05/2004                   
A Prayer
of Jesus
I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise
and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will


YOUR QUESTION (No. 41)
On Sabbath Keeping


Jesus kept the Seventh Day Sabbath (Saturday as known today) from sunset
to sunset per Exodus 20.   Do you, as his follower, keep the same day that God said was holy;  and who blessed and sanctified it? 
 
If you don't keep this day, would you advise why you may not be so doing, please?


MY ANSWER

You have asked a very relevant question. 

The answer is, "No, I do not keep the Seventh Day Sabbath, or any Sabbath."

Per your request, I will attempt to explain.

You are in error in saying that Jesus kept the Seventh Day Sabbath as was and is the custom of the Jews.  If he kept it at all, it was according to his own standards, often offending his Jewish contemporaries by doing things on the Sabbath that violated the Sabbath in their eyes -- healing and many other things.  For example:
John.5
[18] This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.
According to this comment by the evangelist, he broke the Sabbath.  I take this to mean only in the eyes of the people because he did not cater to the ticky rules of the rabbinic traditions that put avoidance of work above works of mercy.  For Jesus, mercy always comes before the keeping of any law, including the Sabbath law that is the Fourth Commandment.

We also know that he had the authority to do whatever he wanted with the Sabbath.  He said it himself:
Matt.12
[8] For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.
The primary reason that his Sabbath keeping is suspect lies in this utterance:
John.5
[
15] The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
[
16] And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath.
[
17] But Jesus answered them, My Father is working still, and I am working.
This is a startling and radical saying, because it flatly contradicts the single reason given in Torah for the establishment of the Sabbath day rest:
Gen.2
[2] And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.
[
3] So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.

Exod.20
[
8] "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
[
9] Six days you shall labor, and do all your work;
[
10] but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates;
[
11] for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.

Exod.31

[17] It is a sign for ever 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.
But Jesus said,

My Father is working still. 

I believe Jesus, and therefore I believe that the Father-creator never rested, but
is working still.  The entire basis of the Jewish Sabbath is voided because it is based on the belief that God rested, which according to Jesus, He did not do.  I once was accustomed to wonder about that was refreshed thing.  Does God tire as a man does so as to need refreshment?  I don't think so, for as Jesus said,

My Father is working still.

Furthermore, the Prophet Isaiah directly contradicts the statements in the Pentateuch to the effect that God rested, needing to be refreshed:

Isa.40
28] Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
his understanding is unsearchable.

Take care also to notice that it is as creator that He does not faint or grow weary!

So, did Jesus keep the Sabbath? 

His being Lord of the Sabbath and knowing that the Father is working still leaves us little reason to believe Jesus of Nazareth was a Sabbath keeper.  Did he not immediately continue to say, in the midst of this "working on the Sabbath" controversy and on the Sabbath,
. . . I am working.
I have labored over this for a long time and I can see it as nothing except a firm assertion that he is working on the Sabbath, just as the Father is working and has never rested but is yet working (on the Sabbath).

Now, let us throw some other things into the mix:

1. Jesus never rebuked anyone for failing to keep the Sabbath. 

2. Jesus did rebuke the Jews because of their Sabbath keeping.

3. When men asked him what they must do to receive eternal life, he referred them to the commandments.  When they asked which, He responded:
Matt.19
[
16] And behold, one came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?"
[
17] And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.
[
18] He said to him, "Which?" And Jesus said, You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness,
[
19] Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

(See also Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-30, Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-31 and Luke 10:25-28)
He would surely have included the Fourth Commandment were that important, but instead he began with The Fifth Commandment, as though deliberately omitting the Fourth.  All the others -- the First, the Second and the Third -- were included in the Great Commandment.  Where is the Sabbath Commandment?  It is not there, is it?

I have to conclude that he deliberately omitted it because, as Lord of the Sabbath,
he repealed this commandment.

4.  When he issued the Great Commission, he said,
Matt.28
[18] And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
[19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . . . .

[20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. . . ..
Our task, therefore, is to teach and observe all that I have commanded you.  But where has he, who is Lord of the Sabbath, commanded us to observe the Sabbath?  Many of his commandments are in the Sermon on the Mount, and there he begins first with the Beatitudes.  I do not see one that reads, Blessed are the Sabbath keepers.  Then at the close of the Sermon, after delivering many important commandments, he says:
Matt.7

[24] Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock;
[25] and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

But doing
these words of mine does not include keeping the Sabbath, for there is no mention of it in the Sermon.  I conclude that Sabbath keeping is not a part of the foundation.

5. Now look carefully at Genesis 2:2 again:

Gen.2

[2] And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.

If God finished the work on the seventh day, then he must have worked on the seventh day.  Did God complete the work in six days, as indicated by Exodus 20:11 and 31:17, or did he complete it on the seventh day?  This contradiction seems to discredit the whole thing.

6.  Contrary to the scripture, the work of creation is not about to be finished -- then or now.  When the scribes recorded the creation myth they clearly thought that the work of constructing heaven and earth and all that
is in them was complete.  This was a very naive thought, because we now have the tools with which to see that the heavens and the earth are, even today, continuing to be formed, or created.  Telescopes reveal the continuing creation of galaxies, stars and planetary systems such as ours by the billions.  Jesus knew this, of course, when he said,

My Father is working still.

There are other things, but perhaps the one of major significance is that Sabbath keepers tend to believe they are pleasing the Lord by so doing, which often causes them to be deaf to things that the Lord has certainly commanded and to the need to conform to his Great Principle, a thing of which Christians in general are utterly ignorant.

That is why I do not keep the Sabbath.

This response to your questions will not please you.  I understand that, having at one time believed it was very important to keep the Lord's Day as a Sabbath.  But
I have learned many things as I have listened to our Lord Jesus through the years.  So I also urge you to hear him carefully as he speaks to you out of the gospels before making any firm and final decisions on this or any other matter of relevance to our faith.

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