Wasn’t the seventh-day Sabbath given at Sinai for the Jews?
“Thou shalt not kill” was also given at Sinai. Does that mean that Cain did not sin by killing his brother? Did God just introduce some commandments early and reserve others to be introduced along with the Sabbath at Sinai? Hardly, for the Bible states that if you break one, you break them all. James 2:10. Thus, God shows that the law is one complete whole and not ten stand-alone rules independent of each other.
Before Sinai, Pharaoh had a knowledge that the worship of Jehovah included a day of rest. When Moses relayed God’s message to Pharaoh, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness,” Pharaoh responded harshly: “Ye make them rest from their burdens.” Ex. 5:1, 5. While this is a correct translation, it does not give the revealing phrasing of the Hebrew, which is literally translated: “Ye cause them to sabbatize.” Pharoah had no desire to allow his slaves to worship Jehovah by observing His weekly Sabbath, or to leave Egypt to do this. He knowingly defied both Jehovah and His Sabbath before it had been commanded at Sinai.
The Hebrews also knew about the Sabbath before Sinai because God gave them an interesting test of loyalty shortly before. Exodus 16 describes God sending bread from heaven, which they called manna, and commanding the people to gather a double portion on Friday so they would not have to gather on Sabbath, the seventh day. Remember, this was before Sinai.
But there’s even stronger evidence of the Sabbath before Sinai. Genesis 2:2, 3 says: “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.…” There were no Jews in the Garden of Eden. Furthermore, while He was on earth, Jesus stated plainly that the Sabbath was made for all humanity, not merely for the Jews. Mark 2:27, 28.
When the saints are redeemed and living in the new earth, whether Jew or Gentile by origin, they will worship the Lord on His Sabbath day. Isa. 66:23.
Wouldn’t I be denying Christ’s death and resurrection if I worshiped on the seventh-day Sabbath instead of Sunday, the day Christ rose from the dead?
If the Bible is your rule of faith, there is a simple answer: Christians have been given wonderful memorials of Christ’s death and resurrection—the Lord’s Supper and baptism. Matt. 26:26–28; Rom. 6:3–11.
Nowhere in Scripture do we find Christ or the apostles transferring Jehovah’s weekly Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, nor do we find them changing the original purpose of observing God’s holy seventh day. The Sabbath was given as a memorial of Creation and redemption. Ex. 20:8–11; Eze. 20:12.
Doesn’t Paul teach in Colossians 2:16, 17 that we are not to make an issue of “sabbath days” in this Christian age?
The seventeenth verse of this chapter reveals the subject of Paul’s concern. These were Jewish feast days that fell on a variety of weekdays which God had commanded Israel to keep as they would the weekly Sabbath. These feast days were merely shadows of things that met their fulfillment through the Messiah.
Jesus never gave the impression that the Ten Commandments, specifically the Sabbath, would be abolished through the work of the Messiah. On the contrary, He upheld the law of God and declared that heaven and earth would pass before the law would be changed. Matt. 5:18.
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