It’s actually pretty simple at it’s core - At the end of creation week, Jesus rested on the seventh day, blessed it, and made it holy.  Then, when God gave the 10 commandments, the 4th stated that Gods people should remember the Sabbath.  And the Jews keep it even today.  Jesus kept the Sabbath (it seems, both the letter and the spirit of it), the disciples also seem to have kept the Sabbath.  In fact, Adventists will point out that no where in Scripture is the Sabbath changed by God - or changed at all. 

We know it makes us different to the rest of the Christian church.  But Adventists don’t keep the Sabbath to be different.  Rather, we keep it because God gave it to us... and we don’t really, with God being such a great God and all, really feel like saying, “thanks, but I’d like to exchange it for something I’d like better.” 

And it is not a works thing.  We are not trying to be good, or earn any brownie points.  It’s a gift... a gift where we are actually invited to stop working.  To enter into God’s rest, his blessing, in what he has made Holy.

Rest (Genesis 2:2)

Rest here in Genesis does not mean sleep.  It means stop.  God did not take a nap on the seventh day (at least I don’t think He did), he stopped on the seventh day (think of the French word for stop - arrest). So while many Seventh-day Adventists do enjoy a good nap each week, the idea is rather that we simply stop doing what we usually do during the week (Exodus 20.9 “six days you have to do all your work, but the seventh is for the Lord your God”).  Sure we could rest (stop) any day.  But the seventh day is the day he gave us. 

Blessed (Genesis 2:3)

Do you know what the word blessed means?  No, neither do I, or I think, does anyone else for that matter.  It is a word we get from the scriptures, that because we have nothing really to compare it with we don’t exactly know what it means.  But I think it is along the lines of being happy, or in secular terms - lucky.  So this is not a legalistic day... it is a day of rest, stopping, to smell the roses, to be happy and joyful.

Holy (Genesis 2:3)

Holy means set apart.  It’s Gods stuff.  Take off your sandals Moses, you are on Holy, God, ground. Ground that is set apart.  The seventh day was set apart.  Not the first, not the third, the seventh.  It really is not a big trick... Adventists just don’t see any reason scripturally to change something that God set in place (set apart - Moses didn’t say to God, let’s make that ground over there holy...).  In fact, we see changing Gods times and laws as something man really should avoid doing. 

Nailed to the Cross?

Jesus came to fulfill the law, not do away with the law (Matthew 5. 17-19).  With this in mind, the reference nailed to the cross in Collossian’s can’t be “the Law” - unless of course it came back with Jesus at his resurrection!  Rather our debt, the laws we broke... yes, they are nailed to the cross - this is the whole point of the cross.  This Collossian’s reference does go on to say we should not judge people based on the Sabbath - which many Sabbath keepers would do well to remember.  But a shadow of things to come does not mean (especially in a scriptural context) that the shadow disappears just because the One has come. 

Further Study

The Sabbath is a very interesting Biblical concept, and is certainly of great importance to a Seventh-day Adventist.  As you read through these statement of beliefs, you’ll find that quite a few Seventh-day Adventists will have disagreements on many of them.  But this people do love the Sabbath. 

It’s too much for this page, but how the day changed is an interesting topic for further study.  The role of the Sabbath before sin, (hence before the need of the cross) and the role of the Sabbath after the eradication of sin is also interesting to consider. 

Bible Verses

Genesis. 2.1-3; Exodus. 20.8-11; Luke 4.16; Isaiah. 56.5, 6; 58.13, 14; Matthew. 12.1-12; Exodus. 31.13-17; Ezekiel. 20.12, 20; Deuteronomy. 5.12-15; Hebrews. 4.1-11; Leviticus. 23.32; Mark 1.32.

Official Language

The beneficent Creator, after the six days of Creation, rested on the seventh day and instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation. The fourth commandment of God's unchangeable law requires the observance of this seventh-day Sabbath as the day of rest, worship, and ministry in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. It is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance, and a foretaste of our eternal future in God's kingdom. The Sabbath is God's perpetual sign of His eternal covenant between Him and His people. Joyful observance of this holy time from evening to evening, sunset to sunset, is a celebration of God's creative and redemptive acts.