Memorial of Creation

When God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, they were a written summary of the laws and principles that God had always expected people to live by. For example, centuries earlier God had chosen Abraham to be the father of many nations “because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Genesis 26:5). God chose Abraham specifically because he obeyed God’s law. The fourth commandment points to the Sabbath as a memorial of creation, and contains a call for all people to worship God as Creator on His holy day: “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 manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy 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” (Exodus 20:8-11).

 

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What Day is the Sabbath?

The word Sabbath literally means “rest,” and the Bible says that God blessed and sanctified, or set apart as holy, this first Sabbath rest day as a memorial of His finished work of creation. This is why the fourth commandment begins with a call to remember the seventh-day Sabbath rest.

Sabbath Rest: A Common Experience

From its first mention in Genesis 2, the Sabbath is presented as a day of rest to be shared and experienced with others. The prophet Isaiah revealed that the Sabbath was intended not just for the Jewish community, but also for the “sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord” (Isaiah 56:6). God created the Sabbath to be a blessing for all people!

Is Sabbath a Christian Holiday?

The Biblical Sabbath has always been the seventh day of the week, what we call Saturday. However, the “Christian Sabbath” is today almost universally recognized as Sunday, the first day of the week. This day of worship dates back to the convergence of religious and political power under the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages.

Sabbath Rest and Social Justice

Throughout history, the Sabbath has provided an opportunity to combat and, at least to some degree, dismantle the distinctions of socio-economic status within human society. Thousands of years ago people were already talking about the Sabbath as a day that would be a blessing to society. Few people would argue that human society today desperately needs these same Sabbath blessings.

Sabbath Rest and the Environment

Many wars are fought over natural resources and food production, and the same technologies that have allowed for tremendous increases in crop yields also exact terrible collateral damage on the environment and on humanity. Tthe Bible’s Sabbath rest on the seventh day of each week, and the principles of wisely using and safeguarding the resources found in our environment, could make a difference for us today.