Seventh-day Adventists rightly draw attention to the importance of the biblical Sabbath by calling our denomination “Seventh-day Adventist.” In Bible studies and evangelistic series we faithfully and rightly teach the seventh-day Sabbath. The Sabbath, however, is a lot more than not Sunday. The fourth commandment is not merely a long burdensome imperative where the Sabbath is something that must be kept to be saved. Instead, Sabbath is a royal invitation, part of the gift of salvation and a major proof that God is love—for lovers like to set special times to be together!
Adam and Eve were given the Sabbath before they sinned in Eden (before they had even worked!), so they couldn’t have been trying to keep the Sabbath to be saved. Their very first full day of life was resting on the Sabbath, enjoying face-to-face fellowship with their Creator! The Creator, who is now our needed Redeemer, still offers this blessing.
That said, could a person be fully persuaded that the Bible teaches the seventh-day Sabbath, faithfully set the day apart by not working, and go to church regularly, yet still not be “keeping the Sabbath”?
An Extraordinary Gift
The book of Genesis is an amazing book. Its 50 chapters cover some 2,500 years—more time than the rest of the Bible put together. Yet the pace goes slowly in the first two chapters, focusing on just seven days and the creation of all life and matter, with God creating the Sabbath on the seventh day. In Genesis 1 and 2 the many intricate ecosystems were put in place, then lovingly filled with abundant life forms. The Sabbath day marked the newly created world as complete and at rest. Nothing more was needed or could have been added to make it better. Nothing had been overlooked.
God built the seventh-day Sabbath into the DNA of time because all life needs it. To be truly human, created in God’s image, includes the Sabbath! God finished His work and rested on the first seventh day. We certainly aren’t stronger or smarter than God.
To be truly human, created in God’s image, includes the Sabbath!
The seven-day week is found everywhere around the world, yet it is not based on such celestial movements as the day, month, year, or other measurements of time. In Genesis the seven-day week is an original creative act of deity. That first seventh day the Creator rested in satisfaction of His work, blessed it, and made it holy. A perfect harmonious great “web of life” was established—extending to all creation a gift: a full day to rest with Him. How easy it is to misunderstand this and squander it—even trying to earn it, or earn salvation by keeping it. It bears repeating that the Sabbath was given before sin. Adam and Eve couldn’t have thought they were somehow earning something for their first full day they hadn’t sinned or worked yet.
It can’t be overstressed that we are not working to earn God’s favor on the Sabbath. Ceasing from our work reminds us that we serve a benevolent Creator. Unlike modern culture that determinedly carries on, we are invited to rest.
It is striking that Adam and Eve’s first full day was a day of rest, not work. What an impression of God this yields! The Bible offers a view of God entirely unlike the gods of any other ancient religion. Yes, Yahweh commanded humans to work, but also to rest every seventh day. Imagine the impression of the true God and the people who worshiped Him it would have given to the Akkadians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and other ancient nations. This was a God who commands rest!
Truly the Sabbath is an amazing gift. But do we treasure it? Have you ever given a gift to someone and sensed they didn’t really appreciate or want it? God gave His human family the extraordinary gift of Sabbath time, yet we often don’t know how to receive it. Instead we reduce the Sabbath to rules and doctrinal rationales as did the ancient Pharisees, making the Sabbath another yoke of works—rather than joyfully receiving it and linking us to Jesus’ heart.
The blessed seventh day was not thought up by humans, nor is it earned by human effort or achievement. Neither is it a reward. Just like salvation, the Sabbath is an extraordinary gift! Instead of conferring merit with God, the Sabbath is the bond sealing us in His grace.
A Necessary Gift
The Sabbath, established that first week in Eden (Gen. 2:1-3), was later revived for the slaves in Egypt before they reached Sinai (Ex. 16). Only there it was carved in stone by God’s fiery finger as the fourth of the Ten Commandments—a code of conduct for everyone, even the animals! It is the longest of the commandments in the Decalogue, having approximately one third of all the words, presenting a rhythm of work and rest whereby all life may synchronize with the Creator.
