The Fourth Commandment of the Law of God

“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.”

By this commandment, the Lord God commands us to labor for six days and attend to the necessary affairs to which each person is called, and to dedicate the seventh day to serving Him and to holy deeds. Deeds pleasing to Him include: care for the salvation of one’s own soul, prayer in God’s temple and at home, study of the Word of God, enlightenment of the mind and heart with beneficial religious knowledge, pious religious conversations, help to the poor, visiting the sick and those imprisoned, comforting the sorrowful, and other works of mercy.

In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was observed (“Shabbat” in ancient Hebrew means “rest”) as a remembrance of God’s creation of the world: “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Gen. 2:3). After the Babylonian captivity, Jewish scribes began to interpret the commandment about Sabbath rest too formally and rigorously, forbidding any activity on that day, even good deeds. As can be seen from the Gospels, the scribes accused even the Savior of “breaking the Sabbath” when He healed someone on that day. The Lord explained to them that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk. 2:27). In other words, the Sabbath rest was established for the physical and spiritual benefit of man, and not to enslave him or deprive him of good activity. Weekly withdrawal from ordinary occupations gives a person the opportunity to collect his thoughts, renew his physical and spiritual strength, reflect on the purpose of his labors and of his earthly existence in general. Labor is necessary, but the most important work is the salvation of the soul.

In apostolic times, the Sabbath was observed by Christians of Jewish origin. However, on the first day after the Sabbath, on Sunday, Jewish Christians gathered for prayer and communion. Thus, already in the first century of the Christian era, the celebration of Sunday arose. When converting pagans to Christianity, the apostles did not require them to observe the Sabbath, but gathered them for prayer precisely on Sunday. Gradually, the Sabbath gave way to Sunday, which became universally observed as the day dedicated to God, in fulfillment of the fourth commandment. Those who violate the fourth commandment are not only those who work on Sunday, but also those who are lazy in laboring on weekdays and evade their duties, because the commandment says: “six days you shall labor.” Those who, although they do not work on Sunday, nevertheless do not dedicate that day to God, but spend it only in amusements, indulge in revelry and every excess, also violate the fourth commandment.

Orthodox Christians should revive in themselves the spiritual fervor of the Christians of the first centuries and strive to receive Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ every Sunday.