WEReveal

Originally pub­lished 12÷2÷1995

The Sabbath was estab­lished by God to empha­size sev­eral truths. Truth doesn’t change but the way we express those truths might. The prob­lem is when we begin to can­n­on­ize the prac­tice instead of the truth. What truths are expressed in the Sabbath and is this the one com­mand­ment of the Ten Commandments we can ignore?

Lets start with the scripture.

Scripture

(All scrip­ture is taken from the NIV)

Gen. 2:2–3 [show]Genesis 2:2–3 [2]And on the sev­enth day God fin­ished his work that he had done, and he rested on the sev­enth day from all his work that he had done. [3]So God blessed the sev­enth day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in cre­ation. (ESV)
By the sev­enth day God had fin­ished the work he had been doing; so on the sev­enth day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the sev­enth day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of cre­at­ing that he had done.

Deut. 5:12–15 [show]Deuteronomy 5:12–15 [12]“‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God com­manded you. [13]Six days you shall labor and do all your work, [14]but the sev­enth day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daugh­ter or your male ser­vant or your female ser­vant, or your ox or your don­key or any of your live­stock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male ser­vant and your female ser­vant may rest as well as you. [15]You shall remem­ber that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an out­stretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God com­manded you to keep the Sabbath day. (ESV)
Observe the Sabbath day by keep­ing it holy, as the LORD your God has com­manded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the sev­enth day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, nei­ther you, nor your son or daugh­ter, nor your manser­vant or maid­ser­vant, nor your ox, your don­key or any of your ani­mals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manser­vant and maid­ser­vant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an out­stretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has com­manded you to observe the Sabbath day.

Col. 2:16–17 [show]Colossians 2:16–17 [16]Therefore let no one pass judg­ment on you in ques­tions of food and drink, or with regard to a fes­ti­val or a new moon or a Sabbath. [17]These are a shadow of the things to come, but the sub­stance belongs to Christ. (ESV)
Therefore do not let any­one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a reli­gious fes­ti­val, a New Moon cel­e­bra­tion or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the real­ity, how­ever, is found in Christ.

Hebr. 4:9–11 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the peo­ple of God; for any­one who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, there­fore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by fol­low­ing their exam­ple of disobedience.

We need phys­i­cal rest

God estab­lished the Sabbath day in part to show that we need phys­i­cal rest. Although the Sabbath day is pri­mar­ily a spir­i­tual les­son, I believe God also has prac­ti­cal rea­sons for his laws, i.e., God uses prac­ti­cal meth­ods to teach us impor­tant spir­i­tual lessons. For exam­ple, God’s laws regard­ing not eat­ing pork taught impor­tant lessons regard­ing holi­ness but it also pro­tected His peo­ple from improp­erly cooked pork which could cause illness.

In the same way, the Sabbath is a spir­i­tual les­son with a prac­ti­cal pur­pose. I find it inter­est­ing that the Sabbath was applied to every­one and every liv­ing thing. Rest is nec­es­sary for all liv­ing things. When we ignore this sim­ple fact, we find our phys­i­cal being worn out.

