Christians and the Sabbath
As many conversations surrounding the matter of the law typically, though not always, involve defending or abolishing the keeping of the Sabbath, it is worth noting here a few key points, sourced in verses and accompanied by the footnotes of the Recovery Version.
At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath through the grainfields. And His disciples becamse hungry and began to pick ears of grain and eat. But the Pharisees, seeing this, said to Him, Behold, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. But He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, and those who were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and they ate the bread of the Presence, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him ,except for the priests only? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you knew what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:1-8
The footnotes for this set of verses present a clear explanation of these verses and the New Testament view, according to Jesus, of the Sabbath and our attitude towards it (and the rest of the law, for that matter).
One should note how the Lord dealt with the Pharisees’ condemnation regarding the Sabbath. Firstly, he referenced a portion in the Scriptures where a law was broken, but the offenders were held guiltless. This should signal to the reader that an exception has been made, or, in other words, a way of handling a situation different to the normal procedure of handling it is involved. A difference is being presented; something new, out of the ordinary, happened in the scriptures, and this new situation should be considered in light of that previous occurence. This is a change.
Second, note the type of law the Lord referenced in dealing with this accusation. One the one hand, the law that was broken in the Lord’s reference was not among the Ten Commandments, but rather a law concerning the temple. Here we do not find that the Lord separates the law into two categories or puts them on two different levels. For all intents and purposes, the Lord here makes these two laws—the law of the Sabbath and the law of the Shewbread—of equal footing. He could have easily used a reference to David’s striking down of any of the “ten thousands (1 Samuel 18:7),” and shown he was guiltless in breaking the sixth commandment, “You shall not kill (Exodus 20:13).” Indeed, the Lord never makes such a distinction in the New Testament between the Ten Commandments and rest of the law, for even when asked which of the commandments was the greatest (Matthew 22:36), or the first (Mark 12:28), He cites verses that are not part of the Ten Commandments. To separate the two for the purpose of applying them, and applying other verses to them, to satisfy our systematic theology, is to go beyond where the Lord Himself has gone in the Scriptures.
Now, regarding the interpretation of the Lord’s application of David’s case to His own, there are a couple of main points. For one, the Lord gives the reason David and those with him were held guiltless when unlawfully eating the bread of the Presence. David’s time represents the turning of the age of the priesthood, in which the priests had the highest authority among God’s people (Numbers 27:21-22) to the age of the kingship, where the priests had to submit to the kings (1 Samuel 2:35-36). He therefore had the highest deputy authority from God in that land, so the priest submitted to him and gave him and his followers the bread of the Presence, and he was guiltless.
Similarly, Christ, being the real David, represents a change from the age of law to the age of grace (Luke 16:16). Furthermore, He is “greater than the temple,” and is “Lord of the Sabbath.” As the followers of David were guiltless as long as they were with David, so the Lord’s disciples could pick ears of grain and do what is not lawful on the Sabbath because they were with Him and were under Him. Because He is the Lord of the Sabbath, whatever He does on the Sabbath is right. As long as we remain with Him, we are also right, as He is right. More on this later.
Here the Lord also reveals God’s attitude toward man, in the sense of taking care of man’s needs, through this passage. The religious Pharisees always cared more for laws and traditions rather than caring for people. Throughout the scriptures, God consistently reveals He holds the opposite view (Matthew 12:12, Mark 2:27). Therefore He says, “…The Sabbath came into being for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Is this our view of the Sabbath? Or, what is our view of the Sabbath?
Now we should consider Paul’s view on the keeping of days under the New Covenant:
One judges one day above another; another judges every day alike. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind. He who regards that day, regards it to the Lord; and he who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not eat, does not eat to the Lord, and he give thanks to God.
Romans 14:5-6
Let no one therefore judge you in eating and in drinking or in respect of a feast or of a new moon or of the Sabbath, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17
But now having come to know God, or rather having been known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and poor elements, to which you desire to be enslaved yet again? You observe days and months and seasons and years.
Galatians 4:9-10
Most readers would gather from these and other similar verses that the matter of keeping days, including the weekly Sabbath, though ordained by God in the Old Covenant, is no longer binding on believers under the New Covenant. Nevertheless, as shown in Romans 14, he does not consider it wrong if those “weak in faith” want to continue to keep certain days and avoid certain foods. On the contrary, we who do not fall under this category ought to receive, as Christ has received them.
The jist of the Sabbatarian defense of Sabbath keeping in these verses is to say that they do not apply to the weekly Sabbath given in the fourth commandment, but rather only to the other ceremonial Sabbaths ordained by the Lord in the so-called Mosaic law. Here is an analysis of these verses from the Biblical Research Institute of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Also, here is a shorter summary of Adventist teaching on these verses, given by a well-known preacher (see the transcript of the video).
From the former article, the first real argument of defense presented is, in essence, that we should treat the fourth commandment the same way we would treat any other commandment, and not say, “you can treat that commandment as you please; it really makes no difference whether you keep it or not; please yourselves.” Firstly, this is fine; the entire law convicts man and condemns him to death all the same, since “every man who becomes circumcised… is a debtor to do the whole law (Galatians 5:3),” and “whoever keeps the whole law yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all (James 2:10).” The only way out of this is death (Romans 6:23, 7:2), and the only way out of death is resurrection (Acts 2:24).
The second real argument made is that Paul could not have been referring to the weekly Sabbath because he himself kept the Sabbath, and could not have been “reckoned among the ‘weak’“:
And according to his custom Paul went in to them, and on three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures.
