The Sabbath was established at the end of the creation week—the seventh day—after God created the heavens, the earth, and the first humans. He “blessed the seventh day and made it holy” because He rested from all His work (Genesis 2:2-3, ESV).
We find the Sabbath referenced again in Exodus 20, when God writes the Ten Commandments. He asks us to remember this sacred day to keep it holy, ceasing from the work of the week and reflecting on what He has done for us.To fully understand the meaning and significance of the Sabbath, let’s learn more about what God has said to us in His Word:
THE SABBATH IN SCRIPTURE
The gracious Creator, after the six days of Creation, rested on the seventh day and instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation. The fourth commandment of God’s unchangeable law invites us to the observance of this seventh-day Sabbath as the day of rest, worship, and ministry in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. (Mat 12:8) The Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. It is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance, and a foretaste of our eternal future in God’s kingdom.
The Sabbath is God’s perpetual sign of His eternal covenant between Him and His people. Joyful observance of this holy time from evening to evening, sunset to sunset, is a celebration of God’s creative and redemptive acts. (Gen 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Exodus 31:13-17;Lev 23:32; Deut 5:12-15; Isa 56:5,6; Isa 58:13,14; Ezek 20:12,20; Mat
12:1-12; Mark 1:32; Luke 4:16; Heb 4:1-11.)
WHAT IS THE SABBATH?
The Sabbath is a day of rest, reflection, enjoyment and worship for God’s people. It dates back to the seventh day of the creation week,when God stopped His work and took time to rest and savor it. In six days He created the world we live in (Genesis 1:1-26). From the blue sky to the uy white clouds to the food we eat He created this world with each of us in mind.
It was on the sixth day of creation that God formed man and woman in His own image. “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7, ESV).
Then God looked around at all He had made and saw that it was “very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31, ESV). He had made everything necessary for humans to live and thrive here on this earth. But He wasn’t quite finished with the whole creation process. On the seventh day God created the Sabbath. His last act of creation was to sanctify this day and make it holy. Then He rested. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:1-3,ESV).
Why did God rest on the Sabbath?
While the Bible tells us God “rested” on the Sabbath day, it doesn’t say that He rested because He was tired. (God does not “faint or grow weary”, as Isaiah 40:28, ESV tells us.) He rested to look over what He created and enjoy it.
Let’s look at the root word for Sabbath. The word “sabbath” comes from the Hebrew word shabbat, which means “to cease” or stop. Even in our human lives, it’s not uncommon to stop and take a day of after a large project or a great accomplishment. Yes, we do get tired, unlike God. But after finishing something meaningful and beautiful, we don’t stop afterward just to rest. We stop to reflect upon and enjoy what was just accomplished! On the Sabbath day, we rest to celebrate God’s accomplishment of creating the world, and creating humanity to live in it and take care of it. We pause to take notice, learn more, and express gratitude to our Creator.
When God rested on the seventh day, He set for us an example. He gave the weekly Sabbath as a day of rest and worship for all of mankind. The Sabbath is a memorial, a day when we remember God’s creative power. He alone is worthy of our worship:
“Because He had rested upon the Sabbath, ‘God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,”’—set it apart to a holy use. He gave it to Adam as a day of rest. It was a memorial of the work of creation, and thus a sign of God’s power and His love.”
God Wants Us to Rest as Part of the Remembrance
Similar to memorial type holidays, the Sabbath is a day we can rest and remember. It’s a day to pause from our work, reflect, and rejuvenate. When we rest we put aside the cares of the world and it allows us to focus on our relationship with Him. Just like any meaningful relationship, it’s important to spend time together, talk together, and get to know one another. Sabbath rest gives us the perfect opportunity to connect with God. Trusting God with our time also demonstrates our total dependence on God to provide for our needs. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19, ESV).
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him,because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6, 7, ESV). Keeping the Sabbath allows us to rest our physical bodies. God didn’t need to rest, but He knows human beings do. It’s important for our mental and physical health to take time to rest and refresh. Studies have shown that people who take time to rest from their labors are healthier and more productive.
“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places” (Leviticus 23:3, ESV). “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:2,3a, ESV).
THE SABBATH IS PART OF THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments after the Exodus when the Israelites were freed from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. They led into the wilderness for 40 years. During that time, God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone with His finger. The fourth commandment reminded the people to keep the Sabbath day holy. You can read all of the commandments in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5.
