Which day is the Sabbath and is it still valid today?

[Willa]

There are many arguments about which day is the Sabbath day and whether it is still valid or not today. Any opinions? I use the Bible KJV and only texts from the Bible must be provided please to prove your point.

The Sabbath day is from friday evening to saturday evening.   But Jesus is the true Sabbath.   When I got saved, I entered into His rest.  I don't need the sabbath day when I have Jesus.

So you also agree that the Sabbath is from Friday evening to Saturday evening. I do not understand how you can say Jesus is the true Sabbath. The Sabbath is God's rest. How can Jesus be God's rest? Jesus is God's son. If we need to rest on the Sabbath like God, then we should rest on the Saturday, right?

Jesus is also God. He also was our Creator, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They are one God.

Jesus rested from His work when He said "it is finished and died on the cross. He had obeyed our Father perfectly and He had kept all the commandments perfectly on our behalf.. He had paid for our sin on the cross and had put His righteousness on our account sheet. He had purchased us back from Satan with His blood. He also ratified the new covenant with His blood. The new covenant is all about what Jesus did for us, and not about anything we can do. By grace you have saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a GIFT of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 When we believe in Christ we trust Him and rely on Him.

When we turn from our sinful life to God for forgiveness, He gives us His own Spirit and His own life to live in us. We are born again.

He gives us new desires to want to live a life that brings Him praise. We are adopted into His family. No one has to keep the commandments to be saved. We want to keep them because we are already saved. God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Most Christians celebrate resurrection Sunday, First Fruits in the Jewish calandar and Easter Sunday in ours, and make Sunday our day of worship and rest for that reason. But there is nothing wrong in keeping Saturday. Paul spoke frequently of speaking to the Jews on Saturday mornings and speaking to the gentiles saturday afternoon and evening after sunset till midnight. Saturday evening was considered the first day to the Jews. He spoke of taking up an offering for the poor on the first day of the week when they were gathered together.

I hope this helps to clear up your confusion.

Willa

I Peter 3:18 For Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, That He might bring us to God, being PUT TO DEATH IN THE FLESH BUT MADE ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT, BY WHOM HE WENT AND PREACHED TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON, WHO FORMERLY WERE DISOBEDIENT----

Jesus Christ died according to His flesh, His human nature and was buried. But after commiting his Spirit into Father God's hands while on the cross, he was made alive in the Spirit and went to preach to the dead in prison --.

Eph. 4:8-10 When He ascended on high He LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE, and gave gifts to men. (Now this: He ascended---what does it mean but that He FIRST DESCENDED INTO THE LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.

Rom. 9:5 of whom are the fathers and FROM WHOM ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, CHRIST CAME, WHO IS OVER ALL, THE ETERNALY BLESSED GOD. AMEN

Col 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

God the Word dwelt in the human body of Jesus. He was 100% God in 100% man. HIS BODY DID SUFFER AND DIE. He was MADE ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT and preached to the dead. It is said that He preached the triumph of the Messiah over death and the disarming of satan's strongest weapon. We need no longer fear death, knowing that we, our souls, shall not die but shall always be with Him.

1 Cor. 15:54b-56 Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death where is your sting?

O Hades where is your victory?

The sting of death is sin, and THE STRENGTH OF SIN IS THE LAW. But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Blessings,

Willa

[Guest shiloh357]

I keep reading peoples posts saying we are not under obligation to keep the sabbath. But no one ever answered my question in an earlier post, which is... why would you not want to spend one day a week dedicated to lifting Him up in praise and worship, and seeking Him in prayer and in the word?

 

That question completely misses the point.  The point being argued by some is that we required as believers to keep THE Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week, not merely one day a week.   They are saying that we MUST keep the biblical Sabbath day.   To them, just honoring God by taking one day out of seven isn't good enough and doesn't fulfill the Sabbath day commandment.

 

I am, for my part, saying that you are not under an obligation to keep the seventh day of the week Sabbath.  If you want to, you are free to.  If you want to keep one day out of seven, you are free to do that, as well.  It's up to you.

 

  I rest on Sunday. That's the day I choose.  Others are free to choose a different day. So Cletus, you need to really read what's being argued and respond to those things.

[Macs Son]

A SUGGESTION

I believe answering the following questions may help us to get down to crush depth without imploding our boat.

I think the great macro question on the table for us to answer here is as follows:

Is the Sabbath still relevant to the Christian?

