Truth On Tough Texts
ISSUE 42 - January
2009
The
Sabbath or Sunday?
Exodus 20:8–11
What was instituted as the Sabbath
in the Mosaic Law continues to be a misunderstood
concept in our day. Some sincere, well-meaning
Christians, in fact, insist on worshipping on the
Sabbath (Saturday) instead of the Lord’s Day (Sunday).
To address this issue, let us examine four
emphases.[i]
The Old
Testament Sabbath
The root of the
Hebrew shabbat (Sabbath) is the verb
shabat, which means to cease
or rest. It first occurs in Genesis 2:2, where God
“rested on the seventh day from all his work which he
had made.” That, of course, set the precedent that God
desires His people to cease work (implying rest), but
how they do so is not the same in all ages.
Based on
shabat in Genesis, therefore, some teachers
conclude that the Sabbath day (shabbat) is
perpetual and the same in every age, but Scripture
simply does not say that. Yes, while shabat
occurs in Genesis in reference to God,
shabbat occurs not a single time in Genesis to
indicate a prescribed Sabbath day for man. There
is, in fact, neither a command nor even an
implication that man was required to observe (or
ever did observe) the Sabbath day until the Mosaic Law
was given after Israel came out of Egypt (Ex. 16:23–29;
20:8–11). Not one of the patriarchs
of Genesis, for example, is said to have observed the
Sabbath.
Job is another crucial
example. Several factors date the events of Job as
occurring sometime after Babel but before, or perhaps
contemporaneously, with Abraham. In other words, Job
lived before the Mosaic Law was given. It is, therefore,
significant, as theologian Louis Sperry Chafer puts it,
that while “Job discloses the religious life and
experiences of the patriarchs, and though their various
responsibilities to God are therein discussed, there is
never a reference to a Sabbath-day obligation.”[ii] In dramatic
contrast, it is distinctly stated that the Sabbath was
given to racial Israel through Moses (Ex. 16:29;
20:8–10; Neh. 9:13–14; Ezek. 20:11–13). The remainder of
the OT is permeated with references to the
Sabbath, the word appearing some
seventy-seven times (all the other books of the
Pentateuch, 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chron., Neh., Ps., Isa.,
Jer., Ezek, and Amos). So complete was such cessation
from any labor to be (Ex. 20:10), for example, that the
people couldn’t gather sticks for a fire (Num. 15:32–36)
or even light a fire in their homes (Ex.
35:3).
The Place of
the Mosaic Law
When the above point
arises, another immediately follows, namely, the place
of the OT Law, which also is greatly misunderstood
today. Some teachers (as did the Judaizers of old: Acts
15:5; Gal. 2:11–13; 3:1, 3; 5:1) insist that Christians
must keep the Mosaic Law. It is essential to a
proper understanding of Scripture, however, to recognize
that the recipients of the law were those whom God
“brought . . . out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 20:2),
that is, Israel alone. It was never meant
for the Church or Gentiles in general. It was a covenant
made with Moses for
racial Israel.
The purpose of the
Law was basically four-fold and is summarized in
Galatians 3:19–25. First, it was to make sin known (v.
19, “added because of transgression”), “for by the law
is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). Second, it
demonstrates that “all [men are] under sin” (v. 22; cf.
Rom. 3:23) and sin’s horribleness (Rom. 7:7–13). Third,
it actually imprisons men and inhibits sin: “Before
faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the
faith which should afterwards be revealed” (v. 23; cf. 1
Tim. 1:9). “Kept” is phroureo, which
means to keep inward under
lock and key. The law was a jailer who held in custody
those who were subjected to sin, and who kept them that
way until Christ came to free them.
Fourth, and most
significantly, because God is holy (1 Pet. 1:16), the
law was a schoolmaster that pointed men to Christ and
His righteousness (vs. 24–25). The end of the Law came when Christ was
crucified. One of the most basic principles of
understanding the Bible is that the Mosaic Law ended in
Christ. If that is not recognized, the result will be
enormous confusion and serious error. Paul, therefore,
makes the matter absolutely clear with the word
“schoolmaster.” The Greek is paidagogos, which
was a person (usually a slave) who was assigned as a
tutor and guardian for young boys. By its very
definition, it was both a temporary and
lowly position. When the son came of age into
full sonship at about eighteen, the schoolmaster’s
responsibilities ended. Paul’s imagery, then, is
unmistakable. The Mosaic Law was a temporary
schoolmaster that was designed to lead Israel to
maturity, that is, Christ.
