Should We Assemble on the Sabbath to Worship?
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There are some religious folks who believe that we should worship on the Sabbath day, which is Saturday, the seventh day of the week. People who practice Judaism assemble to worship on the Sabbath day. People who are part of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination also do this. What does the Bible say about assembling to worship on the Sabbath day?
God first commanded the Israelites to observe a day of rest on the Sabbath day. This is what the fourth commandment says: ““Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This is not a general command for Israelites to assemble to worship on the Sabbath day, though, priestly worship was commanded and offered on the Sabbath day (Leviticus 24:5-9, Numbers 28:9-10). In Ezekiel 46:1, God commanded the eastern gates to the temple to be opened so that the people could come into the temple and worship on the Sabbath days and on the days of the New Moon when the priests offered burnt offerings, but this was limited to the temple grounds. Those who lived outside of the area were not commanded to attend.
Synagogue worship on the Sabbath began during the time between the testaments. The oldest archaeological evidence of a synagogue is in the 3rd century B.C. God never appointed this kind of worship under the Law of Moses, but He seems to have approved of it in Malachi 3:16. In the New Testament, synagogue worship was common, and Jesus even took advantage of it in his ministry to teach the message of the gospel (Matthew 4:23). Paul also assembled with Jews to teach in the synagogues (Acts 9:20). Both Jesus and Paul were Jews and met with Jews on the Sabbath day to study the scriptures and pray. This was a Jewish custom. God’s command was for them to rest on the Sabbath day and honor it. He said nothing about assembling with other Jews in synagogues. The command to honor the Sabbath was given to Moses and the children of Israel only. It was not for their forefathers, and it was not for the gentiles. Deuteronomy 5:2-3 says, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive.” However, God chose to dissolve this covenant and create a new covenant. He said in Jeremiah 31:31-33, ““Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Notice specifically that God says it will not be according to the covenant he made when he led them out of the land of Egypt. What covenant is it? It is the covenant of Jesus Christ that we have presented to us today in the New Testament. This covenant neither commands nor demands assembly for worship on the Sabbath day. When Christians formed churches in the New Testament, they assembled on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). They did so to partake of the Lord’s Supper and remember the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. This was a common practice among Christians and remains so today.