Should We Keep the Sabbath?

A Holiday Every Week

In the beginning, God created the sky, the earth, the sea, all the animals and people during six days. Then on the seventh day, God rested and blessed the seventh day and made it holy:

2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Genesis 2

Because of this blessing, every seventh day since the beginning of creation is a holy day and we are supposed to rest from our work this day. This day of rest is called the Sabbath, because Sabbath means rest. The Sabbath begins Friday evening at sundown and continues until Saturday evening at sundown.

The Sabbath was made for man, and is also called the Lord’s Day because it is such a holy day to Jesus:

27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Mark 2

Because the Sabbath was made for man before sin entered the world, we can be sure it was meant as a wonderful gift and blessing for all mankind.

The 10 commandments describe how we are to keep the Sabbath:

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Exodus 20

So we are not to labor or make others work by going shopping on this day. We are to spend this day focusing on God and remembering how He created everything.

Jesus said the 10 commandment law will remain:

And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
Luke 16:17

And Paul similarly wrote that faith does not make the 10 commandment law void, but establishes it:

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Romans 3:31

Jesus also told His disciples to remember the Sabbath during future time periods after He had gone back to His Father’s house:

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day

Matthew 24:20

John was keeping the Sabbath after Jesus had left:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet

Revelation 1:10

And Isaiah describes everyone keeping the Sabbath in the new earth:

22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.
Isaiah 66

Since the Sabbath was meant as a gift to mankind, and it is part of the unchanging 10 commandments and we have examples of people remembering the Sabbath all through history and even into the future, it is without any doubt that we are to keep the Sabbath.

Keeping the Sabbath is one way we demonstrate our love of God: