THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Early Christian Sabbath
apostolic, but later. To the Christian who is building his religious faith and life upon the
Bible as the revelation of God, and upon this Bible only, such tradition is not enough.
6. Why the Sabbath Was Branded “Jewish”
TRADITIONALISM, which lies at the basis of Sunday keeping, was exactly what
Jesus condemned in the Jews. Jesus never lost an opportunity to point out to the Jews the
fallacy of their traditions. He said: 1n vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men.” “Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall
be rooted up.” Matthew 15:9, 13. For all this the Jewish leaders hated Him and aroused
the mobs against Him. He was killed because He insisted on teaching truth.
That Christ was an observer of the seventh-day Sabbath has already been
emphasized. It is proved not only by His constant awareness of the Sabbath as an
institution, but it is also definitely indicated in the accounts we have of His habitual
attendance at public worship on the Sabbath. Matthew 12:1-15; Mark 1:21-34; Luke
4:16-44; 13:10-17. It has been said that He kept the Sabbath because He was a Jew.
Humanly He was a Jew, but it is to be noted that He kept the Sabbath for a reason other
and larger than any national one. He said that “the Son of man,” meaning Himself, “is
Lord also of the Sabbath!' Mark 2:28. This is a most important statement. Jesus Christ
was then, and is today, Lord of the Sabbath institution-the rest day ordained by God. The
Sabbath has come down to us through the ages from the day when Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, completed the creation of the earth. It is not then a question whether Jesus,
incarnated into a Jewish family, kept the Sabbath because o f His immediate
environment. Jesus Christ kept the Sabbath because He is Lord of it.
He manifested His lordship of the Sabbath by showing the Jews how wrong they
were in their manner of keeping it. The Jews were observing it as a legalistic
requirement. They had burdened down its observance with a great weight of traditional
rules. On the Sabbath the Jew could walk only a limited distance, about seven miles. He
could not carry any burden, no matter how small it might be. The sick might not be
ministered to. There could be no gathering nor preparing of food. These rules Jesus
broke, and He was therefore accused of breaking the Sabbath. John 5:18.
Actually Jesus was demonstrating to the Jewish leaders the correct way to keep
the Sabbath; that is, by doing good. He healed the sick on the sacred day; He comforted
the sorrowing; He taught in the synagogues and in the open air the pure truths of His
gospel. He kept it truly as it should be kept, as a great spiritual institution for man's good.
Thus He proved Himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath.
Because of His disregard of their traditional customs, the Jews hated Christ. They
hated Him so that eventually they occasioned, at the hands of the Romans, His death
upon the cross. Much of the Jews' hatred of Christ, and of His followers, was engendered
by their fear that He intended to bring about great changes in the Jewish religion. It was
to forestall and to allay these fears, as well as to declare Himself for eternity on the
question, that He said, in the Sermon on the Mount: “Think not that I am come to destroy
the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Matthew 5:17. Only the
temporary and traditional did Jesus change.
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