Ariel HaNaviy Messianic Jew and Torah Teacher with Messianic Congregation 'The Harvest'

I want to answer the questions in reverse order of how they were asked.

Q: Do Christians have to observe the Sabbath day?
A: As covenant-bound believers in Yeshua (Jesus), and bona fide members in Isra'el, yes, the Torah applies to them. They should be observing the God-given seventh-day Sabbath instead of (or better yet, along with) the man-made replacement called Sunday.

Q: What day is the Sabbath, Saturday or Sunday?
A: Sabbath is Saturday. Despite its age, if we are to take God’s Word as trustworthy in its original autograph then we can be sure that the biblical Sabbath has been preserved as our modern seventh-day Saturday, based on at least 3500 years of reliable records-keeping and based on an accurate historical, grammatical understanding of the ancient near-Eastern tradition as a whole. 

According to Old Testament Hebrew reckoning from time immemorial, and in keeping with ancient and Jewish practices, the days of the week are not named but instead are merely numbered, the Sabbath day being the only exception. When, no later than the second century, the Roman government decided to give the days of the week names, surprisingly our modern English-named day ‘Saturday’ has survived as the only day that retains its original connection to ancient Roman mythology; the other days’ modern names find their roots in Germanic polytheism. 

God established the universal seven-day weekly cycle in Genesis chapter one. This same God entrusted Moses with transmitting this information to greater Isra'el and eventually to her written Torah (Law). This same Torah was verified as accurate for 1500 years of Jewish history until the time that Jesus Christ walked the Earth. Within a few hundred years the emerging Christian Church picked up and continued this accurate transmission of Truth right down to this very day. 

While not entirely accurate all the time, but nevertheless helpful, Wikipedia has this to say about the weekdays as being numbered from Saturday: 

“For the majority of the Abrahamic religions the first day of the week is Sunday. Biblical Sabbath (originally corresponding to Saturday), when God rested from six-day Creation, made the day following Sabbath the first day of the week (corresponding to Sunday). Seventh-day Sabbaths were sanctified for celebration and rest. After the week was adopted in early Christian Europe, Sunday remained the first day of the week, but also gradually displaced Saturday as the day of celebration and rest, being considered the Lord's Day. The change of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday has no biblical foundation.”

An additional article from Wikipedia on Saturday has this record: 

“In Jewish Law, Saturday is the seventh day of the week, called Shabbat. Thus, in many languages the Saturday is named after the Sabbath. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches distinguish between Saturday (Sabbath) and the Lord's Day (Sunday). Some Protestants call Sunday the Sabbath (see Sabbath in Christianity). Quakers traditionally refer to Saturday as "Seventh Day," eschewing the "pagan" origin of the name. In Islamic countries, Fridays are holidays, but they are considered as the sixth day of the week.”

Conclusions: Despite the obvious religious differences between Judaism and Christianity, both institutions do in fact agree that the [Old Testament] Scriptures are reliable, accurate, and trustworthy in their original autographs—and this includes the seventh-day Sabbath identity.

September 02 2015 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report

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