What day is the Sabbath according to the Bible?

The fourth commandment was to remember the sabbath day (v. 8), the last day of the week (Saturday) to keep it holy, that is, sanctified from all other days for the purpose of being devoted to God. Israel had six days to labor, but the seventh was a day of rest.

The fourth commandment occupies four verses (vs.12-16), insisting on Israel's observance of the Sabbath day. It was to be sanctified apart from all other days. Though they could labor for six days, labor was to cease of the seventh day, which of course is Saturday. This restriction extended to every family, children and servants, and included their animals. We must remember that the law was given to Israel, not to Gentiles, who are not to be judged in reference to Sabbath days (Col. 2:16). Under grace no law demands the keeping of any special day, but those who have appreciated the grace of God are glad to give the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, a place of special importance, for it was on this day the Lord rose from the dead, the day he appeared in the midst of His gathered disciples (Jn.20:19, the day also "when the disciples were gathered together to break bread" (Acts 20:7). It has been a great mercy of God that He has led in allowing the western nations at least to set aside this day that He might be specially honored -- not as a law, but as a spiritual privilege.

And first, as to the Sabbath. If it were merely a question of the observance or non-observance of a day, it might be easily disposed of, inasmuch as the apostle teaches us in Rom. 14:5-6, and also in Col. 2:16, that such things are not to be made a ground of judgement. But seeing there is a great principle involved in the Sabbath question, we deem it to be of the very last importance to place it upon a clear and scriptural basis. We shall quote the Fourth Commandment at full length. "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it." (Ex. 20:8-11) This same law is repeated in Exodus 31:12-17. And, in pursuance thereof, we find, in Numbers 15 a man stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath-day. All this is plain and absolute enough. Man has no right to alter God's law in reference to the Sabbath, no more than he has to alter it in reference to murder, adultery, or theft. This, we presume, will not be called in question. The entire body of Old Testament Scripture fixes the seventh day as the Sabbath; and the Fourth Commandment lays down the mode in which that Sabbath was to be observed. Now, where, we ask, is this precedent followed? Where is this command obeyed? Is it not plain that the professing church neither keeps the right day, as the Sabbath; nor does she keep it after the Scripture mode? The commandments of God are made of none effect by human traditions, and the glorious truths which hang around "the Lord's day" are lost sight of. The Jew is robbed of his distinctive day, and all the privileges therewith connected, which are only suspended for the present, while judicial blindness hangs over that loved and interesting, though now judged and scattered, people. And, furthermore, the Church is robbed of her distinctive day and all the glories therewith connected, which, if really understood, would have the effect of lifting her above earthly things into the sphere which properly belongs to her, as linked by faith to her glorified Head in heaven. In result, we have neither pure Judaism nor pure Christianity, but an anomalous system arising out of an utterly unscriptural combination of the two.

However, we desire to refrain from all attempt at developing the deeply spiritual doctrine involved in this great question, and confine ourselves to the plain teaching of Scripture on the subject; and, in so doing, we maintain that if the professing church quotes the Fourth Commandment and parallel Scriptures, in defence of keeping the Sabbath, then it is evident, that, in almost every case, the law is entirely set aside. Observe, the word is, "thou shalt not do any work." This ought to be perfectly binding on all who take the Jewish ground. There is no room here for introducing what we deem to be "works of necessity," we may think it necessary to kindle fires, to make servants harness our horses, and drive us hither and thither. But the law is stern and absolute, severe and unbending. It will not, it cannot, lower its standard to suit our convenience or accommodate itself to our thoughts. The mandate is, "thou shalt not do any work," and that, moreover, on "the seventh day," which answers to our Saturday. We ask for a single passage of Scripture in which the day is changed, or in which the strict observance of the day is, in the smallest degree, relaxed.

The sabbath is not the first day but the seventh day of the week. There is no such thing as a "christian" sabbath. "The sabbath" or seventh day was connected with the old creation, the "first day" with the new. The N.T. unites with the Lord's name, the first day, and also the supper; for the adjectival form of the word used in 1 Cor. 11:20 "the Lord's" supper is identical with "the Lord's" day in Rev. 1:10, and these two places form its only occurrence. The first of the week is constantly spoken of in the N.T. People make so much of the uniform seventh day — a certain 24 hours — but this cannot apply all over the world, because while it is mid-day here it is midnight at the antipodes. But in a limited area to a people "folded" off it exactly suited. The sabbath is incorporated in the law of a carnal commandment; the Lord's day is a day of holy liberty. "He that regards the day," has no reference to the Lord's day. There were Jews who regarded certain days as still of God's appointment; to such those who knew their liberty as risen with Christ were to be gracious. We ought to be on our guard to avoid legality. We are under grace and ought to be jealous of it.

Now we read, "In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre" (Matt. 28:1). You must bear in mind that the Jewish day began at six o'clock in the evening, so the Sabbath had gone by, and the first day of the week begun when those women at eventide came out. Elsewhere we are told that they "rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56). They obeyed the law. They had prepared spices, "that they might come and anoint him" on the Friday evening, and then rested on the Saturday. That was the Sabbath. The Lord's Day has nothing at all to do with the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the last day of the week. There is no such thing as the Christian Sabbath, although men often so speak. There is the Lord's Day. The first of the week is the day that belongs to the Lord. And I claim a greater sanctity for the Lord's Day than the Jew does for the Sabbath. You and I give the Lord the first day of the week.

