The Sabbath and the Christian

Intro

What gets you through a hard day's work? You know that strenuous day when you're in the thick of it, and your body aches, what motivates you to keep going? No doubt you look forward to the rest that will follow in the evening when you come home. You look forward to the reward of your labors, a paycheck, and the joy of a finished task. What motivates you in all your labors is the prospect of rest. Now imagine you were enslaved, and had no prospect of rest. Every day was endless labor, ceaseless striving with no promise of reward or rest. Your morale would be so low that the quality of your work, and your ability to keep at it, would be severely diminished. Not only is daily, weekly, and yearly rest important for us as finite creature, but it motivates us in the work the Lord has given us to do.

The Author of Hebrews encourages the saints to persevere in their faith, holding fast their confidence in Christ Jesus, by showing them that there is a promised rest that is to come. He walks the saints through two OT texts to show them that “there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God.” (Heb. 4:9) And in a book whose sole purpose is to help Jewish Christians to see that Christ is greater than the Old Covenant, having fulfilled those types and shadows that led the people of God by the hand to Christ, it may come as a surprise that the Author of Hebrews encourages the continuance of sabbath-keeping, albeit changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week, as a sign of that future eschatological rest which is to come.

We are going to fix our attention on merely two verses of this longer text from this longer section. It will not be a proper exposition of the whole of what the Author of Hebrews taught found here in Hebrews 3:7-4:11. Instead, I will focus on Heb. 4:9-10 as we ask: Has Christ done away with the Sabbath, or does it remain? As we shall see, there is a sabbath rest that remains, but it is changed because Christ has entered into God’s rest having completed His works of recreation.

Hebrews 3:7-4:11

‌Summary of the Text

The author of Hebrews calls his letter an exhortation, meaning that it was probably a sermon, or series of sermons preached to the church who were facing persecution, and the temptation to ease that by returning to the Jewish economy. Through a series of expositions of OT scriptures, the Author of Hebrews says that Jesus is greater than the old covenant administration. They should therefore “hold fast” their “confidence” and their “boasting in” their “hope.” (Heb. 3:6)

The section where we find our text is within an exposition of two OT texts which both center on “rest.” The first is a longer quote from Ps. 95:7-11, and the second is Genesis 2:2. The major thrust of his argument is that the church finds itself in an analogous situation as Israel in the wilderness. She faces the same temptation to unbelief while she waits to enter God’s rest.

The author of Hebrews covers the flow of redemptive-history from Israel with Moses in the wilderness, to Joshua, to David, to Christ, and to the Church of his day, and extending to the church as it continues to wait to enter God’s rest.

The point of comparison is to hold out Israel in the wilderness as a negative example to spur the church to hold fast to Christ by reminding her that those who hold fast to Christ are those who in the “today” of their wilderness wandering don’t harden their heart. It is they who will enter into God’s (eschatological) rest. The reason we can enter that rest is that Christ has entered it resting from his finished works. It is the ongoing weekly celebration of the sabbath, now changed because of Christ, that points us to that future rest. To see this, we are going to look first at v. 10 to see that Christ has entered His rest, before we consider v. 9 and the continual need for a sabbath-keeping, while the church awaits the time when we too will enter Christ's rest, having persevered until the end.

‌Christ has entered His rest, by completing his works.

‌It's tricky to read v. 10 and draw the right conclusions, without considering the whole thrust of the section and indeed of the letter itself. The ESV translation is misleading. For whoever has entered God's rest makes it sound as if the Author of Hebrews is referring to "the people of God" from v. 9. But the AH never refers to the people using a singular. It literally reads, for the one who has entered His rest has also rested from His works as God did from His. The question commentators debate are these works that this singular person has rested from.

If the one who has entered God's rest is the believer, their works could be one of two things. First, according to Calvin, he has rested from his works of trying to earn His salvation through law-keeping. Thus, the one who enters God's rest, which is present, are those who cease trying through works of the law to earn their salvation and instead rest in justification by faith alone. But this makes the point of comparison between us ceasing our sinful works, and God ceasing His work of creation. That just can't be. How could our sinful works ever be compared to any of God's works.

If it is not our sinful works, then it must be our spirit-wrought good works done, as we hold fast our confidence until the end by loving God and loving our neighbor. This on the surface has more to commend than the previous view. Since all we are saying is those works produced by the Spirit, which alone can be considered good, can be compared to God's works because they proceed from him.

