Sabbath from Creation....

[reddogs]

The Creation-Sabbath in the Old Testament​

"...The question of the origin of the Sabbath has been debated on and off throughout both Jewish and Christian history, and especially during this past century. The discovery of alleged parallels between the Babylonian monthly Shabattu to the Biblical Shabbat over a century ago has lead a number of scholars to argue that the Sabbath originated at the time of Moses or after the settlement in Canaan because of socio-economic or astrological-astronomic considerations A major reason why the question of the origin of the Sabbath has attracted much attention is because with it is bound the larger question of whether or not the principle and practice of seventh-day Sabbathkeeping is binding upon Christians.

Those who believe that the Sabbath was established by God at creation for the benefit of mankind, accept its observance as a creation ordinance binding upon all, Jews and Christians. On the other hand, those who hold that the Sabbath originated at the time of Moses or later, regard the Sabbath as a Jewish institution not applicable to Christians. In view of these implications, it is important to briefly examine how the question of the origin of the Sabbath.

Genesis 2:2-3​

The Biblical view of the origin of the Sabbath is unequivocal: the Sabbath, as seventh day, originated at the completion of the creation week as a result of three divine acts: God "rested," "blessed," and "hallowed" the seventh day (Genesis 2:2-3).

Twice Genesis 2:2-3 states that God "rested" on the seventh day from all His work. The Hebrew verb shabat, translated "rested," denotes cessation and not relaxation. The latter idea is expressed by the Hebrew verb nuah, which is used in Exodus 20:11, where the divine rest fulfills an anthropological function: it serves as a model for human rest. In Genesis 2:2-3, however, the divine rest has a cosmological function. It serves to explain that God, as Karl Barth puts it:

"[God] was content to be the Creator of this particular creation . . . He had no occasion to proceed to further creations. He needed no further creations."​

To acknowledge this fact, God stopped.
Genesis 2:3 affirms that the Creator "blessed" (brk) the seventh day just as He had blessed animals and man on the previous day (Genesis 1:22, 28). Divine blessings in the Scripture are not merely "good wishes," but assurance of fruitfulness, prosperity, and a happy and abundant life (Ps. 133:3). In terms of the seventh day, it means that God has promised to make the Sabbath a beneficial and vitalizing power through which human life is enriched and renewed. In Exodus 20:11 the blessing of the creation seventh day is explicitly linked with the weekly Sabbath.

Genesis 2:3 also affirms that the Creator "hallowed" (R.V., R.S.V.) the seventh day, "made it holy" (N.E.B., N.A.B.), or "sanctified it" (N.A.S.B.). Both here and in the Sabbath commandment (Ex 20:11) the Hebrew text uses the verb qiddes (piel), from the root qds, holy. In Hebrew the basic meaning of "holy" or "holiness" is "separation" for holy use. In terms of the Sabbath, its holiness consists in God's separation of this day from the six working days. The holiness of the Sabbath stems not from man's keeping it, but from God's choice of the seventh day to be a channel through which human beings can experience more freely and fully the awareness of His sanctifying presence in their lives.
The great importance of the creation-Sabbath in the Old Testament is indicated by the fact that it provides the theological motivation for the commandment to observe the seventh day (Ex 20:11) and the theological justification for serving as a covenant sign between God and Israel (Ex 31:17). The theological reasons given for the command to observe the seventh day Sabbath "to the Lord your God" (Exodus 20:10) is "for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it" (Ex 20:11).

The creation Sabbath serves also as "a sign" of the covenant relationship between God and His people: "It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed" (Ex 31:17). The covenant is God's commitment to save His people. "The Lord your God is God: He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands" (Deut 7:7-9).
The function of a sign is to point to something beyond itself. As a covenant sign, the Sabbath points to creation, redemption, and final restoration. The Sabbath points back to creation by reassuring us that this world with all its human and subhuman creation came into existence, not in an imperfect way by chance, but in a perfect way by choice, the choice of a living, loving Creator. (Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:8,11; 31:17). The Sabbath points to redemption by reassuring us, not only of the perfection of God's original creation, but also of the completion of redemption (John 19:31). As a sign of the everlasting covenant the Sabbath point also to the future restoration, to the rest that remains for the people of God (Heb 4:9). Thus, the Sabbath stands as the sign of the everlasting covenant links together creation, redemption and final restoration.

The Creation-Sabbath in the New Testament ​

Mark 2:27​

The New Testament takes for granted the creation origin of the Sabbath. A clear example is found in Mark 2:27 where Christ refutes the charge of Sabbath breaking levelled against the disciples by referring to the original purpose of the Sabbath: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
Christ's choice of words is significant. The verb "made-ginomai" alludes to the original "making" of the Sabbath and the word "man-anthropos" suggests its human function. Thus to establish the human and universal value of the Sabbath, Christ reverts to its very origin, right after the creation of man. Why? Because for the Lord the law of the beginning stands supreme.