Here let us not fail to notice the difference between this and what scripture calls "the Lord's day." Those who would and do confound the two understand neither. The sabbath day was originally and historically at the end of the week, when man had accomplished his ordinary round of toil. The end he gave to God. He had laboured himself for six days, on the seventh he rested. According to God's law, it was not merely a seventh but "the" seventh day. No other day of the week would have done so well, or at all, if one looked at it with truly fear of God. From a utilitarian point of view, one day was as good as another; and this is man's way of dealing with things. But God knows that man is prone to forget Him even in creation, above all to forget the gracious and final purpose of God pledged in the sabbath.

This is amply and strictly confirmed by Ex. 20:1-11. The sabbath is not a but the seventh day, the memorial of creation finished — of the Adamic world. "For in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and sanctified it." The language is precise. It is not said "created" but "made." This was the right phrase as a whole for the work of the six days, however well creating is said of parts within that work. It was not the original production but a special construction of divine will and power with man in view. That the seventh day is the sabbath is with equal care impressed in Deut. 5:12-15, though the connection of heart here is with the deliverance from bondage in the land of Egypt rather than with creation.

Nor is there a commandment on which scripture laid greater stress, when the law was bound on the sons of Israel, than that of the sabbath. All the others were moral in a sense which this was not; for of their own selves they could not but feel and own the duty. But the hallowing of the sabbath was of God's initiation exclusively, and singularly marked out for His people that they should not even look to gather the manna on that day. His honour was pre-eminently identified with its observance; and so was His blessing.

In the 17th of Matt. we find Moses introduced, as the type of the raised-up dead, and Elijah as the type of those who shall not taste death at all. The Lord Jesus is represented as "coming in His kingdom" (2 Peter 1:16, etc.). But besides this we learn something else. Till that vision has its fulfilment, Moses passes off from the scene, and Elijah, too, withdraws, and a voice is now heard saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him." We are no longer subject to Moses the law-giver, nor to Elijah, the reformer, but to the Lord Jesus who is Lord also of the Sabbath. I suppose all will agree in this; but this is the question raised — Did not the Lord Jesus change the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first? Let the 19th and 20th of John answer it. The seventh day was passed by the Lord Jesus in the grave, and on the first day of the week, he rose. Compare also Matt. 28:1 — "In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene," etc. Now, if ever, was the time to change the day; but not a word is found to that effect. "The seventh day is the Sabbath." The first day of the week is another matter. As a matter of history, we know that the early disciples never confounded the two days.

But there was another thing hateful in His eyes, where they set up no strange god. Nor is anyone more explicit in denouncing their profane irreverence and shameless hypocrisy than Malachi, the last of the post-captivity prophets. We know from his contemporary Nehemiah how His sabbaths were then profaned, and His sanctuary set at nought. The sabbath had a special place in the decalogue as flowing simply from divine authority, prescriptive and not in the same sense moral as the other nine commandments. It was instituted as a sign of creation and a pledge of God's rest; and God imposed it in His law for Israel, the measure of man's responsibility, as a sign to them as His people. A new day, the first day of the week, is the day of Christ's resurrection, the Lord's day for the Christian, as the day of the new creation in Him, and of sovereign grace to us who now believe for heavenly glory as His body and bride. The sabbath is in no way abrogated or changed or spiritualised, but must be fulfilled in all its own blessedness for man on earth, and for Israel God's firstborn among all nations, when idols vanish for ever, and the sanctuary of Jehovah shall never be profaned more.

Exodus 20:10. Vol. II. p. 266. — There are, at least, two fatal objections to the statement that the Fourth Commandment enjoins, simply, one day in seven, or a seventh day. The first is, that the Hebrew is precise, the definite article, or demonstrative, being used uniformly, not in different parts of the Commandment only, but in the very numerous allusions to the Sabbath elsewhere. And so all translations, ancient or modern which I have examined, understood the phrase; the Vulgate can scarcely be regarded as an exception, as the Latin language does not thus define. But every unbiassed scholar will admit that the Hebrew is as to this no less explicit and unambiguous than our own version, which is perfectly accurate in representing its force. But, secondly, besides the verbal pseudo-criticism involved, there is a false principle: for the first, or Lord's day, stands on another and far higher basis then the seventh day, the latter being as plainly connected with creation ended and the law, as the former is with the full grace of God displayed in the resurrection of Christ. Hence the seventh day, or Sabbath, was a sign between Jehovah and Israel, and it was buried in the grave of Christ, who rose on the first day, the head of the new creation. On that day the risen Lord met His own, and on that day after he ascended the Church continued to assemble and break bread in His name. Scripture never confounds the two days, the seventh being as characteristic of mere creation and the law, as the first is of accomplished redemption, and life in resurrection. To distinguish them is absolutely necessary to maintaining the importance of each in its place.