The Sabbath Day
From “Identified With Christ A Book of Sermons” by G. E. Jones
The
question of the sabbath day has been one over which most of the religious world
has been badly confused. One of the ten commandments was “Remember the sabbath
day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the
seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shall not do any
work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid
servant, nor THY CATTLE, nor the stranger that is within thy gates,” Exodus
20:8-10.
This
commandment was never given to anyone but the nation of Israel. The sabbath was
a sign between God and the children of Israel. “And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, speak thou unto the children of Israel, saying, verily my sabbaths ye
shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations,”
Ex. 31:12-13. Those who have never seen their freedom from the law want to lift
this commandment concerning the sabbath out of the place where the Lord put it,
and bring it over into this period of time and place it on the believers of
today. Those who talk about keeping the sabbath, and preach about it do not do
so. The Bible says the sabbath day was the seventh day of the week. Few
Christians make any effort to keep the seventh day of the week, and call it
holy. For years Saturday has been the main shopping day for believers.
If we
are going to keep the sabbath day we will have to go back and cease from our
work on Saturday, and try to keep that day holy. No other day of the week is
ever called the sabbath but the seventh, which is Saturday. People often call
Sunday the sabbath day, but nowhere in the word of God is the first day of the
week ever called the Sabbath, or a SABBATH, or The Christian Sabbath. Neither
is there a place in the Bible where the first day of the week is said to be a
HOLY DAY.
“Six
days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy
day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put
to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath
day,” Ex. 35:2-3.
From
this passage we see that the penalty for doing any work on the sabbath day was
DEATH. If we bring over the law concerning the sabbath day and try to apply it
to us today then we will have to bring along with that law the penalty for
breaking that law. The penalty cannot be revoked without the law being
disannulled. Where in the Bible can we find any other penalty for breaking the
sabbath than the penalty of death? In Numbers 15:32-36 we find that a man was
stoned to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath day. And he was put to
death by the direct commandment of the Lord on that occasion. If the Christian
is under obligation to keep the 4th of the ten commandments, then what penalty
is to be inflicted on him for breaking the sabbath day? Just where in the Bible
will we read the penalty which is to be inflicted on the Christian if he shall
work on the sabbath day? Just where in the Bible do we read that the Christian
cannot pick up sticks on the sabbath day? Just where do we read that the
Christian cannot make a fire on the sabbath day? Such scriptures cannot be
found.
Some
want to make a holy day out of Sunday and call it a Sabbath. Just where is the
scripture that justifies one in doing so? For the believer, the one who has
been freed from the law, one day is no more holy than another day. Paul
denounced the observance of certain days, months, and times on the part of the
believers. He said to the Galations, “Ye observe days, and months, and times,
and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.”
He wrote to the Colossians, that they were to let no man “judge you in meat, or
in drink, or in respect of an HOLYDAY, or of the new moon,” Col. 2:16. For the
believer the obligation to observe all these things passed when Christ blotted
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, taking it out of the way
and nailing it to his cross. See Col. 2:13-17. It was just after Paul had told
them that Christ had taken out of the way the handwriting of the ordinances and
had nailed them to the cross that he said to the Colossians “Let no man
THEREFORE judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of
the new moon, or of the sabbath: which are a shadow of things to come; but the
body is of Christ,” vs. 16-17.
The
word “THEREFORE” points back to what Paul had just said about the handwriting
of the ordinances being taken out of the way and nailed to the cross. Because
Christ has done this then the child of God is not forbidden to eat certain
meat. He is not obligated to observe an HOLY DAY. See that word “HOLY-DAY” in
Col. 2:16. In Ex. 35:2 God said to Israel “The seventh day shall be unto you an
holy day”. If therefore the believer is not obligated to observe a holyday,
then he is not under obligation to keep a sabbath day. All those things were
types and shadows which passed away with the coming of Christ who is the body
which the shadows pointed toward. In Gal. 3:19 Paul asked, “Wherefore then
serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions TILL THE SEED SHOULD
COME to whom the promise was made.” In Gal. 3:16 we read, “He saith not, and to
seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, WHICH IS CHRIST.”
So
the seed to whom the promise was made is Christ. And Paul tells us that the law
was added TILL the seed should come to whom the promise was made. If the law
was added until Christ came then it cannot extend its dominion over the
believer beyond the coming of Christ. Then, to take our stand under the law,
and seek to serve it, is to argue that Christ has not yet come. So those who
try to place upon the believer the obligation to keep the sabbath, or to
observe tithing, may not know it, but they are by so doing virtually saying
that the SEED, Christ, has not yet come. What Paul wrote in II Cor. 3:15 is
true of them. “But even unto this day when Moses is read, the veil is upon
their heart.”
Those
who try to bring all the principles of the law over into this dispensation of
time and place them on the believer under a new terminology do grossly err.
Those who would make a holyday out of Sunday, and place around it the same
restrictions that were placed on the seventh day of the week, and invest it
with the same sanctity, do so without any scripture for doing it, and they do
nothing but confuse themselves and others.
