The best place to begin is not with tradition, history, or what we have always heard. It is with Scripture.
Genesis tells us that God rested on the seventh day after completing His work of creation. But while Genesis records God's rest and the sanctifying of the seventh day, it does not record a command for Adam, Noah, Abraham, or the other patriarchs to observe a weekly Sabbath. The Sabbath becomes a covenant command when God establishes Israel as His covenant people.
The Sabbath was a meaningful part of that covenant. It reminded Israel that God was their Creator and their Redeemer. Deuteronomy connects the Sabbath specifically with their deliverance from Egyptian slavery, while Exodus calls it a sign between God and Israel.
So the Sabbath was not simply a day off. It was a covenant reminder: We belong to God. He created us, He redeemed us, and He has called us to Himself.
That raises an obvious question: If Jesus kept the Sabbath, shouldn't Christians keep it too?
Jesus certainly did observe the Sabbath. He was "born under the law" (Galatians 4:4), and He perfectly fulfilled the Law. But Jesus also declared that He was "Lord of the Sabbath" (Mark 2:28). He was not merely showing people how to observe the Sabbath; He was revealing that something greater was coming.
That something greater was Himself.
The Old Covenant was never God's final destination. Through Jeremiah, God promised a "new covenant" (Jeremiah 31:31). Jesus announced that this covenant was established through His blood (Luke 22:20). At the cross, the sacrificial system, priesthood, and other elements of the Old Covenant reached their fulfillment in Christ.
Paul gives us an especially helpful way to understand this when he writes that certain Old Covenant observances, including "sabbaths," were "a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ" (Colossians 2:16–17).
A shadow is not something bad. A shadow tells us that something real is approaching. But when the person arrives, we don't continue staring at the shadow. We look at the person.
The Sabbath was a shadow — Christ is the substance.
This also helps us understand Sunday.
Christians do not gather on Sunday because God moved the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first. The New Testament never gives such a command. Sunday is significant for a different reason: Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week.
The early church gathered on the first day (Acts 20:7), Paul gave instructions concerning their collection on the first day (1 Corinthians 16:2), and John referred to "the Lord's Day" (Revelation 1:10). The first day became associated with the risen Christ and the gathering of His people.
So Sunday is not the Sabbath moved to another day — It is the day on which we remember that the tomb was empty.
And perhaps that leads us to the most important point of all.
The Sabbath ultimately pointed beyond a day of physical rest toward the deeper rest that God offers His people. Jesus said: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." — Matthew 11:28
Notice that Jesus did not say, "Come to a day." — He said, "Come to Me."
Our deepest rest is not found on a particular day of the week. It is found in trusting Christ and resting in what He has already accomplished for us.
That does not make the Sabbath unimportant. Quite the opposite. It helps us understand why it was important. It was part of God's unfolding plan, pointing His people toward something greater.
And now that Christ has come, we don't need to keep looking for the shadow — we look to Him.
The Sabbath pointed toward God's completed work of creation. The resurrection points toward God's completed work of redemption.
The Sabbath offered rest from physical labor. Christ offers rest for weary souls.
And that is a rest worth finding — not just once a week, but every day.