Acts 17:2
And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and according to His custom He entered on the Sabbath day into the synagogue and stood up to read.
Luke 4:16
Addressing with the latter reference first, it is not strange to say that Jesus kept the Sabbath while on the earth, for according to His humanity He was born a Jew under the law, which He came to fulfill (Matthew 5:18). Regarding the former, however, concluding that Paul kept the Sabbath from this and similar verses is to draw one’s own conclusions from what the Word does not explicitly state. What the Word does reveal is that Paul frequently went to the Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath for the purpose of proclaiming the gospel to the Jews:
And according to his custom Paul went in to them, and on three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, opening and setting before them that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, This is the Christ, the Jesus whom I announce to you.
Acts 17:2-3
And the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away during the night to Berea, who, when they arrived, went off into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these people were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Acts 17:10
And they passed through from Perga and arrived at Pisidian Antioch. And they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down… And Paul, rising up and motioning with his hand, said, Men of Israel and those who fear God, listen.
Acts 13:14, 15b
And when they were in Salamis, they announced the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they also had John as their attendant.
Acts 13:5
Regarding the matter of being weak, it is unclear what would make one weak for considering one day above another, and another not weak for considering every day alike, except for one day. Again, in the argument given, assumptions are made from what is not stated. The word “weak” in a similar context is also stated in Galations:
But now having come to know God, or rather having been known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and poor elements, to which you desire to be enslaved yet again? You observe days and months and seasons and years.
Galatians 4:9-10
Here the matter of observing days is again associated with “weak and poor elements”; so then, what exactly would make observing one day week, and another day, not weak? The argument is ambiguous, and ambiguous because it is not supported. Indeed, every time the Sabbath is not mentioned in the New Testament, it is argued by legalists that it is implied, or in this case, that the author “is taking for granted certain things which ought never to be disputed.” This, however, does not align with how the Lord treated the matter of the Sabbath, as detailed above.
According to the transcript from the Amazing Facts site, in addition to making the same argument regarding the Jewish days, the preacher states it would be “inconsistent” for God to tell Moses that “someone should be stoned for breaking the Sabbath in one part of the Bible, and then you go to another part of the Bible and He says, ‘Well, if you want to keep it, go ahead, if you don’t, that’s up to you.‘” Nevertheless, the same argument could be made for God’s laws regarding abstaining from certain foods (Acts 10:9-15). If one takes into account every instance in which God changed the way He chose to deal with certain situations, it becomes clear that this is argument is simply another instance of someone constructing logic in order to make matters consistent, according to him.
Understandably, the predicament of the Sabbath keeper is one of being boxed in by constructed logic. If we throw out the fourth commandment, we need to throw out the moral law included in the remaining nine. Conversely, if we are to keep the moral law, we must also keep the fourth commandment, ever so neatly separated with the nine from the rest of the law. This line of thinking is a product of the limitation and narrowness of human logic, and does not take into account the entire Scriptures.
It is made obvious by the Lord’s word in Matthew 5:17-48 that He did not remove, nor intend to remove in the future, the requirements of God’s moral law. On the contrary, He reveals the Old Testament law as being lower than the standard that should be held by New Testament believers, and gave them an expansion of sorts to the former commandments:
For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
Matthew 5:20
You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48
In giving this word, He uplifted the standard of righteousness of the old commandments to a standard that only He Himself could fulfill, as evidenced by the latter verse reference.
Thankfully, we do have a summary of sorts of the requirements made of us by God in the New Testament:
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 22:36-40
This takes care of the moral law in the New Testament. What then is our requirement regarding the Sabbath in the New Testament? We need to tap into the spirit of Matthew 12:1-8. The Lord’s main point in His word to the Pharisees there was that as long as His disciples were with Him, they were not breaking the Sabbath. As long as we remain with our Lord, who is Lord of the Sabbath and practically to us today is the Spirit, at all times, we will by no means profane the Sabbath:
But I say, Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16
And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17
The New Covenant requirement is higher, fuller, and more glorious. It is a requirement that we maintain constant oneness and fellowship with the Lord of the Sabbath, and do nothing apart from Him. We are required to lose our (soul) life, deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. We are required to die to ourselves that we might live to Him. This will cost us not merely one day of the week, but every day for the rest of our lives—even eternity.
In such a life and living, we find true rest from the yoke of slavery, the Sabbath that remains for Israel. Conversely, outside of this rest, we at most have a shadow of the rest God intends for us. What is this rest? On the negative side, it is a rest from all our struggling and striving to keep a law we do not possess the ability to keep, being devoid of a life that is subject to God, consumed with self and sin; it is a rest from the condemnation of the law, which was against us, we being in a condition that was contrary to the law of God, and deserving of nothing but death and burial, under God’s righteous requirement. On the positive side, it is a rest in all that God in Christ has accomplished for us through His incarnation and perfect human living, allowing Him to empathize with our weakness and tempation (Hebrews 4:15) (He knows our situation!); through his crucifixion, in bearing God’s righteous judgment on our behalf, paying the price God required of us, and dealing with God’s enemy, who has devoured us all our lives; in His resurrection from the dead, having broken through the bonds of death, having the keys of death and of Hades, not being able to be held by them; and in His ascension, being exalted over all things and having bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name, both in heaven and on earth.
In such a One is true rest, the rest God has made for us; outside of such a One, even for a moment, we do not have rest.
Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke up on you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30
For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death. For that which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
Romans 8:2-4
- * Version unknown or undeclared by original author.
All verse references are taken from the Holy Bible Recovery Version, published by Living Stream Ministry, unless otherwise noted.
