A (Brief) Defense of the Sabbath
The Creation Ordinance & The Day Change
Introduction
I can’t think of any passage of Scripture more unpopular among evangelicals today than the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, especially in our conversations about discipleship.
When I’m crushed by the weight of these commands and driven to Christ, who perfectly fulfilled their requirements, I run back to them as the guide for my living as I walk in union with the Lord Jesus. I often say: “When I want to know how to please the One who saved me, don’t give me more ‘disciplines’; give me the Ten Commandments.”
However, embedded in these commandments, in the same list as the sins of adultery and murder, we do find a discipline that should regularly define followers of Christ:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Exodus 20:8–11
The Creation Ordinance
If there are evangelical Christians who adhere to the Ten Commandments, they still balk at Commandment #4.
Many Christians say that the Sabbath was fulfilled in Christ; He is our Sabbath rest, therefore, the Sabbath command has been abolished. It is posited that “the Sabbath command is nowhere repeated in the New Testament. You can follow it if you want to, but it’s not binding on all of humanity.”
The problem?
Nowhere in the New Testament do we see the Sabbath explicitly abolished. Jesus calls Himself “The Lord of the Sabbath,” but that is not an explicit abrogation of the command.
Three lines of evidence point us to this remaining pattern and the perpetuity of the command.
First, Genesis tells us God “sanctified the seventh day.” If it was only to be obeyed as a ceremonial law once it was written on tablets of stone, why was someone condemned for breaking the Sabbath in Exodus 16 before the giving of the law? The people merely assume that the Sabbath command is known by virtue of creation, not Sinai law-giving.
Second, God roots the command, not in a specific covenant with the Jews, but in creation. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” The Sabbath, then, is not a Jewish ordinance. It’s a creation ordinance that transcends culture.
Third, Jesus told us that the Sabbath was made for the Jews… oh wait, He didn’t say that.
He actually said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27–28). The Sabbath as a creation ordinance means that it was a pattern woven into creation, to be observed by mankind, not just one nation (Isn’t this the “repetition” of the command many are hoping for?). Undoubtedly, there was a ceremonial aspect to the Sabbath fully codified in the Mosaic law after the Ten Commandments were given, but even this was rooted in the foundational creative pattern.
Therefore, it is to be obeyed, not just as a discipline to temper the hustle in your life, but as a command that displays God’s design.
The Day Change
“But wait,” you say, “then why do many Christians worship, rest, and serve on Sundays?”
We later discover that this creation ordinance revealed to Adam and Eve and, subsequently, Israel, was a type or a pointer to the grand plan of redemption in Christ. Because of how the Jews structured days (based upon Genesis 1 language: “And there was evening and there was morning…”), we observe, counting from evening to evening, man’s first full day was God’s Seventh—His day of “ceasing” or resting from His creative work.
Thus, man rested with God in the garden before he worked it. Already, we get a glimpse of man resting in God’s finished work before putting forth effort. Sin fractured this beautiful design, and under the Mosaic covenant, God allowed the Jewish people to structure their week as beginning with labor before a day of rest.
So, what would it take to move the day of the creation ordinance from day seven to day one? In the words of John Owen, it would take “a New Creation.”
Fast forward to the New Testament. “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb” (Matthew 28:1). The Jewish Sabbath was coming to a close, and what the Mary’s didn’t know is that as this day was closing, the Jewish, seventh-day Sabbath, was coming to a close forever on the first day of the week.
The resurrection of Jesus was the inbreaking of a new creation. But the Jews saw resurrection as part and parcel of the future new creation. And when Martha, Lazarus’ sister, revealed that line of reasoning to Jesus, He declared to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). And Paul then tells us later, “Therfore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a New Creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Clearly, Christ’s resurrection was the reversal of the curse, the inauguration of a new creation; it was the time when Christ “ceased from His work as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:10) and entered His rest. In light of this, the writer of Hebrews wrote, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9).
Conclusion
The Sabbath remains, but the day has changed. It was once on Saturday, and was moved to Sunday, not by Emperor Constantine, not by gentile Christians, but by the Lord who went into the tomb and rose again the third day to usher believers into eternal rest. This is why Christians have historically called the first day of the week “The Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10)—It’s a day to rehearse the fact that we began our life in Christ resting in what has been done before we went on to do anything for Him.
I acknowledge that good Christians can disagree on this topic. But rather than develop an allergy to this command, being conditioned by a culture that defines worth based upon productivity, we can look to Christ, the great gift-giver, who sets apart the first day to bring your soul rest through the gathering of God’s people and the ceasing of your normal labors.
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