It is also inter­est­ing that not only is there a Sabbath day but also a Sabbath year (see Leviticus 25 [show]Leviticus 25 The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, say­ing, [2]“Speak to the peo­ple of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD. [3]For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vine­yard and gather in its fruits, [4]but in the sev­enth year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vine­yard. [5]You shall not reap what grows of itself in your har­vest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. [6]The Sabbath of the land shall pro­vide food for you, for your­self and for your male and female slaves and for your hired ser­vant and the sojourner who lives with you, [7]and for your cat­tle and for the wild ani­mals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food. [8]“You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. [9]Then you shall sound the loud trum­pet on the tenth day of the sev­enth month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trum­pet through­out all your land. [10]And you shall con­se­crate the fifti­eth year, and pro­claim lib­erty through­out the land to all its inhab­i­tants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his prop­erty and each of you shall return to his clan. [11]That fifti­eth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall nei­ther sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. [12]For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the pro­duce of the field. [13]“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his prop­erty. [14]And if you make a sale to your neigh­bor or buy from your neigh­bor, you shall not wrong one another. [15]You shall pay your neigh­bor accord­ing to the num­ber of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you accord­ing to the num­ber of years for crops. [16]If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the num­ber of the crops that he is sell­ing to you. [17]You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the LORD your God. [18]“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and per­form them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. [19]The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. [20]And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the sev­enth year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ [21]I will com­mand my bless­ing on you in the sixth year, so that it will pro­duce a crop suf­fi­cient for three years. [22]When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eat­ing some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives. [23]“The land shall not be sold in per­pe­tu­ity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourn­ers with me. [24]And in all the coun­try you pos­sess, you shall allow a redemp­tion of the land. [25]“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his prop­erty, then his near­est redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. [26]If a man has no one to redeem it and then him­self becomes pros­per­ous and finds suf­fi­cient means to redeem it, [27]let him cal­cu­late the years since he sold it and pay back the bal­ance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his prop­erty. [28]But if he has not suf­fi­cient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his prop­erty. [29]“If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemp­tion. [30]If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in per­pe­tu­ity to the buyer, through­out his gen­er­a­tions; it shall not be released in the jubilee. [31]But the houses of the vil­lages that have no wall around them shall be clas­si­fied with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee. [32]As for the cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they pos­sess. [33]And if one of the Levites exer­cises his right of redemp­tion, then the house that was sold in a city they pos­sess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their pos­ses­sion among the peo­ple of Israel. [34]But the fields of pas­ture­land belong­ing to their cities may not be sold, for that is their pos­ses­sion for­ever. [35]“If your brother becomes poor and can­not main­tain him­self with you, you shall sup­port him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. [36]Take no inter­est from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. [37]You shall not lend him your money at inter­est, nor give him your food for profit. [38]I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. [39]“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells him­self to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: [40]he shall be with you as a hired ser­vant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. [41]Then he shall go out from you, he and his chil­dren with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the pos­ses­sion of his fathers. [42]For they are my ser­vants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. [43]You shall not rule over him ruth­lessly but shall fear your God. [44]As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. [45]You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your prop­erty. [46]You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a pos­ses­sion for­ever. You may make slaves of them, but over your broth­ers the peo­ple of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruth­lessly. [47]“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells him­self to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a mem­ber of the stranger’s clan, [48]then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his broth­ers may redeem him, [49]or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close rel­a­tive from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem him­self. [50]He shall cal­cu­late with his buyer from the year when he sold him­self to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the num­ber of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired ser­vant. [51]If there are still many years left, he shall pay pro­por­tion­ately for his redemp­tion some of his sale price. [52]If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall cal­cu­late and pay for his redemp­tion in pro­por­tion to his years of ser­vice. [53]He shall treat him as a ser­vant hired year by year. He shall not rule ruth­lessly over him in your sight. [54]And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his chil­dren with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. [55]For it is to me that the peo­ple of Israel are ser­vants. They are my ser­vants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (ESV)
), where every­thing in the coun­try for an entire year is at rest. God com­manded that every sev­enth year was to be a Sabbath year dur­ing which no agri­cul­tural activ­i­ties were to be prac­ticed, rather, the peo­ple were to live off what­ever the land pro­duced on its own. Again, as we have been redis­cov­er­ing recently, allow­ing a field to rest a year with­out being plowed is highly ben­e­fi­cial for the field to recover.

We need spir­i­tual rest

Both Paul in Colossians and the writer to the Hebrews shows us that the Sabbath day rest was a spir­i­tual les­son. Deuteronomy speaks of the fact that the Sabbath was in part, to remind the Israelites of their slav­ery in Egypt and their res­cue by God.

We are held in slav­ery by sin. That slav­ery exhausts us spir­i­tu­ally. We are promised spir­i­tual rest when we put our­selves in the hands of God. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and bur­dened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gen­tle and hum­ble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my bur­den is light.”

