What might be one of the most triggering subjects for both Adventists and former Adventists alike is the subject of the sabbath. The term itself can often lead to many varying opinions and feelings. And for many former Adventists—rightfully so. Their experience within the SDA Church informs how they understand what the sabbath supposedly is. The subject has also received much criticism amongst modern day evangelicalism leading to lots of varying theories.
On this platform, we do not concede anything found in scripture to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Not the law, not the sabbath, etc. We believe that Pauls exhortation to pastor Timothy that “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” is true (2 Timothy 3:16) and that the “law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). Since the law, the sabbath, etc. are a part of scripture, we don’t concede them to the SDA Church, but contend for them to be rightly understood and applied.
When interacting with a Seventh-Day Adventist regarding the sabbath, it usually won’t take very long for the charge to be made that Christians believe that Sunday is the “Christian sabbath.” To which many modern Christians hear this and think “no, I don’t believe this.” But this is a more modern understanding. And most SDAs are simply reiterating things they heard from the SDA organization which is regurgitating the SDA Pioneers. The classically Protestant view is that Sunday is the Christian sabbath. Which is why modern SDAs who have inherited the arguments of their pioneers are saying this. However, what does this mean?
In his book The Ten Commandments, Puritan theologian Thomas Watson speaks on the Christian sabbath position and what is meant by that phrase:
Now there is a grand reason for changing of the Jewish sabbath to the Lord’s day, because this puts us in mind of the “Mystery of our redemption by Christ.” The reason why God did institute the old sabbath was, because God would have it kept as a memorial of the creation; but the Lord hath now brought the first day of the week in the room of it, in memory of a more glorious work than creation, and that is redemption. Great was the work of creation, but greater was the work of redemption. As it was said, Haggai 2:9, “The glory of the second temple was greater than the glory of the first temple,” so the glory of the redemption was greater than the glory of the creation. Great wisdom was seen in the curious making of us, but more miraculous wisdom in saving us. Great power was seen in bringing us out of nothing, but greater power in helping us when we were worse than nothing.
It cost more to redeem us than to create us. In the creation there was but ‘speaking a word,’ (Psalm 148:5) in the redeeming us, there was shedding of blood (1 Peter 1:19). The creation was the work of God’s fingers (Psalm 8:3), redemption was the work of his arm (Luke 1:5). In the creation, God gave us ourselves; in the redemption, he gave us himself. By creation, we have a life in Adam; by redemption, we have a life in Christ (Colossians 3:3). By creation, we had a right to an earthly paradise; by redemption, we have a title to an heavenly kingdom. Christ might well change the seventh day of the week into the first, because it puts us in mind of our redemption, which is a more glorious work than the creation.
Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments, pg. 96
What Watson is pointing out is the crucial link in the discussion—the new creation. The new creation refers to the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, who came to redeem that which man broke. He successfully redeemed the creation that fell, accomplished the redemption of all things, and entered His rest upon the completion of this work. Watson is simply reiterating what Hebrews 4:1-11 says—the largest new testament pericope we have as it pertains to the subject of the sabbath. We have broken this down in detail here.
The author explains that just like God in creation (Hebrews 4:4), who worked for six days and then entered His rest, so God in Christ, in the work of redemption, paralleled this pattern, but entered His rest the eighth, or first day (Hebrews 4:10). Paul hinges the gospel on the resurrection of Christ and explains that had Christ not been raised, our faith is in vein (1 Corinthians 15:17). Which means that until Christ walked out of the tomb, the work of redemption was not accomplished. Christ was working in the tomb.
The author of Hebrews continues by explaining that Jesus as the better Moses and Joshua is leading a better exodus and a better redemption than the flight out of Egypt into the earthly Promised Land. Jesus is leading an exodus out of slavery to sin into the better Promised Land—the eternal rest of God. While the seventh day memorialized the original creation, the first day memorializes the redemption of that creation.
