The Fourth Commandment in the New Testament

There is an argument you may have heard in a Bible study, and it is a clever one. It asks you to go through the New Testament with the Ten Commandments in hand. You will find “You shall not murder,” “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal,” “Honor your father and mother,” and the rest, all repeated by Yeshua or the apostles: nine out of ten. But the fourth commandment, “Remember the day of the Shabbat, to sanctify it” (Exodus 20:8), is never repeated as a command. So, the argument goes, nine were carried into the new covenant, and the Sabbath alone was left behind.

It has the feel of careful research. But before we accept the result, we need to look at the rule on which the counting depends.

A Rule No One Can Find

The argument rests on a principle: a commandment of the Old Testament stays in force only if the New Testament repeats it. Without that principle, the count proves nothing.

Yet the principle is written nowhere. No verse in Scripture says that God’s commandments expire unless they are restated. What Yeshua did say runs the opposite way:

Matthew 5:17-19 Do not think that I came to abolish the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) or the prophets — I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota ἰῶτα ee-o'-tah(smallest Greek letter) or one keraia κεραία ker-ah'-yah(stroke of a letter) will pass away from the nomos(law) until all things are accomplished. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever keeps and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.

“Not one iota(smallest Greek letter) or one keraia(stroke of a letter) will pass away from the nomos(law) until all things are accomplished.” And how long is that? “Until heaven and earth pass away.” Heaven and earth are still here.

Ordinary law works the same way. A law stays in force until it is repealed. No one expects the lawmakers to pass every law again in each new session to keep it alive. If a lawyer argued that a statute no longer applied because it had never been enacted a second time, the judge would ask him to show where it had been repealed. A commandment stands, not because it is repeated, but because no word abolishes it. And for the Sabbath, there is no such word.

Six Named, the Others Untouched

Yeshua Himself showed that naming only some of the commandments does not cancel the rest. When the rich young man asked what he must do to have eternal life, Yeshua answered:

Matthew 19:17-19 And He said to him: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except One — God; but if you wish to enter into zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life), keep the commandments." Then he said to Him: "Which ones?" And Yeshua said: "'You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

“Keep the commandments.” When the man asked, “Which ones?” Yeshua named six, and every one of them concerns how we treat other people. He did not mention “You shall have no other gods before My face.” He did not mention idols, or the name of God, or the Sabbath, and He did not mention the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet,” either.

Did Yeshua abolish those commandments by leaving them out? No one believes that. No one reads this passage and concludes that worshiping other gods became acceptable. To leave a commandment unnamed in one conversation is not to cancel it. If that is true of the first three, it is true of the fourth.

James adds something important. The commandments are not a collection of separate rules from which we may choose:

James 2:10-11 For whoever keeps the whole nomos(law) but stumbles at one point has become accountable for all of it. For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder"; if you do not commit adultery but you murder, you have become a transgressor of the nomos(law).

“He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’” The Ten Commandments come from one Voice. The same God who said “Do not murder” said “Remember the day of the Shabbat.” No one can keep the nine because God said them and drop the one He spoke in the same breath.

The Sabbath Is Repeated

So the principle behind the argument is not in Scripture. The facts on which the argument relies are wrong as well. The Sabbath is in the New Testament, and not only before the cross.

On the day Yeshua died, the women who had followed Him from Galilee saw where He was laid. Then Luke writes:

Luke 23:56 Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes; and on the sabbaton σάββατον sab'-bat-on(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23) they rested according to the commandment.

“They rested according to the commandment.” Luke wrote this years after the resurrection. He does not call it an old habit or a commandment about to expire; he records it without a word of correction.

Speaking of the days to come, Yeshua told His disciples:

Matthew 24:20 But pray that your flight will not be in the winter or on a sabbaton(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23).

Yeshua expected His followers to be keeping the Sabbath still in those days, so that fleeing on it would be a hardship worth praying against.

In the days of the apostles, as we saw in Chapter 14, the Gentiles of Pisidian Antioch begged to hear more “the next sabbaton,” and “the next sabbaton nearly the whole city assembled to hear the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of God” (Acts 13:42-44). And in Corinth:

Acts 18:4 And he was reasoning in the synagogue every sabbaton(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23) and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

“Every sabbaton.” Jews and Greeks heard him together.

The letter to the Hebrews says it outright:

Hebrews 4:9-10 So then, a Sabbatismos(Sabbath-rest) remains for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his own works, just as God did from His.

“A Sabbatismos(Sabbath-rest) remains.” The word sabbatismos σαββατισμός sab-bat-is-mos' means a keeping of the Sabbath. And it “remains,” it is still there “for the people of God.”

From Sabbath to Sabbath

The prophets look even further ahead. Isaiah describes people from the nations joining themselves to the God of Israel:

Isaiah 56:6-7 And the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one who keeps the Shabbat from profaning it, and holds fast my covenant (berit בְּרִית ber-eeth')— I will bring them to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.

Who are these foreigners? They are people who love the name of the LORD, who serve Him, and who keep “the Shabbat from profaning it.” Isaiah does not describe the nations coming to God by leaving the Sabbath behind. He describes them coming to His holy mountain as people who keep the Sabbath, and being made joyful in His house of prayer.

At the very end of his book, Isaiah sees the new heavens and the new earth:

Isaiah 66:23 And it shall come to pass, from new moon to new moon, and from Shabbat to Shabbat, all flesh (basar בָּשָׂר baw-sawr') shall come to worship before me, says the LORD.

“From Shabbat to Shabbat, all flesh (basar) shall come to worship before me.” This is not Israel alone, but all flesh. In the new heavens and the new earth, all flesh still comes to worship “from Shabbat to Shabbat.”

The rule that a commandment must be repeated is not in Scripture. Yeshua said that not one stroke would pass away while heaven and earth remain. The Sabbath is kept after the cross, expected in the days to come, kept by the apostles “every sabbaton,” said to remain for the people of God, and seen by Isaiah in the new heavens and the new earth. What Scripture does not contain is a changed day. The count is not nine out of ten. The count is ten.

One more objection remains, and it is the most serious of all, because it concerns Yeshua Himself. John’s Gospel says that He “not only was breaking the sabbaton.” Many conclude from this that Yeshua Himself broke the Sabbath.