Yes, of course. Our society is living with this. Imagine we lack of them, how world would be. We as a Christian apply so much on this and have to stick on this for our daily living.
Suppose, we lack of “Honor Thy Father and Monther”, we become arrogant. There are many more… .
Blessings
[quote=“tisakson,
“We now have Sabbath rest with His death and resurrection freeing us from works unto salvation.” [/QUOTE
What works did you used to do that you no longer do?
There are many reasons the Decalogue does now, and always will, apply to Christians. I will list as many of them as I can remember, as briefly as possible.
Firstly, the 10 Commandments were spoken aloud by God Himself on Mt Sinai. The event was arguably the most dramatic and terrifying scene the earth has ever seen, next to the flood and the destruction of the cities of the plain. The very hearing of God’s voice by the Israelites, and “the others” present, was so terrifying they believed their hearts would fail them if God continued to speak, and God told Moses that they were correct. This is significant not only to support the notion that these Commandments were intended to be observed forever, but also to discredit the argument that ‘if we’re still expected to obey the 10, that means we should obey the entire 613’. This is nonsense. The 10 are the foundation of the Christian Faith.
Were they only intended for the Jews? No, they were intended for all mankind who would ever come to know and love the God of the Bible. Take a close look at Deut. 29:10-11 in a proper Bible translation. It specifies the “stranger” (non-Jew, non-Israelite) that was present with the Israelites at this time. So that nobody could argue otherwise, Moses makes very plain in Deut. 29:14-15 that this covenant of the 10 Commandments was intended not only for those that ‘stood WITH the Israelites’, but also those ‘who were not present’ at that time. This was spoken to make clear that God did not intend these Commandments to be obeyed only by a small, ancient group or race.
If this isn’t enough to convince, we can ignore all of it and just go right to the New Testament and see what Jesus had to say about it. Matt. 23:1-3 shows Jesus declaring that the Pharisees and scribes were hypocrites who taught the Law (10 Commandments), but did not obey them. Jesus said to ‘do as they say, but not as they do.’ He also says in Matt. 5:19-20 that the Commandments are to be obeyed AND taught. He also says that those who will be allowed into the Kingdom will be at least as righteous as the scribes and Pharisees. Again, these were the ones who taught the Law but did not obey it. Sadly, by this measure, most pastors today don’t even qualify for the Kingdom according to Jesus.
Jesus also says that He obeyed “all the Commandments of the Father (of the OT, the Decalogue)” John 15:10. 1 Jn. 2:6 tells us that if we profess to belong to Christ, we are to live and walk as He did. If Christ did not obey the 10 fully, He could not have been the sinless Lamb of God. We also see in 1 Jn. 3:4 that the very definition of ‘sin’ is the breaking of the Law, the 10 Commandments.
One of the most significant examples in Scripture to prove that we are still to obey the Commandments, including the 7th Day Sabbath, is found in Luke 23:54-56. It has been noted in this thread already. It shows God’s closest disciples, the first Christians, obeying the Sabbath ‘after’ the Crucifixion of Christ. We also see in Acts 21:24 Paul being called by the elders a “keeper of the Law”. This was around 30 years after Christ’s death and resurrection so it cannot be argued that this was before anyone knew/realized that the Commandments had been abrogated. That is nonsense, according to God’s Word.
God bless.
Jesus was the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe.
The law for Israel had several components. Included were activities to limit their forgetting God. Also included were elements to limit the harm they caused each other.There was also a small degree of righteousness that could be obtained.
When Jesus came we were introduce beyond a system that required us not to harm others but to seek the good for others.
The selfless love of Christ which should be our ambition is described as fulfilling the law. Christ should takes us beyond questions of what we are or are not allowed to do.
2Co 5:15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Believers who think Paul’s statements about being “freed from the law” mean they are no longer required to obey the Ten Commandments are misinterpreting his teachings
. While Paul emphasizes that salvation is achieved through grace and not by perfect adherence to the Law, he consistently upholds the moral principles found in the Ten Commandments as God’s righteous standard for Christian living.
The apparent contradiction can be clarified by understanding the distinction between different aspects of the Mosaic Law and the Christian’s new relationship to it.