Some
may say now I believe this and I believe that, and I see it this way. Let me
ask you is it what you may think, or how you see a thing which counts, or is it
what does the word of God say? If you say you believe a thing a certain way
then you should be able to give the passage of scripture which causes you to
believe that way. If you cannot find any scripture to prove what you say, or
what you believe, then give up that idea. Do not set yourself in opposition to
the word of God. In Rom. 8:2 Paul wrote “The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” “If ye be led of
the Spirit, ye are not under the law,” Gal. 5:15. These passages are plain
enough for any child of God to see and believe, and it should cause all
argument on the law question to cease. Those who argue against these passages
are against the word of God.
Now
let us see if we can place the same restrictions around Sunday which were
placed on the sabbath. Ex. 35:3 told the children of Israel that they were to
kindle no fire on the sabbath day. Is it wrong to make a fire on Sunday? If so,
all church members break the law on this point. Every time a preacher, or some
other church member strikes a match, and lights a cigarette on Sunday he
violates the principle that was connected with the sabbath day. Several years
ago I pastored a fourth time church in Wooster, Arkansas. The third Sunday was
my preaching day. The first year I preached there there was a blizzard on the
3rd Sunday in February, on the 3rd Sunday in March, on the 3rd Sunday in April,
and a severe cold spell on the 3rd Sunday in May. Someone had to go to the
church house and build a fire in an old wood burning stove on each of these
Sundays.
Israel
was forbidden to kindle any fire on the sabbath day in any of their
habitations, See Ex. 35:3. If Sunday takes the place of the old sabbath, then
are these same restrictions placed around Sunday? If so, did we not break the
principle of the sabbath day when we made a fire in the church house at Wooster
on the third Sunday in February, March, April and May? Should we just have
stayed home from church on those days, and with no fires in our homes, or have
gone to the church house and kindled a fire? If you attach the same principles
to Sunday which were applied to the old Sabbath day then did we not violate
those principles by making a fire on those Sundays?
Then
in Ex. 20:10 the children were forbidden to work their cattle on the Sabbath
day. Not many preachers of today know anything about ox-wagons. But this writer
can remember seeing ox-wagons in his time. They still have such in some places
in the world. There used to be an old preacher in a church I pastored by the
name of Griswood. I have heard him tell about hitching up his oxen to a wagon
and going eight miles to church on Sunday. Under the old sabbath Israel was not
to work their oxen on the sabbath day. Does the same principle apply to Sunday?
If so, that preacher, and thousands of other Christians in that time violated
the principle of the sabbath by working their oxen on Sunday, and going to
church.
If
those restrictions, the kindling of a fire on the sabbath, and the working of
their oxen on the sabbath, do not apply to Sunday, then what other restrictions
which applied to the sabbath do not apply to Sunday, then where shall we draw
the line, and will some of these law preachers point out to us the passage of
scripture which tells us where to draw the line? Sunday is nowhere called a
sabbath in the Bible, and there is not a line of scripture which shows that
Sunday is clothed with the principles of the old sabbath day.
The
old sabbath was a day of rest, not a day of worship under the law, as given by
Moses. Sunday is a day God's people gather from far and near to worship the
Lord. The end of Sunday usually finds the preacher more tired than any other
day of the week. I have often preached three times on Sundays, and occasionally
four times. The man who has done this knows that it makes him tired.
When
preachers say, “No, I know we are not under the ten commandments,” but the same
principles are brought over and placed on the child of God today, they are
hunting for a place to work in their tithing doctrine for today. The law was
called the ministration of death and condemnation in II Cor. 3:7-9. How can the
principles of that which brings death and condemnation bring life and
justification? We are not under both. We must be under one or the other. Rom.
8:2 teaches that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has made us
free from the law of sin and death.
My
wife and I raised a family of children. At that time there was a law on the
statute books of Arkansas against parents killing their children. But those
laws had nothing to do in regulating our conduct toward our children, or our
treatment of them. There was another law, the law of LOVE, which regulated our
conduct toward those children. Had all those laws been wiped off the statue
books of Arkansas my conduct toward my children, my neighbors, and their
children, would not have changed in the least. So the child of God has no need
for the commandments “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not steal.” His life
is regulated and motivated by the law of LOVE, and the law of the Spirit of
life. Paul tells us that the law was not made for a righteous man. He tells us
that “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the
law, that every mouth might be stopped and all the world might become guilty
before God,” Rom. 3:19.
There
is no command for us to observe Sunday or any other day as a holy day. With the
child of God every day should be equally holy. There are a few scriptures which
show that the believers met together on the first day of the week, and I thank
God for the privilege of meeting together on Sunday for worship. But today two
thirds of church members work at some kind of job, working for their living, on
Sunday. We can do nothing but bring confusion and bondage and dismay in trying
to place the same restrictions on Sunday as were placed on the old sabbath.
Every
child of God should know his position and his freedom in Christ Jesus. In his
book on “How to Study the Bible” Dr. I. M. Haldeman says, “The attempt to put
Christians and Gentiles under the law of Moses in this dispensation gave this
country the witchcraft of Salem, and such modern misnomers as The Christian
Sabbath, and the American Sabbath.” He also said, “The Christian who goes under
the law, goes under the Levitical priesthood.” See Pages 33-34. How few people
know what belongs to the law and what belongs to grace. Their pastors have
dismally failed to inform them on that line.
See also these pdfs: Standing Fast In The Truth and Is There A Difference In The Churches? and The Sabbath Day & Questions for Tithers and "FREEDOM FROM THE LAW of Moses and Spiritual Growth in CHRIST."