There’s been much controversy in the church about whether or not Christians should observe the 7th day sábbath of scripture, or the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) & Protestant tradition of Sunday, or no specific day. RCC Archbishop James Gibbons wrote in The Faith of Our Fathers, 1876, p.89, “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.” A surprising admission!? Let’s see what the scriptures say about the 7th day.
The 7th day sabbath has its beginnings at Creation. The Holy Spirit and Christ, the Spirit and the Word, are the Creators (being the divine agents of Father God). ref Job.33:4, Ps.104:30, 33:6, Jn.1:3, Col.1:16. They are God, the God-kind, the “Us” of Ge.1:26. “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” God declared as “good” each of the first six days of Creation: Ge.1:4, 8 (LXX), 10, 12, 18, 21, 25. Then Ge.1:31, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Creation ends.
When Creation was finished, Christ ceased (shabáth Strongs h7673, verb). Ge.2:1-4 “By the 7th day God finished His work which He had done, and He ceased on the 7th day. Then God blessed the 7th day and sanctified it, because in it He ceased from all His work which He had created and made.” Although the first six days were all good, only the 7th Day did Christ bless and sanctify or make holy! This is the great prototype of the weekly 7th day sabbath; a temporary cessation/rest dedicated to God.
The 7th day sabbath is a sign which identifies God as the Creator of everything. No other day of the week so reflects God as Creator. By ceasing or resting on the 7th day, the sabbathkeeper witnesses that his God is the Creator God. We may choose to rest or worship God on other days too. But as Lord of the 7th day sabbath, at creation Christ ordained the 7th day as holy or sanctified/set apart, and no other day of the week. And throughout the Bible, Christ nowhere rescinded His 7th day as holy time!
“Sabbath” is a holy day/period of cessation from certain activities. JFB Commentary Ge.2:3 “The institution of the Sabbath is as old as creation.” Benson Commentary Ge.2:3 “God blessed the seventh day’. He conferred on it peculiar honor, and annexed to it special privileges above those granted to any other day; ‘and sanctified it’. That is, separated it from common use, and dedicated it to his own sacred service, that it should be accounted holy, and spent in his worship, and in other religious and holy duties. It appears evidently by this, that the observation of the sabbath was not first enjoined when the law [Mosaic] was given, but it was an ordinance of God from the creation of the world.” The 7th day sabbath long antedated Moses/Israel and giving the Decalogue.
An eternal law of God existed in the heavens. In 2Pe.2:4, Peter wrote of the “angels who sinned”. (cf. Jb.4:18) Where no law is, there is no transgression or sin (Ro.4:15). So a law existed which angels violated. 1Eno.99:2 spoke of those who transgress the “eternal law”. (Jude 1:14 refers to 1Enoch.) 1Eno.106:13-14 “Some angels sin and transgress the law.” Law & order exists in the heavenly realm.
The Book of Jubilees is dated 150 BC. Jub.2:30 “We [the angels of the presence and sanctification] kept Sabbath in the heavens before it was made known to any flesh to keep Sabbath on earth.” That indicates the sabbath day was observed in the heavenlies prior to Eden? Pulpit Commentary Ge.2:3 “We conclude that a 7th day sabbath must have been prescribed to man in Eden. Here was the 7th day sanctified, or instituted in the interests of holiness, proclaimed to be a holy day.”
After the Flood, in Ge.8:8-12 Noah sent out a dove from the ark at 7-day intervals. Barnes Notes Ge.8:10 “This points to the sacredness associated with the number arising from the hallowed character of the 7th day.” Matthew Henry Commentary Ge.8:12 “Having kept the sabbath with his little church, he expected special blessings from Heaven.” JFB Commentary “Seven days – a strong presumptive proof that Noah observed the Sabbath during his residence in the ark.” Pulpit Commentary “The frequent repetition of the number seven clearly points to the hebdómadal division of the week, and the institution of Sabbatic rest.” Ge.8:9 initially the dove Noah sent out could find no place of rest, so she returned to the ark for rest. Noah didn’t send out the dove arbitrarily; he inquired of the Holy Spirit. (Noah wasn’t Jewish. Ge.7:1-2 God also gave the gentile Noah knowledge of clean & unclean animals, long before Moses.)
