THE LORD OF THE SABBATH AND THE SABBATH OF THE LORD

Matthew 12:1-15; Luke 13:10-17
The Church has the privilege of having Jesus Christ as her Lord. This means that heavenly teachings and revelations are available to her through the Bible and through the Holy Spirit. The forth commandment of the Decalogue says "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8). Should Christians keep the Sabbath day, legalistically as it was (and still is) done by (some of ) the Jewish people. What did Jesus say about the Sabbath? The Pharisees accused Him of breaking the Sabbath. Did Jesus break the Sabbath? What does it mean to break the Sabbath? Should Christians worship on Saturday? What did the early Church do? What about Gentile Churches like Corinth, Rome and Ephesus? What was their practice?
Many have undertaken in-depth studies about the Sabbath and its symbolism. What does the Sabbath signify? What does (Matthew 5:17-18) mean?

1. Christ's Sabbath Controversies

i. Plucking ears Of Corn On The Sabbath (Mat.12:1-8)
ii. Healing The man With the Withered Hand (Mat.12:9-15)
iii. The Woman Bent Double ( Luke 13:10-17)
iv. The Man With 38 Years Infirmity (John 5:1-19)
The Pharisees and Scribes believed healing on the Sabbath day was work and thus a violation of the Sabbath. Christ reproved them for not understanding the moral and spiritual principles of the Law. Many times during His teachings He exposed the hypocrisy of human interpretation of the Law (Mat.23:1-27). He explained to them what He wanted (Mat.9:13; 12:7) - mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6-7). Tradition may have its place and time but tradition is not the commandment of God. It is better to do good on the Sabbath day - to save lives, to heal the sick. This was the type of thing Jesus did on the Sabbath days apart form preaching in the synagogue. This also poses a warning to us in the NT Church to be ware of covering the commandments of God with our traditions.

2. A Word About God's Commandments

When we think of God's Commandments we must take note of two factors:the Precepts as well as the underlying Principles; the Letter as well as the Spirit (2Cor.3:6); whether a particular commandment is Imperative (Prescriptive) or Indicative (lev.19:9-10); whether the command is Set in Stone or Modifiable (as a result of geographical location/national circumstances, or aspects of time (Deut.5:16)! God's commandments are relevant and universal, but some of them may have to be expressed in the context of our own day (Eph.6:3).

3. Which Commandments Have Been Done Away With?

We start with a simple answer - the law of ordinances: Touch not; Taste Not. A fine example is the law of clean and unclean animals (Acts 10: ); The ceremonial laws of washings - washing hands before eating (7:1-23); The law of circumcision (Acts 15; Gal.5:1-8; 6:15); the Law of the Sabbath days and other holy days (Col.2:8-17). In (Gal.3:1- 29) the entire Law system. Paul argued that the job of the Law, as a schoolmaster, was to point us to Christ. When saving faith enters the heart of a man or woman, then the schoolmaster is no longer needed. The Law of God literally speaking, is written on the tables of the heart, not on stones anymore. Righteousness comes through by faith, and not by the Law.
Does this mean that we are now lawless? God forbid. The law of God is written in our hearts. The principle of the law, the Spirit of the law, the moral implications of the law is required of us today. We are no longer bound by the law of animal sacrifices. Christ became our sacrifice. We are no longer bound by the Old covenant. We have a better covenant (Heb.8:6).
The law of God is holy, just and good but was powerless to produce righteousness. It only revealed sin in the heart. It had no power to take away sin. The taking away of sin is an exclusive preserve of the Lamb of God (Mat.18:11; Luke 19:10; John 1:29; Rom.8:1-4).

4. Should Christians Worship On Sabbath Day (Saturday)?

From the foregoing you can see that observing the Sabbath Day in the strict and legalistic way that it was done before Christ is no longer required for Christians. Christ has fulfilled the law. He interpreted and brought out for us the true meaning and requirement of God's 10 Commandments. His interpretation was in-dept and far more rigorous than the one advocated by Jewish rabbis. He interpreted authoritatively all the commandments, bringing out the spiritual truth and principles of each (Mat.5:21-48). You will notice that Jesus never mentioned the Sabbath Day in this reinterpretation in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sabbath was a day of rest made for man, and extended to the land in principle so that both can rest and replenish (Mat.12:12; Mark 2:27; 3:4). Countless restrictions were placed upon people's lives under the law. the true principles of the law were lost under volumes of trivial details of interpretation (Mat.23:23).
Paul the apostle taught much on our freedom from the ordinances, and rituals of the ceremonial and typological laws (Eph.2:15). Christ is the fulfilment of the Law for the Christian. Mere conformity to external ideals of the law cannot bring righteousness, but the inner intent, the moral and spiritual intent is what Christ has taught and what we must follow. The Sabbath was a shadow of things to come (Gal.4:10; Col.2:16). What were the "things to come"? Christ and His salvation! Christ is the end of the law (Rom.10:4)

Christians should worship God on the day chosen by the apostles of the first century Church (Acts 20:7; 1Cor.16:2). The early Church in Jerusalem would go to the temple on days of worship, but would gather on Sunday to break bread and share fellowship with one another and here the apostles teach. For some time they were gathering daily in the temple and from house to house, sharing the joys of the birth of the New Church, having fellowship with one another. Imagine such a beautiful picture (acts 2:46-47). "...but this could not continue for long. A choice of special day must have must have become necessary, and this day would of course have been Sunday...Uncircumcised gentiles, however were free from any obligation of Sabbath observance...No observance of a special day of rest is contained among the NECESSARY THINGS (Acts 15:28-29) A given day as a matter of divine obligation was thoroughly denounced by Paul (Gal.4:10)" (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia). F.J. Dake did an extensive study of the writings of the fathers of the Church following immediately after the apostles on the issue of the day of worship for Christians...

"In the early Christian Church, Jewish Christians continued to keep the Sabbath, like other points of the law, on the other hand, Paul, from the first days of Gentile Christianity, laid it down definitely that the Jewish Sabbath was not binding on Christians.." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Christians had been observing Sunday as a day of rest for 300 years before Constantine made it a day of rest for the Roman Empire.
The New International Encyclopaedia says, " For some time after the foundation of the Christian Church, converts from Judaism still observed the Jewish Sabbath to a greater or lesser extent, at first it would seem, concurrently with the celebration of the first day. But before the end of the apostolic period, Sunday... had thoroughly established itself as the day set apart from secular labour and by public worship..."
Ignatius the Bishop of Antioch was a disciple of John the Apostle, lived at the time of the apostles (30-107). He wrote, "And after the observance of the Sabbath (that the Jews kept), let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week...on which our life sprang again, and victory over death was obtained by Christ. It is absurd to speak of Jesus with the tongue and to cherish in the mind, a Judaism that has come to an end..."

All the early Church fathers are united in proclaiming that Sunday was established as a day for Christian worship.

What do we learn from all these things? Christ has died. Christ has risen again. Christ has fulfilled the law for us. The law has been written on the tables of our hearts. We are not under the law but under grace. Righteousness can only come through our faith in Christ. Keeping a particular day is not necessary for our salvation. We must gather together as the do the rest of the global Church to worship God and rest from our daily labours.