The Lighted Way

Part 6: What Day Did Jesus Keep Holy?
Jesus Christ should be the Example to every Christian. Our actions would be well-governed if we patterned them only after His. For this reason, if we are examining the full evidence regarding the Seventh-day Sabbath, we must view the life of Jesus as powerful testimony.

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Luke tells us that Jesus kept the Seventh-day Sabbath. Yet he even goes farther in identifying whether this was an occasional thing or a constant thing...

1) What word does Luke use to tell us that Jesus was in the HABIT of keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath? ( Luke 4:16)

Maybe Christ was just keeping the Sabbath to make the Jews happy... You know, not stir up trouble? Well, firstly, this is far out of character. He used to heal people on the Sabbath more than any other day - making the Jewish leaders VERY angry. And if there's any one thing Jesus DID it was ROCK THE BOAT. His teachings, His life, His miracles, all of it flew in the face of all that the religious leaders taught the people - thus they finally crucified Him.

Still, maybe He played conformist on the Sabbath issue only.

2) What does Jesus say of Himself regarding the Sabbath? ( Matthew 12:8)

You may still ask, "Would Jesus have kept the Seventh day out of respect for Jewish custom?" Lets address this question Biblically.

3) Jesus and His followers were not known for following human traditions. What did they do instead? ( Acts 17:6)

Jesus' actions show that He came to TEACH the people about the Sabbath rather than GO ALONG with tradtions.

At the time of Christ, the Jewish leaders had made stringent rules regarding the Sabbath. It had made the Sabbath a burden rather than a delight. However, even in this, they still made room for greed. One example is that of a sheep. It was a law that if a sheep wandered onto another man's property and fell into a pit on the other man's land, the current owner would loose his ownership after 24 hours of the sheep's absence. Thus, if a sheep remained in the pit for one full day, it now belonged to the one who owned the land with the pit.

Oddly, the Jewish leaders counted it high treason to ease a human's suffering on the Sabbath, but what about sheep?

4) What did the Jews teach regarding a sheep in a pit on the Sabbath? ( Matthew 12:11-12)

Throughout His life on earth, Christ made no pretense of following the traditions of men.

5) Did Jesus keep the commandments of God (including the 4th - Sabbath)? ( John 15:10)

For many, the fact that Jesus kept the Sabbath commandment is still not convincing evidence that we should keep it. This is largely because we are often taught the 10 commandments were nailed to the cross. If this is true, we would expect that the disciples and the early Christian church must have immediately stopped keeping Saturday - or at least they would have stopped at some point after the resurrection.

We would also assume that you wouldn't find the ten commandments in the New Testament portion of the Bible. In our next study, we will find the commandments in the New Testament, as well as look at the early Christian church to learn what day they still kept.

Do you have any further questions at this time?