Remembering The Sabbath Day (Part 1)
The command of remembering the Sabbath Day, as found in the Book of the Exodus 20:8, has been a monumental question since who knows when. What is God telling us to remember? Is it a day of the week? And how are we to keep it holy?
If we tune out everyone’s opinion and reasoning, and allow God’s purpose and intent to speak to us directly from His Word, concerning his created Sabbath, we might be closer to understanding this Hollowed day as mentioned in the Book of the Exodus.
Exodus 20:8, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, 9, six days thou shalt labor, and do all thy work: 10, But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it, thou shall not do any work, thou, thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant or thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor any stranger that is within thy gates: 11, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is within them, and rested the seventh day, and halloweth it.
The very first thing we are to do is to remember the Sabbath Day. An early mention of the Sabbath is in Exodus 16:2, and tells us that the whole congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. This is recorded for us before the Sabbath command was given in Exodus 20:8. In Exodus 16, to stop the complaint of the people, God gave them heavenly food called manna, to fill them inwardly. In doing so, the diet of the people was changed from the earthy food of Egypt to manna, His heavenly food. After feeding the people with manna for six days, the Lords Sabbath Rest is mentioned, verse 23. According to this passage in the Exodus, the heavenly food manna was a cure in dealing with the carnal nature of man. What we are able to see in this is that the man, male and female, looked like God, and in His image, outwardly. Now,the heavenly food manna, was needed to fill them with His heavenly nature inwardly to cure their murmuring and complaint. The expression, you are what you eat, is important for God’s purpose. They were created outwardly in God’s image and needed to be formed inwardly with His nature by His heavenly food.
Man Was Created On The Sixth Day And Brought Into The Seventh Day To Rest With Him
Man, male and female, were created in God’s image outwardly on the sixth day to populate the world, (see our article, sixth day or eight day creation). They were then brought into the the seventh day Sabbath to rest with Him. To God, His Seventh Day Sabbath was the first day of man’s existence. This was not man’s seventh day, it is God’s Seventh Day Rest after six days of working. Man could not do anything other than rest on God’s created day. They were not given any laws, rules, or told that they should do any work, Just rest and eat the food created, Genesis 1:29-30.
Genesis 2:2-3, tells us that the Sabbath is created and sacrificed to God. There is no mention of the Sabbath being created, Hallowed, Sanctified or Blessed by God in Exodus 16.
Some say that the man created in the first chapter of Genesis was the man Adam we read of in chapter 2. This is not so. Man was created, as the scriptures say, male and female outwardly, and in God’s image, on the sixth day in chapter one, and the man Adam, became a living soul, verse 7, and he was formed,verse 8. The woman taken from his side is not called a female but a woman in chapter 2. Adam did not have any part of her creation because he was put into a deep sleep, Genesis 2:21. Nevertheless, God provided Adam with a suitable companion, Genesis 2:18.
No Work To Be Done On God’s Sabbath
The command, of not working on God’s created Sabbath, is for man to leave the Sabbath as God created it, and not tamper it, or add anything to it, Revelation 22:18. For the Sabbath to be effective, men are instructed not to tamper with God’s sacred time.
An illustration of how God looks at those who tamper with His Sabbath could be: A woman bakes a cake for her guests. As far as she is concerned, it is a perfect cake, just the way she wanted it. But when the guests arrived, they gave their opinions, saying some ingredient was missing, or the oven was set at a wrong temperature. These guest wanted to change or improve her cake. Most people won’t accept the purpose that the Sabbath was created for man, Mark 2:27, and that it was very good as declared by God, why would we tamper with it?
Down through the centuries, man has changed God’s Sabbath. Some say, it is a day of the week, a Friday, or a Saturday, or because Christ rose on the first day of the week, it is on a Sunday. Some say that it is a period of 24 hours, or God’s people need to learn how to keep the Sabbath. We need to be taught what is lawful or not lawful, or what can be done or not done on the Sabbath. Most Jews believe that the Sabbath starts at the setting of the sun on a Friday. Many Christians believe that the Sabbath is on a Sunday beginning at midnight according to the Roman calendar. It can be very confusing. If we would examine the scriptures carefully, we would find that there is no evening or night in this day.
