SABBATH

Notice the beginning of the Sabbath command: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8). God commands us to remember this day. But instead men insist on forgetting or trying to change it to a different day!

Christ says, in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law" (Matthew 5:17), so professing Christians think He came to destroy it!

Christ says: "Therefore you shall be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect," so professing Christians say, "It's impossible [inconvenient] to keep God's law, let alone to be perfect. Christ kept it in our place, and then abolished it."

But notice the rest of that same Sabbath command: ". . . to keep it holy." The word "keep" means to preserve in the same condition. One cannot keep ice water hot—one can only keep hot water hot. Likewise, a person cannot keep an unholy day holy! The only weekly day God ever made holy is His Sabbath. It is utterly impossible to keep Sunday or Friday holy because God never made them holy, and man has no power to make anything holy.

Now notice Exodus 20:9-10: "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. . . ." God does not mean just any seventh day! Not "one day in seven"—He says "the seventh day!" This remains true even after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ—the Sabbath is still the seventh day, followed by the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1).

In this command, God also identifies to whom the Sabbath belongs. He does not say "the Sabbath of the Jews" or "the Sabbath of the Israelites." He says, distinctly, it "is the Sabbath of the Lord your God." If the seventh day is the Lord's Sabbath—the Sabbath of the Lord—then it is truly the only "Lord's Day"!

I John 3:4 provides a biblical definition of what constitutes sin: "Sin is lawlessness [the transgression of the law, KJV]." In Romans 7:7, the apostle Paul tells us which law it is sin to disobey, the law that says, "You shall not covet," quoted from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:17).

The apostle James also tells us which law defines sin (James 2:9-11). It is a law, subdivided into "points" (verse 10), one of which is "Do not commit adultery," quoted from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14). Another of its ten "points" is "Do not murder," also quoted from the same law (verse 13). James 2:10 says that if we break any one of these ten points, we are guilty of sin!

The same law also says: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . [T]he seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God." According to the Bible, whoever disobeys the Sabbath command commits sin!

Next:  An Eternal Covenant