A study of the references to the Sabbath in the Gospels reveals that Yahusha/Jesus was at odds with the orthodox religeous Jews of His day, who had turned what was meant to be a day of rest and blessing into a matter of strict, legalistic bondage. Yahusha/Jesus, of course, lived in the closing days of the Old (Mosaic) Covenant, and the terms of that Covenant were still applicable even as Yahusha/Jesus Himself was introducing the New Covenant.

Of the occasions where the Sabbath is mentioned in the Gospels, on six occasions Yahusha/Jesus was healing the sick; on four occasions He was teaching in the synagogues; on three occasions the reference is simply an indication of the time of the week, and on two occasions the actual observance of a Sabbath is suggested.

Where Yahusha/Jesus is mentioned as teaching on the Sabbath, He is using the opportunity, as a Rabbi, to reach people who were gathered to hear God’s word. Where actual observance of the Sabbath is implied, reference is to the disciples resting on the Sabbath after Christ’s crucifixion (Luke 23:56); and in the Olivet discourse, warning them to avoid the Sabbath day and its limitations on travel, in their flight from the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in AD70 as predicted (Matthew 24:20).

On none of these occasions did Yahusha/Jesus instruct His disciples about Sabbath-day observance. The fact that Yahusha/Jesus observed the Sabbath Himself does not support its observance now, in the New Testament Age, any more than His participation in Temple worship then supports our observance of such sacrificial worship now. He was simply meeting the requirements of the dispensation in which He lived. Yahusha/Jesus knew that the pattern of the weekly Sabbath was about to be superseded by a greater sign of God’s creative and sanctifying power.