I originally published this study on my first blog called Just Thinking... on 4 September 2006.
In the church today there are multiple views on the issue of the Sabbath. How should the Sabbath be kept, if at all?
Some argue that the Sabbath should be kept in the same way as it was kept in the Old Testament while others argue that it should be kept in the same way, yet that it moved to the first day of the week from the seventh. These call the first day of the week the Lord's Day. There are also others that believe that we should treat each day alike and that there is no day that is more holy than another.
In this article we will attempt to define the relationship of the New Covenant believer to the Sabbath.
We will not concern ourselves with commenting on seventh-day sabbatarians since any comments in this article on sabbatarianism, of whichever form, should be able to be levelled at seventh-day sabbatarians.
The Sabbath Instituted
The Sabbath was instituted at Mt Sinai in the Ten Commandments. God instituted the Sabbath for the Israelites to keep in Ex 20:8-11,
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. (9) Six days you shall labor and do all your work, (10) but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. (11) For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the 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."