But I think it is better to take the referent here not as the individual believer, but as Christ. So it would read like this: For the one who has entered His rest, namely Christ, has also rested from his works in recreation, just as God did from His in creation. This makes more sense of the comparison the AH is making and does justice to singular. Of course, the work Christ accomplishes is analogous to the work God has done in creation.

So AH maintains Christ has completed his work and has entered His rest. I want to consider very briefly what those works are, and how this is the key to the change of day from the seventh to the first in our ongoing celebration of the sabbath.

The works Christ completed are His works of redemption. It was His incarnation, where God, the second person of the trinity, took on flesh so that he could live a perfect life and die a sacrificial death on behalf of His people. Having accepted His finished work, the Father raised Christ Jesus from the dead on the first day of the week, Sunday. The work Jesus has completed is the salvation of the world, for in His resurrection and enthronement at God's right hand, he has reversed the curse of sin and death and when he comes again will bring what he began with his resurrection when he comes again in glory, namely recreation.

Jesus foreshadowed this in-breaking of the new creation in most of his miracles/signs. Often these were done on the Sabbath. At first, it may seem this was just to provoke the ruling religious elite by overthrowing their traditions. But much more is going on. The reality is Jesus is foreshadowing life in "rest" of new creation life. For Jesus came to "set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Lk. 4:18; Is. 61:1) a reference to the year of Jubilee, the 50th year sabbath, where debts are forgiven, and you were restored to your ancestral land. His ministry is described this way:

Matthew 4:23–25 (ESV) — 23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

His earthly ministry foreshadowed the rest that awaits in the new creation. Jesus showed by His actions that he was Lord of the Sabbath, by inviting those broken and maimed by sin to find (temporary) rest in Him, which he would bring in its fullness when he came again.

While those healed, became sick again, and even died, for such is life in the wilderness wandering of our pilgrimage here in the time between Christ's coming. But the rest that Christ has entered into is complete and perfect rest. In his resurrection, Jesus is described by the apostle Paul as "the firstborn from the dead" (Col. 1:18) meaning he is the first man to enter into new creation life, which is described as His rest.

1 Corinthians 15:21–23 (ESV) — 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

His resurrection is the basis for ours. His entering His rest is the basis of the promise that there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God. For all who do not harden their hearts but "hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope," they will enter His rest.

‌However, "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God."

‌But, what does this have to do with a weekly sabbath, and if there is one, why don't we celebrate it on Saturday like the Jews? We need to look back at v. 9 drawing in all that we have learned of the Sabbath's creational and redemptive patterns to see that there remains a weekly sabbath celebration for the Christian.

AH says, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Heb 4:9). That so then, is preceded by the example of Israel, who failed to enter God's rest because of their unbelief. If they failed to enter the AH reasons, there must be a future rest that we can look forward to. The term Sabbath rest may be confusing. For throughout this section in Hebrews, the Author has used the generic word, katapausen, to refer to rest. But here he changes his language, and invents a word, sabbatismos, which is a noun form of the verb to keep the sabbath. So then, there remains a sabbath-keeping for the people of God. AH uses a play on words to show that for the persevering church awaiting the return of Christ, the sabbath still has significance as a reminder that there is a future rest (katapausen).

You could restate it this way: the creational pattern of a sabbath rest is still significant since we have not yet entered Christ's rest. Only now it has been changed so that it is a reminder that Christ completed his work in salvation, by celebrating it on the first day of the week and calling it the Lord's day, since it belongs to Christ.

On Friday afternoon, with worry that it would go on into the Sabbath, the Jews pressed Pilot to break Jesus' legs to hasten His death. But the soldiers found him already dead. He was quickly buried, with the women who attended to him, unable to prepare the body properly because the Sabbath was upon them. And all the sabbath long the Lord rested in the grave, rising early on the first day of the week, in great triumph over sin and death. When did God enter his rest in creation? On the seventh day. When did Christ enter his rest in recreation? On the first day of the week. Since for the Christian, the sabbath is remembrance of Christ's completed work in his death and resurrection; it is only fitting that the day which we celebrate that rest be on the first day of the week.

