Call The Sabbath A Delight

First, as a former Seventh-day Adventist I want to state clearly that my coming to believe Sabbath is not required of Christ-followers in the New Covenant has NOTHING to do with not wanting to keep the day. (That is an assumption I hear often.) I loved the Sabbath and believed it was one of the most precious gifts of my life.

The assumption that Jesus nailed only the “moral” law to the cross and not the entire law, including the decalogue (called the “words of the covenant” in Deuteronomy) is nowhere supported in Scripture. This belief comes from church tradition dating back to the third or fourth century—but not back to apostolic times.

Galatians clearly teaches that the law was a tutor to lead us to Christ; now that faith has come, we no longer need it (Gal. 3). Colossians 2 equally clearly discusses the fact that the law was nailed to the cross in the Person of Jesus. Romans 3-8 shows that the law is not part of our righteousness or salvation.

The transfiguration foreshadowed what happened after Jesus’ resurrection—the inauguration of the New Covenant. Jesus, Moses (who represented The Law to the Jews) and Elijah (who represented The Prophets) were transfigured with Jesus. Then a cloud covered the three, and Peter, James, and John who were gazing in awe fell to the ground. A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son; listen to Him!”

Then Jesus told the disciples to arise, and when they looked up, the Law and the Prophets were gone, and Jesus alone stood before them. Ringing in their ears was the echo of the voice of God commanding them to listen to Jesus. On their way down the mtn, Jesus told them not to tell anyone what they had seen and heard until AFTER His resurrection. (see Mattehw 17—this story is also in Mark and Luke.)

Until Jesus died, spilled his blood of the eternal covenant, and rose from the dead, forever breaking the power of death, the Old Covenant was in place. The law and the prophets still had to be observed by Israelites. When Jesus rose from death, however, He fulfilled the Old Covenant. From then on the law and the prophets which testified of Him were obsolete. He would now be the believer’s rule of faith and practice.

The indwelling Holy Spirit would write God’s law (which Jesus showed in Matthew 5-7 was MUCH bigger than the 10 Commandments) on human hearts. Hebrews 4 clarifies that there is a Sabbath rest TODAY for believers—a rest which Israel never entered in spite of centuries of Sabbath-keeping.

Today Sabbath rest is found in Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made clear that the real intent of the law was much deeper than moral behavior. True law-keeping/righteousness requires absolute perfection in motive and thought. He was outlining not new standards of behavior; He was showing what life in the Spirit would look like. Only a person born again and brought to spiritual life by God Himself indwelling him could hope to live according to the impossible standards Jesus set.

Similarly, the Sabbath, like the rest of the law (see Luke 24:44) was fulfilled in Jesus. Just as He raised the standard on all the other Old Testament laws, so he raised the bar on the Sabbath. We are to enter Christ’s rest (Hebrews 4); we are to observe Sabbath every single day. Now we move through every activity conscious of Jesus, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, keeping a song in our hearts, always praising the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5: 19-20).

Our lives are not to be divided between sacred and secular; we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), all we do is to, for, and from Jesus. Taking a day to rest is fine, but it is not required.

When Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 13 that one greater than the temple was here, He was claiming to house in Himself the atonement, the sacrifices, the law, the presence of God. “The law is in me; the Sabbath is In ME,” he might as well have said.

As has been pointed out, if the decalogue is for new covenant Christians, then Christendom has no choice but to observe the seventh day in the way the OT commanded—including stoning of those who break the day by leaving their tents, lighting a fire, etc.

The Decalogue, however, was always for the purpose of revealing sin, not of stopping sin. Jesus broke the power of sin and death, and the Holy Spirit in us—the seal of God—give us the resurrection power of Christ, and He makes us new. He makes us moral; He changes our hearts at the deepest level.

Now we live by God Himself and not by an external law! Praise Jesus!

