The Sabbath

                Today, many people continually work on Sundays. Some people actually have to in order to pay for bills and support families. When you work on the Sabbath, you are breaking the fourth commandment, and a covenant that the Lord made with His people. That’s right. The Sabbath was a covenant made by the Lord so that His people could remember Him and revere Him.

“This will be a sign between me and you for the generations

to come, so you may know that I am the

Lord, who makes you holy.”

-Exodus 31:13

“There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day

is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You

are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord.”

-Leviticus 21:11

                The Lord had created the earth in six days, and on the seventh day He rested and declared it a holy day. In the book of Exodus, the Lord tells Moses to inform the Israelites to observe the Lord’s Sabbath. The Law says that anyone who works on the Sabbath shall be put to death and be separated from their people. Whoever works on the Sabbath has broken the covenant and is an outlaw. They shall not receive the privileges that everyone else receives. The Sabbath day, recognized as Saturday by the Jews and Sunday by the Christians, should not just be seen as another day of the week. It should be seen as a holy day to revere the Lord and to respect the covenant that God had made for rejuvenation and rest.  

                But does this law still apply? Jesus and his disciples worked and performed many miracles on the Sabbath day, receiving criticism from the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Some say that according to Paul, in a letter to the Colossians, it is not punishable if someone does not observe the Sabbath; it is their own choice. Christ has made them complete, not their observance of a holy day.

“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

                There is no evidence from this passage that he would teach that there was no obligation to observe any holy time, for there is not the slightest reason to believe that he meant to teach that one of the Ten Commandments had ceased to be binding on mankind. If he had used the word in the singular term - "the Sabbath," it would then have been clear that he meant to teach that the commandment had ceased to be binding, and that a Sabbath was no longer to be observed. But the use of the term in the plural number, and the connection, shows that he had his eye on the great number of days which were observed by the Hebrews as festivals, as a part of their ceremonial and typical law, and not to the moral law, or the Ten Commandments. No part of the moral law - not one of the Ten Commandments could be spoken of as "a shadow of good things to come." These commandments are of perpetual and universal obligation. It can never be superseded but by the final termination of time. As it is a type of that rest which remains for the people of God, of an eternity of bliss, it must continue in full force.