Q. New Covenant Christians observe a Sunday Sabbath largely, I understand, to maintain fellowship with other Christian churches, and because the essence of true Sabbath worship is inner or spiritual, and not external. Since Seventh Day Adventists and other "sabbatarians" manage to observe a Saturday sabbath and yet, apparently, hold fellowship with other Christians on Sundays too, why should their example not be followed? In which case, you would be observing both the spirit of the Sabbath as well as following the right day in the week?

A. This was a very early, transitional position of ours as we hunted out the true sabbath over the years. Indeed, we briefly converted to Saturday Sabbatarianism (as followed by the Adventists and others like the Messianics) until we found that that, like the 'Sunday sabbath', was another man-made invention. Accordingly, Messianic Evangelicals now observe the luni-solar Sabbath according to the Biblical Creation Calendar which means that the Sabbath day is neither Sunday nor Saturday, though it may be occasionally. In spite of this progressive aligment to the truth of the actual sabbath day, I believe we still maintain, in relationship to Sunday worshippers, Saturday sabbatarians and those who hold no day sacred (or rather, every day equally), fellowship on the basis of the inner sabbath, by which we mean enjoying the blessing of Yah's shalom (peace) of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) through accepting the finished work of the Cross.

This page was created on 2 May 1998 Last updated on 26 July 2015

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