“The Eternal Sabbath” Exodus 20:8-11
We have been looking at the Ten Commandments as part of the unfolding drama of salvation in the Old Testament. A short review from Exodus 20:1: “And God spoke all these words, saying: 2 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before Me.” God declares Himself to be the only true God and it is He, the Redeemer/Savior God who is deserving of the worship of our lives.
The Second Commandment in verse 4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” God is to be worshiped through “imageless” worship. He is Spirit and is to be worshiped in Spirit and Truth. He is jealous of His people and His own glory and will not tolerate “spiritual adultery.”
The Third Commandment in verse 7: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” The name of the Lord, or Yahweh, or Jehovah is not all that God has in mind here. In the Old Testament He was called “ADONAI” translated “Lord”, “YAH” and “YAHWEH” translated “LORD”, “I AM WHO I AM,” “I AM”, “EL” and “ELOHIM” translated God, and then many other variations describing the multitude of characteristics which our Almighty Lord God alone possesses. The manner in which we worship and live our lives before the Only True God of the entire universe is with awe, reverence, gratitude and humility.
Today we look at the Fourth Commandment in verse 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 the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
The Sabbath day
There are only four translatable Hebrew words in the fourth commandment and the command centers around God’s celebration of the seventh day of the history of the World. God created the world and everything in it in six days and He rested the seventh day; the seventh day is to be a Sabbath day. Creator-God rested after 6 days of creating. Sabbath means to cease from labor, to stop working and rest. God established a weekly pattern for mankind: work six days, rest one.
In the second giving of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, God includes reason this within the fourth commandment: In verse15: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” The Redeemer-God delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt.
Later the Lord Jesus would be the Deliverer, Rescuer, Redeemer whom God had promised and pictured throughout Old Testament history. Jesus accomplished His life’s work on behalf of sinners, living a blameless life and then He died the death He did not deserve on the cross. Jesus was buried and He rested in the Grave, but praise be to God, when Jesus’ work was done and He had rested, He was resurrected from the bondage of death and the grave. Jesus rested and was resurrected after His work; He accomplished our saving work. The Early Church immediately recognized the significance of Jesus’ life-changing resurrection and systematically celebrated the first day of the week as a day of worship and rejoicing and called it, “The Lord’s Day”.
This was fitting because even before Jesus’ Resurrection, He declared: “For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.” (Matt. 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5) Jesus (the Son of Man) created all things. He is the giver of all life, and after He lived a perfect life, obeying all things, He certainly is Lord of the Sabbath. He became the fulfillment of the Sabbath. (More on that in a minute.)
“To Keep it Holy”
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (“To keep it Holy” is actually one word in the Hebrew.”) The Sabbath Day is to be kept “HOLY”, and the New Testament believers, realizing that Jesus had fulfilled the Old Testament Sabbath, kept the first day of the week Holy and referred to it as, “The Lord’s Day”. One day a week is to be set apart from all others.
What does the word “Holy” mean? Holy is the sphere of the sacred. That which is Holy is perfectly pure and clean, undefiled. “Holy” is totally separate from that which is common or profane.
Look at Genesis 2:1-3: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (The word, “rested” is the verb form of “Sabbath”); 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it (He made it HOLY): because (GET THIS NOW!) that in it He had rested from all his work which God created and made.”
God had exercised His infinite creative genius and power for six days. In those days He accomplished the entire solar system as we know it, sun, moon, stars, oceans, lakes, mountains every living thing on the earth, in the sea, man and woman. And on the seventh day, God stepped back and rested, not because He was tired, but to celebrate His glorious, magnificent power and work, revealed in the Creation. BECAUSE He had done all these things and EVERYTHING WAS GOOD, God declared the seventh day to be Holy, a day of rest, because God had made all things well.
GOD made the day “HOLY” because HE CREATED THE EARTH. God didn’t celebrate “earth day” but a Holy day because as Creator God, HE is Holy. I would imagine that He celebrated this first Sabbath with Adam and Eve and no doubt told them that it was the first of many, many Sabbaths to come.
The Day is to be “remembered”.
Remembering in the Hebrew includes more than bringing a thought to your mind. It is not a mere reminiscence; “Remembering” with this Hebrew word (zakar) included action. To “remember the Sabbath” or to remember the Lord’s Day includes actions and behaviors which demonstrate our love and obedience to God. To “hear” God’s Word in the Old Testament inferred “obeying” God’s Word. The New Testament reminds us of the same thing: James 1:22 says: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” To “remember” a treaty or covenant in the Old Testament meant to honor the same or suffer the consequences.
When Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath, He responded with the words of Matthew 12:12: “Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." He also asked the question in Mark 3:4: "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" It isn’t just refraining from your everyday work that is important. It isn’t God’s desire that we do nothing on the Lord’s Day. As God’s Redeemed people we might consider this question: What COULD I do for God’s Kingdom or to serve others on the Lord’s Day that I cannot do the rest of the week? That consideration opens many possibilities!
When Christians gather to worship on the first day of the week, their celebration and worship is to the God who has kept His covenant. He has remembered His covenant to SAVE even though we broke our promises over and over again. For the Christian, the first day of the week should be reserved as THE LORD’S DAY so that we might declare God’s Absolute Sovereignty in the world and in His Salvation through the work of Jesus Christ.
Take a look at Hebrews 4:1-11: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. (Salvation was available to those in the Old Testament who trusted the God who promised to save. Many were not saved, however, because they were trusting in their ability to keep the law themselves, and not by trusting the Savior who was to come. Salvation is still available today by faith in the work of Jesus.)
3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,' " although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (It is by faith that we receive salvation. Our salvation is not earned by us but decided on before the foundation of the world. The work which Jesus promised to do and has done gives those who believe in Him for forgiveness and salvation an eternal rest, a rest-salvation. We REST IN THE WORK OF Jesus FOR US.)
4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts." 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. (“Israel’s going into Canaan under Joshua was a partial and temporary entering of God’s rest. That, however, was not the end of entering, as shown in the continuing invitation of Ps. 95:7-8.” {NIV Study note, p. 1862})
9 “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.”
What a privilege to worship together as God’s chosen people on the first day of the week since the Lord Jesus is our Sabbath. When God rested on the seventh day, He was declaring that His work was done in creation, but His work would also be completed on the Cross. Because of Jesus’ perfect life and work on the cross, we rest from our vain striving to fulfill what we never could do, and we rest spiritually and eternally by faith in the finished work of Jesus. We begin our week with rest, celebrating our eternal rest in Jesus. We work to show our gratitude to the God who showed his gracious favor to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. May our lives bring honor to Him as we eternally rest in His work.
OUTLINE
I. The Day is to be a SABBATH day: cease from work….rest.
A. Creator God rested after 6 days of creating.
B. Redeemer God delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt.
C. Jesus rested and was resurrected after His work: Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5)
II. The Day is to be Holy.
A. Holy is the sphere of the sacred…apart from the profane and common.
B. GOD made the day of rest (the Sabbath) “HOLY”. (Genesis 2:3)
C. God made the Day HOLY because HE CREATED THE EARTH.
III. The Day is to be “remembered”.
A. “Remembering” (zakar) included action. (James 1:22) (Matt 12:12, Mark 3:4)
B. A Sabbath celebration/worship declares God’s Sovereignty in the world and in Salvation.
C. Jesus is our Sabbath; We rest eternally in His work. (Heb. 4:1-11)
