Sabbath Isn’t As Hard As You Think

You’ve probably never needed theological justification for a beach trip, but we often look at the idea of a God-ordained pattern of rest with suspicion.

Protestant confessions repeatedly speak of Sunday as a day for rest and worship.[1] However, this commitment is often considered antiquated or unnecessary today. Discussions about the fourth commandment usually fail to move beyond abstract questions of covenantal structures and typology, thus failing to arrive at how it forms our love of God and neighbor.[2] But what if starting at the Greatest Commandment helps move forward?

Exploring how humans and their life patterns promote or discourage one another’s flourishing demonstrates Christian Sabbatarianism’s validity and utility.

Three questions help us see this.

1. Should We Rest?

Genesis 1 details not only God’s creation of the world but the creation of his world in time. God creates in an unhurried, intentional way. Time progresses by evening and morning. The sun and moon are specifically designed to track dates and times. It’s continued that way ever since. We occupy the world as creatures in time, and modern research underscores the fact that our bodies function best when they account for these natural rhythms.[3]

Indeed Jesus said, “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” It’s worth noting that the Sabbath command is given to the Israelites, leaving the captivity that worked them to the ground.[4] As our culture wrestles with its relationship to work, Christians proclaim that we exist for more than either drudgery or self-fulfillment–instead, work exists with an end goal: resting in God.[4] Sabbath keeps this truth before us.[6]

Rest is not an empty command, but a good gift from God–it’s a human necessity. But if rest is good, when should it happen?

2. When Should We Rest?

Christians have historically gathered on the first day of the week to celebrate the resurrection. From the earliest days of the church, Christians saw it fitting to commemorate the finished work of Christ by resting in the gospel as his church.[7]

Don’t get lost in the details of the degree of association between Lord’s Day and Sabbath. Instead, ask something more practical: as embodied creatures, what is a fitting use of our bodies today?

Sometimes, conversations about the Sabbath devolve into what is right or wrong. However, wisdom urges us to resist reducing all options to either “right” or “wrong” while bypassing the categories of “helpful” and “unhelpful.” A vital element of a Christian doctrine of rest is that it is not merely recreation but enjoyment of God’s creation and fellowship with God himself. Corporate worship and fellowship with God’s people is thus an essential experience of rest for Christians. Does a given activity foster this reality or distract from it?

So, rest is good, and it makes sense for our day of worship to be a day of rest. Now we can turn to consider our neighbor.

3. Who is “We”?

The fourth commandment speaks not only about personal rest but the well-being of others. Exodus 20:10 specifies that we should not work, nor should our sons, daughters, male or female servants, our livestock, or the sojourners in our midst. The Sabbath wasn’t merely an issue of personal holiness but societal structure.[8]

It won’t do for us to avoid work while making those under our charge work harder. We are to ensure not only our own rest but the ability of others to rest as well, even if that means inconveniencing ourselves. The Sabbath is an issue of justice.

Why does this matter? We occupy a societal structure in which others are compelled by economic forces beyond their control to labor with no rest. Financial limitations, demands of rising inflation, and issues of class make it so that many folks are compelled to work relentlessly.[9]

We may not have male and female servants, but what about servers, bag boys, and department store cashiers? Are they being constrained by a system incentivizing their non-attendance of corporate worship and penalizing attempts to rest?

Preserving a day of the week for rest and worship is not merely an act of a religious political bloc but a way of loving our neighbor. It’s an opportunity to cease making economic demands upon others as we find refreshment in the Sabbath Lord. The Sabbath declares to our neighbors that they are worth more than what they produce. In this way, it is a gift to the world.

The Sabbath is not an easy doctrine to parse. But loving our neighbor is something all Christians can grasp. What might your Sundays look like as you consider how to love your neighbor within the rhythms of ordinary life?

[1]The Westminster Confession and Savoy Declaration are nearly identical to the  Second London Baptist Confession’s statement in 22.7:  “As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God’s appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord’s day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.” The General Baptists’ Orthodox Creed also states a Sabbatarian position: The Light of Nature sheweth there is a God, who hath a Soveraignty over all, but the holy Scripture hath fully revealed it; as also that all Men should worship him according to God’s own Institution and Appointment. And hath limited us, by his own revealed Will, that he may not be worshipped according to the Imaginations and Devices of Men, or the Suggestions of Satan, under any visible Representations whatsoever, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scriptures: and all Religious Worship is to be given to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and to God alone; not to Angels, Saints, or any other Creature, and since the Fall, not without a Mediator, nor in the Mediation of any other but Christ alone;nor is this Worshipping of God now under the Gospel, tied to any place, or made more acceptable by one place than another. Yet the Assembly of the Church, ought not to be neglected by any. And in order to his being worshipped, and served, God hath instituted one Day in Seven, for his Sabbath to be kept holy unto him; which from the Resurrection of Christ, is the First Day of the Week, which is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be observed and continued to the end of the World, as a Christian Sabbath, the last Day of the Week being abolished. And this Christian Sabbath is to be kept after a due and reverent manner, in preparing of our Hearts, and ordering of Affairs so beforehand, that we may rest that Day from Worldly and Carnal Imployments, and frequent the solemn Assemblies of the Church, and in all publick and private Duties of Religion; as Hearing, Meditating, and Conferring, and Reading in, or of the holy Scriptures, together with Prayer, publick and private, and in the duties of Necessity, Charity, and Mercy, and not in any vain or Worldly Discourse, or idle Recreations whatsoever.” The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living, Article 17,  states “We, therefore, will be careful to avoid unnecessary labor on Sunday and plan that the recreations in which we engage on that day do not interfere with our own attendance or that of others at divine worship.” The 1925 and 1963 versions of the Baptist Faith and Message both state in Chapter VIII: “The first day of the week is the Lord’s Day. It is a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, and by refraining from worldly amusements, and resting from secular employments, work of necessity and mercy only being excepted.”

[2]One recently published work exploring the theme of Sabbath from a biblical-theological view is Guy Waters, The Sabbath as Rest and Hope for the People of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022).

[3]See Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep (New York City: Scribner, 2017).

[4]Compare Exodus 20:8-11 with Deuteronomy 5:15.

[5]https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230417-hustle-culture-is-this-the-end-of-rise-and-grind

[6]“The command to rest from work on the sabbath day forces a pause in this compulsive process and reminds us that time, like the earth itself, belongs to God.” Christopher J. H. Wright, Exodus, The Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021), 366-367.

[7]Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10

[8]“God has liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt and was about to provide them with a land of their own. In that transformed reality they were to avoid oppressing and exploiting the weak and vulnerable in their own society, as they had experienced in Egypt.” Wright, 368.

[9]https://www.fastcompany.com/91014703/why-poly-employment-may-be-2024s-next-big-work-trend