The Hebrew term for “seven” (sheba/shibah h7651) occurs 370 times in the Old Testament (OT). It is “as the sacred full one; seven times”. Seven signifies completeness or divine perfection. For example: the seven days of Creation; the 7th day sabbath; Re.1:4 the sevenfold Spirit (or seven spirits) at God’s throne; Zec.4:1-2 the golden lampstand has seven lamps & seven pipes; Job.42:8 friends of the patriarch Job were to offer seven bulls & seven rams to the Lord; etc. Seven is God’s number, so to speak.
God said in Ge.26:5, “Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, My laws”. (cf. De.11:1) The patriarch Abraham, a gentile/non-Jew, obeyed God’s (eternal) law centuries before there was a codified Mosaic law! (see the topic “Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?”.) Henry Commentary Ge.2:1 “Sabbaths are as ancient as the world; and I see no reason to doubt that the Sabbath…was religiously observed by the people of God throughout the patriarchal age.” Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Joseph H. Hertz, Authorized Daily Prayer Book, p.579 “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. The Patriarchs are often represented as having observed the Sabbath.” Abraham was very obedient. The Lord even visited him in Ge.18! Ge.18:17 Christ didn’t hide what He was doing from Abraham. It’s unlikely that Christ left Abraham in ignorance of His holy time that had come and gone every 7th day since Creation! Ellicott Commentary Ex.16:23: “Much can be said in favor of the primeval institution of the Sabbath, and of its having been known to the family of Abraham.”
God promised Abraham, Ge.22:16. “By Myself I have sworn,’ declares the Lord. ‘Indeed I will greatly bless you and multiply your seed.” The term for “sworn/oath” is shabá h7650, occurring 180 times in the OT. It means “to swear, to seven oneself or bind oneself by seven things.” It’s the root of the term for seven h7651. When God (or anyone) made a solemn oath, He ‘sevened Himself’. (He.6:13 “When God made His promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself.”) Is.45:23 “I have sworn [h7650] by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth. That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear [h7650] allegiance.” The Lord and all humanity ‘seven themselves or bind themselves by seven things’. It’s total. Another example is Ps.89:49. “Thy lovingkindness O Lord, which You did swear [h7650] to David in Thy faithfulness.” We can see the concept of seven and to seven oneself by an oath goes beyond which day we should attend church.
Christ the Lord is the God/Rock of ancient Israel (cf. De.32:4, 18 & 1Co.10:4; Is.6:1-5 & Jn.12:41-44). Unlike the earlier patriarchs, the Israelites became slaves in Egypt (e.g. Ex.6:5-7, De.5:15); not resting on the 7th day. According to the supposed Book of Jasher (ref Josh.10:13, 2Sm.1:18), the Pharaoh of Moses’ youth did decree sabbath rest for the Israelites. Jash.70:47 “Thus says the king, ‘For six days you shall do all your work and labor, but on the 7th day you shall rest…as the king and Moses the son of Bathia have commanded.” But the Pharaoh/king of 60 years later said to Moses regarding the Israelites, Ex.5:5, 9 “You would have them cease [shabath h7673] from their labors….Let the labor be heavier”. So any sabbath rest allowed the Israelites was rescinded, no longer observed there by that generation.
Christ freed them and showed them clearly which day was the 7th, His sabbath. In Ex.16 the Israelites are no longer slaves, and Christ provides them manna in the wilderness based on His 7th day cessation. Ex.16:22-30 “This is what the Lord meant, tomorrow is a holy sabbath [shabáwth h7676] to the Lord.” The Hebrew noun shabáwth appears over 100 times in the OT; Ex.16:23 is the first time. It’s from the root verb shabáth h7673 to cease, seen in Ge.2:2 at Creation. “That’s what the Lord meant” back in Ge.2:2 (which Moses also wrote), though as slaves the Israelites were denied (sabbath) rest. Ex.16:4, 28 the 7th day sabbath had been a law of God! God gave them daily manna Sunday–Thursday and a double portion on Friday, so they wouldn’t need to gather any manna on the 7th day Saturday. Ex.16:30 so the people ceased [h7673] gathering food on the 7th day. This went on week after week for 40 years. A total of 12,000 miracle feedings proved to them conclusively which day was the 7th! And it wasn’t any one day out of seven! Christ was specific.
