J. A. P. — The Sabbath is distinctly connected with the first creation; it marked the completion of God’s work therein; and then, all being “very good,” He “rested from all His work which He had created and made.”
When God separated Israel from the nations, He gave them the law which, if kept, would have enabled them to enjoy the blessings of the first creation, for theirs were earthly blessings, and the Sabbath was given to them as the sign of His covenant with them as ‘a people in responsibility on earth (Ex. 31:1313Speak 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. (Exodus 31:13) and 17).
But as God’s Sabbath was broken in upon by sin in Eden, so Israel failed to enjoy it because of their transgressions, and in consequence God had no rest or satisfaction in them. Thus, when Jesus came to earth, there was no Sabbath for Him, for sin was here; and He had to say “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”
But the Sabbath as given to Israel (along with everything else that belonged to the old covenant) was but the shadow of good things to come; Christ is the substance; in Him alone could rest be found. This the Pharisees refused. They held to the letter of the law, which could only slay them, while refusing Him, who was the spirit of it, and who alone could give life and rest.
Everything is changed for the Christian. Old things have passed away, and his blessings are not connected with earth, but heaven. He has not to labor six days to keep the law, and enter into rest if he does this; for he owns that he has come short of God’s standard, and that the law could only curse him; but he has turned from the law to Christ who bore its curse, and his soul has entered a new day, with not rest at the end of toil, but rest when he begins to serve the Lord in newness of spirit.
Nothing could prove the utter breakdown of man in his place of responsibility in God’s creation like the fact that Jesus, who was the Creator, lay in death on the Sabbath day. Nothing proves the greatness of His triumph and the completion and perfection of His works as does His resurrection from the dead, which took place on the first day of the week. That is the day of days for the Christian: the day of a great triumph, the inauguration of a new creation, all secured in, and to be brought into full completion by the First Begotten from the dead. The day is distinctly honored in Scripture. The Lord appeared to His disciples on it on at least two occasions; the early disciples met on it to commemorate the Lord’s death in the breaking of bread; and it is distinctly spoken of as the Lord’s day in Revelation 1. Because of this the Christian cannot view it lightly, though he does not regard it at all in the light of the Sabbath, which belonged to the old creation, to the dispensation of law and shadows.
When God takes up Israel again and places them as His redeemed earthly people, secure from harm in the land of promise, then the Sabbath will be kept according to the mind of God; that is future.
But Christian blessings are not earthly, but heavenly. Before the earth was, or any covenant existed between God and man upon it, our heavenly, holy calling, and all the blessings connected with it, were purposed and secured for us in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 1:99Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, (2 Timothy 1:9)).