 
The Covenants and the Sabbath

###### By Paul Kroll

###### Copyright 2014 Grace Communion International

######

###### Cover art "Man Picking Up Sticks on the Sabbath" by Basil Wolverton.  
Copyright Grace Communion International.

###### Scripture quotations, unless noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The "NIV" and "New International Version" are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

###### The articles in this e-book were originally written in the late 1990s.  
They have been edited in 2014 by Michael Morrison.

###### 

## Table of Contents

The Covenants and the Sabbath: The Old Testament Evidence

The Covenants and the Sabbath: The New Testament Evidence

Genesis 2:2-3 – God's "Rest" and the Sabbath

Does Hebrews 4:9 Command Us to Keep the Sabbath?

Is There a "Sabbath Principle" for Christians to Keep?

Is Leviticus 23:3 a Command to Have Worship Services on the Weekly Sabbath?

Does Mark 2:27-28 Command Christians to Observe the Weekly Sabbath?

Matthew 24:20 – Why Pray Not to Flee on the Sabbath?

Can God's Sabbath Law Be "Done Away"?

About the Author

About the Publisher

Grace Communion Seminary

Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

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## The Covenants and the Sabbath:  
The Old Testament Evidence

Are Christians obligated to keep the Sabbath rest law of Exodus 20:8-11? Some Christians believe that the Sabbath must be observed because this law appears in the Ten Commandments. Is this true?

We can clear up this question by taking a broad look, not just at the Ten Commandments, but at the entire old and new covenants. As we shall see, the covenants tell a fascinating story about the history and purpose of the Sabbath rest command. More than this, by looking at the sweep of God's dealings with the human race from the beginning until the completion of Jesus' redemptive work and the creation of the church, the purpose of the entire Law of Moses—including the Ten Commandments—will become clear. Let's explore what Scripture says about the covenants.

God first made a general covenant pledge in the presence of Adam and Eve, promising that evil—personified by the devil—would be destroyed (Genesis 3:15). This was the first covenant between humans and God after "the Fall." Despite the fact that humans had sinned and had become fallen creatures, they now had a promise that a Savior would, in the future, crush and destroy the evil that held them prisoner.

Later, God also made a covenant with humanity through Noah. "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you," God told this patriarch (Genesis 9:8). It was an everlasting covenant that promised saving grace, in a physical sense, to all people.

Still later, God made a covenant with Abraham, and this one becomes the crux of both the old and the new covenants. Most of the Abrahamic covenant concerns a promise that the descendants of Abraham would be a people of God and be given a land (Genesis 15:31-21; 17:3-8). There was also a promise in this covenant that through Abraham's offspring or "seed" all the nations on earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18).

The apostle Paul understood this "seed" to refer to Christ (Galatians 3:15-16, 19). Abraham was given a promise of God's salvific intention in the world. A Savior would come who would rescue humanity. This was a promise of the "new" covenant given some 430 years before the "old" covenant was introduced! This is the point Paul argued in the book of Galatians.

There is an interesting aspect to the covenant God made with Abraham. It would have an unusual reminder or sign—that of the physical circumcision of males. We read the following in Genesis 17:9:

#### Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.... Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

About 430 years after the covenant was made with Abraham, the descendants born to his son Jacob or Israel were rescued by God from the land of Egypt. God brought his people into the Sinai desert and made a covenant with them. The original terms of this covenant extend from Exodus 20:1 to 23:32. Chapter 24 of Exodus details the ratification of this covenant. The people said, "Everything the Lord has said we will do" (verse 24).

What the Lord had said so far was that Israel was to keep the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20); follow certain laws regarding Hebrew slaves (Exodus 21:1-11); obey guidelines set down for personal injuries (Exodus 21:12-36); provide protection of property, including against theft (Exodus 22:1-15). The covenant also had regulations about fornication, sorcery, sexual relations with animals, idolatry, treatment of aliens, protection of widows and orphans, lending, blasphemy and other laws relating to justice and mercy (Exodus 22:16-23:13). The covenant also mandated for Israel the observance of the annual festivals in three seasons (Exodus 23:14-19).

This was what we may call a "package deal." All the laws from Exodus 20:1 through 23:32 were a _singular_ law system so far as the old covenant is concerned. They were all part of the same covenant.

God also described his part of the covenant. He would guide Israel into the Promised Land, take away illness from the nation, give people a full life span, and destroy their enemies (Exodus 23:20-33). This formed the old covenant between God and the people of Israel. The terms of the covenant became a book, a legal code, we might say. Moses "took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people" (Exodus 24:7). The people responded by saying: "We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey" (verse 7). After which, the Lord told Moses to come up to the mountain and he would give him "tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction" (verse 12).

We should notice several important things about this "old" covenant. It includes not just the Ten Commandments but all the laws and regulations described in Exodus 20-23. All the laws are said to be "spoken" by the Lord, because he did, indeed, speak them. What happened was that after God began to speak directly to the people of Israel, they became so fearful of the magnificent theophany shaking Mt. Sinai that they begged Moses to speak to them in God's place (Exodus 20:18-21). God agreed to their wishes. After that, he spoke his laws to Moses, and he passed them on to the people. But they were all equally God's laws, and all were spoken by him.

### There is but one law

There is no legal difference between the Ten Commandments and the rest of the covenantal law. They stand together as the basis of the old covenant to Israel. The law that mandated the delivery of first-born animals to God and leaving the land idle in the seventh year was just as important as the law of Sabbath rest or the law against adultery, in terms of the covenant. They were all, equally, part of the old covenant.

As noted above, the laws of the covenant as well as God's promises were first written in a "book" or scroll. It contained all the laws in Exodus 20-23, and this entire book was the basis of the covenant. Moses had not yet gone up to the mountain to have these regulations written on tablets of stone.

As we progress through the first five books of the Jewish Holy Scriptures, we see that more laws were progressively added to the covenant. Other laws were further expounded, amplified and clarified. For example, Exodus 25 through 30 provides regulations for the building and ceremonies of the old covenant tabernacle. The tabernacle pattern and furniture were later transferred to the temple in Jerusalem. The temple worship system became the center of Jewish religious life. We see many references to this in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews, in particular, deals with the passing away of the Levitical priesthood and Jewish temple life. Jesus becomes the heavenly High Priest in the real temple.

We also learn in Exodus that, like circumcision, the Sabbaths—plural—served as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites, "You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come"'" (Exodus 31:12). God told Moses that the weekly Sabbath was a sign of the old covenant: "It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever" (verse 17). God finished speaking and wrote the laws of the covenant on two tablets of stone.

We should note some interesting facts here. Both the annual Sabbaths and the weekly Sabbath served as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. Further, the sign and the covenant created a relationship between Israel and God, not between all people of the earth and God. Also, we should note that, _like circumcision_ , the annual and weekly Sabbath sign was to remain between Israel and God "forever." That means, since circumcision could be ended as a physical requirement for Christians (the spiritual children of Abraham), it is possible that the physical demands of Sabbath-keeping and festival observance could also be ended.

With Moses on Mount Sinai, there follows a historical interlude in Exodus that deals with the incident of the golden calf. This causes Moses, when he returns to the camp, to break the tablets containing the words of God. Moses then must go back to the mountain so God can "write on them the words that were on the first tablets" (Exodus 34:1). On the mountain, God reiterates his intent to make a covenant with his people Israel (verse 10). He also repeats in an abbreviated form many of the regulations of the old covenant. (See Exodus 34:17-26.)

Most of the remaining chapters of Exodus are taken up with the making of the tabernacle and its parts, and the construction of its furniture and the priestly garments. This relates to the center of Israel's religious life at the tabernacle, and later at the Jerusalem temple. Leviticus continues this theme by describing various offerings (Leviticus 1-7). The ninth chapter describes the priests beginning their ministry.

Laws relating to the functions of the Levitical priesthood and the temple worship service are important because almost all of Israel's religious life was centered on these two realities. For example, the festivals were to be kept "in the place he [God] will choose as a dwelling for his Name" (Deuteronomy 16:5, 11, 16). Eventually, the place God chose was Jerusalem. This means that if the temple was destroyed or the priesthood supplanted, it would be impossible to fulfill God's demands regarding festival observance.

Leviticus 11 lists clean and unclean living creatures. Chapters 12-15 continue the theme of "clean and unclean" with a discussion of purification after childhood, regulations about infectious skin diseases, the ritual cleansing after these diseases, and discharges causing uncleanness. The food laws of Leviticus 11 are but one part of an entire array of regulations regarding matters of ritual purification and cleanliness that Israel was to follow. We again observe that all the laws of the Mosaic Law are part of a greater whole, and they stand together.

Leviticus 16 details the Day of Atonement ritual. Chapters 17 through 19 mention various other covenantal laws that Israel was to follow, including specific laws about unlawful sexual relations. Over 20 laws are stated as "do nots" in chapter 19, and some others are stated in a positive way. This includes admonitions to do everything from keeping the annual Sabbaths (verse 3) to not holding back overnight the wages of a hired man (verse 13).

### The two "great commandments"

Buried in these "do's and don'ts" is one of the two most important and basic laws of both old and new covenants. It is simple: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). When asked about the "greatest commandment" of the Jewish Scriptures, Jesus said:

#### "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it; "Love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:37-40)

Here we have the astounding assertion that everything in the Law of Moses and the Prophets does not hang on the Ten Commandments, as most people erroneously assume. It hangs on two inconspicuous statements inserted in two widely separated parts of the Law of Moses! (The "greatest commandment" is found in Deuteronomy 6:5.) The popular preoccupation with the Ten Commandments is somewhat misguided. The essence of the Law of Moses is not in the Ten but in two simple statements buried in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Going back to Leviticus 19, Israel is told: "Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord" (verse 30). The sanctuary was first found in the moveable tabernacle and later in the temple. Consider the following. If God would allow the sanctuary to be destroyed and thus to end the ministry of the Levitical priesthood, he could also allow an end to the observance of his Sabbaths. The book of Hebrews speaks to this. It says that in God's purpose, the entire old covenant religious system was ended by Jesus' redemptive work.

Leviticus 20-26:3 lists further regulations that Israel was to keep as part of its covenant with God. These included everything from avoiding adultery to rules for priestly function to guidelines for keeping the seven annual festivals and the year of Jubilee. This section contains some familiar commandments discussed earlier as well as some new ones. We see a progression or _further amplification_ of covenantal regulations, as well as the adding of more stipulations. Like a progressive code of law, the terms of the covenant increase. But they still form a single body of law applied to a specific nation, Israel.

Leviticus 26 begins with God telling Israel what he will do in exchange for Israel's obedience to all the commands that have so far been described. He begins his list of promises by saying, "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will..." (verse 3). God also details the curses that will follow if Israel fails to obey God.

The "Book of the Law" we have so far looked at ends with the statement: "These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses" (verse 46). The entire regulatory system, as it is now described, must be seen as a unit—as a single law given from Mount Sinai. All its component parts and laws stand together. If Israel sins in one point, the nation is guilty in all points. All the laws given so far are equally the laws of the Lord.

Numbers 1 begins one year after Israel left Egypt (verse 1). The material refers to events during the years of Israel's wanderings. There are also discussions of the various laws of the covenant in the context of specific situations. Some new material is added, but most of this book is not pertinent to our purposes.

### The law restated in Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy takes place near the end of Israel's 40 years of wandering (1:3). This book gives us a restatement of the laws of the covenant. Moses says, "Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you" (Deuteronomy 4:1).

The restatement of the law of the covenant begins in chapter 5 with a review of the Ten Commandments. Here we learn why Israel was to keep the Sabbath holy by resting from work. Moses says to Israel: "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day" (verse 15).

The Sabbath was for Israel, so that they could remember being saved from servitude in Egypt, where they had no rest. For them, the Sabbath did not look ahead to Christ so much as it looked backward to Israel's rescue from Egypt. We can see why the physical Sabbath rest is not for Christians, whose rescue and "rest" is a spiritual one. In Christ, we rest from the slavery of sin, and not from physical labor in a condition of national slavery.

In Egypt, the people had no rest from their labors (Exodus 1:11-14). God brought them to a land "flowing with milk and honey" so they could enjoy the fruit of their labor. There, they were to remember that God was the source of their prosperity and ease. Parents were to teach their children this central aspect of God's saving grace to Israel, that he had brought them out of bondage and slavery in Egypt (Exodus 13:14). For Israel, the Sabbath was a sign of the covenant in that it reminded them that God was the source of their liberation and happy prosperity.

We saw in Exodus 24:12 that the tablets of stone contained the "laws and commands" that were written by God for Israel's instruction. In Deuteronomy there is further explanation. Moses recounts that the tablets were to contain "all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly" (9:10). In chapter 10, Moses refers to the material on the tablets as "the Ten Commandments" (verse 4).

No matter how much was written on the tablets, the fact is that _all_ the laws of Exodus 20-23 form the regulatory code of the old covenant in its _original_ form. Later, the new and amplified laws of the other parts of the Law of Moses become part of the legal code system of Israel. This was not a one-law or a ten-law covenant – the covenant contained _hundreds_ of regulations.

Deuteronomy 12 through 26:15 also becomes part of this legal code of the old covenant. There are many familiar laws, amplified or put in another context. There are also some new items. Moses restated the fact that Israel had a covenant with God, based on the law system that the nation had promised to uphold:

#### You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him. And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. (Deuteronomy 26:17-18)

Israel, if it follows the commands of the covenant, will be "high above all the nations" and a "people holy to the Lord" (verse 19). But Israel must keep _all_ of God's commandments as though they were one unit. Both Paul and James understand the Law in this sense (James 2:10-11; Galatians 3:10). This becomes like a final covenant promise (Deuteronomy 29:1).

The people are commanded to set up large stones in the Promised Land. They are to write on these stones "all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 27:2-3, 8). Before they enter the land, curses are pronounced on evildoers. In chapter 28, blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience are restated, as they were in Leviticus 26.

The last chapters of Deuteronomy highlight this final covenant ratification and its implication for the Israelites. The nation is to "carefully follow the terms of this covenant" so the people can prosper in all that they do (Deuteronomy 29:9). The covenant is a fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it applies to all the descendants of Israel (verses 12-14). Torah or the Law of Moses becomes the covenantal "Book of the Law" for the nation (verse 21).

### All or nothing

This detailed summary of the old covenant legal system is meant to help us understand the conditions under which the Sabbath day and the other Mosaic legal requirements apply. The entire law code described in Exodus 20 through the end of Deuteronomy is the basis of the old covenant—not just a single law, or a few laws found therein.

All the laws are of equal importance in a covenantal context. If a person sins by breaking one law, then such a person is "guilty" of breaking the covenant itself. Since all the laws are equally part of the same covenant, we cannot use the old covenant to "prove" any particular law while admitting that some of its other laws are obsolete. Since the covenant is obsolete, a different authority is needed to prove any particular law. We cannot pick and choose without having another authority to tell us what to pick.

