The Catholics and the Protestants each have their own reasons for not keeping the Sabbath.
First, Constantine and the Catholic Church openly admit there is ZERO Scriptural basis for their decision to change the Sabbath over to Sunday.
They are very clear that the reason they abolished the Sabbath was because it was a “Jewish custom”, as they put it.
They made a decision there was to be no Sabbath keeping at all, for Jews, Christians or anybody!
Sunday was chosen as the most suitable sabbath replacement because it was already a day of meeting and worship for the largest and most influential religious group in the Roman Empire at the time: the Mithrains or Sun Worshippers.
They had even named the 1st Day of the week after their SUN god, which is why we still call the 1st day of the week SUN-day.
Again, I remind you that everything I’ve just said is explicitly documented in the records of that fateful series of Church meetings known as the Council of Nicea.
Prior to this decision, the Christian church was keeping the true Biblical Sabbath and my guess is they reluctantly went along with Constantine’s decision and justified it with the reasoning that the 1st day of the week could be used as a sort of weekly commemoration of Christ’s resurrection.
The Catholic Church’s justification is that they claim authority to abolish the Sabbath through the Pope.
They say the Pope has been given authority from God to do anything he deems best…including amending Holy Scripture.
However, the Protestants have a problem here.
They don’t acknowledge the Pope’s authority.
So they have to take a different route.
Their justification for not keeping the true Biblical sabbath is usually based on a gross misunderstanding of the following verses written by the Apostle Paul.
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”-Colossians 2:16-17
I’ve already done an extensive teardown of these verses that you can read here.
But here’s just a quick review.
The simplest way to destroy the common Christian misinterpretation of this part of Scripture is to contrast verse 16 with verse 22.
Contrast this….
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.”
with this…
“These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.”
So in context, Paul is saying “Don’t let anybody judge you about a Sabbath day because these things are based on merely HUMAN commands and teachings”.
Now there is one key question I’m about to ask that gets right to the heart of the matter and literally destroys the common Christian interpretation that we can now make the Sabbath any day we want.
Was the instruction to honor the Sabbath a God-given command or a human command?
Seriously, think about it.
Was the Sabbath a God-given command or a human command?
Given that God Himself established the Sabbath at the creation of the universe…
and “To keep the Sabbath” is one of the 10 Words or Commandments of God…
I think it is quite obvious that the Sabbath was a God-given command, which leads me to my next point.
If “to keep the Sabbath” is a God-given command, then when Paul says don’t let anyone judge you about a Sabbath day because these things are based on merely human commands, he’s not really talking about “keeping the Sabbath” now, is he?
He’s got be talking about something else.
And he is.
See, at this time men had added hundreds of rules about the Sabbath, Biblical feasts and New Moons that even mixed pagan rituals with them!
It were these man-made rules that Paul was condemning, NOT the God-given command to honor the Sabbath.
In fact, if Paul was condemning the Sabbath, he would be going against everything holy Scripture says on the subject and thus would be a false prophet.
In closing, understand that it is the ultimate contradiction for the gentile Church to staunchly insist that the 10 Commandments are still valid for their lives but not observe the sabbath.
Second, the problem with the thinking that we can make any day we want the Sabbath is that it makes the Sabbath OUR Sabbath, a man-made Sabbath!
Nowhere in Holy Scripture, whether the Old or New Testament, is this notion taught.
The Sabbath is the Lord’s Sabbath.
While God may have created the Sabbath for mankind’s benefit, it belongs to Him alone!
Amen
The 4th commandment is not a ceremonial law.