In searching the Scriptures in order to answer the question whether we are under divine law to observe the Sabbath today, we ought to let the Scriptures tell us to whom the command was given to observe the Sabbath, when it was given, why it was given, and whether that command is still in effect today.
In the roughly 2500 years of history between the creation and the law of Moses, during the time when God spoke to the fathers of the households in what is often described as the patriarchal dispensation, in the word of God there is no divine command to man to keep the Sabbath, no example of man keeping the Sabbath, and no necessary inference that man was commanded to keep the Sabbath.
Then in Deuteronomy 5 Moses reviewed the covenant the Lord “made with us in Horeb” (v.2). That is none other than the law given through Moses, including the ten commandments, beginning in Exodus 19-20, given to Israel in that day. To whom was that covenant given? “The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive” (Deuteronomy 5:3). The law of Moses, that covenant with Israel, was not given to the forefathers of those Israelites present at Mt. Horeb; the forefathers were not under the law of Moses.
In the review of the covenant, Moses reminded Israel what God had said in that covenant made at Mt. Horeb: “And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:15). God commanded Israel to keep the Sabbath in Exodus 20:8-11 as part of the covenant made at Mt. Horeb. The word “therefore” points us back to what God had just said in that sentence as the reason God commanded them to keep the Sabbath day. If Israel had all along been keeping the Sabbath day before they came out of Egypt and received the covenant at Mt. Horeb, the statement would not make sense. The necessary inference is that Israel was not under a Sabbath law prior to coming out of Egypt and receiving the law.
In giving further detail of the Sabbath law as part of the covenant (Exodus 31:12-18), the Lord said, “it is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever” (v.17). It was a sign between God and Israel; there is no record of it being a sign between God and any other nation.
But what became of that covenant, that law of Moses, made with Israel? “having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:14-17). The handwriting of ordinances that required certain foods, festivals, sabbaths is the law of Moses, the covenant given to Israel. When Paul wrote that letter, that law had already been taken out of the way, and that happened at the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross – “having nailed it to the cross.”
In the new covenant, the gospel of Jesus Christ, for all people for all time until the end of this age, there is no command, no approved example, no necessary inference of the gospel teaching the observance of the Sabbath. To the contrary, the apostles and early church fought against Jews binding the law of Moses on men.
The law to observe the Sabbath was given to the children of Israel at Mt. Horeb as part of God’s covenant with them, to them and their generations only, for a reason and as a sign, and that law was abolished when Christ died upon the cross. The Sabbath law was done away with in Christ. It is not a law for men to follow today.
-Larry Jones