Once Christ arrived, He became the controlling force in
the believer’s life.
The Mosaic Law,
therefore, including the Sabbath, was never
intended to be the rule in the Christian’s life. The
Christian is under a “new law.” One school of Bible
teaching is fond of saying, “We are no longer under law
but under grace,” which while true when we are speaking
of the Mosaic system, is not true if we conclude that
there is no law at all. In
other words, just as grace existed in the OT, law still
exists today, but just as grace was manifested
differently under the Old Covenant, law is manifested
differently in the New Covenant.
So basic is the
truth that the Mosaic Law is passed that our Lord
Himself declared, “Think
not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matt. 5:17).
“Fulfil” is pleroo, a verb
that speaks of filling a container to capacity
and means to
influence fully, control, or satisfy. The entire Mosaic
Law pointed to Christ, so when He came, He “filled it
up,” He satisfied it, so it passed away.
Even
more significant, our Lord later even summarized the
entire law (all 613 commands of it!) into two:
love God and your neighbor, on which “hang all
the law and the prophets” (Matt.
22:36–40; emphasis added). What is the key word here?
What law is now in force that replaces and supercedes
the old? The law of love. As
Paul wrote, “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the
law. . . . Love worketh no ill to his neighbour:
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8,
10).
Oh,
how far superior this law is to the old! Jesus declared,
“except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20),
and then went on to illustrate how superior. While the
old law said not to murder, the new says not to have
rash anger (vs. 21–26; cf. Ex. 20:13). While the old
said not to commit adultery, the new says to not even
look with lust (vs. 27–28;
cf. Ex. 20:14). While the old said not to swear falsely,
the new says, “Swear not at all,” that is, carelessly or
profanely (vs. 33–34;
cf. Lev. 19:12). While the old said “an eye for an eye,”
the new says “turn the other cheek” (vs.
38–39; cf. Ex. 21:24). Let us glorify our Lord by
keeping His law, not the one
He fulfilled.
For
a little more study, what did Paul tell the
Galatians about how the law is fulfilled (Gal. 5:14)?
What does he call that law, in fact
(6:2)?
New
Testament Rest
Coming back to the
Sabbath, if we may we reemphasize, the Mosaic Law,
including the Sabbath, was given to racial Israel
(Ex. 20:2). None of the Mosaic system was meant
for the church or Gentiles in general. This includes the
Sabbath, which was not commanded
until the Mosaic system, and is never repeated in the
NT, as are the other nine commandments that are written
on men’s hearts (Rom. 2:15).[iii]
So what about the
NT? While
it is quite true that there are sixty occurrences
of the word Sabbath in the NT (sabbaton), all but
one are in the Gospels and Acts, where it is simply used
as historical reference (e.g., as in “such-and-such a
thing happening on the Sabbath”). The
only occurrence in the
Epistles is Colossians 2:16: “Let no man therefore judge
you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday,
or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.” It is
beyond any doubt whatsoever that the Sabbath is not in
force in the NT.
That
being said, however, since God’s resting in
Genesis established the precedent that He wanted His
people to enjoy rest, is the Lord’s Day the Christian
“day of rest” in this age, or as some word it, “the
Christian Sabbath”? No, as Hebrews 4:1–11 wonderfully
demonstrates. There we read of the perfect rest provided
by the finished work of Christ. “The rest under Christ,”
writes one theologian, “is not for one day in the week,
nor is it that Sabbath rest which was due after a
six-day strain. . . . It is rather the abiding rest of
faith in Another. . . . It is rather the rest of
Christ’s imparted, resurrection life, and that life is
ceaselessly active.”[iv]
Thanks be to God
that because of grace through Christ, no longer do we
need a prescribed day of rest because our Lord
fulfilled the Mosaic System, including the Sabbath.
Whenever we need rest, therefore, we take it. We live
not by legalism but by liberty (Gal. 2:4; 5:1, 13).
Again for further study,
read Hebrews 7:18–19, 22 and 8:6–13, noting how the
writer declares that the Mosaic Law (the old covenant)
had passed its usefulness because of its own weakness
and that “a better testament” of “Jesus” (the New
Covenant) replaced the Mosaic System.
The
Centrality of the Lord’s Day
This brings
us to a final emphasis, that of the place of the Lord’s
Day (Sunday). While not “the day of rest,” the
first day of the week, the day of our Lord’s
resurrection, became the day for public worship of the
church. While some teachers adamantly argue, this is the
clear precedent (Jn. 20:19; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev.