Colleen

The bottom line in this discussion is the New Covenant. Covenant theology as typically taught in the Reformed tradition still clings to the idea that there is one overriding covenant between God and humanity, and the Mosaic covenant was just one representation of that covenant.

Romans and Galatians, however, painstakingly explain that the covenant God made with Abraham still stands, while the Mosaic covenant was temporary and intended to bring an awareness of sin back into humanity.

God’s covenant with Abraham was unconditional. He Himself ratified the covenant by moving among the sacrificial animals in the form of a smoking pot and flaming furnace (Father and Son) while Abraham slept. None of his faulty promises contributed to God’s covenant with him.

The Mosaic covenant was conditional. The entire Sinai covenant was made between God and Israel with Israel’s faulty promises constituing one half of the agreement: “All that you have said, we will do.” Their promises had no hope of fulfillment. They were faulty. This, in fact, was the point of the New Covenant. There’s NOTHING a human can do or intend or promise that in any way will be righteous or perfect or strong enough to keep the covenant with God. It was doomed to failure—and that was what God intended. The Mosaic covenant was designed to INCREASE sin, not to decrease it (Romans 7:8-12), and to drive Israel to trust His sovereign promises to save them by His singular power.

The New Covenant was put into effect in the fullness of time when Jesus died, rose, and ascended to sit at the Father’s right hand. Prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34, the New Covenant supereded and replaced the Mosaic Covenant. Jesus and the Father again kept God’s eternal covenant with mankind. By dying and rising from death, Jesus fulfilled humanity’s obligations under the law—including death for disobedience and perfect righteousness for eternal life—and with promises which are better than ours, he and the Father keep the covenant. We who accept Jesus’ sacrifice are in Christ, and in Him His fulfillment of the law and His righteousness completely cover us.

Hebrews 8:7: “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.” Again in Hebrews 8:13: “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” (Remember, Hebrews was written to Jewish believers before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.)

Hebrews 7 goes into great detail to explain how Jesus’ priestly ministry is completely different from the Levitical priesthood. He was appointed not by descent but by an oath of God. “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarnatee of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22).

Jesus was not from the proper tribe for priests; he was from Judah, not Levi. This fact completely shattered the Mosaic law. Hebrews 7:12: “For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.”

The New Covenant fulfills God’s unilateral promise to Abraham. It also replaces the Sinai covenant completely by giving us Jesus—his incarnation, death, resurrection, and glorification—as our rule of faith and practice. The rest symbolized by the fourth commandment is now reality in Jesus.

The fourth commandment was never about bodies needing rest. It was always about trusting God. God said in essence to Israel, “The pagans around you work ceaselessly to please their gods and to merit prosperity. I will bless you and propser you far beyond your neighbors if you trust Me. You will remember that I am the One who provides all you have by sitting in your tents one day in seven. It doesn’t matter whether it’s lambing season or lentil harvest, you will sit in your tents. It doesn’t matter whether or not a thunderstorm threatens your wheat crop, you will sit in your tents. And I will prosper you beyond all accounting—and no one, not the Canaanites around you nor you yourselves will be able to credit YOU with your success. You and they will know your success if from Me, the Lord Your God.”

That trust for everything symbolized God’s complete provision for us in the person of Jesus. When He came, that symbolic day of rest was replaced with the Real Thing—Jesus Himself!

I have nothing but deep respect for the reformers and for their resurrection, so to speak of the the true gospel. I also believe, however, that they did not quite uncover the radical completion of the New Covenant. While many of them really came close, in reality the function of the decalogue somewhat escaped them. I believe that historically people have been afraid to say the decalogue no longer applies because it sounds too scary. If the decalogue is not replaced by Jesus, however, then the fourth commandment MUST be observed, and not by transference to Sunday. The Bible never changed Sabbath to Sunday. If the decalogue is still a standard of behavior for us, Christians should be observing the seventh day as a holy day the way the OT taught Israel to observe it.

