Disclaimer #1: Please feel free to take exception to this little study on God's Sabbath. You are welcome to contact me(jlthomp{at}gmail{dot}com) with scripture to counter my evidence, but without pique. Leave your rant for your own blog … er … please.
Disclaimer #2: Don't feel daunted by this post's length. You will notice that half of this tome is Scripture, pasted here for your reading pleasure. The blogger has also provided links to relevant Scriptures on the Internet.
And now, on to the study.
God commanded us to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Though no believer can dispute that fact, we frequently dispute how it applies to His saints under the New Covenant.
The following passage from the prophet Jeremiah reiterates the Sabbath law to the people of his time. Obviously, the eternal, self-existent One1 had not ended or fulfilled it by then.
Jeremiah 17The following passage from Mark's gospel demonstrates Yeshua's2 attitude toward celebrating the Sabbath one day each week. In it, Yeshua compared Himself with King David, who violated the temple and ate the bread of the Presence, yet suffered no curse for his disobedience of the law, in a time when such recompense was swift and sure. Then Yeshua applied that lesson to his violation of the Sabbath by allowing His disciples to pluck heads of grain on that Holy Day. His operative principle; "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
19 Thus said the Lord to me: “Go and stand in the People's Gate, by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem,
20 and say: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates.
21 Thus says the Lord: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.
22 And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.
23 Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck, that they might not hear and receive instruction.
24 “‘But if you listen to me, declares the Lord, and bring in no burden by the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy and do no work on it,
25 then there shall enter by the gates of this city kings and princes who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their officials, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And this city shall be inhabited forever.
26 And people shall come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the Shephelah, from the hill country, and from the Negeb, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and bringing thank offerings to the house of the Lord.
27 But if you do not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.’”
Mark 2In Hebrews chapter 3, pasted below, the author established Yeshua's authority, even over Moses the law-giver, as compared with a builder over the house he built(including us), and a king's son over his servants.
23 One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.
24 And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him:
26 how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”
27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Then, writing under the Holy Spirit's authority and voice, he draws our attention to the Hebrews' rebellion in the wilderness over a period of forty years: As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.' Can any oath be more binding than one breathed by God? Because of their unfaithfulness and presumption, God promised they would not enter His rest. Does that mean their Sabbath rest was ended? Quite the contrary; their disobedience bound them to the ceremonial law, the Sabbaths and the holy days.
Vs. 12 warns us against falling away from the living God due to the evil of an unbelieving heart. And verse 13 tells us to exhort one another "every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of (us) may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin," making every day the right time for such exhortation, not only the Sabbath.
Does that mean we are bound to celebrate the Sabbath seven days a week? Chapter four, verse one, clarifies God's principle of the Sabbath as a perpetual rest to which we must aspire by faith.
Verse three is the pivotal verse for this new application of God's Sabbath; For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, "As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest,'" although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. The challenge to the literal, calendar Sabbath is, "Does God still rest from His six days of labor creating the universe? Or is His Sabbath periodic, as it was for the Hebrews?" Since God's word tells us nothing of any of His further works of creation, His rest from creation is perpetual, and by entering into His rest, ours is perpetual as well.
Verse six states that those under the Old Covenant failed to enter God's rest, even though they semi-faithfully honored the weekly Sabbath. And this verse reiterates the Sabbath as a rest to which we must aspire.
Okay, verse seven tells us, again he appoints a certain day .... That must be Saturday, right? Try again. The day He appointed is Today. Which day is "today?" Every day.
Verses eight through eleven are clear: For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Our weekly Sabbath was never God's rest, but a type of the rest we have in Messiah, not only on Saturday, but every day, unto eternity.
Heb 3:11-19; 4:1-11 ESVIn the following passage, John 5:16-17, Yeshua explains His reason for healing on the Sabbath. That explanation gives another perspective on the Sabbath of God, it completed His creation of the universe; since He rested, there was no more creation work to be done. Again, since God's word says nothing about God going back to His creation work after the sixth day, that Sabbath is still in effect.
11 As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'"
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15 As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion."
16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, "As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest,'" although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works."
5 And again in this passage he said, "They shall not enter my rest."
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,
7 again he appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.
9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,
10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
John 5Did the writer of the letter to the Hebrews contradict Yeshua's statement in John 5? Is God, or is He not, still working since He finished creation? The believer's answer is "No," and, "Yes." God's creation work finished at the end of the sixth day of creation, but His recreation work continues until now.
16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
From the reasoning presented above, we must at least admit that first-day worshipers have some basis for that practice. Seventh-day worshipers, though their arguments sound convincing as far as they go, have no justification for dogmatically berating others who do not share their convictions.
This blogger will again visit this touchy issue at some time in the future. Until then, glorify the eternal, self-existent God every day, and you will do well.
Footnotes:
1; The name most translations give to God is Jehovah. A few of them get it closer by using the name, Yahweh. Either way, however, His holy Name is only approximate. Through the centuries, Jewish scribes, believing His Name too holy to pronounce, lest they risk breaking First Commandment(Exodus 20:2-7) made it unpronounceable by omitting the word's vowels. Scholars since then have made a stab at its correct spelling by inserting the vowels from adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord. The author chooses to use the meaning of the Name lost to history because of religious piety, thereby avoiding any ambiguity.
2; The name Jesus is the English approximation for the Greek translation of Jesus' Hebrew name, Yeshua. Why use an approximation of a translation of a name when the name itself is perfectly valid? In a word: TRADITION
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