The writer to the Hebrews men­tions that it is impor­tant for us to not only enter into His rest but also to remain in that rest. Just as one could go out and break the Sabbath, so one who enjoys the spir­i­tual rest of God’s Sabbath can break that rest through will­ful dis­obe­di­ence. Although it is debated, it seems clear that Hebrews 6 [show]Hebrews 6 Therefore let us leave the ele­men­tary doc­trine of Christ and go on to matu­rity, not lay­ing again a foun­da­tion of repen­tance from dead works and of faith toward God, [2]and of instruc­tion about wash­ings, the lay­ing on of hands, the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead, and eter­nal judg­ment. [3]And this we will do if God per­mits. [4]For it is impos­si­ble, in the case of those who have once been enlight­ened, who have tasted the heav­enly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, [5]and have tasted the good­ness of the word of God and the pow­ers of the age to come, [6]and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repen­tance, since they are cru­ci­fy­ing once again the Son of God to their own harm and hold­ing him up to con­tempt. [7]For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and pro­duces a crop use­ful to those for whose sake it is cul­ti­vated, receives a bless­ing from God. [8]But if it bears thorns and this­tles, it is worth­less and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. [9]Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of bet­ter things–things that belong to sal­va­tion. [10]For God is not unjust so as to over­look your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serv­ing the saints, as you still do. [11]And we desire each one of you to show the same earnest­ness to have the full assur­ance of hope until the end, [12]so that you may not be slug­gish, but imi­ta­tors of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. [13]For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by him­self, [14]saying, “Surely I will bless you and mul­ti­ply you.” [15]And thus Abraham, hav­ing patiently waited, obtained the promise. [16]For peo­ple swear by some­thing greater than them­selves, and in all their dis­putes an oath is final for con­fir­ma­tion. [17]So when God desired to show more con­vinc­ingly to the heirs of the promise the unchange­able char­ac­ter of his pur­pose, he guar­an­teed it with an oath, [18]so that by two unchange­able things, in which it is impos­si­ble for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encour­age­ment to hold fast to the hope set before us. [19]We have this as a sure and stead­fast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the cur­tain, [20]where Jesus has gone as a fore­run­ner on our behalf, hav­ing become a high priest for­ever after the order of Melchizedek. (ESV)
shows us that we can in fact fall away from this rest.

Trust in God

A third les­son that the Sabbath teaches us is trust in God. By not doing any work–even sim­ple things like cooking–we demon­strate our trust in God, that He will take care of us with­out our inter­ven­tion. This is pos­si­bly the hard­est les­son for us to learn. We want to be self-sufficient and do every­thing our­selves. To take time off from rely­ing on our­selves is a big step of trust.

This is demon­strated with the Sabbath Year and even more so with the Year of Jubilee which occurred every 50 years. The Year of Jubilee was a spe­cial Sabbath year and always fol­lowed a stan­dard Sabbath year so that every 50 years there were two years of Sabbath rest for the land. For two years the peo­ple of God were to trust in God for all their needs, that the land would pro­duce enough food for them to live but that they were not to go out and do any farm­ing etc. They had to live on what they already had. It was also a time when all slaves and bonds­man were freed, giv­ing once again a pic­ture of our spir­i­tual slav­ery to sin and the free­dom in Christ we receive when we trust in Him.

A pic­ture of this trust can be seen in the story of the Israelites wan­der­ing in the wilder­ness. For six days they were to gather manna but on the sev­enth God did not sup­ply any manna for them to gather. If some­one would gather manna on one day and then let it sit until the next, it would spoil EXCEPT for manna gath­ered on the sixth day. Manna gath­ered on the sixth day would not spoil so it could be eaten on the sev­enth with­out hav­ing to gather it (work). This is a clear exer­cise in trust, since on every other day the manna gath­ered would not last 24 hours.

