I would assume most Christians see the “Ten Commandments”
as being an authoritative rule for our lives. But we only seriously try to
follow nine of them. We willfully ignore Commandment 4.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Exodus 20:8-11
Even if we try to keep Sunday as a day for God we are not
keeping the Sabbath. Saturday – not Sunday – is the Sabbath. But are we as
Christians supposed to observe the Sabbath? Can we willfully ignore this
commandment?
One thing that we need to remember is that keeping the
Sabbath went further than not doing any work on Saturday. Both Exodus 23:10-12
and 15:1-7 speak of taking a Sabbath year as well. Every seven years it was to
be a year where the people did not work the land. Rather the land was to rest
and whatever it provided on its own was to be the food for that year. It seems
quite obvious that we as Christians do not really observe Saturday or every
seven years as the Sabbath. But should we? Is this a law for us to follow?
The Law as given to Moses is what we consider the Old
Covenant. It was given to the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai. It was for the
people of Israel. It was not given to Gentiles – or non-Jews. On top of that
God spoke in Jeremiah 31:31-34 of his New Covenant – which was made complete in
Jesus. Jesus reiterated each of the Ten Commandments (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7,
7, 8, 9, 9, & 10) throughout his ministry except for the commandment on the
Sabbath. Rather he challenged the common understanding of the Sabbath. Jesus
made the point that the Sabbath was made for man to rest rather than man being
made to observe the Sabbath. That, I think, really changes how we should view
the Sabbath.
When the Disciples were debating what rules the Gentile
believers had to follow in Acts 15 they came up with the following list:
“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Acts 15:28-29
This is far from a complete list in that it does not say
anything about murder, stealing, bearing false witness or coveting. But it
seems safe to say that these things were not considered optional. What is also
interesting is that the early followers of Christ started gathering together on
Sunday to worship God.
Paul speaks of our freedom in Christ in terms of the
Sabbath in both Colossians 2:16-17 and Romans 14:5. It is my take that we are
free from keeping the Sabbath as a requirement of the Law. However, I do not
think that we are free from the principle of needing rest that is conveyed by
the Sabbath Law. We as human beings are not blessed with unlimited energy. We
are like a rechargeable battery that needs to sit and recharge every so often.
So while we are free from the requirement of the Law we are not free from the
spirit of the Law. We should take a day of rest every week.
Further Reading:
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry
of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment