Nobody really knows what to do with the Sabbath anymore. A frequent point of contention between Jesus and that group of ultra-religious elites was what was lawful or unlawful to do on the Sabbath. Even a quick perusal of the Gospels reveals how common this conflict was. From healing the man with a withered hand (Matt. 12:9–14) to the woman with a disabling spirit (Luke 13:10–17), one of Jesus’s earliest habits was healing the sick, oppressed, and hurting on the Jews’ most holy of days (see also Luke 13:10–17, 14:1–6; John 5:1–17, 9:1–41).
Sabbath in the Gospels
The Synoptic Gospels record a fascinating exchange between the Pharisees and Jesus over proper Sabbath procedure (Matt. 12:1–8; Mark 2:23–28; Luke 6:1–5). It happened one day that the Twelve were walking with their Lord through some grainfields, plucking heads of grain as they went along. And since plucking is akin to reaping, and reaping is akin to working, and work is strictly off limits on that day, the Pharisees were irate. “Haven’t you read the Torah?!”
But Jesus’s apparent indifference to traditional Sabbath procedure wasn’t because he was indifferent to the law. Rather, he was uninterested in what the Sabbath had become. By the first century, Torah scribes and lawyers had amassed volumes of codes and regulations detailing law-abiding behavior on the Sabbath, with thirty-nine different categories defining what was prohibited and what wasn’t, most of which had been handed down through oral tradition (a.k.a. not from God).
The labyrinth of Sabbath laws had effectively rendered the point of the Sabbath null and void. “The Sabbath,” N. Blake Hearson asserts, “had gone from a divine provision for the people to an institution protected by the people.” The point had been missed. Jesus says so: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
The Sabbath had turned into a day of “holiness measuring,” judged by men and their complex codes of conduct. But as soon as that becomes the focus, as soon as it becomes all about what is lawful and what isn’t, we’ve lost the plot on what the Sabbath is meant to be.
Sabbath Rhythm; Sabbath Rest
The church isn’t bound by all the ceremonial laws that the Israelites were, which means we’re free to eat bacon-wrapped shrimp now. But depending on whom you talk to, that also means lawful Sabbath activities aren’t as restrictive as they used to be. Sundays, which some refer to as the “Christian” Sabbath, are free game.
But did Sunday actually replace Saturday? And if it did, who decided that, and what does that mean for us?
The word “Sabbath” is a transliteration of the Hebrew word “shabbat,” meaning “to rest” or “to cease” (Exod. 20:8–11). Notably, it doesn’t mean seven, despite being tied to the seventh day of the week—God himself makes that connection for us (Exod. 20:11), tethering it to the very origins of creation itself (cf. Gen. 2:1–3). The Creator spoke everything into existence and then ceased from all his labor, not because he had to, nor because he was exhausted. Rather, God is weaving into the fabric of his creation a pattern of labor and rest, both of which bring him glory.
Humankind, therefore, was made to follow the same rhythm of six days on, one day off. Before anything else, this is just a practical reality, pointing to the fact that we were never meant to be workaholics. Yes, our work can and should be done for God’s glory, but work itself makes a terrible god. The gift of the Sabbath is God reminding us that he himself is our provider and sustainer. Even before the Decalogue was chartered, proper Sabbath protocol had already been defined (Exod. 16:23–26), emphasizing the importance of relying on God. In other words, the Sabbath is a God-given reminder that all we are and all we have is because of him.
This wasn’t merely a weekly cycle; this was a yearly rhythm, baked into Israel’s calendar (Exod. 23:10–11). They could hardly escape knowing that theirs was a God who cared deeply about them, so much so that he set aside an entire day of “solemn rest” for them (Exod. 31:15), a day to pause, play, and reflect. “The Sabbath,” J. Alec Motyer comments, “was to be a day of holiness, that is, a different day, a day set apart from all other days, a day belonging in some special way to the Lord and therefore to be lived uniquely to him.”
The Sabbath Sign
But the Sabbath wasn’t merely a creational rhythm; it was also a covenantal sign (Exod. 31:16–17; cf. Jer. 17:19–27; Ezek. 20:12–21). Safeguarding every seventh day wasn’t merely about refreshment (Exod. 23:12; 31:17), not the least of which because leisure days aren’t often accompanied by death penalties. Restful though it was, it wasn’t a trifling or incidental day. “It was a religious day,” Paul A. Barker writes, “that belonged to Yahweh.” Waking up on the Sabbath wasn’t like waking up on a Saturday when you have no plans, and you say to your significant other, “What do you wanna do today?”
