Why do Christians worship on a Sunday?

Q: If the biblical Sabbath is on Saturday, why do Christians worship on Sunday? Are we ignoring the fourth commandment? 

For ancient Israel, the Sabbath was not merely a day off. It was a sign of both creation and covenant: a weekly reminder that God had rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, as a kind of new creation, and invited them into his rest. 

In early rabbinic thought, the Sabbath was seen as a day of anticipating the age to come – a miniature rehearsal. One day, God would renew the whole creation, as in the Psalms and the prophets. That future time was to be anticipated regularly, with the last day of the week becoming a forward signpost to God’s final intention for his world. 

Thus, on Shabbat, God’s people were to live as if that future age were already here. Some said you shouldn’t even kill a fly on the Sabbath, because Isaiah 11 says that in the new creation, all creatures will live in peace. 

This reframes how we read several New Testament passages about the Sabbath. “The time is fulfilled”, Jesus said in Mark 1:15 (ESV). The new age was already breaking in. You don’t put up a sign saying: “This way to London” in Piccadilly Circus. You’re already there. Jesus was not saying that the Sabbath – and, with it, God’s purposes for his creation – was a silly bit of legalism. He was saying that God’s long-awaited kingdom was arriving through his presence and healing work.

Some early Christians went on keeping the Sabbath, and some didn’t. In Romans 14:4, Paul had to explain that it was now voluntary. Whenever the New Testament refers to the Ten Commandments (in Mark 10, Romans 13 and elsewhere) the Sabbath is interestingly omitted. It has been fulfilled. 

In John 19:30, the last words of Jesus are recorded: “It is finished.” It is an echo of Genesis 2:2, when God “finished” his work at the end of the sixth day. John then stresses that Jesus rose on “the first day of the week” (20:1). The implication is that the intervening Saturday is the moment when, with his work complete, God incarnate rested once and for all, before the new creation began.

The decisive moment was the resurrection, the launching of God’s new creation. The early Christians gathered on this ordinary working day as a sign of this new world. They were not abolishing the Old Testament command. They were indicating that it had now been completely fulfilled. 

Does all this mean, then, that a regular day of rest no longer matters? Certainly not. Humans are not designed as perpetual-motion machines. The broader lesson of the Sabbath is that a rhythm of work and rest is part of God’s intention. But the New Testament never mandates a specific day of rest for Christians. Indeed, as Paul says explicitly in Colossians 2:16: “Do not let anyone judge you by…a Sabbath day.” The issue is not a calendar regulation but a life shaped by God’s rhythm of work, worship and rest. 

The Christian life is meant to embody the Sabbath principle: trusting in God rather than in our own frantic striving; making space for worship; practising justice; resting joyfully in God’s love. 

Sunday worship is an excellent way to remember that. With the resurrection, God’s new creation has already begun. It is an ideal moment to celebrate and worship the one who fulfils God’s plan for the world. Jesus is, in himself, God’s new creation sprung to life, and when we worship him, we are drawn afresh into the rhythm of that newborn world. 

Hear more from Tom Wright on the ‘Ask NT Wright Anything’ podcast premier.plus

For more reading on this topic see Tom’s new book, God’s Homecoming (SPCK)