Here are just some justifications and misunderstandings given by those who avoid honoring God on His consecrated holy day. I will provide truth from the Bible after each justification.
If you’re looking for an excuse to avoid obeying God’s fourth commandment, then pick your reason because many others have done so when choosing to believe satanically inspired lies. Just be prepared for Jesus’ response:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out many demons and perform many miracles in your name?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:21-23)
The Sabbath was NOT made at creation because the word is not used.
The Sabbath day WAS made at creation. The word translated rested in Genesis 2:3 is “shabbat” in Hebrew and it means Sabbath. The first occurrence in English translations may be Exodus 16 but in the original Hebrew text it’s actually Genesis 2:3. In addition, Saturday is called the Sabbath in more than 100 languages to this day, just as God named it at creation. God also said “it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.” Why? Because “in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested [shabbat], and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:17). The Sabbath is a memorial of creation, established and made holy by God from the beginning prior to Adam’s sin.
The Fourth Commandment was not kept until Exodus 16.
Exodus 16 comes before God wrote the Ten Commandments. This chapter does not say they just started keeping the fourth Commandment but shows it was already being kept. So if they were already keeping it when did they start doing so? God said Cain was guilty of sin for killing his brother but how can that be? The Bible says that where there is no law, there is no transgression. (Romans 4:15; 1 John 3:4) So if there was no law then how could Cain be guilty of the sin of murder? Also, Genesis 26:5 says that Abraham kept all of God’s commandments, statutes and laws. So how could Abraham not have known about God’s Sabbath? It’s not an assumption to say that while the Ten Commandments weren’t officially written down, God’s people knew them and were keeping them. Cain knew at least one of the Ten Commandments, and Abraham knew all of them.
The Sabbath is a day of bondage and works.
God says the Sabbath is a sign that we are His children whom He loves and sanctifies.
Yahweh spoke to Moses and said, “And you, speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘Surely you must keep my Sabbaths, because it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, in order to know that I am Yahweh, who sanctifies you. And you must keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Anyone who profanes it must surely be put to death. Whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from among his people. For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy day to Yahweh. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death. The Israelites must keep the Sabbath, it is a permanent covenant for the generations to come. It is a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:12-17)
The words translated “perpetual” and “forever” in Exodus 31:17 are the same Hebrew word (H5769 ‛ôlâm). The following scriptures also use the same Hebrew word that is used for “perpetual” and “forever” ; Exodus 31:13-17, Genesis 3:22, Genesis 9:16, Genesis 21:33, Psalms 103:17, Psalms 119:142, Psalms 145:13 and Isaiah 40:8.
The Sabbath is a beautiful day of fellowship, worship and rest which God instituted for those who really love Him and are entirely devoted to Him. So what part of this sign of resting for our health and one-on-one time with our Creator legalism or bondage? The Sabbath is a real blessing for the tens of millions who understand what this commandment is all about. It is sad for those who are deceived and have no idea what this day means.
If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and Yahweh’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in Yahweh, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of Yahweh has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13-14)
The Sabbath is only for the Jews.
God says His Laws are also for the “stranger who is within your gates.” (Exodus 20:8-11) Moreover, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) It never was for the Jews only, but for all mankind. In fact, the Jewish nation didn’t even exist until 2,500 years after the Sabbath was made.
Our God “is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33). He didn’t just write nine laws for everyone else and then meant the 4th law only for the Jews. The children of God in Exodus chapter 16 were not just Jews either, many of them were from other nations; so this is an appallingly ignorant excuse which requires no further explanation!
Christ ended the Mosaic Law so the 4th Commandment no longer applies to New Testament Christians.
This one is either deliberate deception or ignorance. The Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments are clearly two separate laws. The truth speaks for itself for those who want it. God instituted the Mosaic Law because God’s people broke the Ten Commandment Laws and it was added because of sin until Christ came.
The Mosaic Law, also called the Law of Moses, was stored on the outside of the Ark of the Covenant. (Deuteronomy 31:24-26) The Ten Commandments were written by God in stone and were stored on the inside of the Ark of the Covenant under the mercy seat and under the Shekinah glory represented by the very presence of God Himself. (Exodus 20:1, 22; 31:18; 32:16; Deuteronomy 10:5) These two separate laws were written two separate times and stored in two different locations. One was established because man had sinned and the other is the law of God and is a reflection of His very own character. The Mosaic Law contained all the sacrifices and were introduced because God’s Ten Commandment law was transgressed (broken).
Galatians 4:9-10 says the Sabbath is bondage.
No it does not. The word Sabbath does not occur in the entire book of Galatians. Paul is referring to something that had days, months and years in various seasons. This is the law of sacrifices with its feast days, monthly new moons and yearly sacrificial sabbaths such as Passover and the Day of Atonement. James states the Commandments are the perfect law of liberty leading to freedom, not bondage. (James 1:25; James 2:10-12) The sacrificial law, on the other hand, meant having to take an unblemished animal to the priest to be sacrificed every time you sinned and that was indeed bondage.
Colossians 2:16 says not to let anyone judge you for not keeping the Lord’s Sabbath.
No, it does not. It says not to let anyone judge for not keeping the ordinances (vs 14) which was the sacrificial law of Moses, hence sabbath days, which is also definitely plural in the original Greek text and refers to Passover and the Day of Atonement Sabbath and five others. Luke 1:6 identifies the ordinances and the Commandments as being different. Ezekiel 45:17 is the perfect parallel to Colossians 2:16 and reveals that everything described in this verse is what was done to make reconciliation for sin. It is also not unclean food or drink as some modern translations imply but meat and drink [offerings] that belonged to the ordinances, or sacrificial law. How can I be sure? To begin with, there is no such thing as unclean drinks in the Bible, so that translation has to be wrong. Compare Galatians 4:10 and Colossians 2:16.
The New Covenant abolished the law.
The Bible says no such thing. The Old Covenant was between God and the Israelites. God said He found fault with the Old Covenant. But what did He say was the fault? (Hebrews 8:6-10) God said the fault was with the people who were not obeying His law. So what did God do in the New Covenant? He said He would write His law in our hearts and minds instead of on stone tablets so we would internalize His law and desire to love and obey it. (Ezekiel 36:26-27; Hebrews 8:10) God did not say some of His law either. He said My Laws meaning all 10 of them!
Every day is holy unto the Lord, and Christians should worship God every day.
I agree that every day is unto the LORD and I do worship God every day! And so did everyone else that kept the 4th Commandment in the Old Testament. Perhaps so-called Christians should set God straight and tell Him, “Your Commandment is wrong God because I worship you every day!” It’s not wise to mock God or His Commandment. God blessed only the seventh day and He sanctified only the seventh day, so every day cannot be holy. Only God can make a day holy. His children in Exodus 16 thought that they could keep any day instead of the seventh day and God was so angry with them that as far as He was concerned they were breaking ALL His laws. The Commandment is not just about worship, it’s also a day of rest. If you kept every day as the Sabbath you would not be holy, you would be lazy! It should be obvious to any truth seeker that it is not possible to keep every day as the seventh day. And when God commands something, He means it.
The Sabbath is not in the New Covenant.
Not so. The diligent truth seeker will note that scripture actually proves it has to be in the New Covenant. Exodus 24:3-8; Hebrews 9:11-18 and Hebrews 12:24 reveal that the Old and New Covenants were sealed with blood. Hebrews 9:15-17 says that a Covenant requires the death of the testator and has no power while the testator lives. And Galatians 3:15 says a covenant cannot be changed after the death of the testator. So the New Covenant was sealed by the blood of Jesus that afternoon when He died and it cannot be changed afterwards by anyone.
When Luke was referring to the women preparing spices and ointments for the body of Christ, He said, “…they rested the Sabbath day according to the Commandment.” Luke 23:55-56. This was after the New Covenant was sealed by the blood of Christ and they were still keeping the Sabbath according to how the Commandment instructed. Luke wrote this half a lifetime after the cross and he would have known if it was changed. Some also say it was changed to Sunday in honor of the resurrection but it is impossible for Sunday to belong to the New Covenant for the same reason being that it cannot be changed after it was sealed by the death of Christ.
Romans 10:4 says Christ is the end to the Law.
This is true… Jesus was the end to the Mosaic law. He replaced it by His own final sacrifice. This passage and other scripture reveals it was the Law of Moses, the sacrificial law, that ended with Christ and not the Ten Commandments. Here are a few scriptures that contradict an end to the Ten Commandment Laws. (Matthew 5:17-19; Luke 16:17; Romans 2:13; Romans 3:31; Romans 7:7; Romans 7:12; Revelation 22:14).
Jesus fulfilled and abolished the law.
The word “fulfill” in Matthew 5:17 means to give full meaning to the law and does NOT mean to abolish. The NIRV explains the meaning of fulfill in these words, “I have come to give full meaning to what is written” and the CEV reads, “I did not come to do away with them, but to give them their full meaning.” How could it abolish the law when Jesus just finished saying that He did not come to destroy the law and that it would last as long as heaven and earth and that we are not only to obey it but teach it also. How do you obey or teach a law that has ended? This particular word “fulfill” does not and cannot mean to bring to an end or destroy.
The Sabbath was a shadow.
A shadow of what exactly? The shadow Paul refers to in Colossians 2:17 relates to the feast days that were practiced because of sin. Passover was a shadow of the crucifixion, and all the feast days were instituted because of sin and were all shadows of a future event. The fourth Commandment was made before sin and has nothing to do with sin other than it is a sin to break it, hence, the fourth Commandment cannot be a shadow of anything.
Revelation 1:10 says the Lord’s Day is Sunday.
This verse does not even give so much as a hint of Sunday. The Bible does say that Jesus has a special day and all verses say He is Lord of the Sabbath, which is Saturday. (Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28 and Luke 6:5) Historical records reveal everyone was still keeping the Seventh day, what we call Saturday, until sometime after the Jewish wars (70-90 A.D.) when some switched to Sunday in fear of persecution for Judaism. It was more than 300 years after the cross when an early Church historian wrote that Rome began calling Sunday the Lord’s Day. “In the year 325, Sylvester, Bishop of Rome (AD 314-337), officially changed the title of the first day, calling it the Lord’s day.” (Lucium, Historia Ecclesiastica, p. 739) Sunday is nothing more than a tradition of man and against the will of God. Jesus said that those who keep traditions in place of his Commandments are hypocrites. (Mark 7:6-9).
Galatians say the Ten Commandments were only until Christ.
All expert theologians agree that the letter from Paul to the Galatians is about judaizing teachers that insisted they should still be observing all the rites of the Mosaic Law, the sacrificial law, such as circumcision, the feast days and sacrificial sabbaths such as Passover. They taught that Paul was inferior to the other Apostles and that the sacrificial law was still binding and necessary for justification. Every chapter except for chapter 6 refers to the sacrificial Law of Moses and NOT the Ten Commandments.
We’ve considered only a few justifications people use to not “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” But there’s so much more! So what’s the real reason Christians today don’t obey the Sabbath Commandment? I will address this in my next podcast.
Loving Yahweh with Heart, Soul and Strength 