Wednesday: The Seventh day in the New Testament
As we saw yesterday, the texts commonly used to promote the idea that Sunday replaced the Sabbath say no such thing. In fact, every reference to the seventh-day Sabbath in the New Testament reveals that it was still being kept as one of God’s Ten Commandments.
Read Luke 4:14-16, Luke 23:55-56. What do these passages tell us about the seventh-day Sabbath both before and after Christ’s death?
Image © Review & Herald Publishing from GoodSalt.com
Notice how the women, who had been with Christ, “rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56, NKJV).Obviously, the commandment was the fourth commandment, written in stone at Sinai. So whatever they had learned from their time with Jesus, there is no indication that they had learned from Him anything other than keeping the commandments of God, which included the Sabbath commandment. In fact, Christ told His disciples, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15, NKJV) . His commandments, which He Himself had kept, included the seventh-day Sabbath. If Sunday were to be a replacement for the Sabbath, these women knew nothing about it.
Read Acts 13:14, Acts 13:42-44, Acts 16:12-13. What evidence do these verses give for the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath? What evidence do they give for the keeping of the first day of the week?
We find in these texts no evidence of a change of the Sabbath day to Sunday. Instead they point clearly to the practice among early believers in Jesus of keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.
Acts 16:13 is especially interesting, because it occurs outside the context of the synagogue. The believers were meeting by the side of a river, where some “customarily” went to pray. And they did so on the seventh-day Sabbath, many years after the death of Jesus, too. If a change to Sunday occurred, nothing in these texts indicates it.
| What are some gentle and non-condemnatory ways you can witness to Sunday keepers about the seventh-day Sabbath? |
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Sabbath is mentioned 58 (NIV) times in the New Testament
37 times in the gospels
9 times in the book of Acts
1 Colossians
2 Hebrews
Circumcision mentioned 49 (NIV) times in the New Testament
11 times in the gospels
38 times in the other books of the New Testament
Why such a contrast?
Paul who wrote against circumcision asks people to keep the Seventh Day Sabbath twice in Hebrews chapter 4.
The silence of the writers about Sabbath in the New Testament is the greatest evidence that the Seventh Day Sabbath was never changed by Christ or the apostles.
This is very true. Sabbath has always been part of the system at that time so it was never an issue for raised on its claims that it has being changed, during Jesus and the deciples period.
What does it mean to 'keep' the Sabbath?
What is involved in 'keeping' the Sabbath?
Those who had crucified Jesus went away and 'kept' the Sabbath. Is there more to keeping the Sabbath than what these people did on that Sabbath 2000 years ago?
Of course there is more to it. The Pharisees kept the Sabbath to earn their own righteousness. They wanted nothing to do with the righteousness Christ offered with His own blood. We must be careful that we keep the Sabbath to honor the One who saved us, but never to earn salvation. We need look no further than The life of Jesus here on earth to see how to keep the Sabbath. He preached and healed. He took care of people’s physical, spiritual and emotional needs. We would do well to follow our Saviors footsteps and care for people who are hurting and need our help on the Sabbath.
I think true Sabbath-keeping involves recognizing and entering in to the state of oneness with God. This is done by allowing the Holy Spirit of God's Love to motivate every thought and feeling as Jesus did. This produces Holiness in the life. A life of sinlessness can be obtained by this continual choice to permit the Holy Spirit to produce the Character of God in us.
Phil, the question that you ask is an important one. The answer is applicable for some, that can not be heard.
I really admire Jesus' way of keeping the Sabbath. He just didn't go to church on Sabbath to preach and teach; he looked for opportunities to unburden people of suffering (Mark 3: 1 -7, Luke 13: 10 - 17, Luke 4: 31 - 37). Just imagine, there are people who are fellowshipping with us in the same church who need help, even on the Sabbath!!!
That is exactly the ‘church’ that I want to be part of. Well said Lorraine!
Phil, your statement harmonizes perfectly with God’s condemnation of that Friday evening event: “...Then declare to them their abominations. For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. Thus they have committed adultery with their idols and even caused their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire to them as food. Again, they have done this to Me: they have DEFILED My SANCTUARY on the same day and have PROFANED My SABBATHS. For when they had slaughtered their children for their IDOLS, they entered My sanctuary on the same day to profane it; and lo, thus they did within My house...” (Ezek 23:36-43). Sabbaths and feasts had become abominations to God (Isa 1:13,14,21) and God swore: “I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed times.” (Hos 2:11). This is not an arbitrary end. They meet their fulfillment in Christ. He puts an end to sacrifice and offering (Mat 12:1-7). the Sabbath was given to Israel as a sign pointing to the Sanctifier, Christ; a promise of eternal rest (Ezk 20:20; Ex 31:13,17). The sign became their idol and they killed Him for profaning their idol sabbath (Jn 5:16-18). they had been given the sign so that they might recognize Him, but their idol was more attractive to them. They had made idols of God’s gifts.
