Sabbatarianism-Sabbatarian
Short answer: Sabbatarianism is the conviction that Christians remain obligated to keep a weekly Sabbath, usually Saturday, as a day of rest and worship. Of all the biblical texts in that debate, Colossians 2:16-17 is the most direct, where Paul writes, Colossians 2:16, let no one judge you in eating, drinking, a feast day, a new moon, or a Sabbath day. In verse 17 he calls these things a shadow of things to come, while the substance belongs to Christ. Paul is not forbidding worship on a particular day; he is forbidding anyone from making such observances a basis for judging another believer's standing. Romans 14:5-6 grants each person freedom and conviction in this area, and Hebrews 4:9-10 directs hope toward a deeper rest that still remains for God's people. Faithful Christians have read these texts differently, and this study will not pretend otherwise.
What Colossians 2:16-17 actually says
The letter to the Colossians confronts a mixed set of teachings pressing in on a young church: ascetic practices, visions, angelic mediators, and regulations about food, drink, festivals, and days. In the middle of that warning, Paul writes, Colossians 2:16-17, that no one should judge a believer in matters of eating, drinking, a feast day, a new moon, or a Sabbath day, things he identifies as a shadow of things to come. The word for shadow is important. A shadow is real. It is cast by something. But it is not the thing itself.
Notice the structure of the argument. Paul does not say these practices never mattered. He says they pointed forward. The pressure he is resisting is not the pressure of people quietly resting on a particular day; it is the pressure of judges assigning spiritual rank on that basis. That is the danger the passage targets, and any reading of this text has to reckon with how specific and limited that target is.
Some Sabbatarians argue that the Sabbath here means only the ceremonial sabbaths tied to Israel's festival calendar, not the weekly seventh day. The text does list a feast day, a new moon, and a Sabbath in sequence, which in the Old Testament often refers to the annual festivals. That is a fair observation, and honest readers should weigh it. Others reply that the weekly Sabbath is too central to the command to be quietly excluded. This study takes the second reading as the more natural one, but it will not pretend the first is frivolous.
The Old Testament command behind the debate
Any discussion of Sabbatarianism must begin where the command begins. Exodus 20:8-11 opens with the word to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, grounding the command in creation and in God's rest after six days of work. The command is embedded in a covenant given to Israel at Sinai, marked by specific penalties, tied to Israel's calendar, and framed by God's deliverance of a particular people from Egypt.
That does not automatically mean the principle is irrelevant to Christians. The New Testament treats the moral law seriously, and many believers throughout history have seen in the Sabbath a creational pattern worth honouring, even if not as a covenant obligation. But the question is not whether rest is good or whether God built rhythms into the world. The question is whether the specific covenant command, with its day and its penalties, binds the church the way it bound Israel.
Christians who hold to a Sabbath obligation typically argue one of two ways. Some say the command is creational and therefore universal, and that the day shifted to Sunday in honour of the resurrection. Others, more modestly, say the principle of a weekly sabbath remains but the specific day does not. Both positions have been held by serious believers. Neither can be dismissed with a slogan.
Why Paul refuses to let days divide the church
Romans 14 addresses a congregation torn between believers with different consciences over food and days. Paul writes, Romans 14:5-6, that one man esteems one day as more important while another esteems every day alike, and he tells each person to be fully assured in his own mind. This is remarkable. Paul does not settle the day question; he refuses to make it a test of fellowship. The person who esteems a day does so to the Lord, and the person who does not, does so to the Lord.
What Paul is protecting here is the unity of the church around Christ, not the uniformity of its calendar. He treats both the observer and the non-observer as genuine believers. He warns against contempt on one side and judgment on the other. If a New Testament apostle was willing to leave this matter to individual conviction, modern congregations should be extremely cautious about making it a boundary of fellowship.
This is the point where Sabbatarian teaching often overreaches, and where anti-Sabbatarian zeal often overreaches too. Paul does not say the day-keeper is weak and mistaken. He says both positions can be held to the Lord. That cuts against anyone who would make Sabbath observance a condition of salvation or of genuine church membership. It also cuts against anyone who would mock a believer whose conscience leads them to rest on a particular day.
The shadow and the substance
The controlling idea in Colossians 2 is that Christ is the fullness, and everything else is measured against him. Paul has just said that in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and that believers are made complete in him. From that height, regulations about days are not the centre; they are shadows cast by a greater reality. The Greek word for shadow implies a faint, preparatory outline, not the completed picture.
This does not mean Old Testament institutions were empty or deceptive. A shadow is honest about the object casting it. Israel's calendar genuinely taught the people to look for rest, for atonement, for deliverance. But when the substance arrives, clinging to the shadow as though it were the substance distorts the very thing the shadow pointed to. This is why Paul can be so firm without being hostile to those who still treasure the day.
Hebrews makes a similar move. Hebrews 4:9-10 says that a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God, and describes the one who has entered that rest as having rested from his works. The argument of the whole passage is that the rest Israel was promised in Canaan and pictured in the weekly Sabbath finds its fulfilment in something fuller. Whatever a Christian believes about Saturday or Sunday, the deepest rest is not a calendar slot but a person.
What Jesus said about the Sabbath
Jesus clashed repeatedly with religious leaders over the Sabbath, and his responses are worth reading carefully. In Mark 2:27-28 he tells his opponents that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and then claims authority over it as Son of Man. He is not abolishing rest. He is refusing to let a good gift become a crushing master.