To do so we should first consider the following micro questions and derive our answers and discuss with much thought,

prayer and Scriptural evidences

1. Is the Sabbath still part of the 10 commandments?

• Of course it is still part of the 10 commandments. But it is unique in that it is the only one of the 10

commandments that was ONLY given to Israel, when you study out everything that the Bible says about the

Sabbath. - Shiloh

Good morning Shiloh,

Well you might say “of course” but realize that the question is not only directed solely at you Shiloh. There may be others that may disagree that desire to weigh in. That said I am glad that we are at least in agreement that there are not only 9 commandments but 10 though I recently just heard a pastor say the 4th commandment is no longer a commandment, basing that off a popular Christian author whom I’ll not name; at least until I’ve had a chance to verify what he said was true of his book.

But I do have a few comments off the top of my head related to the 2nd part of your statement where you said (I paraphrase) … it is the only one of the ten commandment that was exclusive to Israel, which you follow up with: “when you study out everything that the Bible says about the Sabbath

Relative to your unsubstantiated conjecture that the commandment was only made for Israel.

1.

We do need to consider the fact that the Lord stated that He “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”

As far as I’m aware the Jews alone are not exclusive to the benefits of God’s creation nor is the creation of man, for whom God made the Sabbath. So certainly your conjecture really doesn’t have much context or merit given the commandment itself.

Mark 2:27-28 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

2.

As far as “the Sabbath being made for man”, maybe Jesus should have further qualified that and said “Israeli

men”, eh? I think not. God created the 7th day for man and since He made us in His image He rested His works in us that we might care for His creation, which made the 6th day “very good”. The Sabbath, in its essence, is therefore for man; who is supposed to reflect the glory of God, and emulate Him. God created everything and gave dominion over all His works to man in six days and rested His governance and supervisional caring into man. We therefore were supposed to continue working and caring for His world as good stewards but remember the day of rest that we should set a day aside for our Creator and Lord. To me the emulation of God is common to man not to Israel, although as Jesus said,” salvation is of the Jews”, for it was given to them first and was by the bloodline of David.

3.

Shiloh can you actually demonstrate from the Bible to us, the inquisitive, that the 4th commandment “was ONLY given to Israel”, which you qualify without support? All kidding aside I am interested, as I’m sure others are, in your exegesis but so sorry if we don’t just take your word for it Shiloh, as this is not how debate works.

Have a great morning

In Christ, Pat

[Macs Son]

The ask was for relevancy on these questions to satisfy ourselves that we have covered all the bases, so I am open to

modifying the questions to the general audience as to whether these will suffice. But again, opinions may differ on

relevancy and your opinions may not be the only one in agreeing to a full frontal attack on the question at hand. I had

thought we bite these off 1 or2 at a time. I certainly did not cover any support for questions 3-6 and really only covered

question 1 in a fuller sense and question #2 in a partial sense (thanks to Matthew Henry). It is my belief we should cover

the questions serially unless there is great objection to this method so the detail do not become obfuscated as I’ve seen

on other threads. Obviously I’m open to discussion and suggestions if you or others believe there are other methods.

For now I will only answer your rebuttals to questions 1 and 2 but I will give justification as to why I think it’s a good idea

to also cover questions 3-6.

Again I think it best to target a full answer to question 1 before proceeding too much further down the line.

My 2nd question was

. 2

Did Jesus; death and resurrection abrograte the commandments of God & if so what are the verses that support this?

You answered

2. No Jesus' death on the cross did not abrogate the Sabbath. But Jesus' death on the cross also did not obligate Gentile

believers to keep the Sabbath day as a literal observance.

Please notice I did not ask if “Jesus, death and resurrection abrogate” “the Sabbath” but what I asked was if

they abrogated, “the commandments of God”. Rightly, if everyone is agreed that the Sabbath is indeed a

commandment, then one might think this is a moot point. It is not, however, since you yourself have put a qualifier on

the 4th commandment to say that God intended it strictly for Jews. We probably also may want to consider Messianic

Jewish Believers as well as Gentiles as part of your forthcoming exegesis. So then, while I do appreciate you providing

An early opinion, we still haven’t settled on the 1rst question yet but I do see you have a post that I have not read yet, so maybe you’ve already done that.