But if we are considering the force of the old covenant, the point has to be made that no law of that covenant is isolated as of special significance. No grouping of laws—like the Ten Commandments—is more important than any other grouping. No individual law—such as the weekly Sabbath—is more important than another. This is seen in the fact that the two "greatest laws" of Torah are not singled out or emphasized in any way. They are barely visible in the contexts in which they appear in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

The question to be solved in terms of the application of the Law of Moses is not whether a specific law might apply to Christians. The covenant, composed of God's promises and Israel's agreement to uphold Torah, is a unit. One cannot say that one or a few laws of the old covenant Book of the Law—such as Sabbath, Festivals, food laws, strict tithing—apply to Christians. Either the old covenant as a covenant (or the Book of the Law as a single law code) applies to Christians in entirety, or none of it applies. The package is valid, or it is not.

All arguments to try to "prove" that the rest command of the Sabbath as an individual law must be observed or certain foods avoided, for example, are faulty arguments. These claims must be tested against one fundamental question: Must Christians obey the old covenant legal system in its totality—all 613 laws contained in that system—or none of it?

However, there are eternal, "spiritual laws" that govern relationships between humans and between humans and God. These laws governed relationships before the Mosaic Law was enacted. They were included in the Law of Moses, but their validity does not rest on the old covenant. They therefore they continue to govern human conduct after the annulment of the old covenant. The commandment to love God above all else would be a prime example of such a law (Deuteronomy 6:5).

These "spiritual laws" are incorporated into the new covenant "Law of Christ," and are expounded in the New Testament. (See below, "Sin and virtue lists" and "Mosaic Law unnecessary," for further details.) Thus, we come back to the fundamental question: Are Christians obligated to keep the entire Mosaic legal system or not?

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## The Covenants and the Sabbath:  
The New Testament Evidence

Let us now look at the New Testament witness to these matters. By Jesus' day, the covenantal literature of Israel included not only the Law of Moses but also the Prophets and Writings. These were the Holy Scriptures of the Jews, or the Christian Old Testament. This body of writing is sometimes called the "Law, Prophets and Psalms" (Luke 24:44). At other times it is referred to by the term "Law and Prophets" (Matthew 5:17), or simply "the Law" (John 15:25).

The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy (along with the circumcision law in Genesis) constituted the basis of the covenantal law between God and Israel. This part of Scripture was called the Law of Moses, or referred to as the law that "Moses gave" (John 7:19, 22-23). All the laws and commentary in the books of Moses are part of the same cloth.

We come now to the dawning of new covenant times with the arrival and work of Jesus. The first thing we notice is that the Jews were surprised by Jesus. He was not a conquering Messiah, as most had expected him to be. (Perhaps the Maccabees of two centuries earlier had fixed the idea of a warrior Messiah in Jewish expectation.) Jesus seemed to speak of a somewhat different sort of redemptive work than was expected. Jesus said he would die for the sins of the people. He would not redeem people simply because they had the Law of Moses and appeared to obey it, nor would he save people because they were born as Israelites.

Jesus seemed to imply that the most pious of the people—the religious leaders—were not the best candidates for the kingdom of God (Matthew 23). To all appearances, the Pharisees and others loved God and would be among the vanguard of a people called to follow the Messiah to victory over the enemies of Israel. Surely, they would have the best positions in the kingdom of God by reason of their zealousness for Torah. But Jesus was said that this idea was wrong. The kingdom would be taken away from them and given to others (Matthew 21:43-46).

God sent Jesus to create a new people from all nations through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Further, he was not at that time interested in creating a powerful political unit that would, in effect, rule the world. Jesus would save eternally those who put their faith and trust in him as Savior (John 3:16). This became the new covenant in Jesus' blood. He was bringing and offering a different covenant from the old covenant – one that had been planned all along, but now unveiled in Jesus.

However, Jesus made it clear that he was not out to abolish what the Hebrew Scriptures stood for. Jesus said: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17).

The Jewish Scriptures pointed to Jesus and his redeeming work, and were fulfilled in his work (Luke 24:25-27, 44; John 5:39-47). Jesus was the object of the Law and Prophets, as even Moses had said: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him" (Deuteronomy 18:15). Jesus pointed out that a greater law—we can call it the "law of Christ"—should govern human thought and actions. He made his point by contrasting what the Law of Moses said ("You have heard that it was said...") with what he now said ("But I tell you..."). See Matthew 5:21-48 for six examples.

During his earthly ministry, Jesus told his hearers to obey the Law of Moses. He said to a man he healed of leprosy: "Go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing" (Luke 5:14). Jesus worshipped at and upheld the sanctity of the temple (Matthew 12-13). He told his disciples and the Jewish people to obey the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, who he said sat "in Moses' seat" (Matthew 23:1). Naturally, these individuals would have taught obedience to the Law of Moses.

Jesus told his disciples to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, upholding the notion of Israel as the special people of God. Jesus came as a Jew to Israel as the covenant people of God. "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him," said John (John 1:11).

But since Jesus worked in an old covenant context, we cannot say that his remarks about a particular Mosaic law means that one of its isolated commandments—like the Sabbath, or festivals or food laws—must be kept by Christians. Jesus commanded sacrifices, obedience to the religious leaders who would be teaching all of the Law of Moses, and temple worship. Before his crucifixion, he upheld the notion of a national covenant people. If we say that Jesus' remarks in the Gospels tell Christians to keep the Sabbath rest commandment, then we must accept all of the commandments of the Law of Moses as being binding, including physical circumcision. He upheld them all, before his crucifixion. Clearly, something else is in view in Jesus' remarks about the Law, the Sabbath or some other Mosaic regulation or promise.

Jesus did not change anything in terms of old covenant worship until his redemptive work was accomplished. However, he did imply during his ministry that things would change in the future. The kingdom of God was to be taken away from those who represented the Law of Moses and "given to a people who will produce its fruit" (Matthew 21:43). The people of God would no longer worship at the temple in Jerusalem, but they would worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:21-24).

After his resurrection, Jesus told the disciples that rather than limiting their evangelizing work to Israel, as he had counseled during his lifetime, they must go to all the world (Acts 1:8). Shortly thereafter, Peter learned through a vision that the feared and hated Gentiles were also being called to be among the people of God (Acts 10:9-15). A new age of the Spirit had begun. A new covenant had come into force.

The church began on the day of Pentecost in the year that Jesus was crucified and resurrected. At first it was composed almost entirely of Jews. Even Pharisees and priests were converted to the faith (Acts 6:7; 15:5). But many of these people were still zealous for the Law of Moses (Acts 21:20). This caused a problem for the church.

Many Jewish Christians did not see clearly that the new covenant had supplanted the old, and that this had profoundly impacted the authority of the Law of Moses and Israel's religious system. For example, these former Jewish religious leaders still viewed physical circumcision as a sign between God and his people. They saw the Law of Moses as a binding legal document for anyone who wanted to become part of this people.

That is why in Acts 15 the believers of the party of the Pharisees claimed: "The Gentiles must be circumcised and _required to obey the law of Moses_ " (emphasis ours, verse 5). They didn't say, Gentiles must keep the Sabbath or the food laws or some other singular law of the Mosaic system. Rather, the Pharisees said "obey the law of Moses." The Jews understood that the entire Law of Moses was a unit—and that the authority of this law as a complete and unified legal compact in the Gentile Christian life was the issue.

They knew that the old covenant did not apply to Gentiles. It was only for Israel. Gentiles were to follow a more generalized law called the "Noachian Laws." But if any Gentile wanted to become part of the people of Israel—that is, to become a "full Jew"—he or she would be obligated to keep the Law of Moses. The Jewish Christians probably reasoned from this principle that in order to become a part of God's _spiritual_ people, Gentiles must first become God's physical people by keeping the Law of Moses. It was easy to reason that way because most Jews apparently thought of the Christians—at least in the early years—as simply members of another Jewish sect. The only difference was that Christians had accepted Jesus as Messiah.

Thus, religious Jews who had been converted to Christianity were implying that for Gentiles to be part of God's people, they would have to be circumcised and keep all 613 laws of the Law of Moses. The issue of contention was not a specific law such as Sabbath-keeping, but the Law of Moses in its entirety. (The argument in Acts 15 wasn't over Sabbath or festival observance, but over the full Mosaic Law.)

The issue of the role of the Law of Moses in the lives of Gentile Christians became more troublesome as more Gentiles became converted. This led to the convening of the historic council of Acts 15 around AD 50 to consider this important matter.

It became clear to the assembled elders and apostles that Gentiles had been called and converted apart from any obedience to the regulations of the Law of Moses. The assembly concluded that Gentiles did not need to keep the commandments of the Law of Moses or be circumcised. They did not need to keep the Sabbath, nor the food laws, nor tithing, nor the annual festivals. This explains why no separate law, such as Sabbath-keeping, was discussed. The entire Law of Moses, and its accompanying religious institutions, were seen to be passé, or obsolete.

This was conveyed to the Gentile churches in an apostolic letter mentioned in Acts 15. Gentiles were asked to hold to only four regulations that could be said to be Mosaic: abstention from the meat of strangled animals, from food polluted by idols, from blood and from sexual immorality (Acts 15:19-20, 29). Naturally, all Christians would have been commanded to avoid sexual immorality.

The three other regulations had to do with foods, and may have been enjoined on Gentiles so that they would not offend the sensibilities of Jewish Christians, or unconverted Jews in the synagogues. Both Jewish Christians and, in many cases, Gentile Christians would be attending the Jewish synagogue, and it was important not to bring offense. The church wanted to keep in the good graces of the Jewish religious community and to keep peace between the church and the synagogue.

But, even here, Paul later seemed to rescind, under special circumstances, the regulation against eating meat that had been offered to idols (1 Corinthians 8:4-13). The reason the Acts 15 council imposed a ban on eating meat offered to idols in pagan ceremonies, and later sold in the meat markets, had to do with conscience only. Eating such meat would greatly offend Christian Jews who still believed that idolatry made the meat sinful. The reasoning was, why make trouble over something inconsequential in terms of the gospel message? The ban on such foods had nothing to do with any lingering authority of the Law of Moses upon Gentile Christians, as the council had decided it had no such authority.

### The Galatians controversy

Nonetheless, the question of whether Gentile Christians should keep the Law of Moses continued to be a controversy within the church. The pressure to have Gentiles be circumcised and follow the Mosaic Law came from converted Jews or Judaizers. We can see this controversy in full bloom in the book of Galatians.

In this very strong letter, Paul brands this idea as a "different gospel," which was really a perversion of the true gospel (Galatians 1:1-7). Paul makes several points about this issue. He says Christians cannot be justified by observing the Law of Moses and righteousness cannot be gained through its observance (Galatians 2:16, 21). Those who look to the Law of Moses as their spiritual authority, even though they may "believe" in Christ, are still in bondage (Galatians 4:21-31).

In fact, those who preach that observing the Mosaic Law is necessary are under a curse, said Paul. He referred to the Scripture that says, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do _everything_ written in the Book of the Law" (Galatians 3:10). This point is obvious from our panoramic view of the law material in the books from Exodus through Deuteronomy. We cannot pick and choose which specific law (such as Sabbath-keeping) we think should be obeyed. It's an all-or-nothing situation.

Paul says: "I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law" (Galatians 5:3). We can write in any Mosaic law in the place of the word "circumcised"—such as Sabbath-keeping—with the same conclusion. If a person feels obligated to keep the Sabbath, then logic says that the person should keep all the laws of Moses, because the only place that the Sabbath is commanded is in the law of Moses. If it is still valid for the Sabbath law, it is valid for the other laws, too.

What had occurred at least since the period of the Maccabees is that the Jews had emphasized several laws from the Mosaic Law as "boundary marker" practices. These distinguished Jews from Gentiles and kept the Jews separate and "pure." Among these boundary marker beliefs were circumcision, the food laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, the keeping of the Sabbath and the observance of the holy days.

Except for circumcision, we can see the interesting parallel between the Judaizing Christians of the apostolic church and people who still teach that Christians should observe the seventh-day Sabbath and annual holy days. For a thorough discussion of how the Jews had adopted "boundary marker" practices from the Law of Moses as a litmus test of being a part of the "in" group—that is, a part of the people of God—see the book _Jesus, Paul, and the Law,_ by James D.G. Dunn.

The biblical book that most thoroughly deals with the abrogation of the Law of Moses and the old covenant religious system is Hebrews. It begins with a defense of Jesus as the high priest of God's people (3:1). This implies that the authority of the Aaronic high priest of the Mosaic covenant, who stood as the representative between God and Israel, had been superseded by Jesus. As the mediator of the old covenant, Moses was great, but Jesus is greater. (John 5:39-46 with Hebrews 3:4-6).

### The Sabbath as metaphor

In Christ, the physical Sabbath rest is seen to be a metaphor for the spiritual rest of salvation that God's people now have (4:1-11). However, it's not that the Sabbath rest commandment was "changed" and that we keep the Sabbath as "holy time" in terms of "a spiritual rest." The Sabbath is a _symbol_ for Christians, in the same way that other elements of the Mosaic institution are symbols. We can look at other old covenant practices and institutions (such as the high priest's office, burnt offerings, dwelling in tents during the Festival of Tabernacles), and see metaphorical meanings that symbolize aspects of Jesus' redemptive work. That's what the Mosaic Law points to, is fulfilled in and is superseded by that work. Those old covenant laws are instructive as symbols and metaphors, but they are not valid as laws about Christian behavior.

We can see the same principle at work in physical circumcision. For new covenant Christians, it serves only as a metaphor of the fact that we are cleansed of our sins and have a new birth in Christ. "Circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code," Paul wrote in Romans 2:29.

In the same way, Hebrews 4 tells us that Sabbath-keeping is of the spirit. It points to the salvation rest we have in Christ. The physical Sabbath rest command is not performed by Christians in the way it was specified in the old covenant written code, the Law of Moses.

Hebrews explains that the entire system of the old covenant law as carried out by the high priest and the Levitical priesthood has come to an end. Another High Priest, Jesus, has come in the order of Melchizedek (7:1-11). This necessitates a change in the law (verse 12). "The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God" (verses 18-19). This better hope is the new covenant, which provides the indwelling Holy Spirit, and with it comes salvation. Those who are saved under the new covenant are not obligated to obey the Law of Moses, but to obey the "law of Christ."

However, some people object to the idea that the Mosaic Law (which includes the Ten Commandments) is "done away." They retort, "Well, then, does that mean we can kill, steal or commit adultery?" Of course not. No Christian would teach or believe such an absurdity.

Let's pose the question another way to show it has no validity: "If the Law of Moses is done away, does this mean we don't have to love God and our neighbor?" Obviously, Christians continue to love God and neighbor—and they do not break any of the spiritual principles found throughout the Mosaic Law—because that is the Christian thing to do—and it is what the New Testament clearly tells us to do. But this obedience is based on the law of Christ, not the Law of Moses. People were supposed to love God and neighbor from the very beginning of creation. The old covenant included those two laws, but it did not begin them, and the law of love therefore did not end when the old covenant ended.

### Sin and virtue lists

The idea that any Christian church would teach that we can sin because the Law of Moses has been "done away" is preposterous. What has happened for Christians is that the Law of Moses has been replaced by the law of Christ. (That is one aspect of the Christian becoming a "slave" to Christ.)

For anyone willing to look at the facts, and to think in terms of the New Testament witness as a whole, it spells out clearly how Christians are to live. A quick look at one or more of the so-called "sin lists" or "virtue lists" in the New Testament should dispel the notion that Christians can sin because the old covenant Law of Moses has been "done away."

(See the following lists as examples—Matthew 5:3-11; Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 4:32; 6:14-20; Philippians 4:8; 1 Timothy 3:2-13; Titus 1:6-9; Mark 7:21-22; Romans 1:29-32; 13:8-14; Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 5:9-11; 6:9-10; Ephesians 4:25-31; 5:3-5; Colossians 3:5-9; 2 Timothy 3:1-5.)

Let us briefly refer to one of them. Galatians 5:13-25 shows the new covenant "law of Christ," though it doesn't label it with that particular terminology. Paul begins by saying that Christians should keep the second great law of God: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (5:14). He points out that if we live by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we will "not gratify the desires of the sinful nature" (5:16). Paul points out the kinds of sins Christians under the "law of Christ" will avoid. This includes everything from sexual immorality to idolatry to drunkenness to selfish ambition.

Paul next points out some fruits of the Holy Spirit. These include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Christians will have crucified the sinful nature itself, not only sinful acts, through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

### Mosaic Law unnecessary

Christians do not need the Law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments, as a direction for their lives. They know what they must do to obey God from the New Testament witness. Christians also do not need the Mosaic Law as a "tutor," because they have the indwelling Holy Spirit as their Paraclete or Counselor—whom Jesus sent. He is with them forever (John 14:15-21 with Galatians 3:23-25).

In Romans 7:1 Paul points out that the Law of Moses has authority over a person "only as long as he lives." (Of course, it had authority only over the Jewish person; Paul is writing to Jews at this point.) He uses the example of a married woman who was bound to her husband while the husband was alive. When he died, she was free. Even though she remarried, she was not called an adulteress.

Paul uses this analogy to point out that Christians have died to the Law of Moses (which includes the package called the Ten Commandments) "through the body of Christ" (Romans 7:4). They now belong to another—to the risen Christ. "We have been released from the law," says Paul, "so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code" (verse 6). If Paul could say this to Jews, how much more would it apply to Gentiles, who were never under the written code of the Law of Moses to begin with!

Many more things could be said about these matters from New Testament Scripture. The above discussion, however, should make it evident that Christians are not required to keep the Law of Moses (including the Ten Commandments). Sabbatarians cannot "pick and choose" a few boundary marker observances such as Sabbath-keeping and insist Christians must keep them. But Christians are not in some lawless limbo as a result of not being obligated to the Law of Moses. They have the New Testament "law of Christ" and the Holy Spirit to guide them.

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## Genesis 2:2-3 —  
God's "Rest" and the Sabbath

Genesis 2:2-3 is sometimes used in an attempt to prove that Christians must keep the seventh-day Sabbath. It is important that we understand what this verse does and doesn't say about the Sabbath rest. Further, we must ask what this verse tells us about the Sabbath when viewed against the essential message of Scripture about our salvation in Christ.

After the creation account in Genesis 1, we read the following in chapter 2, verses 2-3: "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

In chapter 1, the writer of Genesis used the seven-day weekly cycle as an organizing outline to make an important theological point: The one God of Israel is the true God—the Creator of all that exists in the heavens and on earth, including the human race. This was his answer to the myths of the nations that had spun fantastic stories of how their deities were responsible for the creation. Genesis 1:1-2:3 sets the record straight about creation. The God of Israel, Yahweh, is Creator.

Yet, the writer of Genesis ends this creation outline by adding the statement that the God of Israel "rested" after creation was complete. What theological point was he trying to make about God and his purpose in the creation? We shall see the answer unfold in this paper. The concept of the "rest" will prove to be a monumental part of God's purpose, one the New Testament explains for us in a definitive way.

### Sabbath rest in Genesis

Before we undertake to solve this mystery, we should consider the idea that Genesis 2:2-3 tells us God made the weekly Sabbath "holy time" at creation, and that this day has been and continues to be a sacred day for all peoples. We may begin by noticing that the verse does _not_ say a physical Sabbath-day rest was to be observed by human beings. Genesis 2:2-3 contains no command for human beings to rest from their labor or to otherwise keep the seventh day as "holy time." God is the one said to be "resting," and by his act he creates something holy about the seventh day. But at this point in the story we haven't been told what that is.

If the writer of Genesis wanted to make the point that God commanded the Sabbath to be a day of rest for humans since the creation, then he failed to support this idea in further chapters. He provided no evidence that any of the great patriarchs, Abraham included, kept the seventh day as "holy time." Neither did he make any comments to the effect that humanity was breaking the Sabbath-day rest and thereby sinning against God between Adam and Sinai. Not until the old covenant is instituted with a single nation—Israel—does the Sabbath rest become a command (and then only for Israel).

If the Sabbath was commanded since the creation, then it is surprising that none of God's faithful people kept it until Sinai. Conversely, we would also have to ask why evil people are not chastised for Sabbath-breaking during the ages before the giving of the Law of Moses.

However, Genesis 2:2-3 does tell us that God made the seventh day of creation week "holy." What does this mean? For God to make something "holy" is for him to set it apart in some way for his special use, or to use something set apart to explain part of his purpose. For example, the temple had a Most Holy Place whose environs only the High Priest could enter, and that only once a year. The book of Hebrews explains that the "holiness" that God ascribed to this location was to show that a true entry into his presence was not yet available.

But Genesis 2:2-3 does _not_ tell us what lesson we are to learn from the seventh day of creation being made "holy" or set apart through God "resting" from his work. We understand that God does not become tired. Nor is he affected by an earthbound reality in which the motions of the planet mark time. This would lead us to believe the writer of Genesis used a literary device when speaking about the "rest" of God. That is, the "rest" of God had a symbolic meaning for him. But what was that meaning?

### Author's point

The writer had already used the seven-day week as an outline on which he hung various creation events and by which he made his theological point. It's not surprising, then, that he would use the metaphor of God's "rest" to make another theological assertion about who this God of Israel was, and his purpose. We should remember that the writer lived under the old covenant. This would lead us to believe that his experience of God taught him something about his purpose with Israel, something that was explained by the "rest" concept.

"Rest" is a key idea in Genesis 2:2-3. Why did the writer use the concept? What did it mean to the writer, and what should it mean to us as Christians? We have already seen that the seventh-day rest follows all the creative acts of God that are summarized in Genesis 1. More than this, the rest of God follows the creation of humanity—male and female—in God's own image (1:27-31).

The fact that this is mentioned in the context of the creation account implies that the writer understood that humanity has a special purpose beyond the other parts of the creation. First, all of creation is pronounced as being "very good" (1:31). Humanity is to "fill the earth and subdue it"—to be God's representatives on this planet and caretakers of the creation (1:28). But all is not completely revealed to this point in Genesis about God's aim in creating humanity. Is there no further purpose for the human race (and, from the writer's point of view, of his choosing Israel to be his people) than to fill and subdue the earth?

The writer refers to God's "rest," and tells us that it is holy—set apart for some purpose. But for what purpose? And, how does this relate to humanity and Israel? That the creation of man and woman was announced just before the making of the holy rest could imply that this "rest" has something to do with the creation in general and humanity in particular. God, as it were, "sits back" after setting his creative purpose in motion and pronounces everything as being good. Since God doesn't literally get tired, we can understand his "rest" as figurative, and as part of his creative purpose. We could see the "rest" as extending to humans (and Israel) in some way, since they seem to be the end object of God's creative process.

### Humanity's loss

But whatever this rest is to signify, the ensuing Genesis story tells us it is not something that humans enjoy in a physical sense except, perhaps, for a brief interlude in the Garden of Eden. Almost immediately after creation, we read about the tragedy that befell Adam and Eve in the Garden. As a consequence of sin, they suffer increased _labor_ rather than rest. The notion of labor, the opposite of rest, becomes an important motif in the Genesis account.

Eve must labor in childbearing. The Lord tells her, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children" (3:16). For mother Eve, childbearing becomes painful _work_. Adam will be forced to labor to eat. The Lord tells him, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through _painful toil_ you will eat of it all the days of your life" (3:17, emphasis ours throughout).

Their son, Cain, murders Abel. The latter's blood figuratively finds no rest, as it "cries out" from the ground (4:10). For his sin, Cain will be forced to engage in backbreaking labor. The Lord tells him, "When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you" (4:12). More than that, Cain was to be a " _restless_ wanderer on the earth" (4:12). He would have neither rest in his labor nor rest from enemies seeking to kill him because of his murder.

The "anti-rest" motif continues in Genesis. When Noah was born, a great hope was attached to his future. It was said of him, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed" (5:29). But humanity found no rest because "the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence" (6:11). The only "rest" humanity could achieve was to rest in death.

In Noah, God restated and broadened the covenant made with Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28-30. He reissued his promise to neither curse the ground nor to destroy humanity despite the fact that he knew "every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood" (8:21; 9:8-17). Despite this covenant of promise, many generations passed during which humans became more alienated from God. The story of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel indicates the condition of the human race. Then God made a covenant with Abraham. This is first found in Genesis 12:2-3:

#### I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

### Israel in toil and slavery

We know the rest of the story from Genesis. Abraham had a son named Isaac, and he had a son named Jacob. (Jacob had to be saved by the Lord from 20 years of servitude at Laban's hand—Genesis 31:38-42.) As Jacob said to Laban: "If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my _hardship and the toil of my hand_ _"_ (verse 42).

Jacob had 12 sons. The oldest ten sold their young brother, Joseph, into slavery. During a famine, they all moved to Egypt, where the family of Jacob grew into a great nation. But the Egyptians placed the Israelites into slavery and hard bondage. They, too, failed to find the "rest" of God. The first chapter of Exodus, verses 11-14, shows how Israel subsequently suffered as a slave people:

#### So they [the Egyptians] put slave masters over them [the Israelites] to oppress them with _forced labor_ , and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.... The Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and _worked them ruthlessly_. They made their lives bitter with _hard labor_ in brick and mortar and with _all kinds of work_ in the fields; in all their _hard labor_ the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

### Israel rescued

The writer of Exodus was trying to make a point, again about the notion of "rest." The Israelites were oppressed with hard and forced labor—and they had no rest for their souls. But help was on the way. We read in Exodus 2:23-24:

#### The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.

The savior of Israel would be Moses, who as a young man had seen his own people in slavery and "watched them at their hard labor" (2:11). Now, after his own exile of 40 years in the desert, the Lord appeared to him and said in Exodus 3:7-8:

#### I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Moses was to tell the Israelites about their impending freedom and physical rest:

#### Say to the Israelites: "I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God." (Exodus 6:6-7)

### A covenant of "rest"

This promise is the first intimation of a covenant between God and Israel. It is a covenant based on God providing freedom from slavery, and hence rest from unending labor. The "rest" of God mentioned in Genesis 2:2, which was not attained by humans because of sin, was now promised in a kind of second Garden of Eden—the Promised Land. The old covenant was a covenantal promise of peace, prosperity and security for Israel in the Promised Land (Leviticus 26:3-13; Deuteronomy 28:1-14). It contained all the elements that give human beings a feeling of well-being and "rest."

In short, the old covenant was a promise of _physical_ rest to God's people, which (as shown in Genesis 2) was part of God's creative purpose at the beginning. We will see how this purpose of "rest" unfolds, but we are getting ahead of our story. Let's go back a moment to God's promise through Moses that he would provide freedom and rest to the people of Israel.

We know from the Exodus story that the Egyptian Pharaoh did not want to let the Israelites go free. He ordered that they should work even harder for their captors (Exodus 5). But God rescued the Israelites and brought them into the wilderness in preparation for their entering the Promised Land of freedom and rest. However, that generation failed to trust the Lord, and they were not allowed to enter. They died without coming into their rest.

The next generation of Israelites entered the Promised Land under Joshua. They were told to obey the covenant that had been made between the people and the Lord. All the tribes were told to help each other take possession of the land "until the Lord gives them _rest_ , as he has done for you" (Joshua 1:15). We read that this promise was fulfilled. In a summary statement before Joshua's farewell to the nation, it was said that "the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them" (Joshua 23:1).

Despite Israel's lapses from faith and obedience, the Lord fulfilled his promise to give the nation prosperity and rest. The high point of this physical rest and well-being occurred during the days of King Solomon. "During Solomon's lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree" (1 Kings 4:25). The nation of Israel had experienced the physical "rest" of God in abundance.

One of the hallmarks of the Law of Moses was an emphasis on the "rest" that God provided Israel. This included many physical blessings (Deuteronomy 7:10-12). God's merciful grace in saving the nation from extreme toil and servitude in Egypt—and his giving the people bountiful physical blessings in the Promised Land—was to be memorialized in the religious practices of the nation. A weekly Sabbath of rest from work was a main feature of this rest memorial.

A good comparison for Christians is the Lord's Supper. The bread and wine remind Christians that God has saved them through the redemptive work of Christ. On the other hand, the Israelites rested each week to remind them that God had saved them from Egyptian bondage and had blessed them abundantly.

Exodus 20:11 explains why God gave Israel the Sabbath day: "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (These are the same words the writer of Genesis wrote for the creation account.)

In a restatement of the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy 5:12-15, a related reason was given for the Sabbath "rest" command. "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day" (5:15).

What had the writer seen here? Possibly, he saw that what God had done with Israel was the beginning of a restoration of God's purpose for all humanity. His purpose, dimly seen in the Garden of Eden story, was that human beings should live in a relationship with him, through which they would be blessed. If they were one with God, then they would enter his rest because he would bless them physically. That was God's intent, as the Garden of Eden story tells us. But human beings sinned and were cursed. Humans were cut off from the presence of God and the relationship with him was broken.

### Reminder of blessings

With Israel, as the Exodus and old covenant show us, God had again moved to begin to bring the human race back into a relationship with himself. Israel would be the starting place. The nations would look at Israel, living in blessedness and loving obedience to Yahweh, and perhaps other nations might also someday come to love the Lord and find blessing as well (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). That was the ideal—just as the Garden of Eden had been an ideal. But as we know from the rest of the story of the Old Testament, the ideal was not achieved.