Instead, God was instilling in them the intentionality of the Sabbath, a day that had been made holy for them by him (Exod. 31:14), reorienting them around his faithful love and mercy. “Above all,” God told Moses, “you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you” (Exod. 31:13; cf. Deut. 5:15). Within the Sabbath, God was gesturing to himself, the one who saves and sanctifies his people. “The intent and focus of the Sabbath,” Hearson continues, “is a rest that reflects the image and love of God.”
We might put it like this: Just as God’s people couldn’t manufacture manna, nor could they manufacture holiness; both require the same posture of trust and utter dependence on God to provide what only he can give. It’s not an accident that the first command to be reiterated after the covenant is renewed is the exhortation of “solemn rest” (Exod. 35:1–2). The fiasco of the golden calf was more than a violation of the first three commandments. It was an abhorrent breach of the spirit of the Sabbath, as God’s people scratched and clawed and prostrated themselves in front of something else in hopes of finding what the Lord delights to give.
Holy Saturday and the Savior Who Sabbathed
Perplexity abounds, though, especially in light of Jesus’s apparent resistance to Sabbath legalism, along with the apostle Paul’s (Col. 2:16). Doesn’t that mean we aren’t bound to follow all these regulations? Doesn’t that free us up to do other things on the weekend? Well, maybe.
In the New Testament, you won’t find the church observing the Mosaic Sabbath in the aftermath of Jesus’s resurrection. Yet, they still set aside a day to be refreshed in the Lord, which, of course, was Sunday, “the first day of the week” (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:1–2; Rev. 1:10). This was no random or arbitrary apostolic decision. Rather, it was driven by the fact that the Christ of God rose from the dead on that day, fundamentally altering every ensuing day since (John 20:1, 19).
Hanging on a cross on Good Friday, Jesus cried, “It is finished,” and breathed his last, only to be laid to rest in a borrowed tomb on Holy Saturday, the seventh day, a.k.a. the Sabbath (Luke 23:50–56). Jesus was resting because the work to redeem the world was done. All the toil necessary to save the world was complete. This was what every Sabbath day for thousands of years anticipated—the Word-become-flesh, sabbathing in a tomb just outside Jerusalem after finishing what only he could finish: salvation from sin.
In his classic commentary on the book of Hebrews, F. B. Meyer lucidly conveys the Christological underpinnings of the Sabbath: “After the creative act, there came the Sabbath when God ceased from His work, and pronounced it very good; so, after the redemptive act, there came the Sabbath to the Redeemer. He lay, during the seventh day, in the grave of Joseph, not because He was exhausted or inactive, but because redemption was finished, and there was no more for Him to do.”
Sabbathing in Christ
Every week, since the dawn of time, God has given his people a sermon in the form of a day, which points them to the one who saves, sanctifies, and gives them true rest. This is the good news behind the Lord’s invitation to come to him and sabbath in him (Matt. 11:28). Jesus wasn’t referring to the blessing of the midafternoon nap, but the rest that comes when you stop trying to earn what he freely gives: rest from your striving and performing and the endless project of making yourself right with God. The Sabbath itself could never do that anyway; it was merely a shadow. “The substance,” Paul definitively says, “belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17).
The Sabbath is about Jesus; it’s always been about Jesus. We assemble to remember and rejoice in the true and better Sabbath rest that we receive through the words of the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection. And just as on the original Sabbath days, the deepest needs of our souls can’t be produced, nor earned. They can only be received as a gift of grace from the one who has already done everything for us.
Rest easy, sinner. It really is finished.
Footnotes
N. Blake Hearson, “The Relevance of the Sabbath,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 7.1 (2008): 42.
J. Alec Motyer, The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage, Revised Edition, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021), 218.
Paul A. Barker, “Sabbath, Sabbatical Year, Jubilee,” Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker, The IVP Bible Dictionary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 698.
Hearson, 40.
F. B. Meyer, The Way into the Holiest: Expositions of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1988), 55–56.
