Was the Sabbath Rest “Transferred to Christ”?

A viewer of our Life, Hope & Truth Presents video “Who Changed the Sabbath to Sunday?” sent us the following comment:

“Nobody changed ‘The Sabbath’ from Saturday to Sunday. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ transferred the sabbath from a day to Himself. Jesus is the rest God gave us, not a day.”

The first sentence is correct. 

Nobody—no human religious figure, no religion, no church—changed the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to Sunday. The video explains this fact in detail.

It is also documented from secular history in the following article: “Who Changed the Day of Worship From Saturday to Sunday? Why?”

The last two statements by our viewer make a different claim, but he doesn’t cite any authority for it. Let’s consider it carefully. 

Rest in Christ

Without question, God gives us rest in Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Himself promised, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, emphasis added throughout). 

Spiritual rest in Christ and the weekly Sabbath rest do not compete against each other. Scripture presents both as complementary blessings from God. 

Spiritual rest in Christ and the weekly Sabbath rest do not compete against each other. In fact, this concept is not unique to the New Testament. Many Old Testament scriptures speak of God’s giving His people peace and rest. 

That in itself undermines the assertion that “rest in Christ” somehow nullified the law of the Sabbath rest. Here are a few examples:

• Exodus 33:14: “And He said, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’” 
• 1 Kings 8:56: “Blessed be the LORD, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised.” 
• Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” 

God’s giving ancient Israel rest and peace did not nullify their need to rest on His weekly Sabbath. 

Is there any unambiguous biblical command that says the seventh-day Sabbath law has been invalidated under the New Covenant and replaced with spiritual rest in Christ? 

The answer is no. There is no such statement anywhere in Scripture.

New Testament does not show Sunday observance

Jesus Christ never taught that the Sabbath would be abolished. Instead, He attended weekly Sabbath services “as His custom was” (Luke 4:16) and declared Himself “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28). He didn’t declare Himself Lord over an irrelevant, discarded institution. 

Absent a clear command changing the Sabbath, does biblical history demonstrate that the early Church worshipped on Sunday instead of the seventh day? Such a practice would imply that the Sabbath law had been changed. Two scriptures are commonly cited as proof of this claim: Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2.

Some approach this question from a different angle, claiming that God no longer designates any specific “day of worship.” In other words, although God created the Sabbath and set it apart as holy at creation, they argue that He changed His expectation under the New Covenant.

Those who hold this view often point to Romans 14:5: “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.”

Their reasoning is that Paul was addressing a debate over worshipping on either the seventh day (Saturday) or the first day of the week (Sunday), and that his instruction proves neither day is holy. But this is a serious misrepresentation of Romans 14, which is not discussing the Sabbath at all.

For a detailed explanation of these verses in Acts 20, 1 Corinthians 16 and Romans 14, read “Was the Sabbath Changed to Sunday?”

Some also appeal to Colossians 2:16-17, but Paul was not condemning Sabbath observance. Rather, he was warning believers not to let outsiders judge them regarding how they observed God’s commanded festivals and Sabbaths. 

The early Church of God observed the seventh-day Sabbath

If Jesus’ death and resurrection had “transferred the Sabbath to Himself,” thereby nullifying the Sabbath commandment, then the New Testament Church would have abandoned seventh-day Sabbath observance altogether.

But did it? Did Christ’s apostles direct believers away from worshipping on the seventh day?

Jesus Christ never taught that the Sabbath would be abolished. The New Testament plainly shows the opposite. It repeatedly records congregations of the Church of God assembling on the seventh-day Sabbath to worship God. It also shows the apostle Paul intentionally gathering both Jews and gentiles on the Sabbath and preaching to them on that day.

Clearly, neither the apostles nor the members of the early Church believed that God’s promises of spiritual rest abolished the Sabbath commandment. In fact, Hebrews 4:9 makes the point unmistakable.

A clear New Testament affirmation of Sabbath-keeping

Hebrews 4:9 reads, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God” (New International Version). While several Bible translations use the word “rest” instead of “Sabbath-rest,” many other translations give this same, more accurate rendering of the original Greek word. 

The author of Hebrews, writing decades after Christ’s death and resurrection, stated that a Sabbath-rest remains for the people of God. If the Sabbath had been abolished at the cross, saying it remains would make little sense. 

The verse contains a meaningful dual emphasis: there remains both the ongoing weekly Sabbath rest for God’s people and the future, ultimate rest that Christ will bring through His millennial reign on the earth. 

For a full explanation, see our article “Sabbatismos: Does Hebrews 4:9 Teach Rest on the Sabbath?”

In conclusion, our viewer’s statement that no one changed the seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday is correct. But there is no truth to the claim that Jesus’ death and resurrection “transferred” the Sabbath rest to Himself. 

God truly gives us spiritual rest through Jesus Christ. But nowhere does Scripture say that this spiritual rest replaced the weekly Sabbath God sanctified at creation. Instead, the Bible shows that both remain for His people today.

Date Posted: August 12, 2026