On day six of creation, God finished the creation of the heavens and the earth and the host (i.e., everything in them – CSB). On the seventh day of creation God rested from all His work of creation. God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. See Genesis 2:1-3.
This is the only reference about the Sabbath in the Bible until Exodus 16:23-30, which is reaffirmed in reference to God providing manna in the wilderness. The children of Israel were murmuring against God, and God responded to their murmuring by providing manna in the morning and quail in the evening. God said everyone should collect only enough manna to meet the household daily need, but on the sixth day, they were to collect enough for the sixth day and the seventh day.
Those that tried to collect extra found it spoiled by the next day. Those who tried to collect manna on the seventh day found there was none. Those who did as the LORD instructed found that the manna collected for day seven did not spoil. God instructed everyone to stay in their place on the Sabbath, and to set apart this day as a Holy day unto the LORD.
The third time Sabbath appears in the Scriptures is Exodus 20:8-11 where it is codified as the Fourth Commandment out of the Ten Commandments as follows:
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. NKJV
Thus, keeping the Sabbath Day holy and as a day of rest becomes codified as law at this point. But, it was first established in Genesis 2 because God blessed and sanctified the seventh day of creation. It took on the title of Sabbath Day in Exodus 20.
With this in mind, let us circle back to Genesis 2:1-3. In the passage, there is no express commandment for man to honor and participate in the Sabbath, although it is implied because God blessed it and sanctified it. For six days, God created the heavens and the earth and the host therein. After each day, God declared the work that day to be good. On the seventh day, God ceased working, blessed the day and sanctified it. It is this sanctification that implies man should likewise work six days and then rest on the seventh day while giving God thanks for all He has done and all He has provided.
Remember, God’s laws always serve a justified purpose. God does not randomly create laws because he can boss us around. God has a purposeful meaning in His laws, and they are a benefit to us. Keeping the Sabbath holy certainly has purpose. If God blessed and sanctified the seventh day (the Sabbath), then we should be inclined to honor it whether the law is written in Scripture or is written on our hearts.
The first principle we should acknowledge in this passage is the term “rest”. This establishes a 7-day week in which man can pursue all business endeavor and pleasure during the first 6 days, but is to rest for the 7th day. It does not take much imagination to see the benefit of observing the Sabbath as a day for rest from a personal point of view.
First, the constant physical labor and stress of working every day without rest can bring about infirmities and afflictions in our bodies. Second, people who work every day tend to lose efficiency and productivity as time proceeds.
The second principle we should acknowledge is the day must be set aside to honor the LORD. This is where spiritual batteries get recharged and direction in service to the LORD becomes clearer. The focus of the Sabbath must be on the LORD, considering who He is, who He is to us, and what He wants us to do. It is this focus that honors God and keeps us on a righteous path.
When God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, he instructed Adam to tend (or work) the Garden and to name the animals. We can assume that Adam did this six days a week and then rested on the seventh day, but the Scriptures do not tell us this expressly. In Exodus 16 in relation to the manna, God tells the children of Israel to honor and observe the Sabbath in relation to laboring for food. In Exodus 20, God expressly commands the children of Israel to remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy, and “you shall do no work” on the Sabbath.
What does it mean to “do no work” on the Sabbath? The Hebrew word for “work” is transliterated into English as “Melakah” and in this context refers to creative workmanship, occupation, employment, manufacturing, business, etc. The problem arose historically when religious leaders, although perhaps with good intentions, set forth to define what God meant by His commands. In the process they tended to add to or took away from what God actually said and meant.
For example, the Scriptures clearly state people should do no work on the Sabbath and should stay in their place. In Isaiah 58:13, people are encouraged not to travel in pursuit of their own pleasure, but to focus on the LORD. However, religious leaders concluded they should define a specific distance that can be traveled and not constitute work in what is called Techum Shabbat. God never set a distance on how far one could travel. He merely instructed the people not to travel in pursuit of their own pleasure on the Sabbath, but to dedicate the Sabbath to the LORD.
The distance of 2000 cubits was chosen. However, as with any law that picks an arbitrary value, is 2000 cubits really any different than 2001 cubits? Another random man-made rule for the Sabbath was that if you traveled with a certain portion of your total assets, you could travel as far as necessary without breaking the Sabbath. Sadly, this work around would not be necessary if the leaders did not create the specific distance rule in the first place.
The next question that arises is what does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy. This is expressly stated in Isaiah 58:13-14: “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the Lord honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, 14 Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.” NKJV. God blessed and sanctified the seventh day as a rest for man and a time for man to commune with God without distraction.
Undoubtedly, God’s real meaning of the Sabbath is to stop all of your personal endeavors on the Sabbath and focus on worshipping and honoring God. If God led someone to travel 3,000 cubits to a place in which He wanted to teach or show them something while they worship him on the Sabbath, the 2,000-cubit rule could potentially prohibit such leading of the LORD and clearly would dishonor the LORD.
This is what prompted Jesus to say in Mark 2:27-28 that the Sabbath was created for man and not man for the Sabbath. In this passage, Jesus had forgiven a man with palsy of his sins and then called out the Jewish leaders for reasoning in their hearts that Jesus speaks blasphemies as only God can forgive sins. Jesus asks which is harder, to forgive sins or heal. The implied answer is it is more difficult to heal and therefore, Jesus healed the man. The Jewish Leaders then plotted against Jesus.
Jesus withdrew to the sea and taught those who followed Him. As they were passing by, Jesus called upon Levi to follow him, which he did. Jesus dined with Levi and many publicans and sinners were present. The Jewish Leaders questioned why Jesus dined with Publicans and sinners to which Jesus replied that he did not come to call the righteous but to call the sinners to repentance.
