Is the 7th day Sabbath a ceremonial feast day?

Scripture: Leviticus 23:1-4
Date: 01/01/2002 
What's the difference between the Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments? Is the Sabbath a ceremonial law and if so, was it abolished?
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Caller: Well I had a question on the Scripture in the book of Leviticus, chapter 23, verses 1 through 4.

Pastor Doug: Ok.

Caller: I have a friend. She has been keeping the Sabbath, and she is questioning it. She’s thinking maybe it’s a feast day. She’s been keeping it – and I have no question of the Sabbath or the validity of it.

Pastor Doug: All right. For our listening friends, I won’t read all of Leviticus 23 because it’s quite a passage but what it does is it simply itemizes all of the days, both the annual and the weekly sabbath, that were to be recognized. At the beginning of the list, it talks about the seventh day Sabbath, beginning with verse three: ‘…Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation.’ That means we are to convene and come together. You’ll do no work on that day.

He’s going through a litany of all of the sacred days, including the weekly Sabbath. That doesn’t mean they are all the same or of the same nature. Right on the surface, we see there’s a major difference. There’s only one that was a weekly Sabbath. The others were annual feast days.

The weekly Sabbath was given at creation and the Bible tells us that the Sabbath was made for man. Well that would obviously be back in the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter two. And beyond that, even before they get to Mount Sinai, God calls the seventh day Sabbath His Law, that’s Exodus 16. The other ceremonial sabbaths came afterward and they were shadows of the plan of salvation.

But obviously, our coming together for corporate worship and our need for a day of rest did not cease with the sacrifice of Jesus. Indeed, Isaiah 66 says even in Heaven all flesh will come to worship before him on the Sabbath. So just because it’s in the list with the other ceremonial sabbaths doesn’t mean that it was a ceremonial sabbath.

Caller: Exactly. Well she was just questioning it because it’s talking about the feasts, and then it says, ‘Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest….’ Then it goes on to say in verse 4, ‘These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations’ – that’s why she was questioning it.

Pastor Doug: Well it obviously makes a distinction. See it mentions the Sabbath, then it says in verse 4, ‘Now here are the feasts’ and then it starts a different list.

Caller: Right.

Pastor Doug: So it does separate even in this chapter the weekly Sabbath from the annual feasts. Ok?

Caller: Ok.

Pastor Doug: Hope that helps.

Caller: Thank you very much Pastor Doug.

Pastor Doug: We’ve got a book called “Feast Days and Sabbaths” that has more on that. If you call our resource number, I’ll bet you they’ll send you one out.

Caller: Ok great!

Pastor Doug: And we have a website. You know there have been so many questions on this. We have a new website up called, very simply, Sabbath Truth – www.SabbathTruth.com - and I think Pastor Ross is sitting here. We also have dot net, dot org, dot anything! Sabbath Truth – you’ll find it.

Amazing Facts’ Resource Number: 800-835-6747

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