We can imagine the Pharisees pleading with Christ: surely He could wait one more day to heal these people so He wouldn’t desecrate God’s Sabbath. One time Jesus’ disciples picked some heads of grain in a field on the Sabbath, presumably to eat them, but nothing implies they were on the verge of starvation (Mark 2:23). Yet Jesus’ defense of their behavior sets a sweeping precedent for change: “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:26).

Increasingly, few Christians reserve one day each week for both worship and rest from all forms of work. Should we be disturbed by this? Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists answer “yes,” and claim that the Sabbath day must be Saturday.

Certain kinds of Presbyterians and Reformed Christians, along with others influenced by the legacy of the Puritans, equally adamantly answer “yes,” but they insist that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. Still others argue for the principle of resting one day in seven but don’t worry about which day of the week it is, since preachers, for example, can scarcely rest on the day they lead worship services. Are any of these three perspectives right? Not really.

Jesus declared, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17; NIV here and throughout). It’s an unusual contrast. Normally, if someone says he is not abolishing something, he goes on to say he is preserving it intact. But that’s not how the word fulfill is used in the Bible. In Matthew alone, its most common meaning is “to bring about that which was predicted” or “to give the complete meaning of something that was once only partially disclosed” (for example, 1:22; 2:15, 17, 23; 3:15; 4:14). Christians of all kinds recognize that they do not have to bring animals to church to be killed and offered as sacrifices for their sins, even though that practice was central to the entire old covenant system of worship. Christ is our once-for-all sacrifice for sin, so the way that we obey the many sacrificial laws in Leviticus today is by trusting in Jesus for forgiveness of sins. The New Testament introduces many other changes in the Old Testament law as well—all foods are now ritually clean, so it is okay to eat pork or shrimp (Mark 7:19). We need not go to one fixed location for temple rituals because we worship anywhere we can gather “in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Christian men need not be circumcised, even though that was one of the most fundamental of all Jewish commands, preceding even the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai (Gen. 17).

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