PERPETUITY OF THE SABBATH COMMANDMENT

There are no hints in the Old Testament that the Sabbath commandment, as preserved in the Decalogue, was to be terminated or modified. Yet, Christianity is seriously divided concerning the validity of the Sabbath commandment for Christian believers. Adventists believe that there is no clear evidence in the New Testament to support the idea that biblical Sabbath keeping was changed to Sunday observance. We recognize that the change did take place soon after the apostolic era, but an examination of the New Testament passages dealing with the subject reveals that the Sabbath commandment was observed in the apostolic church.

A.   Jewish Christians and Sabbath Observance , There seems to be widespread agreement among scholars that the Jewish Christian communities of the New Testament observed the Sabbath. It is nevertheless necessary for us to summarize the evidence in order to explore its implications.

       1.      Jesus and the Sabbath , We should begin with Jesus. Luke 4:16 states that Jesus went to Nazareth and "as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read." It is irrelevant whether one takes the phrase "as was his custom" to refer to Jesus' habit of teaching in the synagogue (4:15)[36] or to his practice of going to the synagogue during the Sabbath.[37] The fact remains that the passage is stating, in agreement with the rest of the New Testament, that "Jesus participated in the sabbath worship,"[38] that is to say, he was obedient to the commandment. 

       The gospels demonstrate that Jesus did not anticipate the abrogation or modification of the Sabbath commandment during his ministry or after his resurrection. In fact the saying found in Matt 24:20-"Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath"-suggests that he expected his disciples to keep the Sabbath long after his resurrection and ascension.[39] "Christians were exhorted to pray that their flight would not have to occur on the Sabbath day out of respect for their observance of that day. They could flee on that day if they had to, but they were to pray that they would not have to in order to keep that day as a day of rest and worship, not a day of travel."[40] 

The Sabbath controversies between Jesus and the Jews also indicate that he was not setting the Sabbath aside or pointing to the time when it will be transmuted into something else. Studies have shown that before 70 AD one of the most important issues of discussion concerning the Sabbath in Jewish circles was precisely what could be done during the Sabbath.[41] The discussions and disagreements did not have the purpose of questioning the validity of the Sabbath commandment. Jesus addressed the issue in order to liberate the Sabbath from the regulations imposed on it by Jewish traditions. Let us briefly examine the passages describing the controversies recorded in Mark with parallels in Matt and Luke.

Mark 2:23-26//Matt 12:1-8//Luke 6:1-5: The disciples were walking through the grainfields on the Sabbath picking the heads of grain and eating when the Pharisees accused them and Jesus of violating the Sabbath. The Torah prohibited harvesting during the Sabbath (Exod 34:21), but it would be difficult to argue that the disciples were farmers harvesting during the Sabbath.[42] The law allowed plucking ears of grain from a field (Deut 23:26), but this was forbidden by the Jews during the Sabbath.[43] According to the Pharisees Jesus and the disciples had violated the Jewish halakah.[44] 

In order to justify the behavior of the disciples Jesus refers to two exceptional cases; one related to David and the other to the priests and the temple. Most probably the reference to David was used to show that providing for human need can under certain circumstances override the law.[45] This is supported by the saying in verse 27, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Matthew adds the experience of the priests who worked in the temple during the Sabbath (12:5). The point is that if the priests are not guilty of violating the Sabbath, "how much more innocent are the disciples, who are 'serving' Jesus, 'one greater than the temple.'"[46] In fact, Mark states that Jesus is "Lord even of the Sabbath," that is to say, it is he who determines how the Sabbath is to be kept.[47] But there is more to it. The statement "not only affirms the authority of Jesus, the Son of man, to reinterpret Sabbath law, but asserts also that the Sabbath remains God's day. Designed for the welfare of men and women, the proper use of the Sabbath is determined by the Son of man. As a human figure, he best knows human needs; as a divine figure, he has the authority to say how the Lord's day should be used."[48] 

Mark 3:1-6//Matt 12:9-14//Luke 6:6-11: The story is about the healing of a man with a withered hand. The discussion is concerning what is lawful or permitted during the Sabbath and its main purpose is to demonstrate that Jesus is indeed Lord over the Sabbath, that is to say that he is the one who determines how the Sabbath should to be kept.[49] In the process the law is not challenged or set aside by him. The Jewish halakah allowed for healing during the Sabbath when life was being threatened.[50] According to Mark Jesus considered "withholding the cure of the man's paralyzed hand, even for a few hours, tantamount to killing him, and performing the cure immediately tantamount to saving his life."[51] Doing good cannot wait for the Sabbath to end because doing good is not incompatible with the Sabbath! His messianic mission was to restore fullness of life to suffering humanity and the Sabbath witnessed to that redemptive activity. Human traditions were not to impose limits to his work on behalf of suffering humanity.[52] Matthew is more explicit in the rejection of halakhic regulations by asking whether a person whose sheep fell into a pit during the Sabbath was not willing to lift it out of the pit (12:11).[53] The point is that humans are more valuable than a sheep and the conclusion he draws from it is that "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Obviously Jesus was not rejecting or modifying the commandment but determining how it should be properly kept.[54] 

John 5:1-18: In the gospel of John we find two important incidents dealing with Sabbath controversies. The first is the healing of the lame man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. When charged with violating the Sabbath Jesus justified his action saying, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working" (5:17). Several comments on that statement are in order. First, it was accepted by the Jews that God's work is not interrupted by the Sabbath, that His role as Judge and Sustainer of the world never stops.[55] Jesus justifies his work of mercy during the Sabbath by identifying it with the work of his Father, thus making a profound Christological statement concerning his relationship with the Father. They are both performing a work of redemption.[56] 

Second, the fact that God works "until now" shows that God's work of mercy and redemption was never considered by Him to be incompatible with the human observance of the Sabbath commandment. By implication Jesus' work of redemption during the Sabbath is not incompatible with proper Sabbath observance. Hence Jesus was not abolishing the Sabbath.[57] Through his action he was stating that "the sabbath command does not mean doing nothing (aria), but the doing of the work of God."[58] 

Third, the debate between Jesus and the Jews on this incident was resumed in 7:19-24, where Jesus explicitly argues that Sabbath observance is compatible with works of mercy and love. He justified his work on the Sabbath by reference to the law of circumcision that in some cases allowed it to be performed during the Sabbath, superseding the commandment. The point is that "if circumcision, involving only one of a mans's members, is allowed, how much more the healing of the whole man!"[59] What John is showing is that "Jesus' work of healing on the sabbath cannot even be regarded as breaking the Law. Jesus is fulfilling God's deepest intentions, recognizable in the Torah itself."[60] 

John 9: Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath by kneading clay with his saliva, placing it on the eyes of the man and sending him to wash it off at the pool of Siloam. Raymond F. Brown lists three reasons why the Jews charged Jesus with not keeping the Sabbath. First, Jesus could have waited until after the Sabbath to heal him; the man's life was not threatened. Second, kneading was forbidden on Sabbath; third, in some cases anointing the eyes on Sabbath was condemned; and finally, one may "not put fasting spittle on the eyes on the Sabbath."[61] This shows that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath only in the eyes of the Jewish leaders, but the implication is that he himself was not violating the Torah; he was performing the works of God (9:3). What John is disputing "is the manner, not the fact, of Jesus' Sabbath observance."[62] 

     2. Other Jewish Christians, Our brief review of the Sabbath controversies in the gospels has demonstrated that at least the Matthean community, formed mainly by Jewish believers, were keeping the Sabbath. There is no indication that would support the view that according to Mark and John Jesus abolished the Sabbath commandment. Even Luke explicitly states that the women who followed Jesus to the cross saw where he was buried and then "returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment" (Luke23:56). We also read about Paul's practice of going to the synagogue on the Sabbath, which does not simply mean that he went there to make Christian disciples but also because as a Jew he kept the Sabbath (Acts 13:14, 44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4). It is true that the "freedom claimed by Jesus with respect to the Sabbath constitutes, in all the Gospels, one of the main grievances that the scribes and pharisees have against him. There is, however, no indication that Jesus had broken or even that he had merely wished to break with the observance of the third commandment of the Decalogue. Nor is there any evidence that he asked or even permitted his disciples to do so. Quite the contrary is the case."[63]

B.   Gentile Christians and Sabbath Observance, Did Gentile Christians observe the Sabbath during the time of the apostles? As indicated above scholars are willing to grant that Jewish-Christians kept the Sabbath but that its observance was not required from Gentile converts. The conclusion is primarily based on the silence of the New Testament concerning any such requirement for Gentiles. But the argument from silence is not decisive because it could also be interpreted as suggesting that Sabbath observance by all Christians was taken for granted. It is true that the commandment is not quoted in the New Testament but neither is the commandment against the worship of images explicitly mentioned or cited anywhere in the apostolic writings.
Some have found it significant that the apostolic decree recorded in Acts 15:20, 28-29 does not mention the Sabbath as a requirement for Gentile Christians. We should recall that the purpose of the council was not to determine what was to be expected of Gentiles with respect to the Torah, but to regulate their behavior in such a way that it would not be offensive to Jewish Christians. Hardly anything else would have created more friction between Gentile and Jewish believers than the Gentile violation of the sanctity of the Sabbath. There is no evidence in the New Testament to demonstrate that such controversy was going on.[64]

We should also recall that at this early period in the history of the church most of the Gentiles who became Christians were "Godfearers" who were seriously attracted to Judaism and who attended the synagogue and were observing the Sabbath before they became Christians (Acts 16:14; 18:2, 4).[65] In addition many Gentiles who converted to Judaism, proselytes, also became Christians and they obviously were Sabbath keepers (13:43). It is difficult to conceive of the idea that these new Christian converts were taught that Sabbath observance was irrelevant for them without any evidence from the New Testament to support it.

