Saturday
Saturday
The Sabbath Rest
God … rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Genesis 2:3
What was the crown of God’s creation? It was not the creation of man but the provision of the Sabbath, not the commissioning of man to take up his tools and work for six days but his commission to lay them down and worship on the seventh day. God’s plan was not only to create homo faber (man the worker) but to create homo adorans (man the worshiper). For human beings are seen at their noblest when they are worshiping God.
This divine purpose was later enshrined in the Decalogue, whose fourth commandment said, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,” that is, by setting it apart from other days for both rest and worship (Exod. 20:8). God knew what he was doing when he made provision for our rest of mind and body. Several attempts have been made to change the divine rhythm of one day in seven. The French revolutionaries introduced a republican calendar with a ten-day week, but Napoleon in 1805 restored the seven-day week. Then the Russian revolutionaries turned Sunday into a working day, but it did not last long. Stalin restored Sunday as a day of rest. God knows best.
Then, secondly, one day in seven was intended for worship. Although some Christians insist on observing the seventh day as the Sabbath, it seems that the early believers worshiped on the first day, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ (John 20:19, 26; Acts 20:7), and that the important consideration is not which day is observed but that the one-day-in-seven rhythm is maintained.
Jesus himself observed the Sabbath and taught his disciples to do the same. But he also laid down an important principle: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Sunday observance is meant not to be dreary and restrictive but rather to be a joyful weekly celebration in which we make time for rest, worship, and (we should add) the family.
For further reading: Deuteronomy 5:12–15