Are Christians obligated to keep the Sabbath rest law of Exodus 20:8-11? Some Christians believe that the Sabbath must be observed because this law appears in the Ten Commandments. Is this true?

We can clear up this question by taking a broad look, not just at the Ten Commandments, but at the entire old and new covenants. As we shall see, the covenants tell a fascinating story about the history and purpose of the Sabbath rest command. More than this, by looking at the sweep of God’s dealings with the human race from the beginning until the completion of Jesus’ redemptive work and the creation of the church, the purpose of the entire Law of Moses—including the Ten Commandments—will become clear. Let’s take that trip through the covenants.

God first made a general covenant pledge in the presence of Adam and Eve, promising that evil—personified by the devil—would be destroyed (Genesis 3:15). This was the first covenant between humans and God after "the Fall." Despite the fact that humans had sinned and had become fallen creatures with no hope, they now had a promise that a Savior would, in the future, crush and destroy the evil that held them prisoner.

Later, God also made a covenant with humanity through Noah. "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you," God told this patriarch (Genesis 9:8). It was an everlasting covenant that promised saving grace, at least in a physical sense to all people.

Still later, God made a covenant with Abraham, and this one becomes the crux of both the old and the new covenants. Most of the Abrahamic covenant concerns a promise that the descendents of Abraham would be a people of God and be given a land (Genesis 15:31-21; 17:3-8). There was also a promise in this covenant that through Abraham’s offspring or "seed" all the nations on earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18).

The apostle Paul understood this "seed" to be a reference to Christ (Galatians 3:15-16, 19). Abraham was, therefore, given a promise of God’s true salvific intention in the world. A Savior would come who would in some way "save" humanity. We might say that this was a promise of the "new" covenant given some 430 years before the "old" covenant was introduced! This is the point Paul argued in the book of Galatians.

There is an interesting aspect to the covenant God made with Abraham. It would have an unusual reminder or sign—that of the physical circumcision of males. We read the following in Genesis 17:9:

Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.... Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

About 430 years after the covenant was made with Abraham, the descendants born to his son Jacob or Israel were rescued by God from the land of Egypt. God brought his people into the Sinai desert and made a covenant with them. The original terms of this covenant extend from Exodus 20:1 to 23:32. Chapter 24 of Exodus details the ratification of this covenant.

The people said, "Everything the Lord has said we will do" (verse 24). What the Lord had said so far was that Israel was to keep the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20); follow certain laws regarding Hebrew slaves (Exodus 21:1-11); obey guidelines set down for personal injuries (Exodus 21:12-36); provide protection of property, including against theft (Exodus 22:1-15). The covenant also had regulations about fornication, sorcery, sexual relations with animals, idolatry, treatment of aliens, protection of widows and orphans, lending, blasphemy and other laws relating to justice and mercy (Exodus 22:16-23:13). As well, the covenant mandated for Israel the observance of the annual festivals in three seasons (Exodus 23:14-19).

This was what we may call a "package deal." All the laws from Exodus 20:1 through 23:32 were a singular law system so far as the old covenant is concerned. They were all part of the same covenant.

God also described his part of the covenant. He would guide Israel safely into the Promised Land, take away illness from the nation, give people a full life span, and destroy their enemies (Exodus 23:20-33). This, then, formed the original old covenant between God and the people of Israel. The terms of the covenant became a kind of book, a legal code, we might say. We read that Moses "took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people" (Exodus 24:7). The people responded to Moses’ reading of the various laws by saying: "We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey" (verse 7). After which, the Lord told Moses to come up to the mountain and he would give him "tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction" (verse 12).

We should notice several important things about this "old" covenant. It includes not just the Ten Commandments but all the laws and regulations described in Exodus 20-23. All the laws are said to be "spoken" by the Lord because he did, indeed, speak them. What happened was that after God began to speak directly to the people of Israel, they became so fearful of the magnificent theophany shaking Mt. Sinai that they begged Moses to speak to them in God’s place (Exodus 20:18-21). God agreed to their wishes. After that, he spoke his laws to Moses, and he passed them on to the people. But they were all equally God’s laws, and all were spoken by him.