The reason Israel was to keep the seventh day as a rest period was because of a physical "rest" that was available to the nation. As slaves in Egypt, they had no rest for themselves, but toiled in harsh labor daily, at the whim of their taskmasters. God had freed them from this slavish labor and had given them freedom and prosperity in the Promised Land. Israel was supposed to remember the gracious freedom and rest they had been given—and they were to do this each week

The weekly rest was but one memorial of how God had saved the nation from Egyptian slavery and mindless toil. There were seven _yearly_ "rest" days within three yearly festival seasons that also were celebrated by cessation from labor (Leviticus 23:7-8, 21, 25, 32, 35-36). These were harvest festivals when Israel could give thanks for the crops they had reaped—and when they could rest from their labor. By contrast, in Egypt the Israelites had toiled ceaselessly for uncaring taskmasters.

Beyond that, the land was to lie idle and not be tilled every seventh year (Leviticus 25:1-7). This means that while the land rested, the people could also rest, because they did not need to sow or till. Whatever the land produced on its own could be eaten.

Also, each 50th year was a land rest (Leviticus 25:8-12). It was also a year of release, as we read in verse 10: "Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan." In Egypt, the Israelites had neither land nor inheritance. Now, God had given the nation the Promised Land, and each family was to enjoy its own parcel of ground.

While the Promised Land was not a place of idleness and ease, there was rest from backbreaking and meaningless toil on someone else's land. On the other hand, the Promised Land would yield abundant produce because of the blessing of the Lord. The nation would rest from war and the fear of famine and disease. The inhabitants could breathe a sigh of relief—and they could "rest" both physically and psychologically in the sure knowledge that God was watching over them.

### The meaning

Now we can understand why the writer of Genesis may have been so keen to divide the physical creation into a six-day format and then make the seventh day a day of God's "rest." It must have been driven home to him through his experience with the saving acts of the God of Israel, that God's purpose was to rescue humanity from the curse that they had brought upon themselves. This curse had required backbreaking toil in unyielding soil. The curse had also brought famine and disease, fighting and war. Life was anything but restful.

The writer of Genesis must have seen the problem of the "curse" and the restless sorrow it had brought as having been solved specifically in the promises to the nation of Israel. Israel had once been in captivity and the people had been forced to toil incessantly under taskmasters. Life was neither prosperous nor restful. But God had purposed to fulfill his covenant with Abraham whereby he would rescue his descendants from terrible toil in slavery. The nation would find true prosperity, peace and rest under the protection and blessing of the Creator, the one true God. The nation's religious practices, including various "rest" days and times, reminded the people that they had been saved from toil and slavery in Egypt and now rested in peace and prosperity under the loving hand of their God.

Genesis was written for Israelites who lived in the Promised Land, who were to commemorate each week the rest they had been given by the Creator. Their weekly experience of rest was then associated with the creation by the words of Genesis 2:2-3. The writer of Genesis was informed by and influenced by the weekly Sabbath as he wrote about the "rest" of God. He was writing from the point of view of an Israelite who had been saved from slavery and who enjoyed the "rest" God provided the nation. The writer understood that the various rest days commanded for Israel—the weekly Sabbath, annual festivals, and years of agricultural rest—reflected what God had done for the nation. God's actions of providing "rest" signaled to the writer that in God's creative purpose his creatures should find rest _in him_. In the world there was cursing and trouble, but in God's kingdom—the Promised Land—there was prosperity, peace and rest.

Genesis 2:2-3, then, is not an early command for all people to keep the seventh day as holy time. It is a reflection of the writer's understanding that humans should find their rest in God. For the nation of Israel, the old covenant specified that this was to be commemorated by a weekly physical rest on the seventh day. There is no command for other peoples to do the same. Other peoples did not have the physical "rest" of the Promised Land nor the command for physical rest on the seventh day. What the Israelites had was a physical image of a spiritual reality; other nations did not have this.

### Future promise

The Old Testament shows that the restful state of affairs did not last very long for Israel. The nation sinned and the people suffered invasion, curses on their land and captivity. The old covenant between God and Israel failed because the nation did not live up to its promises to be faithful to God (Hebrews 4:2).

Later in Israel's history, the prophets spoke of the need for a new covenant, based on better promises. Isaiah prophesied of a time when God would renew his covenant with Israel and give them a final rest. In chapter 11, Isaiah spoke of a Branch to come, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord would rest. The Spirit of the Lord would be upon him and he would bring justice, mercy and peace. The Branch would usher in God's kingdom of righteousness and peace.

In soaring metaphorical language, Isaiah said of this new era: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat...the cow will feed with the bear...The lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra" (verses 6-8). He summarized this future hope by painting the arrival of an idyllic worldwide kingdom of God: "They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full for the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (verse 9).

"In that day," when this future kingdom would be established, the Lord would bring his people Israel out from all the nations (verse 11). And what would he give his people? He would give them "rest." Isaiah explains: "In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and _his place of rest_ will be glorious" (verse 10).

Jeremiah also spoke of the rest that the Lord would bring. "'At that time,' declares the Lord, 'I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they will be my people.' This is what the Lord says: 'The people who survive the sword will find favor in the desert; I will come to give _rest_ to Israel'" (Jeremiah 31:1-2).

It's no wonder the Jews looked for a Messiah who would save them from their enemies and gather the nation. It was a beautiful vision of peace and prosperity. The Messiah would make the regathered clans of Israel in the Promised Land the people of the kingdom of God in which righteousness, justice and prosperity would know no bounds. The enemies of the Jews, whoever they might be, would be defeated and destroyed.

### Jesus is our "rest"

The Branch, the Root of Jesse, the Redeemer Messiah, came as promised, in the person of Jesus. He offered the greatest "rest" the world would ever know, but it was not a physical rest of power and prosperity given to a single nation within certain geographic borders. Jesus brought the offer of "rest" of freedom from sin and death—and this was for people of all nations—and life in the eternal kingdom of God.

The notion of "God's rest" found in Genesis 2:2-3 and the Old Testament was still alive and well. Yes, God would send the Deliverer, and his rest would be glorious. That rest, though, would be the result of the redemptive work of Jesus, and it would be commemorated not through the seventh day, but through Jesus. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus told his hearers: "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." What a glorious promise to a hurting humanity. Jesus was not necessarily promising physical rest and peace, but an eternal and spiritual rest.

Jesus said to his disciples: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives" (John 14:27). Jesus did not promise his disciples a Promised Land of peace, plenty and security. In fact, in his last talk with the disciples before his arrest, Jesus told them they would have anything but physical rest. "I have told you these things," Jesus warned, "so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

The promise to Israel had been peace, prosperity and rest in the Promised Land in exchange for obedience to the old covenant and Law of Moses. The New Testament "rest" is a rest in Christ. It is the promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit and a spiritual rebirth that leads to eternal life in the kingdom of God. This is the ultimate "rest" of God. God's purpose in Genesis 2:2-3, not completely understood under the old covenant, is now revealed and fulfilled in its final sense through Christ.

The theme of Sabbath-rest is also discussed in Hebrews 4. For a full-length discussion of that passage, see the next chapter.

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## Does Hebrews 4:9 Command Us to Keep the Sabbath?

Those who believe that Christians are required to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, especially as it applies to resting from work, sometimes cite Hebrews 4:9-11 as a proof-text. In the New International Version these verses say the following:

#### There remains...a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall.

If this passage requires Christians to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, it would be the _only_ direct post-resurrection scriptural command to do so. If it does not command the Sabbath, then we have no command specifically written to the New Testament church mandating the keeping of the Sabbath. In view of this, it is important that we understand what the verses in question are telling us.

An important principle in understanding a specific passage of Scripture is to see it in context. The context includes the _immediate_ subject at hand in which the verses are found, as well as the _overall_ context of the book itself. Each passage should be understood as much as possible on its own terms. It should not be interpreted on the basis of an assumed premise, in this case, an advance assumption that God commands Christians to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.

### The theme of Hebrews

In order to understand Hebrews 4:9-11, we must first ask what the book of Hebrews is about. We recommend that you take the time to read the entire epistle in a modern translation.

We can state the theme of Hebrews in the following brief summary. It is generally believed that Hebrews was written to Jewish believers. At the least, it was written to people who were attracted to Jewish forms of worship, perhaps thinking that old covenant rituals were required. The writer of Hebrews takes issue with this. He indicates that the Jewish rituals were based on an obsolete covenant. Christians, he says, are under the better and greater new covenant. This theme is sounded in many ways throughout Hebrews.

In chapter 8 the writer cites Jeremiah 31:31-34 to show that the Hebrew Scriptures themselves say that the old covenant would become null and void. They also look forward to a time when God would make a new covenant with his people. The writer summarizes: "By calling this covenant 'new,' he [God] has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear" (8:13).

### Moses and Jesus

Throughout the epistle, the Hebrew believers are admonished to look to Jesus as the center of their faith. The writer summarizes this claim by saying:

#### The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man (8:1).

The writer goes out of his way to show that Jesus is superior to anything offered in the old covenant. Moses — and the law system inaugurated through him — needed to be put into perspective because both were so highly venerated in classical Judaism. William Barclay wrote in the Daily Study Bible Series commentary on Hebrews that:

#### To the Jew it would have been impossible to conceive that anyone ever stood closer to God than Moses did, and yet that is precisely what the writer of Hebrews sets out to prove. (page 29)

Hebrews tells us: "Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself" (3:3). Moses represents the old covenant. To place Christ above Moses, then, is another way of saying that the new covenant supersedes and has better promises than the old covenant.

The entire New Testament attests to this fact. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul expounds this point: "He [God] has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant — not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (3:6).

Hebrews is telling Christians to look to Jesus and the new covenant and not to Moses and the old covenant as the authority for faith and religious practice. The writer insists that Jesus is the true High Priest, rather than the Levitical priests.

He also makes the point that the worship components of the law were only shadows and copies of spiritual truths (8:1-5; 10:1). The old covenant laws given through Moses regarding temple rituals and the priesthood have only metaphorical value for Christians in that they point to the fully delivered faith through Jesus Christ.

Having said this about the theme of Hebrews in general, let us now turn to the specific context of Hebrews 4:9-11.

### Wilderness experience

Hebrews 3 and 4 speak of something vital that Christians share—the "heavenly calling" we have in Christ (3:1). In these verses we learn what the "rest" of Genesis 2:2-3 pictures to Christians. The subject at hand in these verses begins to be addressed under the word "today" in Hebrews 3:7, when the writer quotes Psalm 95:7-11:

#### Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, "Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways." So I declared an oath in my anger, "They shall never enter my rest."

Psalm 95 refers to the wilderness story as told in Exodus 17:1-7 and Numbers 20:1-13. This psalm is used liturgically by Jews to inaugurate the Friday evening service of prayer. It may have been sung during the days of the early church as part of the temple service, before the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70.

There are several things we should notice about this passage. The author focuses on the introductory word of the quotation, "today," and the phrase in which it is found. He repeats the word "today" five times (3:7, 13, 15; twice in 4:7) and the phrase, "Today, if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts" three times (3:7, 15; 4:7). The phrase with its opening word "today" is significant for the writer in that it allows him to apply the promise of "rest" found in the Scripture to his readers. William Lane discusses this point in the Word Biblical Commentary on Hebrews:

#### "Today" provided the writer with a catchword for bringing the biblical statement before his hearers sharply. "Today" is no longer the today of the past, surveyed by the psalmist in his situation, but the today of the present, which continues to be conditioned by the voice of God that speaks day after day through the Scriptures and in the gospel tradition. (page 87)

Lane makes the point that Psalm 95 "was a prophetic announcement that God was determining a future date for making his rest available" (page 100). The writer of Hebrews insists that the prophecy is being fulfilled in his day, in the church—and his readers need to heed its call. He wants his readers to make a connection between themselves and the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness. The author emphasizes a key concept: The Old Testament promise that God's people would enter into "rest" is being fulfilled in the church and through Christ.

He begins by discussing God's "rest" in terms of the promise of God to bring the rescued Israelites into the Promised Land. But as we know, and as the Scripture points out, the first generation of freed Israelites did not enter God's "rest," but they died in the wilderness (Numbers 14:26-35). The Israelites Moses led out of Egypt did not enter into God's "rest." The author wants his Christian readers to focus on the meaning of this tragedy. They are not to turn away from the living God (3:12) or be "hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (3:13). Rather, they are to "hold firmly till the end" their first confidence (3:14) so that they may enter into God's "rest."

The writer summarizes his admonition by saying, "Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it" (4:1). The readers of Hebrews are encouraged to keep up their faith and hope in Christ. Otherwise, as the unbelieving Israelites in Moses' day lost their opportunity to enter the rest in Canaan, the believers may forfeit the greater blessings of the "rest" in the new era.

### From the beginning

The author of Hebrews then turns to a discussion of God's "rest" from another point of view. He says that this "rest" has been available to humanity since the beginning: "His [God's] work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: 'And on the seventh day God rested from all his work'" (4:3-4).

The "somewhere" is Genesis 2:2. When Hebrews was written, the Scriptures were on scrolls. It was difficult to look up specific passages, so writers often quoted passages from memory. But here is our familiar Scripture, and the one we sought to understand in terms of its meaning for Christians. We can understand the "rest" described in Genesis 2:2-3 as the archetype of all later experiences of rest—including the various rest commands given at Sinai, the physical rest Israel received from its enemies under Joshua (a type of Christ), and the promised future rest of the kingdom of God.

The Genesis "rest" of God, applied to God's creative purpose in Genesis 2:2, can be seen to typify the spiritual salvation of the people of God. That means the weekly Sabbath rest (along with the other rest commands in the Law of Moses) is a lesser expression—a shadow—of the true "rest" symbolically inaugurated at the seventh day of creation. This makes the weekly Sabbath a metaphor of the Genesis "rest" of God, as was the Canaan rest.

The idea of the Genesis rest is that, beginning with the seventh day of creation, God ceased creating. He continues in a state of nonwork in that he is not creating more _physical_ things. However, this doesn't mean God has been idle. Leon Morris points this out in the _Expositor's Bible Commentary_ on Hebrews:

#### It is worth noticing that in the creation story each of the first six days is marked by the refrain "And there was evening, and there was morning." However, this is lacking in the account of the seventh day. There we simply read that God rested from all his work. This does not mean that God entered a state of idleness, for there is a sense in which he is continually at work (John 5:17). But the completion of creation marks the end of a magnificent whole.... So we should think of the rest as something like the satisfaction that comes from accomplishment, from the completion of a task, from the exercise of creativity. (page 41)

F.F. Bruce also explained what this means in the volume on Hebrews in The New International Commentary on the New Testament:

#### When we read that God "rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done" (Gen. 2:2), we are to understand that he _began_ to rest then; the fact that he is never said to have completed his rest and resumed his work of creation implies that his rest continues still, and may be shared by those who respond to his overtures with faith and obedience. (page 106)

Thus, God's "rest" has been available from the time the creation was finished—from the foundation of the world. Even though it has been available, few people entered into it before Jesus' death and resurrection. The offer of entering this "rest" still stands. The writer of Hebrews makes this point by saying: "It still remains that some will enter that rest" (4:6). Whatever this "rest" is, the writer is emphasizing that it is—at the time of writing—a promise his readers can take advantage of. In fact, they _must_ take advantage of it, and not fail to achieve the "rest" because of disobedience (4:11).