The different purposes of the Law
Paul uses the term “the law” in various ways, referring to the entire Mosaic covenant, its moral principles, and its condemnation.
**The Law as a means of salvation:**The first aspect from which believers are freed is the idea that they must perfectly follow the Law to earn salvation. Paul’s argument is that human beings are incapable of this, and the Law was given to reveal sin, not to provide righteousness.
The Law’s condemnation: Before Christ, the Law exposed every transgression, pronouncing a curse on those who failed to keep it perfectly. Jesus redeemed believers from this curse by becoming a curse for them on the cross.
The moral Law (including the Ten Commandments): Paul affirms that the moral principles of the Law, including the Ten Commandments, remain holy, righteous, and good. He explicitly references and reinforces these standards in his letters to guide Christian conduct.
Evidence that freedom does not mean lawlessness
Paul consistently taught that grace does not give a believer license to sin. Instead, the Holy Spirit empowers believers to live out the moral principles of the Law.
Romans 3:31: Paul directly addresses this misunderstanding, stating, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law”.
Romans 6:1–2: Paul asks, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” This shows that freedom from the Law does not remove the moral expectation to avoid sin.
Romans 7:7, 12: Paul references the Tenth Commandment (“You shall not covet”) to explain how the Law reveals sin. He then clarifies that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good”.
Thanx @Steppingstone. Nice collection of great truths.
After over eighty comments on this thread it is obvious the idea of legal compliance to the law still lacks unity. You have tried to bring unity with your thoughtful comments, and for that I commend you.
God never said anything that he didn’t mean, and so I’m pretty certain if God writes something in stone, with his own divine finger (Ex 31:18), he intends for it to be lasting. The question before us is how are we, in the twenty-first century, to honor, obey, and internalize God’s divine word, written with His own divine finger, etched in stone? These “two tablets of the Testimony” are God’s revelation to mankind, testifying to feeble fallen minds who He is; these “commandments” reveal to us the very heart of God.
In Jesus’s famous “sermon”, given to his disciples on “the mount” (Matt. 5-7) He did not reduce, or repeal the laws of God, but instead moved their motivational center from our hands and feet into our hearts. In his famous “you have heard it said…. But I say to you…” series, Jesus was revealing that God would no longer accept outward compliance as the basis for a peaceful relationship with Him, but God was making it possible for us to follow His divine heart inwardly, not only in word and deed, but in Spirit, and in Truth (The kingdom of God was “at hand”). God had promised to do this through “The Messiah”, and Messiah Jesus was explaining this promise that we read in Ezekiel 36:26-27, where He said:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
Our relationship with God is based in love, honor, respect, and righteous integrity, not in compliance and duty. God made this deeper, eternal relationship possible; He fixed what we were incapable of, He opened the Way to have an intimate relationship with Him, not by following any set of rules, but by love. Now, rather than trying to “keep His commandments” we yield to love, to honoring His heart, to following HIm with our thoughts, words, deeds, intentions, and our feelings because we love Him and we know He loves us.
"Imagine, what kind of love it must be that The Father has lavished on us, the depth of Love that even makes it possible for us to be called “Sons of God” (1 Jn 3:1 paraphrase)
Thanx again
KP
From a panoramic viewpoint we see that the 10 Commandments (the 10 guiding principles of the 603 Laws that will follow) are divided into 2 obvious groupings: the first 4 commandments speak of man’s obligations to God, and the remaining 6 concern relationships among and between our fellow men. Please note something that I hope has become, or is becoming, apparent: NOWHERE in the 10 Commandments (or anywhere in the Law for that matter) does the issue of Salvation (as we think of it today) come up. The Law simply doesn’t deal with it BECAUSE that was never its primary purpose or function. And, despite what you might have been told, the Hebrews did NOT look to the Law for Salvation because it wasn’t there and they didn’t think it was there. So when we see Paul explaining that the Law was not able to save, he was simply telling his uninitiated gentile listeners NOT to go seeking out the Law as an alternative to do what ONLY the Messiah could do. Since Christ was a Jew, and it was ONLY within the religion and covenants of the Jews that the advent of a Messiah had any meaning at all, then it was the natural assumption of converted gentiles to mimic what the Jews did: obey the outward rituals of the Law. The problem is that Paul knew that (if they were not taught otherwise) the gentiles would mistakenly think that it was those acts and behaviors that brought them their Salvation. And when Paul was saying similar things to the Jews, he was simply telling these Hebrews that while obedience to the Law was good and important, the Messiah was doing something that obedience to the Law could never do.
