Are Christians Obligated to Observe Sunday as the Christian Sabbath?

Are Christians obligated to observe Sunday as the Christian Sabbath?

Christians sometimes vigorously debate what is appropriate to do on Sundays. Is it permissible to go shopping or eat at a restaurant? To play sports? To do homework? To mow the lawn? Do I have to go to church?

Behind such questions is the assumption that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath and regulated by the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy… On it you shall not do any work” (Ex. 20:8-10). While the Fourth Commandment refers to the seventh day as the Sabbath, many Christians believe the New Testament changed it to the first day of the week. This belief goes back to the English Puritans, whose influential Westminster Confession of Faith explains, “from the resurrection of Christ, (the Sabbath day) was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord’s day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath” (WCF 21.7).

Reformed Christians are often surprised to discover that John Calvin and other early Reformed theologians did not view Sunday as the Sabbath. Their view appears in the Heidelberg Catechism, which explains that Christians experience the “eternal Sabbath” by resting in Christ “every day” and by worshipping with God’s people, “especially on the festive day of rest” (Q&A 103).

The “festive day of rest” was the Lord’s Day, the day Jesus rose from the dead and on which Christians have been meeting since New Testament times. And yet the Heidelberg Catechism avoids calling it the Sabbath, in part out of deference to the Apostle Paul’s warning in Colossians 2:16-17, “do not let anyone judge you … with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”

Paul’s warning suggests that it is inappropriate for Christians to debate what is permissible to do on Sundays, as if Sundays were the Christian Sabbath regulated by Old Testament law. Rather, we should encourage one another to pursue our Sabbath rest in Christ, with special devotion to gathering together for worship on the Lord’s Day, following the example of the New Testament church: “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb. 10:25).