Matthew Henry, as I have indicated, like me is of the same opinion these commandments are not abrogated. You also weighed in on this as well as the others. You did, however miss my opening statement as I am not debating a Saturday Sabbath first. I think we need to see if we as Christians need to keep one of the seven days holy first. The Christian Sabbath has a long history of how it came to be on Sunday vs. Saturday but the day matters little if we don’t believe we should keep any day holy, does it? This is why my opening had this caveat:

We can certainly discuss later whether the Christian Sabbath should be Saturday or Sunday but I believe at this point

that is a secondary argument that is probably at least 1800 years old. It doesn’t really matter if Christians do not believe

we should keep a Day holy and honoring unto the Lord, resting from our own works and resting in Him. So let our first

task be to understand the relevancy of the Sabbath Day even if we disagree on what day that truly is; for after we

acheived depth on this we can tackle whether that is Saturday or Sunday or if the day really matters to the Lord or not.

After reading Matthew Henry’s commentary you stated:

It is humorous, that in an attempt to justify your Sabbath observance, you appeal to the words of a man who observed

Sunday and not the Seventh Day of the week.

Here is what Matthew Henry says about the Holy Spirit coming to earth on the Day of Pentecost (first day of the week):

"This feast of pentecost happened on the first day of the week, which was an additional honour put on that day, and

a confirmation of it to be the Christian sabbath, the day which the Lord hath made, to be a standing memorial in his

church of those two great blessings - the resurrection of Christ, and the pouring out of the Spirit, both on that day of the

week. This serves not only to justify us in observing that day under the style and title of the Lord's day, but to direct us

in the sanctifying of it to give God praise particularly for those two great blessings; every Lord's day in the year, I think,

there should be a full and particular notice taken in our prayers and praises of these two, as there is by some churches

of the one once a year, upon Easter-day, and of the other once a year, upon Whit-sunday. Oh! that we may do it with

suitable affections!" ~ Matthew Henry

So really Macs son, you need to be a little more careful in picking your sources.

Again, if you read my previous opening you would understand that I’m not focused on what day of the week or the history behind how the Christian Sabbath came to be just yet. It’s irrelevant if we don’t believe a day set aside for the Lord matters. I myself set aside Sunday and not Saturday but I have worshipped with Messianic believers who set aside Saturday. The history behind this is complex but will only obfuscate whether we celebrate a so called “Christian Sabbath” or the Sabbath Day specified by the 4th commandment.

As far as America not celebrating a Christian Sabbath why did most states have a ban on work for Sunday. These were called blue laws in my neck of the woods.

In Christ, Pat

[Guest shiloh357]

 

A SUGGESTION

I believe answering the following questions may help us to get down to crush depth without imploding our boat.

I think the great macro question on the table for us to answer here is as follows:

Is the Sabbath still relevant to the Christian?

To do so we should first consider the following micro questions and derive our answers and discuss with much thought,

prayer and Scriptural evidences

1. Is the Sabbath still part of the 10 commandments?

• Of course it is still part of the 10 commandments. But it is unique in that it is the only one of the 10

commandments that was ONLY given to Israel, when you study out everything that the Bible says about the

Sabbath. - Shiloh

Good morning Shiloh,

Well you might say “of course” but realize that the question is not only directed solely at you Shiloh. There may be others that may disagree that desire to weigh in.

 

Yep, but they didn't and evidently don't care to weigh in.

 

But I do have a few comments off the top of my head related to the 2nd part of your statement where you said (I paraphrase) … it is the only one of the ten commandment that was exclusive to Israel, which you follow up with: “when you study out everything that the Bible says about the Sabbath

Relative to your unsubstantiated conjecture that the commandment was only made for Israel.

 

It's not an unsubstantiated conjecture.  I have repeatedly asked you to provide ONE commandment made to Gentiles, Christan or not, obligating them to keep the Sabbath day.   So far you have been unable to provide one such commandment.   Your inability to provide such a commandment proves that my views isn't conjectural.  Why can't you muster up the courage to admit that you really can't support any notion that the Sabbath is commanded to the Church?

 

We do need to consider the fact that the Lord stated that He “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”

As far as I’m aware the Jews alone are not exclusive to the benefits of God’s creation nor is the creation of man, for whom God made the Sabbath. So certainly your conjecture really doesn’t have much context or merit given the commandment itself.

 

This is just more sloppy exegesis.  The Sabbath is a memorial of creation.  It establishes God as the creator of the universe.  But it is quite a leap to claim that this is evidence that Gentiles are expected to keep the Sabbath.   You still haven't got a commandment given to ONE Gentile anywhere in the Bible, making the Sabbath compulsory for him.