1:10).
While modern “Sabbath
keepers” insist that Sunday did not become the day of
worship until Constantine in the fourth century, that is
historically false. Writing in the middle of the second
century, apologist Justin Martyr described a typical
worship service of his day:
And on the day called
Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather
together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles
or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as
time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the
president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the
imitation of these good things. Then we all rise
together and pray, and, as we before said, when our
prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought,
and the president in like manner offers prayers and
thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people
assent, saying Amen.[v]
We should
also interject here that while lost in most churches
today, Martyr demonstrates that preaching
was central to the early church (note the primacy of
“doctrine” in Acts 2:42) and its immediate descendents.
Mark it down—unlike today’s seeker-sensitive,
entertainment driven, music saturated church growth
philosophy, the reading and exposition of the Word of
God was the absolute center of the worship
service.
If Justin Martyr is
not enough, the even earlier writings of Barnabas and
Ignatius prove Sunday worship beyond the slightest
doubt. The Epistle of Barnabas 15:8–9 (100 AD) states:
Finally, [the
Lord] says to them: “I cannot bear your new moons and
Sabbaths” [Isa. 1:13]. . . . This is why we spend the
eighth day in celebration, the day on which Jesus both
rose from the dead and, after appearing again, ascended
into heaven.[vi]
Further, The
Letters of Ignatius: To Magnesians 8:1–9:1 (AD 107) declares:
Do not be deceived by
strange doctrines or antiquated myths, since they are
worthless. For if we continue to live in accordance with
Judaism, we admit that we have not received grace. . . .
If, then, those who had lived in antiquated practices
came to newness of hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath
but living in accordance to the Lord’s Day, on which our
life also arose through him and his death.[vii]
Following is one of
the most devastating statements I have ever read on this
issue. It comes from the late David Baron (1857–1926),
who at one time was one of the most eminent and learned
Jewish converts to the Christian faith and who founded,
along with C.A. Schönberger, the Hebrew Christian
Testimony to Israel missionary
organization in London:
How can a Hebrew Christian
be shown that he must not keep the Seventh-day Sabbath
seeing it is written: “Wherefore the children of Israel
shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath
throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant”
(Ex. 31:16)?
There is no necessity to
“show” or teach the Jewish believers that they “must”
not “keep the Sabbath.” . . . When more fully
instructed, and as he grows in grace and in the
knowledge of Christ, he will be brought to see for
himself that the Jewish Sabbath has not significance in
this dispensation and in relation to those whose calling
is a heavenly one, and whose destinies are bound up not
with time but with eternity. . . .
The Sabbath is thus
essentially connected with the old marred creation, with
the imperfect Mosaic dispensation, and with the typical
redemption from Egypt. But Christians are children of
the new creation, and are in the dispensation not of Law
but of the Spirit. “With Christ’s resurrection,” says
one writer, “the Seventh-day Sabbath expired,
transmitting its sanctity and its privileges . . . to
the first day of the week.”[viii]
Again, that is from
a saved Jew. If a Jewish believer can so easily
recognize that “the old marred” system is past, why
can’t Gentile believers see
it and stop their insistence on the
Sabbath?
The simple fact is
that the first day of the week is so obvious in the NT,
so clearly the precedent set for all
believers, both Jew and Gentile,
and then so unmistakably observed by the church from the
resurrection, through the church fathers, and to the
present, that to argue against it is the height of folly
and an insult to our Lord.
Finally, to further
support the straw man of “Sabbath keeping,” some
teachers are so desperate that they even challenge the
fact that Jesus rose on the first day of the
week. There are two incontrovertible passages,
however, that state this without doubt.
First, Mark
16:9: “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of
the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of
whom he had cast seven devils.” While this is clear,
rationalistic textual criticism challenges this passage
(vs. 9–20), saying that it’s not in the so-called “best
manuscripts.” (Some “Sabbath-keepers,” in fact, rely on
such criticism to get around this verse.) Sadly, this is
only one of many passages that have been damaged because
of such criticism. I have been studying and writing on
the textual criticism issue for some twenty years, so I
could go into some detail, but I will just submit here
the very brief facts concerning this
passage.
1) The vast majority
of Greek manuscripts (about 1800) include this passage.
