, as most do? What does the Bible say
regarding this matter?
There
is no place in the New Testament where we are commanded to worship on
Saturday. As a matter of fact, the
Sabbath was a sign between God and Israel:
“And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel saying: Surely My Sabbath you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations. That you may know that I am the Lord who sanctify you… Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generation as a perpetual covenant” (Ex. 31:12-13,16).
“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your
God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your
male servant, nor your female servant… And remember that you were a slave in
the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty
hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to
keep the Sabbath day” (Deut 5:14-15).
The
Lord also commanded that all the Seven Feast of the Jews were to be counted as
Sabbaths. Please take notice that the feasts are dated, so the Sabbath could
come on any day of the week, and not just on Saturday:
“And the Lord
spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: The
feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are
My feasts…. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s
Passover….And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of the unleavened
bread to the Lord. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread.(Lev. 23:1-2,5-6).
“And the Lord
spoke to Moses saying: Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be a Day
of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you, you shall afflict your
souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. And you shall do no work
on that same day for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you
before the Lord your God. … Any person who does any work on that same day, that
person I will destroy from among the people. . It shall be to you a Sabbath of
solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls, on the ninth day of the month at
evening. From evening to evening you shall celebrate your Sabbath” (Lev.
23:26-28; 31-32) (see also Lev. 16: 29-31).
The year Christ died on
the cross the Passover Sabbath was on Thursday.
Should we as Christians keep the Sabbath
in the age of grace?
“Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us which was contrary to us; And He has taken it out of the way; having nailed it to the cross…. Having disarmed principalities and power, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it…So let no one judge you in food or drink or regarding a festival or new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Col. 2:14-17).
“But now after you have known God, or rather are
known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements,
to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and
seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain”
(Gal 4:9-10).
“ Do you not
know, brethren that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. For
the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he
lives, but if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.
…Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body
of Christ, that you may be married to another-to Him who was raised from the
dead, that we should bear fruit to God. ... But now we have been delivered from
the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we would serve in the
newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom 7:1-2; 4-6).
Man
did not know any thing about the Sabbath before Moses came and brought the
law. Before God gave the Ten
Commandments to Moses, the Jews had no idea about the Sabbath. Adam did not keep the Sabbath. Abraham did not keep the
commandments. It was a brand new
concept that God revealed when He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.
Did
you know that every one of the Ten Commandments is mentioned in the New
Testament in one way or another, except keeping the Sabbath Day? Not only did it not mention to keep the
Sabbath but also it says something contrary to keeping the Sabbath, for we
read:
“So let no one judge you in food or drink
or regarding a festival or new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to
come, but the substance is of Christ” (Col. 2:14-17).
Did
Jesus keep the Sabbath?
Jesus
came to fulfill the Law that we might be under grace and not under the
law. “For the law came by Moses
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:18). Jesus kept the
Sabbath and He also kept the Passover. He came under the Law that He might
redeem them who are under the Law:
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons… Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir of God through Christ” (Gal. 4:4-5,7).
Even
Paul did not keep the Sabbath day. He went to the Synagogue to preach the
gospel to the Jews, but he always worshiped on the first day of the week.
Ten
Reasons Why We Worship On The First Day Of The Week
Finally,
I would like to give you ten reasons why we worship the Lord on the first day
of the Week, which we call Sunday:
1) Jesus rose from the dead the first day of the week
(John 20:1).
2) Jesus met with His disciples on the first day of the
week (John 20:19).
3) Jesus met with His disciples on different occasions,
always on the first day of the week (Matt 28:8-10, Luke 24:34: John 29:19-23).
4) Jesus imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples on
the first day of the week (John 20:22).
5) The Holy Spirit came down on the church at Pentecost,
the first day of the week (Act. 2).
6) Jesus gave the great commission on the first day of
the week (Mat 28:20).
7) Jesus ascended unto heaven on the first day of the
week (Mat 28:1-20).
8) The Holy Bible was finished on the first day of the
week.
9) The first gospel message was preached on the first
day of the week.
10) Christians were asked to take the offering on the first day
of the week.
The
Bible teaches us that every religious ceremony in the old Testament is but a
shadow about Christ. For we read in the book of Leviticus chapter 23:9 the
following:
“And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf on the day after the Sabbath the priest the wave it” (Lev. 23:9).
By taking the sheaf of the first
fruit and wave it before the Lord, the priest will acknowledge that the Lord is
the Lord of the harvest. But it is interesting to know that the priest takes it
on the day after the Sabbath, which means the first day of the week. This is a
type of the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week who became the
first fruit of those who have fallen asleep. “But now Christ is risen from
the dead, and has become the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep”
(1Cor. 5:20).
On
the Passover day the Lord instructed Moses that each family will take a lamb
and kills it and sprinkle the blood on the two doorposts and on the lintel of
the house where they eat it. This was a type or a shadow of the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world.
And
when God told Moses to smite the rock so the water will come out for the people
to drink, this was also a shadow of the smitten Christ. “And all drank the
same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them,
and that Rock was Christ” (1Cor. 10:4).
And
also when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness it was a shadow of
Christ being lifted up on the cross.
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son
of man be lifted us, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, but has
eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
All
these things “were a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of
Christ” (Col. 2:17).
The
problem with those people like the Seventh Day Adventists is that they are still
living in the shadow; we have the real thing.
Finally
I would like to add this important note: The word Sabbath means rest. When God finished the work of creation
He rested on the 7th day and He called it Sabbath, which means “Rest
Day.” He just wanted to tell us
that He finished His work. But after man sinned against God, Jesus said: “My
Father has been working until now, and I have been working. Therefore the Jews
sought all the more to kill Him. Because not only broke the Sabbath, but also
said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:17-18).
Just as the Father finished the work
of creation and rested on the 7th day, Jesus Christ died on the
cross and finished the work of redemption when He said “It is finished” and
rose from the dead and gave all those who believe on Him rest from the bondage
of sin.
The writer of the book of
Hebrews gave us a little glimpse of the first day of the week by saying:
“For He has spoken in a certain place of
the seventh day in this way. And God rested on the seventh day from all His
works. And again in this place, they shall not enter My rest. Since therefore
it remains that some must enter it. And those to whom it was first preached did
not enter because of disobedience… For if Joshua had given them rest, then He
would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest
for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased
from his work as God did from His… Let us therefore be diligent to enter that
rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience” (Heb.
4:4-6,8-11).
Now
the believers can find rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross. No
more working to be saved, but we are saved to work. Your work is done only for the glory of God and your love
and devotion to Him.
Jesus
said “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and heavy burden, and I will give you
rest” (Matt 11:28). The
Sabbath looks to creation, but the first day of the week looks to the finished
work of Christ on the cross, where a sinner could find rest, real rest.
“Look unto Me and be saved, all you end of the earth. For I am God and
there is no other” (Is. 45:22).
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If you from sin are longing
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on Calvary Look to the Lamb of God For He alone is able to
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