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Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27 (NIV)
What is Sabbath?
Sabbath is defined as a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday.
I’d never considered keeping a Sabbath until recently, partly because I was exhausted, over scheduled, and needing to carve out a time for our family that was sacred. But as I began studying the Scriptures about Sabbath I became more convinced that it is something I should be observing as part of living in covenant with the Father.
From the beginning, God set aside the seventh day as holy. In fact, I’ve heard it said that the only time in Genesis that God names something as “holy” is after creating the seventh day in which he rested.
Genesis 2:1-3 (NIV)
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating he had done.
The Father gave us an example of resting from work on the seventh day.
Fast forward to Exodus when God is explaining his expectations of his covenant with the Israelite people.
Exodus 31:12-18 (NIV)
Then the Lord said to Moses,”Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.
‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death, whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.'”
When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.
This is one of many instances that the Lord God explains the Sabbath to his people. In the King James version, verse 16 says, “the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.” And in verse 17, “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.”
From the tone this scripture passage, it’s clear that God the Father holds the Sabbath day above other days and the consequences of not honoring what he has named as holy are severe. This is also an indication to take the instruction seriously. I mean, keeping the Sabbath is sandwiched between honoring your father and mother and do not murder… it’s part of the ten commandments. It’s pretty clear to me that He intended the day to look different than the other six days, days which were appointed for work. I doubt very much that the Israelites ignored the Sabbath or tried to justify doing work on the Sabbath.
HOLY- dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred; set apart
The modern day church has said that the first day of the week, Sunday, is the new Sabbath, because Jesus was raised on the first day of the week. MEN have named Sunday as “sabbath” and have called it holy. This switch is not found anywhere in the bible. The decision to make Sunday the new sabbath dates back to the Nicene Council in 325 AD. For more on the history of the change from Saturday to Sunday, I recommend this interesting article.
I get hung up on reconciling how it is that a group of men, 300 years after the death of Jesus, decided to change what God named as his Sabbath. I believe scripture teaches that only God can name something as holy and what He calls holy, man can not call unholy.
I grew up going to church on Sundays, days which were filled with services, luncheons, youth retreats, volunteer meetings, and outreach to the community. Most Sundays we ate our lunch or dinner out between obligations and watched ballgames or movies on slower Sunday afternoons. The church’s definition of sabbath looks very different from God’s, and has little to do with rest, something about which He does not mince words.
Covenant- an agreement which brings about a relationship of commitment between God and his people.
The church often mentions God’s covenants with his people. From a child I was reminded by each rainbow sighting that God made a covenant with Noah that He would never again flood the earth. We all know that story. I believe this covenant is true and still stands. But as for some of the other covenants mentioned in the Old Testament with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, we have a tendency to set those aside, forget about them of just not believe them.
Upon closer study, the covenant that God made with his Israelite people in Exodus 19, “If you obey my commandments, you will be my people” sounds like another one of those covenants which still applies to us today. Again and again, God says to Moses, tell the people these instructions stand FOREVER. And if I consider myself as grafted in (Romans 11) to God’s chosen people, the Israelites, might I also consider myself as part of this covenant He made with the Israelites which stands forever?
When is FOREVER, not forever with God? We stand on a lot of his other promises which are said to stand forever, but why is this covenant an exception?
Why did God make this covenant with his people, the Israelites? The instructions given by God were to bless his people, keep them safe, and transform them. The Israelites had just been delivered from a pagan society, full of false gods and idolatry, sexual perversion and abuse. In order for God to dwell among his people, He decided to lay down a framework explaining how they were to love Him and love one another… maybe something similar to how we as parents lay down the rules of the house for our children in order that we may live together in peace.
So all of this information may be interesting, but does this really apply to us, the New Testament believers? There are some who teach that there was a problem with the old covenant and a new and improved covenant had to be created. Is that true? If the scriptures say that the covenant is perfect, what was the problem with the covenant? I think these are valid questions which need to be answered and not just glossed over. Do the sincere and resulting answers from scripture study make logical sense? I’m currently studying to answer these questions myself. But as I stated above, if I am grafted in to God’s chosen people, shouldn’t I consider observing the covenant, particularly the keeping of the Sabbath?
According to my Strong’s Concordance, the Sabbath is mentioned 60 times in the New Testament. Jesus our Messiah, after whom we are to model our lives, faithfully observed the Sabbath and the feasts. His disciples observed the Sabbath before and after his resurrection. This again is evidence that we should at least consider keeping the Sabbath holy if our perfect Savior and his closest followers kept the Sabbath holy.
For more information about the New Testament references to Sabbath, here’s another interesting article to consider reading.
I’ll close with saying, keeping the Sabbath has been a gift. I better understand Jesus’ teaching in Mark 2:27 that the Sabbath was given to us as a time and space to be renewed, to lay down burdens of the mind and spirit and commune with the Creator who loved us enough to carve out a day for us to rest and be reminded of our everlasting covenant.
We often think that earth is our mother, that time is money and profit our mate. The seventh day is a reminder that God is our father, that time is life and the Spirit our mate.
Just as the physical world does not owe its existence to the power of man- it is simply there- so does the Spirit not owe its existence to the mind of man. The Sabbath is not holy by the grace of man. It was God who sanctified the seventh day.
Heschel
SABBATH PRAYER: May Thy children realize and understand that their rest comes from Thee, and that rest means to sanctify Thy name.