There is also evidence indicating that some type of Sabbath observance was practiced among Gentiles who were not attached to Judaism in any way but who were attracted to some of its ideas. On account of the Diaspora the Jews had become very visible throughout the Roman Empire[66] and probably quite influential. The state recognized the importance the Sabbath had for the Jews and exempted them from military service, from appearing in court during the Sabbath, and they were not required to work during the seventh day.[67] Their Sabbath observance became well-known and many non-Jews, under the influence of the Jews, did not work on the Sabbath, perhaps because they thought it was a day of misfortune or for other superstitious reasons.[68]

If Gentile Christians were not expected to keep the Sabbath we should be able to find some evidence of it in the New Testament. What we find is the opposite. If we go back to the Sabbath controversies in the Gospels it would not be difficult to realize that the question debated between Jesus and the Jewish leaders was not whether it was necessary to keep the Sabbath but how the Sabbath was to be observed.[69] This is something that we would expect to find in the Gospel of Matthew, written to Jewish-Christians, but it is also found in Mark and Luke whose primary gentile audience is not questioned. We acknowledge that in those controversies other theological issues are involved and that in some cases the Sabbath is a foil for deeper theological issues like, for instance, the authority of Jesus and his Messianic role. However, the fact that the Gospel writers selected the Sabbath controversies to convey their message also indicates that the topic was very much alive in the communities they were addressing. More significantly, the way they dealt with the subject of the Sabbath presupposes that the communities, Jewish and Gentiles alike, were in need of instruction concerning Sabbath observance. The fundamental issue appears to have been whether they should follow the Jewish traditions, the halakah, or not. The Gospel writers used the ministry and experience of Jesus to instruct them on how to keep the Sabbath as Christians. In the Old Testament God modeled Sabbath observance after His work of creation, now in the New Testament Jesus is presented as the model to be followed in proper Sabbath keeping. 

A brief look at the Gospel of Luke, written to Gentile Christians, supports our main argument. The word "Sabbath" appears in Luke twenty-one times and eight additional times in Acts. Luke introduces (4:16) and closes Jesus ministry (23:54) with references to the Sabbath and then adds that the women rested on the Sabbath "according to the commandment" (23:56). Luke describes Jesus and his followers as habitual Sabbath keepers.[70] If we examine the Sabbath controversies in the Gospel it would not be difficult to identify one of the key issues in the discussions. In 6:2 the Pharisees asked Jesus, "Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" In the second incident recorded in 6:6-11, Jesus asked the Pharisees, "I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?" In both cases the concern is proper Sabbath observance and not whether the Sabbath should be kept or not. The same applies to the Sabbath controversies that are unique to Luke. In 13:16 Jesus asked, "Should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?," implying that it was lawful to heal her on the Sabbath. In the final case, recorded in 14:1-6, we find the more traditional question, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?" It is obvious that with respect to the Sabbath the fundamental issue was defining proper Sabbath observance. 

When Jesus says in Luke 6:5, "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath" Luke is saying that he has "the right to authoritatively represent the divine intention for the sabbath. . . . In this new situation the Son of Man is able to open up the full potential of the sabbath as God's gift to humankind."[71] The Sabbath is for him a day of liberation from suffering and needs, a channel for loving actions. The references to the Sabbath in the gospels clearly show that the Christian communities were concerned about it. One could argue that perhaps the issue was whether one should or should not observe the Sabbath, or a conflict between the church and the synagogue,[72] but the evidence clearly supports the conviction that the Gospels are instructing Jews and Gentile Christians on how to keep the Sabbath.[73]

C.   Summary,  The New Testament contains irrefutable evidence to the effect that Jesus and his disciples observed the seventh day Sabbath. It is also clear that the Jewish Christian communities also kept the Sabbath during the apostolic period. Such practice should not be explained away arguing that it was the result of a poor understanding of the implications of the gospel of Jesus on the Jewish law. Jesus, according to the Gospels, observed the Sabbath and made it a day in which he brought rest to the sick and to those oppressed by evil powers. He expected his followers to enjoy the benefits of true Sabbath observance. 

The Sabbath controversies recorded in the Gospels had the fundamental purpose of instructing the Jewish and Gentile communities to which they were sent on proper Sabbath observance.[74] Jesus' attitude and ministry during the holy hours of the Sabbath modeled for them Christian Sabbath keeping and demonstrated that the legalistic approach of the Jewish halakah was not to be followed by his church. 

There is no indication in the teachings and ministry of Jesus that would support the conviction that he was setting the Sabbath apart as irrelevant for the church or that he was instituting or planning to institute a new day of rest for his church. He did anticipate the end of the temple services and the sacrificial system, what is usually called the ceremonial or ritual law. But the Sabbath law was upheld by him as a permanent revelation of the will of his Father.