There is no legal difference between the Ten Commandments and the rest of the covenantal law. They stand together as the basis of the old covenant to Israel. The law that mandated the delivery of first-born animals to God and leaving the land idle in the seventh year was as important as the law of Sabbath rest or the law against adultery, in terms of the covenant. They were all, equally, part of the old covenant.

In fact, as noted above, the laws of the covenant as well as God’s promises were first written in a "book" or scroll. It contained all the laws in Exodus 20-23, and this entire book was the basis of the covenant. Moses had not yet gone up to the mountain to have these regulations written on tablets of stone.

As we progress through the first five books of the Jewish Holy Scriptures, we see that more laws were progressively added to the covenant. Other laws were further expounded, amplified and clarified. For example, Exodus 25 through 30 provides regulations for the building and ceremonies of the old covenant tabernacle. The tabernacle pattern and furniture were later transferred to the temple in Jerusalem. The temple worship system became the center of Jewish religious life. We see many references to this in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews, in particular, deals with the passing away of the Levitical priesthood and Jewish temple life. Jesus becomes the heavenly High Priest in the temple, which is the church.

We also learn in Exodus that, like circumcision, the Sabbaths—plural—served as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. "Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, "You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come"’" (Exodus 31:12). Immediately thereafter, God told Moses that the weekly Sabbath was a sign of the old covenant: "It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever" (verse 17). Then, God finished speaking and wrote the laws of the covenant on two tablets of stone.

We should note some interesting facts here. Both the annual Sabbaths and the weekly Sabbath served as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. Further, the sign and the covenant created a relationship between Israel and God, not between all people of the earth and God. Also, we should note that, like circumcision, the annual and weekly Sabbath sign was to remain between Israel and God "forever." That means, since circumcision could be ended as a physical demand for Christians (the spiritual children of Abraham), it is possible that the physical demands of Sabbath-keeping and festival observance could also be ended.

With Moses on Mount Sinai, there follows an interlude in Exodus that deals with the historical incident of the golden calf. This causes Moses, when he returns to the camp, to break the tablets containing the words of God. Moses then must go back to the mountain so God can "write on them the words that were on the first tablets" (Exodus 34:1). On the mountain, God reiterates his intent to make a covenant with his people Israel (verse 10). He also repeats in an abbreviated form many of the regulations of the old covenant as stated in Exodus 20-23. (See Exodus 34:17-26.)

Most of the rest of Exodus is taken up with the making of the tabernacle and its parts, as well as the construction of its furniture and the priestly garments. This, of course, relates to the center of Israel’s religious life at the tabernacle, and later at the Jerusalem temple. Leviticus continues this theme by giving us a description of various offerings to be brought to the tabernacle, and later the temple (Leviticus 1-7). The ninth chapter describes the priests beginning their ministry.

Laws relating to the functions of the Levitical priesthood and the temple worship service are important because almost all of Israel’s religious life was centered on these two realities. For example, the festivals were to be kept "in the place he [God] will choose as a dwelling for his Name" (Deuteronomy 16:5, 11, 16). Eventually, the place God chose was Jerusalem. This means that if the temple was destroyed or the priesthood supplanted, it would be impossible to fulfill God’s demands regarding festival observance.

Continuing, Leviticus 11 is the chapter that lists clean and unclean living creatures. Chapters 12-15 continue the theme of "clean and unclean" with a discussion of purification after childhood, regulations about infectious skin diseases, the cleansing of these diseases and discharges causing uncleanness. It’s important to note that the food laws of Leviticus 11 are but one part of an entire array of regulations regarding matters of ritual purification and cleanliness that Israel was to follow. Once again, we observe that all the laws of the Mosaic Law are part of a greater whole and stand together.

Leviticus 16 details the Day of Atonement ritual. Chapters 17 through 19 mention various other covenantal laws that Israel was to follow, including quite specific ones about unlawful sexual relations. Over 20 laws are stated as "do nots" in chapter 19, and some others are stated in a positive way. This includes admonitions to do everything from keeping the annual Sabbaths (verse 3) to not holding back overnight the wages of a hired man (verse 13).

