SABBATH WORSHIP: PART 1 EXODUS 20:8-11; DEUTERONOMY 5:12-15

One of the main distinctives of the Seventh-Day Adventists is, of course, given right in their name – they worship on Saturday instead of Sunday. In spite of that view, most other Christian denominations no longer consider them to be an heretical cult in view of their otherwise orthodox beliefs. On their part, the Adventists consider other Christians as full believers in spite of their mistaken belief on the proper day of worship. However, this issue, according to them, will become much more important as the last days approach. That will be the subject of a companion post, however.

In the present discussion, I would just like to consider the reasonableness of their contention concerning the appropriate day for Christians to worship.

I. Much of the importance that Adventists place on this issue lies in the contention that the Fourth Commandment as given in Exodus 20:8-11 is vital in our acceptance of all the commandments. Thus, it is only here that we are given the reason why God's laws need to be obeyed – it is because He is the creator of the entire universe (v. 11). There are several reasons why that contention stands on rather shaky ground:

    If that were so important, why wasn't that commandment given first instead of fourth?

    If that were so important, why isn't that explanation made more clearly instead of only mentioned in passing?

    Why would it need to be pointed out at all when the rest of Jewish history up to that point accepted God as Creator, and it appears in the first verses of the Pentateuch?

    Why isn't God even mentioned as Creator when Moses reiterates the commandments in Deuteronomy 5:12-15?

    And most importantly, why does Jesus state that the first commandment, not the fourth, is the great commandment (Matthew 22:38)?

And actually, there are other reasons given for us to accept the commandments found within the Decalogue itself: God is the one who brought the Jews out of Egypt (Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 5:6,15); God is a jealous God who punishes disobedience (Exodus 20:5a; Deuteronomy 5:11b); God shows steadfast love to those who love him and keep his commandments (Exodus 20:5b); and in order that they might have long life in the land to which God would lead them (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16).

II. The second contention is that the reason for observing the Sabbath is that we are thus emulating God as he ceased from His labors on the seventh day. That is certainly one of the reasons given, but interestingly it is not even mentioned in the explanation for the Sabbath found in the retelling of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. There the given reason (v. 15) is that it is to contrast a day of rest with the slave labor the Jews were forced to perform in Egypt without pause.

III. A third pillar to the reasoning of Adventists is that since God rested on the seventh day, and no other, that is the particular day we need to chose as our Sabbath today, not the first day of the week. But unless they make the quite absurd suggestion that the Jews have always known exactly when that seventh day of creation happened to have occurred, there is no way for us to be assured that we are choosing the proper day for the Sabbath today.

But perhaps there is a long Jewish tradition that allows us to identify the seventh day of the week with some degree of assurance. Unfortunately no. It has been claimed that there is, in fact, a continuous line of weeks within Judaism that can be traced back to about 600 BC, in other words, after the Exile. But that still leaves an innumerable number of unaccounted years before the Creation, even if one believes in a Young Earth.

Things get even more complicated when one tries to correlate the Jewish calendar at the time of the Roman Empire with the Julian or Gregorian calendars (and the latter two even disagreed among themselves in assigning days to dates). Since the Jews followed a lunar method of determining time and the Romans used a solar calendar, it is in fact hopeless to try to compare them today. Thus, what we in America and Canada call the seventh day of the week may in fact be the first, second or any other day of the Jewish calendar at the time of Christ.

So, since it is impossible to use the Creation as a foolproof method of determining the actual day on which we should celebrate the Sabbath, what about the other justification given for its celebration? Both the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions of the Decalogue state the command quite clearly: “Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath.”

So no matter how we number the days of the week, the important factor is that the sabbath comes after our six days of work. For most of the world today, unlike the early Jews with their six days of work or the early Romans with their seven days of work followed by a market day, we follow a five-day work week starting with Monday. (Parenthetically, most of the world outside of North America has now officially adopted Monday as the first day of the week.) In that case, our Sabbath day of rest could be picked as either Saturday or Sunday without in the least contravening the Old Testament law.

IV. The next assumption made by the Adventists is that Christians are to follow the OT law. This subject in itself encompasses a huge area to cover, and so I won't try to muddle through the various views here. Suffice it to say that while Jesus was on earth, he addressed most if not all of the Ten Commandments, and in each case he offered a slight twist on what they meant. In the eyes of the Pharisees and scribes, he certainly broke the Sabbath command a number of times. And in one case, Jesus even stated that he was the Lord of the Sabbath. John Stott concludes that “though Jesus broke through the rabbinic traditions about the sabbath, there was no annulling of the observance of the day.” That was certainly true, at least during Jesus' life on earth.

Christ pointedly said that the OT law would not go away until all been fulfilled. Some interpret that to refer to the time of the New Heaven and New Earth, but a more reasonable interpretation is that it refers to Christ's atoning death to deliver us from our bondage to sin and the penalty of the law. (Which may be the explanation for Jesus' words on the cross: “It is finished.”)

The necessity of keeping the OT commandments was hotly debated in the early church as evidenced by the Judaizer conflicts in Acts and Paul's letters. At the so-called Jerusalem Conference, it is instructive that Sabbath-keeping is not even mentioned as a necessity for Gentile Christians to observe. But that may be due to the fact that it was taken for granted.

The question of Sabbath observance does come up in Paul's letters, mainly in the context of refuting the various legalists among the Jewish Christians. Thus, in Romans 14:5-6, Paul states, “Some people believe one day is better than another, while others treat all days alike. Let each one be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord.” And in Galatians 4:10-11, he criticizes those who are “observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid that my work among you may have been totally wasted.” Finally, in Colossians 2:16-17 he explains his rationale for dismissing such things as unimportant: “Therefore let no one criticize you in matters of food or drink or in regard to feast days, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

The sabbath is also mentioned in Hebrews 4:9 where it is seen as a type of what was to come. Thus Stott says, “Here the rest typified by the sabbath is seen as the rest of heart, provided in Christ (cf. Matt. 11:28) to be realized partially now and fully in the life to come.”

Finally, and most conclusively, Paul states in Ephesians 2:15 that Christ “has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances.”

V. But in spite of the above, if the early Christians did worship on the seventh day, that would be another piece of evidence in favor of the Adventist position. Certainly it true that the Palestinian Christians would have continued to attend the Synagogue services, probably in addition to their own private meetings. And when Paul and his companions visited a new city, they were most likely to find not only Jews but also Gentile Godfearers in attendance at the Synagogues. And as visiting teachers, they would probably have been invited to speak at such meetings, giving good opportunities for evangelism.

However, there are intriguing passages that show the beginnings of what would become the standard later practice of worshiping on Sunday. Acts 20:7 indicates that Paul met a group of believers in Troas where they all stayed for seven days. Despite being there a full week, they chose the first day of the week on which to break bread together (probably Holy Communion). Paul also instructs the churches in Galatia to set aside money for a designated offering on the first day of each week. It has been pointed out that it certainly wasn't because that was their standard payday. Lastly, is John's statement in Revelation 1:10 that he was in the spirit on the Lord's day. This was certainly a reference to the first day of the week and, less certainly, may even describe a vision he had while in a worship service.

The Lord's day is referred to as the first day of the week from at least Ignatius (Letter to the Magnesians 9:1) and the Didache (early 1^st century Christian document). Stott explains: “This was the day on which Christ in his resurrection was revealed as Lord, and the day would be celebrated with this thought in view.”

VI. The sixth cornerstone of the Adventist position, which is not often directly expressed, is that the Sabbath is not only to be a day of rest, but it is also the only duly-constituted day for worship. The NT references in sections IV and V above begin to cast doubts on that assertion. But even more doubts arise as to its validity in consideration of OT history.

First, if you look again at the Decalogue you will search long and hard and still not find it stated that the Sabbath is to be a day of worship. Next, as Bosman in his exhaustive study on the subject states, “The majority of references to the Sabbath in the OT are characterized by the prohibition of all work and not by specific cultic activities [i.e., acts of worship]. Recent research by McKay also concludes that the Old Testament provides little evidence that it was practiced as extensively in preexilic times as one might expect from the usual interpretation of the the commandments.” Albertz “presupposes that in the preexilic period a family abstained from work every seven days and that this custom had no direct cultic connotation...In postexilic times there is some evidence of a celebration of the Sabbath that entailed more than rest and that included a festive assembly in the temple (Ezekiel 46:1,9)..It would seem as if the ordinary Israelites knew of no specific religious practices peculiar to the Sabbath... According to the Gospels and Acts, the synagogues were places where Scripture was read and argued, but very little evidence concerning Sabbath worship, such as prayer and sacrifices, can be gleaned from these books.”

John Stott does point out that Leviticus 24:8 and Numbers 28:9 mention special sacrifices that are to be offered on Sabbath day, but these were activities that only the Aaronic priesthood took part in, not any common Israelites.

Conclusion

There is no way of correlating the OT sabbath days with the particular day of the week on which God rested.

There is no way of correlating our present system of naming days of the week with the particular day of the week on which the OT sabbath was observed.

The important aspect of the Sabbath is that it is to be a day of rest from our labors.

There is little to no evidence that worship was ever an aspect of the OT observance of the Sabbath.

The sabbath rest is only a type of the rest that came with Christ's redeeming actions.

We are free from the OT observances in any case and are told not to let other believers impose their views of the sabbath on us.

So what should be our present attitude toward whichever day of the week we chose to set aside?

It should not be a day of filled with busy activities. Some of you are busy all day Sunday with various church obligations. If that is true, I would advise you to retire from some of those duties and give others the opportunity to serve. I once attended a small church in which I held down at least five different positions since I couldn't get anyone else to volunteer. When I left that congregation, I was convinced that it would fall apart. But I was surprised to learn that others immediately filled in for my absence.

Another option is to treat Saturday as a day to rest from your work and devote Sunday to worship.

One rationale behind sabbath-keeping is to remember that God created the heaven and earth. But due to Christ's resurrection on the first day, believers are now new creations looking forward to the day when God creates a brand new heaven and earth. So there is nothing inappropriate in celebrating that new creation on the first day of the week.

The other rationale given in the OT for the institution of the sabbath is in relationship to the Israelites being freed from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. As Stott says, “The sabbath was to be kept holy, because Israel was a redeemed people.” But as members of the newly constituted people of God, we remember that we have likewise been redeemed from our bondage to sin and its penalty. And that event happened on the first day of the week.