|
||||||||||||
 |
|
How do we keep the Sabbath? The Bible concept of a Sabbath day has been a source of contention ever since it was initiated. In Old Testament times, God's people, Israel, were frequently rebuked for their failure to observe the Sabbath day of rest. In New Testament times, the controversy continued. Jesus was criticised by the religious practitioners of His day for His insistence on doing good things for others on the Sabbath. Paul was critical of some Christians for their practices relating to Sabbath day observance. Today, there is still misunderstanding about the meaning of the Sabbath in the Church Age. However, God is not the author of confusion, and His word effectively resolves this issue.
Creation and the Sabbath The concept of a day of rest was initiated in the story of Creation. The Genesis account closes with God resting (Hebrew, shabath, (verb) to cease or rest) from all His work, and blessing and sanctifying the seventh day: 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 2:2-3 The themes here are rest and sanctification, and these themes remain the key to understanding the whole plan of the Sabbath.
God's Provision and the Sabbath The next reference to the Sabbath is in Exodus 16, when God sends the manna to feed the Children of Israel and ordains one day's portion to be collected each day, but a double portion to be collected on the sixth day (Exodus 16:4-5). Moses explained (verse 23) that this was because Tomorrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord ...six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. These arrangements were to be a test for of Israel, whether they would walk in God's law or not (verse 4). When the people gathered the double portion on the sixth day, Moses reminded them of God's instruction that the next day was to be a day of rest (Hebrew; shabbathon, cessation) of the holy (Hebrew; qodesh, set apart, separated) unto the Lord. When some of the people went out on the seventh day, God protested to Moses: How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws? See, for that the Lord has given you the Sabbath, so the people rested (Hebrew, shabbath) on the seventh day (verses 28-30). The key word and concept here is rest, as a point of strict obedience to God's instructions.
Establishing the Sabbath
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. God again stressed this particular commandment during Moses forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai, and added further detail: ...Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, so that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you ... whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, that soul shall be cut off ...Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. Exodus 31:13-16 God established the Sabbath as a perpetual (Hebrew, olam, an age - an indefinite time) covenant between Himself and the Children of Israel. Other nations and peoples were expected to observe these laws while they were within the gates of Israel, but the covenant was specifically with Israel. Throughout the Sinai accounts of the Sabbath institution, Israel was reminded of the creative work of God, and of His resting on the seventh day. Israel, in their turn, were to rest as a reminder of their creating, sanctifying Lord. The Sabbath theme is rest and remember! Thus, the institution of the Sabbath was established. From that time, and throughout the remainder of the Old Testament, the fact that the Sabbath was to be a day set apart was not questioned, although the actual observance of the Sabbath by the Children of Israel waxed and waned along with their spiritual prosperity.
The Sabbath and the Levitical Priesthood There are various exhortations to keep the Sabbath day, and to reverence the sanctuary, throughout Leviticus, (e.g. 19:3-30; 26:2). As well as the weekly Sabbaths, there are references to special feast days - Passover, Pentecost, Day of Atonement etc. These were each to be a special Sabbath of rest (Hebrew. shabbath of shabbathon) to the Children of Israel. (Leviticus 16:31, 23:3-7, 16-21, 27-28.) There was particular significance attached to each of these days, involving particular sacrifices and rituals that set them apart from the weekly Sabbaths. The very fact that they were special worship days suggests that the weekly Sabbath was not necessarily a day of worship as such. The instructions regarding observance of the weekly Sabbaths do not include any requirements for religious rituals or worship. The daily sacrifices were doubled for the Sabbath day, (Numbers 28:3-10) but this was a priestly function, and no other instructions for religious observances were given to the Israel people. The practice of worship on the Sabbath did not become common until the development of synagogues during the Exile. At that time, the Sabbath became a day of worship and study of the law (though not so appointed by God).
|
The weekly Sabbath was simply a day of rest and remembrance. Israel was not to become so engrossed in business and commerce that the God of their deliverance and salvation was forgotten. To ensure this, they were required to cease from all their labour on the last day of the week, and use this time to think about their Lord, who had promised to consecrate and prosper His Israel people.
