Sabbath

This article is about the Christian day of rest. For the Sabbath in Judaism see Shabbat.
The Sabbath (Hebrew: שַׁבָּת‎ shabbat "the day to cease/rest") is a weekly religious day of rest as ordained by God in the Ten Commandments:

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:8-11)

Sabbath Law instituted at Creation

The day was already a holy day, sanctified by God following the Creation:

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (Genesis 2:2-3)

That the Sabbath was already known and observed as man's day of rest before it was "set in stone" in the Commandments is confirmed by events several weeks before God gave the Ten Commandments to the nation of Israel, when they first entered the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula. Within a matter of days the Israelites' food supplies, which were limited to all they could carry with them from Egypt, had been exhausted. They said to Moses: "Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger." (Exodus 16:3) However, God promised to send manna, a miraculous substance to nourish and sustain them, but He would provide it only for six days out of every seven. On the sixth day there would be twice as much as usual, but none on the seventh day. Moses explained that "Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none." (Exodus 16:260

God considered that the Sabbath observance was already His law: some of the Israelites disobeyed Moses and went out looking for manna on the seventh day "but they found none" (Exodus 16:27) God's Word regarding this disobedience, and that seventh-day Sabbath observance was already a commandment was unequivocal:

And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:28-29)

The importance of Sabbath observance to God

In Leviticus, God reaffirmed to Moses the sanctity of the seventh-day Sabbath:

Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. (Leviticus 23:3)

The prophet Isaiah said of the importance of the Sabbath as God's Word and Law:

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. (Isaiah 58:13-14)

Matthew, in his Olivet Prophecy, reaffirms that Christians at the Second Coming should still observe God's commanded seventh-day Sabbath and Isaiah prophesied that it will be observed afterwards.

The purpose of the Sabbath

On the Sabbath all members of a household were to rest from labor, including servants, guests and even animals. All were to "cease" from their normal, routine work, and should spend much of the Sabbath with other family members as a family or household. God's Law was not directed merely to the Israelites: it applied even to the "stranger that is within thy gates", "it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." Jesus Christ Himself pointed out that "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27) It was sanctified when mankind was made, with God creating Adam and Eve on the sixth day of Creation week and creating the Sabbath on the following day (Genesis 1:26-31; 2:1-3).

Immediately after repeating the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, God commanded the Israelites: "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

The Sabbath was a day for teaching and learning of God's wondrous acts and laws, and God's great miracles were to be remembered on this day. "Thus the spirit of the Sabbath was joy, refreshment and mercy, arising from remembrance of God's goodness as Creator and as the Deliverer from bondage. The Sabbath was a perpetual sign and covenant, and the holiness of the day is collected with the holiness of the people; "that ye may know that I am Jehovah that doth sanctify you." (Exodus 31:12-17; Ezekiel 20:12) Joy was the key-note Of their service. Nehemiah commanded the people, on a day holy to Jehovah Mourn not, nor weep: eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared. (Nehemiah 8:9-13)" This also shows that the Sabbath is a day to focus on charity to the less fortunate.

Seventh day

Many churches observe Sunday as their day of rest and worship, and many Christians erroneously assume that Sunday is therefore the Sabbath. However, Saturday is the seventh day of the week, and Sunday is the first day of the week. The seventh day according to God's calendar is, and always has been, the Sabbath day. Despite many modifications of calendars through the centuries, the seven-day weekly cycle has remained intact throughout history. The days of the week have always remained in their proper order, with Sunday as the first day of the week and Saturday as the seventh.

The Jewish people have observed this date for many millennia without interruption. When the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar in 1582 AD, ten days were deleted in order to bring the calendar in synchronism with the seasons. But the sequence of the days remained the same. Thus, 1582-OCT-4 (a Thursday) was followed by 1582-OCT-15 (a Friday), and the Sabbath of 1582-OCT-16 happened exactly 7 days after the previous Sabbath of OCT-9.

Even in the 21st century Judaism still observes the seventh-day as the Sabbath - from sunset (the end of the day) Friday until sunset on the end of Saturday. Some Christian denominations (usually referred to as Sabbatarians) still observe God's seventh-day Sabbath, but the majority were polluted by pagan Roman beliefs and the whims of the Roman church. The Roman religion of Mithraism observed Sunday as their day of religious observance. In 321 AD, while still a pagan sun-worshipper, the Emperor Constantine declared that Sunday was to be the day of rest throughout the Roman Empire:

On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities 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 gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

James Cardinal Gibbons, Catholic educator and archbishop of Baltimore in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was blunt about the change: "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... We must, therefore, conclude that the Scriptures alone cannot be a sufficient guide and rule of faith." (The Faith of Our Fathers, John Murphy Company, Baltimore, 1917, p. 89).

Jesus Christ, the apostles and Jewish and gentile members of the early Church alike observed the seventh-day Sabbath. This is the only day authorized in the Bible and specifically commanded by God Himself since the creation of Man.