The Sabbath Day:
An in Depth Explanation 

Sabbath: “to cease”
“the Sabbath day” means “the ‘to cease’ day.”
–Cease from the ordinary everyday life of work, chores, etc. to rest with God.–

What is the Sabbath?

• A day that has everything to do with love (Mark 2:27—God created this day for all mankind)
• God created it during the creation for you to refresh & invigorate your lives every week, a day to hit the reset button on our physical, mental and spiritual life and refocus on what’s important—God.

Why is the Sabbath even important today in the 2020’s?

• The Sabbath day is a memorial, a day when we remember God’s creative power, a day He set aside and made holy in His Creation days, that He Himself also kept Holy. The Sabbath day is a crucial day of rest, worship and memorial of God’s creation and redemption for His people. It is a representation and sign of God’s covenant relationship with His children (us). 

• This covenant is between God and His people and is in order that they might know who it is that created them (Exodus 31:17) and sanctifies them (Exodus 31:13) and that we might recognize Him as the Lord our God (Ezekiel 20:20)

What happens on the Sabbath day?

First let’s read these verses below:
                                                  Exodus 20:8-11

                  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.“

• The Sabbath day is a day to cease all our earthly work and turn our complete attention on God. This is the day we: go to church, take extra time to worship Him in prayer, Bible study, fellowship, etc. 

• It is a day to cease our worldly attentions and focus all our attention and every action on God. A way to reconnect and refocus on what is truly important—our relationship with Him. 

• Think of it as a date day with our Creator. In marriage we take time to reconnect with our spouse with one on one time together, think of the Sabbath as a date with God to reconnect after a long and busy week.  

• God knows and tells us that 6 days we can work and do all we need to do, but the 7th day is His day. He has asked us to set this day aside every week to commune and be with Him without all the distractions the world and week gives us. 

• So, what does that look like? It looks like more prayer, more time in His word, church, time with other believers.
• Nehemiah 10:31 also shows us what it looks like. We aren’t to go shopping or spend money on His holy day either. 

• It is a day of complete rest. And that’s actually a gift! We are always on the go day in and day out. Doesn’t one day out of the week where you don’t have to do anything at all sound so nice? No work, the grocery shopping, no dishes even? Just a day to kick back, relax and thank God for how amazing He is. That’s it. That’s all we have to worry about on Sabbath—thanking and praising God. 

When was it established and implemented? 

• At Creation:Genesis 2:2-3 “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
  
• Ten Commandments #4 Exodus 20:8-11: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
  • Fun fact: the 10 commandments were hand written by God Himself on the sone tablets given to Moses. Therefore, we should take them very seriously.
    

When is the Sabbath Day?

• Sunset Friday to Sunset Saturday
             —Why?
  • In the Jewish tradition which is the traditions from Creation, one full day is sunset to sunset. We see this in the creation story (Genesis 1:13 “And there was evening, and there was morning—the “x” day.”)
  • Other examples: Mark 1:21 & 32 and Leviticus 23:32

Are we sure it’s the same Day (Saturday) now as it was back then?

• Yes! Since Abraham’s time on this day until now. God says to “remember” the Sabbath day in the 4th commandment—how can you “remember” something, you didn’t already previously know about?

• Moses was sure to keep the Sabbath holy. Exodus 16:21-23 show us that the Israelites in the wilderness collected two times the amount of manna on Friday (6th day) to make sure they had enough for Saturday (7th day) as God was not going to provide for that day due to the Sabbath.

• It is simply implausible for the entire nation of Jews (millions and millions of people) to simultaneously forget or miss calculate their sacred Holy Sabbath day. Maybe a Jew who was locked in a dungeon for years separated from mankind, but not the entire population of Jews who keep track of this day with precise intensity. 

• Even today, more than 100 languages worldwide, many of them unrelated to ancient Hebrew use the word Sabbath for Saturday. Just a few examples: Spanish=Sábado….Italian: “Sabato”….Latin: “Sabbatum”…..German: “Samstag”….Croatian: “Subota”….Russian: “Суббота” (Subbota)

• Jesus even kept the Sabbath in His death! According to the Bible Jesus was crucified on Friday (the 6th), rested the Seventh (Saturday), and rose on the Sunday (the 1st). We see this to be true even in passover week during Easter. There is usually a special service held Friday night in remembrance on His death and then of course the well loved Sunday Easter Day. Nothing is celebrated on Saturday, because nothing happened. Jesus kept the Sabbath day holy even in His death. 

