The Truth About The Sabbath
We first learn about the Sabbath in Genesis 2:1-3, “ So the earth, the sky, and everything in them were finished. God finished the work He was doing, so on the seventh day He rested from His work. God blessed the seventh day and made it a holy day. He made it special because on that day He rested from all the work He did while creating the world.”
God not only made it special but He sanctified it which means He set it apart as holy. Allow me to lay the groundwork. Let’s look at what God tells His people Israel and what God tells us today. God tells us this in Leviticus 19:2, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”’
And again in Leviticus 20:26, “You shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.”
1 Peter 1: 14-16 says, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.”’
Exodus 19:5-6, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
1 Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
People have been taught to think that we have replaced Israel, as if a covenant keeping God could or would break His covenant. That’s how little we know about God. No, God keeps His promise and He keeps His Word because He is holy. God is One and His people are one and His Word is one for all of His people.
John 10: 14-16 tells us this, “I am the Good Shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
This other flock is us, the Gentiles, who came into the fold after Pentecost. It is us who were grafted into Israel as Romans 11:11-24 tells us. “So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”’
Ephesians 2:11-22 says, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances,( referring to the ceremonial laws to become a Jew) that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Messiah Yeshua Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
So we see clearly that we have not replaced God’s covenant people, but that we were grafted into them and all the covenants. So if we were grafted into Israel and we are to also be holy and priests then how are we made holy? Let’s look at the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark sat within the veil of the Holy of Holies. We must remember that God told Moses that He must be sure to make all things like he was shown on the mountain. What Moses saw was actually the temple in heaven, God’s throne. This is represented in the ark. This is where the presence of God dwells. This is where the angels continually cry “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
Revelation 11:19 says the prophet saw God’s temple in heaven opened, “and the ark of His covenant was seen within His temple.”
This is why only once a year the High Priest could enter, and only with the blood of the Yom Kippur sacrifice to ask forgiveness for himself and for all the people of Israel. On top of the Ark sat the Mercy Seat with its winged cherubs, it represented the judgment seat of God. So what was inside this holy box, which was in this most holy place? Hebrews 9:1-5 tells us this, “Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.”
The manna and the budded rod were a testimony, but the tablets were the covenant, the eternal covenant between God and His people. We say that we now have a new covenant. Jeremiah 31:31-34 writes this about this new covenant.“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their Husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord : I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord . For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
As you see this covenant was once again given to the Jewish people. Yeshua during His Passover Meal with his disciples, says this in Matthew 26: 27-28. “And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”
Galatians 3:17 says, “This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.”
We say that we only need to keep Abraham’s covenant, and only by faith, but let’s be serious, it says no one can annul a covenant previously ratified by God. That means only God can make changes to His covenants and not to diminish but to add, which the New Covenant does. The new Mediator is now Yeshua, the new promise added is that now it will be written on our hearts instead of the original stone tablets. This means when we live out God’s Word then it becomes written on our hearts. It also means that we must be born again and we must be new creations, which also means that we no longer live according to this world but according to God’s Word. We now walk in the Spirit and live in the Spirit for we have died to ourselves so that we can become born again. Yeshua shed His blood because He was the sacrifice of this New Covenant, which was given to the Jewish people and to those who have been grafted in because of Yeshua. Yes, we are not taught all of this because we want to be seeker friendly. The Word of God keeps changing every time there is a new version of the Bible. So I say all of this to address the Sabbath. Yeshua says this about the Sabbath in Matthew 12:1-8, “At that time Yeshua went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. Now when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, ‘Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath!’ But He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions— how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath, and yet are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means: I desire compassion, rather than sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”’
Yeshua and His disciples kept the seventh day Sabbath according to creation and nowhere in God’s Word did He ever change that. Yeshua went on saying that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was created like everything else at creation. Everything about creation God said was good, very good, but about the Sabbath God sanctified it which means He set it apart and made it holy. He also made His covenants holy.
The Ten Commandments are part of His Covenant. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The Sabbath is about Creation and those who keep the seventh day Sabbath are a witness to the fact that God is the Creator of all things. No where in God’s Word did He say that you can choose whatever day you wish to keep as the Sabbath. We can not be part of the New Covenant if we are not living out the old, because old and new are only man’s words, God’s Word is one and they are for His people who are one with Him. If you obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you will be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, the people of God. This is what separates us from all other people and that is what sanctification and holiness are all about. Are you a true witness to Creation? Are you a true witness to the Creator? Remember this, the Emperor Constantine is the one who changed the Sabbath because he was a sun worshiper. Maybe we are following the wrong shepherd. 1st Commandment…You shall not have no other gods before Me. Try to keep the seventh day Sabbath by reading Scripture, spending time with God your Creator. Praise His name with songs and try to find like minded people to gather with. Do good on the Sabbath and let God lead you as you grow. Hebrews 4:9-13, “Consequently, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let’s make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we must answer.” Yes, the Sabbath also represents our dwelling with God for eternity.
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