What day is the Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday?

Response

It is often stated that “God established the Sabbath in Eden” due to the link between the Sabbath and creation in Exodus 20:11. While God’s rest on the seventh day “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 2:3) did anticipate a future Sabbath law, there is no biblical record of the Sabbath before the Israelites departed from Egypt. Nowhere in Scripture is there any indication that Sabbath observance was practiced from Adam to Moses.

The Word of God clearly states that Sabbath observance was a unique sign between God and Israel: “The Israelites are to keep the Sabbath, observing it for all generations as an everlasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested” (Exodus 31:16-17).

In Deuteronomy 5, Moses repeats the Ten Commandments to the succeeding generation of Israelites. Here, after instructing Sabbath observance in verses 12–14, Moses explains why the Sabbath was given to the nation of Israel: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” “And remember that tYou were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore, the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. », (Deuteronomy 5:15).

God’s purpose in giving the Sabbath to Israel was not for them to remember creation, but to recall their Egyptian slavery and the Lord’s deliverance. Note the requirements for Sabbath-keeping: a person under the Sabbath law could not leave their home on the Sabbath «See, because the LORD has given you the Sabbath, that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days; each of you stay where you are, do not go out of your place on the seventh day. », (Exodus 16:29), they could not kindle a fire «You shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day. », (Exodus 35:3), and they could not make anyone else work «but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it, you shall not do any work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. », (Deuteronomy 5:14). Anyone who violated the Sabbath law was to be put to death (Exodus 31:15;Numbers 15:32-35).

An examination of New Testament passages reveals four important points regarding the Sabbath:

1) Whenever Christ appears in His resurrected form and the day is mentioned, it is always the first day of the week .

2) The Sabbath is only mentioned from Acts through Revelation in the context of Jewish evangelism, often taking place in a synagogue (Acts 13—18). Paul wrote, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews” «And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; », (1 Corinthians 9:20). Paul’s purpose in visiting the synagogue was not for fellowship or edification of the saints, but to convict and save the lost.

3) After Paul declares, “From now on I will go to the Gentiles” «And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. », (Acts 18:6), the Sabbath is not mentioned again.

4) Rather than promoting Sabbath observance, the rest of the New Testament suggests otherwise, with one exception noted in Colossians 2:16.