I wanted to share this link and information to any who would be of intrest of the Sabbath.
http://www.tomorrowsworld.org
Here is an absolutely VITAL subject that is far more important than most people even begin to realize! It has everything to do with whether or not you really �know� the true God�the Creator. In fact, it directly affects your inheriting everlasting life in His soon-coming Kingdom.
Jesus said that�at the end of this age�only God's direct intervention would stop man from destroying all human life from this planet. He said, "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved [alive]; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened" (Matthew 24:22).
As we swiftly approach the END of this present age of man's rule under the influence of Satan the Devil, it is vitally important that we consider whether or not we are really obeying the God who gives us life and breath. For the Jesus Christ of the Bible taught time and again that "empty faith" is NOT enough! In His concluding remarks in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).
In this regard, He asked, "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). And in a heated discussion with the Pharisees, Jesus quoted Isaiah's prophecy, saying, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And IN VAIN they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men'" (Mark 7:6-7). Think about that! Jesus clearly stated that it is possible to worship God�and yet worship Him IN VAIN by following the teachings of men! Then Jesus said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition" (v. 9).
Clearly then, when the traditions of men conflict with the commandments of God, we face a HUGE problem according to Jesus Christ!
Did you know that your willingness to keep holy the true Sabbath day, which God made holy, directly affects whether or not you will be granted eternal life in the Kingdom of God? Did you know that keeping the true Sabbath is�and always has been�a special "test" commandment in God's sight?
Which Day Is the Biblical Sabbath?
Jesus Christ taught us, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God" (Luke 4:4). Jesus also made it clear that the Bible does NOT contradict itself. He showed that the teaching of Scripture is consistent. For Jesus said, "the Scripture CANNOT be broken" (John 10:35).
The Apostle Paul expanded on this theme, saying, "ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
If you are willing to BELIEVE these inspired statements, then you will have no problem understanding this vital subject. For the Bible teaches us about God's true Sabbath day from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, it is one of the clearest and most easily understood subjects in the entire Bible�IF you honestly look at the facts and are not fearful about "what other people think." Remember that in Jesus' day many of the religious leaders knew that He was the Christ, but would not confess Him for this very reason: "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:43).
Do you have the faith and courage to do what God clearly commands�regardless of what others think?
All right. Let's get down to clear, absolute PROOF regarding the true Sabbath of Almighty God. Let's assume that you were beginning your search for the true Sabbath on the proverbial desert island and that the only written materials you had managed to preserve after a shipwreck were the Holy Bible and a calendar. If you began your search with a completely open, objective mind, and had perhaps even forgotten the day you had previously observed, which day would you HAVE to keep after such an objective study?
"Sunday," you say?
"No way!"
WHY? Because the Bible never commands anyone to observe Sunday as a weekly day of worship! Rather, it instructs us to work on that day. In fact, from Genesis to Revelation, many verses in the Bible clearly show that, rather than observing the first day�Sunday�it was the seventh-day Sabbath (from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) that was kept by all of God's faithful servants in both Old and New Testament times. And this same seventh-day Sabbath will continue to be observed by Christians on this earth during Christ's soon-coming 1,000-year rule! (cf. Revelation 20:4-6).
Notice the teaching of Jesus Christ in Mark 2:23-28. Jesus allowed His disciples to pluck heads of grain to eat as they walked through grain fields on the Sabbath. He was challenged on this point by the Pharisees, who had added more than 60 legalistic "dos and don'ts" to the Sabbath�of their own human devising. But Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath" (vv. 27-28).
Christ did not say that the Sabbath was made for the Jews�but for "man." He said the Sabbath (not Sunday) is the day He is "Lord of." Jesus did not give the slightest hint about abrogating the Sabbath commandment. Rather, He showed both here and in the verses that follow, how to keep the Sabbath in a more meaningful way. Again, Jesus said that the Sabbath was "made for man"�for him to keep�LONG BEFORE the Jewish people even existed.
At this point, let us look at the inspired account of when God made mankind�and subsequently gave man the Sabbath. In Genesis 1:1 we read, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This original creation may have been billions of years ago. The next verse shows that the earth came to a state of chaos and waste. And the succeeding verses describe how God reformed our planet about 6,000 years ago and created the progenitors of the plant and animal life forms that presently inhabit it. Now notice verse 26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" So mankind was created in God's "image." We were given "dominion" or RULE over all the rest of creation. But how was mankind to keep in contact with his Maker? How were we to remind ourselves that the true God is, in fact, the CREATOR of all that is?
Genesis 2:2-3 begins to provide the answer: "And on the seventh day God ended 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."
Notice that God "ended" or completed His work of creation by resting on the seventh day of the week. The word "Sabbath" is derived from the Hebrew word Shabath, which literally means "rest" or "cessation." God created the Sabbath by resting on this day and ceasing from creating material things. And He "blessed" and "sanctified"�that is, set apart for holy use�this day and no other! By blessing and sanctifying the seventh-day Sabbath, God showed that His presence is IN this day in a very special way. For of all the days of the week, this one ALONE points to Him in a unique way as the true God, the One who created and now governs the entire universe.
Sunday in the New Testament
The word "Sunday" does not even appear in literal Bible translations. We do find the phrase "first day of the week" in the New Testament, but this occurs just eight times. Five of those references (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1) describe Mary Magdalene and others coming to the tomb AFTER Christ's resurrection. As we prove elsewhere in this booklet, Jesus was resurrected Saturday evening�NOT Sunday morning. So those references have nothing to do with observing the day of Christ's resurrection!
In John 20:19, we read that on "�the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'" This was not a worship meeting celebrating the resurrection; Scripture tells us that until they saw Him, they did not believe that Christ was risen! (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:27-41).
The book of Acts recounts the development of doctrine and practice in the early Church. Yet the first day of the week is mentioned only once, in Acts 20:7-12. "Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread [i.e. eat a meal], Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight" (v. 7). This was a one-time farewell meeting and meal, not a regular worship service. And when we understand that by biblical reckoning days are from sunset to sunset, we can see that the before-midnight portion of "the first day" is actually on Saturday. This "first day" gathering was a Saturday evening event! And at sunrise Sunday morning, Paul began the hard work of a 20-mile hike (vv. 11-14)�not what one would expect if he considered Sunday his Sabbath day of rest!
In 1 Corinthians 16:2, the Apostle Paul requested: "On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come." This is no endorsement at all of Sunday worship. Notice that the practice was meant to stop when Paul came to Corinth! And notice that these verses say nothing about gathering for a weekly worship service to do this collection. This was not a collection of money, but of food to assist the poor in Jerusalem, suffering from drought and famine (cf. Romans 15:25-28). Until Paul's arrival, each individual was asked to "store up" his contributions�surely in his home. Paul knew that the collection would be bulky enough that it would take several people to transport it to Jerusalem (v. 4)�not what one would expect if money were collected.
One more verse that some use to justify calling Sunday the "Lord's Day" is Revelation 1:10. Here, the Apostle John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet." But this does not refer to worshiping on the first day of the week�or any day of the week, for that matter. Revelation is a "prophecy" (1:3) of end-time events. Clearly, then, the "Lord's Day" is synonymous with the "Day of the Lord"�a future time, mentioned more than 30 times in Bible prophecy, when God will supernaturally intervene in human affairs, executing punishment on the nations and finally sending Jesus Christ back to this earth to bring world peace at last. John meant that he was carried in vision by God's Spirit to that time.
But even if this were talking about a day of the week, which day would it be? Remember what Jesus said: "The Son of Man is� Lord of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28). Also, the preincarnate Christ called the Sabbath "My holy day... the holy day of the Lord" (Isaiah 58:13). And in the fourth commandment, He said, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God" (Exodus 20:10). Obviously, then, the seventh-day Sabbath is not our day. It is�without question�the Lord's day! Weekly Sunday observance, therefore, has absolutely no biblical foundation.
The Test Commandment
As all Bible students know, the patriarch Abraham was the great-grandfather of Judah�from whom came the "Jews." Did he keep God's true Sabbath? Absolutely! For God said, "Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws" (Genesis 26:5).
Succeeding generations of Israelites clearly understood from these verses that Abraham kept the seventh-day Sabbath�the Sabbath that God had "sanctified" at the creation of mankind. And in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul tells us that Abraham is the "father" of the faithful (Romans 4:11, 16).
Many will argue that the Ten Commandments�including the fourth one about keeping the Sabbath holy�were just part of the "Old Covenant" that God made with Israel at Mount Sinai in the days of Moses. These people contend that, because the Old Covenant ended at Christ's death, the Ten Commandments�with the Sabbath requirement�ended also.
But it was at the beginning of human history that God made the seventh-day Sabbath "holy time." And about 2,000 years later, Abraham, the father of the faithful, set for us an EXAMPLE of faithfulness by keeping God's commandments and statutes�obviously including the observance of the Sabbath day. Remember, this was still LONG BEFORE there was any Old Covenant with Israel!
Hundreds of years later, we find Abraham's descendants being led out of Egyptian slavery by Moses in the Exodus. Several weeks before the Old Covenant was proposed at Mount Sinai, God wanted to remind His people of the true Sabbath, which He had given mankind at creation. In case any of them had forgotten or become mixed up about His Sabbath�which was possible since the Israelites had been in Egyptian slavery for several generations�God gave His people a series of signs to make clear to them which day He had made holy.
Now examine the account in Exodus 16:1-30. The people of Israel were "murmuring" against God because they wanted more food. So God said, "I will... TEST them, whether they will walk in My LAW or not" (v. 4). Interesting. Because this is more proof that God's law was definitely in effect even BEFORE the giving of the Old Covenant at Mount Sinai!
So God explained that He would perform the following miracle. Every day of the week, except Saturday, a special food from heaven called "manna" would blanket the ground in the morning like dew. The people were to gather it up each morning and eat it that same day. They could not keep it overnight, because that would cause it to breed worms and stink.
But there would be no manna on the ground on Saturdays. What, then, were they to eat on that day? God's answer: the second phase of His miracle. Every Friday, He would give them a double portion of manna�one portion for that day and another to be kept overnight and eaten on Saturday (v. 23). This would require a third phase of the miracle. God would allow manna collected on Fridays to remain unspoiled overnight, so that it could be eaten on Saturday. From Friday to Saturday was the only time each week they were permitted to keep food overnight�for God was showing them that Friday was the preparation day for the Sabbath.
Thus, God was arranging things so they wouldn't have to do the work of gathering manna on Saturday�enabling them to rest on the Sabbath, yet still have something to eat that day. "So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, 'Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field'" (vv. 24-25).
Remember that this was a TEST�to see whether they would follow God's law or not. So what did the people do?
As human beings so often do, they did NOT take God seriously! Some Israelites went out and tried to find manna even on the Sabbath. "And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long do you [people] refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? See! For the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.' So the people rested on the seventh day" (vv. 28-30).
On this occasion, several weeks before Israel came to Mount Sinai, God began performing a weekly three-phase miracle to show His people WHICH DAY was�and had always been�His holy Sabbath. When some tried to work on that day anyway, the Creator thundered, "How LONG do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?"!
Who Gave the Ten Commandments?
The Ten Commandments�including the Sabbath-day requirement�have been in existence since mankind was created. God was simply reminding the people of this important fact.
Next, we come to God's codifying of the Ten Commandments for His nation of Israel. This was truly an awesome occasion. Thunder roared. Lightning flashed. And the earth SHOOK with the power of the Creator. Then God Himself�not Moses�spoke the Ten Commandments! (Exodus 20:1). Many think that God the Father gave these commands and that Jesus Christ later came along and did away with them. But Jesus told the Jews that they had "neither heard [the Father's] voice at any time, nor seen His form" (John 5:37).
So just who was this God with Israel in the Sinai wilderness? He was often called the "Rock" of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:4, 15, 31; Psalm 18:2, 31, 46, etc.). In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul was inspired to write about Him. He says the Israelites "all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was CHRIST"! (1 Corinthians 10:4). The Bible makes it abundantly clear that the Person in the Godhead who spoke to ancient Israel was the One who later "emptied" Himself and became Jesus Christ!
During His human lifetime, Jesus told the belligerent Pharisees, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). Many respected Bible commentaries acknowledge that in this verse Jesus is clearly indicating that He was, in fact, the God of Israel now made flesh.
Regarding this phrase, "I AM," the Expositor's Bible Commentary states:
"I AM" implies continuous existence, including existence when Abraham appeared. Jesus was, therefore, asserting that at the time of Abraham's birth, he existed. Furthermore, I AM was recognized by the Jews as a title of deity. When God commissioned Moses to demand from Pharaoh the release of the Israelites, he said, "This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Exod. 3:14). [One scholar] states that "the phrase harbors within itself the most authentic, the most audacious, and the most profound affirmation by Jesus of who he was" [vol. 9, p. 99].
