2And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?
3And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;
4How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?
5And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”Jesus, as a good Jew, observed the Jewish Sabbath because He lived in the Dispensation of the Law. However, He did not keep it the way some people thought that He should. He and His disciples traveled on the Sabbath, and they picked grain and ate it. He takes this opportunity to teach that doing works of necessity on the Sabbath were perfectly acceptable to God, even in that old dispensation.
The Old Testament Sabbath was given to the Jews only, and not until Sinai. Genesis 2:3 tells us that God sanctified the seventh day for Himself in honor of His six days of creation after which He rested on the seventh, but it does not tell us that God required man to keep a Sabbath at that time. There is not the slightest hint in Scripture, in either the OT or the NT, that God would have the Church keep the Sabbath. Nor is there any indication in the Bible, either explicit or implicit that the Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday. Sunday is the Lord’s Day (Rev 1:10), commemorating the resurrection of our Lord, and the Church has always considered it a special day for worship, but it is not a Sabbath.
Again, we emphasize that God did not command that all men keep a Sabbath in Genesis 2. We find that He blessed and sanctified the seventh day unto Himself. But we do not find here that God commanded anyone to keep the Sabbath. The first command to keep the Sabbath was in the Decalogue (Ex 20:8), and there it was given to national Israel only.
In Exodus 16 when God gave manna, He was speaking only to Israel when He told them to stay at home and not try to gather manna. We do not believe that the instruction in Ex 16 indicates that Sabbath keeping for Israel was yet a part of God’s law, but instruction for that one occasion. Incidentally, staying at home is not something that anyone does today who says that he is keeping the Sabbath. In fact, we do not know anyone who keeps the Sabbath (no matter which day they think that it is) anything like God required Israel to keep it. And if people are not keeping the Sabbath the way God required in the Bible, I do not know how they can say that they are keeping it. The Sabbath, kept according to God’s command, would mean no fire would be started, no food prepared, no journey would be undertaken, no buying or selling could take place, and no burden could be borne.
Two passages, Nehemiah 9:13-14 and Ezekiel 20:10-12, tell us that the Sabbath was first given to Israel at Sinai: “13Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:14And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant” (Neh 9:13-14).” “10Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. 11And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.
12Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them” (Eze 20:10-12). According to these two passages, God gave His Sabbath to Israel, and to Israel only, at Sinai first, and not to all mankind in Genesis chapter two. God made His Sabbath “known” to Israel at that time, which means that they did not know a Sabbath before that time. Mankind knew that God had sanctified the seventh day unto Himself, but God did not command a Sabbath for any people until He “gave” it to Israel at Sinai, and then it was given as a sign to show that Israel was God’s elect nation.
In Exodus 31:12-17, God spoke to Moses, “12And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 13Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. 14Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”
Note that the command here was to national Israel again, and God says two times that the Sabbath was a sign between Israel and God. He says “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath.” Gentiles were never commanded to keep it, and certainly the Church, which is neither Jew nor Gentile, was never commanded to keep it.
Hosea 2:11 predicted the cessation of the Sabbath. “11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts” (Hosea 2:11). When national Israel was set aside, cut off and the Gentiles grafted in, the Jews lost many of their special privileges, including her Sabbath which was the sign that she was God’s special people. The Sabbaths will one day be restored to Israel when she is grafted back in (See Is 66:23; Rom 11:17-24). But until then, there is no Sabbath, even though many Jews still try to keep it, because it is not recognized by God.
As a matter of fact, the Sabbaths are some of the ordinances which Jesus nailed to the cross and took “out of the way” when He was crucified. In Col 2:14-16 Paul wrote, “14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 16Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:” So the Sabbath was “blotted out,” “nailed to the cross,” taken “out of the way.” It was annulled.
Galatians 4:9-10 indicates that Sabbath observance, the keeping of Jewish OT days, was part of the Judaizer’s legalism that Paul militated against. “9But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” According to this passage, there was no command to observe any special days, after Jesus died. Unlike all of the other commandments in the Decalogue the command to keep the Sabbath is never repeated in the NT. In all of the lists of sins found in the NT, Sabbath-breaking is never mentioned at all.