 

 

As far as “the Sabbath being made for man”, maybe Jesus should have further qualified that and said “Israeli

men”, eh? I think not. God created the 7th day for man and since He made us in His image He rested His works in us that we might care for His creation, which made the 6th day “very good”. The Sabbath, in its essence, is therefore for man; who is supposed to reflect the glory of God, and emulate Him. God created everything and gave dominion over all His works to man in six days and rested His governance and supervisional caring into man. We therefore were supposed to continue working and caring for His world as good stewards but remember the day of rest that we should set a day aside for our Creator and Lord. To me the emulation of God is common to man not to Israel, although as Jesus said,” salvation is of the Jews”, for it was given to them first and was by the bloodline of David.

 

The problem is that we have no record of man ever being commanded to keep the Sabbath.  The Sabbath day as a day of rest for mankind doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible until we get to the Mosaic Covenant.  And then the ONLY people God told to keep the Sabbath are the Children of Israel.   You still cannot provide ONE Scripture to say otherwise. 

 

You keep making the same claims, but you don't have one Scripture obligating a nonJew to Sabbath observance.  Still waiting on that verse from you, or an admittance that no such verse exists.

 

Shiloh can you actually demonstrate from the Bible to us, the inquisitive, that the 4th commandment “was ONLY given to Israel”, which you qualify without support?

 

I already have.  I have posted  ALL of the commandments given by God to those whom He expected.  But since you don't read what I have said in the past, here they are again:  The Sabbath, as a commandment is only given to Israel, in Exodus 20:8-11; 31:13-17; Lev. 23:3; Deut. 5:12-15. 

 

Those are all of the commandments in the Bible regarding Sabbath day observance.   Show me one place in the Bible where Gentiles are given a similar commandment.

 

All kidding aside I am interested, as I’m sure others are, in your exegesis but so sorry if we don’t just take your word for it Shiloh, as this is not how debate works.

 

I never asked you to take my word for it.  I asked you to support your claim about compulsory Gentile observance and you can't provide it, but expect me to take your word for it that they are required to keep it.   You are the one lacking any real biblical support and relying sloppy exegesis.

[Guest shiloh357]

The ask was for relevancy on these questions to satisfy ourselves that we have covered all the bases, so I am open to

modifying the questions to the general audience as to whether these will suffice. But again, opinions may differ on

relevancy and your opinions may not be the only one in agreeing to a full frontal attack on the question at hand. I had

thought we bite these off 1 or2 at a time. I certainly did not cover any support for questions 3-6 and really only covered

question 1 in a fuller sense and question #2 in a partial sense (thanks to Matthew Henry). It is my belief we should cover

the questions serially unless there is great objection to this method so the detail do not become obfuscated as I’ve seen

on other threads. Obviously I’m open to discussion and suggestions if you or others believe there are other methods.

For now I will only answer your rebuttals to questions 1 and 2 but I will give justification as to why I think it’s a good idea

to also cover questions 3-6.

Again I think it best to target a full answer to question 1 before proceeding too much further down the line.

My 2nd question was

. 2

Did Jesus; death and resurrection abrograte the commandments of God & if so what are the verses that support this?

You answered

 

2. No Jesus' death on the cross did not abrogate the Sabbath. But Jesus' death on the cross also did not obligate Gentile

believers to keep the Sabbath day as a literal observance.

Please notice I did not ask if “Jesus, death and resurrection abrogate” “the Sabbath” but what I asked was if

they abrogated, “the commandments of God”. Rightly, if everyone is agreed that the Sabbath is indeed a

commandment, then one might think this is a moot point. It is not, however, since you yourself have put a qualifier on

the 4th commandment to say that God intended it strictly for Jews. We probably also may want to consider Messianic

Jewish Believers as well as Gentiles as part of your forthcoming exegesis. So then, while I do appreciate you providing

An early opinion, we still haven’t settled on the 1rst question yet but I do see you have a post that I have not read yet, so maybe you’ve already done that.

Matthew Henry, as I have indicated, like me is of the same opinion these commandments are not abrogated. You also weighed in on this as well as the others. You did, however miss my opening statement as I am not debating a Saturday Sabbath first. I think we need to see if we as Christians need to keep one of the seven days holy first. The Christian Sabbath has a long history of how it came to be on Sunday vs. Saturday but the day matters little if we don’t believe we should keep any day holy, does it? This is why my opening had this caveat:

 

If you are telling Christians they MUST keep any certain day of the week, or that they MUST keep A  day of the week as a Sabbath day, you are going beyond what the Bible says to the Christan.

[Persuaded]

Genesis 2:3 (KJV)

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.

The US was founded on biblical principles, and by conviction and tradition most continued to observe a weekly day of rest. Church attendance was expected just to be seen as a civilized person, and stores were generally closed on Sundays. Many stated had laws to that effect, the "blue laws".

