What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 8

Part of God’s Overall Plan?

As we just finished looking at the Sabbath of creation we now can see that it’s part of God’s original plan for the human race. It’s not something God gave as an afterthought to the Jews in the wilderness. It was part of God’s original plan, before sin. He gave the week and the Sabbath to Adam and Eve before sin. But some people will say this…..”but the Sabbath really pointed to redemption, it was all about redemption, about Jesus dying on the cross.” The fact is however that celebration of the plan of redemption is a secondary meaning of the Sabbath. It is a very important meaning as I will dive into later during this Sabbath series, but the primary, pre-fall of mankind meaning of the Sabbath is that God gave it as a memorial, a day of rest to look backward…..not forward.

The original purpose of the Sabbath was to look back at the magnificent Creator and the work He had done. God wanted us to remember and consider His generosity and goodness in giving Adam, Eve, and all of their descendents the beautiful gift of life, together with a truly incredible world to live in. So clearly the Sabbath was part of God’s original plan for the human race. It was not an afterthought. The Sabbath points us backward, and also points us forward, to when God is going to break His rest. Once again He is going to create a new heaven and a new earth as the Bible clearly says He will. God is going to create it in six days again and He is going to rest on the seventh day, giving us an example, and then He is going to say, “ Now you work six days and rest on the seventh day, and you come and worship before me, all flesh come worship before me, on the seventh day, in commemoration of the new creation.” How awesome is that going to be!!! The gift of the Sabbath that God has given is truly amazing!!

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 7

Sabbath of the Jews??

Tons of Christians today say that the Sabbath was made for the Jews. Calling it the “Sabbath of the Jews”. But come on does the Bible say that….no it doesn’t. Scripture does not support this at all. When the Sabbath appears in Scripture it is called “the Sabbath of the Lord your God”. In Isaiah 58 God even calls the Sabbath “my holy day”. In that same passage He also admonishes us to take our feet away “from stepping on my holy day.” How dare someone say that the Sabbath was for the Jews! If the Sabbath really belonged to the Jews, if it was really “their Sabbath”, they should have been the ones to rest on it first. But they didn’t rest on it first. God did!! Then right behind God resting on the seventh day were Adam and Eve, the parents of not only the Jews, but of all mankind. God calls the seventh day “The Sabbath of the Lord your God” because He rested on that day, and that day belongs to Him. God says, “Now I want you to respect my holy day”. “I want you to respect my Sabbath, because I rested every single minute of it. I made it holy. It’s my day, and if you want to enter my rest, you have to enter my rest on my holy day.”

Again so many people that call themselves Christians say, religious groups like the Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, and Seventh Day Baptists, to name a few “keep the seventh day as your Sabbath. I keep the first day, Sunday, as the Sabbath.” But did you know it’s absolutely impossible to keep Sunday as the Sabbath? The reason why is found in Genesis. You can’t keep Sunday as the Sabbath, because Sunday is no the day God rested on. So it’s that simple. If you’re going to enter God’s rest, you have to enter His rest on the day in which He rested on. He never rested on Sunday, therefore, you can’t enter His rest on Sunday. God did not rest on Sunday. He rested the seventh day, and if we want to enter His rest, we have to enter His rest on the day that God rested.

So to sum up these first 7 parts so far in our Sabbath study, now do you understand why God didn’t command Adam and Eve to keep that first Sabbath in the Garden of Eden, and why Genesis doesn’t record as “evening and a morning” on the seventh day. That the first week was God’s week, and that God worked six days and rested on the seventh. That because of that, the seventh day is God’s holy day. It belongs to God. That there also wasn’t any evening and morning on the seventh day because after finishing His work on the sixth day and resting on the seventh, God continued His rest from that time until now. For us humans living on Earth there has been an evening and morning, but not for God, because God is still resting from His work of creation. He has created no more with regard to this world. That God did not command Adam and Eve to keep the Sabbath in the Garden of Eden holy before God made it holy. God had to set that first example, then say to Adam and Eve to do what your father does. The commandment of the Sabbath not only requires resting on the seventh day, but it requires us to work six days first, and at the time of the first Sabbath Adam and Eve had not worked six days yet because they were not created until day six of creation. 

