Should You Keep the Sabbath?
IS THE SABBATH MENTIONED AS A COMMANDMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?
The other day, I was reading some inflammatory statements on a website that supposedly "proved" that we should not keep the Sabbath. One of their major points was that the Sabbath was never mentioned as one of the Ten Commandments in the New Testament.
I wasn't specifically looking, but not 3 days later, I ran across a place in Luke where the Sabbath is called one of the commandments. The place is in Luke where Christ was laying in His tomb and the women who came with Him from Galilee waited until after the Sabbath to apply spices to His body. This was a man that they loved dearly...they had left their homes to follow Him---YET, it was more important to these faithful women to keep the Ten Commandments, and to obey God by observing the Sabbath than it was to apply spices to this man that they had left all for. That says something.
Luke 23:55-24:1
55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee,
followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments;
and rested the Sabbath day according to the
commandment." It continues to say that later they went down to the
sepulcher after the Sabbath to apply the spices, but He was already resurrected
when they got there.
As far as teaching His followers to be good law keepers...Christ did. Luke even tells how Christ paid His taxes (Luke 20:20-26) because He was a righteous man who kept Laws...God's and man's.
Scholars believe that the Book of Luke was written somewhere around 60 AD. Certainly, by that time, Luke could have added a note to say that the Sabbath was done away with somewhere in his book, had it been so. This would have been a great opportunity to get this new message out to the world. But there is no mention of it at all. In fact, scholars teach that the Sabbath was widely kept by all Christians until the time of Constantine, a Roman Emperor and former sun worshipper who became pope and changed the day of worship to Sunday.
The early church were law keepers. Right before Stephan was martyred, he said something about the law that got him killed...and it wasn't that it was done away with! Acts 7:52-54 says, "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth...." and you know the rest of the story. Yes, Stephen was a member of the true Church of God that does "receive the law that has been given by the dispensation of angels." The same law that says do not murder, also says "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." As Christians, we try to keep the law to the best of our weak ability.
All we have to say to those who say that the Sabbath is not mentioned as one of the Ten Commandments in the New Testament is this. "And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." That sure sounds like the Sabbath is mentioned as one of the commandments! :)
Once you understand that keeping the law in your heart is the "New Covenant," then everything becomes clear. Read "Three Kinds of Sin"
By the way, the Pharisees were not guilty of keeping the law too good, they were guilty of hypocrisy~ they were just acting. Read about Phariseeism. Also, we have other articles at the bottom of this page that are related to the real reasons that people keep Sunday instead of The Sabbath.
Related Articles:
*"Good Old Time Religion " Part one
*"Good Old Time Religion " Part two
*"What the
Bible
Teaches about Sunday"