In Jesus, however, morality becomes a way of life—and resting in Christ becomes much more all-consuming and impacting of every moment of living than the seventh-day Sabbath ever was. Jesus is greater than—the Creator of—the Sabbath. It’s always been only about Him. Now we have Him and no longer need to honor the shadow of promise.

In reality, however, the Holy Spirit holds us to a much more exacting standard than does the law. We can trust Him to keep and to to renew us.

The law still functions as the “proof”, along with the prophets, of who Jesus is. Without the law, we would have no good way to identify Jesus as the true Messiah. He is the only One who has actually fulfilled every shadow of the Mosaic law—including the Sabbath.

Praise Jesus!

Colleen

Ken, I just saw your comment above. I agree with you about the need for physical rest. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 to come to Him, and He would give us rest. Taking time to sit with Him and to set aside bysness to rest in His presence is definitely part of a Christ-followers life. Jesus Himself often went away alone to pray.

Yet a Christ-followers rest is not prescribed. Just as we learn to trust God to give us the work He created in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10) instead of pursuing things we think would be good ideas, we learn also to take the time to sit at His feet and to let the worries and demands of life go for a time.

I have no problem with people spending one in seven in a completely different way. It’s just that human physical needs were not the point, I believe, of the Sabbath command. The point is learning to rest in Jesus. I have found, to my complete amazement, that although I am busier than I have ever been and have more demands on my time and my emotions than ever before, God is holding me in internal peace in ways I never used to experience when I “took” one in seven. He is lessening the inner anxiety that used to be a constant background “noise” in my life. And yes, He does provide ways and times for physical and mental “rest”. It just doesn’t look like what I used to think Sabbath rest looked like!

By all means, we must rest physically. Sabbath, however, is about a rest that goes deeper and is more empowering than physical rest. I can’t explain it in mere words; I just know I have a most amazing experience of Jesus becoming my rest that renews me emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically in ways taking a day off never did.

The day is good, but true Sabbath rest transforms the most grueling days—even “sabbaths”!

Colleen

Stephen, the problem with equating the Decalogue with God’s eternal “moral law” is two-fold. First, Scripture nowhere supports this definition. To Jews, both then and now, the “law” is the entire Torah. The 10 Commandments are not separated out as God’s eternal moral law. In fact, they are called the words of the covenant (meaning the Sinai covenant) in the Torah, and Galatians 3 clearly shows that the law was given 430 years after Abraham until the Seed (Jesus) would come.

In addition, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus clearly expanded the law. He not only expanded many of the 10 Commandments, He expanded other laws not listed in the 10. He made it very clear that true morality goes to the hearts and motives of people and is never measured by behavior. Righteousness is not evaluated by our good deeds.

Second, the law God wrote on the tables of stone with His finger is not The Eternal Law. God didn’t write those commandments until millennia after Creation. Further, those tables of stone are nowhere to be found today. (Imagine what an icon they would have been had God allowed them to be accessible!) As Paul explains in Galatians, those tables of stone, the heart of God’s covenant with Israel—the conditional Mosaic Covenant—were temporary. They represented the covenant that God established with israel and that lasted until the Seed came.

The Decalogue was only an elementary outline of general good behavior. As I mentioned earlier, the Sermon on the Mount revealed far more of God’s Law than the Decalogue did. In fact, the entire New Testament reveals a far more comprehnsive morality than the law ever did. The NT demands that we live by the Spirit—that we give up our control and our striving and submit to God’s personal and detailed discipline and direction.

It is such a straw-man argument to assume that people are straying into antinomianism by saying the 10 Commandments are not our rule of practice in the New Testament. A true Christ-follower takes morality and living by the Spirit very seriously.

If the Decalogue were God’s Eternal Law, then it would be on a level with Almighty God—eternal and undending. Quite on the contrary, God created the Decalogue hundreds of years after He created the world. He summarized civil behavior to bring people into an awareness of their own sinfulness.