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 6

When did God give the day of Rest to Adam and Eve?

God gave the 7^th day Sabbath rest to Adam AFTER the day ended…..which means that God did not give Adam the Sabbath when the seventh day began. God didn’t command Adam or Eve to keep that first Sabbath. In order to keep the Sabbath in harmony with the 4^th commandment, Adam and Eve needed to work six days first because the commandment says, “Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” How could they have rested that first Sabbath and kept the commandment, if they had not previously worked six days? This is why Adam and Eve were commanded by God to keep the second rather than the first Sabbath of human history.

Also how could Adam and Eve have been commanded by God to keep the Sabbath holy, if the Sabbath wasn’t holy until it ended? It’s because the first Sabbath wasn’t made holy until the end of the day. God couldn’t have told Adam and Eve to “keep the Sabbath holy” because it wasn’t yet holy. It was the presence of God in that day which made it holy. Furthermore, God gave Adam and Eve an example of Sabbath observance, but He couldn’t have asked them to follow His example until after He had first given that example.  Now we know why God didn’t command Adam and Eve to keep that first Sabbath, but since they couldn’t keep that first Sabbath….what did Adam and Eve do on that first Sabbath?

To answer that question we need to read Genesis 1:26-31. This passage tells us that Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day of creation. This means that they were both present when God rested on the seventh day. They didn’t see God create anything at all, but they were able to observe God’s rest. They also certainly did see how God rested on that day. This is very clear when you read Exodus 20:8-10, which tells us what Adam and Eve did on the Sabbath, the very first Sabbath. Exodus 20:8-10 says the following:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.”

In the verse God was telling the children of Israel about the Sabbath. The fact that the law was given directly to the children of Israel, however, doesn’t mean it was only for them. Many Christians would agree that the Ten Commandments apply to all people….except for the fourth commandment. Now that doesn’t make much sense now does it? Because the Bible tells us that if you break one of God’s ten commandment’s you are guilty of breaking them all!! They either stand together or fall together. As the passage in Exodus 20:8-10 that we just read goes on, God tells us why He wants us to work six days and rest the seventh:

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it’.

God is asking us all to follow His example. He worked six days and rested one. Now He wants us to do that too…..because of His example. I mean don’t you agree that what parents exemplify is much more powerful then what they command? This is the foundational reasoning for keeping the seventh day holy as given to us by God.  See what God is saying here? God is saying, “you work six, and you newack (or experience rest) on the seventh.”  He even tells us the reason behind the injunction: “Because at the very beginning of the world, I worked six days and rested on the seventh, and I want you to follow my example.” It’s kind of like a father showing his son how to play with lego’s. The father will sit his son down with him and build/create something out of the lego blocks as the son is watching. Then the father will take it all apart and say to the son…..ok son, “now you do it.” That’s exactly what we have at creation. God observed the Sabbath, and then said to Adam and Eve, “Did you see how I did that? Now you do the same. Keep the Sabbath as you saw me keep it.” God rested on the Sabbath day in gladness. It was a day of joy and resting, a day of contemplation of God’s magnificent work, His masterpiece. God, together with the heavenly host, totally enjoyed what He had made. So does the Sabbath sound evil, a bad thing, or a curse? The way many/most Christians today talk, you would certainly think that it was.