In his attempt to negate the creation origin of the Sabbath a Pastor General of a formerly Sabbath keeping denomination argues in his open letter to me that "anthropos-man, " refers not to mankind in general but to the Jews in particular. He wrote:

"The Sabbath was made for man, Jesus said, and the men God gave it to were Israelites."​

This is totally new to me. It is the first time I read that "man-anthropos" means Israelites and not mankind. Surprisingly this contradicts the church's May 2, 1995 study paper on the Sabbath which says:

"When Jesus used the word 'man' in Mark 2:27, he was using in a general sense, without reference to Jews specifically or to gentiles specifically."​

Why would God establish the Sabbath just for the benefit of the Jews? Are the spiritual needs of the Jews different from those of the Gentiles?
The truth of the matter is that for Christ God's original design is important. In another instance when dealing with the corruption of the institution of marriage, which occurred under the Mosaic code, Christ reverted to its Edenic origin, saying: "From the beginning it was not so" (Matt 19:8). Christ then traces both marriage and the Sabbath to their creation origin in order to clarify their fundamental value and function for mankind. Contrary to what the Sabbath paper says that "the value [of the Sabbath] has been eclipsed by Christ" (p. 11), by this memorable affirmation Christ establishes its permanent validity by appealing to its original creation when God determined its intended function for the well-being of mankind.

Hebrews 4:3-4
Another explicit reference to the creation Sabbath is found in the Book of Hebrews. In the fourth chapter of the book, the author establishes the universal and spiritual nature of the Sabbath rest by welding together two Old Testament texts, namely Genesis 2:2 and Psalm 95:11. Through the former, he traces the origin of the Sabbath rest back to creation when "God rested on the seventh day from all his works" (Heb 4:4; cf. Gen 2:2-3). By the latter (Ps 95:11), he explains that the scope of this divine rest includes the blessings of salvation to be found by entering personally into God's rest (Heb 4:3, 5, 10). The probative value of this statement is heightened by the fact that the author is not arguing for the creation origin of the Sabbath; rather he takes it for granted in explaining God's ultimate purpose for His people. Thus, in Hebrews 4, the creation origin of the Sabbath is not only accepted but is also presented as the basis for understanding God's ultimate purpose for His people.

The "Sabbath Study Paper" of the formely Sabbath keeping group argues that "Hebrews 4 is not exhorting us to keep a weekly Sabbath, but to enter the rest of God by having faith in Christ" (p. 22). This attempt to negate Sabbath keeping by reducing it to the salvation rest we experience in Christ fails to recognize that the recipients of the Epistle (whether Gentiles or Jewish-Christians) were so attracted to Jewish liturgy (of which the Sabbath was a fundamental part) that it was unnecessary for the author to discuss or to encourage its actual observance. What those Christian "Hebrews" actually needed, tempted as they were to turn back to Judaism, was to understand the deeper meaning of its observance in the light of Christ's coming.

The deeper meaning of the Sabbath can be seen in the antithesis the author makes between those who failed to enter into God's rest because of "unbelief-apeitheias" (4:6, 11)-that is, faithlessness which results in disobedience-and those who enter it by "faith-pistei" (4:2, 3), that is, faithfulness that results in obedience. For the author of Hebrews the act of resting on the Sabbath is not merely a routine ritual (cf. "sacrifice"-Matt 12:7), but rather a faith-response to God. Such a response entails not the hardening of one's heart (4:7) but the making of oneself available to "hear his voice" (4:7). It means experiencing God's salvation rest not by works but by faith, not by doing but by being saved through faith (4:2, 3, 11).

On the Sabbath, as John Calvin aptly expresses it, believers are "to cease from their work to allow God to work in them" (Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids, 1972), vol. 2, p. 337). The Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God (4:9) is not a mere day of idleness for the author of Hebrews, but rather an opportunity renewed every week to enter God's rest, that is, to free oneself from the cares of work in order to experience freely by faith God's creation and redemption rest....."