God didn’t give us these commandments because He wanted us to follow a bunch of hard rules. He gave us the Ten Commandments for our own good, that we may live peacefully. He wants us to live practical and enjoyable lives, maintaining uplifting relationships with one another and with Him. The Sabbath was made for mankind for our own good. God wants you to experience thankfulness and joy on the Sabbath day! Observing the Sabbath can be something we look forward to each week.
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3, ESV). God wanted to show us how important the Sabbath was to Him and how important it is for our own well being. The least we can do is take one day a week of from work and secular activities to focus on our Creator and the world He created for us. The Bible tells us that the Sabbath isn’t just any day of. We are asked to refrain from pursuing our own business or our own interests and instead look toward the joys we can find in God and the world He instead look toward the joys we can find in God and the world He created for us.
When we call the Sabbath “a delight,” He will make us ride on the heights of the earth! He will bless us when we keep the Sabbath holy. “If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the LORD honorable… then you will delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride over the heights of the land…” (Isaiah 58:13,14, CSB).
WHAT DAY IS THE SABBATH?
If we follow exactly what the Bible specifies several times, the Sabbath is the 7th day of the week. It started when God sanctified the seventh day in Genesis 2, after He fininished creating the world. Later, God’s Word confirms the Saturday Sabbath in Exodus 16, even before the Ten Commandments were written. When the Israelites were gathering food, God commanded them to gather for six days, “but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none” (Exodus 16:26, CSB).
When discussing the Sabbath, the Bible never assigns any other day to this title. Nowhere in the Bible does it say the Sabbath day was changed. While there are many Christian denominations that decided to make Sunday, the “Lord’s Day” (honoring Christ’s resurrection), the weekly time to go to church and spend time with family, there was no
command in Scripture to do such a thing.
Keeping the Sabbath is the 4th commandment found in God’s eternal moral law. This change of the Sabbath was foretold in the Bible by moral law. This change of the Sabbath was foretold in the Bible by the prophet Daniel.
“He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law…” Daniel 7:25 When Jesus lived here on earth He kept the seventh day Sabbath. However, just a few hundred years after His death and resurrection,early Christians began keeping Sunday as their day of worship just as Daniel foretold.
It is on the law of God that the last great struggle of the controversy between Christ and His angels and Satan and his angels will come, and it will be decisive for all the world. . . . Men in responsible positions will not only ignore and despise the Sabbath themselves, but from the sacred desk will urge upon the people the observance of the first day of the week, pleading tradition and custom in behalf of this man-made institution. They will point to calamities on land and sea–to the storms of wind, the floods, the earthquakes, the destruction by fire–as judgments indicating God’s displeasure because Sunday is not sacredly observed. These calamities will increase more and more, one disaster will follow close upon the heels of another; and those who make void the law of God will point to the few who are keeping the Sabbath of the fourth commandment as the ones who are bringing wrath upon the world. This falsehood is Satan’s device that he may ensnare the unwary.{ChS 155.2}
The change of the Sabbath as the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday started happening in the year 321 A.D. The Roman Emperor Constantine issued a decree that all Christians were to begin observing Sunday as a day of rest. In the verse above, Daniel was saying there would be a kingdom who would try to change God’s law. But God’s law is eternal. And the Sabbath was made for all mankind for all eternity. “And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27 ESV
Anyone can keep Sabbath by refraining from work and focusing on God. That also makes it a fitting time to go to church. We find in the Bible that Jesus typically went to the synagogue on Sabbath. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read” (Luke 4:16, ESV).
“And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished…” (Mark 6:2, ESV).
The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, according to the Bible. We can follow Jesus’ example by refraining from our regular daily work to focus on Him and His creation.
The Sabbath was hallowed at the creation. As ordained for man, it had its origin when “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Job 38:7. Peace brooded over the world; for earth was in harmony with heaven. “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good;” and He rested in the joy of His completed work. Gen 1:31.{DA 281.1}
Because He had rested upon the Sabbath, “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,”–set it apart to a holy use. He gave it to Adam as a day of rest. It was a memorial of the work of creation, and thus a sign of God’s power and His love. The Scripture says, “He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered.” “The things that are made,” declare “the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world,” “even His everlasting power and divinity.” Gen 2:3; Psalms 111:4; Rom 1:20,R.V. {DA 281.2}