HOW TO KEEP THE SABBATH DAY?

Keeping the Sabbath is something complex to numbers of Seventh-day Adventist. There are some who exclaim, “This is how to keep the Sabbath” while others say another ways on how to observe it. There are different ideas and interpretations in regard to this matter. However, the Holy Scripture did not leave us without clear truth about it.

The Holy Scripture exclaimed that Jesus is “the Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt. 12: 8; Mark 2: 28; Luke 6: 5) and He is “the way, the truth, and the life (John 14: 6). If Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, the way and the truth, then, He is the model to follow without question.

Let us study His way on keeping the Sabbath. First, Jesus permitted and protected His disciples to pluck grains in the grain fields when His disciples got hungry (Matt. 12: 1). This kind of action was strictly prohibited in the Old Testament, especially during the Exodus, the Israelites were forbidden to go out from their tent and pick some food if there any (like Manna) (Exod. 16: 29). Actually, defiling the Sabbath during their time after the strongly repeated announcement of this command will be cut off from the people of God or be put to death (Exodus 31: 15). Hence, the Pharisee angrily reproof Christ and His disciples of what they did (Matt. 12: 2). However, Jesus answered them by pointing the priests who perform work on the Sabbath day in the Holy Temple, yet they are innocent (Matt. 12: 3). Therefore, Jesus concluded, that it is lawful to do good during Sabbath, like helping and saving life of God’s creation: animals and human being, even if it involves hard effort (Matt. 12: 10 – 12).

The book of Mark revealed another answer of Jesus toward His critics. In Mark 2: 25, 27, He answered, “’Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.’ Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

What does it meant? Sabbath was made for the welfare of man. It was made to be a blessing to man by providing the need of man: rest, food, shelter, and comfort. Here, man may glorify God! Man’s lips will proclaim, “God is so gracious and compassionate, His love endures forever!” That is why Jesus exclaimed in front of His critics, as the Lord of the Sabbath,"I desire mercy, not sacrifice..." (Matt. 12: 7). God did not make any law to burden and suffer man to keep him from his welfare.  

.What is this to us now? How do we apply? If so happen that we feel hungry along the way without food in our hand, and there is a tree that has fruit available for food, we can pick or we can buy food, than to suffer of hunger during the Sabbath. Sabbath should not be a day to withhold us from our need. Ellen G. White commented, “… if fatigue and hunger attended the work, it was right to satisfy the wants of humanity even upon the Sabbath day" {Review and Herald, August 3, 1897 par. 3}

Second, Jesus commanded the crippled man to take up his bed and walked (John 5: 9). The Man with his unspeakable joy, he walked around the Jerusalem with his mat. The law mentioned in Jeremiah was strictly forbidding to carry any load during Sabbath out of your house (Jer. 17: 21, 22). Here, the Pharisees hated this thing on the Sabbath. Here, they called Jesus as law breaker and against the will of God. But remember, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath!

The mat was a necessary for that man for his comfort at night and day. He had no home to shelter himself. Sabbath should not be a curse but a blessing!

Ellen G. White Commented,

"Jesus had lessons which he desired to give to his disciples, that when he was no longer with them, they might not be misled by the wily misrepresentations of the priests and rulers in regard to the correct observance of the Sabbath. He would remove from the Sabbath the traditions and exactions with which the priests and rulers had burdened it" {RH, August 3, 1897 par. 2}

 

Third, Jesus was always at work even on the Sabbath day! John 5: 17 (NIV) states,  “In his defense Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day (Sabbath), and I too am working.’” Jesus works all through the day inside or outside the Temple. Jesus did not confine Himself inside the four corners of the Temple, but rather, He went out to search the needy and meet their needs. Seventh-day Adventist should not confine themselves throughout the day inside the church only, but instead, go out to find the needy and meet their needs as well.


Worshipping God is not confined inside the walls of the church. Remember the definition of Christ on true worshipers. Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks ( ^NIV John 4:21, 23). God did not mention synagogue or temple but “worship the Father in spirit and truth.” God is not confined in a building made by man. We can celebrate Sabbath outside far or near the church building.

Fourth,  Self- denial & Making the Sabbath a Delight . ^NIV Isaiah 58:13, 14  states, "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not … speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD...’ The mouth of the LORD has spoken.."

There are two principles Biblically approved for the Sabbath Keeping: Act of Necessity and Mercy. However, there two also that opposes the principles of the Sabbath keeping: Legalism and Liberalism.

Below are other commentaries from the Spirit of Prophecy for further reading.

"Works of mercy and of necessity are no transgression of the law. God does not condemn these things.  The act of mercy and necessity in passing through a grain field, of plucking the heads of wheat, of rubbing them in their hands, and of eating to satisfy their hunger. Thus he declared himself guiltless before scribes, rulers, and priests, before the heavenly universe, before fallen angels and fallen men."  {Review and Herald, August 3, 1897 par. 4}

"The Sabbath was not to be that which the Jews had made it,--a rigorous burden and exaction, loaded down with continual additions of their own invention. By this means the day was made what Satan had been working on human minds to make it,--a grievous yoke in the place of a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable. God gave the Sabbath to be a blessing to man; it was to be to him a memorial of God's work of creation; it was to remind him of God's sacred rest, for which reason he had "blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."  {Review and Herald, August 3, 1897 par. 6}

"He had come to free the Sabbath from those burdensome requirements that had made it a curse instead of a blessing.  For this reason He had chosen the Sabbath upon which to perform the act of healing at Bethesda. He could have healed the sick man as well on any other day of the week; or He might simply have cured him, without bidding him bear away his bed." {Desire Ages 206.1,2}