The Prince of Puritans, John Owen, in his seven book commentary on Hebrews, commenting on Hebrews 4:8 points out a key component regarding the Greek grammar and what the author is seeking to communicate:
The writer to the Hebrews provides two answers to this objection: First, A denial of the assumption on which the objection is founded. This is done virtually in the manner of the proposal of the objection itself: “For if Joshua had given them rest;”—that is to say, whatever be pretended and pleaded, he did not do so; that is, not that full and ultimate rest which in all these things God aimed at. Secondly, He gives the reason of this his denial; which is this, that five hundred years after, God in David, and by him, proposes another rest, or another day of rest, and invites the people unto an entrance, after they were so long fully possessed of all that Joshua conducted them into; and whereas there was no new rest for the people to enter into in the days of David, and the Psalm wherein these words are recorded is acknowledged to be prophetical of the days of the Messiah, it unavoidably follows that there is yet a rest and a day of rest remaining for the people of God, which he lays down as his conclusion in the verse following.
John Owen, Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Chapter 4, verse 8
Owen rightly points out that the Greek language talks of “God’s rest,” a rest that remains for us to enter into as well as a “sabbath day” (sabbatismos) that commemorates and points to God’s rest (Hebrews 4:9). And this “day” that remains is the day Jesus entered His rest (Hebrews 4:10). Which is why the Christian church has biblical warrant for the universal corporate practice of first day worship. That is the memorial day of redemption and what the church corporately gathering to worship is celebrating. The first day points us to Jesus who accomplished our redemption on that day and entered His rest.
18th-century church historian Dr. Philip Schaff also succinctly expounds upon the “Christian sabbath” in book 3 of his magnum opus History of the Christian Church:
The observance of Sunday originated in the time of the apostles, and ever since forms the basis of public worship, with its ennobling, sanctifying, and cheering influences, in all Christian lands.
The Christian Sabbath is, on the one hand, the continuation and the regeneration of the Jewish Sabbath, based upon God’s resting from the creation and upon the fourth commandment of the decalogue, which, as to its substance, is not of merely national application, like the ceremonial and civil law, but of universal import and perpetual validity for mankind. It is, on the other hand, a new creation of the gospel, a memorial of the resurrection of Christ and of the work of redemption completed and divinely sealed thereby. It rests, we may say, upon the threefold basis of the original creation, the Jewish legislation, and the Christian redemption, and is rooted in the physical, the moral, and the religious wants of our nature.
It has a legal and an evangelical aspect. Like the law in general, the institution of the Christian Sabbath is a wholesome restraint upon the people, and a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ. But it is also strictly evangelical: it was originally made for the benefit of man, like the family, with which it goes back beyond the fall to the paradise of innocence, as the second institution of God on earth; it was “a delight” to the pious of the old dispensation, and now, under the new, it is fraught with the glorious memories and blessings of Christ’s resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Christian Sabbath is the ancient Sabbath baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost, regenerated, spiritualized, and glorified. It is the connecting link of creation and redemption, of paradise lost, and paradise regained, and a pledge and preparation for the saints’ everlasting rest in heaven.
Dr. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Book 3, pg. 323
In this sense and understanding, Sunday is the Christian sabbath. Lots of Christians are hesitant to affirm such or outright reject the idea of Sunday being a Christian institution. But as Christians we should seek to understand scripture in total and rightly apply and understand it. The practice of first day corporate worship is not arbitrary or simply tradition—it’s biblical. Christian theologians across the spectrum have rightly put forth numerous exegetical arguments dating all the way back to the likes of Ignatius and Justin Martyr who also understood the new creation.
English Reformer William Twisse, in his book The Morality of the Fourth Commandment (1641), speaking on the Christian sabbath points out this same thing:
The analogy between the Jewish Sabbath and our Christian Sabbath, consisting in two or three particulars:
1. As on the seventh day God rested from the six days work of creation, in remembrance of which benefit, the Sabbath was instituted in the Old Testament: so in the first day of the week, after Christ by his death and passion had accomplished the mystery of our Redemption, he returned gloriously as a conqueror from the dead, in remembrance of which benefit, the first day of the week is celebrated in the New Testament.
2. As in the Old Testament the Sabbath was instituted, that it might be a memorial of their deliverance out of Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15). So in the New Testament, the Lords Day is a memorial of our spiritual deliverance out of the kingdom and captivity of Satan, procured unto us by the resurrection of Christ, a type whereof was that deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt.
