– 8 Min Read
We have already read from Genesis 2:3, that God ‘blessed the seventh day and sanctified it’, which means to make it holy, to make it set apart from all the other days of the week. God worked six and rested on the seventh. We have also read Exodus 20 where God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. However, it is important to note that Israel had already observed the Sabbath before receiving the Decalogue at Sinai.
“Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.” 27 It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? 29 See, the Lord has given you the sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.”
– Exodus 16:25-30
This is because the Sabbath was created at creation, not Sinai. No matter how hard one may want to ignore it, the reality of Sabbath rest was communicated back in the first pages of our Bible. It is significant for God’s theme and plan of redemption. Sabbath is something that is not designed to ever go away for God did not need to rest from His work, but Christ would and has. Christ would come, work, and participate in a Sabbath rest from His work. Jonathan Edwards explains this in light of Hebrews 4:10;
“Christ rested from his works when he rose from the dead, on the first day of the week. When he rose from the dead, then he finished his work of redemption. His humiliation was then at an end: he then rested and was refreshed.—When it is said, ‘There remaineth a rest to the people of God;’ in the original, it is, a *sabbatism, *or the keeping of a Sabbath: and this reason is given for it, ‘For he that entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. . . . It is evident in these words that the preference is given to the latter rest, viz. the rest of our Savior from his works, with respect to the influence it should have or relation it bears, to the sabbatizing of the people of God, now under the gospel, evidently implied in the expression, ‘There remaineth therefore a sabbatism to the people of God. For he that entered into his rest,’ etc. For in this sabbatism appointed in remembrance of God’s rest from the work of creation, does not remain, but ceases, and that this new rest, in commemoration of Christ’s resting from his works, remains in the room of it.”
Jonathan Edwards [1]
Edwards notes that God rested from His work on the seventh day of the week and Christ rested from His work on the first day of the week. Where the Old Testament Sabbath was on Saturday because of God’s rest, our rest in the New Testament is on Sunday because Christ rested on Sunday.
“For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”
– Hebrews 4:10
As much as some would intend for ‘the one who has entered’ to mean “believers”, it does not. For the text also says that the one who entered ‘also rested from his works.’ What works does a believer have to rest from? Their sins? Their evil deeds? No, this text is talking about Christ’s rest.
Christ is the one who entered into His Father’s rest and has also rested from His work, just as the Godhead did in Genesis. At Christ’s ascension, He entered into His rest, for; “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet” (Psalm 110:1, Acts 2:34, Hebrews 1:13). The work Christ is resting from is His perfect work of fulfilling the perfect law and His sacrificial, atoning, justice satisfying, pleasing death. Christ, (God the Son), has experienced rest after the creation and after the cross. This was to provide a rest for His church.
“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it… 9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”
– Hebrews 4:1,9-11
There is a promised rest that Christ has provided for those who believe in Him. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God and this rest is to come and be truly realized in eternity when we enter the new heavens and new earth. Therefore, since Christ has provided this promised rest for those who hold fast to Him, let us make every effort to enter that rest.
There is an immediate takeaway and experience to be had now. For when God rested from His work on the seventh day, He declared it holy. The same could be said for Christ; who entered into His rest on the first day of the week. John Owen says;
“The first day of the week, the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when he rested from his works, is appointed and determined for a day of rest or Sabbath unto the church, to be constantly observed in the room of the seventh day, appointed and observed from the foundation of the world and under the old testament.”
John Owen [2]
Sabbath is a glorious theme of the bible. God institutes a Sabbath rest at the beginning of the Scriptures, at the midpoint of our Scriptures, and at the end of the Scriptures. God rests after creation in Genesis, we see Christ come and rest from His redemptive work on the cross in the Gospels, and then in Revelation, we see Christ bringing His people into their eternal rest after God creates a new heavens and a new earth. This of course is found and experienced in Christ alone. This is because it originated in Him alone for all of mankind, not just Israel.
Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
– Mark 2:27 (emphasis added)
The Sabbath was made, not given. According to Jesus, the Sabbath is something that was created. The word used here for “made” is γίνομαι (ginomai) which means, “to come into existence,” “begin to be,” “to receive being.” The Sabbath was created for man, not man created for the Sabbath. At Sinai, it was surely given, but it was created in Eden. It was given at Sinai along with the explanation of where it came from; that is it is grounded in the creation account.
Man was created on the Sixth Day and the Sabbath was brought forth into existence on the Seventh Day. The Sabbath was created for mankind to enjoy, the first man being Adam. God did not create the Sabbath for Himself, it was made for all of mankind including the Son of Man, who is Lord over the Sabbath. Christ not only is Lord of the Sabbath, for He created it, but He is Lord of the Sabbath because He fulfills it. Christ enjoys it Himself and He provides an eternal Sabbath for us in the future. Our Sabbath rest is truly found in Christ. The Sabbath rest in Hebrews 4 points to an eschatological rest, which is experienced in the new heavens and the new earth. Therefore, the Sabbath is not “irrelevant” to the New Covenant. Quite the opposite! It is the essence of what the New Covenant offers, brings, and displays.
It only makes sense that believers would still participate in a more meaningful Sabbath rest during the week, on a more meaningful day, in light of a more meaningful rest that is to come. Israel began their work week looking forward to the Sabbath. In Christ, we begin our week in rest and work out from it looking onward to an eternal rest. We are not to forget about the Sabbath and kick open the door to an antinomian attitude towards the Fourth Commandment. Christians should be enjoying their rest on the Lord’s Day far more than the Jews did on Saturdays, for we do not have to rest from our works, we rest in Christ’s work!
Read Next: The Christian Sabbath Part 6: John MacArthur and the Sabbath
Works Cited
[1] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards. (New York, Leavitt & Allen, 1854. IV), 615-37
[2] John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to The Hebrews. vol. 4, (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991, 7 vols.), 336