Yes, Jesus Christ was certainly the God of the Old Testament�the "Word," as the first chapter of John's Gospel calls Him, who spoke on His Father's behalf (To learn more about this subject, please write for our free booklet, The Real God). The Bible also shows that Christ was the One through whom God created all things (John 1:1-3, 14; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:2-3). This means that Jesus Christ is the One who originally created the Sabbath by resting on the seventh day! No wonder He is Lord of that day, as we have seen from Mark 2:28. For He MADE the Sabbath!
We can now see that it was Christ's own voice that SHOOK the mountains as He set forth the great spiritual LAW of God. As we have noted, that law had existed even from creation. But the Israelites had been in slavery, and no doubt their knowledge of the law and the Great God behind that law had become foggy over the centuries. So now God�in the person of the "Word," Jesus Christ�spoke that law and then inscribed it on tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18; 34:1).
Near the middle of that law�with more space devoted to it than any other�is the fourth commandment, in which God reminded Israel again to keep the seventh-day Sabbath: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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 manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11).
Notice that God said to "remember" the Sabbath. They had already been instructed about the Sabbath from creation and again in Exodus 16�as we have seen. Then God said to "keep" it holy. You cannot keep cold water hot! Likewise, the Sabbath had to have been made holy or Israel could not have kept it that way! Only GOD can make something "holy"�in this case, a period of time. And, as we shall see, the seventh day is the ONLY weekly period of time that God has ever "sanctified" or set apart as holy time.
In verse 11, God reminds us that the Sabbath points to creation. After God had spent six days creating, He "rested" on the seventh day. "Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." Again, no other day of the week has been blessed by God�that is, had His divine favor put upon it�in this way.
But wasn't the Sabbath a part of the Jewish sacrificial or ceremonial law that was done away? Some theologians try to contrive arguments along these lines. But if you will just study your own Bible, it is easy to see through this false reasoning. Note that in Exodus 20, NOTHING is said about animal sacrifices, washings or any ceremonial duties being connected with the Sabbath (cf. Jeremiah 7:22-23). For, as the inspired account in Deuteronomy tells us, the Ten Commandments stood ALONE as the great spiritual law of God. As Moses reminded the people, "these words the Lord spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and HE ADDED NO MORE. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me" (Deuteronomy 5:22).
A Sign Between God and His People
Later, God-again in the person of Jesus Christ-made a special covenant with Israel concerning the Sabbath. God said, "Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: 'Surely My Sabbaths 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 sanctifies you'" (Exodus 31:13).
The emphasis here is that we "know" the true God who sets us apart if we keep the "sign" of His Sabbath, which points to Him as the CREATOR.
The preincarnate Jesus continued, "Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a PERPETUAL covenant. It is a SIGN between Me and the children of Israel FOREVER, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed" (vv. 16-17).
A "mark" or "brand" is something that is usually forced on a person or animal. But a "sign" is something voluntarily displayed, such as a sign that reads "Jones & Sons" outside a business establishment. In the case of the Sabbath, it points out who God's faithful people are. They have surrendered to God and are willing to display the "sign" of the Creator by keeping holy the only day of the week God ever made that way. And to the faithful themselves, it is a constant reminder that they do NOT worship "gods" of wood and stone, or figments of human imagination, but the very CREATOR who made all the wood and stone-and even the human mind, which often tries to abandon the Creator and come up with its own concept of "god."
Notice especially that the Sabbath was to be kept by the Israelites as a "perpetual covenant" between them and God "forever"! Do we find ANY evidence whatever that Israelites who became Christians were to forsake that sacred covenant and start keeping another day? Does God have a double standard when it comes to which day to keep as the Sabbath?
No. Rather, according to Paul, Gentile Christians were to be "grafted" into Israel and become spiritual Israelites (cf. Romans 11:17, 24; Galatians 3:28-29). This same Apostle was inspired to state very clearly, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God" (Romans 2:28-29). For these reasons, Paul called the New Testament Church the "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16).
So truly converted Gentiles become part of spiritual Israel and must also obey the Ten Commandments-the great spiritual LAW of the Creator. Certainly they must also obey the terms of the "perpetual" Sabbath covenant that the preincarnate Jesus made with Israel. It is a sign between Jesus Christ and His people FOREVER!
In Isaiah 56, we find a remarkable prophecy set right in the midst of END-TIME prophecies-many of which refer to the years just ahead of us. In this setting, God gives this pointed instruction to men and women of ALL nations: "Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it; who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing any evil" (v. 2).
A few verses later, God instructs the Gentiles or foreigners to keep His Sabbath and describes the BLESSINGS that would come from doing so: "Also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants-everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast My covenant-even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for ALL NATIONS" (vv. 6-7).
As Jesus said, the Sabbath was made for "man"-that is, for ALL mankind. Now notice how Jesus and the Apostles continually kept the seventh-day Sabbath-the same day that all the Jews around them were keeping.
Example of Jesus Christ
God tells us time and again that Christ was the "light"-the EXAMPLE of how we ought to live. It is amazing how many professing Christian ministers will give lip service to this statement, yet "reason" and argue, argue, ARGUE against following Christ's perfect example in Sabbath-keeping and other acts of obedience to God's law!
Speaking of Jesus, the Gospel of John tells us, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (John 1:4-5). Do most religionists today really comprehend that "light" any more than they did in Jesus' own day?
Later, Christ said, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12). What did He mean by this term-"follows Me"? Can a person reject Jesus' teaching, refuse to follow His example and the entire way of life He exemplified, and still claim to be His "follower"? In 1 Peter 2:21-22, God inspired Peter to instruct us, "For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an EXAMPLE, that you should follow His steps: 'who committed no sin, nor was guile found in His mouth.'"
Yes, in all things Christ set us an example! The Apostle Paul echoes this theme, telling the Corinthians, "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). So we are to "imitate" Jesus Christ-not just loosely "follow" Him according to our own human reasoning.
The Apostle John stated, near the very end of his life, that "he who says he abides in [Christ] ought himself also to walk just as He walked" (1 John 2:6). The New English Bible translates this verse thus: "Here is the test by which we can make sure that we are in Him: whoever claims to be dwelling in Him, binds himself to LIVE as Christ Himself lived."
And how did Jesus Christ live? The Sermon on the Mount is usually regarded as the very ESSENCE of His teaching. Here Jesus stated, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill [i.e. fill to the fullest]. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away [and they still have not!], one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the LEAST of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:17-19).
Jesus did not come to do away with the Ten Commandments that He had previously delivered from the Father in the Old Testament. Rather, He came to give full expression to them-to show their real spiritual intent. In fact, He made them even more binding. For example, Jesus explained that the seventh commandment against adultery prohibited more than just having sexual relations with someone other than your spouse. It even forbade lusting after others in your mind (vv. 27-28). And as we've just seen, He also said that in order to be called "great" in His coming Kingdom, men must "do and teach" even the least of God's commandments. How much more vital is it that we do and teach the very TEST commandment, which points to the true GOD-the Creator!
Now many say that Christ broke the Sabbath Himself. But that is completely false! The Bible says that He was "without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). And "sin IS the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4, KJV). So we know that Jesus never transgressed God's law-including the fourth commandment about keeping the Sabbath holy. If Jesus had broken the Sabbath, He would have earned the wages of sin-death (Romans 6:23)-and could not have become our Savior. It is clear, then, that Jesus never broke even the least of God's commandments-nor taught men so. On the contrary, He said, "I have KEPT My Father's commandments" (John 15:10).
Furthermore, at the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus set the standard for what would be His lifelong example: "So 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 to read" (Luke 4:16). Again, in Luke 13:10, we read, "Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath." Certainly, then, we should follow Christ's example in keeping the same Sabbath day He kept! And which day was this Sabbath? Why, the very same one the Jews around Him were keeping, of course-Saturday.
Actually, God's Sabbath-as the Jewish people understood then and now-was to be observed from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. In fact, all the days on God's calendar are from sunset to sunset-nighttime followed by daytime (cf. Leviticus 23:32; Genesis 1:5-31). God did NOT have His days begin and end in the middle of the night as calculated by a man-made clock! In fact, they had no such clocks back then. But they did have God's BIG "clock" in the sky-the sun. And they had the stars, by which ALL man-made calendars need to be adjusted, even today. For in the beginning, God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years" (v. 14). So, when we keep holy the days that God made holy, we find that they are based on His very creation-with its heavenly bodies marking time-which points to Him, the CREATOR of all that is!
Incidentally, the fact that Christ kept the same Sabbath as the Jews shows that the correct day had not been lost in the remote past, as some today will argue. Remember that the preincarnate Christ had made a big deal about reminding the Israelites of the correct Sabbath day following their enslavement in Egypt. Wouldn't He have kept it on the right day during His human life-even if the Jews had been wrong about it? Of course! But they were not wrong. Christ was Lord of the day that the Jews kept as the Sabbath! (cf. Mark 2). And from that time until now, the seven-day week has remained unaltered.
How can we be sure? The Jews continued to observe the Sabbath-even after they were scattered. If the weekly cycle had been lost, Jews in one area of the world would be keeping a particular day while Jews elsewhere kept other days. But what do we find? In every nation in which the Jews have been scattered, they are unanimous in keeping the SAME DAY-Saturday! Thus, Saturday is still the seventh day of the weekly cycle that began at creation.
Christ and Disciples-Sabbath-Breakers?
We have seen that Jesus quite obviously kept God's holy Sabbath day, though some today say otherwise. The Pharisees did accuse Him of breaking it, as in Mark 2 where Jesus' disciples picked heads of grain to eat when they were hungry on the Sabbath. But this was NOT a transgression of the Sabbath. It was only a violation of the legalistic restrictions the scribes and Pharisees had added to the Sabbath.
Why had these men done this? Well, for one thing, under the Old Covenant, the penalty for Sabbath-breaking was death by stoning (Exodus 31:15; Numbers 15:32-35). It was that serious! Moreover, Sabbath-breaking and idolatry were singled out by God as two of the major sins for which He had caused Israel and Judah to be taken into national captivity and slavery centuries earlier-and, according to prophecy, would do so again (cf. Nehemiah 13:17-18; Ezekiel 20:10-25; 22:6-23:47). And so, as they did with most points of God's law, the scribes and Pharisees went into the opposite ditch and began legislating, in extremely minute detail, everything that was permissible or not permissible to do on the Sabbath. As noted earlier, they added to God's commandment-attaching more than 60 specific requirements or restrictions. In so doing, they made God's weekly Holy Day a great burden-which it was never meant to be (cf. 1 John 5:3). For instance, according to them, you could only walk so many steps at a time on the Sabbath before having to sit down and rest. Yet God's law says no such thing.
Of course, it was the responsibility of each individual to make sure that he wasn't overexerting himself on the Sabbath to the point that his actions would have qualified as work. If Jesus had not been present with His disciples, it would simply have been a personal judgment call for them. But Christ was there as a perfect Judge-God in the flesh and Lord of the Sabbath. And He made it very clear that the scribes and Pharisees were wrong! Picking a few heads of grain and eating them simply does not violate the Sabbath command. On the other hand, if the disciples had been harvesting, that would have been a different matter. But they weren't. They were just grabbing a bite to eat!
However, some will persist, surely the Sabbath was done away upon Jesus' death. But was it? Did His disciples think so? Notice that after Christ's burial, some of His most dedicated followers decided to better prepare His body so it wouldn't decay so quickly in the grave. "Then they returned [home] and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56). Luke was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write here that these dedicated women kept the Sabbath "according to the commandment"! Even after Jesus' death-even after EVERYTHING that was going to be "nailed to the cross" already had been-God's Sabbath commandment still stood inviolate!
Were Christ's disciples substituting Sunday for the Sabbath at this time? We just saw that they refrained from doing work on the Sabbath. But notice the very next verses: "Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb" (24:1-2). Now, on Sunday, they had come to do work. Obviously, the Sabbath they had kept holy was the previous day-Saturday.
After His resurrection, did Jesus in some way indicate that His former teaching had been "done away" or "nailed to the cross"? No-not in ANY WAY! Rather, Jesus instructed His disciples to go out over the whole earth and teach these same things-even to the END of this age. "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe ALL THINGS that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20).
Was Jesus Resurrected on Sunday?
If you visit a mainstream Christian church and ask members why the day on which they and other people attend worship services is Sunday, a typical response might be that Jesus was resurrected on that day. But how well does this idea bear up under close scrutiny?
