Remember
the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all
thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it
thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy
manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is
within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and
all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the
sabbath day, and hallowed it.
(Ex
20:8-11)
Many Bible scholars today seem to believe that God’s issuance of the Ten
Commandments was the moment of institution of the Holy Sabbath. I disagree for
it is mentioned in Genesis: 1 Thus the heavens and the earth
were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended
his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God
created and made.
(Gen
2:1-3) Again it was
observed in Egypt as well in the wilderness Journey prior to Sinai: And he said unto them, This is that
which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the
LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and
that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. (Ex 16:23) and So the people rested on the seventh day. (Ex
16:30) Though the
Sabbath was not instituted at Sinai, it was, indeed, codified into the Table of
the Law.
It is important to note God begins this Commandment with the word, REMEMBER. It
is important because God does not want us to forget, or take for granted, this
serious Commandment. He tells us to remember the Sabbath for He knows that we
will be inclined to disregard it. You may feel that you are keeping the Sabbath
today, but you may not be. Is Sunday the Sabbath Day? No, it is the first day
of the week. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week which the Spanish
calendar still depicts as Sábado. Sunday, by consensus, was set
aside by the early church as an appropriate day to set aside to formally
worship the Lord, but it is not the Sabbath described in the 4th
Commandment. The Hebrew Sabbath began at sundown Friday evening and continued
till sundown on Saturday. It is intriguing to know that Jesus was laid in the
Garden Tomb precisely at the beginning of Sabbath, and had already arisen
before light of day on Sunday (see John 20:1). So we do not know the precise
moment that Christ broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave. It could
have been 4 A.M. or it could even have been at sundown on Saturday – the end of
the Sabbath. One thing we do know is this: Christ kept that Sabbath Day in the
rest of death in the Tomb!
There have been
numerous and voluminous works written to show that the Hebrew Sabbath was
changed from Saturday to Sunday, but all such attempts fall far short of
success. The Sabbath was not changed and still remains inviolate today for
Christians. I realize that you are probably thinking that I am proposing that
we must still observe the strict observance on a Seventh Day Sabbath – no, I am
not; however, I believe that Christ became our Passover when He died a
substitutionary death for us on the brow of Calvary: Purge out therefore the
old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ
our passover is sacrificed for us. (1 Cor
5:7) In the same
sense, I believe that Christ became our Sabbath (Rest). Can we do any good
works apart from Christ working in and through us? No, we are incapable of such
works.
None of our Christian labors are ours, but belong to Christ
working in our members. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are
alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
(Romans 6:13)
For it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Phil
2:13) The only
works we can take credit for are those of sin and disobedience, for the carnal
man is unable to please God. Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying
in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear
his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would
he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a
rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also
hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. (Heb 4:7-10)
The Greek word for REST in the above verse is (sabbatismovß) or Sabbatismos
(sab-bat-is-mos') which means, ‘keeping Sabbath.’ In my own personal
opinion, I understand the Sabbath not to have been abrogated by Christ, but
rather made more stringent. Not only do we keep one day in seven as Sabbath,
but seven days in seven, for Christ is our eternal Sabbath. All that we do,
think, and value is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ, if we are devout and
serious Christians. Our labors are His labors, and we have that rest promised
by God in Christ.
Though Christ has become our Sabbath for rest in God, our
physical bodies are not immune to weariness and exhaustion. Therefore, the one
day in seven principle for physical rest remains needful for the mortal body.
Governments from China to France, from Soviet Russia to Nazi Germany, have
attempted eliminate any day of rest at all in the week, but to no avail. The
Sabbath Day was not only a spiritual rest granted to ancient Israel, but a
physical rest given to all mankind in God’s natural laws.
Our keeping of God’s Sabbath today is to allow Christ to
labor in and through our members. If we step back and allow Christ to work in
us, we will discover that we have the attributes of the great Eagle. We will
not grow weary in good works because those good works came not of our labors
but of Christ. Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the
everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not,
neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power
to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the
youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But
they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up
with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk,
and not faint. (Isaiah
40:28-31)
The Day of Worship for the Christian is EVERY day. Every day in the life of the
Christian is hallowed by God. Our first conscious thoughts should be to glorify
our Lord, just as did the shepherd of Israel: 1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul
thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where
no water is; 2 To see thy power and thy glory,
so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. (Psalms
63:1-2) We will seek His face early – even
before we prepare food for the belly, we will seek to satisfy the void in the
heart.
And not only will our search for God and glorying in Him be
in the daylight hours, but also the dark nights of the soul: My soul shall be satisfied as with
marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When
I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. (Psalms
63:5-6) There are
far too many of us who take a flippant view of our duties, and love, for God.
We believe that we can depend only upon a weekly sermon and reading of the
Gospel and we are set for a week of forgetfulness in the world. Really? No, we
need the daily bread of the Word, of prayer, and of dependence upon our
Creator. It is by His power and discretion that we receive the next breath of
life (did we labor for it?). And it is from His gracious will that our heart
performs the very next beat. None of the basic functions of life come as a result
of our labor, but from God. He continues those labors of His in maintaining our
lives day by day, seven days a week. He is truly our Sabbath Rest in every way.
There is no man to enforce the Sabbath. It is God who
commanded it. His Voice thundered it from the Smokey Heights of Sinai. That
same Voice also thundered again on the Mount of Transfiguration: This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it,
they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them,
and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when
they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. (Matt 17:5-8) Arise, be not afraid. The Law
of God is no longer written on Tables of Stone, but by Love upon the sinews of
our hearts – written, not with pick and hammer on stone tables, but by the
Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on the soft, fleshly chambers of our hearts!
