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