Notice what Christ told the Pharisees, who were looking for a sign of the Messiah: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and NO SIGN will be given to it EXCEPT the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:39-40).
The only sign Jesus gave to prove He was the Messiah was that the grave would only hold Him for a limited amount of time-exactly "three days and three nights" (or 72 hours). But the Easter Sunday tradition maintains that Christ was buried just before sunset on "Good Friday" afternoon and resurrected early Sunday morning-only two nights and one day (or 36 hours)!
Some will argue the definition of "day." But Christ clearly stated that there are 12 hours in a day, not including the night (John 11:9-10). Therefore, when Easter Sunday proponents take His remark and conclude that Christ was in the grave three days x 12 hours = 36 hours, we can see that they are leaving out the "three nights." There are approximately 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of nighttime in one 24-hour day! So three days and three nights is definitely 72 hours. But was it exactly 72 hours? Jesus said He would rise "AFTER three days" (Mark 8:31)-i.e. no less than 72 hours. But He also said He would rise "IN three days" (John 2:19, 21)-i.e. no more than 72 hours. This is absolutely clear-72 hours exactly! And God is always right on schedule.
Also consider that, when the women came to His tomb Sunday morning, "it was still dark" (John 20:1) and He had already risen. How could this be? The Sunday-resurrection proponents contend that He had risen just moments before. If they are correct, then "three days and three nights" earlier would be just before sunrise on Thursday morning. Yet no one believes Christ was buried on Thursday morning-or any morning for that matter-and with good reason. When Joseph of Arimathea laid Christ's body in the tomb, "the Sabbath drew near" (Luke 23:50-54). Biblical days, including Sabbaths, begin at sunset and end the following sunset (cf. Genesis 1:5-31; Leviticus 23:32)-a nighttime period followed by a daytime period.
Christ, then, was buried in late afternoon-before a particular Sabbath began at sunset. Three days and three nights later would be the same time of day-late afternoon! Now we have another problem. If we assume that Christ was buried on Friday afternoon, as the Good Friday tradition asserts, then His resurrection-72 hours later-would be Monday afternoon. Yet no one believes this either-again, with good reason. For remember that Christ had already risen before the women came to His tomb prior to daybreak Sunday morning! What, then, is the answer?
Why have so many thought that Christ was put in the grave on Friday afternoon? Mark 15:42 states that "it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath." Since the weekly Sabbath always occurred on the seventh day of the week (now called Saturday), the "Preparation Day" was normally on Friday. However, we have already seen the problem with this. The answer to the apparent dilemma is that the weekly Sabbath is not the only Sabbath mentioned in the Bible. Leviticus 23 lists seven annual Holy Days that occur in God's Festivals. Each of these days was considered a Sabbath (or a "rest" from normal labor). All annual Sabbaths or "High Days" (except Pentecost) fell on particular calendar dates rather than set days of the week.
Now the mystery can be solved by reading John 19:31. The Jews wanted to remove the crucifixion victims "because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a HIGH DAY)." Christ kept the Passover with His disciples the night before His death (Luke 22:15). He died on the cross the next afternoon, which was still Passover (the 14th of Abib or Nisan according to the Hebrew Calendar-Leviticus 23:5). Leviticus 23:6-7 reports that the next day, beginning the evening after His crucifixion, was not a weekly Sabbath, but an annual Sabbath-the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Now put together the facts. It is clear from the Bible that Christ died and was buried on Passover afternoon-and that the following day was an annual Sabbath. It is also clear that he was resurrected at the same time of day-late afternoon. But which afternoon? Since the women found Him already gone Sunday morning, it would be sensible to conclude that He had been resurrected the previous afternoon on Saturday! This would mean He had been buried three days and three nights earlier-Wednesday afternoon. It would also mean that Passover, Nisan 14, fell on a Wednesday that year. And, indeed, that is what happened in A.D. 31, a year that fits the time frame the Bible demands.
Scripture also provides further proof that there were TWO Sabbaths that week-an annual and a weekly one. In Mark 15:47, Mary Magdalene and her companion watched Joseph of Arimathea lay Jesus in the tomb near the end of the Passover. The next verse, Mark 16:1, tells us that after the "Sabbath," Mary Magdalene and her companions bought spices with which to anoint Christ's dead body. However, Luke 23:56 shows that they prepared the spices before the Sabbath. Naturally, they couldn't have prepared spices before they were even bought! The only explanation that makes sense is that they bought the spices on Friday and prepared them the same day-after the annual Sabbath on Thursday and before the weekly Sabbath on Saturday! Then they rested on the weekly Sabbath-at the end of which Jesus was resurrected. The next morning, Sunday, they came to the tomb before sunrise and found him already gone.
But some will point out Mark 16:9, which says, "Now when He rose early on the first day of the week...." Yet how can this be? To understand, we should read the verse in the original King James Version and continue further in the sentence: "Now when Jesus was risen [the perfect tense is correct here-He was already risen] early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene." He was not "rising" on Sunday morning. As we've seen, He rose Saturday afternoon. So early Sunday morning, He was already "risen." Also realize that in the original Greek there was no punctuation. Had the King James translators simply put a comma after the word "risen" and not after "week," this would make complete sense. The Centenary Translation renders it this way: "Now after his resurrection, early on the first day of the week he appeared first to Mary Magdalene."
To conclude, a Sunday morning resurrection could not be the reason for changing the weekly day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. But even if Christ were resurrected on Sunday, why would His disciples-who had kept the seventh-day Sabbath with Him-have abandoned His example of keeping the Ten Commandments and switched to Sunday-keeping? And why would they have picked Sunday, a day already associated with pagan sun worship? But the Bible is very clear that Christ was NOT resurrected on Sunday morning. So this pitiful attempt to CHANGE God's Law does not hold water!
Practice of the Original Apostles
Throughout the book of Acts, we find that the Apostles continued to observe the Sabbath regularly. They did this with Jews as well as with Gentiles, and-guided by the Holy Spirit-the entire early New Testament Church continued to meet on the seventh-day Sabbath for decades after Jesus' death. Even mainline Protestant historians acknowledge this fact. In his book, The Story of the Christian Church, Jesse Lyman Hurlbut states, "As long as the church was mainly Jewish, the Hebrew sabbath was kept; but as it became increasingly Gentile the first day gradually took the place of the seventh day" (1970, p. 36).
Notice that Hurlbut says the first day "gradually" replaced the seventh-day Sabbath. Did God gradually do away with His law? Ridiculous! As we shall see later, conniving me "gradually" DECEIVED millions of professing Christians into doing away with not only the Sabbath, but the entire concept of obedience to God's law!
However, no such change took place during the lifetime of Christ's original Apostles. Even the Apostle Paul-the Apostle to the Gentiles-kept the Sabbath regularly. And he wasn't even converted to Christianity until well after Christ's resurrection. Notice the account of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13:14: "But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down."
"But," some might argue, "Paul was just meeting with the Jews on Saturday since that was their Sabbath!" However, the book of Acts tells us that "when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath" (13:42). Here was Paul's grand opportunity to inform the Gentiles that they would now meet on Sunday! But did he? On the contrary! "The next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God" (v. 44).
The truth of the matter is that neither Paul nor ANY of the Apostles uttered one single word about changing God's holy Sabbath or any part of the Ten Commandments. Rather, as they had been taught by Christ Himself, they kept, and always assembled on, the seventh day.
What about when Paul traveled through predominately Gentile areas? God's Word tells us, "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his CUSTOM was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures" (17:1-2).
It was clearly Paul's "custom" to meet on the Sabbath. Acts 18:4 tells us that "he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks." In example after example in the book of Acts, when Paul or the other Apostles met to worship, there is not a single, solitary hint that they ever regularly met on any other day of the week to worship except Saturday-the seventh-day Sabbath that they had always observed and that the Jewish community was still observing.
In fact, if they had started teaching some other weekly day of worship, it would have caused a literal RIOT among the Jewish Christians! The only major ministerial conference mentioned in the New Testament is described in Acts 15. It was occasioned by a bitter controversy over whether Gentile Christians should be compelled to be circumcised. The book of Acts notes the incident that sparked this conference: "And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.' Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the Apostles and elders, about this question" (vv. 1-2).
At the conference in Jerusalem, after there had been "much dispute," Peter rose up and carefully explained how God had called the Gentile Christians through him apart from any command to be physically circumcised. Afterward, Paul and Barnabas described the fruits of their Work among the Gentiles, without circumcision being involved. Then James, the presiding Apostle at Jerusalem, summarized the matter and stated, "Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood"(vv.19-20). Finally, a letter was drafted, outlining this landmark decision and the reasons for it (vv. 22-29). Paul took a copy of this letter with its decrees and read it to all of the Churches under his jurisdiction (16:1-5).
Some will argue that the four prohibitions mentioned here are the only laws from the Old Testament still binding on Christians. But notice that murder is not listed. Are we, then, free to commit murder? Obviously not! So why are these points specifically mentioned? Because the four things Christians are to abstain from here are practices that were common to pagan religion. In sacrificing to their idols, many pagans would strangle animals rather than slitting their throats and letting the blood drain from them. Then they would eat these offerings and commit gross sexual immorality as religious ritual. The prohibitions in Acts 15 were originally part of God's statutory law. But they were also listed later with the ceremonies and rituals of the Levitical worship system to keep the Israelites from adopting these wrong practices (cf. Leviticus 17:7, 10; Numbers 25:1-3). The Apostles wanted it understood that, although the ceremonial and ritual parts of the Old Testament law-including physical circumcision-were no longer necessary, these four points that were given in the ceremonial section of the law were still binding. And why were they still binding? Because they were part of God's original law-which was still in force!
Bear in mind that this great controversy and subsequent apostolic conference took place over the ordinance of physical circumcision. How much MORE of a debate would have raged if the Apostles had tried to change or do away with one of the Ten Commandments-especially the one about God's weekly Sabbath, the very identifying "sign" of God's people?! There would have been an absolute UPROAR. But do we find even the slightest hint of a dispute over any such change?
We do NOT!
As the expression goes," the silence on the subject is DEAFENING." There was no such change until scores or even hundreds of years after the death of the original Apostles! So neither Jesus nor the apostolic Church EVER attempted to change the Sabbath. They never attempted to do away with obedience to ANY of the Ten Commandments!
Later Apostolic Teaching
Many Protestant theologians have been schooled in the theory of "progressive revelation." But we will see that this theory is nothing less than a complete perversion of the truth. It conveys the idea that the ancient prophets were simply Hebrew philosophers trying to devise their own concept of a divine being. Then along comes Jesus, a Jewish carpenter-heavily influenced by the religion and morals of His time-living and teaching under the Old Covenant. Jesus' original Apostles, according to this theory, were, likewise, unsophisticated, backward and didn't really "understand."
Then comes the Apostle Paul-the "liberator," as the theory goes-and things begin to get better. For Paul is said to be willing to "break out" of the Jewish mold and introduce modern Christianity-Gentile Christianity-which would be more acceptable to the world at large.
The trouble with the above theory is that it is GROSSLY INACCURATE! For it attempts to completely negate Jesus' own command, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD of God" (Luke 4:4). And we must remember that aside from the life and teaching of Jesus Himself, the only Word of God available to humanity when He made this pronouncement was the Old Testament. This fact poses a major problem for these progressive theologians. For both the Old Testament prophets and Jesus Christ very clearly taught OBEDIENCE to the Ten Commandments-including seventh-day Sabbath observance. Even many Protestant theologians acknowledge that Jesus taught and kept the Sabbath day.
And what the "progressive revelation" teachers also cannot explain is that the original apostolic writings very directly and very powerfully uphold the concept of obeying the Ten Commandments as the Christian way of life-once again, including keeping God's Sabbath.
James, the brother of Jesus Christ, who became the presiding Apostle at Jerusalem, wrote, "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty" (James 2:10-12). So true Christians are to keep the "whole law." It is a law with "points"-including the commands against murder and adultery. Clearly, this law is the Ten Commandments. And James said that if we "stumble" in failing to keep even one point of this law-obviously including the Sabbath-we are "guilty of ALL"!
John, the Apostle "Jesus loved," also wrote about God's law-near the END of the apostolic age. If anyone were to give us a new "progressive" teaching, it would be him. So what "progressive revelation," then, did John give us? He was inspired by God to write, "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:3-4).
A person may know about God by coming to understand only part of the Truth. But to genuinely and personally "know" Him, John says that we must experience God's way of life by KEEPING His commandments! For God's kind of love-His very nature and character-is revealed in the Ten Commandments. Again, as John wrote, God's very LOVE is expressed in the Ten Commandments: "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (5:3). And anyone who fails to literally keep the Ten Commandments-not perfectly, of course, but as a way of life-is DISOBEYING his Creator and in fact does not really "know" God!
What about Paul? Did he dismiss God's law? By no means! In Romans 2:13, he wrote, "For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the DOERS of the law will be justified." And in 1 Corinthians 7:19, he stated, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters." Again, this certainly includes the fourth commandment concerning the Sabbath!
Furthermore, the Apostle Paul is traditionally understood to have written the book of Hebrews-and there is strong evidence to support that tradition. Because of his rabbinic training in the technical intricacies of the Mosaic law, he was undoubtedly the most qualified of all the Apostles to thoroughly explain the New Covenant that God is making with all humanity-the very theme of Hebrews. After this book describes how God spoke of the "seventh day" as the day of rest (4:4), it goes on to state, "There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (v. 9, NASB).
This is a very interesting passage. Chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews talk about God's people entering into "rest." The Israelites in the wilderness wanted to enter God's "rest"-meaning to finally cease from wandering and settle in the Promised Land. And that did happen in the days of Moses' successor, Joshua. Yet also mentioned here is the fact that the Eternal God later inspired King David to write of entering God's rest as something still future. Hebrews states, "For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day" (4:8). This is obviously speaking of the coming Millennium, or 1,000-year period, of Christ's rule on earth-since the future Kingdom of God is the "Promised Land" for true Christians.
It is in this context that Hebrews talks about a Sabbath rest remaining for God's people. In almost every case in chapters 3 and 4, the Greek word for physical rest-katapausin-is used for God's rest. But in verse 9, God inspired a different word to be used-sabbatismos. Many translations render it simply as "rest," just like they do katapausin. But that is confusing, since it is, in fact, a different word. The New American Standard Bible, quoted above, uses "Sabbath rest." But does this mean literal, weekly Sabbath-keeping? The Anchor Bible Dictionary says yes, assuring us that sabbatismos refers to "seventh day Sabbath celebration." Thus, the New Testament states very clearly that seventh-day Sabbath-keeping is to continue for true Christians.
However, some argue that this means we should just rest from our sinful works in our new life in Jesus. But notice what is added in the next verse: "For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His." Did God "rest" from His work of SIN? Of course not. He rested from CREATING-His occupational work as the Creator. And on what day did God "rest"-setting us the example? "God rested on the seventh day from all His works" (v. 4). And so must we.
However, the context of these verses does show that the Sabbath is more than just a memorial of creation. It is indeed a physical TYPE of something else-and we should observe it as such. But that something is NOT primarily the Christian life in this age. It is, rather, our life in the future millennial rest of TOMORROW'S WORLD-when Jesus Christ sets up the Kingdom of God over the entire earth.
Notice what the Commentary on the Whole Bible by Jamieson, Fausset & Brown has to say about Hebrews 4:9: "This verse indirectly establishes the obligation of the Sabbath still; for the type continues until the antitype supersedes it." As the coming millennial Sabbath "will not be till Christ... comes..., the typical earthly Sabbath must continue till then." Yet, as we will later see, even in Tomorrow's World human beings will continue to keep God's weekly Sabbath holy.
How clear! Here in the book of Hebrews we find a direct New Testament command for Christians to "rest" on the seventh-day Sabbath! It was probably given, interestingly enough, through the Apostle to the Gentiles-the very Apostle whom so many Protestant theologians insist "did away" with God's law!
This section in Hebrews 4 concludes thus: "Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience" of those in ancient Israel (v. 11). The phrase, "the same example of disobedience," should resonate deeply with students of the Bible. For, just as Sabbath-breaking and idolatry factored heavily in the Israelites' national captivity and slavery, these two sins were also major reasons that most of their forefathers died during the 40 years of wandering before inheriting the Promised Land.
Text from Faith of Our Fathers by James Cardinal Gibbons, first published in 1876. This well-known American Catholic leader stated quite clearly that there is no Scriptural authority for changing the day of worship form Saturday to Sunday.
THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS
Third�A rule of faith, or a competent guide to heaven, must be able to instruct in all the truths necessary for salvation. Now the Scriptures alone do not contain all the truths which a Christian is bound to believe, nor do they explicitly enjoin all the duties which he is obliged to practice. Not to mention other examples, is not, every Christian obliged to scantify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.
The Catholic Church correctly teaches that our Lord and His Apostles inculcated certain important duties of religion which are not recorded by the inspired writers.� For instance, most Christians pray to the Holy Ghost, a practice which is nowhere found in the Bible.
We must, therefore, conclude that the Scriptures alone cannot be a sufficient guide and rule of faith because they cannot, at any time, be within the reach of every inquirer; because they are not of themselves clear and intelligible even in matters of the highest importance, and because they do not contain all the truths necessary for salvation.
�See John xxi.25; II.Thess.Ii.14.
You should read God's indictment of ancient Israel in Ezekiel 20:10-24. Notice here verses 12-13: "Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they did not walk in My statutes; they despised My judgments, which, if a man does, he shall live by them; and they greatly defiled My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My fury on them in the wilderness, to consume them."
Therefore, repeating the inspired instruction from the book of Hebrews, let ALL true Christians be careful to NOT follow that "same example of disobedience" by failing to keep holy the only day of the week God made holy-the seventh-day Sabbath!
The Diabolical Transfer
The New Testament very clearly indicates that God's true Church would be small and persecuted. Jesus instructed His disciples, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:13-14).
Jesus called His Church the "little flock" (Luke 12:32). And in His Olivet Prophecy, He warned, "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake" (Matthew 24:9). Frankly, "mainstream" Christians are NOT the ones who are going to be "hated by all nations." Why? Because they fit into the world pretty well, going along with its customs and traditions-and, all too often, with its SINS.
But was there an obedient Church such as Jesus described still in existence after apostolic times-which still faithfully kept God's true Sabbath day? Yes indeed. In fact, virtually all church historians acknowledge that many thousands of early Christians continued to observe the seventh-day Sabbath for many generations!
We have already seen Jesse Lyman Hurlbut's statement: "As long as the church was mainly Jewish, the Hebrew sabbath was kept." But was any biblical writer ever inspired to tell us that the Sabbath was later to be CHANGED?
Of course not.
For the active, living Head of God's true Church is Jesus Christ. "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18; cf. Ephesians 1:22). The book of Hebrews tells us, "Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the SAME yesterday, today, and forever" (13:7-8).
Indeed, throughout the entire Bible, only one day is set apart as the Sabbath-the seventh day. And that day is Saturday! Here is a quote from James Cardinal Gibbons, who was Archbishop of Baltimore and probably the most well-known American Catholic leader of his time. Observe what this highest-ranking Catholic in America wrote about God's Sabbath in his famous book, Faith of Our Fathers: "You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify" (1876).
And notice this from The Catholic Mirror-the official newspaper of Gibbons' archdiocese, under his direction: "In the Old Testament reference is made one hundred and twenty-six times to the Sabbath, and all these texts conspire harmoniously in voicing the will of God, commanding the seventh day to be kept" (Sept. 9, 1893). It then states, "Nor can we imagine anyone foolhardy enough to question the identity of Saturday with the Sabbath or seventh day, seeing that the people of Israel have been keeping the Saturday from the giving of the Law."
And look at this from a later article under Cardinal Gibbons' direction: "God's written word enjoins His worship to be observed on Saturday, absolutely, repeatedly, and most emphatically, with a most positive threat of death to him who disobeys" (Sept. 23, 1893).
How CLEAR can you get? Of course the commandment-keeping, true Church of God would have persisted in keeping His seventh-day Sabbath-from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset!
--Did you know that your willingness to keep holy the true Sabbath day, which God made holy, directly affects whether or not you will be granted eternal life in the Kingdom of God?--
This is saying that you must do a work to be saved, which is wrong. We are to obey the law, not to save ourselves, but because He loved us and we should love to obey Him.
--We must, therefore, conclude that the Scriptures alone cannot be a sufficient guide and rule of faith because they cannot, at any time, be within the reach of every inquirer; because they are not of themselves clear and intelligible even in matters of the highest importance, and because they do not contain all the truths necessary for salvation.--
The Bible is the law book of the world. Just because we fail to have it at our sides all the time or cannot understand it, does not mean that it is not clear and intelligible to those that the Lord allows understanding. These things are written so that you may KNOW and that includes salvation and faith. You may seek out uninspired information that God has allowed�since even science proves God�s existence�but it must always be in agreement with the Bible.
Sunday The Sabbath
The Bible Is Without Error.
In its original autographs, or manuscripts, the Bible is the infallible Word of God. It is completely inerrant. It has no errors of any kind whatsoever. This is so because the original manuscripts were Godbreathed. Holy men of old spoke as God the Holy Spirit moved them. Thus, God is the author and we may never question what He has written.
However, we must always remember that a translation is not the original language and, therefore, is not as trustworthy as the original language. The translators were not inspired. They were fallible men who performed the awesome task of translating the original Godbreathed writings into another language. Because they were not inspired by God and because of grammatical differences between languages, they are not able to produce a perfect translation. However, in spite of these difficulties, the translation identified as the �Authorized King James Version� was produced with such accuracy that we can ordinarily trust the translation to be THE Word of God.
It is true that some translators did their work more faithfully than others; nevertheless, of all the translations that are available today, I have no doubt that the King James translation is the best and the most accurate translation. If I had to trust in any English Bible, I would trust far more quickly in the King James Bible than in any other. This is particularly true because it can be shown that the Greek manuscripts (TextusReceptus Text) that were used in the translation of the King James Bible were more consistent with the original writings than the manuscript copies used in almost all other translations of the Bible.
We must remember that even the King James Bible is a translation, and now and then, the translators did not do quite as good work as they could have done. We do not know why God has allowed it to be this way, but it is a fact. However, by God's mercy, we are able to check the translators' work: We can go back to the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament. That is why concordances and Interlinear Hebrew/English Old Testaments and Greek/English Interlinear New Testaments are so important and helpful.
The original manuscripts of the Bible were almost entirely written in the Hebrew and Greek languages. We do not have the original manuscripts, but we have reason to believe that the Hebrew and the Greek manuscripts from which the King James Bible is translated are so accurate that for all intents and purposes we must set the presumption that they are infallible.
Occasionally a writer in a commentary struggles to understand a verse. He looks at the original Hebrew, and he may conclude that the scribe may have made an error in connection with a word that is part of a verse because it is difficult to understand. He may then suggest that if one letter of one word in the original Hebrew is changed very slightly it will become a different letter and, therefore, the word will be a different word. This in turn will give a different sense to the verse, and we can understand the verse much better.
Such a suggestion must never be countenanced. When looking at the original language manuscripts, we never question a single letter of a word. God insists on this principle in Galatians 3:16, where He speaks of a verse in the Bible in which the word �seed� appears. He emphasizes that the word �seed� is singular, not the plural word �seeds.� Thus, God is pointing out that in the original manuscripts every word and every letter of every word is infallible.
The Puzzle of the Word �Sabbath�
In this study we will carefully examine one word that greatly confounded the translators. Amazingly, this problem is found not only in the King James Bible but in every other English translation, and not only in the English translations but also in the German, the Dutch, the Spanish, and in virtually all translations. It is not only found in those Bibles that were translated from the Textus-Receptus text but also in those that used the Nestle or WestcottHort text.
The problem has to do with the translation of the Greek word �Sabbath.� Somehow the translators were puzzled when they came to this New Testament word, and because of a lack of understanding, they hid an important and beautiful teaching of the Bible.
Most surprisingly, any student of the Bible can use a concordance together with a Greek copy of the New Testament and quickly discover the existence of this problem. Thus, one wonders why the translators had not long ago made necessary corrections in their translations. We can speculate that possibly they were tremendously concerned that the ceremonial laws recorded in the Old Testament that looked toward the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ were completed in Christ. Thus, they wanted to make sure there would be no misunderstanding about the fact that we are now in the era of the New Testament, and the Old Testament ordinances like the Sabbath are no longer to be observed. Later we will suggest other possible reasons for the inadequate translation of the word �Sabbath.�
Let us examine this problem and learn the important truth lost to a high degree to the church because of the faulty translation of the word �Sabbath.�
Singular and Plural Words
We must begin by examining the usage of the word �Sabbath� in the New Testament. In the New Testament, the word �Sabbath� in the original manuscripts is sometimes a singular word and sometimes it is a plural word. Is it permissible to take a singular word of the original manuscript and translate it as a plural word? The answer is �No. Absolutely not.� If God had wanted it in the plural, He would have written it in the plural. As we saw earlier, God insists on this principle in Galatians 3:16 where God speaks of a verse in the Bible where the singular word �seed� appears. He makes the emphasis that it is the singular word �seed,� not the plural word �seeds.�
Likewise, is it permissible to translate a plural word to make it singular in the translation? The answer is �No.� If God had wanted it to be a singular word, He would have made it singular in the original. But that is precisely what the translators frequently have done with the word �Sabbath.� We can readily find verses in which the word �Sabbath� in the original was singular but was translated as a plural word, and we can find verses in which the word �Sabbath� in the original was plural but was translated as a singular word.
