- Sep 24, 2005
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I believe that the Sabbath commandment, just like all of the other commandments of God, should be written in our hearts and minds; that is what the new covenant is all about:
Actually, under the old covenant, the law was supposed to be internalized as well; salvation was always about grace, not about keeping the law externally with no spiritual conversion:
The old covenant was not the law; it was the agreement that God made with His people at Mount Sinai, when God spoke His law directly to the people and then wrote His law on tablets of stone, which He gave to Moses. The people promised to obey Him, and they confirmed the covenant with the blood of bulls (Exodus 24). God's promise to them under the old covenant was that if they obeyed Him, He would bless them, and if they disobeyed, He would curse them. (See Leviticus 26 for a description of the covenant curses and blessings.)
The problem with the old covenant was that the people never followed through on their promises. They did not understand how the law was supposed to be kept--through grace. They did not trust God or keep His laws in their hearts. They sometimes followed the external regulations, even gradually adding to them and making them impossibly burdensome, which is why Jesus had to remind people of what the law of God was really about--loving God and loving our neighbors. What they missed was what many people today overlook as well--the fact that doing the right things doesn't make us righteous:
Actually, under the old covenant, the law was supposed to be internalized as well; salvation was always about grace, not about keeping the law externally with no spiritual conversion:
The old covenant was not the law; it was the agreement that God made with His people at Mount Sinai, when God spoke His law directly to the people and then wrote His law on tablets of stone, which He gave to Moses. The people promised to obey Him, and they confirmed the covenant with the blood of bulls (Exodus 24). God's promise to them under the old covenant was that if they obeyed Him, He would bless them, and if they disobeyed, He would curse them. (See Leviticus 26 for a description of the covenant curses and blessings.)
The problem with the old covenant was that the people never followed through on their promises. They did not understand how the law was supposed to be kept--through grace. They did not trust God or keep His laws in their hearts. They sometimes followed the external regulations, even gradually adding to them and making them impossibly burdensome, which is why Jesus had to remind people of what the law of God was really about--loving God and loving our neighbors. What they missed was what many people today overlook as well--the fact that doing the right things doesn't make us righteous:
When we accept Jesus, He transforms our minds and makes His laws a part of our character. He recreates us spiritually in His image. That is what being born again is all about. We still keep the law but it is through the grace and power of God, not through our own willpower and effort:
Therefore, the new covenant is sealed by Jesus, not by us. Hebrews 8:6 says that the new covenant is founded on better promises than the old covenant. Jesus entered the heavenly sanctuary after His resurrection and confirmed the new covenant with His own blood, not with the blood of bulls or goats (Hebrews 10). It was founded on His promise to engrave His law on our hearts rather than on stone tablets. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law, which requires a sacrifice to save a sinner from the death penalty, in a way that no animal sacrifice could ever do. The sacrificial system dealt with the consequences of breaking God's law. Jesus' death put an end to the need for sacrifices because He paid the penalty for every violation of His law. His death did not put an end to the law itself; rather, it opened the way into the heavenly sanctuary so that we could have full and direct access to the grace and power of God that keeps us from sinning:
The Sabbath is important because it is a part of God's Ten Commandments. I agree with GraceInHim's quote:
The Sabbath is about loving and honoring God, not about staying in our houses and keeping the lights off and eating cold food and sitting around doing nothing and being bored and miserable. If that's what we thought, then it would be legalism. Unlike the Pharisees of Jesus' time, we do not have a code of acceptable Sabbath activities that everyone is supposed to adhere to. Jewish tradition dictated that people couldn't carry food between two houses on Sabbath unless they stuck a plank between them to connect them so that they would be considered one house. Jewish tradition dictated that people couldn't walk more than a certain distance (about 3/4 mile) unless they had buried food ahead of time at intervals so that they could consider those places their homes. Jewish tradition dictated that people couldn't even carry a handkerchief unless they sewed it to their clothing. The Sabbath was never meant to be about that, even under the old covenant. The Sabbath was always intended to be a time of spiritual communion with God, not a burden of physical restrictions. That's why Jesus cut through all of the legalism of the Jewish teachers and showed them what the Sabbath was supposed to be about, making them so angry that they wanted to kill Him:GraceInHim said:
I believe that the Sabbath is a time to worship God and to help others, as Jesus did; this is not to say that we shouldn't worship God all the time, but the Sabbath is a holy day set apart (sanctified) by God at creation. The difference between worshiping God on Sabbath and worshiping Him on other days is that on Sabbath we rest from our jobs and our secular activities (although there are differences of opinion among Adventists as to what kinds of activities are acceptable on Sabbath) and devote ourselves fully to God, without the outside distractions that often preoccupy our time during the rest of the week. Thus, the Sabbath is not meant to be a burden or a legalistic way of trying to earn salvation, but a blessing from God to help us draw closer to Him. Here is a quote from Isaiah 58, which I think conveys the attitude that God wants us to have toward the Sabbath:
The Sabbath is about finding joy in the Lord, and it's easier to do that when we can completely focus on Him and not have to think about going to work and cleaning our houses and paying our bills and grocery shopping and all of the other activities that normally take up most of our time and cause us to push God into the background. Beyond physical rest, the Sabbath is most importantly a time of spiritual rest and renewal, a time of thanksgiving for the grace that God has given us.
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If that was the case, I guess it wouldn't really matter which day you chose as your sabbath.