Dedication to God

Finally, the Sabbath teaches us about ded­i­ca­tion. By set­ting aside a day for God, we are giv­ing our day wholly and totally to God. It is also sym­bolic for the ded­i­ca­tion we make to God spir­i­tu­ally, giv­ing our­selves to God wholly and totally to God. It also has an ele­ment of ded­i­ca­tion to one another. By meet­ing reg­u­larly with one another, we demon­strate our ded­i­ca­tion to one another. We are the Body of Christ and need each other.

Conclusion

As hard as it is for some of us, we need to take a break from our work. Physically, it is impor­tant. It allows us to be able to work more effi­ciently and with strength. Our wit­ness then is not impeded by a lack of energy.

By tak­ing a break from our work, we also demon­strate and exer­cise our faith in God and our devo­tion to Him. He will con­tinue to take care of us. For some of us, this faith is exer­cised by not work­ing on Sunday. Instead, we give our­selves totally to God. We can often look at Sunday (and every other day of the week) as “Another Day, Another Dollar” but God would call us to change that to “Another Day, God Will Take Care of Me.” By tak­ing one day a week to phys­i­cally express that, we take one small step in our Christian lives closer to liv­ing every day trust­ing the Lord, devot­ing our­selves to Him and not to the dollar.

We can­not be legal­is­tic about mak­ing Sunday (or any other day) as more impor­tant or more holy than another. Every day should be given to God. Every day we should trust God. Every day we should devote our­selves to God. Our true rest is in God and that rest is for eter­nity. But it doesn’t change the truths expressed by God and we should lis­ten to what God would say to us. Rest in Him and He will take care of us.

I some­times won­der if God looks down on us in exas­per­a­tion on Sunday morn­ing as we scram­ble to get ready for Sunday wor­ship. Many of us are exhausted before we even get to Church. I some­times won­der what would hap­pen if we had a Sunday morn­ing wor­ship ser­vice where no one was per­mit­ted to wear their “Sunday best,” put on makeup, or do other ridicu­lous exer­cises in impress­ing one another with our out­ward appear­ance. I can’t help but think we might be able to focus more clearly on Him who made and keeps us and the inward need for clean­li­ness. [ed. in 2008 — I so love Flatland Church for this — there is no pres­sure to dress up phys­i­cally, rather, we need to dress up spiritually]

Afterward

Why do Christians wor­ship on Sunday (the first day of the week) instead of on the Sabbath (the sev­enth day)?

The Church con­sisted of a major­ity of Jews for many years. They would have gone to the Synagoge on the Sabbath, fol­low­ing the Jewish tra­di­tion. To wor­ship in a Christian set­ting they would meet again on the first day of the week (see Acts 20:7 [show]Acts 20:7 [7]On the first day of the week, when we were gath­ered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intend­ing to depart on the next day, and he pro­longed his speech until mid­night. (ESV)
and 1Cor. 16:2 [show]ERROR: No pas­sage found for your query.
as two exam­ples). As Gentiles were added to the Church, many Gentiles would have only met dur­ing the wor­ship ser­vices on Sunday.

When the Church became pre­dom­i­nantly Gentile and unfor­tu­nately anti-semitic to one degree or another, the tra­di­tion of meet­ing on Sunday con­tin­ued. Since Paul had already stated that all days were the Lord’s and of equal value, there was no felt need to switch the day. Bondage to a par­tic­u­lar day as being “the day” is as wrong if not more so than tak­ing a Sabbath’s day rest.

Actually, the Church met almost every day for cen­turies but the Sunday ser­vice was the pri­mary one since Jesus rose again on the first day of the week. The Church cel­e­brated Easter every Sunday! The Eucharist, also known as com­mu­nion, the Mass, the Lord’s Table, the break­ing of bread among many names, was also cel­e­brated (Eucharist means cel­e­bra­tion) every Sunday, again, as part of the thank­ful­ness for our sal­va­tion and the expec­ta­tion of the soon com­ing return of Christ, some­thing that has often been lost in churches that do not cel­e­brate at the Lord’s Table every Lord’s Day (but that is for a dif­fer­ent study <grin>).

Written by William Reveal 12÷2÷95