In every place where the NT speaks of a day that the church gathers, it uses an idiomatic phrase, which the Gospel writers used to describe the day of Christ's resurrection. Our English translations smooth this out by saying "on the first day of the week" (Jn. 20:1; Lk. 24:1; Mk. 16:2; Mt. 28:1 is a little different). Literally it would read, “the number one of the Sabbath.” That is, “the day which is number one in the sequence of days determined by the Sabbath.” Luke uses this same construction in Acts 20:7 "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread." The early church self-consciously began to gather and worship on the first day of the week to celebrate the day Jesus entered into His rest when he rose from the dead.

At some later point, the church began to refer to this Christian sabbath as the Lord's day (Rev. 1:10). To signify that it belonged to Him and was to be set apart as holy, just as Israel had done (or was supposed too) in the old covenant. Now we begin our week looking back on the finished work of Christ. We begin from a place of rest, and then we work. Whereas Israel worked and then rested, looking forward to the day of Christ. They looked forward to rest, we look back.

Objections

Let me briefly treat a few objections to the arguments I have advanced in defense of the Christian sabbath, the Lord's day having ongoing significance for the church today. First from Jesus, and then Paul.

Didn't Jesus condemn sabbath-keeping in his confrontation with the Scribes and Pharisees? Jesus condemns them, but not for keeping the sabbath as God had intended, but for keeping the traditions of their fathers. That is he condemns them because they missed the whole point of the sabbath, which was always to be a gift not a work. His point was always that doing good to your neighbor cannot be at odds with obedience to the law. Nor was the law ever meant for you to turn away from doing good through your obedience to it. It was not the presence or absence of work per se, but what kinds of works. We will consider this more next week when we talk about the dangers of neglecting the sabbath.

‌But what of Paul? Didn't he say that all days were now alike (Rom. 14:5-9) and that we are not to submit again to regulations since we are not under the law, but under grace. Absolutely, Paul, in the strictest way, condemns what we may now call Judaizing. But what Paul condemns is not the Creational ordinance of the Sabbath, but the ceremonial aspects of the Sabbaths that were given to Israel as a church underage. These sabbaths, and festivals, were all foreshadows of the rest Christ has entered by His resurrection. To return to those earlier forms would be to return a time before Christ had come and finished His work. And especially if you were to return to the practices of the Scribes and Pharisees, who had missed the spirit of the law to begin with. In fact, you can make a solid case that what Paul is prohibiting is the seventh day sabbath in all its ceremonial aspects, and not the sabbath principal of six days of labor and one day of rest as rooted in the created order. What the Christian must not submit to is those regulations that were solely designed to lead the people of God to faith in Jesus Christ, before he had come. Christ did not come to abrogate the law, but to fulfill it. And the moral law, laid down in creation and given in the ten commandments continue to be the perfect rule of life, including the fourth commandment to remember the sabbath day to keep it holy, only not by remembering that we were once slaves in Egypt and God delivered us in the exodus, but that we were dead in our trespasses and sins and Christ delivered us by His death and resurrection.

Hebrews 4:9–10 (NASB95) — 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.

Let's pray

Father, thank you for the finished work of Jesus Christ. Whose perfect life and sacrificial death have purchased our redemption from sin and death. Thank you for accepting his finished work and raising Him from the dead, so that he has entered His rest. For we know that where he is, at rest from his works, we will one day be also, when we enter His rest. Until that day, teach us Lord to hold fast in confidence to the hope of that eternal sabbath rest. May we call the sabbath our delight because in it we celebrate the finished work of your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose great name we pray. Amen.

Lord's Supper Meditation

This ordinance also finds its roots in an old covenant institution. For when Israel was preparing to leave Egypt in haste, the Lord established the Passover celebration to remind them they had not received the sentence of death, because their homes were covered by the blood of a lamb who died in their place. But what Israel was learning was that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin, for day in and day out, week in and week out, the priests offered sacrifice for the sins of the people, but Christ, the substance of those shadowy forms, offered himself once for all, a sacrifice that never needed to be repeated again. And this meal given to remember that event, and picture in visible words the once for all death of Christ, seals to you the promise that you too, will one day enter into the rest of Christ. These common elements of bread and wine, as you eat and drink them by faith, signify your union with Christ, your participation in His works, completed in His death and resurrection. This is Christ’s offer of rest, if you have by faith looked to Christ for your salvation, been baptized and admitted to the table by a church or session, then come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Charge

As a creation ordinance, the Sabbath remains for the church today. It celebrates Christ's redemptive work, with the day now changed from the seventh to the first.