While BILLIONS of Christians observe Sunday, we have the
privilege of resting on God's day. No single string of Bible texts can include every
good reason to keep the Sabbath; this seven-text Bible study is only a basic
foundation, a spring-board to further study.
A one-verse Bible study on the Sabbath. As a
Seventh-day Adventist, sooner or later you will be asked to state your reasons
for keeping the 7th day Sabbath. If you have time to use your Bible in answering
this question, this study should help. If you can only give a short answer, then
Mark 2:27-28 may be sufficient:
"The Sabbath was made for man" This answers those who insist it was made for only the Jews by reminding them that it came 2,500 years before there were Jews, or 10 commandments in stone.
"not man for the Sabbath" This destroys the false image of a legalistic religion or a tyrant God who only cares about having laws kept. It sharpens the gospel focus if you reread it substituting the word Law for the word Sabbath. This also helps prove that Adventists are true Christians, not a cult.
"The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" This
is the reason that Revelation 1:10 (the only occurance of the phrase
"the Lord's day" in the Bible) actually refers to the 7th day Sabbath,
not to Sunday. It is also the best reason to keep the Sabbath: Christians
worship Christ as both Savior AND Lord best on th e day He claimed as His.
The Sabbath is Jesus' day.
A seven-verse study on the Sabbath through history. The great controversy world view is important when examining doctrines such as the Sabbath. After Lucifer's sin spread to 1/3 of the angels, the universe needed a demonstration of the wrongness of sin and the rightness of God's government, His love, and His justice-- a type of vaccination that, although briefly painful, would insure that sin would never rise again. To guard against the possibility of sin ever rising again, God allowed Lucifer to work in this world, while offering salvation to all who would choose it. This 6,000 years of history which began at creation, climaxed at Calvary, and ends very soon is that vaccination; the active ingredient in it is the lesson of:
The Sabbath was deliberately designed with this lesson in mind by the God who understands our sin problem, who intensely desires to be reunited with His estranged children, and who lovingly and fairly provides a special time every week to appreciate His salvation plan.
This Bible study traces the Sabbath through history, showing
how it has grown in significance down through the years while always carrying
with it that lesson of the Creator/Creature dependence relationship. The truth
of Mark 2:27, 28 (as explained above) provides the Christ-centered context for
the whole study.
1. Genesis 2:1-3 Had sin entered Adam and Eve's world yet? No; at this point, salvation is not a part of the lesson of Sabbath-keeping. So what was it for?
It was the first full day of life. It was a day for special communion with God; remember, they did have work to do! If they had never sinned, and Earth had been populated with sinless people, there still would be work to do.
NOTE: There was a special test of loyalty in Eden, and it was
the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
2. Exodus 20:8-11 2,500 years after creation, God establishes the nation of Israel as His "City of Light," the witnesses to the world of the rightness of His ways and government. They entered a relationship with Him called "covenant," which was a mutual agreement. The 10 commandment law was the basis of this covenant, and became the basis of the government for this "nation under God," Israel. The hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt had erased from the people's minds the significance of the Sabbath. The covenant-law includes the dependence lesson: Do no work (rest from labor) because the Creator rested, blessed, and hallowed the Sabbath.
Still a special communion day, the Sabbath now became a memorial of creation, and a break from labor (which meant a lot to a nation just coming up from slavery!).
NOTE: Deuteronomy 5:12-15 includes the added significance of DELIVERANCE from bondage; the Passover/Exodus miracles, especially the Red Sea parting, were lessons in dependence on God for salvation. When surrounded by Egypt's armies, God didn't say, "jump in and swim for it!" He said, "step out in faith" as He made for them a way of escape (He never allows us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, and always provides a way out of temptation, I Corinthians 10:13). The Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5 is a memorial of deliverance.
3. Ezekiel 20:12,20 Sanctification means to set apart for a special (holy) use. The Sabbaths were sanctified, in other words they were set apart for communion with God as Creator and Deliverer. This verse in Ezekiel, written 600 b.c., gives the Sabbath a new significance as a special sign or mark of God's people.
4. Mark 2:27, 28 Jesus began His ministry on a Sabbath, as Luke 4:16 describes. Two verses later we find a description of Jesus' ministry of healing, which He many times pursued on the Sabbath. Sabbath was the first day that many thankful people could hear, walk, speak, or see the face of Jesus.
Jesus ended His mission on Earth just as He ended His work of creation: He finished on a Friday, and rested on Sabbath. These two "Good Fridays" tie together to teach the Sabbath dependence lesson in a powerful way. Adam did not create himself, it was all God's work, and the Sabbath celebrated life in God's creation; Christians do not save themselves by keeping the Sabbath, because salvation is all of God's grace at work, and the Sabbath celebrates new life as new creatures in Christ.
Sabbaths kept in this way, resting from physical work AND from a "works-oriented" legalistic religion, will be true Sabbath rest. (Not so much keeping Sabbath but being kept by Christ on His day, in His way).
This true rest is true dependence and calls for TRUE WORSHIP; Psalm 95, a Sabbath Psalm no doubt often heard by Jesus, calls Christians to true worship. "Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker," Psalm 95:6. Jesus gave this call to worship in John 4:24, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
5. Hebrews 4:9, 10 "There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His." The word rest here is the Greek word Sabbatismos, a Sabbath rest or observance.
The background to this verse will make its significance even clearer. Hebrews 3:7-11 quotes Psalm 95 regarding the concept of rest. In Hebrews 3:12-19 Paul warns Jewish Christians to avoid the mistakes of ancient Israel, which had refused to trust God's power to bring them into Canaan (cf. the 12 spies of Numbers 14), and they therefore failed to enter into their rest from wilderness wanderings. Jews who had become Christians were in danger of becoming "Christian Pharisees"-- legalistic, prejudiced, hard-hearted. Hebrews 4:1-8, 9, 10 indicates that the Christian Sabbath is all about resting in the grace of our Creator, our Deliverer, our Sanctifier.
6. Revelation 14:7 Satan thought he'd won the great controversy when he brought about the crucifixion of the Lord through Jewish legalists and Roman laws. After that failed, he tried the next best thing: he mixed a legalistic church with the Roman Empire and came up with a Roman Church, which "crucified" the Sabbath with the first civil Sunday Law on March 7, a.d. 321, created by Constantine, the Catholic Roman Emperor.
Revelation 14:7 gives the Sabbath yet another significant dimension. Like the first test of loyalty in Eden (the fruit tree), the last test of loyalty will determine who is in a right relationship (dependence) to the Creator, and who goes along with the arrogant, rebellious attitude symbolized by Sunday, the mark of human (papal) authority.
In the final test, Sabbath will be the mark of loyal, dependent Christians resting in Jesus for salvation.
7. Isaiah 66:23 How do we know sin won't rise again? Sabbaths will eternally remind us that we are creatures, not gods. From Sabbath to Sabbath, the loyal redeemed Christians will gather to worship God face to face. This shows the kind of eternal reminder that Sabbaths will continue to be even after the great controversy is completed, when sin and sinners are gone. The cross of Christ, and the scars He always has because of it, are the most important elements of the universes' vaccination against sin. But the weekly Sabbaths will be like booster shots, always reminding us of the rest of grace, the salvation that was free to us, but cost Jesus His life.