The Sabbath

The Origin of the Sabbath in the Light of Scripture

The value of something depends on its origins in many ways. In regards to the Sabbath, the aforementioned comment is totally true. The Day of Rest is intimately joined to creation, according to the explanation given by the following verses: Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 20:11, 31:17, and Hebrews 4:4. The Sabbath served as a sign of conclusion; as a gold seal to a work as perfect as it is unmatched. But, Why did the Creator rest on the Seventh Day? The main reason dwells in the number 7, the meaning of numbers and the completion of creation through an explanation in the Bible.

The number seven means: plenty, totality, perfection. Once creation was complete, there was no need for anything else; nothing needed to be improved. Every artist works until achieving an objective, and once this is attained, his work ends. In an infinitely superior manner, the Lord, having finished his work in all its majesty, ceased or rested. This is the meaning of the Hebrew verb Sabbath: to Rest.

Why has the Sabbath been rejected by the Religious World?

As a universal institution, the Sabbath has been attacked from two different fronts:

The first one is the Jew, who emphatically affirms that the day of rest was given to Israel only and not to the gentiles. This is due primarily to reasons of maintaining national identity, in the days of the Assirian King Antioch Epiphanes (175 B.C.), who made radical efforts to make Greek or “helenize” Israel. Some of his acts were to prohibit Sabbath worship and the practice of circumcision. Due to this harassment, many Rabbis opted to place the Sabbath as a purely Jewish institution, established by Moses and only for Israel. The problem with this view is that it attains the image of a commandment that is discriminatory and favorable to some, which is definitely not in agreement with scripture. The Word of God affirms that the Sabbath has its origins in the creation of the world, not in Judaism (Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:8-11).

The second front has emerged from the churches that surfaced from the gentiles, which state that the Sabbath is an institution from Moses that has been abolished and done with, nailed to the cross of Christ. The answer to both opinions resides in simply analyzing the origin of the Seventh Day.

¿What are the main objections against the Eden origin of the Sabbath?

Here is one of the principal arguments against the Sabbath as an institution that has its origin in the Creation:

1. The first reference in Scripture is in Genesis 2:2-3, which makes a triple mention of the “Seventh Day”, but does not mention the word “Sabbath”. Let us see the text: “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”. For some, this is a base for the argument to point out that, the Sabbath was not instituted in Creation, but rather in the time of Moses. Certainly, the word “Sabbath” is not in the text, but it is in the form of the verb “Shabbath” (to cease, repose, rest, celebrate, end, and later called “Sabbath”), thus this indicates the word “to rest”.

2. Others have seen in Genesis 2:2-3 the marked absence of a specific commandment on the observance of the Seventh Day and point out that God did not order to keep the Sabbath, but rather that the text affirms and limits it to “…and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it”. But, let us ask the following question: Is the example given by the Lord as valid as his commandments? Christ answered “Yes”: “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you (John 13:15). The divine example has the same authority as the commandment; the way our Creator acts is the model that serves as the example for all humankind. On the other hand, the Lord completed his creative work resting the Seventh day not because he needed to rest, as the Eternal never tires (Isaiah 40:28) but because he wanted to leave a memorial of Creation.

Let us understand that the Sabbath is not a place where to conduct rites or ceremonies; it is a time of dedication to God. This has been done since the beginning of man, since the Semite expression of “calling oneself or calling out the name of the Lord” means “to worship the Lord” (Genesis 4:26).

The instructions on the collection of Manna tell us that the Israelites kept the Sabbath as a previously existing institution, even before the giving of the law at Sinai (Exodus 16:29-31). The words of introduction utilized for the fourth commandment “Remember the Sabbath Day…” show that the Israelites knew about the day of rest and that they only needed to recall it in memory, to remember it (Exodus 20:8).

Therefore, the origin of the Sabbath is the origin of an Eternal Blessing, since when God blesses something as abstract as time (Exodus 31:16-17), he gave the believer the opportunity to enter in his joy wherever he may be.

The Sabbath, on the other hand, is a perpetual alliance, a sign between God and his people (Exodus 31:13, 16-17); through this commandment it is possible to determine if his people truly respects him and loves him. Desecrating the day of rest, symbol of divine authority and ownership, is seen in Scripture as apostasy (Ezequiel 20:13, 21). The church of Apostolic times, learned and blessed with the knowledge of the Sabbath, kept this commandment (Acts 13:42-44, 16:13, 17:2, Isaiah 58:13-14, 56:2-7).

How Does our Congregation Believe

As stated by the Eternal, as taught by our divine teacher and Savior, and understood through the work of the Holy Spirit, our congregation sees this commandment as follows, as one of our Statements of Faith:

Statement of Faith #7: We believe in the fourth commandment of the ten described previously (the Ten Commandments); God establishes the observance of the Seventh Day of the week, commonly known as “Saturday” or the “Sabbath”, in which God’s congregation must rest and sanctify it throughout the world in order to dedicate honor, glory, and worship to our God, as a memorial to his wonderful creation. Therefore, it is and will be the sign between God and his children (Genesis 2:1-3, Matthew 12:12, Exodus 20:8-11).