### Joshua's "rest"

The author of Hebrews must have realized as he wrote that, on the surface, there had been an apparent large-scale exception to his claim that no people had ever entered a "rest" of God. After all, the second generation of Israelites who were saved from Egypt did enter the Promised Land under Joshua. We read that under Joshua "the Lord had given Israel rest from all their enemies around them" (Joshua 23:1). But the writer of Hebrews quickly points out that this is not the kind of "rest" he has in mind, or one that constituted God's ultimate objective—the "rest" promised to Christians.

Hundreds of years after Joshua led the Israelites into the rest of the Promised Land, the Psalmist urged people to enter a divine rest, and later still, the author of Hebrews was insisting that there is a "rest" its readers must yet enter into. There is more to the "rest" than mere entry into Canaan. Hebrews tells us: "For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God" (4:8-9).

Israel had not secured the true "rest" after all. The writer can therefore exhort his readers to seek, obtain and hold on to this superior "rest" in Christ. This is the true "rest" to which Genesis 2:2-3, the literal Sabbath, the other festival rests, the wilderness experience, the Joshua rest, and the prophecy of Psalm 95 all looked forward to. He is interested in the redemptive and eternal rest in the kingdom of God, of which the weekly Sabbath and Canaan rests were symbols.

William Lane, in the Hebrews commentary in the Word Biblical Commentary, explains why the Joshua rest was but a type of the true "rest":

#### The settlement of Canaan did not mark the fulfillment of the divine promise but pointed to another, more fundamental reality. If in fact Joshua had achieved the promised rest, there would have been no need for the renewal of the promise in Ps 95. Accordingly, the experience of rest in Canaan was only a type or symbol of the complete rest that God intended for his people, which was prefigured in the Sabbath rest of God. (page 101)

We have now come from Genesis 2:2-3 to Hebrews 4:9-11, and we see something interesting. The author is not telling his readers to keep a weekly seventh-day Sabbath holy by resting on it. He is not talking about the weekly Sabbath at all. Rather, he is making the point that there is a _spiritual_ "rest" that God's people should be entering into. It is the heavenly counterpart of the earthly Canaan, and this is the goal of the people of God today—to achieve this present and eternal rest. The epistle of Hebrews makes this point by creating an analogy between the Israelites entering the Promised Land and Christians entering the better promise of a new-covenant spiritual "rest."

### A present "rest"?

The Promised Land was a physical type or foreshadowing of a spiritual "rest" that the Israelites had not yet entered. The weekly Sabbath was a temporal foreshadowing of the spiritual "rest" that God wants his people to enjoy. Christians have entered God's "rest" by their faith in Jesus Christ. "Now we who have believed enter [or, "are entering"] that rest," the writer insists (4:3). Christians have the real rest, the spiritual rest, and do not need to observe shadows of it, neither geographical shadows nor temporal shadows.

During his ministry, Jesus had promised a rest _for the spirit:_

#### Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29).

Leon Morris points out in _The Expositor's Bible Commentary_ that the word for "enter" in Hebrews 4:3 is in the present tense. The author of Hebrews was suggesting that his readers were already in the process of entering the "rest" of salvation that Jesus had promised. Some commentators agree that the Hebrews 4:3 "rest" into which Christians have entered begins _now,_ in this life. Leon Morris quotes Hugh Montefiore on this point:

#### Contrary to some commentators, the Greek means neither that they are certain to enter, nor that they will enter, but that they are already in process of entering. (page 40)

Morris points out that some other commentators feel that the "rest" is something that occurs in the future. The present tense used here, they insist, is meant to be applied only in a generalizing sense. Morris concludes by saying:

#### Either view is defensible and probably much depends on our idea of the "rest." If it lies beyond death, then obviously "rest" must be understood in terms of the future. But if it is a present reality, then believers are entering it now. (page 40)

### We enter now

The view we take here is that Christians have begun to enter their spiritual "rest" _now._ We _are_ receiving _some_ of the blessings of salvation, even though we do not yet enjoy them in their fullness. Peter says that Christ "has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). Paul says God "has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves" (Colossians 1:13). The author of Hebrews says that we are "the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven" (12:23).

It's a question of how we understand when the kingdom of God comes—now or in the future? The answer is both. The kingdom is already, but not yet. There is a sense that the kingdom is both present, and yet future in its full reality. Christians live in the tension between promise and fulfillment, between the already and the not yet, between the glimmer and the reality. (For more on this, see www.gci.org/gospel/kingdom.) Christians have entered the "rest," even if only in an imperfect and qualified way. The spiritual realities we already enjoy, although incomplete, are enough that we do not need to observe the physical symbols and rituals of the old covenant.

We have already been invited to enter God's end-of-creation, the Genesis 2:2-3 "rest," by believing in the Son of God. By faith, we have joined with him in his "rest." By faith, we have become new creations—created anew. Our re-creation is not yet complete, but we already have been given entrance, through Christ, into God's kingdom "rest."

The writer of Hebrews does not state how he views the time in which the "rest" takes place. His concern is with the spiritual reality, not the physical shadow. His concern seems to be with the present time—with _today._ He no doubt understands that the fullness of rest comes only with a future resurrection (10:37-38; 12:26). But his point of view in Hebrews 3 and 4 is the present time, the time for which he is writing. The writer is thinking of the salvation "rest" as beginning in the present.

No matter how the writer of Hebrews conceives of the future "rest" in the future, he is not concerned to discuss it in chapters 3 and 4. He is interested in his readers who are alive when he writes—and who need to take hold of the promise of spiritual "rest" in this age. F.F. Bruce agreed that the future rest is not in view here. He stated the following in his commentary on Hebrews:

#### The identification of the rest of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews with a coming millennium on earth has, indeed, been ably defended; but it involves the importation into the epistle of a concept which in fact is alien to it. (pages 106-107)

The writer of Hebrews is not so much concerned with the future as with the present spiritual state of his readers. In this passage, "tomorrow" is not in his view. That's why he stresses the word "today." It was the privilege of the readers to enter God's "rest" then—and it is our privilege to do so _now._ We are in "today," not some future time. The promise of entering God's "rest" remains valid for each generation—and is repeated to each successive generation—in the church age.

### We enter God's "rest"

Hebrews 4:9-11 is telling us we have entered into God's promised "rest," the one he inaugurated on the seventh day of creation. This is the writer's main theme. The epistle has already noted that God's "work has been finished since the creation of the world" (4:3). That is, the "rest" of salvation has been offered and promised to humanity since the foundation of the world. It was a work of creation, inaugurated with humanity and for humanity. Donald Guthrie writes the following on this point:

#### What believers can now enter is none other than the same kind of rest which the Creator enjoyed when he had completed his works, which means that the rest idea is of completion and not of inactivity.... It is important to note that the "rest" is not something new which has not been known in experience until Christ came. It has been available throughout the whole of man's history. This reference back to the creation places the idea on the broadest possible basis and would seem to suggest that it was part of God's intention for man. "Rest" is a quality which has eluded man's quest, and in fact cannot be attained except through Christ. ( _Hebrews,_ Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, page 113)

As long as we have faith in Christ—which is the main point of Hebrews—no matter what day of the week it is, we have entered God's "rest" and we are resting from our own work. "We who have believed enter that rest.... Anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his" (4:3, 10).

What does the author mean by "work"? He is not discussing the question of employment or labor. That is not his interest. (He has been encouraging his readers to enter the _spiritual_ "rest" of salvation throughout Hebrews 3 and 4.) The writer of Hebrews wants his readers to stop putting their faith in the things that humans do, such as the works of the old covenant—and to place their faith in Christ as Savior. He wants them to look to the _work of Christ,_ which gives forgiveness and empowerment through the Holy Spirit, allowing us to enter the true spiritual "rest."

In comparison to Christ, the writer has a lower view of the "works" of the Law of Moses. He says of the Law in general and the Levitical priesthood as a whole:

#### The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced by which we draw near to God (7:18-19).

Hebrews seems to be suggesting that the readers should rest from the ceremonial "work" required under the Mosaic Law. Their "work" in such things as offering sacrifices could not save nor endear them to God. They were saved by grace through faith in Christ, and were endeared to God by that same grace.

### The weekly Sabbath?

The Christians to whom Hebrews was written were already attracted to Judaistic practices. This epistle was written to show the church why Judaistic practices were not necessary for Christians. The readers were already attracted to the Sabbath day and would not need any admonishment to rest on this day.1 The _Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary_ understands this:

#### Certainly, in writing to Jews, the author of Hebrews would not consider it necessary to prove to _them_ that Sabbathkeeping "remaineth." If the conclusion of the extended argument beginning with ch. 3:7 is that Sabbathkeeping remains for the people of God, it would seem that the writer of Hebrews is guilty of a _non sequitur,_ for the conclusion does not follow logically from the argument. There would have been no point in so labored an effort to persuade the Jews to do what they were already doing—observing the seventh-day Sabbath.... What relationship a protracted argument designed to prove that Sabbath observance remains an obligation to the Christian church might have to the declared theme of chs. 3 and 4—the ministry of Christ as our great High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary—is obscure indeed. (page 423)

The writer of Hebrews is interested in the spiritual or heavenly meaning of such things as the Sabbath and animal sacrifices, not their literal observances, which are shadows of the true "rest" and sacrifice for sin. The Israelites who had been given the Sabbath (the generation that left Egypt) failed to enter God's "rest." So did the Jews who strictly kept the Sabbath day when Hebrews was written. Keeping the Sabbath does not automatically bring someone to God. Why, then, would the writer of Hebrews insist on it? The literal seventh-day Sabbath is not in his view at all.

The book of Hebrews, considered as a whole, tells us that the _practices_ of the Mosaic Law are obsolete (7:11-12, 18-19). This would refer to the _works_ or observances of the Law (of which the Sabbath is one example), as opposed to its great moral principles. These are eternal principles that define our relationship with God and fellow human beings. They existed before the old covenant, were imbedded into that covenant, and even after the new covenant brought the old one to an end, remain as fundamental principles.

The new covenant theme of Hebrews suggests—though it doesn't directly make an issue of this—that the weekly Sabbath day as described in the old covenant has been superseded by a better promise. In particular, Hebrews 4:9-11 tells us that the various allusions of "rest" in the Old Testament, including Genesis 2:2-3 and the weekly Sabbath, picture a spiritual reality to Christians—the eternal rest of God. But that is all Hebrews tells us. It does not address the issue of whether the weekly Sabbath should be kept. This is not the author's interest.

### In conclusion

Let us now survey the biblical motif of "rest." God had given Israel physical rest in the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, just as Adam and Eve would have had physical "rest" in the Garden of Eden. But the first humans, like all others after them, sinned. Adam and Eve and their descendants were cursed because of sin and lost their "rest." When Christ brought the solution for sin, he also brought spiritual "rest."

As part of its covenantal law, God gave Israel various rest days and years to commemorate their having achieved physical blessings (the "rest") in the Lord (Deuteronomy 5:15). The rest days (especially the weekly Sabbath) commemorated this, and the writer saw it as a representation of God's original purpose at the creation. The writer included the statement about the symbolic meaning of the Sabbath (that is, about God's "rest"—Exodus 20:11) in his description of the creation in Genesis 2:2-3. This was a prophetical statement of God's purpose of providing physical bounty to his human creatures, now fulfilled in Israel.

What the writer of Genesis did not clearly see, since he lived under the old covenant, is that God's real purpose was to provide humanity with another "rest"—a true eternal rest—God's purpose in creating humanity in the first place. This more fundamental purpose was fulfilled in Christ, and could be understood only after he had completed his redemptive work. Christ is the true Sabbath rest of Genesis 2:2-3—promised to us from the beginning (Matthew 25:34; Ephesians 1:4-6; Hebrews 4:3; Revelation 13:8). This is how the author of Hebrews understands that "rest."

Thanks be to God that through his love he gave us his Son, allowing us in his mercy to begin to enter into his eternal rest.

### Two Greek words for "rest"

We should briefly take up the issue of the Greek words for "rest" used in Hebrews 4:9-10. We quote here the verses in question and show the two Greek words being used: "There remains...a Sabbath-rest [ _sabbatismos_ ] for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest [ _katapausin_ ] also rests from his own work" (4:9-10).

The Greek word _katapausin_ is used to denote "rest" throughout Hebrews 3:7-4:11. There is one exception, in 4:9, as shown above. Here, _sabbatismos_ is used, and it is translated "Sabbath-rest" in the New International Version. The word is formed from the verb _sabbatizo,_ which means to "keep/observe/celebrate the Sabbath."2

The only time that _sabbatismos_ is used in the Bible is in Hebrews 4:9. The word is not found in ancient Greek literature until well after the time when Hebrews was written. Some decades later, _sabbatismos_ is found in Plutarch as part of a list of superstitious practices. In his work, the word signifies weekly Sabbath observance. In later Christian documents, _sabbatismos_ sometimes indicates the celebration or festivity associated with the Sabbath day.

With this in mind, William Lane translates Hebrews 4:9 as: "There remains a Sabbath celebration for the people of God." He points out that the use of _sabbatismos_ is meant to "define more precisely the character of the future rest promised to the people of God" ( _Hebrews,_ Word Biblical Commentary, volume 47A, page 101). The word conveyed something about the promised spiritual rest that _katapausin_ would not have done—"the special aspect of festivity and joy, expressed in the adoration and praise of God" for his wonderful grace (page 102).

On one level, the writer of Hebrews seems to have used the two Greek words interchangeably. In 4:9, he says that a promised Sabbath-rest ( _sabbatismos_ ) remains for the people of God to enter into, and this same rest is called God's _katapausin_ "rest." Some scholars suggest that the writer of Hebrews coined the word. He wanted to differentiate between the ultimate spiritual "rest" and the Promised Land rest into which Israel went. If so, the author may also have been making the same difference between the true spiritual "rest" and the weekly Sabbath rest. That is, the Sabbath day is a metaphor of the true rest in the same way that the Israelites entering the Promised Land under Joshua was also a metaphor for spiritual rest. One was a time-based metaphor; the other a geographical one.

Since the seventh-day Sabbath is simply a symbol of the true spiritual rest, the writer would have no logical reason to stress the keeping of the weekly Sabbath. Like the Promised Land, the Sabbath day was a shadow that prefigured the coming reality—the spiritual "rest" of the Christian in Christ.