Adam And Eve Choose Independence Rather Than God
After the seventh day rest, God resumed His work on the eight day. Adam and Eve are mentioned after God’s seventh day rest so this day would have to be a first day of a second week or an eight day. The only difference now is that Adam was not only created, but he was formed and had a living soul, Genesis 2:7. Now God needed to fill them both inwardly with His life. To fill them inwardly, Adam and Eve were placed before the Tree of Life and to take of it. The Tree of Life is referring to God’s pure organic life, as food, to be taken inwardly for his nourishment. They took instead of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This Tree of good and evil was a mixture and represented Satan’s life. They took within them, the serpentine nature, and became independent of God. This independence contaminated God’s creation, including the seventh day Sabbath, which would be held in abeyance, until God would raise His Messiah, His Anointed, to continue His work as Adam should have done.
Ecclesiastes 8:11, Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set to do evil.
We see in the world today, men and women, choosing for themselves, what is good and what is evil. Men are created outwardly in God’s image, but inwardly, filled with the serpentine nature.
Deuteronomy, 30:15. “See I have set before thee this day, life and good, and death and evil.”
Leaving God caused people to abandon God’s rest and after a time, caused God to hear their cry in Egypt, Exodus 3:9. After rescuing the people, God didn’t want the people to suffer at the hands of the Egyptians ever again so He had to change their diet from the earthy food of Egypt to the heavenly manna we read of in Exodus 16. They had to gather the manna for six days, then the seventh day they would rest. We see in this patter that without the gathering of manna, the people would never come into God’s rest. This was a cycle repeated weekly as they wandered in the wilderness. Of course this was only a type of how God worked with the people, not the reality. God’s purpose from the very beginning was to fill the people inwardly with His life. When the Tree of Life was rejected in the Garden, God’s life was rejected.
For God to continue His purpose, He would need a new and living way, Hebrews 10:20, to bring His organic life within His people. The new way would be through His life, as the promised Seed we read about in Genesis 3:15. The book of Isaiah, 7:14, says concerning this promised Seed, that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, calling His name Emmanuel, meaning God with us. This birth would not be seen of men until we read of it in the New Testament, Matthew 1:16.
Jesus As Our Tabernacle
When Jesus was put to death on the cross, the last words that He said was, “It is finished”, John 19:31. What was finished? Christ, as the promised Seed in Genesis, would germinate a new organic creation through His death and resurrection which would eliminate everything of the old creation and bring in a new creation and a better covenant, Hebrews, 8:5,8,13.
When the law was given at Mount Sinai, the pattern of a tabernacle was also given to Moses, Exodus 24:8-9. The tabernacle pitched in the wilderness became God’s dwelling. The tabernacle was a movable tent which would house the Ark with the commandments of God, and other things. The tabernacle in the wilderness would find it’s reality in the life of Jesus.
John 1:14, (first part of verse) And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
The word dwelt means to tabernacle with us. He is the tabernacle, pitched and raised up by God, Hebrews 8:2. We are in Christ, 1st Corinthians 1:30, as our tabernacle and are invited to enter in.
Hebrews 10:19, Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
As we are believers in the scriptures, upon our being baptized into a watery grave, we are raised in resurrection and we enter that tabernacle and dwell within Jesus, John 15:4-5. The tabernacle contained the Ark with the law, and Aaron’s rod that budded. Because we are in Christ, reckoned as dead, Romans 6:11, of our natural and physical life, we are raised into a higher life, eternal life, as Christ was raised, Romans 6:4-5. The law within Christ is raised to a higher standard, from the letter to the spiritual intent. The seventh day Sabbath was created with no evening or darkness within it, Christ has now become our Sabbath, where there is no darkness.
1st Thessalonians 5:5, Ye are all children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.
Jesus describes Himself as light, John 9:5, as the heavenly unleavened bread, the manna, John 6:31-33, and the resurrection, John 11:25. As long as we are in Christ, we will gain His rest, little at a time, as we cooperate with His leading. Christ is our true Sabbath rest, not for 24 hours but 24/7.