Remember the Sabbath was essential for man, or God wouldn’t have created it. God saw that a Sabbath was essential for man even in paradise. So if the Sabbath was needed by man in paradise, would it not be much more necessary for us today in this world full of sin? Of course the answer is yes on that one!! Man needed to lay aside his own interests and pursuits for one day of the seven that he might more fully contemplate the works of God and meditate upon His power and goodness. Man needed a Sabbath to remind him more vividly of God and awaken gratitude because all that he enjoyed and possessed came from the beneficent hand of the Creator. I mean isn’t it true? So do you see why God created the Sabbath? What the purpose of the Sabbath is? Why God established the Sabbath right at the very beginning? It was so man would remember Him. That’s why the fourth commandment beings “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”. This is why at the end of the commandment, it’s as if God says, “The reason why I want you to remember the Sabbath day is because it reminds you of the great Creator of the heavens and the earth, His awesome greatness, His power, and His love towards you, in giving you everything without even asking for it.”

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 5

When Will God “Break” His Rest / The First Week?

This is another question that I struggled with for awhile. God will break His rest when He once again creates the world in six days and rests the seventh day. Don’t misunderstand…..we know that for man, the Sabbath has an evening and a morning, a beginning and an end. But this first week was God’s week. It was God’s experience and creation. He worked six days and rested the seventh, and He is still resting because He has created no more. And when He finally breaks that rest to create this world again, He will work six days and rest on the seventh, just as He did at the very beginning. I can’t wait for that day!! However there is a key Bible text that we need to clear up that is found in John 5:17-18. Jesus Himself said in these verses that His Father had been working until now, and that He was working. Well the answer is that Jesus is not talking about the works of creation in that verse. The work being spoken of in that passage is the work of sustaining and upholding the universe, and the work of redemption. Just before making this statement, Jesus had restored the legs of a man who was paralyzed….to what they should have been in the beginning. But when Jesus restored that man’s ability to walk, He wasn’t doing the work of a new creation. He was upholding and restoring that which was already created. And the work that He spoke of just after this miracle was not a new work of creation, for that had been finished from the foundation of the world. It was the work of redemption.

But while for God there was no evening and morning to the seventh day, because God is still resting from His work, there was and is an evening and a morning for us humans. We know this because God told us to work six days and rest the seventh on a weekly cycle basis, and on the seventh day, the sun still rises and sets. We also know that God told us to keep the Sabbath “from evening to evening” according to Leviticus 23:32. Once God gave the week to man, then the seventh day had and evening and a morning.  God doesn’t need a week so as I have already mentioned God made it molded it to give to man. This explains the reason why Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” – Mark 2:27. Like the Sabbath, the week originated at creation, and it has been preserved, and brought down to us through Bible history. God himself measured off the first week. So what did God do that first week? He measured it off as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time. Like every other week, the first week consisted of seven literal days. Six days were employed in the work of creation and when coming to the seventh God rested and then he blessed this day and set it apart as a day of rest for man. God is saying that our rest will not be continual or without interruption, but after we rest on the seventh we will work six again, and then rest on the seventh again, in a continuous weekly cycle. 

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 4

Why God Waited to Bless the Sabbath?

This question is the next natural question to come into to your mind, at least it did in my mind when I studied this. Why would God wait to bless and sanctify the Sabbath until it was finished? The answer is because it is the presence of God that makes something holy. Each minute of the Sabbath that passed, God was making that minute holy. Each second, minute, and hour that passed, God was making holy by His very presence. And it wasn’t until the last second, the last minute, and the last hour had passed that they were actually holy. Because it was the presence of God in those minutes and seconds and hours holy….and it could only happen after God had been present during those time periods, at the end of the Sabbath. Again Genesis 2:3 is so clear with this. Genesis 2:3 says, “ Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made”. Notice the word because. It says that God blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work. 

