Foundational Bible Studies for Your Torah Walk

Yeshua (Jesus) never told anyone to stop keeping the Sabbath. He taught how to keep it with the right heart.

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matthew 5:17-18 (KJV)

“Shabbat was made for mankind, not mankind for Shabbat; So the Son of Man is Lord even of Shabbat.” Mark 2:27-28 (CJB)

“How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.” Matthew 12:12 (KJV)

He even told His disciples to pray about the Sabbath long after His ascension:

“But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:” Matthew 24:20 (KJV)

If Yeshua is Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8), then is the true “Lord’s Day” not the Sabbath itself? And as His followers, should we not keep the Sabbath He kept?

Yes, and it was His custom.

“And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.” Mark 1:21 (KJV)

“Now when he went to Natzeret, where he had been brought up, on Shabbat he went to the synagogue as usual. He stood up to read.” Luke 4:16 (CJB)

“And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.” Luke 13:10 (KJV)

Did you notice? “As usual.” Every seventh day, our Saturday, Yeshua was in the synagogue.

No. If Yeshua had broken the fourth commandment, He would have sinned, because sin is the breaking of the law. And if He had sinned, He could not have been our spotless Passover Lamb.

“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4 (KJV)

“Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:” 1 Peter 2:22 (KJV)

“But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:” 1 Peter 1:19 (KJV)

“For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.” Hebrews 4:15 (AMPC)

Yes. The commandment the Father wrote with His own finger and placed in the Ark of the Covenant was never changed in Scripture. A change that serious would surely have been written down. The apostles, who were Jews, would never have preached a gospel that broke the Father’s law. The book of Acts shows Paul gathering with believers, Jews and Gentiles alike, on the Sabbath as his regular practice.

“And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” Acts 13:44 (KJV)

“According to his usual practice, Sha’ul went in; and on three Shabbats he gave them drashes from the Tanakh…” Acts 17:2 (CJB)

“And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” Acts 18:4 (KJV)

“And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.” Acts 16:13 (KJV)

Yes. The Sabbath was made at creation, long before Sinai and long before Israel.

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:2-3 (KJV)

The Hebrew word for “rested” here is shabat (Strong’s H7673), the root of “Sabbath”. Has God ever said He blessed and sanctified any other day of the week?

Wherever the Bible says “the Sabbath”, it means the seventh day. (The Father’s appointed feast days are also called Sabbaths, but they are named as such.)

God blessed and sanctified only one day of the week: the seventh (Genesis 2:2-3). That is our Saturday.

Yeshua and the apostles, Paul included, kept the seventh-day Sabbath, as we have seen above.

Around 300 years after the apostles, the Synod of Laodicea (c. AD 364) still knew which day was the Sabbath. Its Canon 16 reads: “The Gospels are to be read on the Sabbath [i.e. Saturday], with the other Scriptures.”

On 7 March AD 321, the Roman Emperor Constantine ordered a day of rest on “the venerable day of the Sun”, that is, Sunday. Magistrates, city-dwellers and workshops were to rest, while farmers could carry on working in the fields. (Codex Justinianus, Book 3, Title 12.)

Constantine declared Sunday a day of rest. But the Father wrote with His own hand that the seventh day is His Sabbath. So we must ask: should we listen to men, or to God? And we must ask the question Yeshua asked:

“Indeed, why do you break the command of God by your tradition?” Matthew 15:3 (CJB)

Canon 29 of the Synod of Laodicea states:

“Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.”

Notice three things. First, a council of men made this decision for other Christians, against the commandment of God. Second, it came after Constantine’s “day of the Sun” decree. Third, they did not claim to move the Sabbath; they moved the day of rest away from the seventh day and onto a new “Lord’s Day”.

Again, whom should we obey: men, or God? “Indeed, why do you break the command of God by your tradition?” Matthew 15:3 (CJB)

Sunday, the first day of the week, was never declared holy by God anywhere in Scripture. Yeshua is Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8), so the true Lord’s Day is the Sabbath.

The church teaches that Sunday became the “Lord’s Day” because Yeshua rose on the first day of the week. Yet He rose on one of the Father’s own appointed feasts, the Feast of First Fruits (see the question on the Feasts page), and the book of Acts shows the apostles meeting on the seventh-day Sabbath.

The Sunday “Lord’s Day” was shaped by the church under the Roman Empire, long after the apostles had gone: through Constantine (AD 321), the Synod of Laodicea (AD 364) and the Roman church that followed. Should we keep what men have declared, or what God has commanded?

The early believers broke bread every day, not only on the first day.

“And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,” Acts 2:46 (KJV)

In the Bible, a day begins at sunset. So the gathering in Acts 20:7, “upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread”, began on what we would call Saturday evening, as the Sabbath closed. Paul “continued his speech until midnight” because he was leaving the next morning. This is a farewell meal, not a new day of worship.