When God gave us the fourth of His ten commandments, He said, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”  He then spoke of doing our work on the first six days of the week, and refraining from work on the seventh day. The middle two sentences in the fourth commandment are about “How” to keep the Sabbath day holy.  This is the focus of most people when they study or discuss matters concerning the Sabbath day. 

Have you ever studied “why” God tells us to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”?  He also tells us this, and we can find the answer in the last two sentences of the commandment.  In fact, God gives us three reasons to keep this commandment.  Let’s see this in the words of the Bible.

Reason #1 God is our Creator

It’s right there, in the last sentence of the fourth commandment, as given in Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God.  In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.  Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

God says that we are to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, because He is our Creator.  After He finished the creation of the physical realm, including the first man and woman, God rested, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.  The record of this is in Genesis 2:1-3. 

In many other places throughout the Scriptures, the creation of all that is and the purpose for which God made man in His own image and likeness is revealed.  The Scriptures clearly reveal Jesus Christ as the Creator.  See, for instance, John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:16.  The Sabbath helps us to understand these foundational principles of who God is and what His purpose is, and what man is and why God created us.

Reason #2 Our Creator is also our Redeemer

We find this truth revealed in the second listing of the Ten Commandments, in Deuteronomy 5:12-15.  This time, instead of pointing God as our Creator, the inspired words speak of redemption from slavery and bondage.  Verse 15 says “And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

The account of God’s mighty work of redeeming Israel from bondage, and of establishing a covenant relationship with them is the subject of many lessons throughout the remainder of the Bible.  This history is used as an analogy for Christians today, who are called out of the bondage of sin, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and brought into a new covenant relationship with Jesus Christ.  See, for instance, I Corinthians 10:1-11; I Peter 1:17-19; Romans 8:15; Hebrews 8:8-10.

Keeping the seventh day Sabbath holy helps us to worship Jesus Christ as our Creator and Redeemer (Hebrews 1:1-3). 

Reason #3  Keeping the seventh day Sabbath holy foreshadows entering into “His rest.”

In Hebrews 2:5-10 we are given spiritual understanding of “the world to come” (verse 5); of God’s purpose for creating mankind, “in bringing many sons to glory” (verse 10); and that “now we do not yet see” the ultimate fulfillment of God’s purpose for us.  We find out about this in Hebrews 4:1-11, the clearest instruction in the Bible about the Sabbath picturing “His rest” that is yet to come.  In these verses we see all three reasons for keeping the Sabbath day holy.  God is shown to be our Creator (verses 3-4); God is shown as being the Redeemer of Israel (verses 2-3, 5-8).  He sanctified the seventh day (verse 4), and continues to designate “a certain day” (verse 7), which foreshadows “His rest” (verses 1, 10).  “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (verse 9). 

The third great reason God gave for us to keep the seventh day Sabbath holy, the day that He sanctified and blessed by resting, is that it foreshadows “His rest,” that He refers to as “the world to come.” 

With these three great reasons to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” also comes the instruction in Hebrews 4:11 “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience.”