To summarize: The spiritual rest of salvation into which God's people are entering is a _sabbatismos—_ a "sabbath keeping"—in the sense that it is a participation in God's own "rest," which we enter by faith (4:3). "Anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his" (4:10). That is to say, the _sabbatismos_ rest of God described in Hebrews 4:9 refers to the salvation "rest" into which all Christians have entered. As mentioned earlier, the culmination of this rest does not occur until the resurrection. But, upon conversion, we have begun the journey.

The weekly Old Testament Sabbath points to the _blessing and joy_ of the spiritual "rest" Christians have in Christ. This may be why the author of Hebrews coined the word _sabbatismos_ —making a play off the word for the Sabbath day ( _sabbaton_ ). That is, _sabbatismos_ stressed the joy, the celebration, the peace, the jubilation of the _spiritual_ "rest" Christians enjoy. (We've put "rest" in quotes here because it does not mean inactivity.)

Hebrews is not clear as to the writer's attitude toward the weekly Sabbath day. Perhaps he wanted his readers, who were attracted to old covenant customs, to understand the Sabbath's true meaning in the light of the Christ event, but without making an issue of whether it needs to be kept. This would be in line with the spirit of Romans 14, in which the apostle Paul avoided making one's view of "sacred days" a test or issue of faith or fellowship.

The Sabbath is meaningful on its own terms, just as the Festival of Tabernacles or the Passover sacrifice is. The Sabbath stands as a metaphor of the whole purpose and meaning of redemption, as do the sacrifices and other old covenant, Mosaic institutions. They foreshadowed the true spiritual "rest" we have in Christ, which includes a "resting" in forgiveness of sin and "resting" from sin itself through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

But Hebrews 4:9 issues no command about keeping or not keeping the Sabbath. The book as a whole makes the point that _all_ the old covenant institutions are obsolete now that the reality has come in Christ. The verse in question cannot be used as a proof-text to insist that Christians keep a weekly seventh-day Sabbath rest. The passage does not exhort us to keep an old covenant Sabbath, but it admonishes us to enter the spiritual "rest" of God by having faith in Christ.

### Endnotes

1 One old commentary, the _Critical, Experimental and Practical Commentary_ by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (published in 1864), became confused on this issue and came (we feel) to a wrong conclusion:

#### It is Jesus, the antitype of Joshua, who leads us into the heavenly rest. This verse [4:9] indirectly establishes the obligation of the Sabbath; for the type continues until the antitype supersedes it: so legal sacrifices continued till the great antitypical sacrifice superseded it. As then the antitypical Sabbath rest will not be till Christ comes to usher us into it, the typical earthly Sabbath must continue till then. (page 537)

The authors, influenced by the Puritans, were thinking of a Sunday Sabbath, and reading their own opinions into the text. The principle they enunciate is erroneous. The type does _not_ continue until the antitype supersedes it. Various Old Testament rituals pictured purity and holiness, and even though we do not yet see complete purity and holiness in the church, the rituals are obsolete. More correctly, types continue only as long as God says they do, and God has declared the old covenant obsolete. It has served its purpose, even though God's plan is not yet complete.

Moreover, true spiritual rest is found through faith in Christ, and Christ has already come. The antitype has arrived. Christ has already led us into the heavenly rest, just as he is already our sacrifice for sin. We have come to Christ and he has given us rest—seated us in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6). This argues against the commentary's claim that the literal Sabbath is in force. The antitypical salvation rest has already been ushered in, even though incompletely. The shadow (the literal Sabbath) is no longer required.

2 _The Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament,_ volume 3, page 219, edited by Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, gives the following explanation of _sabbatismos:_

#### 1. The NT offers in Hebrews 4:9 the oldest documentation of the noun _sabbatismos,_ which occurs several times in post-NT early Christian writings independently of Hebrews 4:9 (e.g., Justin _Dial._ 23:3; Origen _Orat._ 27:16; Epiphanius _Haer._ xxx.2.2; lxvi 85:9; _Acts (Martyrdom) of Peter and Paul_ 1; _Apostolic Constitutions_ ii.36.2; pseudo-Macarius (Symeon) _Homily_ 12.2.4.... At present, _sabbatismos_ has been documented in non-Christian writings only in Plutarch _Superst._ 3 ( _Moralia_ 166a).

#### The noun is derived from the verb _sabbatizo,_ which in the LXX [Septuagint] appears as the translation of Hebrew _sabbat._ The vb. means: a) "celebrate/observe the sabbath" (Exod 16:30; Lev 23:32; 2 Macc 6:6; so also Ign. _Magn._ 9:1; Pap. Oxy. 1,1.2; Justin _Dial._ 10:1 and _passim_ ), b) "observe (sabbath) rest" (Lev 26:34f.; 2 Chr 36:21; 1 Esdr 1:55).

#### Accordingly, the substantive means _sabbath observance_ (thus in the non-NT passages mentioned) and _sabbath rest_ (thus the understanding of _sabbatismos_ in Heb 4:9 by Origen _Cels._ v.59; _Selecta in Exod_ on 16:23 [ _PG_ XII, 289b]).

#### 2. In Heb 4:9 _sabbatismos_ encompasses both _sabbath rest_ and (cultic) _sabbath observance._ The word is neither identical in meaning nor interchangeable with _katapausis_ (3:11, 19; 4:1, 3, 5, 10f); it designates more closely what the people of God should expect when they enter the _katapausis_ of God (cf. 4:9 with v.6a). Just as God rested on the seventh day of creation from all his works, so also will believers find the eternal sabbath rest on the day of the completion of salvation in God's "place of rest" (see 4:10). Quietistic or mystic elements have nothing to do with this expectation. The statement in Heb 4:9f. remains dependent on a Jewish sabbath theology that associates the idea of sabbath rest with ideas of worship and praise of God ( _Jub._ 2:21; 50:9; _Bib. Ant._ 11:8; 2 Macc 8:27; cf. also _1 Enoch_ 41:7). Accordingly, the author of Hebrews understands by _sabbatismos_ the eternal sabbath celebration of salvation, i.e., the perfected community's worship before God's throne.

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## Is There a "Sabbath Principle" for Christians to Keep?

The old covenant Sabbath rest regulation does not apply to Christians. It was part of Israel's Mosaic Law that had governed the old covenant relationship with God. With the completion of Jesus' redemptive work and the beginning of the church, the new covenant came into force. The old covenant religious regulations found in the Law of Moses became obsolete, and Christians now follow the "law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21). The standard of godly conduct and the principles that should guide a person's life are expounded in the New Testament.

This new covenant teaching for Christians superseded the old covenant teaching for Israel. Nowhere in the New Testament Scriptures to the church was it commanded that Christians must keep the religious regulations given to Israel such as circumcision, temple worship, offering sacrifices, keeping weekly or annual holy days, tithing on farming and husbandry increases, engaging in purification rites, following special food laws, and other similar practices.

The old covenant institutions have symbolic value for us. Here are a few examples. The book of Hebrews tells us that Moses was a type of Christ. The Law points to Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Its essential principles, that we are to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40), is now embodied in the "law of Christ," as it is expressed through the Spirit. The physical sacrifices point to the one sacrifice of Jesus, both for sin and as a sweet aroma to God of our own total sacrifice of ourselves to him. The temple is now the people of God in whom he dwells through the Holy Spirit. This reality was foreshadowed by the presence of Yahweh in the physical temple in Jerusalem. Jesus is our High Priest, our Passover and our Tabernacle. And so on.

Jesus himself is our Sabbath, in whom we can rest – in freedom from sin and in the assurance of eternal life, as guaranteed by his own resurrection. We have entered by faith into the ultimate rest, which will blossom into its fullness at Jesus' return. This was prefigured by the weekly Sabbath under the old covenant. All the various "rests" of the Mosaic Law—the weekly Sabbath, the annual festival rests, the land year rests and the Jubilee Year freedom rest — all prefigure the ultimate rest we now have in Christ.

But is there a different kind of "Sabbath principle" still in force, one that teaches us that it is good and pleasing in God's eyes for us to physically rest on the seventh day of the week? Some have come to this conclusion. The reason and reasoning for such an idea is the following.

Some, while still believing that the Sabbath rest should be kept, have come to realize that the New Testament does _not_ teach that Christians must keep this weekly day. It has also become clear to them that to insist that Christians must keep the Sabbath simply because it is mentioned in the Law of Moses is to use faulty reasoning.

However, these people still believe that there must be something special about the Sabbath rest. It is sometimes expressed in the phrase "the Sabbath principle for Christians." Some of the arguments for such a principle take the following forms: As people of God, we need to have time to commune with God, free from the distractions of everyday life, especially that of earning a living. According to this view, it is generally recognized that humans benefit from a time of rest from work, and this is evidenced in such human institutions as the five-day work week. While we should not keep the weekly Sabbath in a legalistic manner or base our arguments on Mosaic laws, they say, the _principle_ of a physical Sabbath continues.

Let's look at these arguments. Almost no one would deny the physical and spiritual benefits of having a weekly day or days off from work. Many in the generation of Israelites who came out of slavery and endless toil would have been elated to have a day off each week.

Whether this exuberance for such "time off" continued or was universally accepted by the Israelites is doubtful. The fact that Israel had to be _commanded_ on pain of death to not engage in labor on the Sabbath implies that such supposed "benefit of rest" was not appreciated, or even wanted in some cases. The history of Sabbath-breaking by Israel underscores this point. The idea of physically resting on a special day of the week is _not_ a self-evident principle intrinsic to or indelibly stamped on the human psyche.

Nowhere in the old covenant Sabbath commands is the supposed benefit of rest as such, either for physical or spiritual reasons, extolled as a reason for making the seventh day of the week (and several days during the year) a day of rest. The reasons given to Israel for the Sabbath were different: so the nation would remember that Yahweh was the one true Creator God (Exodus 20:11) and that he had rescued the people from Egyptian slavery because he was faithful to the promises he had given (Deuteronomy 5:15). Thus, the Sabbath was a "sign" of the covenant between God and Israel (Exodus 31:12-13).

It is not a sign between God and Christians. Jesus himself has become Our Sign through the indwelling Holy Spirit (Isaiah 7:14; Luke 2:12). The evidence of our relationship with God is faith in Christ, not in which day we set aside.

The argument about a "Sabbath principle" is not advanced solely on the idea that physical rest is good. It is also said that such rest from our normal work and daily activities allows us to commune with God and develop a relationship with him. Thus, the argument is advanced, a Sabbath rest is pleasing to God, and something that Christians should joyfully want to keep. On this basis, it is argued, the "Sabbath principle" is intrinsically good and pleasing to God.

No one would deny that we should take time to commune with God. It is good to leave the distractions of daily life to deepen our relationship with God through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Bible study, fasting and meditation. If a person uses Saturday for such communion with God, that is fine.

However, there is no New Testament teaching that Friday sunset to Saturday sunset is a special time to do such communing with God. It is one thing to take "time out" for special communing with God—whenever this is possible, convenient or necessary to do so. It can be done for a portion of every day or any day. It can be done all day on any day of the week, during a weekend retreat or during some other period of time. But we cannot imply that it is holier or better to keep one particular time.

In the early centuries of Christianity, and into the Middle Ages, individuals sometimes left society so they could commune with God in what they felt was a more complete way. Some went into the wilderness and established monasteries far from human civilization. Others walled themselves up in rooms for weeks, months, years or even a lifetime, receiving only food and water so that they could fulfill their desire to live in communion with God without the distractions of human life. Such practices stemmed from the individuals' perceived needs for spiritual contemplation. But it could not be demonstrated that Scripture directly stated or through principle implied that such communing activities were expressions of a principle that applied to all human beings.

Similarly, Scripture does not teach that Christians must use the seventh day of the week (or that this day is the best one to use) to commune with God or to gather for worship.

If a person rests on each Sabbath because this day is thought to be special and God-ordained, then one is essentially keeping the letter of the Mosaic Law, which commanded Israel to rest on this day. One can invent a different reason for such a rest, or claim to base it on higher spiritual considerations. But to claim that a certain 24-hour period has _special_ significance for Christians is to claim that such a time is "holy time." This is simply a restatement of the Mosaic command to keep the Sabbath holy.

People who want to keep the Sabbath rest can do so as strictly as they desire. However, they should not cause division by teaching, contrary to church doctrine, that others should do so. Sabbath-keepers are as welcome in our fellowship as non-Sabbath-keepers, but they are not to advocate Sabbatarian _doctrine._

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## Is Leviticus 23:3 a Command to Have Worship Services  
on the Weekly Sabbath?

We read the following command from Jesus in Luke 5:14, when he healed someone: "Show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them." If one assumed that Jesus' teaching applied to all people at all times, it could be claimed that this passage is "proof" telling Christians they must offer the proper Mosaic sacrifice and appear before a Jewish priest.

However, we know that Luke 5:14 is _not_ a command for us to offer sacrifices. How do we know this? It is because the total witness of the New Testament makes it clear that such sacrifices applied only to Israelites and Jews under the Mosaic old covenant.

This illustrates the folly of isolating a verse from its context. We need to examine both the verse in question and the larger context of the Bible. We must not start with advance assumptions.

Let us look at whether Christians must attend "holy convocations" on the Sabbath. If we are to understand what Leviticus 23:3 might mean in its context, we have to know something about the manner of communal worship in Israel under the old covenant. The national corporate worship had to occur in the place that God designated as a central worship site. Originally, this was at the Tabernacle, and after Solomon's time, at the Temple in Jerusalem.

We can see an explicit instruction about the place to worship in Deuteronomy: "You are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go..." (12:4). See also verses 11, 14, 17-18, and 26. This command to worship only at a designated location is also seen in Deuteronomy 16, which lists the annual festivals. See verses 5, 7, 11, and 16, among others.

The reasons for this were numerous. One consideration was that Israel should not alter the worship format and purpose that God had given the nation; otherwise they would easily lapse into worship that was directed to pagan deities. We can see how this happened in the wilderness when Moses left the people to receive the stone tablets (Exodus 32), and when Israel broke politically from Judah and set up its own religious system, including new worship formats, places and times (1 Kings 12:25-33).

### What made Sabbath "holy"

The essence of Sabbath-keeping was physical rest. In Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15, the Sabbath command specifies rest from labor as the way to keep the day "holy." There is no mention of going to a worship service each Sabbath. Other passages in the Old Testament also define the Sabbath by _rest,_ not by attendance at worship services. See Exodus 31:12-17, Numbers 15:32, Nehemiah 13:15-22 and Jeremiah 17:19-27. The latter two passages, though they refer to Jerusalem, do not mention anything about failure to attend worship services or "sacred assemblies," but only work on the Sabbath as a desecration of this day.

An interesting study is to look up the word "Sabbath" in a concordance, find all the Old Testament references and then read those passages to see how this day was kept "holy." The conclusion will be that rest from labor is what made the Sabbath sacred time, not attendance at a worship service. Most Israelites lived too far from the tabernacle to attend a worship service every Sabbath – and there is no evidence in the Old Testament that they did. And the law did not allow them to assemble anywhere else for worship. Nor do we find commands even for people near the Tabernacle that they had to gather for worship. The Sabbath was kept at home, by resting.

There is no mention in Old Testament passages that attending a worship service on the Sabbath is a way of keeping this day holy. The way the Sabbath was sanctified, made holy or set apart as sacred was through physical rest from labor. All the Old Testament references to Sabbath observance in Israel speak to this point. There is no Old Testament theology of weekly Sabbath holiness that centers around attendance at "holy convocations."

It would be strange, then, to have one phrase in Leviticus 23:3 refer to a weekly worship service commanded for all Israel, and then claim that this was just as important as resting as a way to keep the Sabbath. It would be a mistake to assume such a teaching from a single and vague phrase in one verse when the entire witness of the Old Testament does not mention worship service attendance in conjunction with the Sabbath.

There is no indication in Scripture of Israelites going to worship services of one kind or another in their local towns and villages. They could travel to worship services at the Tabernacle only for the annual festivals.

### Synagogue system

One might point to the New Testament and say, "But Jesus and Paul attended the synagogue on the Sabbath. Doesn't this indicate that worship services were an essential part of God's command to keep the Sabbath holy?"

So far as we know from Scripture or Jewish history, there was no national system of Sabbath-day worship sites or places of communal instruction throughout Israel's history in the Promised Land up to the captivity of Judah in the 530s B.C. and the return of a remnant to Judea a few decades years later. There were no synagogues before the exile; there were no local meeting places in Israel before the exile, because there was no command for weekly meetings.

The synagogue system allowed Jews to meet together in local towns and villages for prayer, the reading of the Holy Scriptures and for fellowship. The synagogue became a miniature sanctuary to replace the loss of the Jerusalem Temple. We do not know when the synagogue system originated. Neither the Old or New Testaments provide any information about this development. It is generally believed that the synagogue system developed when worship at the Temple in Jerusalem became impossible and when Jews were dispersed into other nations.

Jews added the synagogue worship system, not based on biblical command, but on a sociological need, due to the loss of the Temple and the scattering of the people far away from the Promised Land. Nowhere in the Old Testament will you find a command to have local worship sites.

There wasn't anything necessarily wrong with the Jews setting up synagogues. They became an important center of fellowship and instruction in the Jewish faith. The New Testament does not condemn the practice; it is taken for granted. It is nowhere commanded.

Regarding the day on which Jews had their worship service, it's natural that it should occur on the Sabbath. The people worked the other six days and the Sabbath was a good time for them to meet. But there is no biblical command to set up local worship sites and to make the weekly Sabbath "holy convocations." The Old Testament does not indicate that the Sabbath is kept holy through a meeting. Rather, it was kept as holy through rest.

### Leviticus 23:3

Let us look at Leviticus 23:3 directly: "There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of _rest,_ a day of sacred assembly. You are _not to do any work;_ wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord." The verse emphasizes _rest_.

Since the passage is about resting and not working, it seems that the expression " _day_ of sacred assembly" is a parallel to "Sabbath to the Lord" and refers not so much to official communal worship on the Sabbath but to the _day_ itself as being a "sacred assembly."

The phrase "day of sacred assembly" can be understood as a "sacred day of celebration" or a "sacred occasion," as well as a "sacred assembly" or convocation. The weekly Sabbath, as well as the annual festivals, were occasions to worship and praise God for the abundance of his physical blessings and for saving Israel from bondage in Egypt. But this worship and praise could be given to God in the Israelites' participation in rest itself (thus experiencing the blessings of Yahweh through rest), as well as in contemplation and conversation _at home._

By resting from their labor and self-interests on the weekly Sabbath, the Israelites were presenting themselves before God through rest. Resting was a way of being in the presence of God and fulfilling his sacred purpose. The only people who were commanded to come to the Temple for worship were the Levites and priests. On behalf of the entire nation, they performed the prescribed ceremonies. There was no command for people to watch them, or for them to teach the people. It was simply not possible for very many people to be there.

The concept of "rest" is important in Scripture, and it has a deep spiritual meaning for Christians. As Christians, we understand that our rest is in Christ, who is our Sabbath. When we rest spiritually in Christ, we present ourselves as the people of God before his presence in continuous sacred assembly. We are _always_ the church, in his presence every day of the week, not just one.

In conclusion, for most Israelites, the Sabbath was a day to rest at home, not a day to travel long distances and attend a worship service. The annual harvest festivals were the time for Israelites to enjoy communal worship and fellowship. Here is what the _Expositor's Bible Commentary_ (volume 2, page 623) says about Leviticus 23:3:

#### There is an emphasis here that the Israelite rested at home. There were special offerings given in the tabernacle (e.g., a double burnt offering), but the ordinary Israelite and his whole family rested. Presumably here was an opportunity for family worship and instruction in the law of God, but this is not specifically enjoined. What a boon a weekly rest must have been to the ancient laborer and farmer in his weary round of toil!

As did the Jews in their synagogue system, Christians find that regular fellowship and communal instruction is an important foundation of their religious life. As Christians, we are free to meet together at any time of the day, any day of the week, and any season of the year. We are not limited to meeting on just one day, since no day has been specifically set aside by God for Christian fellowship and worship. We are always in the presence of God and worship him continually because he and Christ reside in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. At the same time, we can gather weekly and seasonally in small groups or in larger communal situations to praise God, to recall Christ's work of salvation and to fellowship in the Spirit.

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## Does Mark 2:27-28 Command Christians  
to Observe the Weekly Sabbath?

Let us begin by quoting Mark 2:27-28. Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

Sabbatarians generally make the following assumptions about this verse. They believe Jesus was commanding all people in all ages to observe the weekly Sabbath as "holy time." They reason that the Sabbath law could be changed or eliminated only if Jesus had specifically stated here that it was abrogated. But, Sabbatarians claim, Jesus by his word and actions in Mark 2:27-28 was implying that the Sabbath must be observed by all human beings. Therefore, they conclude that this passage in Mark is, in effect, a command to observe the Sabbath.

Is that what Mark 2:27-28 tells us? Let's look at the context of Mark 2 to see what Jesus' purpose was in saying what he did in verses 27 and 28. One Sabbath, Jesus and the disciples were picking heads of grain (verse 23). Jesus' action and that of his disciples was challenged by the Pharisees. "Why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" they demanded to know (verse 24). The Pharisees had set themselves up as religious authorities, defining what could or could not be done on the Sabbath.

Disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. Illustration by Gustave Dore.  
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### A question of how, not who

What the Pharisees objected to was Jesus and his disciples picking the heads of grain on the Sabbath. They regarded this as reaping. It was one of the many acts the teachers of the law had decided should be forbidden on the Sabbath. The people challenging Jesus in Mark 2 would all have rightly assumed that the Law of Moses commanded _them_ to keep the Sabbath. As the old covenant people of God, they were obligated to observe it. The question for these people was _how_ to keep it.

To answer this question, Jesus countered their challenge with a question, and an example of his own about David and his companions. He pointed out that on one occasion, because they were hungry, David and his companions ate the consecrated bread, which was unlawful for anyone but priests to eat (verses 25-26). Jesus was pointing out that while David technically broke the Law of Moses, he was not condemned, because such violations under certain conditions of need might be warranted. Jesus applied this principle to what he and the disciples were doing when they were picking the heads of grain on the Sabbath.

Jesus' point was that although the action of David was contrary to the Law of Moses, he was not condemned for it. The issue in this passage, then, is how to interpret the Mosaic Law, and who has the authority to do so. Nothing is said about which group of people, or whether everyone, is commanded to keep the Sabbath.

To drive home this explanation regarding the purpose of the weekly rest day, Jesus said to the Pharisees: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." What was his point? It was _not_ whether Christians – or everyone – or a limited group – must observe the old covenant Sabbath. That doesn't come up at all in the conversation.

Jesus was talking to Jews under the old covenant. Jesus was a Jew, born under the Law (Galatians 4:4). Jesus kept the old covenant worship regulations.

The issue was how should the Sabbath law be interpreted and observed by those people, the Jews, to whom it applied. The Jewish teachers of the law, at least many of them, had made the Sabbath a burden for the people. Jesus was pointing out that human needs sometimes supersede legal requirements. His statement has no application to the question of whether Christians should or should not keep the Sabbath. The question was, "How should those who are _required_ to keep the Sabbath (the Jews under the old covenant) do so?"

### Made for human need

Jesus was saying that the Sabbath, under the old covenant, was meant to serve human needs, not the other way around, thus the use of the expression that the "Sabbath was made for man." It was made _for human need_ in a certain context, under the old covenant worship system as defined by the Law of Moses, until the Seed, Christ, should come.

Israelites were to rest from their work because they needed a rest from their agricultural toil. Through that rest they could worship God as the provider of all their needs, and as the God who had saved them from slave-like toil in Egypt. The Sabbath regulation was not given to Israel simply because God wanted people to keep religious rituals. It had a purpose for all those human beings to whom it was given. But it was given _only_ to Israel under the old covenant.

Jews recognized that the Law of Moses, particularly its cultic observances such as weekly and annual Sabbaths, applied only to national Israel. Jewish rabbis understood that non-Jews did not need to keep the Law of Moses, including the Sabbath rest. This law was given to Israel alone, and only for as long as the old covenant was in force.

### Lord of the Sabbath

In his conversation with the Pharisees in Mark 2, Jesus added another thought: "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Why did Jesus say this? The issue was not about who should keep the Sabbath, but about who had authority or lordship in terms of deciding _how_ it should be kept in the old covenant era. In the conversations between Jesus and the Pharisees, the question of "who" should keep the Sabbath never came up. Everyone understood that the Jews under the old covenant Law were the ones who should keep it. The question was: For those who were required to keep the Sabbath, how should they keep it – and who had the authority to _determine_ how it should be kept?

The Pharisees, the religious leaders, had questioned Jesus' authority on the matter of his disciples' picking grain on the Sabbath. They had set themselves up above him on the issue of Sabbath interpretation. Yet, Jesus was the Word of God made flesh. Therefore, Jesus, God incarnate, had more authority than the Pharisees to decide how the Sabbath should be observed – again, under the circumstances where it was required. He was, after all, the Lord of the law that had commanded Sabbath observance for old covenant Israel.

Jesus' statement says nothing about who should or should not keep the Sabbath. Of course Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He is Lord of every command ever given by God – including all the 613 commands (by rabbinical count) of the Law of Moses. Jesus is also Lord of all time and all days of the week, including Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Jesus is, after all, _Lord_. But his being Lord of the Sabbath does not mean to say it is commanded for all people. The Lord of Israel was Lord of the law of circumcision, given as a sign to the children of Israel. But the fact that God was Lord of the circumcision law does not of itself imply that all human beings must keep it. In all cases, we have to know _which_ of the laws apply to new covenant Christians.

Let us ask what has been and has not been said about the Sabbath in Mark 2:27. Jesus was addressing the Sabbath issue in the context of speaking to the religious leaders of old covenant Israel and the interpreters of the Law of Moses in his day. He was telling them as old covenant people how they should apply the law of the Sabbath, that is, with mercy and thought to human need. He was telling them he had the authority to define how they should observe the Sabbath.

What isn't said here? The issue of whether Gentiles or Christians need to keep the Sabbath is not mentioned. Jesus is not commanding anyone to observe the Sabbath. That is not the question under debate in this verse. Therefore, we should not import this idea into this passage of Scripture. That is, we shouldn't first assume that Christians must observe the Sabbath, and then claim that this idea is found in Mark 2:27-28, because it isn't there.

To conclude, Jesus' comments about the Sabbath being made for humanity reflect the idea that the Pharisees (as representatives of old covenant Israel) should have taught an enlightened Sabbath observance, not missing the reason why God gave the nation this holy time. Jesus' statement about being the Lord of the Sabbath challenged the Pharisees' attempt to subvert his authority in the matter and claim it for themselves.

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## Matthew 24:20 – Why Pray Not to Flee on the Sabbath?

####  Pray that your flight will not take place  
in winter or on the Sabbath. (Matthew 24:20)

If Sabbath observance was not a concern for Christians when Matthew wrote his Gospel, why did he mention Jesus' words about fleeing on the Sabbath? Some people claim that this implies that Christians ought to keep the Sabbath rest. Is this true?

We begin by noting an important point. If we carefully read his words in Matthew 24:20, we find no command from his lips for Christians to observe a Sabbath rest. He simply advises Christians that for circumstantial reasons, they should pray that the need to flee will not arise on the Sabbath or in winter. Why it would not be prudent to flee in winter is obvious. Adverse weather conditions would hamper flight and put those fleeing at risk from the elements. But why would fleeing on the Sabbath day be a problem?

Here is where we have to be aware of Jewish customs and practices regarding the Sabbath. Jesus gave his warning to the disciples because of the possibility that Jewish people in Jerusalem and Judea would have prevented Christians from fleeing on the Sabbath. Note that the warning was given "to those who are in Judea" (verse 16), not to disciples in other parts of the world. It is preserved only in Matthew's Gospel, which was probably written to Jewish Christians.

Thus, the passage tells us more about the religious practices and social regulations regarding the Sabbath of non-Christian Jews in Jerusalem and Judea, than what the church would be doing. The context in which the warning about fleeing is given leads us to conclude that it has nothing to do with any supposed command for Christians to keep the Sabbath rest. Jesus gave his warning not because the church would be keeping the Sabbath, but because Christians in Judea and Jerusalem might find it difficult or impossible to flee on this day,

Since the Jews honored Moses' laws, they believed it was wrong to take long journeys on the Sabbath. They even had a measurement for the maximum distance to be traveled on this day, which was called a "Sabbath day's walk" (Acts 1:12). This was a short distance. In Luke's example it was the distance between the Mount of Olives, on the perimeter of Jerusalem, and the city itself. But Jesus' warning was given in the context of a catastrophe on the city and Judea, which would have required getting much further out of the area than a limited "Sabbath day's walk" might allow.

Further, the gates of Jerusalem were locked on the Sabbath day, which would have prevented people from fleeing the city. The Jews also had authority to police their own people regarding certain religious matters. The zealots would have tried to prevent fellow Jews from taking long journeys on the Sabbath. They would have tried to prevent anyone from fleeing Jerusalem and Judea while the war with the Romans was in progress (A.D. 66-70). Such fleeing would have been considered a traitorous action by the Jews battling the Romans.

But Jesus said that people who were in Judea at the time of the crisis at Jerusalem would need to _immediately_ flee far away into the hills. Jesus gave the warning in Matthew 24:20 because he knew that the Jews would not allow the kind of escape in troubling times on the Sabbath that his warning required. His warning was not a command to rest on the Sabbath any more than it was a command to rest in winter. These were simply inconvenient times to flee.

### Warning for the future?

Those who interpret Matthew 24 as applying only to a future time claim the warning in verse 20 has nothing to do with the practices of Jews in the first century. Thus, Jewish customs with regard to the Sabbath would not have any relevance for explaining this verse. They note that Jewish authorities today – an example for the future, they believe – would not prevent people from fleeing the city or the area of ancient Judea. Matthew 24, they claim, is a warning for the future "time of the end" of the world. In this context, they teach that verse 20 is, indeed, a implicit command for the Sabbath to be kept.

Does this theory have any validity? This idea of a future context to the warning in verse 20 is fraught with difficulties. Let's briefly look at some of the problems.

First, we have no idea what Jewish authorities might or might not allow during an unknown future time when it is claimed that all of the Holy Land will be in the throes of military, social and natural destruction and upheaval. Today's modern military power is overwhelming in its ability to pinpoint, corner and destroy. When Israel invaded Palestinian territory in April 2002 to prevent suicide bombers from killing Israelis, there was no escape for groups of people from any town, and certainly not from the area. We have no way of knowing what might or might not be possible in terms of fleeing an area to safety – and any escape seems doubtful.

Second, leaving this hypothetical argument aside, we need to repeat that there is no command in Matthew 24:20 for Christians to keep the Sabbath. Jesus doesn't say, "Keep the Sabbath holy." He says that those who are in Judea should hope they don't need to flee in winter or on the Sabbath day. That is not a command to keep a rest day; it is advice about adverse conditions for fleeing. Jesus taught that it was permissible to help people on the Sabbath, to save lives. It would not be wrong to flee on a Sabbath—but it would be inconvenient if society was enforcing a Sabbath rest.

Third, if the warnings given throughout Matthew 24, including those about fleeing on the Sabbath, were meant only for some future "end times," then they would have had no meaning for the Christians to whom they were originally spoken, and then written. The hearers would have been confused by the meaning of such assertions. The existence of these warnings – in a future scenario – would require an explanation to the effect that Jesus was talking only to people living in some distant "end time." But no such explanation is evident in Matthew 24:20. The disciples who first heard these warnings are addressed throughout the chapter. In fact, Jesus says the following after giving such warnings: "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened" (verse 34).

Fourth, the idea that Matthew 24 refers to specific events in some future "end time" is speculation. Christians have been trying to understand how to interpret this chapter without great success or agreement for 1900 years. Some Christians believe that _all_ the events mentioned in Matthew 24 were fulfilled before A.D. 70 and have no application for the subsequent history of the church, or for the future. The interpretation that these events are yet future is by no means proven.

### Conclusion

We cannot use one speculative assertion (that Matthew 24 refers to a future time) as the basis for a dogmatic assertion about another unproved claim (that the Sabbath should be kept). Verse 20 contains no command to keep the Sabbath. One can read the New Testament from Matthew through Revelation and not find a single instance in which the church is commanded to keep the Sabbath as "holy time."

Given all the above considerations, we can only conclude that Matthew 24:20 was a warning to Christians living at the time the book was written, and not specifically to Christians living in a supposed future time of "the end" of the world. The warning was given to Christians of that day living in Judea and Jerusalem because they would find it difficult to flee on a Sabbath day. There is no command in this verse to keep the Sabbath as "holy time."

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## Can God's Sabbath Law Be "Done Away"?

Many people assume that because the weekly Sabbath is in the Ten Commandments, it must therefore be a law for all times and for all people to keep. They conclude that Christians are obligated to keep the Sabbath as "holy time."

We cannot make a blanket statement that the law of God or the Ten Commandments are "done away." Two of the Commandments tell us not to commit idolatry or to murder. These laws are not done away.

The Law of Moses tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18) and to love God with all our soul, mind and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). Jesus reaffirmed these as the two greatest commands in existence (Matthew 22:34-40). These great laws of God are not done away. As Christians we are "under" them in the sense that we should do what they command, loving God above all else and our neighbor as ourselves.

The question about God's law ought to be put in these terms: Which "laws of God" are Christians to have written on their heart, and which are they obliged to keep? Does that obligation include keeping the Sabbath day holy? Let's begin by looking at one of several New Testament scriptures that talk about keeping the commandments of God. What are the "commandments of God" that Christians are to obey?

There is an important principle to consider here: We must be careful to understand the words "law" and "commandment" when we find them before the giving of the old covenant in the Old Testament, and especially _after_ the new covenant was instituted in the New Testament. We need to be careful how we understand and apply the words "law" or "commandments" when we see them in various places in the Bible. If we casually refer to these words when they are used in Scripture—and say they mean that Christians must keep the old covenant law—we can lead ourselves astray.

The words "law" or "commandments" don't always refer to the Ten Commandments, or the Mosaic law as a system. When we claim this, we are "reading back" our already-held belief that Christians must keep every one of the Ten Commandments in their entirety, as well as the Mosaic law. But we should allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves.

For example, Christians must keep the "law of Christ," which the Holy Spirit puts into our hearts (Galatians 6:2; Romans 8:2). But it is not the entire set of ceremonial, sacrificial and civil regulations found in the Mosaic law from Exodus through Deuteronomy. Otherwise, Christians would have to obey every single law in those books, including the purification rites, sacrificial laws, priestly laws, and physical circumcision. But these laws are not to be kept by Christians. The book of Hebrews and the New Testament makes this clear.

So we need to be careful when we read about "commandments" in the Bible—particularly in the New Testament. We should not confuse them with the Ten Commandments as a group, or the package of legal requirements (the Law of Moses) the old covenant was based on. The issue is not whether we are to keep the Ten Commandments or the old covenant Mosaic laws as a group. The question is, _which_ commandments are Christians to obey?

The answer is, we are to teach the commandments of Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:20). What did Jesus say in John 14:15? He said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." Matthew concludes his Gospel with the same thought about obeying Jesus' commandments: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).

But what did Jesus command? He told Jews still living under the old covenant to keep the purification rites of the old covenant, for example (Luke 5:14). We know from Hebrews that Christians don't need to keep these ceremonial regulations. To which commandments, then, was Jesus referring?

He summarized them in John 15:12: "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." What Jesus talked about—what he commanded to his disciples—was that they should love each other selflessly. This is a tall order. His commands had to do with loving neighbor and God, not keeping ceremonial regulations such as not working or avoiding personal pleasures on the Sabbath. This shouldn't surprise us, for he said that the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second greatest is to love our fellow human beings. (Two of the most important commandments are to believe in Jesus Christ and to love one another, as 1 John 3:24 tells us.)

The orientation of the new covenant is to Christ and the cross, not to Moses and the tables of stone. The great sermon of the new covenant is not the one given at Mt. Sinai, but by Jesus Christ, in his Sermon on the Mount. There he began to explain the principles of the new covenant.

Similarly, let's ask what we mean by "God's law." What commandments of God are Christians obliged to obey? When we think of the aspects of God's law that are eternal, we see the kinds of principles that govern our conduct in relationship primarily to other people. That is, we shouldn't steal, be drunkards, bear false witness or slander, be sexually immoral, be greedy or arrogant, and so on. The New Testament contains ample teaching in these areas.

The eternal aspect of God's law also tells us to love God with all our soul and mind and strength. This tells us we shouldn't be idolaters and have any thing or any god in place of the true one. In that sense, this law also reflects principles of an eternal, moral law.

The New Testament is filled with admonitions not to break these "spiritual-moral laws," if that's what we want to call them. The book of James discusses many of these moral failures as examples of the breaking of the "royal law" of loving your neighbor as yourself (2:8). Some Scriptures contain what are called "sin lists." These mention a number of wrong human actions that God's spiritual-moral law would prevent, if followed. (For three examples, see Mark 7:20-23, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:16-24.)

To break the spiritual-moral law of God described above is to be a wicked and sinful person. To follow this law of God is to exhibit the "fruit" of the Holy Spirit, and thus to be in concert with the will of God. Those are the commandments of God that Revelation 12:17 tells us to follow.

Probably most—or even all—the spiritual-moral laws one might think of can be found somewhere in both the New and the Old Testament. The Law of Moses is heavily sprinkled with these laws. Nine of the Ten Commandments, the centerpiece of the Mosaic law, are moral-type laws of one sort or another. The first three commandments can be thought of as spiritual-moral in that they tell us not to worship anything that is not the true God. Breaking these laws is idolatry, a sin that is mentioned in the New Testament, too.

However, we are only partially correct in saying that the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic laws are spiritual-moral in nature. The problem is that all of its laws do not all fit into this category. The law of Moses also includes ceremonial as well as spiritual-moral laws.

The Sabbath day, even though it is in the Ten Commandments, must be counted as a ceremonial law. We can look at the situation in this way. A spiritual-moral law would have no exceptions. It's not enough for us to refrain from stealing, greed or sexual immorality on one day and commit it on six others. We can't refrain from worshipping idols on one day but do so on the other six. These practices are intrinsically wrong, and are contrary to eternal, moral laws.

But the Sabbath, in its major old covenant regulation, forbids work on one specific day each week. However, work is not an evil, but something that is a necessary part of life. Work is permitted on the other six days of the week. In contrast, lying is always wrong, because it is intrinsically a violation of a spiritual-moral law. Making a graven image for purposes of worship or being disobedient to parents is always a sin.

Yet, working is not wrong, and was only ceremonially banned on the Sabbath and the annual festivals in a certain situation, that is, when the old covenant was in force. Working, per se, is not sin. Its opposite, laziness, is condemned as morally unsound (1 Timothy 5:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12).

The principle when speaking of "God's law" or "commandments" is the following. No requirements from the old covenant—including the Ten Commandments—are binding on Christians except the spiritual-moral principles, which are repeated in the Scriptures of the new covenant—the New Testament. However, keeping the Sabbath by not working is not based on any eternal, spiritual-moral principle. Nor is it mentioned in the New Testament as a Christian requirement. We must conclude that, at its heart, Sabbath regulations were ceremonial practices and not necessary for Christians to "keep holy."

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## About the Author...

Paul Kroll was an employee of Grace Communion International; he is now retired. He has written more than a hundred articles for our publications, and is the author of the following e-books:

Exploring the Word of God: Acts of the Apostles (7 volumes)

Exploring the Word of God: Revelation, volume 1

What Does the Bible Say About Suffering?

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## About the Publisher...

Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 50,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

If you want to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we offer help. First, we offer weekly worship services in hundreds of congregations worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to visit us. A typical worship service includes songs of praise, a message based on the Bible, and opportunity to meet people who have found Jesus Christ to be the answer to their spiritual quest. We try to be friendly, but without putting you on the spot. We do not expect visitors to give offerings—there's no obligation. You are a guest.

To find a congregation, write to one of our offices, phone us or visit our website. If we do not have a congregation near you, we encourage you to find another Christian church that teaches the gospel of grace.

We also offer personal counsel. If you have questions about the Bible, salvation or Christian living, we are happy to talk. If you want to discuss faith, baptism or other matters, a pastor near you can discuss these on the phone or set up an appointment for a longer discussion. We are convinced that Jesus offers what people need most, and we are happy to share the good news of what he has done for all humanity. We like to help people find new life in Christ, and to grow in that life. Come and see why we believe it's the best news there could be!

Our work is funded by members of the church who donate part of their income to support the gospel. Jesus told his disciples to share the good news, and that is what we strive to do in our literature, in our worship services, and in our day-to-day lives.

If this e-book has helped you and you want to pay some expenses, all donations are gratefully welcomed, and in several nations, are tax-deductible. If you can't afford to give anything, don't worry about it. It is our gift to you. To make a donation online, go to www.gci.org/participate/donate.

Thank you for letting us share what we value most — Jesus Christ. The good news is too good to keep it to ourselves.

See our website for hundreds of articles, locations of our churches, addresses in various nations, audio and video messages, and much more.

Grace Communion International  
3129 Whitehall Park Dr.

Charlotte, NC 28273-3335

1-800-423-4444

www.gci.org

### You're Included...

We talk with leading Trinitarian theologians about the good news that God loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. Most programs are about 28 minutes long. Our guests have included:

Ray Anderson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Douglas A. Campbell, Duke Divinity School

Elmer Colyer, U. of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Gordon Fee, Regent College

Trevor Hart, University of St. Andrews

George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

Jeff McSwain, Reality Ministries

Paul Louis Metzger, Multnomah University

Paul Molnar, St. John's University

Cherith Fee Nordling, Antioch Leadership Network

Andrew Root, Luther Seminary

Alan Torrance, University of St. Andrews

Robert T. Walker, Edinburgh University

N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews

William P. Young, author of _The Shack_

Programs are available free for viewing and downloading at www.youreincluded.org.

### Speaking of Life...

Dr. Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International, comments each week, giving a biblical perspective on how we live in the light of God's love. Most programs are about three minutes long – available in video, audio, and text. Go to www.speakingoflife.org.

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##

Grace Communion Seminary

Ministry based on the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Grace Communion Seminary serves the needs of people engaged in Christian service who want to grow deeper in relationship with our Triune God and to be able to more effectively serve in the church.

Why study at Grace Communion Seminary?

 Worship: to love God with all your mind.

 Service: to help others apply truth to life.

 Practical: a balanced range of useful topics for ministry.

 Trinitarian theology: a survey of theology with the merits of a Trinitarian perspective. We begin with the question, "Who is God?" Then, "Who are we in relationship to God?" In this context, "How then do we serve?"

 Part-time study: designed to help people who are already serving in local congregations. There is no need to leave your current ministry. Full-time students are also welcome.

 Flexibility: your choice of master's level continuing education courses or pursuit of a degree: Master of Pastoral Studies or Master of Theological Studies.

 Affordable, accredited study: Everything can be done online.

For more information, go to www.gcs.edu. Grace Communion Seminary is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, www.deac.org. The Accrediting Commission is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

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## Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

Want to better understand God's Word? Want to know the Triune God more deeply? Want to share more joyously in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit? Want to be better equipped to serve others?

Among the many resources that Grace Communion International offers are the training and learning opportunities provided by ACCM. This quality, well-structured Christian Ministry curriculum has the advantage of being very practical and flexible. Students may study at their own pace, without having to leave home to undertake full-time study.

This denominationally recognized program is available for both credit and audit study. At minimum cost, this online Diploma program will help students gain important insights and training in effective ministry service. Students will also enjoy a rich resource for personal study that will enhance their understanding and relationship with the Triune God.

Diploma of Christian Ministry classes provide an excellent introductory course for new and lay pastors. Pastor General Dr. Joseph Tkach said, "We believe we have achieved the goal of designing Christian ministry training that is practical, accessible, interesting, and doctrinally and theologically mature and sound. This program provides an ideal foundation for effective Christian ministry."

For more information, go to www.ambascol.org

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