THE SABBATH DAY (part 1): Sunday or Monday or Saturday?.
- Vicent Nemeyimana
- November 21, 2014
- Uncategorized
The Sabbath day simply refers to the day of resting that was given to Israelites as part of their covenant with GOD (Exodus 20:8-11). Although this day first appears within the creation story (Genesis 2:1-3), the bible doesn’t indicate that it was observed by any of our forefathers from Adam to the young Moses. It only becomes part of the law after God’s deliverance of Israelites from Egypt. From this, it can be deducted that the Sabbath day was a special covenant between GOD and Israelite and it was to be renewed with their new generations (Exodus 31:16-17).
As Moses restates the law to the new generation in Deuteronomy 5:12-15, he adds an explanation why it should be observed: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you of there by His great power and strength. So the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day” (Verse 15). Thus the main objective for the observance of this day wasn’t to remember creation but to remember the slavery in Egypt and God’s deliverance.
On such a day, people would not leave home (Exodus 16:29), wouldn’t build fire (Exodus 35:3), couldn’t work or cause any one to work (Deuteronomy 5:14). Failure to observe the above measures meant death (Exodus 31:15, Numbers 15:32-35). And throughout the Old Testament, there are those times the Israelites were in quarrel with their God over the disobedience of the above covenant (Jeremiah 17:22-24).
According to www.gotquestions.org, the following 4 points in the New Testament are important to note. 1. Whenever Christ appears in His resurrected form and the day is mentioned, it is always the first day of the week (Mt 28:1, 9, 10; Mark 16:9, Luke 24:1, 13, 15; John 20:19, 26). 2. The only time the Sabbath is mentioned from Acts to the Revelation, it is only for evangelistic reasons and the setting is usually a synagogue (Acts 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18). This means that those in the synagogues and observing the Sabbath already deserved deliverance and that was the reason of Paul meeting them (1 Corinthians 9:20). In my words, I think this is exactly the same reason Jesus observed the day and went to synagogues (Luke 4:16).
3. Once Paul states, ‘from now on I will go to the gentiles’ (Acts 18:6), the Sabbath day is never mentioned again. 4. Instead of suggesting adherence to observing the Sabbath day, the remainder of the New Testament emphasizes the opposite (Colossians 2:16).
From all the above, it is clear that it is not an obligation for a Christian to keep the Sabbath day which is Saturday according to most calendars and is also not scriptural to have Sunday Christian Sabbath. For those who believe in Christ, the resurrection Of Christ and His deliverance of mankind from the slavery of sin is the real Sabbath to be celebrated. Sabbath was for Israel as a nation not for the church and when Christ died on the cross, He set us free of all these worthless rules that tied us (Colossians 2:14, 2:16-17). Yeah, we are not saying that the law was an unworthy move; we are saying that it wasn’t complete and Jesus came to make it complete and perfect but not to change it (Mt 5:17-18, Luke 16:17).
