Do Christians have to keep the Sabbath?

This is one of those questions that can produce surprisingly heated debate among Christians.

Some Christians believe Sabbath observance is still an important part of following God.

Others believe the Sabbath was part of the Old Testament law and that Christians are no longer required to observe it.

And there are plenty of Christians somewhere in the middle.

But what if we’ve got the whole question the wrong way round…

What if the Sabbath isn’t an arbitrary rule God invented to make our lives harder…

What if the Sabbath is actually a wonderful gift from our Creator?

Maybe, just maybe, we’ve been asking the wrong question…

In this article we’ll explore what the Bible says about whether Christians today should still keep the Sabbath and why we might have been asking the wrong question all along…

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The arguments for keeping the Sabbath

Let’s start by looking at the arguments FOR keeping the Sabbath…

1. It’s a commandment

Let’s start with the obvious one.

The Sabbath is commanded in Scripture.

It’s not tucked away in some obscure passage that nobody has ever heard of.

It’s one of the Ten Commandments.

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour 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.” – Exodus 20:8-11 (NIV)

God commanded his people to work for six days and rest on the seventh.

It’s funny how, this is the one commandment that Christians in the 21^st century feel it’s OK to break!

We don’t think it’s OK to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie or worship idols…

So why do we think it’s OK to treat the Sabbath like any other day?

And that leads us to something even more important…

2. Jesus kept the Sabbath

If Sabbath was something Christians were supposed to abandon, you might expect Jesus to make that very clear.

But what do we actually see Jesus doing?

Luke tells us:

“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” – Luke 4:16 (NIV)

Notice that phrase “as was his custom”.

Jesus observed the Sabbath.

If Jesus kept the Sabbath, and we want to be more like Jesus, shouldn’t we also keep the Sabbath?

And then we come to one of the most important Sabbath passages in the Gospels…

3. Jesus taught about Sabbath

When Jesus was challenged about what is and isn’t lawful on the Sabbath, he said:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” – Mark 2:28 (NIV)

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say:

“The Sabbath was a terrible idea and now you don’t have to bother with it anymore.”

He says:

“The Sabbath was made for man.”

In other words, Sabbath exists for our good.

It was designed to bless human beings.

Jesus was not rejecting the Sabbath itself.

He was challenging the way the religious leaders had turned Sabbath observance into a burden.

The Sabbath had become about what people could and couldn’t do.

The Pharisees had thirty-nine categories of melakhah – types of work prohibited on the Sabbath.

Jesus’ response was not:

“Forget the Sabbath.”

It was:

“You’ve forgotten what the Sabbath is for.”

The Sabbath was supposed to be a gift from God to his people.

A blessing.

A day of rest.

A day of joy, delight, celebration and worship.

Not a legalistic obstacle course.

4. Jesus called himself Lord of the Sabbath

Look again at that passage in Mark:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” – Mark 2:28 (NIV)

Jesus didn’t just observe the Sabbath and teach about the Sabbath. He called himself Lord of the Sabbath.

This is hugely significant.

In saying he was “Lord of the Sabbath”, Jesus was pointing firstly to his divine nature: he wasn’t just a good teacher or a prophet, he was God – the Creator of the Sabbath.

But secondly, he was pointing to the fact that, just as the Sabbath day was originally instituted to give humans rest from work, so he had come to provide us rest from working to achieve our own salvation. Because of his sacrifice on the cross, we now no longer need to work to obtain our own salvation and we can instead rest in God’s mercy and grace.

Jesus was not, as some interpret Mark 2, doing away with the Sabbath…

But rather he was saying that he fulfilled the Sabbath, he embodied the Sabbath and he was the only way we can enter into the “Sabbath-rest”, written about in Hebrews 4:9-10, that is eternity.

5. Sabbath is baked into our DNA

Here’s where I think the Sabbath argument gets really interesting.

Remember what happened at creation?

God worked for six days.

