23 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.
3 “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.
It’s important as we move into Chapter 23 of Leviticus that we notice the very first point of honoring God by obeying Him in the appointed feasts of Israel was to first observe the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was the oldest of all the holy days that God set aside to be observed. The Sabbath was commanded by God even before the fall of Adam and Eve.
Genesis 2:1–3 (ESV)
2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
One thing to see as we move through this Chapter is that the Sabbath is really part of all the feasts and festivals even though they don’t all fall on the Sabbath Day.
The Sabbath Day in the OT commemorates the work of God in creation.
Genesis 1:1–2 (ESV)
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
My goal here is not to introduce any difficulties with this text but to explain that the technical meaning of verse 2 is literally a wasteland/desert/wilderness/chaos. It seems most scholars go with chaos.
The point is, God in the beginning is working through His Word to create order from chaos.
Also notice that in the beginning the earth was without form and void- Chaos
Darkness was over the face of the deep- Darkness
What does God do? He speaks and Light overcomes the darkness. So, we see God is creating order out of chaos or we could say order out of nothingness. The reason there is a little unclear language is that we cannot comprehend nothingness. The best we can do is to comprehend darkness but even darkness is something.
So, God speaks and creates out of nothing or chaos, everything. He did this is six literal days. The Bible then tells us that on the seventh day God rested from all His work. This is also just a little generic. God does not need to rest. He was not tired and in need of a day off. The literal meaning is ceased from His work, not rest. For God, there is a difference.
Now, back to Adam and Eve…
Genesis 2:15 (ESV)
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Here, notice something with me…God placed man in the Garden of Eden. The Garden was a perfect place where true fellowship with God was a reality. Now, the verse tells us they were placed in the Garden to work it and keep it. However, it was not work like we have today. They did not work and sweat and become exhausted. It was really a joy to be with God and care for His garden. It was in many ways a perpetual Sabbath rest.
So, where we are at this point is God worked and created the universe and everything in six days. He ceased from the work of creation on the seventh day and He placed Adam and Eve in a perfect place where they took joy in what they did and had continual fellowship with God. Everyone in a real sense is enjoying the Sabbath. God and Adam and Eve are observing the Sabbath in commemoration of all God had created and they were fellowshipping with one another.
Then a major event took place…
Sin entered the world and the Sabbath rest was interrupted. Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden and everything was cursed. Now, they did not find joy in work nor did they have the close fellowship with God. They did not enjoy Sabbath rest any longer.
Something else took place too…God went back to work. God began His work of redemption toward a new creation. Sin had destroyed creation’s rest and God’s rest. God is once again working to bring order from chaos.
The idea of Sabbath rest had all but disappeared from the Bible until the Exodus event. God working to rescue His people from sin and chaos and to deliver them to the Promised Land. God’s people were slaves…this is meant to communicate that they were in a state opposite of Sabbath rest.
It was only when God formed a nation of redeemed people that He reinstituted the observance of the Sabbath Day because now there was a clear revealed purpose for fallen, sinful man. God would work to redeem His people and bring them to the Sabbath rest.
Exodus 20:8–11 (ESV)
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
In the Ten Commandments, God gave His people the Law. We should understand that the other nine commandments have been ratified in the NT except the commandment regarding the Sabbath Day.
In his classic work on the Sabbath Merril Unger states, Nowhere is Sabbath keeping ever imposed upon a Christian in this age of grace. Indeed, the very opposite is true—Unger
For Israel, the Sabbath was the sign of the old covenant.
Exodus 31:12–17 (ESV)
12 And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. 16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ”
Again, the Hebrew word Sabat means cease not resting from exhaustion.
God’s first act of salvation was creation…bringing order out of chaos. He then set Adam and Eve in their own Sabbath Rest. Then God acted again in the Israelites bringing them out of chaos of Egyptian sin and bondage into the Promised Land and along the way reintroduced the Sabbath as a commandment for His people to keep.
