Is the Sabbath Saturday or Sunday?

Should today’s Christians observe the Sabbath on a Saturday or Sunday? The real Jewish Sabbath is actually on Friday evening through to sunset Saturday, not Sunday. Since the Ten Commandments are still valid today (all summed up by Jesus in the Two) and we obey them, shouldn’t Christians also obey the Fourth? It does not seem to make sense to obey every single one except the fourth. I find a lot of conflicting understanding and thoughts.

• When does the day begin and end?
• What day is the Sabbath – the day of rest?
• What day is the Sabbath – the day of worship?

When does the day begin and end?

By tradition, in the Near Eastern mind, the day begins and ends at sunset. But this is tradition that we are free to either embrace or reject. One could also say that the day begins in the middle of the night (at midnight), or that it begins at dawn.

I understand why, in modern culture, the day “begins” at midnight. Through a calendar year, days become longer and shorter, so the time of dawn’s light changes a little every day. Setting the “start” of the day at midnight gives a consistent time for the clock.

If anything, the Bible leans to the idea that the morning light begins the new day. Just search for the words “morning” or “dawn” in the Psalms, and the sense is given again and again that this is the “start” of the day.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

[23] They are new every morning: Each dawning day gives mankind hope in fresh mercies and compassions from God. We need a constant supply and God has promised to send them without fail. No matter how bad the past day was, God’s people can look to the new morning with faith and hope.

These mercies are always new because they come from God who forever draws new things from His eternal resources.

• Every morning ends the night.
• Every morning brings a new day.
• Every morning brings new provision for the day.
• Every morning brings new forgiveness for new sins.
• Every morning brings new strength for new temptations, duties, and trials.

What day is the Sabbath – the day of rest?

The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week – Saturday. This is clear from Genesis 1, where it was on the seventh day that God rested.

Here’s the principle: The Sabbath as a day of rest is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 4:9-10

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

There is a real sense in which Jesus fulfilled the purpose and plan of the Sabbath for us and in us (Hebrews 4:9–11). He is our rest; when we remember and live in consideration of His finished work we honor and observe the Sabbath. Hebrews 4:4 specifically ties this idea to the Sabbath.

Colossians 2:16-17

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

[16] So let no one judge you: The opening “so” is important. It connects this thought with the previous thought. Because Jesus won such a glorious victory on the cross, we are to let no one judge you in food or in drink or in other matters related to legalism, including sabbaths. A life that is centered on Jesus and what He did on the cross has no place for legalism.

[16] Food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, [17] which are a shadow of things to come: The Old Testament law had certain provisions that are done away with in Jesus, regarding such things as food and sabbaths. It isn’t that those laws were bad, simply that they were [17] a shadow of things to come. Once the substance – Jesus Christ – has come, we don’t need to shadow any more.

The point is clear: days and foods, as observed under the Mosaic Law, are not binding upon New Covenant people. The shadow has passed, the reality has come. So for the Christian, all foods are pure (1 Timothy 4:4-5) and all days belong to God.

1. Christians are therefore free to keep a kosher diet or to observe the sabbath if they please. There is nothing wrong with those things. However, they cannot think that eating kosher or sabbath observance makes them any closer to God, and they cannot [16] judge another brother or sister who does not observe such laws.

There is a very good argument to be made for keeping a Sabbath because this is the way God has designed us, that in a seven-day week, we need a day of rest. This is a good and helpful principle, but not a biblical command.

What day is the Sabbath – the day of worship?

In the ten commandments, God commanded Israel: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8). One way Israel was to keep the Sabbath holy was to observe it as a day of rest (now fulfilled in Jesus Christ). Another way to keep the Sabbath holy was to use it as a day of worship.

That’s why traditionally, the Jewish people have had their synagogue services on Saturday morning – the morning period of their Sabbath day. It’s their way to say, “we worship on this day, it is our day to keep holy.”

Here’s the interesting thing: the New Testament church, and the early church, regarded Sunday – not Saturday – as their day of the worship. This was because Jesus was raised from the dead on Sunday and for Christians, that changed everything.

All four gospels note that the resurrection of Jesus was evident on Sunday, the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1).

Acts 20:7

Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.

1 Corinthians 16:2

On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.

The first day of the week refers to the fact that early Christians met on Sunday, not the Sabbath. They were not against meeting on the Sabbath; they just knew that all days were alike to the Lord (Colossians 2:16-17) – we are free to worship on any day. Christians wanted to celebrate the day Jesus rose from the dead (Luke 24:1).

“It is plain from hence, that the gospel churches were wont to assemble upon that day; nor do we read in Scripture of any assembly of Christians for religious worship on any other day.” (Poole)

So, to summarize the answers to the three questions:

• When does the day begin and end? The Bible gives no command.

