IS THE CHURCH THE BODY OF CHRIST COMMANDED TO OBSERVE THE SABBATH AND KEEP IT HOLY?
How many times have I heard well meaning Christians say, keep the Sabbath holy, without fully understanding what they say or affirm. It still remains a mystery to me, as to why Gentile Christians are so enamoured with the law of Moses. It is as though they've never read their Bibles which clearly states that we are not under law but under grace. Have we not yet come to an understanding that even when the law of Moses was in effect, it was never legally binding upon the Gentiles? Why are we trying to observe a commandment that was given to the nation of Israel under the law of Moses that is no longer applicable in the present dispensation of grace?
Let us take a look at the law of the Sabbath. Deuteronomy 5 beginning in verse 12. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. Under the law of Moses the Sabbath was observed on Saturdays and it was set aside as a day of rest for the nation of Israel in which no work could be done. If anyone even dared to break this commandment they would be put to death by stoning. It never ceases to amaze me how as Christians we like to claim certain promises and practices in the Bible but we selectively eliminate the consequences that accompany them.
If you are going to observe the Sabbath as dispentionally wrong as that is in itself, then be consistent with it. If you are going to keep the law of Moses then you will have to keep it perfectly and the moment you break one, you have broken them all and stands a sinner condemned before a Holy righteous God. ( James 2 beginning in verse 10: For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law). I know that there are Churches such as the seventh Day Adventist that observes the Sabbath, but no where in Paul's letters to the Gentiles does he ever tells us to observe any holy days. Colossians 2 starting in verse 16. So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. We are living under grace and we should not observe Jewish laws and customs as means of pleasing God. Christ is the substance, we are complete in Him. As members of the body of Christ, we gather to worship on the first day of the week, remembering Jesus's resurrection