The observance of the Sabbath is from the sunset of the sixth day and during which we must prepare to attend, the entire congregation, to the hour in which we must convene to worship our God, because the seventh day is a day of Holy Convocation as indicated by God.

To keep the Sabbath has been from the beginning, as God placed it as a special day during the week of creation (Genesis 2:2-3), much before he told Israel to REMEMBER the day. If they did not know that this beautiful precept existed from the beginning, he would not have told them to remember or recall it. Another piece of evidence that the commandment existed before arriving at Sinai, is when manna was given, as he was to test his people no providing them with manna on the Sabbath, to see if they were walking under the law or not (Exodus 16:29-30).

In the time of Christ, he kept his Father’s commandment as indicated repeated times in the Gospels (Luke 4:16, Mark 6:2, Luke 13:10) In the time of the apostles, they kept this beautiful commandment, just as they had been instructed. We see Paul meeting on the Sabbath and how an entire city met on the Sabbath to listen (Acts 13:15, 44). Then, we see once again, that the Children of God kept the seventh day as the holy day, and thus we ask, why does the world not do it?

We must keep the Sabbath correctly; stopping all work and no doing our own personal things, such as entertainment, shopping, and other things we can do on other days. The Sabbath belongs to God, as a commandment of love.

The Sabbath shall be observed as follows, according to Isaiah 58:13-14: 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, honorable; and shalt honor 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.

Commentary on the change of the Lord’s Day from the Seventh Day to the First…

“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).

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, 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).

Does someone have the authority to change the Day of Rest?

“If it did not have such power…it could not have replaced the observance of the Sabbath, seventh of the week, for the observance of Sunday, first day of the week, a change for which there is no biblical authority” (by Steven Keenan, Doctrinal Cathechism, Page 174).

Who ordered the change of the Day of Rest from the Sabbath to Sunday?

“During the first three centuries, Sunday was a day of work just like any other…it was only in the year 321, through the decree of the Emperor Constantine, Sunday became the day of rest” (by Vincent Ryan, Sunday, Day of the Lord, Page 91, Ediciones Paulinas, 1986).

”Everything that was given for the Sabbath We moved it to Sunday…in that day, which is…the first, of the true sun” (Eusebius of Caesarea, Comm. In Ps. 91, Page 23, 1172. Cited in El domingo fiesta de los cristianos, pág. 86, Julián López Martín. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos. Lic. del Obispado de Zamora, España. 1991).

Note: Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (265-340 A.D.) was a close friend of Constantine and it was him who, based on the tradition and in writings of Justinian and Saint Ignatius of Antioch, encouraged Constantine to proclaim Sunday as the day of rest.

Some years later (364 A.D.), “the church”, not happy simply with the imposition of Sunday, tried to abolish Sabbath worship by decree, stating that all those who would refuse to work on that day, would be excluded from Christ (XXIX Cannon of the Council of Laodicea).

“Churches” Speak of the Sabbath

Catholic Church: “In the new law, Sunday is observed instead of the Sabbath, not in virtue of a divine commandment, but because of an Ecclesiastical Constitution” (Saint Thomas of Aquine, Summa Th. II-II q. 122 a. 4, cited in El Domingo, Fiesta de los Cristianos, Page 148, Julian López Martín. BAC)

Baptist Church: “It will be said, nevertheless, and with certain air of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week...Where can we find this transferred registered? not in the New Testament, absolutely no” (Dr. E.T. Hiscox, author of the Baptist Manual).

Presbiterian Church: “There isn’t the slightest bit of evidence that our Lord or his disciples respected or taught others to respect the first day of the week” (Rev. Fraser).

Congregational Church: “It is completely clear that, for as rigid or devoutly that we keep sunday, we are not observing the Sabbath” (Dr. R.W. Dale, in The Ten Commandments, page 106).

Methodist Church “Sabbath, in the Hebrew language, means rest, and is the Seventh Day of the week,...it must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day” (Buck’s Theologic Dictionary).

Anglican Church: “The reason why we sanctify the first day of the week instead of the seventh is the same reason why we observe many other things, not as prescribed by the Bible, but by the Church” (Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Cathechism, Volume 1, pages 334-336).

Lutheran Church: “There isn’t a commandment in the Bible that orders us to observe sunday as the day of rest. Why keep Sunday? If you tell me ‘what has been provided for the sabbath is transferred to Sunday’, then I challenge you to show me a single passage, a single word in the Bible, that proves it”. (Rev. H. Bieleng).