What is The Difference Between God’s Sabbath and Our Sabbath Mentioned In Keeping of Day Of Atonement?
Genesis 1:31, And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2:3, And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work witch God created and made.
The physical creation was now completed, having provided all that was necessary for the males and females, who were created on the sixth day, to come in and rest with God on the seventh day, the Sabbath Day.
And we, who are called by God, or those who have a heart for God, during this 2nd earth age, the age of the flesh, tell us how we can enjoy a Sabbath rest also.
But first, we need to notice how scriptures describe the sixth day and how there was the mention of evening or morning, verse 31. Did God forget to mention evening and morning on His created 7th day Sabbath? No, He did not. If God is in a day, it is always light. Evening, night or darkness is the picture of blindness or error.
Jesus said, “I am there light of the world,” John 8:12.
To be a christian, Jesus is everything to us. He is our day, our light, our savior, our food and drink, our ark, our temple, our Tabernacle and so much more.
There is a Sabbath Rest for the people of God
Hebrews 4:6,”Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief,”verse 7, “Again He limiteth a certain day, saying, in David, “To day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” 8,”For if Jesus had given them rest then would He not afterward have spoken of another day.”
This subject is about the Sabbath, a time of rest after working. God worked in Genesis the 1st Chapter to rejuvenate the earth after it had became tohu and bohu meaning waste and empty. That time period was before the man Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden, Adam and his wife Eve had became corrupted in need of rejuvenating because of sin, along with all their progeny as we are told in Romans, 5:12. All men are created from the earth so all men are under a curse. Again, Satan had destroyed God’s 1st earth age because iniquity was found in him, Ezekiel 28:15. 1st time was as Peter describes:
2nd Peter 3:6, “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water perished.:
The 2nd time was the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden. This disobedience and sin led to the purpose of closing the Tree of Life to them. Now they, as well as all those of the old man, Ephesian 4:22 were tohu and bohu, meaning worthless, in need of rejuvenation as well.
Enters Our Saviour, Jesus, Who Became God’s Christ
The Book of Hebrews defines man a little lower than the angels, Hebrews 2:7 and in verse 9 Jesus was made a little lower that the angels for the purpose of suffering of death in His humanity and His glory and honor would follow.
Hebrews 2:14, “Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil.”
Jesus took care of our sins commited by us in an outward way like stealing, adultery, covetness but what of the serpentine nature we gained because we were part of the old man Adam who was removed from the Tree of Life in the Garden because of disobedience?
God, Christ is very gracious toward us. He doesn’t force,or shove His nature upon us. He expects us to make a choice by selecting which Father we will aline ourselves with:
Malachi 4:5, “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
Notice that the word father is plural meaning at least 2 fathers. This is the great controversy of the Bible. Which father we will submit to, God or Satan? Adam’s and Eve’s choice was Satan. Thats why we read in 2nd Corinthians 4:4 that he is the god of this world. He became the god of this world through subtle treachery and lying to Eve.
We read that Jesus paid the price of redemption when He went to the cross, but what is He telling us in Luke 14:26?
Luke 14:26, “And if any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and His own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
The word hate is really defined as love less, meaning God will not take 2nd place to anyone. We need to acknoweldge Him as the sole source of what is right. If we are satisfied with our own lives, then we cannot be His disciple and in verse 27 we read:
Luke 14:27, “and whosoever doth not bear His cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.
Why? This is because of the life we inherited from the 1st man Adam. This is the life we were born with. It is our natural life. It is the serpentine nature we inherited at birth as humans. At Mount Sinai,Exodus 19:8,we read:
Exodus 19:8, And all the People answered together and said, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”
The people didn’t know themselves or the God Who rescued them. When we read Psalms 23:3: Where it says, “He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” How are we to understand this?
All mankind are persons or souls created by God as we read in Ezekiel 18:4, God owns all souls by right of creation. These created souls, which are spirit, entered into this age of the flesh with God’s direction, which are living souls, had become deadened because of Adam’s disobedience in the Garden in need of redemption. When a person or soul is called out from their natural state and believes in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, He immediately is Quickened, meaning, he becomes a living soul that was once dead but because of his belief is made alive,
Ephesians 2:1, “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”
Just as Jesus bore His cross, we need to bare our cross also. As was said earlier, Jesus is gracious and His people need a believing and willing heart, not like those whom Moses led out of Egypt.
The Apostle Paul describes the soulish nature in Galatians 5:19-26. These characteristics are very natural to us. We can argue with someone without even thinking about it, or point our finger at another for the cause of our difficulties and so on. How is it possible to love or forgive one another with our natural life of the flesh. Only through the Spirit and righteousness of Christ can peace come and it requires a willingness and cooperation on our part.
Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
God is our Father and He will give of Himself for us always building us up. The Book of Revelation lists 7churches who belonged to Christ, and the message to each of them was their need to overcome. Overcome what? Our overcoming is to replace our old man’s nature, Adam, with the new Christ like nature and become a new man, Ephesians 4:22-24.
The finale message to the seven churches we find is in the Book of Revelation:
Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent. 20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me. 21, to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame , and am set down with My Father in His throne.”
The question asked in the title of this article is answered in an important Feast Day we are commanded to observe if we are to enjoy our Sabbath Rest as God did His.
Leviticus 23:27, “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall affect your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
Verse 27 says to afflect our souls, the inner part of man that houses our intellect, a bringing about a renewing of our mind, Romans 12:2. To afflict our souls means to eliminate whatsoeverever causes pain or suffering to ourselves or to any one of God’s children as we read in Galatians 5:19-26.
The entirety of God’s laws says to Love God and to love our neighbor, Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12: 29-31. If we don’t eliminate the nature within us, we will certainly do dammage to ourselves as well as to others.
Verse 27 doesn’t say to affect our body which would be denying our physical bodies with food and drink, implying physically fasting. No! our conflict is with the inner man, housed within our bodies, our souls which houses our intellect. Our soul is either empty of the knowledge of God or it is filled with the world with its teachings.
Leviticus 23:32, “It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall affect your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.”
This Feast day is 5 days before the Feast of Tabernacles. 5 is the number for grace and pictures Christ and man dwelling together or tabernacling together.
Hebrews 9:11, “But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made of hands, that is to say, not of this creation.”
Christ is the author and originator of all that pertains to His righteousness. We need to remember the 1st Commandment to love our Father God and little by little we will one day overcome our serpentine nature and receive glory and honor as Christ did.