2) It appears in many ancient versions of the Bible
(e.g., the 2nd Century Peshitta Syriac). 3)
Nineteen of the early church fathers (100–500)
supported it; Justin Martyr (151), for example, quotes
verse 20 in his first Apology, proving that this passage was familiar to
believers within 50 years of the last of the
evangelists. 4) All the approximately 2,000 surviving
Lectionaries (portions of the Greek NT that were read in
the churches on special days) include it. 5) It has
stood through the centuries as being unquestionably
genuine only until modern textual criticism.
This verse, then, is
clear, authentic evidence of Jesus’ resurrection on the
first day of the week. To reject it is pure folly.
But, if people insist on
rejecting it, we can still turn to another irrefutable
proof.
Second,
please turn to Luke 24 (for the sake of space, we will
not quote the entire passage). What is essential to note
here is that all the events from verses 1–21 occurred
on the same day. Verse 1 sets
the stage:
Now upon the first day of the
week, very early in the morning, they came unto the
sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared,
and certain others with them. (Emphasis added here and
in the following verses.)
While this
verse does not actually state that Jesus rose on
the first day of the week, when we read on, we discover
that the other events that happened on that same
day make the issue inarguably
clear. Please read verses 2–6 and then note verse
7:
The Son of man
must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be
crucified, and the third day
rise again.
This obviously
establishes that Jesus would rise on the third day,
which no one questions. When we continue reading,
however, we find out what day that
was. Read verses 8–12 and then
note verse 13, where the scene in this drama changes to
when Jesus appears to two men who are on their way to
Emmaus on this same day:
And, behold, two of
them went that same day to a
village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about
threescore furlongs [about 7-1/2 miles].
Again, on the
same day that the women went to the tomb, Jesus
appeared to these men. So what day is this? The first
day, our “Sunday.” Finally, read
verses 14–20, and then note the clincher, verse 21:
But we trusted that
it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and
beside all this, to day is the third
day since these things were
done.
Let us put it all
together: Since verse 1 says the ladies went to the tomb
on the first day of the week, since verse 7 says
He would rise on the third day, since verse 13
says this is the same day, and since verse 21
says this is the third day, what day is
this?—the first day of the week. It is just that simple.
Oh, that we would rejoice
in the true rest we have in Christ and revere each
Lord’s Day as we worship together (cf. Heb.
10:25).
Dr. J. D.
Watson
Pastor-Teacher
Grace Bible
Church
NOTES
[i]
Most of this article was adapted from the Feb. 14–16 and
Mar. 20–21 devotionals in Pastor Watson’s new book, A
Hebrew Word for the Day, due out in the first
quarter of 2009 (AMG Publishers).
[ii] Louis Sperry Chafer,
Systematic Theology (Dallas Seminary Press,
1947–1948), Vol. IV, p. 254.
[iii] The Moral Law was written in the
hearts of men everywhere (Rom. 2:15), demonstrating that
men know in their heart (i.e., by their conscience) not
to lie, steal, murder, and violate the other moral
commands. Such moral law is found in legal codes of
nations throughout history prior to the Mosaic Law.
These moral laws (except for keeping the Sabbath) are
also found restated several times in the NT: having no
other gods (Ex. 20:3; Deut. 5:7; Acts 5:29); making no
idols or images” (Ex. 20:4–6; Deut. 5:8–10; Acts
17:29–31; I Cor. 8:4–6; 10:14; Col. 3:5; I Jn. 5:21);
not profaning God’s name (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11; Jas.
5:12); honoring one’s father and mother (Ex. 20:12;
Deut. 5:16; Eph. 6:1–3; Col. 3:20); not murdering (Ex.
20:13; Deut. 5:17; Rom. 13:9–10; Jas. 2:11); not
committing adultery (Ex. 20:14; Deut. 5:19; Rom.
13:9–10; I Cor. 6:9; Heb. 13:4; Jas. 2:11); not stealing
(Ex. 20:15; Deut. 5:19; Rom. 13:9–10; Eph. 4:28); not
lying (Ex. 20:16; Deut. 5:20; Eph. 4:25,31; Col. 3:9;
Tit. 3:2); not coveting (Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21; Rom.
7:7; 13:9; Eph. 5:3–5; Heb. 13:5 Jas.
4:1–3).
[iv] Chafer, Vol. IV, p.
110.
[v] The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
Vol. 1; Ages Digital Library, “The First Apology Of
Justin,” Chapter 67.
[vi] J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer
(translators), The Apostolic Fathers, Second
Edition (Baker Books, 1989], p. 183.
[viii] From The Witness
(Scotland). Cited in William C. Irving, Heresies
Exposed, Third Edition (Loizeaux Brothers, 1921), p.
167.
