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QUESTION 49:
Which is the true Sabbath that should Christians should keep today?

ANSWER:
This is two questions in one. I shall answer them as such. God is both Creator and Redeemer. The true Sabbath is in Genesis 2:2, where God instituted, (as the Creator), it on the seventh day which is our Saturday. It is said that God rested from His six days of Creation. When it says that He "rested" it does not mean that He was tired, but that He cease His work of six days. The Sabbath then, was not a day of worship or church going, but a day of physical rest from all manual labour. Jesus said,"..The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" Mark 2:27. What Jesus seems to be saying here is, that man was not made to legally keep the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath was made for man to observe as a day of physically rest. In other words, it was man-ward, and not God-ward.

The Sabbath was established before the fall of man in Genesis 3. We do not read of the Sabbath again until Exodus.16:23, when God gave the manna from heaven and told the people it would only be for six days and none for the Sabbath. This was well over 2000 years after creation. It was given to Israel for a sign. See Exodus 31:13, Exodus 31:18; Ezekiel 20:12, and Ezekiel 20:20. It was never observed by the Gentile world before Israel became a nation.

It was not a day of worship, but a day of physical rest from the labour's of six days. It is associated with God, as Creator and not as God in redemption. This Sabbath was never enjoined on the Church in the New Testament. It is only mention there in connection with the Jews and the synagogue or temple. The only mention of the Sabbath in the church Epistles is in a negative tone as being something from the old Jewish economy. The Christian of the New Testament met on the first day of the week which was Sunday. Acts 20:7 and John 20:19.

This was the day that God found His rest in the finished work of Christ, the Redeemer, when He arose from the dead. God's old Creation is corrupted by fallen man. It is doom for a future judgment. God's new creation is eternal. It is in Christ. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17

Are you in the New creation or the Old? "Ye must be born again to be in the New." John 3:7 Do acknowledge that you have sinned against God and then trust in Christ as your Saviour and be in the Sabbath of rest He provided at the cross.

All comments and questions to: Harold Smith

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Updated July 2009, by Shelly Allen