Remember the Sabbath - Exodus 20:8-11

Exodus 20:8-11 KJV

⁸ Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

 The Sabbath has been an issue that's been debated for most of Christian history. The majority of Christianity keeps Sunday as Sabbath. But where did this observance of Sunday come from? Many claim that because Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week, that it is the reason for Sunday observance. Many claim other reasons, often distorting passages from the Bible for their observance of Sunday.

Some claim that they keep the spirit of the law but not the letter. They claim that saying we should keep sundown Friday to sundown Saturday as the Sabbath is legalism.  But how can you keep the spirit of the law without the letter, when the letter is the very foundation for the spirit of the law? It's like saying you shouldn't look with your eyes upon another lustfully (thereby committing adultery in your heart) but it's OK to physically sleep with them. Or that you shouldn't hate someone (thereby committing murder in your heart) but it's OK to shoot them in the head. 

Some claim that Sunday is the Lord's day. But what does the Bible say about when the Lord's Day is? Matthew 12:8, KJV, says this, "For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day." Jesus didn't say Sunday. He said the Sabbath day. The word for "sabbath" here is σάββατον, transliterated sabbaton. The definition for this word is as follows from Blue Letter Bible:

1) the seventh day of each week which was a sacred festival on which the Israelites were required to abstain from all work

a) the institution of the sabbath, the law for keeping holy every seventh day of the week

b) a single sabbath, sabbath day

Some will claim, then, that this definition makes it clear that the Sabbath was only for the Jews. But this is not true. In writing to the Gentiles of Galatia, Paul wrote in Galatians 3:29, KJV, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Again, Paul here was writing to the Gentiles. Sure, there may have been some Jews there. But this was not a Jewish city. The apostle makes it clearer than crystal that if you belong to Jesus, then you are Abraham's seed. In other words, you are a part of Israel, Hebrew blood or not. 

In addition to this, Sabbath was instituted at Creation.  Genesis 2:2-3, KJV, reads, "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (Emphasis mine).

Some claim that the Ten Commandments have been changed. To borrow a quote from Amazing Facts, in their article, The Lost Day of History, "Jesus says: "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17. God says: "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Psalms 89:34. Notice, the Ten Commandments came from His lips. Exodus 20:1 says, "And God spake all these words, saying ... [the Ten Commandments follow in verses 2-17]."

A yod is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The tittle is the smallest part of this smallest letter. So Jesus was saying not even the smallest part of the smallest letter will ever pass from His law. 

However, Sunday observance never was encouraged by Jesus. So who started it? Ministry Magazine, in their article, Pagan Sunday Observance, says this: "The civil law issued by Constantine on March 7, A.D. 321, was one of a series of steps by which men were led to celebrate Sunday as a day of rest after the manner in which the Sabbath was kept by the people of God."

From the author, Ellen G. White:

The royal mandate not proving a sufficient substitute for divine authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and who was the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the claim that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity, and points to the real authors of the change. “All things,” he says, “whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s day.” But the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored by the world accepted the popular festival. {The Great Controversy, 1888 edition, 574.2}

“Constantine, while still a heathen, issued a decree enjoining the general observance of Sunday as a public festival throughout the Roman Empire. After his conversion he remained a stanch advocate of Sunday, and his pagan edict was then enforced by him in the interests of his new faith. But the honor shown this day was not as yet sufficient to prevent Christians from regarding the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord. Another step must be taken; the false sabbath must be exalted to an equality with the true. A few years after the issue of Constantine’s decree, the Bishop of Rome conferred on the Sunday the title of Lord’s day. Thus the people were gradually led to regard it as possessing a degree of sacredness. Still the original Sabbath was kept. {The Story of Redemption 329}

“The archdeceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather the Christian world under his banner, and to exercise his power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and world-loving churchmen he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were held, from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened from all the world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed. {The Story of Redemption 329}

 




God says several times in His Holy Bible that He never changes. Malachi 3:6, KJV, says, "For I am the Lord, I change not..." Speaking of God in Psalm 102:26-27, KJV, "They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." Even though Heaven and Earth pass away, God's law will not. Isn't it safe to say that the laws a person makes describe who they are?

Hebrews 1:12, KJV, says, "And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." Hebrews 13:8, KJV, says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." James 1:17, KJV, says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 

Jesus said that nothing will ever pass from the law. And speaking of Jesus, He Himself kept the Sabbath. Luke 4:16, KJV, reads, "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read." (Emphasis mine). 

The same is true of the apostle Paul. Acts 17:2, KJV, reads, "And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures," (Emphasis mine)

The seventh day Sabbath will also be kept in Heaven and the New Earth. Isaiah 66:22-23 KJV says, "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord."

If you know about the seventh day Sabbath, why not keep it? Why cling to tradition? Why cling to a foundation-less belief in Sunday? I don't mean to be rude. I just want to tell the truth. John 14:15, KJV, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Jesus didn't specify some and not others. If I love Jesus, I am to keep all of His commandments. I can't pick and choose.


So we can see that the seventh day Sabbath is still binding. I encourage you to read the articles mentioned here in this blog. I will post them again here at the bottom as well as a video from Amazing Facts showing a completely Biblical case for the seventh day Sabbath.  

 The Lost Day of History

Pagan Sunday Observance