During an online Bible study group I was in a few months ago someone asked some key questions about the Sabbath that I wanted to bring up. It’s usually the case that when one person is wondering something that it’s become a question in other people’s minds as well, and there’s a group of people grappling with the question, so I decided to make an article about it to share what I found in the scriptures.
These aren’t exact quotes, but he basically asked, “Is it really that specific day – the seventh – that is holy, or was it a common day that God made holy?” “Is there any holiness in the day itself, or does the holiness come alone from God declaring it holy?” “Could God have blessed another day besides the seventh and made it holy?” “Is the Sabbath being on the seventh day even a moral issue, or is the moral issue just that we rest one day a week?” The person was having a hard time understanding how the actual day could be a moral issue and why that would matter at all.
They saw the moral issue being that we need to take out time for God each week to commune with Him. That any day could potentially work, and that because God blessed the seventh day this is the day we should keep, but the day itself doesn’t really matter and God could have blessed another day and had that been the case, then we’d need to keep that day instead.
The day itself wasn’t a moral issue in his mind, just the fact that we rest and worship God every week.
Hypothetical Situation
Let’s go back to the start of creation…Could God have created the world in six days, rested the seventh but not made it holy, and then blessed Tuesday as the Sabbath and made Tuesday holy? Or Wednesday, or Thursday, etc.?
Or how about later on. Could God have written in the Bible that the Sabbath was Saturday, up until the time of the New Testament, and, around the time the book of Acts was being written given John a vision that the Sabbath had been changed from Saturday to Tuesday? Then John would record the new Sabbath in the scriptures, and the believers would have kept Tuesday from then on. Does God have the authority to do this? Is having this kind of power what it means for God to be divine and to be God?
Of course, we know that the little horn power does not have authority to change times and laws, to make Sunday holy in place of Saturday. The little horn/the beast power is not God. But does God have authority to change his own times and laws?
Does God Have the Authority to Change His Own Times and Laws?
A current events issue that is causing uproar and shock among Catholics worldwide is the pope’s new official statements that same-sex unions, as long as the two people are not officially married, are sanctioned by the church. For thousands of years popes declared homosexuality to be a sin, now suddenly it’s not. As Catholics have watched LGBT become accepted in their cultures and same-sex marriage written into the civil laws in America, many of them took solace in the fact they were sure homosexuality would always be wrong in the eyes of their church. They saw this as a comfort and strength to them during a time of increasing iniquity.
But the beliefs of their church have always been that the pope has more authority than the scriptures, and can interpret it any way that seems right to him.
This is one of the biggest – if not the greatest – difference between Protestantism and Catholicism, the authority of the scriptures. The belief in sola scriptura – that the Bible alone has supreme authority – is a distinctly Protestant belief and the Catholic Church does not ascribe to it at all, placing the authority of the pope and of the traditions of the church in a higher place than the Bible. This is why it’s not out-of-alignment with Catholicism for the pope to sanction a union that has been seen as a sin for thousands of years. He is believed to have this authority to interpret the scriptures.
This is a big chance for conscientious Catholics around the world to come face-to-face with what their church really believes, and to see that it logically leads to the pope having authority to re-interpret the moral law and declare sin to be something other than popes of the past declared it to be. The definition of sin can actually fluctuate and even completely change in Catholicism.
Satan Himself who is behind all false religions lies. Jesus called him the father of lies. This means Satan can contradict himsellf, as well as oppose God. He can vacillate and change his position and his arguments. This of course makes him untrustworthy and inconsistent. It’s not a good character trait at all; it’s evil and sin. The pope and the Catholic Church is like him, and can also change their position. More than just a strategic move, changing like this indicates an immoral character.
Is God like the Pope?
But is God like the pope? Does God change too, He just has the authority to do it so it’s lawful and right when He does it?
Is something good because God says it’s good, and something is a sin because God declares it to be a sin, and if God chooses to change His mind and make – say lying no longer a sin tomorrow, would lying then be holy and ok from that point on?
The Bible teaches that God’s character is the standard of goodness. Meaning there is a standard. It’s not true that no standard exists and God can do anything. God’s character – God Himself – is the standard and God always acts consistently with His own character. The Bible says God “cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). That “God cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). That there is no unrighteousness in Him at all (Psalm 92:15). That He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8). This means God does not vacillate or change. That He could not and would never declare something that is a sin to be holy, or something holy to be a sin. The Ten Commandment moral law is eternal, because it has existed eternally in the character of a changeless God.
