The doctrine of the Sabbath

1. The original Sabbath of Genesis 2:2 was designed by God to teach grace. God rested because everything was provided in grace for man. There was nothing else He could do. The seventh day was always a memorial to who and what God is and to what God does. It was a memorial to grace.

2. In Exodus 16:14-26 the Sabbath had to be called to the attention of the Jews. And it was called to their attention in a special way. Manna represents divine provision for the believer in time. Manna was the food that God provided for the Jews in the desert. And Exodus 16:14 said, “Look, you will always gather manna on day one, day two, day three, day four, day five and day six. And on day six (Friday) you will gather a double portion because on day seven I will provide no manna and you will not, gather manna.” So this was the first specific reference to the Sabbath day since God rested in the restoration of Genesis 2:2. All of that time man understood this principle without being nudged.

3. The Jewish Sabbath: a day had to be instituted finally. The Jewish Sabbath is the fourth commandment of the decalogue - Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15. It is also mentioned in Leviticus 23:3. It was designed with one purpose in mind: to commemorate grace by doing no work on the Sabbath day. This is in fulfilment of the concept of Genesis 2:2. The Sabbath was never designed to be any kind of trouble or difficulty, it was designed to be a time of rest, relaxation and tranquillity, a reminder of grace.

4. Then there is a temporal Sabbath which is mentioned in Hebrews 3:11. This is the supergrace Sabbath. It became obvious in the Age of Israel that observing Saturday could be distorted too easily. The Jews began to set up rules and regulations that were ridiculous and had nothing to do with grace. The Sabbath was not designed for overt activity, it was designed for mental activity - to remember grace. Therefore, God had to change it. So we have the supergrace Sabbath mentioned Hebrews 3:11. This is also known as the moment by moment Sabbath whereby you depend day by day and rest entirely on what God has provided. The moment by moment Sabbath is doctrine in the soul, the ECS, the creation by Bible doctrine of capacity - the cup. The cup represents supergrace capacity based on doctrine, and God pouring and pouring and pouring. That is supergrace and the supergrace Sabbath is a moment by moment Sabbath. In other words, God doesn’t bless on one day of the week, God blesses on every day of the week. One thing that happened when the Church Age superseded the Age of Israel is that Saturday was set aside. Saturday was a time of animal sacrifices, a time of a specialised priesthood, the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. It was a time for special activities and a time for assembly worship. But the Jewish Age ended suddenly with the cross, the resurrection, the ascension and the session of Jesus Christ. And as the Jewish Age terminated, very shortly thereafter the Church Age began. Now in the Church Age every believer is a priest, so things are different. Now there is no longer a special day. Why? Because every believer is a priest and the objective is for every believer priest to become spiritually self-sustaining. The priesthood of Aaron is set aside.

There were a couple of feasts that the Jews had that really bothered them The Passover they could handle because that was a day which began the feast of unleavened bread. The feast of unleavened bread they could handle. But on the first Sunday, and always on Sunday, they had the feast of the firstfruits and that used to drive them up the wall. The reason was that the feast of the firstfruits speaks of resurrection - the resurrection of Jesus Christ - and it was always on Sunday, and there was one thing the Jews couldn’t stand and that was to have a Sunday Sabbath. A Sabbath to them was any day that they worshipped. Often the priest would go out all by himself and wave a sheaf of grain before the Lord, the feast of the firstfruits.

Fifty days from that Sunday there was another observation which always bothered them because fifty days from Sunday is always a Sunday - Pentecost. Jesus Christ was resurrected on a Sunday; Jesus Christ began the Church on the first Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after His resurrection. Jesus Christ was forty days on the earth before He ascended to the right hand of the Father. Another ten days and then the Church began on Sunday. So there has to be a day when assembly worship is authorised, when they all come together, and it was Sunday. We observe the resurrection and the beginning of the Church Age every Sunday. The Jews always had to have a Sabbath day; we have a first day. This is something new, something that begins all over again.

5. In addition to the supergrace Sabbath there was also an eternal Sabbath, which is also a moment by moment Sabbath - Matthew 11:28. This refers to eternal salvation.

6. The Jews already began to crack under observing the of the Sabbath day and all the ritual. So they had to be further reminded. In Leviticus chapter 25 we discover that they had a seventh year, a sabbatical year. On the seventh year they were to stop all sowing, all planting, all harvesting. Under an agricultural economy that looks as though people will starve. But no. God says, “If you will stop on the seventh year and make it a memorial to grace, then grace will provide what you need.” Of course, they never would. God called their bluff right from the start: the Sabbath would never mean a thing to them. They never observed the sabbatical year, and finally, in a period of 490 years of Jewish history they had missed seventy Sabbath years. So God gave them all of the seventy years in captivity.

