Bible Synapse

Must the Sabbath still be kept?

Hard question · Salvation and the Christian life · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate

Different times, different covenants
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The passages

Exodus 20:8–10

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; the seventh day is a Sabbath on which no work is to be done.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

Exodus 31:13–17

The Sabbath is a sign between God and Israel and a perpetual covenant; whoever works on it is to be put to death.

Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

Mark 2:27–28

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Romans 14:5–6

One person esteems one day above another, another every day alike; let each be fully persuaded in his own mind.

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.

Colossians 2:16–17

Let no one judge you about holy days, new moons or Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

The objection

The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments, called “a perpetual covenant” and enforced with the death penalty. Yet Paul says that one person esteems one day above another while another esteems every day alike, and he tells the Colossians not to let anyone judge them about Sabbath days. Must Christians still keep the Sabbath?

The answer

The law itself describes the Sabbath as the sign of God’s covenant with Israel: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever” (Exodus 31:17), given “that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you” (31:13). Paul writes as an apostle of the new covenant, in which Gentiles are not placed under the law of Moses (Acts 15). He treats the special days of that law as shadows: they are “a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Colossians 2:17). Whether a believer keeps a day is a matter of conscience before the Lord, and neither side is to judge the other (Romans 14:5-6). Jesus had already said that “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”, and that he is “Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28), and Hebrews speaks of a rest that still remains for the people of God (4:9-10). Isaiah’s complaint about Sabbaths (Isaiah 1:13), like his words about sacrifice, is aimed at worship from people whose hands were full of blood.

Most Christians therefore read the passages as a change of covenant, not a contradiction: the commandment bound Israel under the covenant of which it was the sign, and the New Testament does not lay it on Gentile believers as a law. The first Christians gathered on the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2), which John calls “the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10). Other Christians hold that the commandment still binds, as set out below; all agree that the passages, rightly read, do not contradict each other.

Other answers Christians give

The Christian Sabbath

The Reformed and Puritan tradition (Westminster Confession, chapter 21) holds that the fourth commandment is moral and permanent, and that since the resurrection the day has moved to the first day of the week, the Christian Sabbath. On this view Colossians 2:16 refers to the ceremonial sabbaths of the feasts; Albert Barnes notes that Paul uses the plural, though others reply that the Greek plural is also used of the weekly Sabbath (as in Luke 4:16).

The seventh day

Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists hold that the seventh-day Sabbath, grounded in creation before Israel existed (Genesis 2:2-3), still binds all people, and that Colossians 2:16 concerns the ceremonial feast days rather than the weekly Sabbath.

Still open

Whether the Sabbath commandment still binds Christians, and if so on which day, is debated among Christians.

From the classic commentators

There is no evidence from this passage that he would teach that there was no obligation to observe any holy time, for there is not the slightest reason to believe that he meant to teach that one of the ten commandments had ceased to be binding on mankind.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Colossians 2, at Bible Hub
they should not regard or submit to any man's judgment, as to the observance of the ceremonial lawJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Colossians 2 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub

Sources

Further reading

Raised by: W. H. Burr, Self-Contradictions of the Bible (1860), EvilBible.com, The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. Only the verse references come from these lists.

Checked 2026-10-22. All hard questions