And then he rested on the seventh day.

God established a clear rhythm or work and rest.

And we are made in God’s image.

Sabbath is baked into our DNA

So Sabbath isn’t just an arbitrary religious rule.

It’s part of the way God designed life to work.

Trying to live without Sabbath is a little bit like trying to live without sleep.

Or trying to live without eating.

You might manage it for a while.

But eventually your body will make it very clear that you are not designed that way.

Some Bible commentators have likened Sabbath to gravity.

You can’t decide not to do gravity.

You can’t do a bit of gravity as and when it suits you.

And there is no point arguing about whether or not you think gravity still applies in the 21^st century.

Gravity just is.

And I think Sabbath is a little like that.

We can fight against the need for rest.

We can convince ourselves we’re the exception.

We can tell ourselves we’re too busy.

We can keep pushing.

We can keep working.

We can keep achieving.

But fighting against the rhythms God built into creation doesn’t make those rhythms disappear.

It just makes us exhausted.

The arguments against keeping the Sabbath

Now let’s look at the arguments AGAINST keeping the Sabbath…

1. Jesus changed the rules

One argument against keeping Sabbath is that Jesus changed the rules when he said:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” – Mark 2:28 (NIV)

Supporters of this point of view say that Jesus’ lordship signals that the era where the written code held ultimate authority over God’s people has been superseded by the authority of Christ himself.

They say that Jesus reclassifies the Sabbath as a functional tool (“made for man”) rather than an eternal rule.

The physical restriction of refraining from weekly manual labour was a foreshadowing of Jesus. The true rest God intended for humanity is not a 24-hour break from work, but freedom from the burden of sin and legalism. And now Jesus has come, we don’t have to do Sabbath anymore.

But I don’t think Mark 2 supports that interpretation.

Jesus repeatedly challenged legalistic interpretations of Sabbath:

He healed people
He allowed his disciples to pick grain
He challenged the idea that doing good somehow violated the Sabbath

But notice the principle underneath all of this.

Jesus was freeing Sabbath from legalism, not freeing people from Sabbath.

And while it is of course true that, through Jesus, we don’t have to earn our salvation and we can “rest” in what Christ has done for us, that doesn’t mean the practice of stopping, resting and trusting God suddenly becomes pointless.

If anything, knowing that our salvation rests entirely on God’s grace should make us more comfortable with stopping our striving.

2. Romans 14 and Colossians 2

This is probably one of the strongest arguments Christians make against Sabbath observance.

Romans 14 says:

“One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” – Romans 14:5 (NIV)

And Colossians 2 says:

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.” – Colossians 2:16 (NIV)

So doesn’t that settle it?

Aren’t Christians free from Sabbath?

Well, these passages certainly mean we shouldn’t use Sabbath observance as a way of judging or condemning other Christians.

But notice something important.

Neither passage says that rest is bad.

Neither passage says:

“God made a mistake when he gave humanity the Sabbath.”

Neither passage says:

“Christians should work seven days a week.”

And neither passage says:

“The idea of regularly setting aside time for God, rest and worship is now pointless.”

The New Testament clearly gives Christians freedom regarding particular days.

But freedom doesn’t mean we should automatically reject something simply because we are no longer under compulsion.

In fact, some of the best things in the Christian life are things we choose because we want to grow closer to God.

And that is exactly how I think we should approach Sabbath.

Not:

“Do I have to?”

But:

“Why wouldn’t I want this?”

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question?

Which brings me to my third point.

In asking “Do Christians have to keep the Sabbath” we are asking the wrong question.

Here’s what I find fascinating about the Sabbath:

God gives his people a whole day to stop working, rest, worship, enjoy him, enjoy his creation, spend time with other people and remember that he is God…

…and we find ourselves arguing about whether or not we HAVE to accept this gift!

Really?

Imagine someone gave you an incredible, lavish, beautiful gift.

Something that would genuinely make your life better.