SABBATH INSTRUCTIONS
The full
instructions for the seventh day or the Sabbath day can be found in
the book of Exodus 20 v 8-11.
It can be followed through the Old Testament and picked up
again in the New Testament in Matthew 12 v 1-13 and Mark 1 v 21 when
Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach.
This pattern was repeated on quite a few occasions by Jesus in the
gospels.
On a Friday Jesus was crucified and shed his
blood, the sacrifice for our sins, and buried in a tomb that
evening. We are given
instructions how to remember this great event 1st
Corinthians 11 v 23-26.
The next day, Saturday, the followers of
Jesus rested in obedience to the fourth commandment.
The following day Sunday Jesus rose from the dead - Luke 23 v
54-56, this event is commonly known as the resurrection.
With all due respect to the greatness of the resurrection, there is no Biblical instruction to remember it in any way, or the day it happened on. Contrary to the popular belief in Christian circles that the day the resurrection took place was promoted to the Lord’s day, the Lord’s day is not mentioned in any of the apostles doctrine or in the formation of the early church, in fact most of the apostles were dead before the Lord’s day appeared in Revelation, the last book of the Bible. Apart from this reference in Revelation 1 and 10 this indeed appears to be an isolated verse in scripture with no accompanying indication to what it is referring.
The first day of the week written in Acts 20 v 7 is to highlight the miracle of Eutychus being raised from the dead at a farewell meeting at Troas after Paul had spent seven days with the Christians there. This event took place on Paul’s third missionary journey and was at least twenty years after the resurrection and proves that no new titles were attached to the first day of the week all those years later.
Neither of these two great events, the death
and resurrection of Jesus made any difference to the continuation of
the Sabbath day –
Acts 13 v 42:
“when the Jews were gone out of the
Synagogue the Gentiles besought Paul that these words might be
preached to them the next Sabbath”.
Acts 18 v 4
“and Paul reasoned in the Synagogue every
Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks”.
Acts 17 v 2,
“Paul as, his manner was, went in unto
them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the
scriptures, and on one occasion Paul went to a prayer meeting by the
riverside on the Sabbath”.
This proves that the Sabbath day continued on
a weekly basis during Paul’s ministry.
Jesus prophesied that the Sabbath day would continue even
further in Matthew 24 v 20, referring to the destruction of
Jerusalem about AD 70, the inhabitants were told to flee to the
mountains and they were to pray that their flight would not be in
winter neither on the Sabbath Day.
Saturday (the seventh day) is still God’s
Sabbath day, and no scripture can be found to suggest otherwise.