Is there Scriptural Proof that the Sabbath Day changed from Saturday to Sunday?

• No! Lets look at Acts 20:7…This scripture is often referenced for proof of a Sunday service. But lets look deeper.
  • “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.”
    • Knowing now what we know about a sunset to sunset day frame, this “first day” would have taken place Saturday night, as per Jewish tradition, a new day begins with night (sunset to sunset). Therefore this first day meeting would have been Saturday night. Which makes sense because further down the scripture says this:
    • “…Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left.” (Acts 20:11)
    • So, they began breaking bread on the first day, a Saturday night and spoke until daylight meaning at dawn on Sunday. 
    • Therefore, this is no proof of a Sunday worship day. As it didn’t even occur on Sunday, but Saturday night.
      
• John 20:19 also gives us more examples of this same idea: “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week…”

• Matthew 28:1 says this: after the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

So, how did it change from Saturday to Sunday?

• Both Peter and Daniel (who prophesied this hundreds of years before Jesus’ time) predicted a religious power would rise up after the time of Jesus to try and change things around. Let’s look at that verse below:
  • Daniel 7:25 “After them another king will arise…He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws.
  • Let’s learn about Emperor Constantine now, as he is pivotal in the changing of this Sabbath day law that Daniel prophesied about in the above verses

The Story Emperor Constantine

• Constantine was the first “Christian emperor,”of Rome and he has a well known conversion story. (He was marched out to battle and on his way he claims to have had a vision of a flaming cross. He then won the battle and claimed this was his sign to become a Christian.)
  
• So He “converted” and recognizing that the Christian church would soon become a dominant force, he claimed to have been converted and decided to try and make it Christianity more popular.

• After his “conversion” he then forced all his entire army to be baptized (which goes against a true heart baptism). 
• Because of his fame he influenced many pagan individuals and groups to Christianity, but these men and women were not truly Christian at heart, but just going with the “trends”. (Think of influencers today, YouTubers, celebrities) 

• These pagan worshippers who follow anything Constantine did, brought with them to Christianity their own customs and beliefs outside of Christianity. They brought all their idols and customs of “sun worship and appropriated them into their Christian practices. 

• At this time in Roman history, the official religion of the Roman Empire was “Mithraism” or “sun worship” and this religion had it’s own official day of worship called “The Venerable Day of the Sun” and was held on the first day of the week Sunday)

• In order to accommodate his new followers (the pagan citizens who “used” to worship through Mithraism who now claimed to be Christian), Constantine decided to make it more convenient for them to be Christian by accepting their day of worship Sunday (The Venerable Day of the Sun), instead of the Christian Sabbath (Saturday), which all Christians were currently keeping alongside the traditional Jews who still worshiped on the Sabbath day.

• Constantine began filling the new Christian believers with hatred towards the traditional Jewish religion and their people because they were the ones who killed Jesus. The new believers grew in so much hatred that they didn’t want any association with them or any of their “practices” (Saturday Sabbath day worship) 

• Through influence and hunger for power Constantine made it very “convenient” for his followers to become Christian, because they did not need to give up any of their secular beliefs and in fact they can bring them alongside their new Christian faith

• Constantine was able to alter Christian practice to favor Sunday over Saturday worship due to convenience and lackadaisical conversions

• Through his actions one can determine that his conversion to Christianity suggests a political move to gain more influence rather than a genuine heart change (conversion)

• He then named himself Bishop of the Catholic Church and enacted the first civil law regarding Sunday Sabbath Observance in AD 321. (You can find proof of this law in Schaff’s History of the Christian church, vol. III, chapter 75)

Overall: in a very dangerous way these leaders exalted themselves to the place of God—directly changing a law of God to suit their political and economic needs.

—but God says this in Revelation 22:18-19:
“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.”

Last Words:

• It is safe to say that a great deal of the Bible revolves around Jesus and the Sabbath day. AS it is first made Holy in Genesis in the Garden of Eden and scene throughout the entire Bible. 

• Therefore, if a change to something as dramatic and sacred as the Sabbath day would have been changed, ( a direct change to the 10 commandments, which 9/10 are all still 100% kept) God would have made this new change precisely clear in the Bible, and there are zero scripture references referring to this ideology. He would not have made it hard to find proof of. It would have been made clear as day, like he made the true Sabbath day clear from Genesis to Revelation. 

Want to learn more about the Bible? Click here to learn about the state of the dead. What truly happens when you die, according to the Bible!