It’s NOT that in the NT we have Paul, or Jesus, or any other writer saying that Christians should be antinomian (a 50 cent word meaning anti-Law). Rather it was that they should take advantage of Christ’s ministry for Salvation rather than mistakenly assume they had an option B, which was to obey a series of rules and laws in order to accomplish the same thing.
Look: when we come to Christ we don’t stop eating food. We don’t stop learning Scripture. Eating food doesn’t bring us Salvation, but that doesn’t make eating a bad thing. Learning Scripture doesn’t earn us Salvation, but studying the Word isn’t outdated and unnecessary once we have accepted Salvation. Rather each of these acts has an ongoing purpose; we eat because our physical bodies requirement physical nourishment. We read Scripture so that once we have been redeemed by faith in Yeshua we give our minds and souls spiritual nourishment, and so that we know what our expected response to God’s grace and favor towards us is. Christ says He is the Bread of Life: but no one would seriously take that to mean that as Saved People we no longer need to eat food. He also says that the Torah will be written on our hearts; but that in no way meant that we are to stop learning God’s ways from His written Word. In the same way when we, in faith, accept Yeshua as our Savior we don’t now turn against the very rules and ordinances that the Lord set up to demonstrate His character and to instruct us on how to live the redeemed life.
Great, great post @Steppingstone !
The term Ten Commandments is never found in the New Testament. Nine of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:1–17 are repeated in the New Testament in one way or another. The only one not repeated in the New Testament is the fourth, the one about Sabbath-keeping.
In summarizing our moral responsibilities to one another, Jesus repeats four of the Ten Commandments to the young ruler in Mark 10:17–19. Paul references the Decalogue a number of times in his epistles. Sometimes, he is explicit in reciting some of the commandments, as he does in Romans 13:9. Other times, he references them implicitly, like in 1 Timothy 1:8–10: “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers [5th and 6th commandments], for murderers [6th commandment] and immoral men and homosexuals [7th commandment] and kidnappers [8th commandment] and liars and perjurers [9th commandment], and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching” (NASB). So, the moral directives embodied in the Ten Commandments are repeated for us, even if we are free from the letter of the law.
Here are the Ten Commandments and where they are found in the New Testament:
Do not worship any other gods (1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Timothy 2:5)
Do not make idols (1 John 5:21)
Do not misuse the name of the Lord (1 Timothy 6:1)
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. (There are many references to the Sabbath day in the New Testament, including the assumption that Jews under the law in the time of Christ would be observing the Sabbath. But there is no direct or indirect command for believers in the church age to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest or of worship. In fact, Colossians 2:16 releases the believer from the Sabbath rule. Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, has become for us our Sabbath rest, according to Hebrews 4:1–11.)
Honor your father and your mother (Ephesians 6:1–2)
Do not murder (Romans 13:9; 1 Peter 4:15)
Do not commit adultery (1 Corinthians 6:9–10)
Do not steal (Ephesians 4:28)
Do not give false testimony (Revelation 21:8)
Do not covet (Colossians 3:5)
The Old Testament law defined sin (Romans 7:7) and brought an awareness of sin (Romans 3:20). Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law on our behalf (Matthew 5:17), and none of the Old Testament law is binding on Christians today. When Jesus died on the cross, He put an end to the Old Testament law (Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23–25; Ephesians 2:15). Christ precipitated a transition between the Old Covenant and the New. He is, in fact, the One who ratified the New Covenant. One writer explains it this way:
Jesus came to fulfill what “the old” anticipated and to usher in a new covenant and fundamentally new era of history. His followers would not be under the previous administration that had guarded God’s people since Moses. Jesus himself says he did not come to destroy the Law and Prophets, but to do something even more striking: fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). That is, fulfill like prophecy. Not simply keep the Ten in place, or remain under them, or leave them untouched, but fulfill them—first in his own person, and then by his Spirit in his church. He came not to cast off Moses, but to fulfill Jeremiah, and in doing so, he accomplished what is even more radical: establishing himself as the supreme authority, putting God’s law within his people (rather than on tablets), writing it on their hearts (rather than stone), and making all his people to know him (Jeremiah 31:31–34).