Adam Clarke Commentary Ex.16:23 “There is nothing either in the text or context that seems to intimate that the Sabbath was now first given to the Israelites.” Ellicott Commentary “During the Egyptian oppression the continued observance would have been impossible.” Catholic Encyclopedia XIII “The Sabbath is first met within connexion [sic] with the fall of the manna; but it there appears to be an institution already well-known to the Israelites.” Benson Commentary “Here is a plain intimation of the observing a 7th day sabbath, not only before the giving of the law upon mount Sinai, but before the bringing of Israel out of Egypt, and therefore from the beginning.” Significantly, Ex.16 predates the giving of the Law.
Christ gave to Israel the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments so-called. Ex.20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath [h7676] day to keep it holy. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, and rested [h5117 núwach] on the 7th day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” The 7th day is God’s holy time, unlike any other day ordained by men. Poole Commentary Ge.2:3 “If we compare this place with Ex.20:8-11 we shall find that Moses there speaks of God’s blessing and sanctifying of the sabbath, not as an action then first done, but as that which God had done formerly at the creation of the world.” The sabbath wasn’t created in 1500 BC at Mt. Sinai; ancient Israel was to “remember” it. The 7th day sabbath was codified in the law of Ex.20:8-11, but had existed previously, as commentaries indicate. Poole Commentary Ex.20:8 “The word ‘remember’ here is very emphatical; it reminds us of a formal delivery of the substance of this command, Ge.2:3.” The 7th day sabbath is a creation ordinance. The 7th day was the first thing God made holy! (I’m not 7th Day Adventist.)
The 7th day sabbath is Saturday, both traditionally and presently. Over 100 languages use a form of the word sabbath for Saturday! e.g: in Arabic Saturday is Shabet, in Bulgarian Sabota, Croatian Subota, Czech Sobota, Indonesian Sabtu, Italian Sabato, Polish Sobota, Portuguese Sabado, Romanian Sambata, Russian Subbota, Serbian Subota, Spanish Sabado (literally, “the sabbath”), Greek Savvato. And the modern Greek word for Friday is Paraskevi, meaning literally “to prepare”. The Bible preparation day preceded the sabbath rest (Ex.16:23). cf. Mk.15:42 “It was the preparation day, that is, the day before the sabbath.” In the Bible koiné Greek, the term for “preparation” was paraskeué g3904…which is their word for Friday in today’s Greek! Circa 200 AD the Roman historian “Dio Cassio speaks of the Jews having dedicated to their God the day called the day of Saturn”, heathen reckoning. So it is clear…when Jesus walked the earth the sabbath day was Saturday! (see the topic “Sabbath Day Became Sunday in Rome”, for man’s steps in the transition from Saturday to the traditional Sunday.)
Jesus never sinned. Therefore, He kept the 7th day sabbath (cf. Lk.4:16). Christ said in Ex.31:16-17, “Celebrate the sabbath as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, on the 7th day He ceased [h7673] and was refreshed.” Christ was refreshed. For man, the 7th day is a time of refreshing from the physical/mental demands and concerns of the workweek…perpetually week after week. The 7th day is sanctified time devoted to God.
Christ’s new covenant is with Israel. Je.31:31 “Behold’, says the Lord, ‘I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah.” Gentiles may share in it, according to Paul (Ro.11:13-19).
Josephus Against Apion 2:40 “There is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, where our custom of resting on the 7th day has not come!” Philo On The Creation (89) “The 7th…that day is a festival of all the earth; a day which alone it is the right to call the day of festival for all people, and the birthday of the world.” The 7th day rest time is universal from Ge.2:3! Theóphilus bishop of Antioch, 175 AD To Autólycus 2:12 “The 7th day, which all men acknowledge.”