God’s character is the opposite of what we’re seeing from the pope right now. And let’s pray that conscientious Catholics around the world will hunger and thirst for the true God, the one who can give them peace and truth and security, one who is righteous and never changes. One who can give them what the pope cannot and has never been able to give.
So, could God have blessed Tuesday and made it holy? Asking this question is like asking if we went all the way back to creation, could God have created Adam and another man, and given them to each other in marriage and blessed it? Could God have defined marriage as between two men – as long as He did so at the very beginning of things?
The answer is no. As explained previously God’s authority doesn’t give Him the right to do absolutely anything without restriction; He must be consistent with His own character. He is restricted from doing evil and immorality. And due to the biological attributes and make-up of what makes someone a man, God cannot put two men together and bless it.
Could God Have Created Two Men to Be Together in Marriage, if He Did So at the Start of Creation?
Men and woman together in union represent the mysterious union of the Father and Son. Just as the Father and Son are one, the man and the woman become one flesh in marriage. Just as the Father and Son are both God, but distinctly different in their roles in the Godhead, men and women are both in the image of God and both fully equal persons, operating in distinctive roles in the marriage and in the family that mirror the Father and Son’s roles in the Godhead.
What this means is a man and a woman in a marriage union together show the truth about the Godhead. They depict something holy and bring honor to God in thus doing. A man and a man together in a union would be an abomination; and show a perversion of the image of God in man. This would dishonor God rather than glorify Him. This is the biggest reason why same-sex couples are a sin; they are a perversion of a depiction of God that is holy. When you do the opposite of something holy, you get something unholy. This is the nature of right and wrong. The unholiness of the union also drags those who engage in this sin down and degrades them, giving them misery. No one can be happy living in sin, not having their sins washed by the blood of Jesus, and not turning from sin and living a life of obedience to God. Same sex sin is a particularly dark sin that has a strong negative impact on the people that engage in it, stripping them of purity and innocence in a big way. Making their hearts especially hard towards God.
Just as God cannot define marriage as anything other than a man and a woman, because of the biological nature of men and women- the fact they mirror aspects of the Godhead in their biological design – so He also could not bless any other day other than the seventh as the Sabbath, due to the nature of that day.
God can’t do anything immoral, and it would be immoral to bless Thursday as the holy rest day, when God worked on that day. He made fish and birds on Thursday, thus it would not only not make sense to make Thursday the holy rest day, but it would also be immoral to choose that day.
The seventh day was the day that came after all God’s work was done. It was the day when God rested and enjoyed the work of His hands. It’s the only day that is morally right for God to bless and make holy.
It’s also true that God knew we needed six working days in which to do our labor. That this was the right amount. And that we needed one day every seven days to be a completely spiritual day where we devote ourselves to the official worship of God in a corporate setting, to the study of the scriptures and the fellowship of the believers in the direct Presence of God. This regular time for spiritual refreshment was needed even in a perfect world when Adam and Eve had perfect bodies and never tired. Communion with God was needed, and time for reflection and refreshment, because as a principle these things are important to the Christian, and written into the design of man as a necessity, just as labor and work are a necessity, even in a perfect world.
Just as we need Independence Day every year in order to keep the love of our country and its freedoms alive in the hearts of Americans, and if Independence Day was celebrated only every 20 years this would not have the same effect, so God knew a weekly memorial in which to remember Him as the Creator was needed in order to keep our love and reverence for Him alive in our hearts.
This is why God couldn’t have created the world in 30 days and rested on the 31st day and made the 31st day the Sabbath, or something like this. Had God done so, it would have resulted in Adam and Eve losing their spiritual experience with God. Going too many days without a Sabbath would have robbed them of the close communion with God that they needed for spiritual life.
The Day is a Moral Issue
Everything about the creation was done in the morally right way, according to God’s holy law, and the inherent nature of the things He was creating, and of God Himself.
The Sabbath had to be the seventh day in order for it to be the morally right thing to do for God to bless it. It would not have been morally right for God to bless the fifth day or the sixth day – or any other day besides the seventh. The Sabbath is definitely a moral issue, just as the seventh Commandment – and all the others – are moral issues.
It is also true that the Sabbath was made holy by God’s direct blessing and authority. It didn’t become holy on its own. Only God can make something holy. God blessed and made the right day holy.