Buried in these "do’s and don’ts" is one of the two most important and basic laws of both old and new covenants. It is the simple: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). When asked about the "greatest commandment" of the Jewish Scriptures, Jesus said: " ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it; ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40).

Here we have the astounding assertion that everything in the Law of Moses and the Prophets does not hang on the Ten Commandments, as most people erroneously assume. It hangs on two inconspicuous statements inserted in two widely separated parts of the Law of Moses! (The "greatest commandment" is found in Deuteronomy 6:5.) The popular preoccupation with the Ten Commandments is shown to be somewhat misguided. The essence of the Law of Moses is not in the Ten but in two simple statements buried in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Going back to Leviticus 19, Israel is told: "Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord" (verse 30). The sanctuary was first found in the moveable tabernacle and later in the temple. Consider the following. If God would allow the sanctuary to be destroyed and thus to end the ministry of the Levitical priesthood, he could also allow an end to the observance of his Sabbaths. The book of Hebrews speaks to this issue. It says that in God’s purpose the entire old covenant religious system was ended by Jesus’ redemptive work.

Leviticus 20-26:3 again lists further regulations that Israel was to keep as part of its covenant with God. These included everything from avoiding adultery to rules for priestly function to guidelines for keeping the seven annual festivals and the year of Jubilee. This section contains some familiar commandments discussed earlier as well as some new ones. What we see, then, is a progression or further amplification of covenantal regulations, as well as the adding of more stipulations. Like a progressive code of law, the terms of the covenant increase. But they still form a single body of law applied to a specific nation, Israel.

Leviticus, chapter 26, begins with God telling Israel what he will do in exchange for Israel’s obedience to all the commands that have so far been described (not just the weekly Sabbath). He begins his list of promises by saying, "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will..." (verse 3). Naturally, God also details the curses that will follow if Israel fails to obey God. The "Book of the Law" we have so far looked at ends with the statement: "These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses" (verse 46). The entire regulatory system, as it is now described, must be seen as a unit—as a single law given from Mount Sinai. All its component parts and laws stand together. If Israel sins in one point, the nation is guilty in all points. And, all the laws given so far are equally the laws of the Lord.

The book of Numbers, chapter one, begins one full year after Israel left Egypt (verse 1). The material contains a number of references to historical situations during the years of Israel’s wanderings. Of course, there are discussions of the various laws of the covenant in the context of specific situations. Some new material is added, but most of this book is not pertinent to our purposes.

Deuteronomy takes place in the latter part of the 40th year of Israel’s wanderings (1:3). This book gives us a restatement of the laws of the covenant as we have seen them earlier. Moses says to Israel: "Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you" (Deuteronomy 4:1).

The restatement of the law of the covenant begins in chapter 5 with a summation of the Ten Commandments. Here we learn why Israel was to keep the Sabbath holy by resting from work. Moses says to Israel: "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day" (verse 15). The Sabbath, then, was for Israel so that they could remember being saved from servitude in Egypt, where they had no rest. The Sabbath did not look ahead to Christ so much as it looked backward to Israel’s rescue from Egypt. We can see why the physical Sabbath rest is not for Christians, whose "rest" is a spiritual one. In Christ, we rest from the slavery of sin, and not from physical labor in a condition of national slavery.

In Egypt, the people had no rest from their labors (Exodus 1:11-14). God brought them to a land "flowing with milk and honey" so they could enjoy the fruit of their labor. And, they were to remember that God was the source of their prosperity and ease. Parents were to teach their children this central aspect of God’s saving grace to Israel, that he had brought them out of bondage and slavery in Egypt (Exodus 13:14). For Israel, then, the Sabbath was a sign of the covenant in that it reminded them that God was the source of their liberation and happy prosperity.