 

[reddogs]

The Creation-Sabbath in Jewish History​

"...Outside the Biblical sources, one finds widespread recognition of the creation origin of the Sabbath in both Jewish and Christian history. The Jews developed two differing views regarding the origin of the Sabbath. Broadly speaking, the two views can be distinguished linguistically and geographically. Palestinian (Hebrew) Judaism reduced the Sabbath to an exclusive Jewish ordinance linked to the origin of Israel as a nation at the time of Moses. As stated in the Book of Jubilees, "He [God] allowed no other people or peoples to keep the Sabbath on this day, except Israel only; to it alone he granted to eat and drink and keep the Sabbath on it" (2:31). If the patriarchs are sometimes mentioned as keeping the Sabbath, this is regarded as an exception "before it [the Sabbath] was given" to Israel.​

This view represents not an original tradition but a secondary development which was encouraged by the necessity to preserve a Jewish identity in the face of Hellenistic pressures (especially at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, 175 B.C.) to abandon Jewish religion. This is indicated by the fact that even in Palestinian literature there are references to the creation origin of the Sabbath. For example, while on the one hand the Book of Jubilees (about 140-100 B.C.) says that God allowed "Israel only" to keep the Sabbath (Jub 2:31), on the other hand it holds that God "kept Sabbath on the seventh day and hallowed it for all ages, and appointed it as a sign for all His works" (Jub 2:1).

Creation Ordinance for Mankind​

In Hellenistic (Greek) Jewish literature the Sabbath is unmistakably viewed as a creation ordinance for all mankind. Philo, for example, not only traces the origin of the Sabbath to creation, but also delights to call it "the birthday of the world." Referring to the creation story, Philo explains:

"We are told that the world was made in six days and that on the seventh God ceased from his works and began to contemplate what had been so well created, and therefore he bade those who should live as citizens under this world-order to follow God in this as in other matters."
​

Because the Sabbath exists from creation, Philo emphasizes that it is "the festival not of a single city or country but of the universe, and it alone strictly deserves to be called public, as belonging to all people."

The Creation-Sabbath in the Early Church​

When we move from Jewish to Christian history we find the same conflicting views regarding the origin of the Sabbath we have found in Judaism. On the one hand we find Christian writers who negate the creation-origin of the Sabbath, making it a Mosaic institution given only to the Jews. On the other hand we find writers who affirm the creation origin of the Sabbath in their attempt to prove the superiority of Sunday.

Mosaic Origin and Institution​

The negative-Mosaic view of the origin of the Sabbath is first expressed in a most eloquent and forceful way in the writings of Justin Martyr who was a church leader in Rome, Italy around the middle of the second century. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin argues that the Sabbath, like circumcision, is not a creation but a temporary ordinance deriving from Moses, and enjoined solely upon the Jews:

"as a distinguishing mark, to set them off from other nations and from us Christians. The purpose of this was that you and you only might suffer the afflictions that are now justly yours" (Dialogue 16, 1).
​

Justin may well have capitalized on the existing Palestinian (Hebrew) Jewish view of the Sabbath as an exclusive Jewish ordinance linked to the origin of Israel, to promote his view of the Mosaic and temporary nature of the Sabbath. Justin's view of the Sabbath as a Mosaic institution, impose solely on the Jews as a trademark of their wickedness, is shocking to say the least. It makes God guilty of discriminatory practices. He would have given ordinances with the sole negative purpose of singling out the Jews for punishment. This theology of contempt, as I call it in my dissertation, was influenced by the repressive anti-Jewish policies adopted by the Roman Government at that time. Unfortunately the Christian church has never openly condemned such a view. On the contrary has used it in a modified version to negate the continuity of the Sabbath.

Creation-Origin of the Sabbath ​

While some Christian documents negate the creation origin of the Sabbath, there are others which affirm the creation origin of the Sabbath as an apologetic device to defend the superiority of Sunday keeping. For example, in the Syriac Didascalia (about A.D. 250) Sunday is presented as "greater" than the Sabbath because it preceded the latter in the creation week. As the first day of creation, Sunday represents "the beginning of the world."

In the treatise On the Sabbath and Circumcision, found among the works of Athanasius (about 296-373), the superiority of Sunday over the Sabbath is argued on the basis of creation versus re-creation: "The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord's day was the beginning of the second in which He renewed and restored the old." The fact that both Sabbath and Sunday keepers would defend the legitimacy and superiority of their respective days by appealing to their roles with reference to creation, shows how important the latter was in their view.


In the so-called Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (about 380), Christians are admonished to "keep the Sabbath and the Lord's day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection." Several other references to the creation Sabbath are found in the same document. For example, a prayer commemorating Christ's incarnation begins with the words:

"O Lord Almighty, Thou hast created the world by Christ and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that on that day Thou hast made us rest from our works for the meditation upon Thy laws."
​

The theme of the creation Sabbath, as noted by Jean Danilou, is also "at the center of Augustinian thought." For Augustine (354-430), the culmination of the creation week in the Sabbath rest provides the basis to develop two significant concepts. The first is the notion of the progress of the history of this world toward a final Sabbath rest and peace with God. In other words, the realization of the eternal rest represents for Augustine the fulfillment of "the Sabbath that the Lord approved at the beginning of creation, where it says, 'God rested on the seventh day from all his works.'"



