The New Testament upholds the Ten Commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath, as God’s will for His people. References and allusions to the Ten Commandments abound in Jesus’ ministry and in the rest of the New Testament. It was Jesus’ and the apostles’ “custom” to observe the Sabbath in a manner that would be expected of those who believed in its universality and permanence.

Rightly understood and observed, the seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday) is a precious gift from God. Millions of Christians in my faith community experience it as such. At creation, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Gen. 2:3; italics supplied); the Sabbath commandment echoes, “The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Ex. 20:11).

The Sabbath is also God’s chosen sign of creation and redemption: “that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you” (Ex. 31:13); thus, rightly understood and observed, the Sabbath remains a perpetual antidote to both the theory of naturalistic evolution and to legalism. Finally, the Sabbath is God’s designated day for rest and worship, “a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation” (Lev. 23:3). Scripture never attributes any of these sacred pronouncements, or explicitly assigns any meaning whatsoever, to any day of the week other than the seventh-day Sabbath.

The New Testament upholds the Ten Commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath, as God’s will for His people. References and allusions to the Ten Commandments abound in Jesus’ ministry and in the rest of the New Testament (for example, Matt. 5:17–19; Mark 2:27–28; 7:9–13; 10:17–22; Luke 23:56; Rom. 2:21–22; 7:7; 1 Cor. 6:9–11; Eph. 6:1–3; Heb. 4:4, 9; James 2:10–12). It was Jesus’ and the apostles’ “custom” to observe the Sabbath in a manner that would be expected of those who believed in its universality and permanence (Luke 4:16; Acts 17:2). Jesus fulfilled the law by ascribing deeper meaning to the commandments without destroying their original application (Matt. 5:17–30; 11:28– 12:8). The book of Revelation is permeated with direct and indirect allusions to at least seven of the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath commandment. John received his vision “on the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10).

The Lord’s Day is designated in Scripture as the seventh-day Sabbath: “a Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Ex. 20:10); “my Sabbaths” (Lev. 19:3); “my holy day . . . the holy day of the Lord” (Isa. 58:13); the day of which Jesus said He is “lord” (Luke 6:5). Had God given such designations to Sunday or any other day, would this not be cited as evidence for its sanctity and sole claim to being “the Lord’s day”? The allusion in Revelation 11:19 to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai suggests that subsequent references to “the commandments of God,” which God’s last-day people lovingly obey through faith in Jesus, include the Ten Commandments (12:17; 14:12). The eschatological appeal to “worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water” (14:7), borrows language directly from the Sabbath commandment. The scriptural evidence appears to me clear and convincing that the Ten Commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath, are permanent and universal.

The New Testament never changes the Sabbath commandment. The eight “first day” references in the Gospels refer exclusively either to the very day Jesus rose and appeared to believers to assure them He was alive or to the very next Sunday, when He appeared to convince doubting Thomas. Interpreters who advance Sunday sacredness based on Acts 20:7’s reference to breaking bread on the first day must ignore that early believers “broke bread” daily (2:46; 27:35). Reputable scholars from various Protestant traditions (references cited in my essay in Perspectives on the Sabbath: Four Views):

• Consider 1 Corinthians 16:1–2’s appeal to “put . . . aside and store . . . up” funds for the poor on Sunday as unrelated to a corporate worship service;
• Provide evidence that Galatians 4:8–11’s rebuke for observing special days refers to pagan sacred days, not the Decalogue’s Sabbath;
• Teach that the “days,” of which “each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Rom. 14:5) about observing, refer to Jewish fast days (“doubtful things,” 14:1, NKJV) rather than the Decalogue’s Sabbath;
• Conclude that the reference to “a Sabbath” (“sabbaths,” NKJV) in Colossians 2:16–17 does not preclude a New Testament Sabbath and bears weighty evidence that this passage’s shadowy sabbaths, whose reality have come in Christ, are in fact the Old Testament ceremonial sabbaths, rather than the Decalogue’s seventh-day Sabbath (cf. Heb. 10:1–4).

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