The Westminster Shorter Catechism

Q59. Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?

A. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the
seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week ever since,
to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.[1]

Proofs

[1] Genesis 2:2–3; 1 Corinthians 16:1–2; Acts 20:7.

Comments

Seventh Day Adventists insist that Christians should observe the Sabbath on Saturday, like the Jews. Antinomians insist that the Lord’s Day and the Sabbath are different days: The Sabbath is Jewish and abrogated, and the Lord’s Day is not to be regulated by the Fourth Commandment. We have shown that the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment is moral, perpetual and universal. But how would we respond to the Adventists and the Antinomians?

Our response is that the Lord’s Day is the Sabbath Day: the day has been changed from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week. We note, first of all, that the Fourth Commandment does not teach us that the Sabbath is to be observed on Saturday. It teaches us, rather, that one day in seven is to be observed as the Sabbath. The day of the Sabbath is to be indicated by God by a separate positive command. When the Sabbath was first instituted at the end of the Creation Week, God indicated that the last day of the week was to be the Sabbath, by ‘resting’ on the seventh day (Gen 2:3).

When the Jews were in captivity in Egypt the day, in order, was probably forgotten, because Egypt operated on a 10-day week. So, when the Lord brought the Jews out of Egypt, He indicated the day on which they were to observe the Sabbath (which had been forgotten), by a double portion of manna on the day before the Sabbath (Ex 16:23). This day was very probably the seventh day in order from the beginning of creation as the Fourth Commandment referred to God resting after His work of creation.

However, when the Fourth Commandment was repeated in the second giving of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy chapter 5, the reason appended for keeping the Sabbath was no more the creation, but redemption from Egypt (Deut 5:14–15). The redemption of the Jews from Egypt is of course a type of the redemption of the Church from the bondage of sin and Satan (Lk 1:68–75). This anticipated the next positive indication by God to change the day of the Sabbath to another day. This new day was prophesied in Psalm 118:22–24: “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” The day the rejected stone become head stone is the day of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord was raised on the first day of the week. His resurrection pointed to His resting from suffering works. The writer of Hebrews compares the redemptive rest of Christ with the creation rest of God to indicate not only a switch in the day when we should observe the Sabbath, but a change in the main commemorative reason for keep the Sabbath: “For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works [of creation].… There remaineth therefore a rest [Greek: sabbatismos—‘sabbath rest’] to the people of God. For he [Christ] that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works [of Redemption], as God did from his [of creation]” (Heb 4:4, 9–10).

The Lord further confirmed that this should be the day to worship Him by appearing, after His resurrection, to His disciples always on the First Day of the week (e.g., Jn 20:1, 19, 26). The disciples began to worship on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:1–2), and soon the day was known as the “Lord’s Day” (Rev 1:10).

It is to remind ourselves that the Lord’s Day is the same as the sabbath day referred to in the Fourth commandment, that we call it “the Christian Sabbath.”