Also notice in Exodus 20:11, which is the last verse of the 4^th commandment of God’s holy law. It says, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore (that is, because He rested on the seventh day) the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” So is it a biblical teaching then, that God rested on the seventh day and then He made it holy? Yes it is very biblical from the verses we just read. It should also be clear that the very first week was God’s week, since it was God who worked six days and God who rested on the seventh day. Would you not say it was God’s week? The week was not man’s at all, at least not at this point, and not this first week that God made during Creation. God did give the week to man, but this first week belonged to God. And He worked six, then rested on the seventh day as Sabbath. So now we know the reason why the seventh day had no evening and morning. God has been resting from His work of creation since creation week. Remember what Paul said, “And yet His work has been finished since the creation of the world” – Hebrews 4:3. Paul wrote this more then four thousand years after creation. So what was Paul saying here? Since creation week, what has God been doing with regard to this world? He has been resting from His works of creation of course, has He not? Although God ceased creating after creation week, He still upholds and sustains that which He created during creation week. So God is still resting from His work of creation in this world, because God has created no more. For God, so to speak, the seventh day did not come to an end, because He is still resting from His work of creation. Understand what the Bible is saying here? It’s awesome!!

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 3

So when was the Sabbath Blessed?

So this next question is another important one. Exactly when was the Sabbath sanctified and blessed? I used to think that God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath day as the seventh day was beginning. In other words, the Sabbath was about to start, and God made some sort of announcement that He would be sanctifying and blessing the day that was just beginning. But as I studied God did not bless and sanctify the seventh day until the seventh day was ended. This is HUGE to understand and discover from the Bible. It also explains why God didn’t command Adam and Eve to keep the first Sabbath. The Bible records that God Himself kept the Sabbath, and the heavenly beings kept the Sabbath rejoicing with feasting and gladness, they took a deep breath and enjoyed what God had made. But on that first Sabbath, this was the experience of God and the experience of the heavenly host. 

When it comes to man, Genesis doesn’t tell us that Adam and Eve were resting.  The reason for this and also the reason why God didn’t tell Adam and Eve to rest has to do with the fact that God didn’t bless or make the Sabbath holy until it ended. He didn’t bless that day until it came to and end. God set it apart as a day of rest for man. The sanctification of the Sabbath happened after God rested on that day as the Bible points out. God gave it to Adam as a day of rest, set it aside for holy use. Gave it to Adam as a day of rest as a memorial of the work of creation and also as a sign of God’s great power and love. So why did God bless and sanctify the seventh day as the Sabbath? Because He had rested on that day, in other words God rests the whole day, and then God blesses and sanctifies the Sabbath. 

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 2

What does it means to enjoy the Experience of Rest?

So this question leads into what we just learned. What does the bible mean when it says that God enjoyed the experience of rest? The word “newach” is used many many times in the Old Testament. One of those verses is found in 1 Chronicles 22:9, where we are told that God promised David a son. The word “newach” here is linked with the idea of peace, tranquility, and stillness after all the enemies of Israel have been defeated. Another one is found in Proverbs 29:17, “Correct your son, and he will give you rest (Newach); Yes, he will give you delight to your soul”.  In this verse the idea of rest is linked with delight. In Zephaniah 3:17 we are told how God will delight in His people when they dwell safely in their land. “The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save, He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you (newach; give you rest) with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing”. Once again “newach” is connected with rejoicing, gladness, and singing. The last example I will share is found in Esther 9:17-18. This passage describes a time when God’s people had been delivered from their enemies. Haman had wanted to destroy all the Jews, but Esther had interceded, and God’s people were delivered. And it says in that verse that God’s people had rest, or “newach”. It is using the same word as was used in Exodus 20:11. The book of Esther tells us that, on this occasion, not only did God’s people have rest, but they also celebrated that day with feasting and gladness.

So in other words, “newach” was an experience of feasting and gladness. They were resting from the destruction their enemies intended to execute on them. So the word “nephash” means that God took a deep breath after creation in the contemplation of His work, and the word “newach” means that He experienced rest, tranquility, joy, and gladness. As Job 38:7 says that all of heaven rejoiced when God created this planet Earth. That the stars of heaven and the sons of God rejoiced in the work that God created. Meaning that it was a joyous rest in meditation and contemplation of the great work that God had done. And God took the seventh day simply to step back and look at the work that He had done, to meditate on it, and to enjoy it with gladness and feasting.