Notice what Jesus does in these conflicts. He heals. He lets his disciples pluck grain. He challenges the elaborate rules that had grown around the command. He never says the Sabbath is meaningless. He says its purpose is human flourishing and its Lord is himself. That double claim, purpose and lordship, is exactly the framework in which the rest of the New Testament discusses days.
Anyone who uses Jesus to argue that days do not matter at all has to reckon with the fact that he kept the Sabbath and honoured it. Anyone who uses Jesus to argue that the Sabbath is a binding requirement on all believers has to reckon with his claim that he, not the calendar, is Lord of it. Both errors are easy; the text will not let us have either one for free.
What Galatians adds to the conversation
Galatians 4 is Paul's angriest letter, and in it he warns a Gentile church about returning to observance of days, months, seasons, and years. He writes, Galatians 4:9-11, asking why they would turn back to weak and miserable elemental principles and be in bondage all over again. The context is Gentile believers being pressured to adopt Jewish calendar practices as a means of standing before God.
This is not a general condemnation of anyone who rests on a particular day. It is a warning against using observances to secure a status that Christ has already secured. The danger is not the calendar; it is the heart that trusts the calendar. Paul's fear is that such practices, when treated as requirements, become a form of slavery from which Christ has already freed his people.
Sabbatarians will point out that Paul is addressing those who wanted to be justified by law, not those who simply love the Lord's day. That distinction is real and should be honoured. But the warning still applies whenever anyone makes the day a mark of genuine faith, or treats those who differ as second-class. The line Paul draws is between rest as gift and rest as requirement.
Pastoral wisdom for divided churches
In real congregations, this question shows up in practical ways. Should the church meet on Saturday or Sunday? Should members be encouraged to rest from work? What about children's sports, Sunday shifts, and small groups that meet on the wrong evening? These are not abstract questions for families trying to be faithful.
The New Testament pattern is to hold conviction firmly while holding the door open to those who differ. A church can teach its view clearly without making it a test of salvation. A believer can rest on a day without judging a neighbour who does not. A believer who does not observe a day can honour one who does. Both sides are commanded to do everything to the Lord.
Where churches have divided over this, the damage has usually come not from the day itself but from the pride and fear attached to it. The remedy is not to pretend the question does not matter, but to keep the gospel at the centre. Christ is the substance. Everything else is a shadow, and shadows must never be allowed to cast out the one who cast them.
Does the Sabbath still bind Christians?
Honest answer: serious believers disagree. Some, following the historic Reformed tradition, hold that the moral principle of a weekly sabbath remains and is now observed on the Lord's Day. Others, following the Anabaptist and much of the broader Protestant tradition, hold that the specific command belonged to the old covenant and that the Lord's Day is a church practice, not a reimposed law. Both positions have produced godly pastors and missionaries.
What the New Testament does not permit is making either view a gate into the kingdom. Paul will not allow a day to divide a church that has Christ. He allows each person to be fully assured in his own mind and to do what he does to the Lord. That is the pastoral floor beneath this whole debate, and it should be the floor beneath our conversations too.
Where you land, hold it with humility. If you rest on a day, rest to the Lord and do not despise those who do not. If you do not observe a day, thank God for rest in Christ and do not judge those who do. The main thing is the one the shadow was always pointing toward.
Biblical fidelity check
What Colossians 2:16-17 does establish is that no one may judge a believer on the basis of dietary rules, festivals, or a Sabbath day, because those things are a shadow whose substance is Christ. It does not establish that rest is unimportant, that the Old Testament was mistaken, or that believers may not voluntarily honour a day. It also does not settle whether the weekly Sabbath was included in the list; the argument, not the list, carries the weight.
A common misreading is to turn Paul into an anti-Sabbath activist, as though he were campaigning against anyone who rests on Saturday. Read in context, he is protecting the weak and the strong from mutual judgment, not abolishing rest. The opposite misreading, that Colossians 2 only concerns annual festivals, has to explain why Paul would name a Sabbath at all in a list already containing a feast day and a new moon. Neither reading should be used to despise a brother.
Other passages that speak to Colossians 2:16-17
Several studies on this site trace the same themes through the letter and its neighbours. For a closer look at how Paul frames the supremacy of Christ, see What Does Colossians 1:23 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. For the prayer and theology that set up the whole letter, see Colossians 1: Paul's Prayer and Christ's Supremacy. The immediate context of our passage is best read with Colossians 2: Fullness and Freedom in Christ, and the resurrection logic that follows is unpacked in What Does Colossians 3:1 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application.
Frequently asked questions
Does Colossians 2:16-17 abolish the Sabbath?
It does not abolish rest; it forbids judging anyone over a Sabbath day and calls such observances a shadow pointing to Christ. Paul does not say the day was evil or that believers must abandon it. He says no one may use it as a basis for condemning another believer. Read alongside Romans 14:5-6, the passage leaves the matter to individual conviction while keeping Christ as the substance the shadow pointed toward.
Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath?
Many in the Reformed tradition answer yes, arguing that the creational pattern of one day in seven continues and that the day shifted to the first day in honour of the resurrection. Others, including much of the Anabaptist and broader Protestant stream, answer that the Lord's Day is a church practice rather than a reimposed covenant command. Scripture does not explicitly command the change, so the question turns on how each side reads the relationship between the covenants.
How should I treat a fellow believer who disagrees with me about the Sabbath?
Paul gives the pattern in Romans 14:5-6. Do not judge the one who observes a day, and do not despise the one who does not. Both can do what they do to the Lord. Hold your own conviction with a clear conscience, teach it if you are called to, but never make the day a test of salvation or of genuine fellowship. Christ, not the calendar, is the substance.
