Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath?

Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath?

Or, Proper Lord’s Day Principles and Practices

Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? Are we in the church commanded to obey the 4th Commandment: "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy"? (Exodus 20:8). If we are so obligated, how do we explain remembering the Sabbath on a different day?

I don't remember the first time I really wrestled with these questions. They are exegetical and theological, they are also—one way or another—attached to great blessing OR great judgment. There are numerous practical questions, and inevitable conflicts, less so with different convictions between fellow Christians and more so between Christian convictions and kids' sports and work schedules and all sorts of events planned for Sundays. What are the rules? What are the exceptions? What are the consequences?

There are good men who disagree, and good arguments to go around. And, good men should have a considered position derived from Scripture. “All are yours” does not include mutually exclusive answers, so Something is right. We ought to seek clarity and humility, loving the Lord and those who disagree. You should know what you think and remember that whatever we do (or don’t) it should be “in honor of the Lord” (Romans 14:8).

A Starting Point

First, a preliminary point: Everyone who worships the Lord Jesus on Sunday is not a (strict) Sabbatarian no matter what they say (and some say a lot).

Sabbath doesn't just refer to Saturday, it refers to the day of rest, which is the seventh day. The first sabbath was at the end of the first week, after the six days of creation.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Genesis 2:1–3 ESV)

There are some professing Christian groups who worship on Saturday (including some Jewish Christians), though even most of them don't follow all the additional OT Sabbath day specifics. No matter how simple someone tries to make it sound, transferring the holy day from Saturday to Sunday does not have any explicit grounds. The Sabbath command itself, however, is direct, and repeated. For that matter, Scripture demonstrates God’s calling a day from sundown to sundown, not 12:00am to 11:59pm.

Those who say that we are obligated to keep the Sabbath on Sunday as Christians also must explain why we aren't obligated to the other particulars of the OT commands (including no work-Exodus 20:10, no kindling of fire-Exodus 35:3, no carrying burdens-Jeremiah 17:21-22, no buying/selling-Nehemiah 13:15-17, no cooking/baking-Exodus 16:23, no traveling-Exodus 16:29). We have to "break" particulars to get here. We all do more "work" than was allowed.

So the real starting point: All Christians recognize a sabbath principle and then build looser to stricter practices around it. Even non-Sabbatarians can, and should, recognize a sabbath principle.

Proper and Capitals

Let's distinguish. All doctrines of the Bible can be called Theology. When we talk about the doctrines specifically about God and His attributes we call it Theology Proper. Sabbath Proper is very specific, and if everything in “sabbath" discussion is Proper then things will get confused.

Let's distinguish again. There is a capital difference between Catholic and catholic. The latter means universal, the former refers to a particular institution with its own hierarchy and teaching and army. We would do well to identity Sabbath and sabbath in our communication.

The 4th Commandment: Sabbath Proper

The 10 Commandments include a requirement to keep the Sabbath.

“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 ESV)

The Decalogue is often called the moral law, to be distinguished from Israel's civil law and ceremonial law. Don't murder but do wear tassels-Numbers 15:37-41, don't eat shellfish-Leviticus 11:9-12 and kings can't have too many horses-Deuteronomy 17:16, these are not all the same. These distinctions seem observable, though they are not distinguished as such anywhere in the Law itself.

There are 613 total laws in the Mosaic Covenant, not just 10. The apostle James, a Jew himself, said that to break one was to be guilty of all (James 2:10). In other words, number eleven was just as damning. The 10 were given uniquely in two tablets, they are GOOD, they are also, in context, part of the entire Mosaic Law/Covenant. Do these and don't do these for blessing (for example Leviticus 18:5), disobedience brings judgment/curse. The Mosaic Law is what Jesus fulfilled, and when we are led by the Spirit we are not under the law any more (Galatians 5:18).

But it is not surprising that the prophets regularly confronted Israel's sin for not keeping the Sabbath command.

It somewhat surprising that Jesus never did. In fact, He did teach about Sabbath related sins of adding man's restrictions, of extra-rules in the name of the Lord, and turning the Sabbath into a burden rather than a delight.

Jesus did not break the Sabbath law, and He didn't say it was done. He did challenge the self-righteous keepers and He became our sabbath rest. How do we put all that together?

Sabbath Principle in Practice

Before the 10 Commandments were given at Mt. Sinai, the Lord prohibited Israel from gathering manna on the Sabbath. Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD’” (Exodus 16:23). That was the first Sabbath command. Before that, though, we do not see even one Sabbath observance in Genesis from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. That doesn't prove that they didn’t. But when we observe God's rest on the seventh day, we see that He blessed it, but we do not see a command attached to it. God stops, and that pattern is recognized as the pattern for the law (Exodus 20:11), but doesn't seem to have been the law for Adam or the patriarchs, nor do we see anything about Sabbath rest while in Egypt.

How about after Jesus ascended, and sent His Spirit so that His apostles would remember His teaching? There are no apostolic imperatives, no apostolic instructions (even at the Jerusalem council), not even any apostolic examples of Sabbath observance on the seventh day in any epistle after Acts. There is also nothing about Sunday becoming the new Sabbath for the church. There are only two mentions of the word “Sabbath” in the epistles (Colossians 2:16 and Hebrews 4:9).

There are examples of first day meetings and ministry, travel (Acts 20:7) rather than rest, and some instructions that imply that churches were assembling on first days regularly (for reading of Scripture and teaching, for prayer, for the Lord’s supper, for giving).

What Do We Do?

I appreciate that the following observation is not sufficient, and sort of worn out, and could be misapplied. And still, the 4th Commandment is the only one of the 10 not explicitly repeated by Jesus or an apostle in the NT.

For that matter, Sabbath Proper is Mosaic Law for those who lived in Israel. They neglected it in disobedience, they added to it in disobedience. But it was theirs in a Proper way.

When Paul writes about Sabbath, he says:

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. (Colossians 2:16–17 ESV)

So, in Christ: we are not under 4th Commandment Sabbath Law. Sunday is NOT the Christian Sabbath.

That said: we should recognize the creational pattern of one day in seven for work and rest, so that we remember that God alone makes the world turn, and humans and their efforts do not. It is good to give God attention in a weekly rhythm. We give Him direct attention through assembled worship on one day and integrated attention through work on the other days.

We should recognize the apostolic pattern of local church gathering on the first day of the week in remembrance that Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the grave, and we (Christians) have our life in Him. It is the Lord's Day.

We can also appreciate the history of the church, the generations of Christians that have followed these patterns, even the cultural and civil blessings that recognizing such a pattern has brought.

And we can appreciate our personal experience of blessing the comes from assembled worship on Sunday, how that punctuates the day and spins our week. We start with reminders of our salvation by grace and go out with God's favor and benediction for our work.

Conclusion

Our household aims to have a "sabbath dinner" on Saturday night. You might call it pre-Lord's Day dinner. It's not because we consider the day from sundown, but it is part of preparing for Sunday as unique. It's a little different: we sing a song, have a somewhat nicer meal, we all try to be there, sit at the table, and more often than not there's dessert. It's i