The second Augustinian interpretation of the creation of Sabbath may be defined as the mystical progress of the human soul from restlessness into rest in God. A fitting example is found in one of the most sublime chapters of his Confessions, where Augustine prays:

"O Lord God, Thou who hast given us all, grant us Thy peace, the peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath, the peace without an 'evening.' For this very beautiful order of things will pass away when they have accomplished their appointed purpose. They all were made with a 'morning' and an 'evening.' But the seventh day is without an 'evening' and it has no setting, because Thou hast sanctified it so that it may last eternally. Thy resting on the seventh day after the completion of Thy works, foretells us through the voice of Thy Book, that we also after completing our works through Thy generosity, in the Sabbath of eternal life shall rest in Thee."
​

This mystical and eschatological interpretation of the creation Sabbath shows what a profound appreciation Augustine had for its significance, in spite of the fact that he failed to accept the literal observance of the Fourth Commandment.



The Creation-Sabbath in the Middle Ages


The Augustinian spiritual interpretation of the creation Sabbath continued to some extent during the Middle Ages. But a new development occurred following the Constantinian Sunday Law of A. D. 321. In order to give a theological sanction to the imperial legislation demanding rest from work on Sunday, church leaders often appealed to the Sabbath commandment, interpreting it as a creation ordinance applicable to Sunday observance. Chrysostom (about 347-407) anticipates this development in his exposition of Genesis 2:2 :

"God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." He asks "What do the words 'He hallowed it' actually mean? . . . [God] is teaching us that among the days of the week one must be singled out and wholly devoted to the service of spiritual things."
​

The reduction of the creation Sabbath from the specific observance of the seventh day to the principle of resting one day in seven in order to worship God made it possible to apply the Sabbath commandment to the observance of Sunday. Peter Comestor, for example (died about 1179), defends this application, arguing on the basis of Genesis 2:2 that "the Sabbath has been always observed by some nations even before the Law."

This recognition of the Sabbath as a creation and thus universal ordinance was motivated, however, not by the desire to promote the observance of the seventh day, but by the necessity to sanction and regulate Sunday keeping.


In late medieval theology the literal application of the Sabbath commandment to Sunday keeping was justified on the basis of a new interpretation which consisted in distinguishing between a moral and a ceremonial aspect within the Fourth Commandment. Thomas Aquinas (about 1225-1274) offers the most articulated exposition of this artificial distinction in his Summa Theologica. He argues that:

"the precept of the Sabbath observance is moral . . . in so far as it commands man to give some time to the things of God . . .but it is a ceremonial precept . . . as to the fixing of the time."
​

How can the Fourth Commandment be ceremonial for specifying the seventh day but moral for enjoining man to set apart a day of rest for worship? Basically because for Aquinas the moral aspect of the Sabbath is grounded on Natural Law, that is to say, the principle of a regularly stated time for worship and rest is in accordance with natural reason.

The ceremonial aspect of the Sabbath, on the other hand, is determined by the symbolism of the seventh day commemoration of "Creation" and prefiguration of the "repose of the mind in God, either in the present life, by grace, or, in the future life, by glory."
One wonders how can the Sabbath be ceremonial (transitory) for symbolizing God's perfect creation and the rest to be found in Him both in the present and future life? Is it not this reassurance that provides the basis for setting aside any time to worship God? To reject as ceremonial the original message of the seventh day Sabbath, namely that God is the perfect Creator Who offers rest, peace and fellowship to His creatures, means to destroy also the very moral basis for devoting any time to the worship of God.

Apparently Aquinas himself recognized the inadequacy of his reasoning because he says that Christ annulled not the precept of the Sabbath, but

"the superstitious interpretation of the Pharisees, who thought that man ought to abstain from doing even works of kindness on the Sabbath; which was contrary to the intention of the Law."
​

Aquinas' uncertainty, however, was largely forgotten and his moral/ceremonial distinction of the Sabbath became the standard rationale for defending the Church's right to introduce and regulate the observance of Sunday and holy days. This resulted in an elaborate legalistic system of Sunday keeping akin to that of the rabbinical Sabbath...."excerpted by permission from The Creation-Sabbath in Jewish and Christian History by Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi

 

[TrustAndObey]

I thought DJConklin made such a good point about pre-Sanai observation of Sabbath and about how the languages were confused at the Tower of Babel....before Mount Sinai.

There are so many languages today whose seventh day are named "Sabbath".

Here's a chart I found with a few of them: