The Sabbath In Light of the Gospel

BY MICHAEL DELANEY

“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.  For I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30.

With these words did our Saviour describe the Gift of Himself as the salvation of our souls.  Please note that He used the word REST twice in these verses as that which He would give and that which we would find by coming unto Him.  Beautiful truth … beautiful reality … wonderful words of hope and blessing for all. Sabbath from the Hebrew means rest.  From the end of creation week, God “rested” from His complete and perfect work of creation.

The God say everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Genesis 1:31

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. 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. (Genesis 2:1-3)

Now mark this point with care: God did not rest because He was tired and needed a break.  He rested from His creative activities because the work was finished---perfect---complete.  He instituted the Seventh-day rest (Sabbath) as a memorial and weekly reminder to all of creation that He was and is the Creator God from Whom all blessings flow in the eternal current of His unending love.  The seven-day cycle has no origin in natural celestial phenomena.  For example, a day is one rotation of the earth on its axis.  A year is one revolution of the earth around the sun.  We can find no parallel for the seven-day cycle in nature.  It is something that God Himself created for the express purpose of setting the Holy Time of Sabbath apart from the other days of the week.  Make no mistake about it.  He is specific regarding the seventh day.  That seventh-day cycle has not changed but remains to this day and will remain throughout eternity according to His Holy Word.  We shall see this, from His Word as we proceed.

Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day.  They were the crowning act of God’s creation.  It is probable that they were the last to be created and were created perhaps later on in the day.  Now it is very interesting to note that Adam and Eve spent their first full day resting!  They were ushered into the blessed covenant of Sabbath rest in a Divine orchestration of God’s plan to instill in them the blessed total dependence on Him for their every happiness in life.  When they sinned, they broke that Sabbath covenant and were plunged into the perils and sorrows of independence from God.  In order to restore the fallen pair and their offspring (the human race) to that blessed “atonement” with the God Who is Love and absolute Holiness, Jesus had to come and lay down His perfect life in death so that perfect justice could be satisfied and we could be redeemed.  The first promise of this redemption was given in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Jesus was promised to the fallen pair as the way back to the blessed existence they had forfeited as a result of their sin.  Now remember, Jesus called His salvation gift a rest.  There is tremendous significance to His use of this term in relation to the gospel itself.  The original seventh-day rest day (Sabbath) was instituted for Adam and Eve as well as their offspring.  If sin had not interrupted the tranquil scene, Adam, Eve, and all of their offspring would have lived forever and the weekly cycle consisting of six days and a special day (sanctified or set apart for holy use) would have gone on forever.  Sin caused man to “forget” the significance of the day … hmmm … no wonder God used the word “remember” when referring to the Sabbath when He wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger.

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. (Exodus 20:8-11)

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.  And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. (Exodus 31:12-18)

We must never forget that it was Jesus Himself that communed with Moses and that it was Jesus Himself that wrote these Ten Precepts with His own finger.   Consider the following beloved of the Lord:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

If we are to believe His Word, then from the above it can be readily seen that everything that was made – including the seventh-day Sabbath, was made by Jesus Himself.  That is why He said in Matthew 12:8, “For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.”

Now Jesus was a radical indeed…and in order to demonstrate the proper “keeping of the Sabbath” He purposely did the following:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight. Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not. They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. (John 9:1-14)

Please note that it was the Sabbath day when Jesus performed this miracle.  He could easily have just spoken the words “be healed” or “receive thy sight” as He had done on other occasions.  But here, He goes through the elaborate process of spitting in clay, mixing it in and then rubbing this wonderful mixture into the man’s blind eyes…then to top it off, He tells the man to wash it off as part of the procedure…..all of this while His enemies watched Him and falsely judged Him for “breaking the Sabbath.”  I personally like the guts that Jesus displayed time and time again when in the presence of His enemies who had perverted the blessings of the Sabbath into ritualistic and legalistic do’s and don’ts.  Jesus said that it was lawful and good to work to relieve the suffering of those in need.  That is the true character of our God. With all of that said, how can we see the Sabbath in light of the gospel?  We must first understand what the gospel is before we can relate the Sabbath to it.

The gospel is the unconditional good news of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  In His holy history, a perfect, finished, complete salvation was accomplished for every man.  Please note the language I am using here.  I said the gospel is a perfect, finished and complete work of God….the work of redemption for every human being in an objective sense.  This is because Jesus, the Last Adam, represented the entire human race and by His perfect life and corporate sacrificial death, the entire human race was legally justified in Him.  This is the gospel.

Remember that I also stated that the work of Creation was a perfect, complete and finished work.  It is here that we can now see the significance of Sabbath in light of the gospel.  There were seven yearly “Sabbaths” that were instituted as tutors after the fall to the children of Israel in connection with the sanctuary and its services.  These “Sabbaths” all involved animal sacrifices that were but the type pointing forward to the anti-type, the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God.  It then can be readily seen that the “Sabbaths” of the sanctuary service had redemptive significance.  So too does the Seventh-day Sabbath in light of the fact that it is in resting in Christ completely, (not trying to add our own good works as qualifying or bargaining chips to secure salvation), that we can truly experience salvation in full.  Resting in Christ is most beautifully and powerfully symbolized in the true keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath.

Now here is something that is most important for you to realize.  Sabbath keeping saves no one.  Sabbath keeping blesses everyone who keeps it, but saves no one.  We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in the gospel of Jesus.  Here is where many are deceived.  There are many who mechanically "keep” the Sabbath … orthodox Jews for example … and are blessed.  But the Word is crystal clear … no man comes to the Father but through Jesus.  Many are under the delusion that by Sabbath-keeping they automatically have a ticket to heaven.  This is a great deception for even in the last days of the time of trouble, there will be mechanical “Sabbath-keepers” who will be lost because they do not know or reflect the Lord of the Sabbath.

So now we see that the seventh-day Sabbath has tremendous significance regarding our redemption in Christ.  I personally keep the Sabbath not to be saved but because I recognize that resting fully in Christ is beautifully symbolized by the institution and that God is pleased to see that His Sabbath is so honored and kept.  I love pleasing my Father and Saviour and so do I delight in His law … including the blessed Sabbath.  Keeping the Sabbath symbolizes to the utmost, being justified through faith alone freely by His grace alone. It is, in my humble opinion, the most powerful symbol in Scripture symbolizing justification by faith.

Finally, let us consider the Sabbath in light of eternity. As I earlier mentioned, if man had not sinned, the special significance of the seventh-day would even now be actual fact in a perfect world untainted by sin.  We know that because of The Fall and its consequence, the world has by and large forgotten what God had ordained from the beginning.  Now, what does the future of eternity hold for God’s people regarding the Sabbath? Let us consider the following:

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. (Isaiah 66:22-23)

The Word of God is plain.  For His children and even “all flesh” the seventh-day Sabbath will remain throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity….to declare God as Creator, Redeemer, and the Restorer of His perfect universe to its original state of sinless perfection!   The gospel declares that in Christ we have been re-created, redeemed, and restored in His body to the image of God.  We who know Him and have received Him as our Saviour do rejoice in that indescribable good news that we have been re created….are being sanctified daily through faith by His grace, and that we will be ultimately restored at Jesus second coming when this sinful mortal flesh will put on immortality and perfect restoration.  These three aspects of our salvation all have a direct link to the blessed Sabbath truth of resting in Christ and becoming totally dependent on Him.  Jesus Himself kept the Sabbath that He was Lord of, “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” (Luke 4:16)

Jesus admonished us His followers and disciples as follow in the gospel according to Saint Luke:

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? (Luke 9:23-25)

Following Him is important as we can see.  Taking up the cross is also important and involves going against the flow of popular belief.  Consider the following brethren, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

Persecution is inevitable. Generation of Christianity is generation of war. Not necessarily a physical battle but of course a spiritual war. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Therefore we should prepare to maintain our focus in holiness and righteousness as we bear the banner of peace.  Jesus admonished us in the following:

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. (John 15:19-20)

Part of the Christian experience is persecution.  When a truth that goes against popular teaching is received and assimilated into the life experience, the battle becomes more intense.  God has promised tremendous blessings to those who follow Him fully and so I close with these words from the prophet Isaiah:

If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. (Isaiah 58:13-14)

May we believe His Word and receive the bountiful blessings He so longs to impart that He may be glorified in the sight of all men is my humble prayer, in Jesus Name, Amen.

Michael Delaney writes from Orlando FL, USA
E-mail: mdelaney6@cfl.rr.com