Sabbath Keeping

The Sabbath Day. Are Christians supposed to follow Jewish Law and Customs

Acts 20:7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

Absolutely not, and if you as a Christian try to mingle Judaism with Christ, you are preaching and following “another Gospel” as Paul states in Galatians 1:6-9 “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any [man] preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

This false belief is another reason why the Church is in a defeated condition, because well meaning God loving folk follow false teachings, taking one or two scriptures and building a doctrine around it, instead of looking to God’s Word as a whole for truth. I know because I was stupid enough to listen and follow Satan’s disciples. Please remember that Satan will do all he can to get you to follow false teachings thereby keeping you in bondage and defeat.

Should we keep the Sabbath or not? from CARM.

Exodus 20:8; 23:12; 31:15; Deuteronomy 5:12; Leviticus 26:2 and Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16

Keep the Sabbath
(Exodus 20:8-9)–“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 “Six days you shall labor and do all your work,”
(Exodus 23:12)–“Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor in order that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh themselves.”

(Exodus 31:15)–“For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.”

(Deuteronomy 5:12)–“Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.”

(Leviticus 26:2)–“You shall keep My sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary; I am the Lord.”

Don’t keep the Sabbath
(Romans 14:5)–“One man regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind.”

(Colossians 2:16)–“Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.”

It was the custom of the Jews to come together on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, cease work, and worship God. Of the 10 commandments listed in Exodus 20:1-17, only nine of them were re-instituted in the New Testament. (Six in Matthew 19:18, murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, honor parents, and worshiping God; Romans 13:9, coveting. Worshiping God properly covers the first three commandments). The one that was not reaffirmed was the one about the Sabbath. Instead, Jesus said that He is the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8).

In creation God rested on the seventh day. But, since God is all-powerful, He doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t need to take a break and rest. So,

why does it say that He rested? The reason is simple: Mark 2:27 says, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, God established the Sabbath as a rest for His people–not because He needed a break but because we are mortal and need a time of rest–of focus on God. In this, our spirits and bodies are both renewed.

The O.T. system of Law required keeping the Sabbath as part of the overall moral, legal, and sacrificial system by which the Jewish people satisfied God’s requirements for behavior, government, and forgiveness of sins. The Sabbath was part of the Law in that sense. In order to “remain” in favor with God, you had to also keep the Sabbath. If it was not kept, then the person was in sin and would often be punished (Ezekiel 18:4; Rom. 6:23; Deut. 13:1-9; Num. 35:31; Lev. 20:2, etc.).

But with Jesus’ atonement, and justification by faith (Rom. 5:1), we no longer are required to keep the Law and hence the Sabbath which was only a shadow of things to come (Col. 2:16-17). We are not under Law but grace (Rom. 6:14-15). The Sabbath is fulfilled in Jesus because in Him we have rest (Matt. 11:28). We are not under obligation to keep the Law, and this goes for the Sabbath as well.

From Living Waters.com

Some today insist that Christians must keep the Sabbath day, that those who worship on the first day of the week (Sunday) are in great error.

They reason that “Sun-day” comes from the pagan worship of the Sun god, that Jesus and Paul kept the Sabbath day as an example for us to follow, and that the Roman Catholic church is responsible for the change in the day of worship. Those who continue to worship on Sunday will receive the mark of the beast.

Let’s briefly look at these arguments. First, nowhere does the Fourth Commandment say that Christians are to worship on the Sabbath. It commands that we rest on that day: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work . . . 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 20:8–11). Sabbath-keepers worship on Saturday. However, the word “Satur-day” comes from the Latin for “Saturn’s day,” a pagan day of worship of the planet Saturn (astrology).

If a Christian’s salvation depends upon his keeping a certain day, surely God would have told us. At one point, the apostles gathered specifically to discuss the relationship of believers to the Law of Moses. Acts 15:5–11, 24–29 was God’s opportunity to make His will clear to His children. All He had to do to save millions from damnation was say, “Remember to keep the Sabbath holy,” and millions of Christ-centered, God-loving, Bible-believing Christians would have gladly kept it. Instead, the only commands the apostles gave were to “abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication.”

There isn’t even one command in the New Testament for Christians to keep the Sabbath holy. In fact, we are told not to let others judge us regarding Sabbaths (Colossians 2:16), and that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man (Mark 2:27). The Sabbath was given as a sign to Israel (Exodus 31:13–17); nowhere is it given as a sign to the Church. Thousands of years after the Commandment was given we can still see the sign that separates Israel from the world—they continue to keep the Sabbath holy.

The apostles came together on the first day of the week to break bread (Acts 20:7). The collection was taken on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:2). When do Sabbath-keepers gather together to break bread or take up the collection? It’s not on the same day as the early Church. They tell us that the Roman Catholic church changed their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, but what has that got to do with the disciples keeping the first day of the week? That was the Roman Catholic church in the early centuries, not the Church of the Book of Acts.

Romans 14:5–10 tells us that one man esteems one day of the week above another; another esteems every day alike. Then Scripture tells us that everyone should be fully persuaded in his own mind. We are not to judge each other regarding the day on which we worship.

Jesus did keep the Sabbath. He had to keep the whole Law to be the perfect sacrifice. The Bible makes it clear that the Law has been satisfied in Christ. The reason Paul went to the synagogue each Sabbath wasn’t to keep the Law; that would have been contrary to everything he taught about being saved by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8,9). It was so he could preach the gospel to the Jews, as evident in the Book of Acts. Paul had an incredible evangelistic zeal for Israel to be saved (Romans 10:1). To the Jew he became as a Jew, that he might win the Jews (1 Corinthians 9:19,20). That meant he went to where they gathered on the day they gathered.

D. L. Moody said, “The Law can only chase a man to Calvary, no further.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law so we are no longer in bondage to it. If we try to keep one part of the Law (even out of love for God), we are obligated to keep the whole Law (Galatians 3:10)—all 613 precepts. If those who insist on keeping the Sabbath were as zealous about the salvation of the lost as they are about other Christians keeping the Sabbath, we would see revival.

Other good sources
Grace to You.