What Is The 4th Commandment?

What is the 4^th Commandment?  Is the Sabbath command written only for the Jews?  Are Christians to observe a Saturday Sabbath?

 The 4^th Commandment 

Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

If you look at a calendar, the 7^th day or last day of the week is obviously Saturday but the Sabbath actually begins at sunset Friday evening and continues until Saturday at sunset so the Sabbath is not from midnight Friday night till midnight Saturday night but from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.  That is the time period of the Sabbath and today, only a few orthodox Jews around the world observe the Sabbath and a few Christian denominations and even a few in the nation of Israel but is this commandment repeated in the New Testament as a command for Christians today?  Did Jesus, Paul, Peter, John or anyone else in the New Testament ever command the church to observe the Sabbath?

Who was it Written Too?

If we read the Sabbath commands in the Old Testament, we can see exactly who this was written too.  Remember that the New Testament church did not exist at this time.  In the very beginning of God’s giving Israel the Ten Commandments He says “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2).  Who was God speaking too? It was Israel, whom He had just brought out of Egypt and set them free from their slavery.  God later speaks to Israel saying “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest” (Ex 34:21).  Who is this “you?”  This “you” is not you and me but, as you can read in Exodus chapter 34, He is speaking to Israel.  He later says in this same chapter “the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel” (Ex 34:27).  So God has made this a covenant with Moses (“you”) and “with Israel” and there is no mention anywhere in any of the Sabbath commands or the commands of the Mosaic Law that it is written for any other people other than for the nation of Israel and in the Old Covenant.  This covenant was made “with you (Moses) and with Israel” and no one else.  The Sabbath command is the only commandment not repeated in the New Testament.

The Book of Hebrews and the Sabbath

The Book of Hebrews is the only book in the New Testament that even hints at a keeping of a Sabbath and is mentioned in Hebrews 4:9 “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”  Does the author of Hebrews mean that there remains a Sabbath day observance for believers today?  Is “a Sabbath rest for the people of God” the same thing as a command or specifically the requirement of keeping the 4th Commandment Sabbath day?  Context should always be king so let’s read the context of chapter 4 to see if the author of Hebrews was commanding the church to observe the Sabbath day or not.  In chapter 4 verse 9 the word used in the Greek for Sabbath is “sabbatismos” and it is not referring to a specific day of the week like a Saturday because the word “sabbatismos” literally means “a keeping Sabbath” or “the blessed rest from toils and troubles” as the secondary meaning indicates.  “Sabbatismos” is referring to a rest, not a day of the week.  This “blessed rest from toils and troubles” is what the context of this chapter looks forward to in the age to come by the true worshippers of God who are the Christians and that rest is from their works.   This rest was not a day of the week because it says “if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on” (Heb 4:8) and what was this day and what was this rest that was written about?  It was “for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Heb 4:10) so we are to “strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (Heb 4:11).  What was this “same sort of disobedience?”  It was “those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience” (Heb 4:6).  Remember when Israel was about to enter the Promised Land they believed the 10 spies report and were afraid to enter into that land of rest and by their disbelief, they “failed to enter because of disobedience?”  No one can enter into a day no, it was the land of Canaan that they failed to enter into because they didn’t believe God and a failure to believe God is clearly disbelief.

Should Christians Observe a day of Rest?

Hebrews 10:24-25 says “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”  What is the author saying here?  It’s obvious that Christians are not to be “neglecting to meet together” in worship services “as is the habit of some” because if they neglect this they cannot encourage one another and cannot “stir up one another to love and good works.”  That’s hard to do being home alone.  There are no “lone ranger” Christians in the New Testament.  They all belonged to a collective body of the saints called the church.  There are also dozens and dozens of “one another” commands in the New Testament that would be impossible to keep if one were being a solo Christian act at home.

I believe we all need a day of rest but if someone keeps a Saturday Sabbath, we have no business judging them anymore than they have any right judging us who observe a Sunday day of rest and worship.  Paul wrote in Colossians chapter 2 about those who were judging other believers over keeping or not keeping certain Old Covenant Laws like the Holy Days (or feasts) and the Sabbath.  This is why he wrote that Christ’s death on the cross has “cancel[ed] the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:14) so “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col 2:16-17). It is obvious that Paul is talking about the Old Covenant Laws and Holy Days because the Greek used for “new moon” is “neomēnia” which refers to the Jewish festival of the new moon and the word “festival” is “heortē” and means “a feast day” so Paul is obviously referring to the Old Testament High or Holy Days that Jesus cancelled by His death on the cross because He established a new and better covenant.  I do believe that Christians should still take at least one day of the week to rest and for me, being a pastor, I have to make it a different day of the week than Sunday because that is one of my longest and busiest days.

Conclusion

We have rested from our works of the flesh because we are not ever going to be saved by works anyway but by faith in Christ.  We are not saved by works but by faith alone and that faith is a gift of God (Eph 2:8-9) so there’s no way we can brag or boast about saving ourselves.  If you’ve never been born again (John 3:3) then you cannot even enter the kingdom (John 3:5) but instead are awaiting a judgment of God that will come just after your death or at Christ’s return, whichever comes first (Rev 20:12-15).  Repenting today and trusting in Christ will allow you to enter into God’s eternal rest and the joy of being in the presence of God forever. There are no words that I can even write that can describe just how incredible that will be for you or if you reject Christ as Savior, no words can describe the infinite suffering that you will endure for eternity. The choice is up to you.

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon