Exodus 31:12-1812And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 13Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. 14Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. 18And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. (Exodus 31:12‑18)
“AND THE LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, sang, Verily My sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations;... Six days may work be done; but in the seventh, is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD.... For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed.”
We have the thought of the sabbath introduced first of all in Genesis 2, in connection with creation, when on the seventh day God rested from all His work that He had made. Then immediately after the giving of the manna—type of Christ come down to be the food of His people on earth —we have it again. Next, when the law was given at Sinai, the sabbath stands in the very center of all that God required of man. And now here when God would have Bezaleel and Aholiab proceed with the making of the tabernacle, the beautiful types of which all spoke of good things to come, the sabbath again re-appears.
The reason for this is God would impress on His people that all His varied dealings are intended to keep before them that rest toward which He was steadily working, and to which He means to bring them in His own time. Israel could never enter into that rest through any work of their own. But they will in a coming day on the ground of sovereign grace, because of the work of Christ, and that will be in the millennium.
We, God’s people of this dispensation, like the children of Israel, are pilgrims in the wilderness journeying on to that rest, not on earth, but above, where Christ has gone. How gracious of God to remind us of that rest and it almost seems He longs that His people should enter into the blessed end of His purposes for them, and have the enjoyment of that fellowship with Himself in sharing His rest.
When God had finished sneaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tables of stone, on which was the law, “written with the finger of God.” It was these commandments that Israel undertook to keep as the condition of blessing. They left the ground of grace on which they had been put after they crossed the Red Sea and of themselves undertook the responsibility of obedience. The sad story of how they failed is now before us, but how good of God in the types and shadows of the tabernacle, all speaking of Christ, His beloved Son, to tell us of Him whom He had before Him all that time. God rests in Christ; He is above all the failures of man, and though His people lost all, having failed entirely in their responsibility, yet is He not going to be thwarted in His purposes of grace, for they will yet be brought into blessing through the work of Christ, the very One whom they rejected.
ML-01/03/1971