Christ came to His people at the end of their administration, the last days of it. That was the fullness of time, however, to God to establish His Son’s kingdom, reign, or Judgment(Ps 2:6-12; 9:4,7-10; 96:13; 89:14; 1 Kings 3:7-9). The prophets described Israel’s condition at that time:
“Behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.”(Isa 60:2). Israel had become a WILDERNESS and DESOLATION (Isa 64:6,7,10; Ezk 6:14; 19:13,14; Jer 4:26-28; 2:31). John Baptist lived in the wilderness, a parable of Israel’s condition. Christ was presented to God at His baptism and was approved and anointed and led into the wilderness on His mission, a parabolic sign of His mission (Lev 16:7,8,21,22). Israel should have recognized Christ by that sign but... ALL God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ without exception. All things have been placed in Him (Jn 3:35; Matt 11:27; 28:18). We find nothing apart from Him. God’s commandments identified: “Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. This is His commandment, that we BELIEVE in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in Him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us (1 Jn 3:22-24). “For we who have believed ENTER that REST...” Heb 4:3
The sabbath is part of the covenant between mankind and God. Do I want to accept this covenant?
sabbath cannot be changed in the same way God never changes.
in reply to the question what does it mean to keep the Sabbath.
The dictionary gives two meanings
1. To have or retain possession of, for example to keep the best for last.
2. To continue or to cause to continue in a specified condition, position, course, action etc.
Eg. she could have kept quiet about it, instead of making a fuss.; or she kept the house clean at all times.
To my mind the phrase the women kept the Sabbath, or Jesus kept the Sabbath fulfils both meanings of the word. God made the Sabbath for man. Could we then say that He gave it to be kept? If this is the case it nullifies all the specious arguments about First day worship, because we can only give something that belongs to us. To give something that belongs to another is called theft/robbery
What does it mean to 'keep' the Sabbath?
Isarelites had kept the Sabbath in the wilderness for 40 years.
God himself had provided double portions of Manna every Friday for 40 years. Yet in Hebrews chapter 4 Paul mentions they did not keep the Sabbath in faith.
Again the question is repeated, what does it mean to 'keep' the Sabbath?
It is to acknowledge God as Creator.
It is to acknowledge I am God dependent.
Don't get trapped into the do's and don't.
Every Sabbath miracle records a challenge of the traditions of men.
Let us be careful not to fall prey to our own traditions but be transformed to love others as Christ has loved us and to serve Him without the distractions on Sabbath of our other earthly priorities.
Be connected with Him and He will show the way.
Recently, one of my clients had a question about Jesus and his divinity. After answering her question about Jesus' divinity, I used that occasion as an opportunity to witness to her about the Sabbath (under the leading of God the Holy Spirit, because we were not talking about the Bible or the Sabbath at all). So, an idea came to me; I printed from the Internet a copy of the ten commandments as written in the book of Exodus, and a copy of the ten commandments from the Catholics catechism. I asked her to compare the two commandments, and then circle the ones that are different. We talked about each of the differences for awhile; I didn't leave work until 8:30pm, when the office usually closed at 7:00pm. Lastly, I printed for her the statements from the catechism where the Catholic church admitted that the Sabbath is Saturday, the seventh day of the week, but that they changed it from Saturday to Sunday.
I printed all these items for her to take home with her. She said that she is very much interested in having further Bible studies with me. Even though, we did not used the Bible that night, I guess we did have a hour and a half Bible study. I give her my personal cell phone number to contact me when she is ready to start studying the Bible with me. Please pray for my client, that the enemy of our soul will not steal her desire to know more, and that she will call me very soon.
God's peace and blessings to you all.
Also, the Huffington Post published the following article back in the summer of 2014, on the Internet, about Seventh-day Adventist and how we use the Sabbath to "decompressing the stress":
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/31/seventh-day-adventists-life-expectancy_n_5638098.html.
Be blessed!
An opinion regarding denominations that worship, God on Sunday. The majority of those that worship on Sunday, protestant and catholic, do it as a matter of tradition rather than particular or intentional choice. Never giving it a second thought. If we posed a question about Sabbath keeping to a Sunday keeping church member, most would have a puzzling look on their face like, what are you talking about? How important then, is the Sabbath to us? The answer for most of us is, very! The real question then becomes, How do we keep a Sabbath day Holy? A real challenge for some.
As I have mentioned in one of the other threads, if we have simply taken Sunday worship back to Saturday, maybe we have missed the point. There is much more to Sabbath than turning up to church for a couple of hours. We have roughly 18 hours of awake time on Sabbath. That is a lot of time to be creative!