7. God knew that they would not observe the Sabbath, or the sabbatical year, so He gave them another one: the Jubilee year. The Jubilee year is found in the 25th chapter of Leviticus and this is what is called the generation test. On the fiftieth year everyone who owned property was to return it. And, again, on the fiftieth year they failed to observe. So the rejection of the Sabbath concept was total in Israel. It was total because they had no doctrine. Sabbath is a ritual, not just a day. Observing a day has ritual connected with it. Sabbath means rest, and the Jews had to stop working because that is physical rest. But that is rest ritual and it is not meaningful unless you have doctrine in the soul to appreciate it. The Lord’s table, the communion table, is not meaningful unless you have doctrine in the soul to appreciate it. And so it was with the Jews in the past. Doctrine in the soul was necessary.

8. Now in the Church Age the Sabbath is interrupted even as the Age of Israel is interrupted. This is taught in Colossians 2:16,17. As the Church Age interrupts the Age of Israel so the Saturday Sabbath is set aside. Now in the Church Age we start with something brand new. On the Day of Pentecost, the first day of the Church Age and a Sunday, God the Holy Spirit took all believers alive in Jerusalem and entered them into union with Christ. Thereafter, when any person believes in Christ, one of the things he receives is the baptism of the Spirit; he enters into union with Jesus Christ. This means that Christianity is not a religion.

The heart or the right lobe is the container for doctrine, and when doctrine is in the right lobe this impresses God. In other words, God is not impressed with people but God is impressed with doctrine. God is impressed with His Word. He has magnified His Word above His name. Therefore, when there is doctrine in the right lobe of an individual God is impressed with that doctrine and God blesses on the basis if that doctrine. The cup that runs over is doctrine in the soul. This is why the Jews failed. There were always a few who succeeded but their failure is emphasised in Hebrews chapter three. The Exodus generation failed because there was not doctrine in the heart, no doctrine in the right lobe. Having no doctrine in the right lobe they couldn’t appreciate the Sabbath day, the Sabbath year, the year of Jubilee. They couldn’t appreciate the ritual that was followed on those days.

So during the Church Age Saturday is out. Not only is Saturday out but so is every seventh year and the year of Jubilee. The Sabbath is all over. Now we are starting all over and so we start with the first day of the week, Sunday, the day the Church began. That is what for the last two-thousand years most people observe Sunday. Once you start assembling on Sunday you pick up on doctrine and you find out that you must regard every day as a gift from God, every day is to be regarded alike. But, the special days are always the days when a nation has won its victories in battle. Why? Because it is the military that provides freedom for a nation and no nation ever had freedom apart from its military, that is a divine law.

Hebrews 4:4b - “And God did rest the seventh day from all his works”. The word for “rest” is the aorist active indicative of katapauw. This word means to cease, to desist from all work according to a norm or standard. The norm or standard is God’s essence. God in His omniscience knew that there was nothing else to be provided. The original Sabbath day, the day when God rested from restoration of the earth is the key to everything. God had a standard, His own perfect character according to which there was nothing left to provide. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety from the standpoint of existing results. The existing results: Adam had everything he wanted in the garden. The active voice: God produces the action which is the concept of grace. God resting is a sign that everything has been provided. The indicative mood is the reality of God ceasing from His restorative work plus the creative work involved with mankind. So the seventh day became a memorial to the grace of God. Under grace God does the working, God does the providing, and man does the receiving, man does the benefiting. Therefore, God sows; man reaps. Divine blessing always depends on who and what God is, what He does for man, not what we can do for Him.

The final phrase says, “from all of his works”, a prepositional phrase, a)po plus the genitive of e)rgon. E)rgon means His production, everything that was necessary; a)po is from the ultimate source of all of His works. When God provided for man in innocence it was equivalent to our supergrace blessings. The capacity for innocence came from the fact that Jesus Christ taught man daily in the garden. The blessings included right woman, promotion [Adam was the ruler of the world at that time], wealth, success, everything that man would ever want.

Translation: “For he has communicated somewhere concerning the seventh day in the following manner, And the God rested on the seventh day from all of his works.”

Innocence is a perfect analogy to what God has available to us today. Just as God provided everything for Adam in six days God provided every blessing would ever need in eternity past. So the issue is this: God is still resting today because in eternity past he provided everything you would ever need. That is why God is resting right now. Furthermore, He has provided a table for us in doctrine so that our cup will run over, and from this point on it is strictly up to you. It depends entirely upon your attitude toward Bible doctrine whether you ever realise this or not. What a tragedy to think that God is tapping His foot waiting to bless you right now, having all of these wonderful things for you and yet not able to give them because you have no cup. Your cup can only overflow if you have a cup in the soul. A cup in the soul is Bible doctrine.