(Matthis, D., “Lord of All the Law,” www.desiringgod.org, 6/7/24, accessed 9/12/24).
Christians are not under the Law of Moses, of which the Decalogue is a part, but they are under the law of Christ (see Galatians 5—6). We are to love God and love people (Matthew 22:36–40). If we’re living in the Spirit, we will be doing just that. We won’t violate God’s moral character. Following the commands “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” etc., are obvious ways of loving God and loving others. And we will have the fruit of the Spirit, “against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:23, NKJV). In other words, the qualities the Holy Spirit produces in our lives perfectly conform with God’s law and display His holy character.
Are the Ten Commandments repeated in the New Testament? | GotQuestions.org.
J.
I actually agree. This is why I teach the Ten Commandments every January. Of course, they are relevant today. As some pointed out here in this discussion, Jesus summed them all up with two.
"And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:35-40
Have no other God before God, obviously. Love your neighbor as yourself? You will Honor, love, not murder, steal from, etc. As for this.
Remember what Jesus said.
“And he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27
It was given to us for a day of rest. Now, are we under a law not to walk 2,000 cubits, which is about 2/3 of a mile or 1 kilometer? No. Are we restricted to being inside from sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday? No. But to take the Sabbath for its original intent, faith, family, and rest, in this 24/7 society. I think God would approve. However, I do not think you are under the law to do so.
Peter
Appreciate the Scriptures @PeterC it is the exegesis of it I find troublesome.
Jesus is not commanding Christians to become Sabbath keepers in ~Mark 2:27, He is correcting Pharisees who weaponised the Sabbath and turned it into a burden, and the entire context of ~Mark 2 and ~Mark 3 shows Him asserting His messianic authority over the Sabbath as the Son of Man, not placing Christians under Mosaic observance.
The line the Sabbath was made for man uses the Greek anthrōpos for mankind in general, pointing to God’s intention in ~Genesis 2 where rest was a gift, not a legal chain, yet in the flow of redemptive history that gift becomes a shadow, and the shadow finds its fulfillment in Christ according to ~Colossians 2 where Paul says let no one judge you regarding Sabbaths because they are a shadow and the substance belongs to Christ, meaning the rest principle is fulfilled in Him, not maintained as a binding legal sign over the new covenant church.
The Sabbath command was the sign of the Mosaic covenant in ~Exodus 31 where God says it is a sign between me and Israel throughout your generations, and a covenant sign given to Israel cannot be lifted out of its covenant framework and imposed on the new covenant community that is sealed by the Spirit through faith in the crucified Christ according to ~Ephesians 1 where hearing and believing produce sealing, not Sabbath keeping.
Jesus declares Himself Lord of the Sabbath in ~Mark 2, and the Greek kurios picks up His divine authority and signals that He has the right to redefine the Sabbath for His people, and He does so by offering rest of soul in ~Matthew 11 where He says come to me and I will give you rest with the verb anapausō for giving rest, showing that the true Sabbath rest is entered by faith in Him, not by ritual observance.
The writer of Hebrews says in ~Hebrews 4 that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, and the term sabbatismos refers to the final rest secured by Christ’s finished work, and the chapter argues that those who believe enter that rest now, with the verb eiserchometha functioning in the present tense, meaning believers enter the real Sabbath through faith, not through the Mosaic sign.
Nowhere in the Berean Bible do the apostles command Gentile Christians to keep the Sabbath, not one, and when the Jerusalem council in ~Acts 15 addressed Gentile believers they did not list Sabbath keeping among the necessary instructions, even though that council dealt directly with the question of what parts of the law apply to Gentile Christians.
