The Weekly Sabbath & Moses

(Richard Bacon, Wednesday, December 20, 2000)

We have seen and agreed in earlier discussion that the weekly Sabbath, which has as its fundamental meaning the idea of a cyclic rest, was first instituted in Eden and only later commanded in the Decalog (ten commandments). Yet we deny that the subsequent commandment at Sinai was the first that man was *required* to Sabbath (rest) in obedience to God. We further deny that the addition of numerous Mosaic details to the Sabbath in any way abrogates the requirement to keep a Sabbath rest to God when those details were themselves abrogated. Quite apart from the Sinaitic fourth commandment, then, the Sabbath was actually of Edenic origin and inheres in the very nature of man and is therefore of perpetual obligation. As Christ himself said, the Sabbath was made for man (qua man) and not merely for the Jew. Thus also Chas. Hodge in his Systematic Theology, volume III, states several reasons for the perpetual nature of the Sabbath:

(1.) To commemorate the work of creation. The people were commanded to remember the Sabbath-day and to keep it holy, because in six days God had made the heavens and the earth.
(2.) To preserve alive the knowledge of the only living and true God. If heaven and earth, that is, the universe, were created, they must have had a creator; and that creator must be extramundane, existing before, out of, and independently of the world. He must be almighty, and infinite in knowledge, wisdom, and goodness; for all these attributes are necessary to account for the wonders of the heavens and the earth. So long, therefore, as men believe in creation, they must believe in God. This accounts for the fact that so much stress is laid upon the right observance of the Sabbath. Far more importance is attributed to that observance than to any merely ceremonial institution.
(3.) This command was designed to arrest the current of the outward life of the people and to turn their thoughts to the unseen and spiritual. Men are so prone to be engrossed by the things of this world that it was, and is, of the highest importance that there should be one day of frequent recurrence on which they were forbidden to think of the things of the world, and forced to think of the things unseen and eternal.
(4.) It was intended to afford time for the instruction of the people, and for the public and special worship of God.
(5.) By the prohibition of all servile labour, whether of man or beast, it was designed to secure recuperative rest for those on whom the primeval curse had fallen: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."
(6.) As a day of rest and as set apart for intercourse with God, it was designed to be a type of that rest which remains for the people of God, as we learn from Psalms xcv. 11, as expounded by the Apostle in Hebrews iv. 1-10.
(7.) [Only] As the observance of the Sabbath had died out among the nations, it was solemnly reenacted under the Mosaic dispensation to be a sign of the covenant between God and the children of Israel.

Hodge further demonstrated the existence from Scripture itself for the Sabbath's existence from creation to Sinai:

1. In Genesis ii. 3, it is said, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; bemuse that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." It is indeed easy to say that this is s prolepsis; that the passage assigns the reason why in the times of Moses, God selected the seventh, rather than any other day of the week to be the Sabbath.
2. Apart from the fact that the reason for the Sabbath existed from the beginning, there is direct historical evidence that the hebdomadal division of time prevailed before the deluge. Noah in Genesis viii. 10, 12, is said twice to have rested seven days.
3. And again in the time of Jacob, as appears from Genesis xxix. 27, 28, the division of time into weeks was recognized as an established usage. As seven is not an equal part either of a solar year or of a lunar month, the only satisfactory account of this fact, is to be found in the institution of the Sabbath. This division of time into weeks, was not confined to the Hebrew race. It was almost universal. This fact proves that it must have had its origin in the very earliest period in the history of the world.
4. That the law of the Sabbath was not first given on Mount Sinai, may also be inferred from the fact that it was referred to as a known and familiar institution, before that law was promulgated. Thus in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus the people were directed to gather on the sixth day of the week manna sufficient for the seventh, as on that day none would be provided. It was a law given in the beginning, that had doubtless in a good measure, especially during their bondage in Egypt, become obsolete, which the people were henceforth to remember and faithfully observe.
5. It is a strong argument in favor of this conclusion, that the law of the Sabbath was taken up and incorporated in the new dispensation by the Apostles, the infallible founders of the Christian Church. All the Mosaic laws founded on the permanent relations of men either to God or to their fellows, are in like manner adopted in the Christian Code. They are adopted, however, only as to their essential elements. Every law, ceremonial or typical, or designed only for the Jews, is discarded. We are as much bound to keep one day in seven holy unto the Lord, as were the patriarchs or Israelites. This law binds all men as men, because given to all mankind, and because it is founded upon the nature common to all men, and the relation which all men bear to God. The two essential elements of the command are that the Sabbath should be a day of rest, that is, of cessation from worldly avocations and amusements; and that it should be devoted to the worship of God and the services of religion.
6. Thus from the creation, in unbroken succession, the people of God have, in obedience to the original command, devoted one day in seven to the worship of the only living and true God. It is hard to conceive of a stronger argument than this for the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath as a divine institution. It is not worth while to stop to answer the objection, that the record of this uninterrupted observance of the Sabbath is incomplete. History does not record everything.

Thus far Hodge.

When one begins to examine the New Testament record for Christian observances of the Sabbath, however, such requirements as are evident in the Old Testament are quite absent. Acts 13:14 indicates that as an evangelistic work amongst the Jews and proselytes of that day the Christians attended the *Jewish* synagogue on the seventh day, but there is simply no evidence that specifically Christian meetings were held on the seventh day as a weekly ordinance subsequent to the resurrection of Christ. However, there is considerable evidence that the first day of the week (referred to in English language as "Sunday") was observed and kept and in such a way as to maintain the original sevenfold weekly cycle (John 20:1, 19, 26; Acts 20:6-7; 1 Cor. 16:1-2; ?Rev. 1:10?).

It is quite beside the point for the seventh day (referred to in English language as "Saturday") observer to argue that there is no specific mention of the inauguration of the keeping of the first day. For there is likewise no Old Testament mention of the inauguration of the keeping of the seventh day. It is allowed and argued that the keeping of the seventh day was implicit from the time of Eden to the time of the decalogue's being given at Sinai. Thus, if the seventh day proponent were consistent he would either acknowledge that a specific inauguration is not required for first day observance or he would allow that there was never an inauguration of the seventh day for the Israelites to "remember."

It is quite sufficient for an inauguration of the seventh day Sabbath that God himself first observed the Sabbath and only several thousands of years later pointed back to that first example and told the Israelites to "remember" it. It is likewise sufficient for an inauguration of the first day Sabbath that God himself, especially as the second person of the trinity, by himself appearing to his worshipping disciples on that day first in his resurrection and then again eight days later (i.e. on the eighth day subsequent to his resurrection which means the NEXT first day), and then by the descent of God himself as the third person of the trinity on the day of Pentecost. From Eden to Sinai we know by God's example and then by the actions of the patriarchs themselves that God instituted the seventh day from creation as the Sabbath. Similarly we know from Christ's example and the example of the Holy Spirit and then by the actions of the apostles themselves that God instituted the first day of the week from the resurrection of Christ as the Sabbath.

A superficial reading of Colossians 2:16 *apart from the example of the risen Christ* might conceivably appear to suggest that the weekly sabbath and indeed the week itself no longer obtains for the Christian. But the fact that we have the example of Christ meeting with his disciples subsequent to his resurrection on the first (eighth) day of the week, and the example of the apostles meeting for specifically Christian worship on the first day of the week, and commending setting aside religious offerings on the first day of the week all conspire to demonstrate that the weekly Sabbath has not been abrogated, but that the day of its observance has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week.

Summarizing, it is clear that the weekly Sabbath is essentially moral and, unlike the Mosaic sabbaths, is still in force today.

The various Mosaic sabbaths (or ceremonial sabbaths) are listed in Lev. 23 together with the weekly seventh day Sabbath. All of them were called by the term "feasts" of holy convocation or "holy days" and all involve keeping a "sabbath" day or a day of "holy convocation" during which "no servile work is to be done" or otherwise "a day of solemn rest." All those days were shadows of the things to come -- namely our perfect and eternal rest in Christ. Those shadows were all blotted out and nailed to the cross of Christ -- NOT to rise with him in his resurrection.

Christians are therefore now enjoined, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]" (Col. 2:9-16). Notice that Paul includes not ONLY the holy days and new moons, but ALSO the sabbaths. Thus the Sinaitic or Mosaic sabbaths are ALL done away.

Paul there meant exactly what he said. It is useless to argue that Paul in Colossians must have meant only ceremonial sabbaths, for Paul had already spoken of those ceremonial sabbaths when he claimed that holy days and new moons were not to be matters of judgment. Colossians 2:16 can only mean one of two things: either that there is now in this Christian age no week and no sabbath at all, or that God's people are still required to keep a Sabbath, but that the Sabbath we are required to keep is somehow to be distinguished from Sabbath kept by the Jewish nation. But it has been demonstrated previously that the weekly Sabbath is of perpetual obligation. So the first alternative is an impossibility. The weekly Sabbath *must* be in force now, but in a way that carefully and theologically distinguishes it from the weekly Sabbath days that were celebrated by the Jews.

It has not been the purpose or intention of this post to demonstrate or prove the first day Sabbath. That will be accomplished in subsequent posts. However, what has been attempted is a demonstration of the *plausibility* of the thesis. We maintain that the first day Sabbath cannot be automatically read-out of the New Testament and that there is a prima facie plausibility that obtains for it. We maintain that the root meaning of "sabbath" is NOT "seven," but "rest." We maintain that the Jews were specifically called upon to remember the creation and the release from bondage in Egypt by their resting on the seventh day. We shall maintain in subsequent posts that Christians are today called upon to remember the new creation in Christ and the release from bondage to sin by their resting on the day of Christ's resurrection, viz. the first day of the week.

Richard Bacon, Ph.D.
First Presbyterian Church of Rowlett
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