An example of this is found in Matthew 12:1 where we read: �At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn; and His disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.�
The translators have indicated that the word �Sabbath� is singular, but the Greek text uses the word �Sabbath� in the plural. How could the translators have committed this error?
Moreover, the Greek text does not have the word �day.� It simply says �Sabbaths.� While the addition of the word �day� in the English may not be as serious as the substitution of the singular for the plural, it is still a curious and unwarranted addition to the original text. There are instances in the Bible where the Greek speaks of �the day of the Sabbath,� but how can it be that the translators dared to introduce the word �day� in this verse when it is not in the original?
When we correct these two errors of the translators, we will find that the King James Bible should read, �And at that time Jesus went on the Sabbaths through the corn; and His disciples were an hungered.� Thus, we learn that it was an habitual practice of Jesus and the disciples, on the Sabbath, the seventh day Sabbath since it is still the Old Testament side of the cross, to go through the corn and pluck the ears.
In Matthew 12:2 we read: �But when the pharisees saw it, they said unto Him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day.�
Here the translation has the correct gender and number; the word �Sabbath� is a singular word, but again the translators added the word �day,� which is not in the original. The word �day� is not found in this verse. As we continue our study we will discover many other examples of this puzzling kind of translation. However, the first verse we wish to examine is Matthew 28:1, for this verse together with other similar verses will help us get to the root of the problem raised because of the faulty translation of the word �Sabbath.�
This study is not intended to denigrate the King James Bible. The King James Bible is the Bible, and we better listen to it. It is the Word of God. Ordinarily, it is very trustworthy, but in this very narrow window of the word �Sabbath� there are problems. When correction is made in the use of the word �Sabbath,� we discover that it is a beautiful word that gives us aid, and comfort, and security. It is designed by God to identify with the first day of the week so that we might have maximum blessing in our lives.
�Week� or �Sabbaths�?
Matthew 28:1 is translated: �In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week [the translators italicized the word day to indicate it was not in the original], came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.�
The translators correctly translated the Greek word �opse� as �end.� It is a word also translated as �even� as in Mark 11:19, �And when even was come, he went out of the city.� Since the seventh day Sabbath ended at sundown, on Saturday, when it had become dark, the Sabbath Day was past. Therefore, the first few words in Matthew 28:1 are correctly translated �in the end.�
The translators also correctly translated the Greek word �mia� as �first.� The Greek word �mia� is translated as �one� more than 50 times in the New Testament. It was also translated as �first� eight times in the New Testament. For example �mia� is used in Titus 3:10 to say, �A man that is an heretick after the first [Greek �mia�] and second admonition reject.�
As we go on in our study, we will see that both the translation �first� and the translation �one� apply to the Greek word �mia� used in Matthew 28:1.
But it is the Greek word �Sabbaths� that is found in Matthew 28:1 that surprises us. Amazingly, the Greek shows that the verse really says, �In the end of Sabbaths [plural], at the dawning on toward the first of the Sabbaths [not �week�].� The second word �Sabbaths� in this verse is identical to the first word �Sabbaths.� Why did the translators change the second �Sabbaths� to �week�? First of all the word �week� is singular whereas �Sabbaths� is plural. As we have seen, the Bible specifically prohibits a change of this kind. Moreover, God very carefully used precisely the same word �Sabbaths� both in the phrase �the end of the Sabbaths� and in the phrase �the first of the Sabbaths.� Why did they change the plural word �Sabbaths� in the phrase �the end of the Sabbaths� to a singular word �Sabbath,� and why did they change the word �Sabbaths� in the phrase �the first of the Sabbaths� to the phrase �to the first of the week�?
We can speculate why the translators might have been tempted to change the second word �Sabbaths� to week. Christ went to the cross on Friday and was in the tomb on the Old Testament Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. But Sunday morning? How can this Sunday be a Sabbath when the Sabbath is past? And so the translators guessed or decided not to translate that second use of the word �Sabbaths� as �Sabbaths.� They concluded that it must mean the word �week.� They had no Biblical validation for this. If God had wanted to use another word to avoid the use of the word �Sabbaths� in connection with Sunday, He would have used another word. But God used the word �Sabbaths.� We wonder why?
The SelfRighteous Pharisee
Before we answer that question, we should look at Luke 18:912, where Jesus is commenting about a selfrighteous pharisee. Verses 1112 declare: �The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.�
This is not a correct translation of what the pharisee said. The word �week� in this statement is the word �Sabbath� (singular genitive of the second declension, in this instance). It is indeed curious that the translators translated the plural word �Sabbaths� found in Matthew 28:1 as �week.� Yet in Luke 18 they translated the singular word �Sabbath� also as �week.� Thus, they are not at all consistent in their translation. In the Luke account the word �week� is singular as is the word �Sabbath,� but we can find no Biblical justification for translating the Greek word �Sabbath� as �week.�
An argument is made that the use of the plural �Sabbaths� as it is found in Matthew 28:1 somehow means �between the Sabbaths,� which then allows a change from �Sabbaths� to �week.� But there are only six days between the Sabbaths. Therefore, �week� and �between the Sabbaths� could not be synonymous. There is no Biblical warrant for this. Moreover, in Luke 18:12 the word in the original is �Sabbath� (singular). Yet the translators dared to translate this also as �week.� We, therefore, have additional evidence of their confusion in dealing with the word �Sabbath.� Luke 18:12 should be translated, �I fast twice in the Sabbath.�
With this corrected translation, we can understand what the selfrighteous pharisee is saying. The seventh day Sabbath was a holy day to Old Testament Israel. God did not provide manna on the Sabbath; they had to gather a double portion the day before. They were to do no work of any kind on the Sabbath; they were not to cook, they were not to make a fire. Thus, it was a logical day to try and prove �how holy I am,� as did the pharisee. While others ate the food that was prepared the day before, he said, �I'm going to fast,� and everyone will say of me, �Isn't he holy. He's fasting.�
Fasting was very important to ancient Israel. For instance, we read in Isaiah 58, �Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?� The pharisee skipped not one but two meals on the Sabbath. He fasted for two meals and there is a possibility that the Jews ate only two meals on the Sabbath. Therefore, it appeared that he was a very holy man in that he ate neither of these meals. He was showing how super holy he was because he observed the Sabbath day in a super holy way. In any case, the phrase �I fast twice in the week� is not a faithful translation of the Greek. It should be translated, �I fast twice in the Sabbath.�
Is the Hebrew Word for Sabbath Also the Word for Week?
An additional possible rationale might be suggested as to why the translators of the King James Bible substituted the word �week� for �Sabbaths.� Theologians have held that the Hebrew word for �Sabbath� also may be translated as �seven� or as �week.� Furthermore, because the New Testament Greek uses a transliteration of the Hebrew word �Sabbath� to describe a Sabbath, it would seem to logically follow that even as theHebrew word for �Sabbath� also means �week,� then the Greek word for �Sabbath� also may be translated �week.�
This rationale can be shown to be faulty for two major reasons. The first reason is that the Hebrew word for �Sabbath� and the Hebrew word for �seven� or for �week� are different words. The Hebrew word for Sabbath is ZPC (shabbawth with the Hebrew letters Schin, Beth, He). The Hebrew word for �seven� or �week� is DPC (shawbooah with the Hebrew letters Schin, Beth, Ain). These two words are not interchangeable. They are different words. Therefore, in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament the word �seven� or �week� is never used in place of the word for �Sabbath.�
This truth is further emphasized when we realize that the first day of the seventh month as well as the Day of Atonement, which was the tenth day of the seventh month, were called Sabbaths in Leviticus 23. In the same chapter, both the first day and the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles are called Sabbaths. The emphasis in these cases is not on seven.
Secondly, it must be noted that while the Greek word for �93"Sabbath� is a transliteration of the Hebrew word �Sabbath,� it became a Greek word when it was used in the New Testament, and the grammatical rules for Hebrew cannot be used in trying to understand the Greek. Even if it were true (and it is not true), that the Hebrew word for �Sabbath� could be translated as the word �week� in the Old Testament, it would not follow at all that the Greek word for �Sabbath� could also be translated as the word �week� in the New Testament.
The Old Testament Sabbaths End
Returning to Matthew 28:1, let us carefully examine the phrase that has the first use of the word �Sabbaths.� It says, �In the end of the Sabbaths.� How long had the seventh day Sabbath been observed? All through the Old Testament era, and it had been particularly articulated on Mount Sinai, and spelled out in the ten commandments: God's command was that man should work for six days and rest on the seventh day; it is the Sabbath.
God gave a reason why they were to do this: It was a picture of the coming of the Lord Jesus. A man rested from physical work on the Sabbath even as he is to rest in the Lord Jesus and cease from trying to become saved by spiritual work. He was to trust entirely on the saving work of the coming Messiah.
God declares in Ezekiel 20:12: �Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.�
God is instructing us that the Old Testament Sabbaths were signs pointing to the fact that salvation is entirely of Jehovah. This explains why Deuteronomy 5:15 declares: �And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.�
When God brought Israel out of Egypt, from the house of bondage, He was pointing to the spiritual reality that salvationis of God. Egypt is used in the Bible as a figure or type of being in bondage to sin and to Satan. Even as ancient Israel was brought out of Egypt only by God's almighty power, so we who are saved are freed from bondage to sin and Satan by God's power. Even as ancient Israel could take no credit whatsoever for their escape from Egypt, so we who have become saved can take no credit whatsoever for our salvation.
Thus, the Hebrew word �Sabbath� is also a Hebrew word for �rest.� It ordinarily is used to focus our attention on the spiritual rest we receive in salvation.
The law of the Sabbath rest was to be so rigorously adhered to that, as we read in Numbers 15, when a man picked up a few sticks, Moses went to God and asked what to do to the man. God said he was to be stoned to death for picking up a few sticks! And he was stoned to death. Through this God illustrates the dynamic principle that the only way to be saved is to trust in the coming Messiah, Who was typified by the seventh day Sabbath. We are to look only to Him, and the moment we trust our work in the slightest degree as a basis for salvation (even though we believe we are saved by God's grace), we are still under the wrath of God. This is the same principle that is taught in Galatians 5 where God instructs us that if an individual trusts in his physical circumcision as a basis for having become right with God, he has fallen from grace; that is, one is either saved solely by the grace of God or he is not saved at all. Indeed, the seventh day Sabbath of the Old Testament typified Jesus Christ as our Savior.
On the last Sabbath of the Old Testament era, Christ, Who is our Sabbath, had in one sense completed the work God had assigned to Him in bearing the wrath of God on behalf of all who were to be saved. Late Friday afternoon, He uttered the dramatic words, �It is finished.� And on that last Sabbath His body rested in the tomb.
Amazingly, even as God rested on the seventh day from His work of creating this universe, so Christ in a real sense rested on the seventh day from His work of creating the Kingdom of God through His shed blood.
In another sense His work would not be finished until He arose from the grave on Sunday morning for He was to be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and three days and three nights included that last Sabbath.
The point, however, of Matthew 28:1 is that this Sabbath during which Christ rested in the tomb was the last Sabbath of the Old Testament era. The phrase �In the end of the Sabbaths� could be expanded to read, �Now that the era of the Old Testament Sabbaths has come to an end inasmuch as Jesus Who was typified by those Sabbaths had finished His work and was now resting from His labors.� The last seventh day Sabbath like all the previous seventh day Sabbaths pointed directly to the cross where Christ alone did all the work that was necessary to save those who believe on Him.
Christ rose from the grave on a Sunday morning and the era of the Old Testament Sabbaths came to an end. The Old Testament ordinance commanding the keeping of seventh day Sabbaths ended.
God is instructing us that never again are we to observe the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week. Never again is man to observe a Sabbath day that has the same meaning that it had in the Old Testament. It is the end of the Sabbaths. All the Sabbaths that had come before now have come to an end. The burnt offerings, the blood sacrifices, the Passover, and all the other ceremonial laws were no longer to be observed because they were completed in Christ, and the seventh day Sabbath had been completed in Christ and was never again to be observed. This is why we read in Colossians 2:16: �Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.�
The new moons, the feast days, and the Old Testament Sabbaths, of which the seventh day Sabbath was the most prominent, were a shadow of Christ, Who was to come.
