What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 1

Ok so I hear people say, well I worship God 7 days a week so it doesn’t matter what day I actually go to Church on, or if I go to Church at all. So the Sabbath doesn’t matter. First off Jesus says that we need to be involved with the body of Christ. Christ says that the Church and his people of fellow believers are the body of Christ, so church according to Jesus is very important….so go to church!!

Next question about going to church and/or worshiping God or any day….it’s true that we should be praying, studying the Bible, and growing and expanding our relationship with Jesus everyday, every night, alone in our bedrooms, in our cars, at Bible study with other people, ect ect. Take your pick, it doesn't matter. But when it comes to being apart of the body of Christ and worshiping at a house of worship you can only get God’s holy special blessing of the Sabbath on the 7^th Day Sabbath. Not on Sunday, not on Monday, not on Tuesday, not on Wednesday, not on Thursday, and not on Friday. That’s not my words, but the Bibles. The day we go to church and worship Jesus on His Holy day does matter. Let me show you why the Sabbath matters, what it’s all about. If you can understand the meaning of it and how/why Jesus created it for us, then you would understand how beautiful it is and view it as something special, not a burden, not a task, not work, not something that is going to mess up your good times on Saturday’s. You would actually start looking forward to the Sabbath hours as I do.

How God Rested on the Sabbath?

It’s a good question to ask I think. Obviously it was a day of rest. Genesis 2:2-3 uses the Hebrew word “Shabath” (Hebrew word for Sabbath)  twice. The word “Shabath” means to cease or stop. In other words , Shabath doesn’t refer to how God rested on the seventh day. The focus is on the fact that He stopped, or ceased from His labors. An example of this would be in a court of law. When the prosecution “rests it’s case”, that means they are finished presenting their arguments. It is not talking about the quality of the rest. It simply says they have stopped, or ceased to present the case. So the word Shabath in Genesis 2:2-3 means that God ceased, He stopped creating on the sixth day. And the emphasis is on the fact that He did cease, rather than on His manner or mode of resting.

So again how did God rest on the Sabbath? It would be important and interesting to understand more fully how God rested on the Sabbath before the weekly cycle began again. Well we know God didn’t rest because He was physically tired from creation. God doesn’t get tired and He doesn’t need physical rest according to the Bible in Isaiah 40:28. The first Sabbath was a day of contemplation not only for God but also for the entire heavenly host. We can read this in Job 38:4-7 which says:

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined it’s measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid it’s cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

So in other words, the entire heavenly host also celebrated the work of creation on the seventh day. Together with God, they contemplated and meditated upon the magnificent work that God had done.

So since God doesn’t get tired it must have been some other kind of rest, a rest when God could contemplate and meditate on the masterpiece of a world that had just come forth from His hands. In Exodus 31:17, God said, “that the Sabbath is a sign between Him and the children of Israel forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed”. (By the way, that word for rested is the word Shabath, the same word that was used twice in Genesis 2:2-3).

However at the end of this verse the Bible uses another Hebrew word, “Naphash”, to tell us that God was refreshed on the Sabbath day. The word “Naphash” also means to take a breath. Like and artist who is very pleased after completing a work of art, God ceased from His work of creation which God was very pleased and took a deep breath. He let out a satisfied sigh because everything He had made was absolutely gorgeous and beautiful. And the Bible says He was refreshed.

If you go to Exodus 20:11, the last portion of the 4^th commandment of God’s holy law, the word “rested” as it is used here is a different word from the “shabath”, or word for rested, used in Genesis 2:2-3 that we read earlier. It’s not the same word. It’s the Hebrew word “newach”, which basically means “the experience of rest” after work. Now, Moses wrote both Genesis and Exodus. In both accounts he says that God did three things with the Sabbath…which are:  

1. He rested on it
2. Blessed it
3. Sanctified it

So why does Moses use  “shabath” in Genesis 2:2-3 and “newach” in Exodus 20:11? It is because Moses wanted to underline in Genesis that God ceased while in Exodus he wanted to describe the quality of God’s rest. You, see the word “newach” is referring to what happens while God “shabath”, or ceased.