Free Bible study with printable version. The seventh day (Shabbat) is a Biblical Holy Day. Saturday is the seventh day according to the Jewish Calendar and Hebrew calendar, as well as, our modern day calendars. This Holy day is to be celebrated weekly. No work is to be done on Saturday. In this study we will show that The Sabbath Day did not end when Christ was crucified and is still to be kept as a Holy Day to this day.The seventh day (Shabbat) is a Biblical Holy Day. Saturday is the seventh day according to the Jewish Calendar and if you look at your calendar, Sunday is the first day of the week-not the seventh day. This Holy Seventh day is called Shabbat in the Jewish language and is spelled שַׁבָּת
In the Hebrew language. It is a Holy day and is to be celebrated weekly. No work is to be done on Saturday. It is not the same as the yearly sacrificial feasts of the temple which are believed to ended when Christ was crucified and the temple curtain was torn in two was symbolic of this, as Jesus Christ is the only blood sacrifice needed for our sins. However, this symbolic event did not mean that the Holy Days were no longer to be observed. It simply meant that no further blood or sacrificial offerings were needed. This is where many churches divide. The word Sabbath is mentioned 172 times in the bible and 60 of those times were in the New Testament-hardly something that should be overlooked (Flurry, 2010). The Sabbath Day did not end when Christ was crucified and is still to be kept as a Holy Day to this day. When one of the yearly Sabbath days falls on the seventh day Sabbath it is called a high Sabbath day.
The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. John 19:31
The New Testament shows us that Jesus and His disciples did observe the Sabbath day.
Origin of The Sabbath DAy
The first Sabbath Day was established by God who created the world, mankind, and everything in it. It did not originate with the Jews as many people speculate. God worked for six days to create the world and on the seventh day He did three things.
He rested from all His work.
He blessed the seventh day.
He sanctified the seventh day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. Gen. 1:1 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. Gen. 1:2 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. Gen. 1:3
Defining Holy convocation
The definition of Holy (qaddish in Hebrew) is an adjective which means saints (Holy one).The definition of convocation means to assemble/congregate. A Holy Convocation is an when God’s people (saints) are to assemble as a congregation. The Lord told Moses to tell the children of Israel that the Holy Convocations are His feasts and should be proclaimed as such. The Lord told Moses that His people should work six days but on the seventh day they are to rest in holy convocation (assembly). No work is to be done on this day because this day is the Sabbath of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Lev. 23:1 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Lev. 23:2 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. Lev 23:3
How to Keep the Sabbath Day Holy
Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy means doing no work on the Sabbath Day.It is important to keep in mind that God instructed us to keep the Sabbath day forever and in so doing we need to know how to do this. To keep the Sabbath day Holy you must do all your work in six days and on the seventh day you should not do any work, not you, your children, not people who work for you, not your working livestock, or those who visit you. In other words, it is a complete day of rest. We do this out of respect and in remembrance that the Lord created heaven and earth, the sea and everything in it in six days and rested on the seventh and because the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it Holy.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exo. 20:8
Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, Exo. 20:9
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. Exo. 20:10
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exo. 20:11
Do We Have to Observe the Sabbath Day?
The Lord Commanded that We Keep the Sabbath Day Holy: Deut 5:12-15 The Lord did not request that we observe the Sabbath, He Commanded it! If we do not keep His Sabbath we are being disobedient to Him. No where in the Holy Bible does it say that we no longer needed to observe the Seventh day Sabbath. In fact, Jesus's disciples continued to keep the Seventh day Sabbath even after Jesus died and rose again.
Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Deut 5:12
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, Deut. 5:13
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. Deut. 5:14
You shall remember that you were a slave3 in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Deut. 5:15
Is the sabbath day considered a feast day?
Is the Sabbath Day considered a feast day? Saturday-The Sabbath Day is not considered a feast day (moed-H4150) solely because it is not set by the new moon as the other traditional biblical feast days are. The Sabbath day though considered a convocation day it is the only one that occurs more than once a year.
If you are hungry and have no food-can you get food on sabbath day?
If for some reason you were unable to get food prior to the Sabbath day you are allowed to get food on the Sabbath.
And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. St. Mark 2:23
And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? Mark 2:24
If you are hungry you can get food
And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was ahungered, he, and they that were with him? Mark 2:26
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath
And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: Mark 2:27
The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath
Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. Mark 2:28
Did The Apostle Paul Observe the Sabbath?
"Acts 13:14-15 show that the Apostle Paul was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath many years after Christ died. In verse 42, after Paul’s Sabbath sermon, many of the Jews who heard him became offended and left. But notice, “the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.” The Gentiles, those who had no prior knowledge of Sabbath observance, asked if Paul could come back the next Sabbath. Notice what happened: “And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God” (verse 44). Why didn’t the Gentiles ask him to come back on the following Sunday? Because Paul, like Christ, kept the Sabbath. Notice Acts 17:2: “And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures.” This is now 20 years after Christ died, and we see that it was still Paul’s custom to keep the Sabbath, just as it was Christ’s custom (Luke 4:16). Over 10 years later, Paul wrote the epistle to the Hebrews. In the first few verses of chapter 4, after discussing the spiritual “rest” this world will enjoy after Jesus Christ returns, Paul then explains how our weekly Sabbath observance pictures that millennial rest. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God,” Paul wrote (verse 9). The Greek word for rest is sabbatismos, which simply means “keeping of the Sabbath.” Most Bible margins even point this out. Had the seventh-day Sabbath been changed to Sunday, wouldn’t Paul have explained this to, of all people, the Hebrews in Judea? Instead, Paul reminded them that their weekly Sabbath observance was a very type of the millennial rest to come upon the entire world" (Flurry, 2010).
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exo. 20:8
When is the Sabbath Observed?
The Hebrew Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, is often spoken of loosely as "Saturday". In the Hebrew calendar, however, the new day begins at sunset, not midnight. The Sabbath therefore coincides with what the modern civil calendar identifies as Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. Similarly, the first day of the week ("Sunday") coincides with Saturday sunset to Sunday sunset. The Sabbath remained on the seventh day in the early Christian church.To this day, the Sabbath continues to coincide with the Hebrew Sabbath timing in the church calendars in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Oriental Orthodoxy. (Sabbath, 2010. Wikipedia)