------------------
Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and withG1909 the house of Judah:
Heb 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
------------------------
A New Era of Sabbaths Begins
Notice what follows and how beautiful the language is: �In the end of the Sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the Sabbaths� (Matthew 28:1). What does that mean? It means that God has a new era of Sabbaths. It is Sunday morning; it is the dawning of a new era of Sabbaths. �As it began to dawn toward the first of the Sabbaths.� It is not just one Sabbath that is beginning. God is teaching that there is a whole series of Sabbaths to come. God is saying, by His own definition, that these new Sabbaths are each and every Sunday.
As we learned earlier, the third century church had grasped this principle fairly well. But theological writings from three or four hundred years ago or thereabouts showed that the church through the years had lost much of this understanding. Occasional references to Sunday as the Sabbath day were made; for example, the Westminster Confession refers to the Sunday Sabbath but invalid reasons are given. They indicate that in the New Testament it is called the Lord's Day. They also missed the point of the true nature of the Sunday Sabbath even though they came very close to truth. As we once again examine the original Greek manuscripts a little more carefully we can discover the truth God has given to us. God is saying that the Saturday during which Christ was in the tomb was the end of the Old Testament era of Sabbaths. The next day, which was Sunday, is the first Sabbath day of a new era of Sabbaths. From now on, each and every Sunday is the Sabbath.
The Sunday Sabbath Thoroughly Documented
One might conclude that we are building a very great principle on the teaching of one verse, Matthew 28:1. But when we continue to investigate this truth we find that it is thoroughly documented in the Bible. Mark 16:12 records: �And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.�
Again we must look carefully at the Greek and then we discover that this verse is actually saying, �And when the Sabbath was past . . . very early in the morning the first of the Sabbaths.� The teaching of this verse is identical to that of Matthew 28:1. The last Old Testament Sabbath is past because it is Sunday, the day Christ rises from the dead. This Sunday is the first of a new era of Sabbaths. For the second time God insists on a new era: it is the first of the Sabbaths. Now remember, this is Sunday, this is not Saturday. This is not the seventh day of the week, this is the first day of the week, and God insists this is the first of the Sabbaths. In Mark 16:9 we read: �Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.�
In this verse the word translated �first� is the Greek word �protos,� which more than a hundred times is translated �first.� The word translated �week� is the Greek word �Sabbath.� A correct translation of this verse is, �And rising early on the first sabbath, he appeared.� God is clearly indicating that the Sunday on which Christ arose is called the first Sabbath. Thus we have complete assurance that in Matthew 28:1 and in Mark 16:1, where the Greek word �mia� is translated �first,� that the word �first� is a correct translation. Because that first Sunday Sabbath was one of the many Sunday Sabbaths that would follow, it was one of the Sabbaths as well as being the first of the Sabbaths.
We very clearly see, therefore, that not only in Matthew 28:1 but also in Mark 16:1 and in Mark 16:9 God is emphasizing this new era of Sabbaths.
Furthermore, in Luke 23:56 we read: �They returned [that is, from where Christ had been buried], and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath [not the Sabbath Day], according to the commandment.�
Six days they were to work, and the seventh day they were to rest; they wanted to anoint the body of Jesus but they had to wait until the seventh day Sabbath was past. They had to stay in their homes and rest on this day.
Then in Luke 24:1 we read from the Greek manuscripts: �Now upon the first of the Sabbaths [not �week�], very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre.� This is exactly the same language we found in Matthew 28 and Mark 16. For the fourth time, God insists that the Sunday morning after the cross begins a new era of Sabbaths. It is the first of a whole series of Sabbaths that is going to come. It is amazing how God has locked this principle in and that we have overlooked it for so many years.
In John 19:42, God again speaks of the death of Christ, �There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.� This was Friday, when preparation was made for the Sabbath that was to come. Then in John 20:1, God records: �The first of the Sabbaths [not �week�] cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.� Do you see that? the first of the Sabbaths this is the way the original manuscripts were written.
What is God teaching us? He is teaching that the Old Testament Sabbaths ended at the cross when Jesus was in the tomb.He is teaching that a new era of Sabbath days began when Christ rose that Sunday morning. In Colossians 2 we read that the Old Testament Sabbath was a sign, a shadow. Colossians 2:1617: �Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbaths: which are a shadow of things to come.�
These verses are speaking of the Old Testament signs or ceremonies that were conducted in anticipation of the coming of Christ; they were a shadow of what was to come. These signs or shadows include the seventh day Sabbath. But as we are learning, this shadow or sign of the Sabbath continues into the New Testament until Christ, Who was typified by that Sabbath, is placed in the tomb. With that action, the sign the seventh day Sabbath is completely fulfilled in Christ and the sign is no longer to be observed.
The Passover Ends / The Lord's Supper Begins
The ending of the sign of the seventh day Sabbath is parallel to the disposition of other signs that were completed in Christ. For example, another important shadow of the Old Testament that pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ and the atonement is the Passover. When did Jesus end the era of the Passover? In the Upper Room. He ate the Passover. At the same meal, He instituted the Lord's Supper. The last Passover and the institution of the Lord's Supper are as close together as language can make them. So, too, we find in all four Gospels, the movement from the Old Testament Sabbath to the New Testament Sabbath is in very close proximity.
The Passover and the Lord's Supper have a lot of things in common: They both have to do with eating; they both have to do with the atonement; and yet they are vastly different. The Old Testament Passover was eaten by the whole family, whether the people were saved or not, whether they were elect or nonelect. All of the congregation were to eat of the Passover, which was a sign that indicated that in the coming Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, they could find salvation. They had to kill a lamb; its blood had to be shed. They had to physically eat of the lamb.
In the Lord's Supper, the whole family does not partake, only the believers do. If anyone who is not a true believer partakes of the Lord's Supper, he brings judgment upon himself. There is no blood shed, as they did in the Old Testament when they killed the lamb and ate of it. In the Lord's Supper, we have bread and wine or grape juice. It is a memorial service that looks back on the cross. We remember the Lord's death until He comes. It looks back and it also looks forward to the marriage feast of the bride and the Lamb when our salvation will be completed.
Thus, we have two signs an Old Testament sign and a New Testament sign and they are intimately related and yet they are quite different. At the cross, the atonement was accomplished and something dramatically changed; we have to relate to that by a change in the character of the sign.
Circumcision Ends / Baptism Begins
The same is true of the sign of circumcision. In the Old Testament, in a family in which the father believed, all the males were to be circumcised. It involved cutting off the skin of the reproductive organ, which pointed to the seed Who would come. It pointed to the fact that the blood of this seed Who is the Lord Jesus had to be shed; it pointed to the fact that their sins had to be cut off. To become saved required the circumcision of the fore skin of the believers' hearts.
In the New Testament, we are not to use circumcision in any way as a religious sign because it involves the shedding of blood. It would be a denial that the seed has come. So God introduced another sign to replace the sign of circumcision. The New Testament sign that is to be put on the family of believers is water baptism. So when Lydia was saved, all her house was baptized.
Again we discover that there are great similarities and great differences between the beforethecross sign of circumcision and the afterthecross sign of water baptism. One is an Old Testament sign that points to the coming of Christ and the other is a New Testament sign that looks back on the fact that Christ has come.
Saturday Sabbath Ends / Sunday Sabbath Begins
Likewise God teaches us and this is a huge principle there was an Old Testament Sabbath day that was rigorously kept in a certain way as a sign or shadow pointing to the Christ Who was to come. It was a sign that was to be observed by all believers. But now God has introduced a New Testament sign, a New Testament Sabbath day, that is to be observed by all New Testament believers. It is closely linked to the Old Testament Sabbath day and yet in many ways it has different principles.
Christ Himself Observed the Last Saturday Sabbath
Let us try to discover the change in the keeping of the Sunday Sabbath compared with the keeping of the Saturday Sabbath. On the last of the Old Testament Sabbath days, Christ was lying in the tomb. In His spirit essence, He was in heaven. We do not understand all the implications of this, but there was nothing active going on that day; it was the Sabbath day, it was a day of rest. God is rigorously applying that principle as Christ was resting in the tomb.
We read in Acts 2:2627: �Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.�
In His work of redemption He strictly observed the seventh day Sabbath as He rested in the grave. In all likelihood, this sheds light on the fact that His body did not decay in the tomb. Notice how Acts 2:26 relates to the following verse (27), which indicates Christ's body did not become corrupt in the tomb.
If His body had decayed in the tomb, it would have indicated that in His identification with believers, whom He had come to save, there was still some active work going on by Christ. But the Bible says �He rested,� His body did not become corrupt.
The importance of the Old Testament Sabbath is also seen dramatically as God the Creator rests from His labors of creation on the seventh day Sabbath.
It is obvious that the Saturday Sabbath of the Old Testament must have been tremendously important. After all, God Himself, both in creation and in the atonement observed that sign by resting from these activities on the seventh day. Since it was so dramatically important to Almighty God, it certainly must be dramatically important to all of mankind who are expressly commanded to rest on the seventh day Sabbath.
God Observed the Sunday Sabbath
On Sunday morning, the first of the Sunday Sabbaths, God observed that day as He did the work that is to be featured on that day. It is on that day that Christ rose from the grave. God Himself did the work of raising Christ from the grave on that Sabbath day. Thus, Christ completed the work required for our salvation on the New Testament Sabbath day. As we examine this work of Jesus of rising from the dead on this first Sabbath of the new era of Sabbaths, we obtain an indication of what we are to focus upon each Sunday. The focus should be on the work of raising people from the dead. That is, we are to be concerned with the preaching of the Gospel so that people might become saved.
Those who trust in Christ will experience the resurrection, which we experience when we become saved. How are we to experience salvation? Romans 10:1317 instructs us:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
In this instructive passage, we find that God links salvation to the preaching of the Gospel. Where and when is this Gospel to be preached? We can find our answer as we study the activity of the New Testament church.
The Sunday Sabbath The Time for the Congregation to Worship
In Acts 20:67, we read of the church at Troas gathering together on the first of the week to break bread. It was at that time that Paul preached to them, and he left the city the nextday to continue his travels. The phrase �first of the week� is the same in the Greek as that which we have been examining in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20:1. The Greek word that was incorrectly translated as the word �week� is �Sabbaths.� Thus, we could translate this phrase �first of the Sabbaths.� However, as we learned earlier, the Greek word �mia� that translates as the word �first� also can be correctly translated as �one.� [NOTE: �mia� is used in lieu of the cardinal �protei.� For comparison, see Mark 16:9, �protei.� In more than 50 New Testament verses �mia� is translated �one.�] In the four Gospels, as we have seen, the Sunday that Christ arose was one of the Sabbaths but more importantly it was the first of the Sabbaths. This was so because that Sunday was the first Sunday of the New Testament era of Sabbaths.
The Sunday upon which the church of Troas was meeting was not the first of the Sabbaths; it was one of the Sabbaths. Therefore Acts 20:7 should be translated �And upon one of the sabbaths.�
In the New Testament, God has organized the external body called the church. He has given us rules for the church; the church is not appointed by man, it is not a manmade organization. It is a divine organization, created by Christ going to the cross. He has laid out the qualifications for elders and deacons and said how they are to oversee the congregation. He has ordained that believers are not to forsake �the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching� (Hebrews 10:25), which means the congregation is to continue all the way to the end of time. He has given all kinds of rules concerning the New Testament church, and in Acts 20 He tells us when that church is to come together. When? On one of the Sabbaths. What Sabbath is this? The seventh day Sabbath? No. We read in Matthew 28 that it was the end of the Sabbaths, so what other Sabbath is there? The new era of Sabbaths, which calls for Sunday to be the Sabbath. This is why the church has been meeting together, since before the Bible was completed, on Sunday. Very correctly, they have been following the edict of the Bible. God has given us the New Testament Sabbath day so that we can gather together as a body of believers to break bread. We shall see that the phrase �to break bread� has to do with preaching.
Significantly, God instructs us that on this Sabbath Paul preached until midnight. This strongly implies that even as the seventh day Sabbath was to be observed as a 24hour period, so is the Sunday Sabbath to be a 24hour period.
Our first awareness of this Sunday Sabbath is in the four Gospels. In John 20 we discover that Jesus had risen while it was still dark. Since God's work of resurrection is entirely involved with the new Sunday Sabbath, we can see that the Sunday Sabbath is to begin while it is still dark, thus reinforcing the 24hour nature of the Sunday Sabbath.
