The requirement to keep the Sabbath day holy is the fourth commandment as given to the Israelites through Moses. Due to the specific nature of the details in regard to the day and the particulars, there have been divergent views among the believers, the departure being the identity of the day. As the debate revolves around the day with many legalistic opinions, the deeper meaning of the Sabbath is lost in conservative conventionalism.
Exodus 20:8-11 NKJV
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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. 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 concept is an import from the creative works of the LORD and his rest on the seventh day. Which day is this That the LORD rested and consecrated as holy? It is worth noting that there’s a difference between “God’s days” and our” man” days. The creation and eventual rest are in God’s days. Indeed, what we have come to experience as our days came into effect on God’s fourth day when the solar system and others were created.
Genesis 1:14-19 NKJV
“Then God said,” Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
The exact number of our days that amount to God’s day remains unknown and could be thousands or even millions.
2 Peter 3:8 NKJV
“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
With this understanding, God created everything in six days and entered his rest on his seventh day; his Sabbath. As the creation is complete, our current days are within his seventh day. In other words, any time after his sixth day, to present is his Sabbath day. The implication is that our time and whole lives are lived in his seventh day; his Sabbath. Since we live in his seventh day; his Sabbath, the only way for us to keep it holy is by keeping the whole of our lives holy. Sin in our lives profanes his Sabbath.
God’s expectations of humanity are immutable. The rudiments of his interaction with his creation remain the same during Pre-Law, Pro-Law, and Post-Law periods. The Sabbath commandment was always there from the beginning. Adam in obedience lived perfectly in the Lord’s Sabbath. In disobedience, he was the first man to profane the seventh day of the Lord. By sinning and being detached from God, access to the rest that is inherent in the Lord’s Sabbath became limited to man. The fourth commandment as it is in the law was a foreshadowing of Man’s reunification with God in his rest, symbolic of what Adam had before sin. The immutable requirement of entering God’s rest is not in the day but anchored in holiness through obedience.
Hebrews 4:1-10 NKJV
“Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 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. 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. 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”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 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.”For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”
When is Man’s life? Although we have a remembrance of the past and hope for the future, Man’s life is nowhere else other than the present; Today. Your holiness today is what keeps God’s seventh day; Sabbath, holy. Man through his own works cannot achieve the righteousness required for God’s holiness. Such righteousness is only imputed in us in salvation through Jesus Christ. Through him, reunification with God in his rest is realized. Through him, the substance of the fourth commandment is fulfilled by Man. Today then becomes the day of salvation for one to fulfill the fourth commandment.
Matthew 12:5-8 NKJV
“Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
God is still in his seventh day in which Today; our days, are. Soon in his own time, he will enter a new day (eighth day) which marks the first day of new creation after the old has passed. To enter into the new day with him, one must also have been with him in his rest in his seventh day.
Revelation 21:1-2 NKJV
“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”
As the debate rages on which day of our lives honors his Sabbath, the irrevocable answer, is your life compounded into today. Today is the day to enter his rest. Today is the day of salvation.
Profound