We saw in Exodus 24:12 that the tablets of stone contained the "laws and commands" that were written by God for Israel’s instruction. In Deuteronomy there is further explanation. Here Moses recounts that the tablets were to contain "all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly" (9:10). In chapter 10, Moses refers to the material on the tablets as "the Ten Commandments" (verse 4). No matter how much was written on the tablets, the fact is that all the laws of Exodus 20-23 form the regulatory code of the old covenant in its original form. Later, the new and amplified laws of the rest of the Law of Moses become part of the legal code system of Israel upon which the covenant was based. This was not a one-law or a ten-law covenant.

Deuteronomy 12 through 26:15 also becomes part of this legal code of the old covenant. If one reads through these chapters he or she will see many familiar laws, stated as before, amplified or put in another context. As well, there are some new items.

Moses then restated the fact that Israel had a covenant with God based on the law system that the nation promised to uphold as its end of the bargain. Moses said: "You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him. And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands" (Deuteronomy 26:17-18).

Israel, if it follows the commands of the covenant, will be "high above all the nations" and a "people holy to the Lord" (verse 19). But Israel must keep all of God’s commandments as though they were one unit. Both Paul and James understand the Law in this sense (James 2:10-11; Galatians 3:10). This now becomes a sort of final covenant promise (Deuteronomy 29:1).

The people are commanded to set up large stones in the Promised Land. They are to write on these stones "all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 27:2-3, 8). Before they enter the land, curses are pronounced on evildoers. Then, in chapter 28 blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience are restated as they were in Leviticus 26.

The last chapters of Deuteronomy highlight this final covenant ratification and its implication for the Israelites. The nation is to "carefully follow the terms of this covenant" so the people can prosper in all that they do (Deuteronomy 29:9). The covenant is a fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it applies to all the descendants of Israel (verses 12-14). Torah or the Law of Moses becomes the covenantal "Book of the Law" for the nation (verse 21).

The purpose of this detailed summary of the old covenant legal system is meant to help us understand the conditions under which the Sabbath day and the other Mosaic legal requirements apply. The entire law code described in Exodus 20 through the end of Deuteronomy is the basis of the old covenant—not just a single law, or a few laws found therein.

All the laws are of equal importance in a covenantal context. Thus, if one sins by breaking one law, then such a person is "guilty" of breaking all the laws because that person has broken the covenant itself. Since all the laws are equally part of the same covenant, we cannot use the old covenant to "prove" any particular law while admitting that some of its other laws are obsolete. Since the covenant is obsolete, a different authority is needed to prove any particular law. We cannot pick and choose without having another authority to tell us what to pick.

But if we are considering the force of the old covenant, the point has to be made that no law of that covenant is of special significance. No grouping of laws—like the Ten Commandments—is more important than any other grouping. No individual law—as the weekly Sabbath—is more important than another. This is seen in the fact that the two "greatest laws" of Torah are not singled out or emphasized in any way. They are barely visible in the contexts in which they appear in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

The question to be solved in terms of the application of the Law of Moses is not whether a specific law might apply to Christians. The covenant, composed of God’s promises and Israel’s agreement to uphold Torah, is a singular unit. One cannot say that one or a few laws of the old covenant Book of the Law—such as Sabbath, Festivals, food laws, strict tithing—apply to Christians. Either the old covenant as a covenant or the Book of the Law as a single law code applies to Christians in entirety or none of it applies.

All other arguments to try to "prove" that the rest command of the Sabbath as an individual law must be observed or certain foods avoided, for example, are faulty arguments. These claims must be tested against only one fundamental question: Must Christians obey the old covenant legal system in its totality—all 613 laws contained in that system—or none of it?

Of course, there are eternal, "spiritual laws" that govern relationships between humans and between humans and God. These laws governed relationships before the Mosaic Law was enacted. They were codified in the Law of Moses, but their validity does not rest on the old covenant. They therefore they continue to govern human conduct after its annulment. The commandment to love God above all else would be a prime example of such a law (Deuteronomy 6:5). However, these "spiritual laws" are incorporated into the new covenant "Law of Christ," and are clearly expounded in the New Testament. (See the last sections of this paper, "Sin and Virtue Lists" and "Mosaic Law Unnecessary" for further details.) Thus, we come back to the fundamental question: Are Christians obligated to keep the entire Mosaic legal system or not?