Paul gathers the church on the first day of the week in ~Acts 20 and instructs giving on the first day of the week in ~1 Corinthians 16, signaling the new covenant pattern of worship that celebrates the resurrection of Christ, and the resurrection shifts the rhythm of worship from the seventh day to the first day without mandating a new legal Sabbath.
So ~Mark 2:27 does not teach Christian Sabbath observance, it teaches that Jesus frees the Sabbath from Pharisaic distortion and fulfills its purpose in Himself, and the believer’s true rest is found in the crucified and risen Lord who provides the rest the law could only foreshadow, and that rest is entered by faith in Him, not by legal observance of a covenant sign that has been fulfilled in Christ.
https://www.freebiblecommentary.org/special_topics/sabbath.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you, or feel the need to be argumentative.
J.
Yes, the Ten Commandments still applies today. Jesus said, I do not come to destroy the law but fulfill it. The Ten Commandments are summed up into two commandments, love God and love others as yourself.
Hey @Johann, I’m pretty sure I said we are NOT under the Law to keep the Sabbath. That it was never about legalism or restriction, but a day of rest for us. As with most things, mankind takes the simplicity of God and convolutes it into the complication of man.
Peter.
In theory? I used to wonder why this came up, because I just happened to know that theory is a word we got from Greek, in which Euclid uses it to mean law. Why would the Ten Commandments not apply?
Finally, I found out that the temple of Solomon had been looted and Jerusalem destroyed during the two world wars of the twentieth century. Actually, the Ark and the Ten Commandments are missing, and in spite of Indiana Jones being a Hollywood production, the basic premise is valid. Funnily enough, so is the basic premise design of Stargate, which I hated as art, but yeah, there was a battle of the pyramids.
Do they still “apply”? I dunno, how would you test that? I’m not joking, in the history after the Pentateuch, the theft of the ark causes plagues and an earthquake. If they’re still the law, perhaps a large land mass near the missing ark has many plagues and earthquakes…or that could just be the results of decolonization and large scale battles.
I get what you are saying about keeping things simple, and I agree that the gospel itself is clear and powerful, but my digging into the Hebrew and Greek is not to complicate anything, it is simply my way of getting closer to the heart of what God actually said, because when I study the words beneath the surface it strengthens my faith, sharpens my understanding, and keeps me grounded in truth so I do not drift into man made ideas but stay anchored in what the Lord truly spoke. And still speaking.
I am not KJV only and I am not sola scriptura either, I am just trying to stay faithful to what Scripture actually says.
J.
Oh, please do not misunderstand. @Johann I appreciate your posts. I love deep dives. I think all can benefit from them. I’m just saying, babes need milk, and we adults can enjoy the steak.
Peter
right! i agree on that 100%
A common misconception is that people follow Torah in order to be saved. Some people assume that the pursuit of Torah is a pursuit of salvation. I once had a pastor tell me that people like me are “relying on the Law.” The only possible reason I could want to keep the commandments of the Torah, in his eyes, was to try to earn right-standing with God.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not believe that observing commandments earns anyone salvation. I don’t believe it ever has. No one has ever been saved by following Torah, or any other set of rules for that matter. Scripture is clear that salvation is only through the shed blood of Yeshua, and that it is by grace, through faith. Nothing we do can ever earn that salvation; it is a free gift.
Salvation begins with justification, that moment when God declares us righteous through the merit of His Son, Yeshua. Justification is not the end, however. It is only the beginning of a lifelong journey of sanctification, becoming more like Yeshua. Paul makes this clear in his description of salvation by faith:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8–10)
Paul is clear that while works can never produce salvation, salvation ought to produce good works in our lives.
This is exactly what James had in mind when he said that “
faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). James is certainly not teaching salvation by works. But a true life of faith should bear the fruit of good works. It has to be in that order: salvation, then obedience. Trying to put obedience first is like putting the cart before the horse.
Consider the children of Israel in the book of Exodus: God saved them from slavery before He brought them to Mount Sinai. The redemptionfrom Egypt was not contingent upon their obedience. It was a free gift. And after they received that gift, then God gave them the Torah. Redemption came first, then Torah; not the other way around.
