Biblical Sabbath

From Creation to Sinai After the first six days of creation, God sanctified ("made holy") the seventh day (Genesis 2:3), a day of which the ancient Hebrews were reminded to "keep holy" (in memorial of creation) according to the 10 commandments written by God's own finger on tables of stone (Exodus 20:8-11, Exodus 31:18) In the gathering of quail and manna however, we see that the keeping of the Sabbath actually predated the receiving of the commandments at Sinai (Exodus 16:23-26). These commandments written by God aren't to be confused with the ordinances written by Moses which were left outside the Ark of the covenant (Deuteronomy 31:24-26, Colossians 2:14). The weekly sabbath is also not to be confused with the feast days in Leviticus 23 which are mentioned as "Sabbaths". These feasts no longer have to be kept anymore since they were shadow of things to come (Colossians 2:16-17), unlike the weekly Sabbath which points backward to creation.

Jesus and His Disciples Jesus himself said that he didn't come to abolish "the law and the prophets" (Matthew 5:17). In summary of it in Matthew 22:37-40, he quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 (Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind) and Leviticus 19:18 (Love your neighbor as yourself).

Jesus kept the Sabbath himself (Luke 4:16), yet he didn't go along with the traditions and added rules that Jewish leaders enforced (John 7:23, Mark 3:1-6). Jesus explained that the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around (Mark 2:27). Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, then it must be the Lord's day (Mark 2:28). Predicting the Jerusalem siege and persecution, Jesus even told his disciples to pray that their flight "be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day", which means He knew they'd still keep it (Matthew 24:20).

The Followers of Jesus even kept the Sabbath at His death (Luke 23:56). We also find years later that even the Gentiles (non-Jews) listened to Paul preach on Sabbath and requested to meet again on the next Sabbath (Acts 13:42-44).

The start of a controversy between the Sabbath and Sunday actually began a century later which appears to have been caused by a rise in antisemitism (see here). History shows that the seventh-day Sabbath has been kept for centuries ever since early Christianity. These Sabbath-keeping Christians were often accused of being "Judiazers", persecuted, and even killed (see this site's history timeline).