The Work of the New Sabbath: Picking, Rubbing, and Eating Corn
Now that we have learned this tremendously important principle that God has declared Sunday to be the New Testament Sabbath, we can begin to understand some of the seemingly strange things that Jesus did and said in connection with the Sabbath. We will learn that these happenings point to the Sunday Sabbath.
In Matthew 12, we read of Jesus violating the seventh day Sabbath. God says in verse 1, �At that time Jesus went on the Sabbaths through the corn; and His disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.� The same event is recorded in Luke 6, where it adds that they plucked the ears of corn, rubbed the corn, and then ate of the corn. Returning to Matthew 12:2, �But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto Him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath.� Were they correct? They were absolutely correct insofar as the Old Testament Sabbath day was concerned. According to the Old Testament Sabbath, the disciples should have gone through the cornfield on Friday, the day before the seventh day Sabbath, and gathered the ears of corn. On Friday they should have rubbed them so that all they had to do was eat the corn on the Sabbath. According to the ten commandments, they had no business going through the cornfield and picking that corn on the Sabbath. The pharisees were correct. God had specifically commanded that in the wilderness, Israel was to gather twice as much manna on Friday so that there would be no gathering on the Saturday Sabbath.
The concern of the pharisees appears to be legitimate for another reason. If I can pick and rub an ear of corn on the Sabbath, why not do it also for a friend, and as long as I'm doing it, why not do it for a whole village? Why not bring a threshing machine and thresh all the corn or grain and harvest it on the Sabbath day? What is Jesus teaching by this strange action on the Sabbath?
We know that something dynamic is happening here. The shadow of the cross is becoming very brilliant. It is almost time for the new era, and Jesus is beginning to give the rules for the new Sabbath that He will institute because He is going to the cross. Even as Jesus introduced the Communion Supper before He went to the cross, so Jesus is beginning to teach rules concerning the New Testament Sabbath before He went to the cross. We know these rules relate to the new Sabbath because they are a distinct change from the Old Testament Sabbath rules.
We read in Matthew 12, verse 8, �For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.� Christ has a right to change things and these changes relate entirely to the cross. As Lord of the Sabbath, He has the right to make changes concerning the Sabbath.
Interestingly, in the account of this event recorded in Luke 6:1 we read: �And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.�
The phrase �the second sabbath after the first� has greatly puzzled theologians. Nothing in the context explains what is meant by this. But when we realize that Jesus is beginning to give us rules concerning the Sunday Sabbath, this phrase is easily understood. It is a warning instructing us that a Sabbath other than the first Sabbath should be kept in mind in understanding the spiritual meaning of Luke 6. The first Sabbath is the Old Testament seventh day Sabbath. The second Sabbath is the New Testament Sunday Sabbath. In this account of the picking of the corn, our Lord is teaching us concerning the focus of the Sunday Sabbath.
We will discover that even though Jesus had not yet gone to the cross, He was already giving instructions for the keeping of the Sunday Sabbath, which would become the Sabbath when Jesus arose from the grave. As we have already emphasized, that this was Jesus' plan of teaching is seen, for example, in the fact that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper before He went to the cross.
We will carefully study the accounts of this corn harvesting event so that we can understand how they apply to the new Sabbath that is to be observed each Sunday.
Harvesting and Eating Corn Equals Hearing and Studying God's Word
First of all, we know that picking and eating corn has nothing to do with the Gospel. We also know that everything in the Bible does relate to the Gospel. Therefore, the phrases that appear to have no relationship to the Gospel must be understood as parabolic or allegorical phrases. Simply stated, they are earthly stories with heavenly meanings.
What does corn or bread or anything that is eaten have to do with the Gospel? What is the spiritual meaning? Christ is the bread of life. When we see the word �corn,� or �wheat,� or grain or bread, it has to do with Christ or His Word, and we eat of that. To pick and eat corn means to have one's spiritual hunger satisfied; spiritually we should have a hunger for Christ and His Word. Where do we find that bread? In the Word of God. How are we to work to get that corn or that bread of life out of the Word of God? We are going to research the Scriptures; we are going to sit under the hearing of the Word.
Wonderfully, God has established His plan for picking, rubbing, and eating ears of corn: That is, His plan for us to hear and study the Word of God. God established the congregation, and we learned from Acts 20:67 that the congregation met together on one of the Sabbaths to break bread. That is, the congregation is to meet together on Sunday to hear the Word of God. Significantly, we find in the language of Acts 20:67 both the coming together of the congregation to break bread and the activity of Paul preaching. In the feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 6:3544), the bread that was broken typified the Word of God that is given to those who spiritually hunger after righteousness. The breaking of the bread by the church of Troas, as recorded in Acts 20:7, identifies with the preaching of the Word by Paul. Therefore, one of the chief activities of the believer on Sunday, the New Testament Sabbath, is to congregate together to study and hear the Word of God explained. Thus, God ties the picking, rubbing, and eating of corn on the Sabbath with the breaking of bread or the preaching of the Gospel on the Sabbath.
We have learned that the first activity identified withSunday, the New Testament Sabbath, is that of preaching the Word so that the congregation might experience the resurrection, even as Christ arose on the first of the Sabbaths of the New Testament era. It is also the day that should be especially set apart for the study of the Word of God.
The Work of the New Sabbath: Healing the Sick
In Luke 6:610 our Lord is establishing further principles to be observed in connection with the New Testament Sabbath. There we read:
And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched Him, whether He would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against Him. But He knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? And looking round about upon them all, He said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
The picking of corn by the disciples as recorded in Matthew 12 was a distinct violation of Old Testament Sabbath law, but Christ introduced this activity on the Sabbath because He was introducing a new Sabbath that would become effective immediately after the cross.
Let us recall what we saw in connection with the picking of corn on the Sabbath. It was called the second Sabbath after the first. We saw that this was a veiled reference to a new era of Sabbaths. Likewise, in connection with the healing of the man with the withered hand, God uses the phrase in Luke 6:6 �on another sabbath.� The word �another,� too, is surely a clue that points to another era of Sabbaths, and these new Sabbaths would have rules that are different from the Old Testament Sabbath rules.
Furthermore, since the record of the healing of the man with the withered hand follows the record of the picking of corn on the Sabbath, we can be quite certain that it, too, has to do with the new Sabbath. This will become clearer as we discover the spiritual meaning of the healing.
Healing the Sick Equals Sending forth the Gospel
Physical healing in itself has nothing to do with the Gospel. But we know that God used the physical conditions of disease, leprosy, blindness, and death to illustrate man's spiritual condition of being spiritually dead, a leper, blind, etc. Thus, the act of healing a man with a withered hand is a picture of or represents the act of someone becoming saved. So,too, Jesus on the Sabbath healed the blind man (John 9:114), the impotent man by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:116), the woman with the 18year spirit of infirmity (Luke 13:1116), and the man with the dropsy (Luke 14:14). Who spiritually has any of these afflictions? Anyone who is unsaved. Every unsaved person is lame, is spiritually dead, is blind, is a leper.
Luke 6 and these other records of healing on the Sabbath teach that the work of the believer on the New Testament Sabbath is to spread the Gospel so that the spiritually lame might be healed. In other words, the purpose of Sunday, the New Testament Sabbath, is first of all to make sure of our own salvation; second, to grow in sanctification as we study the Word; and third, to get on with the task of sharing the Gospel with others. When we gather together in congregational worship we should be preparing to go out and share the Gospel with others.
God Anticipated the New Sabbath on the First Day of Creation
God anticipated the work of the New Testament Sabbath in Genesis 1. On what day of the week did creation begin? The first day of creation was Sunday. What did God do on the first day of the week? What did He say? �Let there be light.� On the first Sunday, God worked to bring light into existence. Spiritually, to what does light refer? It can refer only to the Gospel. Jesus is the light of the world and the sending forth of the Gospel is the sending forth of that light into the world.
Whenever we share the Gospel, we bring the light into the world. In Genesis 1 God had already established this for the New Testament Sabbath when He said on the first day, �Let there be light.�
We have already discussed the fact that Christ arose from the grave on Sunday, the first of the New Testament Sabbaths. Thus, God is demonstrating by His actions the activities He expects for Sunday, the New Testament Sabbath. The activities include both the work of becoming raised from the dead (accomplished by the hearing of the Word), and the sending forth of the Gospel (let there be light). Amazingly, as we learned earlier in connection with the seventh day Sabbath, God Himself rigorously observed this day both in His work of creation as well as in His work of redemption. He rested on the seventh day Sabbath from His work of creation. He rested in connection with His work of redemption when His body rested in the tomb. God established the character of the New Testament Sabbath as He did the work of creating light on the first Sunday of creation and as He arose from the dead on the first Sunday after the cross.
The Bible has more to say about God's actions on Sunday, by which He instructs the New Testament believers concerning their conduct on Sunday.
God Pours Out the Holy Spirit on the New Sabbath
We are all acquainted with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit as this event is recorded in Acts 2. While it is not the purpose of this study to show this, the fact is that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is entirely related to God's program of evangelizing the world. The evidence of this is clearly seen in that 3,000 people from many different nations were saved that afternoon.
What day was this when the Holy Spirit was poured out? It was Pentecost, and Pentecost was the eighth Sunday after the cross. On the first Sunday, Jesus was resurrected. On the eighth Sunday, God began His work of resurrecting (saving) the peoples of the world. Thus, God in a third dramatic way points to the purpose of Sunday as a day to share the Gospel so that others might become saved.
In an interesting and significant way, God definitely focuses on the words �first� and �one.� Creation began not only on the first day of the week, it began on the first of the first days. Likewise, Christ not only arose on the first day of the week, but on the first Sunday of the New Testament era. Pentecost was not only on Sunday, it was the eighth Sunday. Because seven connotes completeness or perfection, the number eight becomes like the number one in that it is the first of another seven.
We learn from God's examples in creation and redemption that Sunday is the Sabbath, when we are to make sure of our own salvation and to go into all the world with the Gospel. But the Bible has more to say about the Sunday Sabbath.
The New Sabbath: A Time for Ministering
to Others in the Congregation
Jesus gives us another illustration of New Testament Sabbath activity in Matthew 12:11, where He records: �And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?�
To what could a sheep in a pit refer? Sheep surely refer to fellow believers. To be in a pit refers to being threatened by hell, and we are threatened by hell when we are church members who are still unsaved. Undoubtedly Jesus is admonishing believers to encourage and pray for others in the congregation and our own family members who are sheep that may have fallen into the pit.
We who remain faithful are to spiritually bring them out of the pit, so to speak, by patiently witnessing to them and being concerned with their salvation. The program of the Sunday Sabbath day not only concerns me and my salvation but also the salvation of others in the congregation who might not be saved, those who are weak Christians, and those who are troubled by their sins.
The New Sabbath: We Bring Our Offerings
God gives us further instruction concerning the Sunday Sabbath in I Corinthians 16:12: �Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.�
The phrase �upon the first day of the week� must becorrected to be more faithful to the context. The word �week� is the Greek word that can only be translated �Sabbaths.� The Greek word �mia� that has been translated �first� must be translated �one� rather than �first� for the same reason that it should have been translated �one� in Acts 20:7. The Greek word that has been translated �upon� (Greek �kata�) followed by a word of the accusative case, should be translated as a preposition of succession (throughout). [See Greek lexiconaboutSmith, page 232.] The phrase makes abundant sense and is altogether faithful to the immediate context as well as to the whole Bible if it is translated �throughout/every* one of the Sabbaths, let every one lay by him in store, as God has prospered him.� [* See John 21:25, Acts 5:42, Acts 8:3, Acts 14:23, etc., where �kata� is translated �every�.]
Thus, God is setting forth the principle that on each and every Sunday we are to bring our offerings. This is why throughout New Testament history the churches have received offerings at each Sunday worship service. Do you know of any church services that are held on Sunday where they do not pass the offering plate? They do it because it is commanded here. The church does that right. The congregation meets together, an offering is collected.
To summarize, we have learned that the purpose of meeting together on the Sabbath is to bring the Gospel so that those in the congregation who are unsaved might become saved. It is for the purpose of exhorting and assisting the weak Christians. It is for the purpose of rekindling the spiritual fires so that we are ready to go on with the task of bringing the Gospel.
The focus of the seventh day Sabbath was on rest. No work of any kind was to be done because it was pointing to the spiritual rest we have in Christ in that He did all the work required to save us. But the focus of the New Testament Sabbath is not on a cessation of physical labor; rather, the focus is on intense spiritual activity: worship, preaching, and teaching the Word of God, Christian fellowship, spiritual assistance to members of the congregation, and sending the Gospel into the world.