“Remembering” the Sabbath richly connected with redemption. The narrative sequence in the book of Exodus illustrates this. The Old Testament ritual calendar began with Passover, the Lord providing instructions for celebrating it (Ex. 12:3-20): anyone “under the blood” could be saved. Fifty days later the children of Israel were at Sinai, where God spoke the law. This sequence is impressive! Deliverance from slavery (salvation) first and then the giving of the law!
More than maintaining a belief system, our goal is not just to have others keep the Sabbath and join our church. Rather, our goal is to invite others to share our relationship with Jesus—the Sabbath being a paramount way to deepen our fellowship with Him each week for a whole day, at His invitation!
The Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ day were correctly adamant about the Sabbath day but they rejected Jesus—even though Old Testament prophets had often warned against exemplary worship that wasn’t coming from a heart linked with Yahweh. God finally rejected “their” Sabbaths, though they were worshiping on the right day (Hosea 2:9-11).
Jesus, in His “Sermon on the Mount,” declared that “doing the right thing” is not what sets apart the saved from the lost: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ” (Matt. 7:22, 23).
Earlier Isaiah had quoted God stating the same principle: “These people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me” (Isa. 29:13). Jesus quoted this very passage when speaking to the religious leaders of His time (Matt. 25:7-9).
It is an intentional time for God to restore our souls.
Yes, we are commanded to keep the Sabbath! Think of the law of gravity in this respect. We need to obey gravity—it’s the law! Our belief or disbelief of it cannot invalidate it, change it, or make it disappear.
Just so with the Sabbath. The Sabbath law is like the law of gravity. Our feelings and opinions cannot change or eliminate it. We may choose to ignore the Sabbath, but it is dangerous to ignore reality—over the course of time our minds, hearts, bodies, and souls will pay a hefty price.
When we do accept the Sabbath, we will experience something incredible, because the need for Sabbath rest is built into us. In the New Testament Jesus stated that He is “Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:8) and that His rest will restore us. Sabbath restoration and healing are synonymous in God’s vocabulary. And when we accept holy rest, it is like reentering Eden, as Ellen White recalls, referring to the “blessed days of Eden when God pronounced all things ‘very good.’ Then marriage and the Sabbath had their origin, twin institutions for the glory of God in the benefit of humanity. . . . That which the eternal Father Himself had pronounced good was the law of highest blessing and development for man.”1
A Gift That Gives
Perhaps we could compare Sabbath rest to the “eye of the storm” in life’s hurricane. Our incessant striving can rest as we enter into God’s finished work! We can loosen our grim grip on work in a modern culture that less and less sees Sabbath as a welcome gift. Many don’t find it easy to cease working. Karl Barth is insightful: “On this day we are to celebrate, rejoice, and be free, to the glory of God. . . . We must hear the Gospel before we can understand the law. . . . We can’t value and do justice to work except in the light of its boundary, its solemn interruption—the true time from which alone we can have other work time.”2
The Sabbath and the gospel proclaim the same thing! We don’t work to get rewarded with the Sabbath. God is not a tyrant, and we are not His slaves. Rather, we are commanded to rest with God and accept His gift. The psalmist referred to this principle when describing Israel’s sanctuary worship commencing in the wilderness: “For there the Lord commanded the blessing—life evermore” (Ps. 133:3).
Christians don’t usually talk about their favorite commandment, because commands are not often welcome! The Decalogue commands us to remember the Sabbath. And Moses teaches that God commands blessings! The prophet Isaiah quoted God urging us to call the Sabbath a “delight” (Isa. 58:13).
The glory of Sabbath time also points to the goodness of creation. Martin Luther saw this, writing: “God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”3 Each Sabbath can heighten our appreciation for the wider community of life we share this planet with—a weekly opportunity to treasure these bonds. Accepting Sabbath rest, we share the blessing of rest with animals and even the earth. Jesus’ parables taught this, as Ellen White writes: “Christ’s purpose in parable teaching was in direct line with the purpose of the Sabbath. God gave to men the memorial of His creative power, that they might discern Him in the works of His hand. The Sabbath bids us behold in His created works the glory of the Creator. And it was because He desired us to do this that Jesus bound up His precious lessons with the beauty of natural things. On the holy rest day, above all other days, we should study the messages that God has written for us in nature.”4
Think of the benefits animals and the earth could receive if everyone rested on the Sabbath—the Lord promising to heal our broken hearts and damaged souls with nature’s assistance! The healing benefits of nature are increasingly appreciated.5 Ellen White alluded to this, writing, “There is healing in the pines.”6
Jesus At the Center
All our choices of what or what not to do on the Sabbath should guard precious fellowship with Jesus—not letting anything interfere. In a world unrelenting in its distractions and pressures, Sabbath hours grant time for resting in Jesus plus opening time and space in God’s “very good” creation. Jesus is the gracious antidote to the cheerless rule-keeping often connected with the Sabbath.
