In the Book of Exodus God required Israel to observe the Sabbath. It was also part of the Ten Commandments that God gave to Israel.
Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the day, Sabbath, to set it apart for God. You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath for Adonai your God. On it, you are not to do any kind of work — not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property. For in six days, Adonai made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. This is why Adonai blessed the day, Sabbath, and separated it for himself.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 Observe the day of Sabbath, to set it apart as holy, as Adonai your God ordered you to do. You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath for Adonai your God. On it you are not to do any kind of work — not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your ox, your donkey or any of your other livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property — so that your male and female servants can rest just as you do. You are to remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Adonai your God brought you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore Adonai your God has ordered you to keep the day of Sabbath.
Now, the command to remember the Sabbath day is the Fourth commandment. And this has become one of the controversial commandments of the Christian Churches today. There is tension between the Messianic Churches and the Gentile Churches on this very topic.
While Gentile Churches accept the Ten Commandments, they conveniently ignore the Fourth Commandment stating it does not apply to them any longer. They would say Messiah or Christ is their Sabbath. Or they will say Messiah or Christ fulfilled the Sabbath. If you question them asking what this means they will find it hard to really justify their argument.
They will hang it in their churches and homes and consider are the foundational building blocks of their faith. Yet they totally ignore this command to honour and set it apart for God. In fact, if they have any power and authority to remove or alter any of the Ten Commandments, without a doubt they will erase this commandment from the list of Ten Commandments. As a matter of fact, the Roman Catholic Church did that already. They did not erase it but altered it. And it remains altered to this very day.
There is another argument that many Christians will give. They will say the original Sabbath has been transferred to Sunday, the 1st day of the week, to honour the resurrection of Yeshua. They call this the Lord’s Day. Sunday has become the new Sabbath day. The Seventh day Sabbath day has been replaced by the First day Lord’s Day.
However, there is a big problem with this. While there is nothing wrong with meeting and worshipping on the 1st day of the week, or any other day of the week for that matter. The Lord’s Day is simply NOT the Sabbath as defined by God in Holy Scripture. It was the LORD who established the Seventh Day as the Sabbath. It was not established by any man. If there is one day that the LORD called by name that was the Seventh Day, Sabbath. All the rest of the days are known by their number. So understand that the Sabbath day was ordained by the LORD Himself. Man has no authority to change that.
As a matter of fact, there is not one scholar or theologian who would disagree with the fact that the LORD has never replaced the Seventh Day Sabbath with the First Day Lord’s Day. Church doctrine 100% agrees that the Biblical Sabbath, which is the 7th day, is absolutely NOT the Lord’s Day, which is the 1st day of the week.
So the question is, does the Sabbath observance for the Gentile church or not? The answer is absolutely, YES! All believers must honour and set that day apart for God. Yeshua did not abolish or replace the Sabbath day, nor Apostle Paul or any other disciples. They both honoured the Sabbath day.
If you, as a Christian revere all of the Ten Commandments, you are saying you revere the Forth Commandment, yet you are not keeping the 4th Word of God, found yourself violating all of the commandments. Instead, you are following an edict that has a Catholic origin. That’s right. All of the modern Protestant denominations have been following Catholic edicts all of their church lives but many just are not aware of it.
To conclude, what is the LORD asking of you here from the above verses?
- He is asking you to remember the day, Sabbath, to set it apart for God as a Holy Day.
- He is asking you to consider the seventh day as a Sabbath for Adonai your God.
- He has blessed the day, Sabbath, and separated it for himself. Therefore Adonai your God has ordered you to keep the day of Sabbath.
It is a time of weekly reflection on how God has delivered you from slavery, slavery of Sin and Death. As far as Israel is concerned they were slaves in Egypt and God has delivered them from their slavery. As far as Christians are concerned, the LORD has delivered us from the slavery of Sin and Death. We have been grafted into the covenant that God has for Israel. The covenant comes with all the laws and ordinances applicable to Israel. Make no bones about it.