By God's mercy, He has given us a day with the command to use it for these spiritual activities. What a blessing this is! In our culture, we can work three days and have enough money to have food on the table for the week. We can work a couple more days and begin to save for a television or a new suit of clothes or a new pair of shoes or something else. However, throughout history, in most cultures and certainly in many cultures today, a man had to work six days a week from sunup to sundown to scratch out enough money to put food on the table. But when the Sabbath day rolls around on Sunday, the Christian has a change of activity, an entire change. He forgets about his Godgiven responsibility to earn a living for his family, and he concentrates all day on the spiritual, which God knows we all need so badly.
One might easily say, �In our day we listen to Family Radio six or seven days a week. Daily we are blessed by spiritual activity. In a real sense we are worshipping every day, so we do not have to pay much attention to the first day as the Sabbath.�This thinking is reasonable but it is not Biblical.
Who established the first day as the Sabbath day? God did. He has His own purposes and reasons for it. We must not think that because we go to a prayer meeting on a Wednesday night, and we have something else on Friday night, and we have a Bible study on Tuesday morning, and so on, and we listen to the �Open Forum,� that we do not have to worship and observe Sunday as the Sabbath. Christ has ordained it as the Sabbath. And what a blessing it is. It means that on Sunday, I do not have to mow my lawn. I should have mowed it. It is too long, and the neighbors are uncomfortable about the way I keep my yard, but I will wait until tomorrow.
Sunday is a day set aside that God wants me to use for spiritual activity. I went to church this morning to worship and fellowship with other believers. Wasn't it wonderful that I did not have to rush away to paint my house? I did not have to rush away to listen to a ball game. I am comfortable. I can visit and fellowship and look around for someone whom I may be able to assist spiritually. I can invite a few people over whom I would like to encourage, and we can have a cup of coffee together. Or maybe it has been a long time since I went to the nursing home. There are many lonely people there, and this is the day that I can go and visit them. God has given me Sunday for these activities. I haven't written to �Aunt Sue' for a long time. Maybe it's been a long time since I've written to someone who has been struggling, someone who needs a word of encouragement. I can sit down and write to that person and also to many others.
Can you see what God has done for us? God has given us a tremendous day. Now the moment that I start using that day to listen to the ball game or go on a picnic or paint my house, am I engaging in the kind of activity that God has ordained for that day? The answer is No. Absolutely Not.
You might say, �Wait a minute. I can paint my house, and at the same time I can meditate on the Scriptures.� Well, I can't. I don't know what kind of painter you are, but when I am painting, I am concerned that there are no runs and no holidays, no this or that. And I don't want paint all over my shirt. And that's where my mind is. Maybe you are a better painter than I am, but the fact is that I have no business engaging in a task or a job like that. Now it is true that if I come out of church and I have a flat tire, well, I am going to change my tire, of course. I have to get home. But while my wheel is off, I'm not going to get any ideas that now I can put a new set of brakes on. Do you see the difference?
In the measure that we steal from the Sabbath that God has given all of us, in that measure we deplete ourselves spiritually because we are going contrary to God's rules. We will never have God's blessings when we go contrary to God's rules. Show me a family where they are watching the ball game every Sunday afternoon and you cannot show me that that family is a real spiritual family you will not be able, this cannot be the way it is. The family that is desecrating the Sabbath in this way will be a family that is trying to live like the world just as much as they can and yet claim to be a Christian family. It doesnot compute; it will not work. God has ordained the first day as the Sabbath whether we like it or not. If we recognize this and observe it as the Sabbath, as God has ordained it to be observed, there can be nothing but spiritual blessing in our lives. Can we see how our family will be when we make that day the whole day, from midnight to midnight the Sabbath? Can we see that as the family and congregation plan spiritual activities in accordance with what the Bible teaches that they will experience rich spiritual blessings? Can we see what a powerful impact that this can have on our families? If we cannot see it, it is still a fact, because God has so declared it.
Sabbath and Rest ReExamined
When we examined God's usage of the word �Sabbath� in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, we discovered it also could be and indeed is translated �rest.� This is very understandable because the seventh day Sabbath focused entirely on rest. The rest God had in view was that of trusting in the Lord Jesus to do all the work of saving us. �Rest� and �Sabbath� were synonymous.
It is quite a different situation when we examine the word �Sabbath� as it is used in the New Testament. As we have indicated, the Greek words �Sabbaton� (the singular Greek ending, �omicron nu�) and �Sabbata� (the plural Greek ending �omega nu� or �alpha�) are transliterations of the Old Testament Hebrew word �Sabbath.� �Sabbaton� and �Sabbata� by God's careful design are Greek words and not Hebrew words. Therefore, while the Hebrew word for �Sabbath� is identical to a word for �rest,� the Greek words �Sabbaton� and �Sabbata� are never translated �rest.� The Greek words that are translated �rest� are always different words. Therefore, the idea of rest has nothing to do with the Sunday Sabbath. As we have seen, Sunday is a day for work to be done, intense spiritual work.
A Sabbath Rest
There is another Greek word that comes from a transliteration of the Hebrew �Sabbath� that distinctly conveys the idea of �rest.� It is the Greek word �Sabbatismos� that is found only in Hebrews 4:9, where we read, �There remaineth, therefore, a rest [Greek sabbatismos] to the people of God.� The word is entirely different from �Sabbaton� or �Sabbata� inasmuch as they are in the neuter gender while �Sabbatismos� is in the masculine gender. �Sabbatismos� is properly translated �rest� because of the immediate context in which it is found.
We can easily see why in this context God introduced the word �Sabbatismos,� a transliteration of the Hebrew word �Sabbath� that definitely means �rest.� The Book of Hebrews, more than any other New Testament book, shows that the Old Testament ceremonial laws were types and figures pointing to Christ and salvation in Him. In
--Did you know that your willingness to keep holy the true Sabbath day, which God made holy, directly affects whether or not you will be granted eternal life in the Kingdom of God?--
mine here
i definitely dont agree with that ..
ephesians 2:8-9 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
ya know some folks honor the sabbath on saturdays. and some folks like myself honor it on sundays.. which ones right ? im not so sure.. so i dont generally get into the discussion of which days right or not..
but with the opiginal posts saying that your salvation directly reflects which day you choose... i felt led to speak up a little bit..
exodus 31:14-15 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
theres a few vesres about the sabbath law.. and im wonderin why anyone who believes youll loose your salvation if you dont follow the laws of the sabbath doesnt go out put to death anyone who works on the sabbath like scripture says to do to follow the law..
you wont ever hear your preacher tell you to do so.. and i wont tell you to do so either.. and ill tell you why ..
matthew 12:10-13 10 And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"-that they might accuse Him.
11 Then He said to them, "What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." 13 Then He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.
luke 13:10-16 10 Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. 12 But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, "Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity." 13 And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, "There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day."
15 The Lord then answered him and said, "Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? 16 So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound-think of it-for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?"
luke 14:2-6 2 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"
4 But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. 5 Then He answered them, saying, "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" 6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.
so as we can see here in the verses above that JESUS in fact tells us we can do good works on the sabbath.. now why is it that we dont go out and put to death those folks that do work on the sabbath? the above verses are a part of it.. because JESUS shows us and tells us that its ok to do good works on the sabbath.. and HE tells them also examples where theyd been doin works on the sabbath.. right? ok but theres more ,what were the two greatest commandments that JESUS told them for us all to know?
matthew 22:37-40 37 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
so see folks one cant possibly do that and follow the second greatest commandment of all .. to love your neighbor as yourself.. and saturday or sunday im not possitive but i honor sunday as the day and i will have to say if my ox is in the mire i will get him out and i will do good works also ..and i imagine youd do the same..
I hope u did not take it this was in my own words cattleman
because I was placing this in to share what the site had a pamplet of on the web site. I am never stating anyone going to hell that isnt my authority or nature. So, just wanted to let u know that this can be read as I wrote this but, I copied and pasted it from a site and I am not teaching or believing it until I line it up with the scripture for myself.
What I do want to add is I dont agree that u will die and go to hell myself I just want to point this out. I am seeking answers online to what others believe by what they have been learned in scriptures and history that have been up dated or outdated and forgotten (maybe even hidden).
So, I wanted to share what it wrote. But , now the 4th July weekend is over and I can relax and state what I think.
The reason why I dont think u will go to hell is this reason when Jesus said he gave us a new commandment to love thy neighbor as thy self. The other is like unto it the 1st commandament love God with all ur heart ,soul, might and thy mindand these 2 hang all the law and the prophets.
this is in Mark or I or II Corinthians .(I dont have my scripture memorized or my bible at hand so, if it isnt in exact order) I will have to edit it later... and give u just exactly where it is. I just think that it would be nice to know the true Sabbath....I dont think or want anyone going to hell for it. Just a FYI Ok?
I am at work and I dont have the resourses to answer all the reasons that I learned on this. but, If you need more just ask but, I think u should get the point I didnt write none of what I posted.. it was on a website. Thanks tknchances
dear tkn, i didnt think you wrote that as you gave the link i believe..and it was like forever long hehe but just had to say i didnt agree with that point.. if my bible would of spelled it out as the first day GOD called sunday or monday id know for sure what the answer is hehe.. but it dont so i am interisted in hearin what folks believe the day is myself and why.. i know i have always been a sunday man.. others believe saturday is..
First Sunday was observed by the early Christians as the Lords day under Acts 15:21, often Biblical historians will point to Acts 20:7 or to Ignatius' Epistle to the Magnesians (Ignatius is mentioned in the Bible as the child who Christ put upon his knee).
Now as the early Christians were Jews, it is assured that they kept the Jewish customs including the observation of the Sabbath from Friday to Saturday nightfall, it is believed that this practice continued until the Temple of Herod was destroyed in 70 A.D. or when the City of Jerusalem was renamed to Aelia Capitolina in 135 A.D. However the early Christians traditionally met Sunday in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus, and the early observance of Sunday in place of the Sabbath is attested to patristic writtings of the late 1st to 2nd century. And while some continued the practice of the 7th day Sabbath, the Christian Council of Laodicea in 365 A.D. tried to put a stop to the practice; it is considered to be an early attempt by the early Christian church to distance itself from Judaism, which at the time was unpopular in the Roman Empire (Bar Kokhba revoult).
The 59 decrees of the Council of Laodicea part of the Post-Nicene Fathers collection is as such...
No 16: The Bible is to be read on the Sabbath.
No 29: Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath but must work that day and then if possible rest on the Lord's Day, any found to be Judaizers are anathema (excommunicated) from Christ.
So while the early Christian writers attest to the fact that Christians assembled on the first day of the week, citing the resurrection of Jesus as the reason for observing the Lord's Day, the writers are: Barnabas (100 A.D.), Ignatius of Antioch (107 A.D), Justin Martyr (145 A.D.), Bardaisan (154 A.D.), Irenaeus (178 A.D.) Tertullian (180 A.D.), Cyprian (200 A.D), Saint Victorinus (280 A.D.) and Eusebius of Caesarea (324 A.D.). As they said it was a day (Sunday) of fulfillment of the Jewish Shabbat which preceded it, an "Eight day" by which sin was overcome and death was conquered.
The Epistle of Barnabas uses Isaiah 1:13 to suggest that the "Eight day" marks the resurrection, and as such denotes the completion of God's work or saving mankind from sin.
So while the world at the time had Sunday as the first day of the week and was an average work day, that practice changed on March 7, 321, by Constantine (before being Emperor or Christian) under his Edict as such,
"On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cites rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bountry of heaven should be lost."
While some use this decree in support of using Saturday as the Sabbath over Sunday, the fact is the decree was in support of the worship of the Sun-God (Sol Invictus). And the decree did not apply to Christians or Jews as it was Roman civil law, and not an edict of the church. The main reason for the civil law is that the Jews were being persecuted for the Bar Kokhba revolt, also known as the second Jewish-Roman war, which never really ended; as traditionally the Pagans had also used Saturday as a day of rest and worship as it was the end of the week.
So while the early Christians distinguished the Sabbath (Saturday) and 'the Lord's Day' (Sunday), and both continue to play a special role for the faithful, the Divine Liturgy is still served on both Saturday and Sunday morning, the church did not allow strict fasting on those days, such as under Great Lent. The early Christians celebrated Saturday as the Sabbath because of the role in the history of salvation: it was a Saturday that Jesus "rested" in the tomb, making it also a commemoration of the departed; the Russians to this day continue the tradition of an observance of an all night Vigil on Saturday night until Sunday morning.