I don’t keep Torah in order to be saved. Rather, I keep Torah because I am saved. I follow Torah as one who is already redeemed. The price for my salvation has already been paid, and in response I willingly obey out of love and gratitude for my Redeemer.
The more we love someone, the more we want to please them. As our love grows, so does our willingness to serve. This should be true of any relationship, and especially of our relationship with God.
“We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Yeshua gave Himself up for us. Our natural response to such love should be to give ourselves over to Him in return. He is our source of life, and we owe everything to Him. This is where obedience comes in. Obeying Torah is a natural result of our love for Him. As Yeshua says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
“And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments.” (2 John 1:6) Love results in obedience. The more we love Him the more we desire to follow Him without compromise. This is not legalism. We do not serve under compulsion, but out of gratitude. We do not obey as an attempt to earn His love, but because He has already loved us and we are delighted to respond to that love. 
This is why I take the much-needed time every January to teach them.
God says; Have no other god before God. The world says; Any god will do. All are equal. God says; Do not commit Idolatry. The world says that statues of saints, Mary, and Jesus can and have worked Miracles. God says; Do not take the name of God in vain. The world says it is only belief and language. No big deal. God says; Remember the Sabbath. The world says; Who cares? We live in a 24/7 society, and we want everything now or yesterday. God says; Honor your father and mother. The world says, nursing homes and retirement centers. God says; Do not commit murder. The world says abortion is legal and OK. God says; Do not commit adultery. The World says divorce is OK and no big deal. God says; Do not Steal. The world says it depends on reason. Maybe justified. God says; Do Not Bear False Witness. The world lies all the time. Twisting God’s Word to fit agendas. God says; Do not covet. The world twists this all the time. Some, uh, churches use it to get more money from their followers and to keep their followers in need.
The world will tell you all kinds of things. They will give compassionate arguments and even twist subtle truths to convince you that this is simply the wisdom of all in the world, and if you disagree with it, then you are simply foolish. However, we know what the Word of God says about the wisdom of the world. 1 Corinthians 3:19
“For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
We are strangers in a strange land. Whatever the strange land tries to tell you, ask your Father. Read the Word. Think on things from above. If they come together in unity, great. If you have to choose between what you know God says and what the world says, God is always right. His Word is always true. Good is always good. Sin is always sin. He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. 1 John 2:15
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
Peter
According to the Jewish standards, Jesus didn’t keep this commandment. This is the one commandment that isn’t repeated in the New Testament. All the others are. We keep this commandment in our hearts and not by doing or not doing certain things. It’s not about going to church although there’s much to be gained by going, and it’s not about refraining from work, although there’s much to be gained in rest.
The Bible links this command with the seventh day; the day God rested from all His work of creation.
“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Genesis 2:2
What that rest is, is explained in Hebrews.
“For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ”
although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. **4 **For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; **5 **and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”
We rest in the finished work of Christ. This is our Sabbath rest. The work is done. Jesus completed it, and now we rest in His completed work.
Luke consistently portrays Sabbath observance as central to the religious lives of Jesus, his Jewish followers, and even Gentile believers. Contrary to the notion that the earliest Christians abandoned the Sabbath, Luke’s Gospel and Acts affirm that Sabbath worship remained standard practice within the early Christian movement. Luke’s emphasis on the Sabbath practices of Jesus and his followers reflects continuity with the Hebrew scriptures and Second-Temple Judaism.
It is acknowledged that references to Jesus and the earliest Christians keeping the Sabbath do not necessarily prove that Christians today should continue this practice. These references are descriptive rather than prescriptive—they describe what Jesus, the apostles, and the earliest Christians did, but they do not explicitly prescribe Sabbath observance for Christians today. However, it may be worth considering that the Hebrew Scriptures do prescribe Sabbath observance, and the key question is whether that commandment changed with the coming of Jesus. Luke’s account is entirely inconsistent with the idea that anything changed regarding the Sabbath. On the contrary, Jesus and his followers acted as though the command to keep the Sabbath remained in effect. Consequently, these findings invite followers of Jesus today to reflect on the relevance of Sabbath observance in their own lives.