It is not that we don’t love Jesus. We just don’t know how to be around Him. We know Jesus is the Creator—and we can be very busy working, even working for Him, and miss fellowship with Him. Sabbath gives us time to hear His heartbeat and find “rest for [our] souls” (Matt. 11:29). When we allow ourselves to enter into Sabbath’s holy rest, it is like reentering Eden. As Ellen White writes: “There were two institutions founded in Eden that were not lost in the fall—the Sabbath and the marriage relation. These were carried by man beyond the gates of paradise.”7 “God gave the Sabbath as a memorial of His creative power and works. . . . He made its observance obligatory upon man, in order that he might contemplate the works of God, dwell upon His goodness, His mercy, and love, and through nature look up to nature’s God. If man had always observed the Sabbath, there would never have been an unbeliever, and infidel, or an atheist in the world.”8
“Remembering” the seventh day is more than obeying a commandment. Rather, it is receiving soul rest in and with the Creator, who is also our Savior. This is the heart of the matter: divine fellowship and rest, which can inspire better relationships with each other and the world. It is an intentional time for God to restore our souls—God promising that the Sabbath is the sign that He is sanctifying us! (Ex. 31:13).
The Sabbath is so rich theologically. It is an ancient practice, yet ever new, offering an invitation to a unique way of living in this world. Keeping the Sabbath is life changing, potentially counteracting worry and stress each week, connecting us more deeply with Jesus—and others. It guards social justice with daughters and female servants and animals specifically mentioned in the fourth commandment.
Instead of a day of boredom to be endured as a sign of being good, it is God’s desire to bestow grace. It is the blessed rhythm of time—part of the promised “abundant life” (see John 10:10). Each Sabbath “thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength’ ” (Isa. 30:15).
1 Ellen G. White, The Adventist Home (Nashville: Southern Pub. Assn., 1952), p. 341.
2 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3, part 4.
3 Quoted in Mrs. Andrew Charles, “Hearth and Home,” in The Lutheran Witness, ed. Martin J. Heinicke (St. Louis: Concordia, 1917). John Calvin was also convinced: “We cannot be excused when we have not at all considered God in His works. He does not at all leave Himself without witness here. . . . Let us then only open our eyes and we will have enough arguments for the grandeur of God, so that we may learn to honor Him as He deserves” (cited by Tri Robinson with Jason Chatraw in Saving God’s Green Earth: Rediscovering the Church’s Responsibility to Environmental Stewardship [Garden City, Idaho: Ampelon Publishing, 2006], p. 87.
4 Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1900, 1941), pp. 25, 26.
5 See such books as Forest Therapy (Sarah Ivens, Forest Therapy: Seasonal Ways to Embrace Nature for a Happier You [Boston: Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2018]) and The Hidden Lives of Trees (Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees [Vancouver, B.C.: Greystone Books, 2016]).
6 “While negotiations for the Madison property were under way, Ellen White and her party left on Wednesday, June 15, for a weeklong tour of several institutions in Tennessee and Alabama. The first was Graysville, where there was a school and a sanitarium. On Sabbath she spoke in the church and noticed that there were in her audience three ministers from other Protestant churches. On Sunday she made a grand tour of the school buildings, the farm—where she discovered peaches and corn and strawberries—and the sanitarium, where she urged that the pine trees be preserved, for there is healing in the pines” (Arthur L. White, Ellen White: Woman of Vision [Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 2000), p. 454.
7 Ellen G. White, in Signs of the Times, Feb. 28, 1884.
8 Ellen G. White, in Signs of the Times, Feb. 13, 1896.