Romans 5 shows that even though people from the time of Adam to the time of Moses did not sin by breaking a command—only Adam was guilty of that sin until the law was given—still they were sinful because they were In Adam. But God did not hold them guilty of sins for which they were unaware. They were NOT innocent; they were doomed and sinners by nature. Still, they were not guilty of breaking the law.

God’s Eternal Law is Himself. He is, in Himself, eternal Justice, Mercy, Grace, Wrath, Love, Life, LIght..all His attributes are eternally, intrinsically Him. The Decalogue was an elementary and simplified primer given to truly fallen mankind to begin to teach them that they were guilty of intrinsic sin. God gave them the law so they would become aware of their sin and of their inability to do His will.

Now we have Jesus Himself—eternal God, the Living, Eternal Law—acting as our Law. Because we are awakened in Him and reconnected to Him through Jesus’ blood, we have access to the Father by one Spirit. We don’t need a temporary, abridged version of the eternal law of God to convict us of sin or to show us how to live.

True, the decalogue is still useful for pointing out sin to people who haven’t met Jesus. But once we are in Him, we are to live by the Spirit (Romans 8).

The only reason I can imagine that people desire to “hang onto the declague” is the fourth commandment. The NT is far more detailed than the 10 Commandments in terms of God’s expectations for us when we are in Him. The fourth commandment is the sticky point.

Unless we understand the asonishing revelation of Hebrews, Galatians, Colossians, Romans, Ephesians, etc., we don’t really see that Jesus actually fulfilled all the OT law. He fulfilled the promise of the Sabath shadow. In Him we find our eternal rest.

None of this negates a “day off” to rest, meditate, etc. But Romans 14 clarifies that such a day is NOT mandated. Jesus Himself transforms the way we live. We are completely new creatures in Christ. We are spiritually alive instead of spiritually dead.

We’re not throwing out morality. We are, rather, embracing the Eternal, Living Law of Morality instead of the stone condensed version that was intended for the specific purpose of educating Israel of their sinfulness. It was never intended to bring them into righteosness. It was always intended to hold them in check and to cause them to be driven to God and His promises. The law was always impossible to keep.

Now the Living Law keeps us, and He is faithful to complete what He begins in us (Phil 1:6). We respond to His sovereign grace by offering our bodies as living sacrifices to Him for His purposes (Romans 12:1).

Colleen

Linda, one comment re: Isaiah 66: it clearly says that people will gather to worhsip not only from Sabbath to Sabbath but from New Moon to New Moon. These prophecies must be read in light of Jesus’ fulfillment of the ceremonial days of Israel.

Revelation 21 and 22 both state unequivocally that there is no need of the sun or the moon in the New Jesrusalem because the Lamb Himself will be their light. There “is no night there”. Without night, there are no days.

Furthermore, eternity is not undending time. Eternity has no time. There will be no passing days in heaven. There will be no eternal observation of the seventh-day Sabbath or of New Moons.

Those celebrations were always shadows of Christ Himself. When we understand that Jesus Is the reality of those shadows, Isaiah 66 makes sense. We will all gather to worship and praise Jesus Himself endlessly for eternity. In Him those powerful shadows have substance. We will not gather to worship Him for one-seventh of eternity. Our entire eternal future will consist of our worship and honoring of Him.

Colleen

Passer-by, “Sabbath in Crisis”, now updated and reprinted as “Sabbath in Christ” by Dale Ratzlaff has been the most helpful book for me besides just plain Bible study.

Having been a Seventh-day Adventist, I had certain (mis)understandings of what Scripture said and meant, so I had to specifically study certain questions that the average Reformed believer probably wouldn’t have. Linda’s Adventist point of view reveals many of the unique Adventist explanations for keeping the seventh day.

Ratzlaff’s book is available online at www.LIfeAssuranceMinistries.org. It is a thorough study of the Old and the New Covenants.

The Bible itself is so clear about the New Covenant when one approaches it with prayer for God to reveal truth without our invisible blinders on.

Colleen