The Jewish Leaders then criticized the disciples of Jesus for not fasting as John’s disciples did to which Jesus informed them there is a time to fast and time to not fast. While the Disciples are with Jesus is not the time to fast. The time to fast will come when Jesus is no longer present.
The Jewish Leaders then accused the disciples of breaking the Sabbath by gleaning from fields of corn (grain) to eat as they journeyed to the next missionary destination with Jesus. Jesus reminded the Jewish Leaders that David ate the showbread that was consecrated to the Priests, which was unlawful to do, because David and his men were in need and hungry. What is not stated in this passage, but is stated in the Old Testament, is that David had faithfully served God and Saul, refused to harm the LORD’s anointed King Saul, and was fleeing from the unjustified pursuit of David to kill him.
The point is clear, the Sabbath was made for the benefit of man. Man was not created to benefit the Sabbath. This brings to mind the flaws of courts of law and the need for courts of equity. Often times applying a pure legalistic standard can result in an absolute injustice. For example, if the law states I am guilty if I cross a centerline while driving and I do so and have a wreak. A court of law could pronounce me liable for the wreck and responsible for damages because I did in fact cross the centerline, even though additional facts reveal that I was unlawfully hit and shoved across the centerline.
A court of equity would not apply a strict application of the law (i.e., I crossed the centerline), but would rather investigate the facts to find out who was actually at fault in causing this accident.
The Jewish Leaders are applying the Sabbath law strictly with no room for equity and justice. Jesus is challenging their man-made application of God’s fourth commandment that has interpreted this command to prohibit helping or healing anyone in need on the Sabbath. It was a very hard-hearted and legalistic application of the commandment that ignored the facts and worked an injustice that was not intended by God. Jesus informed the Jewish Leaders that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. “Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28.
Jesus is on mission and He is being challenged and plotted against by the Jewish Leaders. They are trying unjustifiably to entrap Him and His disciples. Jesus and His disciples are on the move in accordance with Jesus’ mission and they were in need. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and He knows what does and what does not violate the fourth commandment in God’s eyes and this does not violate it. Likewise, God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, but healing on the Sabbath does not violate this principle. Jesus is a court of equity not a court of law, and the Fourth Commandment does not prohibit healing someone on the Sabbath.
Therefore, we see the attack of the Jewish Leaders culminating in Jesus’ next trip into the Synagogue. The Jewish Leaders watched Jesus closely to see if He would heal on the Sabbath. Jesus asked them whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Then Jesus commanded a man with a withered hand to stretch it forth and he was healed. Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea while the Jewish Leaders plotted to destroy Jesus.
This leads to the next relevant question regarding the Sabbath. God blessed and sanctified the seventh day in Genesis. Does observance of the Sabbath remain a commandment for Christians today? Let me start by asking, how could it not be good to cease work every seventh day and dedicate that day to communion with our LORD? Remember, there is always a rational purpose behind God’s commandments. I have already discussed above the harm of working every day with no break and the benefit of resting every seventh day. However, we will see that having confessed Jesus as Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, which is required to be saved, we are no longer under the Law but now under grace. Being under grace, the law is now written on our hearts and our salvation is not dependent upon our observing ceremonial laws set forth in the Torah.
However, we should not just give God our attention on the Sabbath. In Colossians 2:11-23, Paul made it clear that to be born again in Christ makes your devotion to God a seven day a week requirement. In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God said He will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah because their fathers broke the old covenant. In this new covenant, God will put the law in their minds (or their inward parts) and will write it on their hearts. God will be their God and the people shall be God’s people. This implies that through faith in Christ, we can overcome sin and find right standing before God, which cannot be obtained through the Law.
In Colossians 2, Paul makes it clear that placing one’s faith in the observance of the ordinances of the law is a false humility that arrogantly serves to substitute vain observance of the law for a personal relationship with Jesus. Being born of Christ results in death to oneself and resurrection with life solely in Christ, which is a 24/7 allegiance to Jesus and to fulfilling His commands. The commands of Jesus involve loving God with all your heart, mind and soul (i.e., having no other gods before Him), loving your neighbor as yourself, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and making disciples.
God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. The Jewish leaders, on the other hand, in making their man-made laws, did not keep honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Instead, they honored and kept their own vain traditions, which had perverted the command of God.
Thus, you keep the commandments of God, not as man has defined them, but rather as God has written them in your heart and mind in accordance with the written Word of God (the Bible). In other words, you no longer need a priest. The veil that separated God from Man has been torn and everyone who is saved has direct access to God. The Holy Spirit, who searches the innermost parts of God, will reveal to you the knowledge and wisdom of God as you read, study and meditate upon the Scriptures (i.e., the Word of God).
Colossians 2:11-23 reads as follows: “11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations— 21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” NKJV
Therefore, as Christians, we would be well served to devote at least one day per week to rest and renew our spiritual batteries by communing with the LORD. However, although we are working the other six days, we should remain fully focused on the LORD and seek to accomplish His will, not our own. God requires at a minimum one-tenth of our income or gain, but He requires at least one-seventh of our time. As a born-again Christian, we should want to serve and commune with God 24/7. Colossians 2, above, makes it clear that we are not bound by the ceremonial laws after Jesus. But, it would be wise and beneficial to consecrate one out of seven days to rest and commune with God.
In other words, whether your consecrated day is on any given day of the week probably no longer matters as long as you are dedicating enough time to rest and devotion to God and His Word. The more time you spend in communion with the LORD the better for you. The more time you spend with the LORD, the greater your faith. Paul in Romans 14 addresses the actions of Christians concerning which days they do or do not honor. He instructs us to make our decisions in confidence and to act in good faith for the sake of the kingdom, for “whatever is not faith is sin.” God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, but the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.