the Sabbath
God Will Cause the Sabbaths to Cease
If the Sabbath is a perpetual commandment of God, why does God
declare that He will cause the Sabbaths to cease? In Hosea 2:11 God
spoke to the Israelites saying, "I will also cause all her mirth to
cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her
solemn feasts." If Sabbath-keeping was an end in itself, why would
the originator of the Sabbath stop the Sabbath? At best He would
only punish man for failing to keep His eternal command, not take
the command away.
Isaiah 1:10-20 is similar to the above passage. In this passage God
communicated His disgust for Israel's failure to obey Him, all the
while they continue to make sacrifices, observe the new moons,
Sabbaths, and festivals. Verses 13-14 demonstrate God's anger at
this hypocrisy: "Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an
abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of
assemblies -- I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your
New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a
trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them." (NKJV) If the Sabbath
was an eternal decree of God, surely God could not be weary with the
Israelites' continued observance of it. God would only display His
displeasure over their failure to observe the Sabbath, yet Sabbath
keeping was not the real issue that God had with the Israelites.
There were other weightier matters of the Law that the Israelites
were not obeying, which made the Sabbath observance a mere
formality, and empty.
Also puzzling is Lamentations 2:6c where it is said that "the LORD
has caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion."
If Sabbath-keeping was an end in itself, why would the Lord cause it
to be forgotten? If observing the Sabbath was so important to God He
would never cause it to be forgotten, just as He would never cause
it to be forgotten to have no other gods before Him. If the Sabbath
was part of God's eternal law, most assuredly He would have caused
Israel to remember the Sabbath rather than forget it.3
NT Examples Demonstrating the Sabbath Has Been Abrogated
There are three primary NT texts which teach that the church is no
longer bound by the Mosaic Sabbath laws: Romans 14:5-6; Galatians
4:9-11; Colossians 2:14-16.
In Romans 14:5-6a Paul declared, "One man considers one day more
sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one
should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as
special, does so to the Lord." While Paul does not specifically use
the word "Sabbath," the fact remains that the Sabbath is a day that
some would consider more important than other days, so it does
qualify for what Paul is speaking about, even if the Sabbath is not
specifically named. Paul taught that it does not matter if one
considers one day as more sacred than another, or if one considers
every day the same. There is no requirement under the New Covenant
that there be a special day of the week to observe as special or
holy. If one does not regard any day, to the Lord they do not regard
it, and this is acceptable in God's sight. The Sabbath by definition
is a special day of the week, and sacred according to the Law.
According to Paul, while one may keep it if they so desire, it is
not necessary. While I believe Paul was addressing the Sabbath along
with the other sacred days of Judaism, one thing for sure is that
the principles Paul advocated most surely can be applied to the
Sabbath, which demonstrates that under the New Covenant the church
is not bound to observe the Sabbath day.
The second passage declaring that the church is not bound by the
Sabbath laws is Galatians 4:9-11. The overarching message of
Galatians is that the Christian church is no longer under the Law of
Moses, but under the New Covenant. To appreciate Paul's words in the
aforementioned passage it would help to better understand the
occasion and purpose of Paul's letter to the Galatians.
Apparently a group of believers had infiltrated Galatia after Paul
left the area, bringing with them a gospel which taught
justification by the Law of Moses. They were probably Jewish
Christians as is evidenced by their doctrine of circumcision and the
Law. These Jesus-confessing Jewish believers seem to have attacked
Paul's apostleship and doctrine as is evidenced by Paul's defense of
both in the first two chapters of Galatians.
The troublers emphasized circumcision and the keeping of the Law
(3:2; 4:9, 21; 5:3, 18; 6:13). They were probably selective in what
parts of the Law they taught as binding as is evidenced by Paul's
pleading tone to the Galatians when he said that "every man that is
circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law" (5:3). Had
they been taught that the whole Law was binding it would not seem
necessary for Paul to warn the Galatians of this. Whatever the
Judaizers did emphasize, at the least it included the keeping of
Sabbaths, new moons, festivals, jubilees, and circumcision (4:10;
5:12). The Galatians had been convinced of their teachings against
Paul and converted to this new "faith" (1:6). The Law was not being
kept as some cultural identity issue, but as a means of
justification before God (2:16; 3:11; 5:4). Paul counters this
teaching throughout the epistle.
In arguing against the Judaistic heresy of law keeping as a means of
justification before God, Paul said, "But now after you have known
God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to
the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in
bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years"
(Galatians 4:9-10). What are these days, months, seasons, and years?
Seeing that the Galatian heresy pertained to Law observance, it is
most reasonable to assume that they refer to certain commandments of
the Law. "Days" are none other than Sabbath days; "months" are none
other than the new moon festivals; seasons probably refer to the
annual festivals including Pentecost, the festival of
harvest; "years" refers to the Sabbath years and jubilee years at
which point possessions were restored and slaves released (Leviticus
25, 27).
The final reference, Colossians 2:14-16, is most explicit concerning
the abrogation of the Sabbath laws for the church. Here Paul
declared that Christ has "wiped out the handwriting of requirements
that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it
out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. … 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." It is precisely because Christ had abolished the Law
that no one can judge another in regards to whether they eat or
drink certain things, keep festivals, or observe new moons and
Sabbaths. Why are we not to judge those who do not observe these
requirements of the Law? It is because they were mere shadows of the
spiritual truths now revealed clearly to us in the New Covenant. Now
that we have the substance of the truth, the shadow is no longer
needed.
Some argue that Paul's reference to "Sabbaths" only refers to the
four festival Sabbath days; however, there is no contextual reason
to believe that Paul is limiting his reference to only four specific
Sabbath days, but not all other weekly Sabbaths. Such a distinction
is artificial and foreign to the text. The whole context indicates
that Paul is talking in generalities: what we eat, what we drink,
religious festivals, new moons, Sabbath days. Why should we believe
that all of these are general categories except for the last one?
There is no reason, and thus it should be taken to refer to all
Sabbath days. Besides, Paul distinguishes "religious festivals"
from "Sabbath days." Seeing that the Sabbaths were intricate parts
of the religious festivals, it would be quite hard to imagine that
Paul was making reference to the festivals, but not to their
Sabbaths, and that he had to add the phrase about festival Sabbaths
later. The festival Sabbaths were part of the festivals, and
therefore we can be sure that Paul's further mention of
the "Sabbaths" includes all Sabbaths.
Those who contend that "Sabbaths" only refer to the festival
Sabbaths must also explain how it is that only the festival Sabbaths
are against us, but not the other Sabbaths? The Scripture never
makes a distinction between different levels of Sabbaths. Sabbaths
in general were against us as part of the Lawâ€â€part of the written
code that has been abolished.
While the above passages have demonstrated that the Sabbath
commandments need not be obeyed by the church because they have been
abolished with the Law, and were mere shadows, this is not the only
evidence which argues against the position that the church ought to
keep the Sabbath. If the Sabbath is for the NT church, and it is so
important that we observe it, why is there no positive command to do
so in the NT? The Mosaic Law is full of commandments to observe the
Sabbath. Is it not interesting that the commandment to observe the
Sabbath is only found in the Mosaic Covenant?
The fact that the NT nowhere commands the church to observe the
Sabbath is especially telling when one considers the fact that most
of the NT was written to a primarily Gentile audience, who would not
have been accustomed to keeping a Sabbath. It would seem that Paul
and others would have to be commanding or encouraging them to keep
the Sabbath. Instead, we find statements that tell the church not to
judge anyone based on their lack of Sabbath observance, holy day
observance, or new moon observance, calling them mere shadows which
have been fulfilled in Christ.
The Jerusalem council of Acts 15 concluded that Gentile Christians
were not obliged to keep the Law. They only required that they
observe four commandments, seemingly all of which were connected to
idolatrous worship. Significantly, of the commands given, the
Sabbath was not one of them.
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