In Deuteronomy God reminds His people about the Sabbath Day and here He connects it directly to their rescue from Egypt. They were saved to enter into God’s rest.
Deuteronomy 5:12–15 (ESV)
12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
The people of God can rest because God has done the work to save them. Because they have experienced freedom from sin, God gives them the Sabbath as a day of ceasing from work. God instituted the Sabbath because His people were about to enter into the Promised Land which was their rest. So, they were commanded to begin setting aside a day each week to commemorate this rest.
God ceased from work at creation.
The Israelites ceased from their slavery in Egypt and began observing the Sabbath in anticipation of their ultimate Sabbath rest in the Promised Land.
The Promised Land has been called the Land flowing with milk and honey. The image is to some degree, the Garden of Eden. God is working to bring His people back to the place where because of sin He had removed them.
Throughout Israel’s history in the OT there was God’s call to enter into His rest. To trust Him, worship Him and keep the Sabbath with thankfulness to God for all He had done. He created them, He led and saved them from Egypt, and He is working to restore them.
One OT scholar writes, to the degree the Israelites observed the Sabbath Day was a picture to her willingness to acknowledge and worship God as Creator and Sanctifier.
So, for the OT people of God the Sabbath was much more than just a day of rest to be strengthened to begin the week afresh, it was a day set aside as holy to worship God and rest in His provision and His work. To thank God as Creator and Savior.
We have in Psalm 95 a promise of God to those who will not acknowledge Him and worship Him as Creator and Sustainer of life and for those who do not turn to Him as Savior. I want to make sure we get something here and please listen. God wants our worship and praise infinitely more than our service. Israel worked when they should have rested. Oh, they were all about the Sabbath on paper but they created with God’s Sabbath more work than the rest of the days. Stop working and serving the Lord and begin resting and worshipping. Who do you think you are to work when God is at work? Are you able to do the work God does? Do you really think God needs your help? This was the Hebrews in the wilderness. They did not worship God.
Psalm 95:1–11 (ESV)
95 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
For the OT worshipper to observe the Sabbath was to anticipate the day when God would give to His people true rest…even a better rest than the Garden of Eden.
Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV)
66 Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
2 All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.
God is concerned not only with bringing His people into their Sabbath rest but that He too can cease from working as He did at creation. When will God cease from working?
When Jesus came, He came preaching and teaching. He spent His time working because He alone could heal and He alone could save a person from their sins. He alone was the Passover Lamb who rescued His people…us from our Egyptian bondage. Jesus worked to save His people.
Matthew 11:28–30 (ESV)
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Come to Jesus, He will give you Sabbath rest. The early Church understood this far better than we can, when they came out of the slavery of Judaism, they understood the Sabbath rest that’s found only in Christ. Jesus has done the work…God is working we must not try do the work only God can do but rest and worship.
This is why the early Christians ended the observance of the Sabbath Day because Jesus is our rest. So, they ended the Sabbath, the last day of the week and began worshipping Jesus on the first day of the week commemorating the New Covenant and celebrating the eternal Sabbath rest found in Jesus.
The forth commandment is not binding on the Church because we have what the Sabbath Day pointed to…we have the fulfillment of the Sabbath, the true rest found only in Jesus.
Hebrews 4:3–7 (ESV)
3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
We must cease from working to try and help God. We cannot add to the work of Christ. Don’t try to add to the perfect work of Christ. If you do, you are resembling the Hebrews in the wilderness or the Jews in Jesus’ day.
When did God resume His rest?
John 19:28–30 (ESV)
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
It is finished…God’s work to restore His world is finished. The death of Jesus marks the end of God’s work. God has entered into His Sabbath and has welcomed all who believe to join Him in His rest.
When Jesus ascended to heaven He sat down at the right hand of Power…
It is finished!!
Resources Used:
Holiness to the Lord by Allen Ross
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