The Sabbath day in the Bible. Travel back in your thoughts to creation week.
God looks at the earth. And it is empty and void, covered with water. And He decides to do something beautiful. He begins to speak things into existence. Light. A clear sky. Dry land. Plants. Fish. Birds. Animals. He does it methodically and harmoniously, something new every day. For six days. On the sixth He creates the two most beautiful humans to ever walk this earth, Adam and Eve. They are not spoken into existence like everything else. They are created by God’s own hand!
By the end of the six days, everything is in place. “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
And then the seventh day begins. Like the Master Artist that He is, God takes time to admire what He has created and spend time with His two favourite creations, Adam and Eve.
What a day! The most beautiful and happiest day in the history of the human race! So, He sets this day apart, the seventh day, as an ongoing reminder of His special relationship with the human race.
In this study we will see that the Sabbath day in the Bible spans time from Creation to the new heavens and the new earth.
What did God as He finished creating the earth?
“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:2-3).
God did three things. First, He rested on the seventh day. God does not need to rest. But He did so to set an example for us. It was a special time to enjoy the beauty of the things He had created, and spend time with Adam and Eve, our great grandparents who He had just created the day before.
Second, because He rested, He also blessed the day. The blessing on the seventh day has never been removed. Those who also rest on the seventh day like God did, receive the blessing God pronounced on the day.
Third, He sanctified the day. To sanctify something means to set it apart for a holy purpose. God set apart the seventh day from the other six so that it can be a holy day.
The seventh
day of the week therefore right from the very beginning was and has never
ceased to be a holy and a blessed day. In creation therefore, we first encounter the Sabbath day in the Bible.
The fourth commandment is probably the best known reference of the Sabbath day in the Bible.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11).
This is the fourth of the Ten Commandments. And the longest. God reminds His people never to forget the seventh-day Sabbath, which is a holy day. Because it is a holy day, God’s people should keep it holy.
In verse 11, God points His people back to Genesis 2:2-3 so that they can remember when and why God made the Sabbath a holy day. It is a memorial of Creation of the rest God experienced.
The fact that God begins the commandment with the word “Remember” is an indication that He knew His people would forget that day. Indeed, and unfortunately, most Christians today have forgotten to keep the Sabbath day holy.
“A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath day. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night” (Psalm 92:1-2).
Just as God had commanded, David together with the rest of the people of God, kept the Sabbath as a holy day of rest and worship.
“’And it shall be, if you heed Me carefully,’ says the Lord, “to… hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work in it, then shall enter the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses… and this city shall remain forever.
“But if you will not heed Me to hallow the Sabbath day… then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched’” (Jeremiah 17:25,27).
The prophet Jeremiah, like king David before him, and like all the faithful people of God, kept the Sabbath holy and taught others to do likewise.
We see that the Sabbath day in the Bible spans the centuries.
“Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, ‘What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath’” (Nehemiah 13:17-18).
The Sabbath.
“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read” (Luke 4:16).
Jesus worshiped on the Sabbath day. Not once but habitually, “as His custom was.”
“Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2).
We see here that just as it was the custom of Jesus to worship God on the Sabbath day, so was the custom of Paul.
“On the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there” (Acts 16:13).
“[Paul] reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:4).
“And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20).
Jesus is speaking about the destruction of Jerusalem which happened in AD 70, a generation after the death of Jesus on the cross. When the Romans came to destroy Jerusalem, there were many Christians in the city.
Knowing this would be the case, Jesus warned them in advance: “When you see the ‘abomination of desolation’… flee to the mountains.” (Matthew 24:15-16). The abomination of desolation was the idolatrous Roman army. Jesus therefore warned Christians, when they see the Romans approaching, to flee to the mountains.
And then He asked them to pray that this would not happen in winter or on the Sabbath. Why? Because in winter it is cold. And on the Sabbath Christians congregated for worship and it would therefore be hard to run away.
This is testimony that a generation after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christians kept the Sabbath holy.
The Sabbath day. We know this is by the names early Christians gave to the days of the week in Greek and Latin, the two languages most widely spoken at the time.
English Name Ancient Christian Greek Name Ecclesiastical Latin Name
Sunday First day to the Sabbath 1st after the holy day
Monday Second day to the Sabbath 2nd after the holy day
Tuesday Third day to the Sabbath 3rd after the holy day
Wednesday Fourth day to the Sabbath 4th after the holy day
Thursday Fifth day to the Sabbath 5th after the holy day
Friday Preparation (for the Sabbath) 6th after the holy day
Saturday Sabbath Sabbath
The answer is a resounding Yes!
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).
God knew His people would forget so He told them to Remember.
“And another shall rise after them. He … shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law” (Daniel 7:24. 25).
The prophet Daniel here foretold of a “horn,” a religio-political power, that would persecute God’s people and would try to change “times and law.”
The Law of God is the Ten Commandments. The commandment that has been changed, is the one relating to time, the Fourth Commandment that speaks of the Sabbath. Exactly as Daniel foretold.
This happened in AD 321 when Emperor Constantine, with the backing of some church leaders, instituted Sunday as the day of rest. More about this in the relevant study.
“Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail” (Revelation 11:19).
The Ark of the Covenant was a box that contained the Ten Commandments in the earthly sanctuary. Everything in the earthly sanctuary was based on a heavenly model. Now in Revelation 11:19, the true heavenly Ark of the Covenant appears followed by manifestations like those that happened when God gave the Ten Commandments at Sinai.
The Sabbath is at the heart of the Ten Commandments.
“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).
Revelation 14:12 confirms the validity of the Ten Commandments, with a special emphasis on the last days.
“And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20).
We looked at this text above in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem and the escape of believers to the mountains is also a symbol of what will happen in the last days when God’s people are persecuted again. What held true for believers in AD 70, holds true of believers just before the Second Coming.
“‘For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,’ says the Lord, ‘So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 66:22, 23).
The Sabbath day in the Bible is very clear.
God’s commandment keeping people have kept the seventh-day Sabbath from Creation and will do so until the Second Coming of Jesus. In doing this they follow the example of God who rested on the seventh day after He created the earth; and of God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ, who kept it faithfully when He was on earth.
What will you do?
I commit to keep God’s Sabbath holy.
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