I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this in my many years as a Sabbatarian, or how many times I may have said it. Now I’m saying it again, because I still agree it’s true. I may not put it on a bumper sticker like I’ve seen some do, but the next time I see one, I might honk and give them a thumbs up. Just wish I’d have time to explain why I agree. They won’t understand.
Most SDA Sabbatarians resolve to observe the correct Sabbath Day but hold the largely false presumption that all of Christianity has replaced Sunday with the 7th day Sabbath as the Biblical day of rest. It’s true that some do, but this does not represent most Christians. Most evangelicals don’t “keep” Sunday, they celebrate it. Does anyone tell you to “keep” your birthday, or mother’s day? Where is the law that demands you honor the people or events these days commemorate? There isn’t one, but yet you love to anyway.
The fact is, most Christians have never even stopped to think about the correlation between the 4th commandment and their custom of worship on Sunday, which is why so many of them are easy prey for SDA Sabbath teaching, or other Sabbatarian groups. And some others have been erroneously taught to see Sunday as a “sabbath” and for them as well as Sabbatarians I resound… “Sunday is NOT the Sabbath.”
Jesus is.
Just as the temple sacrifices pointed to the work of Christ’s atoning blood, the Sabbath was also a foreshadow of Christ’s work… HIS work and our rest in that work. Jesus didn’t rest on the Sabbath during His ministry, and He infuriated the Jews because of it.
The Sabbath also represents our death with Christ on the cross. The only way we cease from our own works is to die… reckon ourselves dead, as Paul says. His flesh, our flesh, lay silent in the tomb on the Sabbath. Every weekly and festival Sabbath pointed to this event.
Hebrews is a book showing the parallels between the Old Covenant pictures, and the New Covenant reality. It invites us to walk in the reality, not the shadow. Chapter 4 speaks to the shadow of the Sabbath showing specifically there is a rest for us in Christ… a rest that is every day… all day. It’s our daily privilege, to rest (die) daily to our own works.
So what is Sunday if it’s not the Sabbath? Why did the early Christians begin honoring this day as noted in the earliest Christian writings? Because the most amazing thing to happen so far in human history occurred on that day!! Their sorrow and total despair (because they had not believed His Word when He said he would rise again) was turned to unspeakable joy at the discovery that He had risen… just as He said! Jesus honored this day with His presence among them on numerous occasions after His resurrection. To stop at the Sabbath and not see the glory of Sunday would be like leaving the movie theater in the saddest part of the film and miss the happy ending! We praise and thank Him for our rest, but we can’t walk in death. We walk in newness of life… resurrection life!
“Therefore, if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will surely be united with Him in a resurrection like His….. So you must also reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.“ – from Romans 6
We find no written command anywhere in the New Testament to the church concerning any specific days or observances outside of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. To worship God on Sunday is to voluntarily rejoice and honor a risen Lord, a freewill offering of love and corporate fellowship. And through the Spirit, we can have this joy on any day as the church in Acts met in some form, daily. It says, “With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus…” Acts 4:33
If you delve into the message of the apostles, you will find a big emphasis on the resurrection. Sabbatarians in my experience as a whole, spend very little time on this event in their worship and discussion. Most refuse to even gather to worship at the yearly celebration of this event… Resurrection Sunday during the Passover season. We never saw the magnitude of a completed covenant, and the joy of the New one.. in a risen Christ.
Sunday is not the Sabbath, this is true. The Sabbath pointed to a future rest the adherents of the Old Covenant could not truly enjoy, just as the sacrifices pointed to a future complete atonement the blood of animals cold not procure. The first (or eighth) day points to something even greater we are looking to now; our own glorification and final union with our Lord in the coming resurrection, our Blessed Hope. Until then we have the seal and promise of His Spirit as we walk by faith, trusting He will do as He said.
He Lives
I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today. I know that He is living no matter what men say. I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer. And just the time I need Him, He’s always near.
Rejoice Rejoice O Christian, lift up your voice and sing Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ the King! The Help of all who seek Him the Hope of all who find. None other is so loving, so good and kind.
He Lives, He Lives, Christ Jesus Lives today! He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way. He lives, He lives, salvation to impart. You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.
Hymn by A.H. Ackley
8thDay4Life 