When Jesus walked on earth, He kept God’s commandments to the letter. Of course, He was the only one able to do this because He was divine in nature.
But He did break one of the commandments, didn’t He? Not really. The Pharisees, looking for ways to condemn Christ, pointed out that He healed someone on the Sabbath Day.
Jesus rebuked them by explaining that healing someone on the Sabbath was not breaking the Sabbath. He asked them if one of them had a donkey, and it fell into a well on the Sabbath day, if that person would not rescue the animal even on the Sabbath.
He later rebuked the Pharisees again when they accused Him of plucking corn on the Sabbath. Jesus explained to them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath then is day given by God to man for his own benefit. The idea that the Sabbath was made for man suggests man’s superiority to the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made to serve man, not man to serve the Sabbath.
God rested on the seventh day and He also gave it to man as a day of rest. God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath. Imagine what life would be life if we had to work all seven days of the week!
And imagine too what life would be like if we didn’t have one day of the week set aside especially to worship and praise God! As the saying goes, “seven days without God makes one weak!”
You can see then, that the seventh day is a gift given by God to man. On this day, man can follow God’s pattern and rest his body and mind from the stress of work.
It has been scientifically proven and personally tested that resting one day in both body and mind revives the body and mind and helps humans to stay healthy.
As for the question of whether the Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday, it is hard to decide on human calendar which is the divine Sabbath created by God. For example, at the same time when it is Saturday in Australia, it is Sunday in China.
Therefore, we can conclude that God intended for us to work six days and take a break on the seventh. In my personal humble opinion, it doesn’t matter which six days you work, and which one you choose to rest, just as long as you remember the seventh day to keep it holy.