• What day is the Sabbath – the day of rest? The Sabbath rest of the sixth days is specifically said to be fulfilled in the rest the believer finds in Jesus Christ.

• What day is the Sabbath – the day of worship? The Bible gives no command; every day is holy to believers. Yet from New Testament times, Christians have usually gathered for worship on Sunday, marking the day of the week Jesus rose from the dead and changed everything.

Exodus 20:8-11

The fourth commandment: Remember the Sabbath day.

“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.”

a. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: The command is to respect the seventh day (Saturday) as a day of rest (you shall do no work). This rest was for all of Israel – for the son and the servant and the stranger – even including cattle.

i. This is an important principle that might be too easily passed over. Here God declared the essential humanity and dignity of women, slaves, and strangers, and said they had the same right to a day of rest as the free Israeli man. This was certainly a radical concept in the ancient world.

ii. “The baser sort of people in Sweden do always break the Sabbath, saying that it is for gentlemen to keep that day.” (Trapp)

b. To keep it holy: God commanded Israel – and all humanity – to make sure that there was sacred time in their life, separated time of rest.

i. In their traditions, the Jewish people came to carefully quantify what they thought could and could not be done on the Sabbath day, in order to keep it holy. For example, in Luke 6:1-2, in the mind of the Jewish leaders, the disciples were guilty of four violations of the Sabbath every time they took a bite of grain out in the field, because they reaped, threshed, winnowed, and prepared food.

ii. Ancient Rabbis taught that on the Sabbath, a man could not carry something in his right hand or in his left hand, across his chest or on his shoulder. But he could carry something with the back of his hand, his foot, his elbow, or in his ear, his hair, or in the hem of his shirt, or in his shoe or sandal. Or on the Sabbath Israelites were forbidden to tie a knot – except, a woman could tie a knot in her girdle. So, if a bucket of water had to be raised from a well, an Israelite could not tie a rope to the bucket, but a woman could tie her girdle to the bucket and pull it up from the well.

iii. In observant Jewish homes today, one cannot turn on a light, a stove, or a switch on the Sabbath. It is forbidden to drive a certain distance or to make a telephone call – all carefully regulated by traditions seeking to spell out the law exactly.

c. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth: God established the pattern for the Sabbath at the time of creation. When He rested from His works on the seventh day, God made the seventh day a day of rest from all our works (Genesis 2:3). It’s as if God said, having too much to do isn’t an excuse from taking the rest you need – I created the universe and found time to rest from My work.

i. When God told them to remember the Sabbath, He told them to remember the rest. “The term ‘Sabbath’ is derived from the Hebrew verb ‘to rest or cease from work.’” (Kaiser) The most important purpose of the Sabbath was to serve as a preview picture of the rest we have in Jesus.

ii. Like everything in the Bible, we understand this with the perspective of the whole Bible, not this single passage. With this understanding, we see that there is a real sense in which Jesus fulfilled the purpose and plan of the Sabbath for us and in us (Hebrews 4:9-11) – He is our rest, when we remember His finished work we remember the Sabbath, we remember the rest.

iii. Therefore, the whole of Scripture makes it clear that under the New Covenant, no one is under obligation to observe a Sabbath day (Colossians 2:16-17 and Galatians 4:9-11). Galatians 4:10 tells us that Christians are not bound to observe days and months and seasons and years. The rest we enter into as Christians is something to experience every day, not just one day a week – the rest of knowing we don’t have to work to save ourselves, but our salvation is accomplished in Jesus (Hebrews 4:9-10).

iv. The Sabbath commanded here and observed by Israel was a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ (Colossians 2:16-17). In the New Covenant the idea isn’t that there is no Sabbath, but that every day is a day of Sabbath rest in the finished work of God. Since the shadow of the Sabbath is fulfilled in Jesus, we are free to keep any particular day – or no day – as a Sabbath after the custom of ancient Israel.

v. Yet we dare not ignore the importance of a day of rest – God has built us so that we need one. Like a car that needs regular maintenance, we need regular rest – or we will not wear well. Some people are like high mileage cars that haven’t been maintained well, and it shows.

vi. Some Christians are also dogmatic about observing Saturday as the Sabbath as opposed to Sunday. But because we are free to regard all days as given by God, it makes no difference. But in some ways, Sunday is more appropriate; being the day Jesus rose from the dead (Mark 16:9), and first met with His disciples (John 20:19), and a day when Christians gathered for fellowship (Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2). Under Law, men worked towards God’s rest; but after Jesus’ finished work on the cross, the believer enters into rest and goes from that rest out to work.

vii. But we are also commanded to work six days. “He who idles his time away in the six days is equally culpable in the sight of God as he who works on the seventh.” (Clarke) Many Christians should give more “leisure time” to the work of the LORD. Every Christian should have a deliberate way to serve God and advance the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.