Historical Theology - How Should We Keep the Sabbath? The Rise of Adventists and Sabbatarians

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Lecture audio: Adventists and Sabbatarians

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Question: Should Christians observe a biblical Sabbath (meaning a Saturday observance of a day of worship and rest, following the stipulations in the Old Testament Law)?

The traditional answer to this question is: No, Christians don’t have to observe a Saturday Sabbath, but there may be good reasons for using some of the Old Testament guidelines for our observance of Sunday as a day devoted to the Lord. This question had been largely settled for eighteen centuries, since the very beginning of Christianity. As early as the first century AD, Christians were observing Sunday, the first day of the week (rather than the seventh day), as “the Lord’s day.” Though there were not always hard-and-fast rules about what you could or couldn’t do on Sundays, many Christian groups have tried to keep some of the ideals of the biblical Sabbath observance in their practice of the Lord’s day.

New Christian Movements Question the Old Consensus

Proof that Jesus is coming back in 1843

By the 1800s the splintering of Protestantism had accelerated, and a whole host of new varieties of Christianity appeared, some of them not entirely orthodox (like Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons), and some of them largely orthodox but willing to dispute long-settled points of practice (like the Adventist and Sabbatarian movements). Though there were Sabbatarian impulses earlier on in Protestantism (including among Baptists), the Adventist and Sabbatarian movements truly began to take off with the ministry of William Miller in the mid-1800s. He predicted the return of Christ in 1843 or 1844, and many of his followers sold all their possessions in expectation of this event. Christ’s physical return did not happen in the 1840s, so some of Miller’s followers re-interpreted that event and went on to form new denominations to preserve and pass on their new theological perspectives. Both the Advent Christian Church and the Seventh-Day Adventists developed out of the Millerite movement. Many points of alternative Christian practice were developed by these denominations (including some already dealt with in previous Historical Theology sessions), and the two that concern us here are the claims that (1) Christians ought to practice the Sabbath day as commanded in the Old Testament, and (2) that Christians undergo “soul sleep” rather than a spiritual intermediate state after death (the latter will be dealt with in the next Historical Theology session).

The Biblical Case for the Sabbath

The Old Testament is very clear about the importance of keeping the Sabbath and very specific in giving rules for how it ought to be kept. Keeping the Sabbath is enshrined as one of the Ten Commandments, and no Christian would dare to suggest that infractions of any of the other nine would be morally permissible. Further, it is clear from the New Testament that Jesus and his followers kept the Sabbath as laid out in the Law (Luke 4:16; Mark 16:1), though not always following the additional rules laid down by the Pharisees (John 5:18). Further, although Jesus re-interprets the Sabbath laws in new ways (Matt. 12:1-8), he never explicitly gives permission for his followers not to observe the Sabbath, and at times he seems to defend the legitimacy of the Old Testament Law for continued practice (Matt. 5:17-19).

The Biblical Case against a Mandatory Sabbath for Christians

While it’s possible that some of the first-generation Jewish Christians continued to observe the Sabbath according to the Law, this seems to have been the exception in the early church. Every record we have of weekly Christian gatherings, from the New Testament and beyond, specify Sunday as the day of worship (aside from Paul’s outreach in Jewish synagogues, which necessarily would have to be on Saturdays). Luke specifically notes that the church in Troas “came together to break bread” on “the first day of the week” (Acts 20:7). Even within the New Testament, the first day earned its own title: “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10), in honor of Christ’s resurrection. Until the rise of the Sabbatarian movements, this was the consistent and unanimous practice of all the churches.

Why would the early church make such a radical change, if Jesus himself had observed the Sabbath?

First, the early church viewed Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law (Matt. 5:17)—that is, the early church saw Christ himself as the true Sabbath of the people of God (Col. 2:16-17), and it is because of him that we can enter into the true Sabbath-rest (Heb. 4:9). If the Sabbath was simply an allegory pointing the way to Christ, and in Christ we now have hold of the real thing, then we are not constrained to hold onto the shadow too.

Second, the New Testament consistently teaches that we are not under Law, but under grace (John 1:17; Rom. 6:14; Gal. 5:4; Col. 2:13-14)—that is to say, our status with God is not governed by lists of rules, but simply by his favor, lavished on us in Christ. While breaking the other nine of the Ten Commandments certainly would constitute a sin for us, this is because the other nine outline moral realities inherent in the person of Christ himself, and breaking any of them would be to step outside of the way of Christ. Thus, while the Ten Commandments remain important for Christians, they are important in a moral sense and not in a legal sense; and so the legal (not moral) stipulation of honoring the seventh day as the Sabbath no longer applies.

Third, the rule of thumb with such matters in the early church was that, while not mandatory, certain practices could be retained for their devotional value or for the sake of not offending others. Thus, although Christians changed the day of Sabbath-observance to the first day of the week, many Christian groups throughout the centuries have thought it wise to retain the spirit of the law and to keep that day as a day devoted to the Lord rather than giving it over to work or frivolous amusements.

Conclusion: Though the New Testament and Christian tradition do not hold Christians under a strict obligation to observe the Sabbath, it’s worth recognizing that God gave these commands to Israel for a reason, and it would serve us well to keep the practice of a day devoted to the Lord.