The Sabbath in the New Testament The Greek language transliterates the term 'Sabbath' from the Hebrew to become: sabbata, sabbaton, Sabbath (day) or the Sabbath, and these are the words used to refer to the Sabbath in the New Testament. An interesting variation is found in Hebrews 4:9, where the term "rest" is translated from sabbatismos, meaning a Sabbath rest, or the keeping of a Sabbath. The general New Testament terms for 'rest' are: (i) Anapausis, cessation, refreshment, rest. (Matthew
11:29.) (ii) Katapausis, causing to rest, putting to rest. (Hebrew 4:1,3,11.)
The Sabbath in the gospels A study of the references to the Sabbath in the Gospels reveals that Jesus was at odds with the orthodox religionists of His day who had turned what was meant to be a day of rest and blessing into a matter of strict, legalistic bondage. Jesus, of course, lived under the Old (Mosaic) Covenant, and the terms of that Covenant were still applicable even as Jesus Himself was introducing the New Covenant. Of the occasions where the Sabbath is mentioned in the Gospels, on six of them Jesus was healing the sick; on four occasions He was teaching in the synagogues; on three occasions the reference is simply an indication of the time of the week, and on two, actual observance of a Sabbath is suggested. Where Jesus is mentioned as teaching on the Sabbath, He was using the opportunity, as a Rabbi, to reach people who were gathered to hear God's word. Where actual observance of the Sabbath is implied (Luke 23:56), this is a reference is to the disciples resting on the Sabbath after Christ's crucifixion. In Jesus' discourse on the Mount of Olives it is a warning to avoid the Sabbath day and its limitations on travel in their flight from the destruction of Jerusalem (which occurred as predicted in A.D.70) (Matthew 24:20). On none of these occasions did Jesus instruct His disciples about Sabbath-day observance. The fact that Jesus observed the Sabbath Himself does not support its observance now, in the New Testament age, any more than His participation in Temple worship then supports our observance of such sacrificial worship now. He was simply meeting the requirements of the dispensation in which He lived. Jesus knew that the pattern of the weekly Sabbath was about to be superseded by a greater sign of God's creative and sanctifying power.
The Sabbath in the Book of Acts
The Sabbath is mentioned in Acts 1:12, only in reference to the distance from Mt. Olivet to Jerusalem being a Sabbath day's journey (about 2000 cubits or 1 km). When Paul went into the synagogues at Pisidia (Acts 13:14,44), Thessalonica (17:2), and Corinth (18:4), on Sabbath days, He did so to reason with the Jews who gathered there on that day, still reading Moses (instead of Jesus!). More significantly, when the Council of Jerusalem met to decide how much of the law of Moses should be expected of Gentile converts: ...it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us (the disciples)
to lay on you (the converts) no greater burden than these necessary
things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, and from
blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which,
if you keep yourselves, you shall do well. There is no mention at all of keeping Sabbaths!
The Sabbath in the Epistles When the Church Age began at Pentecost, the relevant instructions were set out in the letters (Epistles) to the Churches. These instructions included all the moral precepts of the Ten Commandments, but not a single word is mentioned about keeping the Jewish weekly Sabbath. What we do find is that Christians who fell back into the habit of observing the Sabbaths were rebuked (Colossians 2:14-17).
