The Sabbath: Saturday vs. Sunday
The Sabbath remains on Saturday based on several key biblical arguments, including the Ten Commandments, the unchanging nature of God, and New Testament practices.
The Commandment of the Sabbath
The foundation for a Saturday Sabbath rests on the Fourth Commandment. Found in Exodus 20:8-11, this command is presented as a perpetual ordinance for all generations, tied directly to God’s creative act.
Exodus 20:8-11 (KJV): “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
This passage emphasizes that the Sabbath is a sign between God and His people, a memorial of both creation and deliverance.
God’s Unchanging Nature
The Bible states that God does not change. We believe that if God is immutable, then His commandments, including the Sabbath, must also be unchanging unless explicitly stated otherwise. (Which it does not!)
Malachi 3:6 (KJV): “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
Hebrews 13:8 (KJV): “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
The unchanging nature of God confirms the enduring nature of the Sabbath, a day He created and blessed from the beginning.
The New Testament and Apostolic Practice
The New Testament does not contain an explicit command to change the Sabbath to Sunday. Instead, some passages show the Apostle Paul and other early Christians continuing to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.
- In Acts 13:42, 44, Paul preaches in the synagogue on the Sabbath. On the next Sabbath, nearly the whole city gathered to hear the word of God.
- Acts 17:2 notes that “as his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures.”
While the New Testament does mention Christians gathering on the “first day of the week” (Sunday), particularly in Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2, these references do not constitute a command to replace the Sabbath. These passages describe special meetings or collections, not a change in the day of worship.
The historical shift to Sunday worship was a later development, influenced by the Roman Empire and not a direct biblical mandate.
The Case for a Saturday Resurrection
The “Three Days and Three Nights” Prophecy
This argument centers on Jesus’s own prophecy in Matthew 12:40 and Luke 11:30, where He compared His time in the tomb to Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish: “three days and three nights.” A traditional Friday crucifixion to a Sunday morning resurrection provides, at most, one full day and two nights. A Wednesday crucifixion, however, allows for the full 72-hour period to be fulfilled, with the resurrection happening on Saturday evening.
Two Sabbaths
The Gospels describe the women preparing spices after the crucifixion but resting on the Sabbath. This timeline suggests there were two Sabbaths that week. The first was a High Holy Day Sabbath (a special Sabbath that could fall on any day of the week) immediately after the crucifixion, which would have been Thursday if Jesus was crucified on Wednesday. Then came Friday, followed by the regular, weekly Sabbath on Saturday. The women rested on this second Sabbath before going to the tomb on Sunday morning.
The Empty Tomb
The biblical accounts in Matthew 28:1 and others state that when the women came to the tomb on Sunday, they found it was already empty. The Bible does not say the resurrection happened at the exact moment they arrived. Proponents of this view believe Jesus rose from the grave shortly before sunset on Saturday, completing the three-day, three-night prophecy. The women simply discovered the empty tomb the next morning.
The “Midst of the Week” Prophecy
This argument is based on Daniel 9:27, which states that “in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” This is interpreted to mean that Jesus’s death would occur in the middle of a literal week, and that His sacrifice on the cross would end the need for the Old Testament sacrificial system. A Wednesday crucifixion fits this prophecy perfectly.