What does the Bible say to Christians about the Sabbath? Quite a bit, but not necessarily what many Christians expect. I will discuss this under four headings: Beginning of the Sabbath; Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath; The Christian Sabbath; and Personal Practice.

Beginning of the Sabbath

The Sabbath practice originates in the Old Testament and is connected with God’s work in creation. Genesis tells us that in six days God created all things and on the seventh he rested. Genesis 2:3 tells us So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. The command to honor the Sabbath day is later found in the Mosaic law as one of the primary requirements for the people of Israel. The command is found in Exodus 20:8-11: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The Sabbath becomes a very important sign for the people. Like circumcision, it was a sign that these are the covenant people of God. In Exodus 31:12-17 God gives a longer explanation about the Sabbath where he shows it to be a sign for the people. Verses 16-17 read: Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. The Sabbath was an eternal sign, something about Sabbath observance was to always be a part of the people of God.

The word Sabbath is from the Hebrew tB’v; which means rest or cease. The Sabbath was not a day of worship for the Jews, it was a day of rest. A day of reduced activity. Throughout Old Testament history the Jews had no regular, uniform day of worship. Everything centered around the feasts and sacrifices on various days throughout the year. Uniform, regular worship doesn’t occur until the synagogue appears during the inter-testamental period. As part of the Mosaic law there was a Sabbath sacrifice (Numbers 28:9-10) and the sacrificial system was itself an act of worship and obedience, but no sort of Sabbath worship that we would be familiar with began until the synagogues.

Commands for the Sabbath included: no buying or selling (Nehemiah 10:31); no burdens carried (Nehemiah 13:19); people could not travel far (Exodus 16:29, the Sabbath journey in Acts 1:12). This last one has been hard to nail down – how far were the people allowed to travel? What the teachers of the law changed some over time. Early on the allowed distance was 2,000 cubits from home (or, later, from one’s home city; later the distance was also expanded based on various arguments from outside the Law) based on Joshua 3:4-5. 2,000 cubits is just over a half mile. Assuming God intended for the Israelites to remain close to their houses, by Mosaic law most people would not be able to attend church because of the distance involved.

By the time of the New Testament there were many restrictions on Sabbath observance. The Pharisees were good at two things: (1) expanding the Mosaic law so that even those laws intended to benefit the people became a burden; and (2) finding loopholes so they did not have to carry the same burden as the people.

Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath

The Jewish Sabbath practice seems to have been intended to communicate three things to the people. First, it showed God’s care for his people. As strange as it might sound to us today, the establishment of the Sabbath was not so much to get the people to spend the day focused on God as it was so the people would receive rest. God should be the focus of all we do, but the Sabbath was not specifically set aside as a day of worship. It was a day of rest, a day to protect the people by giving them a break in their week. I am not aware of any other culture in history that set aside one day each week so the people could rest. Even our weekend is based on this practice, the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord’s day.

Second, the Sabbath was a way of reminding the people of who created them. Every week they had a day of rest. Why a day of rest? Because on that day God rested from his creating work. The God who cares enough for them to give them rest each week is also the God who loved them enough to create them. He is sovereign over his creation and every week they had a reminder of their creator God.

Third, the Sabbath showed the people of God to be distinct. No one else had a Sabbath. No other society gave a day of rest. This showed something different about the Israelites. Since that time many people have copied the practice, but it originated with God’s command to the Jews. Surrounding nations knew who the Jews were since they were the ones who stopped any activity on the Sabbath, refusing even to travel on the last day of the week.

The Christian Sabbath

So how does all of this carry over to the church today? I have two primary responses to this question.

First, it carries over – but is fulfilled.

This follows from the Sabbath being part of the Mosaic law. There is a reason Christians don’t hold to the Mosaic law – it was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Christians are not free to live any way we please, we must still obey God’s expectations for human behavior, but we are not bound to the regulations and principles of the Mosaic law. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. We do not have to fulfill the law since Jesus has fulfilled it for us. The law of Moses has not passed away, it has not been discarded, but it has been fulfilled. The law continues to exist for Christians but we are not under the law since it has been fulfilled for us by Jesus Christ. As such we live not bound to the requirements of the law but living in liberty and freedom. This is why we do not offer sacrifice. This is why we can eat shellfish and pigs and other foods forbidden in the law. This is why we are not required to circumcise our sons, why we do not have to have a beard or keep it cut a certain way. We can wear clothing with more than one type of thread in it. On and on – all of the requirements of the law are lifted for us because Christ has fulfilled those requirements. One of the requirements is Sabbath observance. We do not have to observe the Sabbath because it has been fulfilled in Christ.

There are a few places where we can see this in Scripture. One of the clearest is the practice of the Christians throughout the New Testament. Christians worship on the Lord’s Day, Jews gather on the Sabbath. The Christian Lord’s Day practice comes from the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Many Jewish believers in the New Testament continued to participate in the Jewish Sabbath, so we find them in the synagogues with the Jews, but this is never commanded. Gentiles who come into the church are never expected to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and they are never commanded to treat the Lord’s Day as though it were the Sabbath.

Paul must have shocked some of his Jewish readers when he wrote in Romans 14:5: One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Sabbath observance becomes a matter of conscience, not a matter of command. Those who wanted to continue observing the Sabbath were permitted to do so. Those who did not feel it necessary were not required. The Old Testament Sabbath practice was no longer a requirement on the people.

