Why is the Sabbath Command Not Repeated in the New Testament?
Some people believe that, since the Sabbath commandment isn't explicitly
repeated in the New Testament, it is no longer binding.
The Sabbath commandment did not have to be repeated in the New Testament
simply because the people to whom Jesus Christ and the apostles preached
would not have imagined that it needed to be repeated.
The Scriptures that later would be called the Old Testament were their
Bible, their guide for living (Romans 15:4). Paul described them as being "given
by inspiration of God, and...profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be
complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16,17). The holy Scriptures clearly commanded them to keep the Sabbath, and
the common people accepted that as God's inspired instruction.
Jesus Christ and the apostles lived and taught in a Sabbath-keeping society.
Jesus' confrontations with the Pharisees were over how to observe the Sabbath,
never over whether to observe it.
When the apostles took their message beyond the confines of Judea, Sabbath
observance was well known in other parts of the Roman Empire. The Jewish
historian Josephus, during the time of the New Testament Church, wrote, "The
multitude of mankind itself have had a great inclination for a long time
to follow our religious observances; for there is not any city of the Grecians,
nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom
of resting on the seventh day hath not come . . . As God himself pervades
all the world, so hath our law passed through all the world also" (Against
Apion, 2, 40).