Should the Old Testament Observance of the Sabbath Continue
Forever? Moses spoke of the Children of Israel keeping the Sabbath for a 'perpetual covenant' (Exodus 31:16). This sounds permanent, but the term 'perpetual' is from the Hebrew word, olam, meaning an age, or an indefinite time, and is the term used in Exodus 29:9, when the High Priest's office was given to Aaron and his sons for a perpetual (olam) statute. Under this statute, the High Priest was the one and only mediator, who could take the blood of the sacrifice into the Mercy Seat in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple, on the Day of Atonement. But this office ceased with the death of Jesus, the rending of the Temple veil, and the establishment of the new and living way which Jesus ...consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh (Hebrew 10:20). The perpetual covenant of the weekly Sabbath finished at that moment.
|
What about the rest promised in Hebrews? Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering
into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. So there is a 'rest' available during the Church Age, and it is possible to miss out on it through unbelief, as the Children of Israel did with their 'rest'. This 'rest' is in fact ceasing from works of our own righteousness, and adopting the promise that, there remains, therefore, a rest (literally, a keeping of a Sabbath) to the people of God: For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased
from his own works, as God did from His. Keeping the Sabbath is the continuous rest to be enjoyed by believers in their fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit, in contrast to the weekly Sabbath imposed by Old Testament Law.
How do we find this rest? As far back as the prophet Isaiah, God identified how this New Testament rest would be distinguished. Isaiah wrote: For with stammering lips and another tongue will He (God)
speak to this people. To whom He said, 'this is the rest by which
you may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing'. Paul identifies the New Testament experience of receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4,38), and the accompanying sign of speaking in tongues (Mark 16:17), as the basis of the rest available within the New Covenant, when he quotes the prophecy of Isaiah to the Corinthians (1Corinthians 14:21) in connection with the operation of Spiritual Gifts, in particular, speaking in tongues. To receive, or be baptised with, the Holy Spirit, we must first meet God's requirements of faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf, forsaking all attempts to gain any standing with Him by our own works, or keeping of a law. The Holy Spirit's law, which is life in Christ Jesus, sets us free from the custody of the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1). So, being set free, we are finally able to keep a Sabbath of
rest in which, having ceased from our own works as God did from
His, we live in unity with God remembering Him as our re-creator
and sanctifier. So the New Testament Sabbath is at last seen to
be not a day of the week, but the rest of a lifetime!
Is the Sabbath now a Saturday or a Sunday? It is neither! The various arguments in favour of Saturday versus Sunday observance of a weekly Sabbath are spiritually sterile and completely misleading, since as we have just seen, the New Testament Sabbath is an every day rest.
Is it right to observe Sunday as a day of worship? It's as good as any other day and more convenient than most, because of the way our society is organised! The Old Testament seventh day was not replaced by another day of the week. Rather, it was replaced by a permanent, every day, ceasing from our own works. Only confusion results from attempting to show that the Old Testament seventh-day observance was replaced by first day of the week worship. This debate misses the point of the New Testament rest, which is a complete every-day Spiritual rest in which we treat every day as holy to the Lord, and accept His offer to rest from our works by adopting His plan for our redemption. Paul exhorts us not to chase shadows but to seek the substance, which is Christ! (Colossians 2:16-17).
Our rest in the Lord Israel in the Old Testament was given the Sabbath as a sign of their special relationship with their Creator. They were instructed to rest on the seventh day, not to work, and not to carry burdens. But Israel profaned the Sabbath, and blasphemed God, by forsaking His statutes, and was found guilty before Him. Today, Jesus' invitation is: Come unto Me, all ye that labour 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 you shall find rest unto
your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. Failure to accept Jesus' invitation by rejecting His proffered gift of the Holy Spirit in favour of some man-made tradition or ideology, is rejecting the New Testament Sabbath. For, under the New Covenant, the Sabbath is not any particular day; it is Holy Spirit rest, into which we enter through Jesus Christ, our sin-bearer and Sabbath of rest. A timely reminder as we stand on the threshold of a new millennium is that we should maintain our 'rest' as we observe the unfolding of events that will culminate in the return of Jesus Christ and the next phase of our great 'anapausis' - refreshment. Abridged version of Pastor Mervyn Sunderland's booklet, "The Bible Sabbath, a day of the week, or the rest of a lifetime".
|