Reflections on the Christian Sabbath: Part One

This piece first appeared in Presbyterian Polity (https://pcapolity.com/2026/09/15/reflections-on-the-christian-sabbath-part-one/) It is published here with permission from the author and Presbyterian Polity.

The Sabbath is the most controversial of the Ten Commandments in the Evangelical church. Most Evangelicals do not believe that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. Some even argue that Sunday worship is not divinely appointed, but prudentially chosen as the most practical day of the week for worship. Historically, Presbyterians in the United States have held a high view of the Christian Sabbath. The 1853 General Assembly of the Old School Presbyterian Church expressed this general sentiment when it said, “A Church without the Sabbath is apostate; a people who habitually desecrate this Divine Institution have abandoned one of the grand foundations of social order and political freedom.”^[1] For the Christian Church to ignore the Fourth Commandment was akin to them ignoring any other commandments in the moral law—which would lead to rebellion and apostasy. Furthermore, because the Fourth Commandment is part of the moral law, it is essential for good order in society. This was not lost on Early Americans who believed in the importance of Sabbath laws. One notable, albeit surprising example, is Thomas Jefferson who framed a bill that was introduced into the Virginia General Assembly by James Madison and enacted in November 1786. Entitled “A Bill for Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship and Sabbath Breakers” (Bill No. 84), the bill protected the “minister of the gospel” from disturbance by both civil officers and citizens during his preaching. In addition, it prohibited citizens from working on Sunday. It said:

“If any person on Sunday shall himself be found laboring at his own or any other trade or calling, or shall employ his apprentices, servants, or slaves in labour, or other business, except it be in the ordinary household offices of daily necessity, or other work of necessity or charity, he shall forfeit the sum of ten shillings for every such offence” (Section 3).^[2]

Even someone like Jefferson understood the importance of a Sabbath day of rest for all the citizens of Virginia. It was vital to order society in this way because God had naturally endowed men with a sense of the necessity for weekly rest from their labor. However, with the rise of an industrial economy at the expense of the agrarian lifestyle in the nineteenth century, the Sabbath became more difficult to enforce at the civil level and, even worse, individual Christians forsook the practice—despite what they professed. R. L. Dabney observed this, writing:

Strict Protestants usually profess in theory the views once peculiar to Presbyterians, and admit that the proper observance of the Sabbath is a bulwark of practical Christianity. But their practice does not always correspond with their theory. In actual life there is, among good people, a great uncertainty, with a corresponding confusion of usages, from great laxity up to the sacred strictness of our pious forefathers. It is greatly to be feared that those in the church who tolerate this laxity are increasing in numbers and influence. The civil law, which guarantees the Sabbath rest to all as a secular benefit and right, is enforced with more and more difficulty, especially in populous places; and this law is disregarded with increasing boldness by powerful corporations and by those who offer amusements and sensual enjoyments to the public. Hence the wisest friends of truth and good have taken the alarm.^[3]

Dabney noted that it wasn’t only Presbyterians, but other Protestants that admitted the Sabbath was the bulwark of practical Christianity despite their inconsistent practice. The bitter fruit of what occurred in Dabney’s day has arrived. Generally speaking, conservative Protestants still don’t observe the Christian Sabbath as Dabney noted in his own day; but today their profession has caught up—they no longer believe they are obligated to. To make things worse, many Presbyterians in the pews no longer believe it is important to observe the Sabbath (outside of the morning worship service) and ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) often state differences with the Westminster Standards on aspects of the Sabbath, to the point where it is common for PCA presbyteries to grant exceptions to matters pertaining to Sabbath practice.  

The purpose of this article (and its follow-up in Part Two) will be to offer some comments on why Presbyterians believe in the Christian Sabbath. Part Three will offer some thoughts on how we can do better at retrieving the practice in our own lives.

Why We Believe in the Christian Sabbath:

The Fourth Commandment

Exodus 20:8-11 says:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 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. 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.”

Take notice of several important truths in this text: 1) God commands His people to remember the day and to set it apart (keep it holy). To “remember” communicates a two-fold purpose. God’s people are to remember in the sense of recalling what God did at creation, which is mentioned in v. 11. And they are to remember in the sense of preparing for the day. To “remember” an important day is not to passively reflect on the day[4], but it is to prepare and order all other affairs for the coming of the day.  2). God commands His people to cease from their ordinary labors. This goes for everyone—from the head of the household all the way to the servants, sojourners, and livestock. It is a day that is set apart for rest from our worldly employments. 3) Finally, the basis of the commandment according to v. 11 is God’s work at creation. As God worked for six days and then ceased from His work on the seventh, so God’s people are to imitate Him in working for six days and resting on the seventh.

In Deuteronomy 5:12-14, Moses reiterates the Fourth Commandment, saying:

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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.

Notably, God says that the commandment was to be kept as “a Sabbath to the LORD your God.” The Sabbath was when God’s people ceased from their ordinary labor, but it was not meant to be a day of idle rest. Instead, it was to be a day set apart and devoted entirely to the Lord. It was a day for the Lord—a holy day. The Bible speaks of other holy things and people. For example, in Exodus 40:9 God says:

“Then you shall take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and all that is in it, and consecrate it and all its furniture, so that it may become holy. You shall also anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and consecrate the altar, so that the altar may become most holy.  You shall also anoint the basin and its stand, and consecrate it. Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall wash them with water and put on Aaron the holy garments. And you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priest.  You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them, and anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations.”

The tabernacle, furniture, altar, utensils, basin, and its stand were all objects that were consecrated. Additionally, Aaron and his sons were consecrated. These objects became holy things; the men became holy men. And all of this was in the context of worship. They were consecrated for the purpose of worship. The same is true of the Sabbath day. It was a day that was set apart or consecrated for worship. This is evidenced in the fact that some of the psalms in the Psalter—the hymnbook of Israel’s worship—were written for the Sabbath (Psalm 92). Furthermore, Israel worshipped God in the synagogues during the intertestamental period on the Sabbath, and we see Jesus engaging in this practice when he took up the law and read it in the synagogue (Luke 4:16-30). Thus, we see that God’s people under the old covenant both ceased from their worldly affairs and devoted the day to the worship of God on the Sabbath.

Creation Ordinance

Most evangelicals have been taught that the Sabbath was only relevant to God’s people under the old covenant, and since it was a sign of the Mosaic Covenant, it was abrogated with the passing of that covenant. However, Presbyterians reject this view because the Sabbath command was not something brand new at Sinai, but it was established at the beginning of creation.

Note again that Exodus 20:11 points back to creation. Genesis 2:2-3 says God created all things in the space of six days and then rested. While there has been debate in the church regarding the meaning of these “days,” it is also reasonable to ask why God chose to create in six days. God could have created all things in one day. He could have created all things in one minute. However, he chose six days to establish a principle. The principle for man to follow was to labor for six days and rest for one. Genesis 2:3 says, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” If God’s rest on the seventh day was not to establish a pattern for mankind to follow, then for whom did God bless the seventh day and for whom did he set it apart? In fact a parallel emerges in Genesis 2 between marriage and the Sabbath. Just as the woman (Eve) being brought to the man (Adam) established a pattern of man leaving “his father and mother” and holding “fast to his wife” (Gen. 2:24), so God resting on the seventh day established a pattern for man’s rest on the seventh day (Gen. 2:3).

Thus, the Reformed argue that because the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, it was in effect from Adam to Moses. That doesn’t mean, however, that all of the patriarchs kept the ordinance faithfully. The lack of faithful Sabbath-keeping between Adam to Moses doesn’t negate its creational origins any more than the practice of polygamy negates the establishment of monogamy by God. It is possible that the practice of Sabbath keeping among God’s people was forgotten during their time as slaves in Egypt. Regardless, the lack of any mention of the practice, nor the lack of obedience to the practice, doesn’t negate the establishment of it in Genesis 2:2-3. As John Murray observed:

“The silence of Genesis subsequent to Genesis 2:2-3 proves nothing as to the neglect of the institution during patriarchal times, nor does it prove ignorance of the ordinance on the part of the patriarchs. But even if we suppose that the remembrance of this institution did pass away and that the patriarchs did not observe the weekly Sabbath, it is no more difficult to explain this lapse from the creation ordinance than it is to explain the lapse from the principles of monogamy so clearly implied in Genesis 2:24. It is precarious to base too much on silence. But even if the silence indicates declension, ignorance, and non-observance, this does not remove the creation ordinance nor does it disestablish its binding obligation.”^[5]

Thus, even if there wasn’t evidence of Sabbath keeping before Sinai, it is only an argument from silence and doesn’t negate the fact that God established the practice at creation. However, there is an account of God’s people observing the Sabbath prior to Sinai. In Exodus 16:22-26 we read:

“On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’”  So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”

The Israelites were required by God to gather twice as much as they would need on the sixth day because the seventh was a “holy Sabbath to the LORD.” However, we learn that some did not listen to the instruction and went out to gather food on the Sabbath. The Lord rebukes them in Exodus 16:27-30, saying:

“On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.  And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?  See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.”  So the people rested on the seventh day.”

The implication in this passage is that God’s people should have known about this commandment. In other words, this commandment wasn’t new. If the Sabbath was not instituted until Sinai, it is odd for God to be rebuking them for a commandment that he had yet to establish. On the other hand, if the Sabbath was an old command, rooted in creation, then this rebuke makes perfect sense. In fact, the most plausible explanation of this passage is that God had established this commandment at creation but because of the Israelites’ time in Egypt, they had either completely forgotten or completely relaxed the Sabbath command.

By the time we come to Sinai, we see that the Sabbath commandment becomes part of Israel’s national law code and a sign of the Mosaic Covenant. But none of these actions negate the fact that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance that is perpetually binding on God’s creation. The Sabbath being codified in Israel’s law as a nation doesn’t negate the Sabbath’s perpetuity any more than the commandment to not murder, commit adultery, or worship false gods.

In part two, we will look at the Sabbath and the New Covenant as well as offer a brief response to an anticipated objection from the New Testament.

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[1] General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Old School) 1853 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1853), 435.

[2] Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, eds., The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press, 2009), 251–52.

[3] Discussions by Robert L. Dabney, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Texas, and for Many Years Professor of Theology in Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Vol. I: Theological and Evangelical, ed. C. R. Vaughan (Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1890), 1:496.

[4] Ask your spouse with trepidation if that is what “remembering” means when it comes to your wedding anniversary.

[5] John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957), 30–31