WHAT DAY IS THE SABBATH, SATURDAY OR SUNDAY?
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from the Afrikaans Version: Watter dag is die Sabbat, Saterdag of Sondag?
Translator: Lynda Botha
Someone asked me:
"What is the actual Sabbath day, Saturday or Sunday?"
I just want to start by saying, as I will show you, that for me, there is not a day which can be called more holy than the other. Sure, there are events happening on certain days which are sacred, which cannot be found on other days, but that does not make that day holier than any other day.
Every day is a holy day given to us by our Lord.
I'm referring to the Sabbath which most people call a Sunday and I give this day the same holiness that I would give to for example a Monday. I am in anyway more comfortable to call a Sunday the first day of the week, like the first Christians many years ago, but I’ll speak about this a bit later. In this writing and for the sake of my readers, I will refer to this day as the Sabbath.
Personally, I do not think that this has any effect with regards to my salvation, weather I have this day on a Saturday or a Sunday, but because I was asked, I will share with you my views on this matter.
It seems to me the people who are disputing this matter are the people who want Saturday’s proclaimed as the Sabbath. Those who want to keep it on a Sunday, like me, because it’s a day where we meet in a church service to honour and praise our God, does not really dispute anything about it, we just keep honouring it. Either way, people who want to dispute this, or are arguing about this, forget apparently two important issues that are crucial to this kind of argument:
Nowhere in Scripture are the words Saturday or Sunday mentioned in whichever language. Nowhere does it mention the word “week” in the sense that "6 days of the week you must work and on the 7th day of the week you must rest."
EXO 20:9 “Six days you shall labour and do all your work,”
EXO 20:10 “but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God…”
We read here that you work for 6 days and then rest 1 day.
When does the 6 days start?
What if I as a Christian got sick and I'm only able to return to work on the Thursday when I’m healthy enough to work?
Can I then interrupt my 6 days of work and only have my Sabbath on the Saturday or Sunday?
What about the 6 days then when I have to work and then only take a day to rest?
EXO 20:9 “Six days you shall labour and do all your work,”
EXO 20:10 “but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God…”
Nowhere does the Scripture state that the first day of the 6 days work and the 7th day of rest starts the first on the first day of the week.
You may accept it any way you understand it, but you cannot say that it states specifically that in the Word. Since the Word does not state the days specifically, it will therefore be a lie should anyone say it does and according to the Word, lies originate in hell.
We only know for sure, that the Mosaic Law states you should work 6 days and have one day to rest. This is if you live your life accordingly to the law of Moses also called the Mosaic Law. It is also for me personally very enlightening that the fourth commandment does not occur anywhere in the New Testament that our Lord has established for us as Christians.
LUKE 22:19 “He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then He broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this to remember Me.”
LUKE 22:20 “After supper He took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and His people—an agreement confirmed with My blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”
However, between all these arguments, ridiculous or not, this is irrelevant as I remember:
"Praise the Lord! I'm fortunately not under the law! "
GAL 2:16 “Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
GAL 2:20 “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
GAL 2:21 “I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”GAL 3:13 “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
GAL 3:24 “Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.”
GAL 4:4 “But when the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.”
GAL 4:5 “God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children.”ROM 6:14 “Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.”
GAL 5:4 “For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”
I underline and include all the Scriptures you have read with the following:
COL 2:16 “So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths.”
COL 2:17 “For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. “
Also –
MARK 2:24-28
24 “But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look, why are they breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath?”
25 “Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry?”
26 “He went into the house of God (during the days when Abiathar was high priest) and broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat. He also gave some to his companions.”
27 “Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.”
28 “So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”
Someone who wants to place the burden of the law onto me, must remember that the following was written regarding the law:
JAMES 2:10-13
10 “For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.”
11“For the same God who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.” So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law.”
12 “So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free.”
13 “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you.”
I’m pressing this matter, the same way the people are pressing for the Saturday to be the Sabbath, and I just want to indicate something to you.
Those Christian faith followers persisting that the Sabbath is part of the law, and especially those who insist that it should be held on Saturday, must remember –
Circumcision is also part of the law.
GEN 17:10 “This is the covenant that you and your descendants must keep: Each male among you must be circumcised.”
GEN 17:11 “You must cut off the flesh of your foreskin as a sign of the covenant between me and you.”
I sometimes wonder how many of those Christians are circumcised, whose religion are mainly to preach about keeping the Sabbath, especially those who insist that the Sabbath should be held on a Saturday, and those who give Sunday’s a holier status than any other day. Because remember, it is written and you’ve read it, if you do not obey one part of the law, you have disobeyed the whole law. If someone should say that circumcision is not considered part of the law, Paul and I would disagree:
GALATIANS 5:1-3
1 “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”
2 “Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.”
3 “I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses.”
Paul experienced a problem where people preached, that if you are a Christian, you should still get circumcised. Just as I have a problem with people preaching that a Christian Sabbath must be on a Saturday as well as people who want to enforce other laws of Moses onto Christians.
I will say to someone persisting that Saturday’s should be the Christian Sabbath –
If you want to kneel under that burden, remember to make sure that you are circumcised, because you have to keep the whole law, but don’t try to manipulate me and others which stand under God’s grace.
ROMANS 3:21-24
21 “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.”
22 “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.”
23 “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
24 “Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”
If you want to make yourself and the way you keep the Sabbath law bounded, remember then what you have read:
GAL 5:4 “For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”
Don’t let Satan use us to confuse people, but let's rather use this precious time, to tell more people about our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
I believe, Christians celebrating our Sabbath on the day after the Jewish Sabbath, because our Savior, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, rose that day and walked out of the grave as the Conqueror of all evil.
I'm mournful that some people give this one day a holier status, than any of the other six holy days of our Lord. I repeat, events in honour of our Lord are holy, such as church services, but the days on which they are held are just as holy as all the other days.
I would like to mention once again that in my heart I don’t see it as the Sabbath day.
For me, every day, is the day of the Lord. It is wonderful to single out one of our Lord's holy days, because together with my fellow brothers and sisters we gather in worship. However, I don’t live that day any different to any other day, because for me every day is the day of our Lord.
PSALM 118:24: “This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
I conclude with a few passages from the Word of God, which I believe will show most of us, that the day Christians like me call the Sabbath, does not offend our Lord.
JOHN 20:19: “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you."
Now, should you say that JOHN 20:19 “first day” use of words was just a coincidence of meeting together, look at the following.
The following seems to me to be a communion service, which continued throughout the night.
ACTS 20:7-11
7 “On the first day of the week, we gathered with the local believers to share in the Lord’s Supper. Paul was preaching to them, and since he was leaving the next day, he kept talking until midnight.”
8 “The upstairs room where we met was lighted with many flickering lamps.”
9 “As Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, became very drowsy. Finally, he fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below.”
10 “Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s alive!”
11 “Then they all went back upstairs, shared in the Lord’s Supper, and ate together. Paul continued talking to them until dawn, and then he left.”
Still someone might say this is a coincidence, and therefore I refer you to the next Scripture:
1 COR 16:2: “On the first day of each week, you should put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don’t wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once.”
Why did they have to do it on the first day?
For, it seems to me, that this was the time they came together to worship and just to take the offering.
The first day will always be for me, and many other Christians, the day when we gather to give Him honour and sing praises.
MATTHEW 28:1-7
1 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.
4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.
5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you."
The way I live the first day of the week, when we gather in a church service, should be the same I live every other day of my life.
Greetings,
Sakkie