Does GOD Want YOU to Keep the Sabbath and Holy Days? (Part 1)

 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Thus the physical creation, everything we see around us, sprang into being. The great clock of the universe began ticking. God set the gears of His plan in motion.

The Gospel of John echoes Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:1-3).

When Genesis tells us that God created all things in the beginning, that means God the Father created everything through His Son Jesus Christ.

When God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26), that means God the Father worked through His Son Jesus Christ to make mankind.

When, “on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done” (Gen. 2:2) and “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” (Gen. 2:3), that means that God the Father, through His Son Jesus Christ, blessed and sanctified the seventh day Sabbath.

“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” As Jesus said when He was on the earth, “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30).

So Jesus Christ, at the very beginning, created the seventh-day Sabbath, blessed it, and made it holy. No wonder He called Himself “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5).

But that’s not all.

In the beginning, Jesus also created the seven annual Holy Days that we find in Lev. 23. How do we know? Because on the fourth day of Creation, He created the sun, moon, and stars to, among other things, help calculate “for signs and for appointments, and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14, Concordant Literal Version).

The Hebrew word the CLV translates as “appointments,” and other versions as “seasons,” is moedim (Strong’s # H4150), which is the same word God used for His Holy Days in Lev. 23!

But if that’s not enough, God’s Word also shows that Abraham, the father of the faithful (Rom. 4:16), observed Passover centuries before God reintroduced it to Moses in Egypt. By putting Ex. 12:40-41 together with Gal. 3:16-17, we learn that God brought Israel out of Egypt on Passover, four hundred thirty years after God’s covenant with Abraham, “on that very same day” (Ex. 12:41).

Just as Noah knew about clean and unclean animals and brought them onto the ark almost a thousand years before God gave those same instructions to Israel in Lev. 11, so Abraham and all his forefathers knew about God’s Holy Days. God the Father and Jesus Christ established them at Creation, along with the seventh day Sabbath.

The question is, are God’s Holy Days still relevant today? As the title asks, does God want YOU to keep the Sabbath and Holy Days? Or did Jesus abolish them 4,000 years after creating them?

Two Covenants

Remember, God the Father and Jesus Christ planned everything out in the very beginning. Before They created the earth, “before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet. 1:20), They had determined that Jesus would come to earth to die for the sins of mankind.

Furthermore, God’s Word shows that there are two covenants, the one leading up to Jesus’ death and the other taking effect after His death.

Heb. 9:15 tells us, “And for this reason He [Jesus] is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”

Heb. 8:13 adds, “In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”

So the first covenant, the Old Covenant, is now obsolete and we are under the New Covenant. This, too, was part of the plan that God devised before Creation.

New Covenant… Laws??

But what does that mean, exactly? Does the New Covenant mean we no longer have to obey God’s laws? Does it mean there’s no more good and evil, that everything is okay and anything goes?

At the final judgment, God will exclude certain people from His Kingdom: “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).

If the wicked will be barred from God’s Kingdom and instead burn in the lake of fire, then clearly God still has standards. That means He still has laws, for without laws, there can be no sin. It’s impossible to break laws that don’t exist, and therefore it would be impossible to do anything wrong. That’s just simple logic!

1 John 2:3-5 says plainly, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”

Whoa! We do have to obey God’s commandments! God still has laws and standards for us to live by. Let’s continue.

Here’s 1 John 3:4: “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” The King James Version renders this verse, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”

Jesus Christ Himself confirmed that He will not allow the lawless, those who break His laws, to enter His Kingdom: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Mat. 7:21-23).

“Lawlessness” here in Matthew 7 is the same Greek word (Strong’s # G458) used in 1 John 3. It’s not enough to call oneself by Christ’s name, as Christians do. As Jesus made plain, “Christians” who call themselves by His name but refuse to obey His laws will end up in the lake of fire! So even under the New Covenant, God requires obedience to His laws.

1 John 5:2-3 tells us, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”

Both the Apostles Paul and James affirmed that “not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified” (Rom. 2:13; Jam. 1:22-25). In fact, countless verses affirm the law, far more than we have time or space or cover here.

Two things are true:

1. God has made a new covenant which replaces the old

2. God still requires us to obey His laws, and He will destroy those who defiantly refuse

If God still has laws for us today, then what about the Sabbath and Holy Days? We’ll see what God’s Word has to say about them in Part 2!

To be continued...