3. By Christs death and resurrection, were abrogated Levitical ceremonies and legal shadows, amongst which the Sabbath is reckoned (Colossians 2:17). Therefore the change of the Sabbath into the Lords Day, is a public testimony that Christians are freed from legal shadows…
William Twisse, The Morality of the Fourth Commandment, pg. 100 (1641)
19th-century Methodist theologian Adam Clarke, in his commentary on Colossians, also shows how this was a commonly understood belief amongst Christians:
There is no intimation here that the Sabbath was done away, or that its moral use was superseded, by the introduction of Christianity. I have shown elsewhere that, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, is a command of perpetual obligation, and can never be superseded but by the final termination of time. As it is a type of that rest which remains for the people of God, of an eternity of bliss, it must continue in full force till that eternity arrives; for no type ever ceases till the antitype become. Besides, it is not clear that the apostle refers at all to the Sabbath in this place, whether Jewish or Christian; his σαββατων, of sabbaths or weeks, most probably refers to their feasts of weeks, of which much has been said in the notes on the Pentateuch.
Adam Clarke, Commentary on Colossians 2:16
Baptist theologian John Gill, successor of the great Charles Spurgeon, comments something similar in his commentary on the same verse:
Or of the sabbath days, or “sabbaths”; meaning the jubilee sabbath, which was one year in fifty; and the sabbath of the land, which was one year in seven; and the seventh day sabbath, and some copies read in the singular number, “or of the sabbath”; which were all peculiar to the Jews, were never binding on the Gentiles, and to which believers in Christ, be they who they will, are by no means obliged; nor ought they to observe them, the one any more than the other; and should they be imposed upon them, they ought to reject them; and should they be judged, censured, and condemned, for so doing, they ought not to mind it. It is the sense of the Jews themselves, that the Gentiles are not obliged to keep their sabbath;
John Gill, Commentary on Colossians 2:16
It is individuals like this that the SDA Church will often point to in this discussion to try and bolster their own view saying something to the effect of “all Christians believed like we do on the sabbath, it’s only in recent years this has changed.” Yet like with the others mentioned, Adam Clarke and John Gill were not seventh day sabbatarians. They did not have a Great Controversy worldview. They did not believe the same thing about the sabbath that the SDA Church does. Not with regards to the day nor what the sabbath is ultimately about. These appeals by the SDA Church are superficial at best.
The issue with the Seventh-Day Adventist teaching regarding the sabbath is not the sabbath itself, but what they claim about the topic and the baggage they bring and attach to it by way of the Great Controversy worldview. When the SDA Church makes the charge that Christians believe the first day is the Christian sabbath, this is coming from the SDA Pioneers who lived in a time where that was the commonly held belief.
The SDA movements sabbath pioneers, such as Joseph Bates, simply borrowed the arguments they heard from the likes of Thomas Watson, Adam Clarke, etc. and used them to support their own position with one caveat—Watson and the other Christians they referenced were universally wrong about the day. This shows they did not understand who they were borrowing from and the core component in the discussion—the new creation. They understood that the substance of the Sabbath is Jesus Christ and the sabbath day points to that as a memorial.
Whereas the SDA Church has made the seventh day a substantive part of the sabbath, so much so they think it is eternal, making it the the seal of God, the dividing line between who is and isn’t actually saved, and numerous other theological novelties that are entirely foreign to scripture.
On this platform, we happily affirm the Christian sabbath position because it is biblical. We refuse to let the SDA Church or other seventh day sabbatarian groups rob the subject of its glory. The sabbath day points us to Jesus, the substance of the sabbath, where we are reminded of His accomplishing of our redemption and the promise we have of one day entering into the eternal rest of God, the better Promised Land. This is always what the sabbath day has been about. Israel simply failed to recognize the substance and didn’t enter into Christ by faith and believe the gospel which is why they failed to enter the true rest of God (Hebrews 4:6-7).
The Christian sabbath is not the same thing the SDA Church claims simply on a different day.