There is something else at work here as well. We are very inconsistent when we seek to follow the Sabbath. Earlier we saw a few of the requirements of the Sabbath, things that could not be done. Most Christians are not consistent in following these. Even driving to church violates the Sabbath for most of us. There is no merit in keeping only part of the law. Likewise there is no merit in keeping only part of a command. Those who want to continue to observe the Sabbath should do so completely. Even a small violation of Sabbath practice means one has violated the whole Sabbath.

So we see that the command to observe the Sabbath is still in effect as part of the Mosaic law, but Christians are not under the law and do not have to fulfill the requirements of the law. If we were obligated to observe the Mosaic Sabbath then we would be obligated to observe all aspects of the Law. Anything else would be inconsistent.

Second, it carries over – and takes on new meaning.

The author of Hebrews wants Christians to understand how the requirements of the Mosaic law are fulfilled in Christ and what this fulfillment means for believers. One of the topics that comes under discussion is the Sabbath. We find this in Hebrews 3:7-4:14.

The passage focuses on 3:11, As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’. This comes from Psalm 95:11 and is a reference to God judging the Israelites in the wilderness by keeping a generation of them out of the promised land. The author if Hebrews makes a connection between the rest we can have as the people of God and the Sabbath, the day of rest given by God. Those who refuse the blessings of God – in this case, those who refuse Jesus Christ – will not enter his rest. But we are told in Hebrews 4:3, For we who have believed enter that rest.

Some have entered that rest, some have not. Those who rebel are not in his rest, those who believe have entered that rest. From all of this we learn that the Old Testament Sabbath points toward a new experience for the believer. There is an eternal Sabbath rest for God’s people. In the discussion on the Jewish Sabbath we noted that Exodus 31:17 speaks of the Sabbath as an eternal sign. This is how the Sabbath carries into eternity. Our rest now as Christians and later in Heaven is an experience of the eternal Sabbath rest God promised in Exodus 31:12-17.

As Christians we live in tension, what has been called the already-but-not-yet. We already experience the joys of eternal life with God but we have not yet entered into it completely. We have already entered into our Sabbath rest but we are not yet enjoying it fully, in Heaven with God. Living now as those who have entered our Sabbath rest, we see that we are already able to rest from our work (4:9-10). The work in mind here is not worldly striving and labor, it is the work of salvation. There is no work for us to do so that we might be saved. We have entered our Sabbath rest, we have entered the grace of Jesus Christ who accomplished for us everything necessary to be saved. We still anticipate the great celebration and full rest of entering Heaven and seeing all striving come to an end, but even now we enjoy the joys of Sabbath rest.

This means we already and always experience a degree of Sabbath fulfillment. We don’t rest on Saturday because every day is our Sabbath. There is something confessional in this. Why don’t we celebrate the Jewish Sabbath? Because for the Christian every day is a day of rest. We have true rest in the Lord every day of the week. We do not enter that rest once a week, but as the writer of Hebrews says, all who believe in Jesus Christ have already – and from now on – entered that rest. We anticipate with eager expectation the full consummation of the Sabbath rest with God in Heaven, but we rejoice that even now we are in our Sabbath rest.

Personal Practice

From all that I have said I hope it is clear that I do not believe there is any expectation in the Bible for Christians to observe the Jewish Sabbath. What Sabbath observance actually serves to do is to place on us a restriction of the Jewish law. It is like the Galatians who wanted to force the issue of circumcision. We are free from the law! Put that requirement down.

That said, I do believe in the value of worship on the Lord’s Day. I appreciate businesses like Chick-fil-A that do not open on Sunday. This allows workers to attend church. I have no general objection to people working on Sunday but I do have a specific objection to people being unable to attend church. This is one reason it is good to have multiple church services throughout the week. Those who are unable to come on Sunday will have other opportunities. Still, I wish more people kept Sunday available as a day of worship. Not as a matter of lawful obligation but as a matter of joy, of privilege, and of necessity. Christians need fellowship with one another, and we need times of community worship. Sunday offers a good opportunity for that.

So I have no issue with someone wanting to do work on Sunday if it does not interfere with church. Work would violate the Jewish Sabbath, but we are not under that law and at any rate have already entered our eternal Sabbath rest. But I have been reminded of another principle of Christian living: thinking not just of what you find acceptable but also of what others find acceptable.

Earlier I quoted Paul in Romans 14:5 where he leaves Sabbath observance as a matter of conscience. But he goes on in Romans 14:13-23 to instruct believers to avoid doing those things that might cause another person to stumble. Some other specific examples he cites are those who object to eating meat and those who object to certain drinks. As Christians there is no biblical prohibition against such things but Paul knows many believers would have a hard time seeing other Christians eating pigs or some such thing. So he says in verse 15 For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. Later, in verse 20, he says: Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. Applied to the Sabbath we could say no day is more significant than another, but do not for the sake of lawn care make another stumble.

Since many do believe Christians should observe the Sabbath and would be distressed by those who do not observe the Sabbath, wisdom and love should lead us to be careful in how we act. I hope and pray Christians come to a biblical understanding of the Sabbath but it will not help people have that understanding by displaying my liberty without explaining it. Much better to restrain the exercise of liberty – to treat the Sabbath (or, more specifically, the Lord’s Day) as they expect me to while I try to help them see what the Bible says about Christians, the law, and the Sabbath. In the future I will be more careful with what I do on Sunday.

Update: I wrote more.