Jesus said in Mk.2:27-28, “The sabbath [sábbaton g4521, Greek] was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”. Man was made on the 6th day, prior to the sabbath being instituted for man on the 7th. Christ Himself as God & Creator made the sabbath day (and He was refreshed), and thereby He is Lord of it. v.28 “Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath.” The Son of Man also has dominion over what pertains to man. Jesus said the sabbath was made for man/ánthropos/humanity. (Though Christ was refreshed, God doesn’t grow weary, Is.40:28.) Jesus didn’t say the sabbath was made just for Israel or the Jews! Jonathan Edwards Sermon XIII “It is unreasonable to suppose that He hallowed it only with respect to the Jews, a nation which rose up above 2,000 years after [creation].” After Adam the human was created on the 6th day, he rested (with Christ) on the 7th. It wouldn’t make sense to think that Christ made the 7th day sabbath for man, but then delayed thousands of years before He gave/revealed it to man! Family New Testament Notes Mk.2:27 “As the Sabbath was made for the whole human race, they have a right to its rest & privileges.” The sabbath day is a universal blessing.
By the 1st century, the Jews had devised a traditional code which had 39 categories (plus itemization) of prohibitions for the sabbath day; as if man was made for the sabbath! These were a man-made burden. But Jesus said the sabbath was made for man, not vice versa! Matthew Henry Commentary Mk.2:28 “The sabbath is a sacred and Divine institution; a privilege and benefit, not a task and drudgery.”
Again, the sabbath is a holy day/period of cessation from certain activities. It’s not a ‘work’. Le.23:3 it’s a holy assembly. It’s not for legal striving or burdensome do’s & don’ts. However, a level of faith is necessary to believe and know that Christ will provide our daily bread/manna/needs on the 7th day, while we rest from work.
After Israel didn’t gather any manna on the 7th day for 40 years, the younger generation knew without a doubt which day of the week is God’s sabbath! So in De.5 when the Decalogue was repeated, there’s no admonition to “remember” it (unlike Ex.20:8 earlier). De.5:12-15 “Keep the sabbath day. Six days shall you labor. But the 7th day is the sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or daughter or your male or female servant or your ox or donkey or your sojourner; so that your male and female servant may rest as well as you.” They’re to recollect they’d been slaves.
De.5:12-15 is quite revealing. Mankind is expected to work, caring for his own and for the earth (Ge.2:15). Also this passage shows that the sabbath is a moral command, not just ceremonial! Male & female servants, our employees, temporary sojourners…they need rest too. There’s an equality in sabbath rest. Allowing others to rest relates to loving our neighbor as yourself. Work animals need rest. It’s not just oxen & donkeys belonging to Jews that need rest! All peoples’ work animals need rest…all-inclusive. And work animals don’t just ‘rest in Christ’ either. The sabbath is an enduring moral principle, to allow those under our charge to have rest. Christ the Creator knew His creatures require rest. It’s a physical need.
The Decalogue of Ex.20 & De.5 contains ten points of obedience; the 7th day sabbath is one. Others are: the command to honor our father & mother, and prohibitions against idolatry, murder, theft, etc. Christ’s 7th day cessation is seen at Creation, before other points. It’s strange to hear people claim the sabbath day ended at Jesus’ cross, but the other points are still in effect. No one says the cross freed us to dishonor our parents, or commit murder or theft, for example. Yet the church says we’re ‘free’ to work on the 7th day. Why this inconsistency? Who gave man the prerogative to change God’s holy time (as if that’s even possible)…was it Paul, Christian gentiles, the RCC, some other man?
Again, see the topic “Sabbath Day Became Sunday in Rome”. I’ll close with The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, v.1, Sermon 25. “The moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of His coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken. Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages.” The 7th day sabbath is part of it.
We’ll explore the sabbath issue further in “Sabbath 7th Day (2)”.
Bible Topic Exposition 