I wonder if it is a coincidence that as our nation distances itself from the last traces of Sunday rest, that we are simultaneously abolishing the smallest reference to God's creation? It seems that the two are inversely related- creation was broadly taught when Sunday rest was the norm, and as we have insisted on our Sunday liberty to do work, we have reaped the consequence of losing sight of God's creation. Clearly, both symptoms are a part of a bigger problem, but I can't help but see some hint of "I told you so" in Gen 2:3.

Is 1 Cor 10:23 relevant here?

1 Corinthians 10:23 (KJV)

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

[Macs Son]

Genesis 2:3 (KJV)

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.

The US was founded on biblical principles, and by conviction and tradition most continued to observe a weekly day of rest. Church attendance was expected just to be seen as a civilized person, and stores were generally closed on Sundays. Many stated had laws to that effect, the "blue laws".

I wonder if it is a coincidence that as our nation distances itself from the last traces of Sunday rest, that we are simultaneously abolishing the smallest reference to God's creation? It seems that the two are inversely related- creation was broadly taught when Sunday rest was the norm, and as we have insisted on our Sunday liberty to do work, we have reaped the consequence of losing sight of God's creation. Clearly, both symptoms are a part of a bigger problem, but I can't help but see some hint of "I told you so" in Gen 2:3.

Is 1 Cor 10:23 relevant here?

1 Corinthians 10:23 (KJV)

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

Yes, I believe there is a price we pay for neglecting the Sabbath - and as the church goes so does our power to influence our culture.

Almost the entire period of time between the Puritans landing at Plymouth Rock until well after we celebrated the nation's two hundred birthday the culture respected the Sabbath and most businesses were shutdown on what we used to call 'the Christian Sabbath'. Americans were taught to observe the day in their catechism and Sunday School classes but those days are over. Today the NFL is celebrated on Sunday not God's Word. Personally I think it is very sad and make n0o mistake that we arrived here by accident.

In Christ, Pat

[Macs Son]

......

My 2nd question was

. 2

Did Jesus; death and resurrection abrograte the commandments of God & if so what are the verses that support this?

You answered

2. No Jesus' death on the cross did not abrogate the Sabbath. But Jesus' death on the cross also did not obligate Gentile

believers to keep the Sabbath day as a literal observance.

Please notice I did not ask if “Jesus, death and resurrection abrogate” “the Sabbath” but what I asked was if

they abrogated, “the commandments of God”. Rightly, if everyone is agreed that the Sabbath is indeed a

commandment, then one might think this is a moot point. It is not, however, since you yourself have put a qualifier on

the 4th commandment to say that God intended it strictly for Jews. We probably also may want to consider Messianic

Jewish Believers as well as Gentiles as part of your forthcoming exegesis. So then, while I do appreciate you providing

An early opinion, we still haven’t settled on the 1rst question yet but I do see you have a post that I have not read yet, so maybe you’ve already done that.

Matthew Henry, as I have indicated, like me is of the same opinion these commandments are not abrogated. You also weighed in on this as well as the others. You did, however miss my opening statement as I am not debating a Saturday Sabbath first. I think we need to see if we as Christians need to keep one of the seven days holy first. The Christian Sabbath has a long history of how it came to be on Sunday vs. Saturday but the day matters little if we don’t believe we should keep any day holy, does it? This is why my opening had this caveat:

If you are telling Christians they MUST keep any certain day of the week, or that they MUST keep A  day of the week as a Sabbath day, you are going beyond what the Bible says to the Christan.

Again, I'm not telling anyone what to do. This thread was started by asking us what we think. I am merely trying to get to the root of what I believe the Bible has to say about us keeping the Sabbath by logically connecting Scripture in context. So we are only having a conversation based on Scripture to study the topic at hand and hopefully derive a conclusion.

In Christ, Pat

[Guest shiloh357]

 

Again, I'm not telling anyone what to do. This thread was started by asking us what we think. I am merely trying to get to the root of what I believe the Bible has to say about us keeping the Sabbath by logically connecting Scripture in context. So we are only having a conversation based on Scripture to study the topic at hand and hopefully derive a conclusion.

In Christ, Pat

 

Do you believe that Sabbath observance (regardless of which day) is compulsory for the Christian?  I have repeatedly said it is not compulsory and you have opposed me at every turn.   So you are sending a mixed message.  You say you are not telling us what to do, but you have opposed me when I have said that no such requirement exists in the New Covenant.

 

So a little clarity would be helpful.