Keeping the Lord’s Holy Sabbath

Christians today frequently debate which day of the week is the Lord’s Sabbath and how it should be kept. Sabbatarians argue that God should be worshipped on Saturday in obedience to the Fourth Commandment, whereas mainstream Christian groups advocate for Sunday in commemoration of our Lord’s resurrection. There are endless disputes on what activities are lawful to perform on the Sabbath. Rabbinical Judaism has thirty-nine melachots or general categories of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath including: carrying items, writing, erasing, cooking, washing, kneading, tearing, knotting and untying. Sadly, in the midst of these controversies, the rich and powerful meaning of the Lord’s Holy Sabbath is lost. The Holy Orthodox Church has retained the biblical and apostolic understanding of the people of God entering His holy rest.

In the first chapter of Genesis we read that after creating air, sea and land animals, the Lord’s crowning achievement was creating mankind after His image and likeness. Mankind was uniquely endowed with a rational soul capable of having a spiritual relationship with His Creator. After breathing life and intellect into man and woman, the Lord ended His creative work and rested on the seventh day. He then did something unique - He blessed and sanctified the seventh day (Gen 2:2-3). Have you noticed that the seventh day was unlike the previous six days in not having evening and morning to mark the start and end of the day? That was hardly an oversight. Prior to the seventh day, the Creator had pronounced that everything He had made was very good - that is to say, absolutely perfect. There was perfect harmony with God’s will- consequently, the universe, the forces of nature and all creatures were in a state of order and at rest. The earth yielded herbs and fruits to sustain the animated creatures. The atmospheric climate maintained appropriate moisture. There was no need for toiling. Furthermore, man and woman were perfect creatures imbued with the potential for immortality, and were immune from sickness and physical exhaustion. Why, then, did God institute a day of rest? God, Himself, is the Source of Life, therefore He cannot grow tired requiring a day of rest to recover. The prophet Isaiah states: “Have you not known? have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.” (Isa 40:28). There is, therefore, a sublime significance to the seventh day as a Sabbath day of rest. The rest, itself, takes on a deeper meaning than merely sleep, relaxation and recreation.

In Jewish numerology, the number seven marks completion and wholesomeness. In other words, it signifies being in a state of grace. Considering the seventh day was the only day of creation that omits the phrase: “So the evening and the morning were the seventh day” it was destined to continue in perpetuity. Tragically, Adam and Eve’s rebellion violated God’s protective grace, causing untold disruption and “unrest” to the order in the universe. This was a cosmic violation of the Lord’s Sabbath rest - a disconnection from God - taking a toll on body and soul. By violating their blessed state, Adam and Eve would bring on themselves, their descendants, and the whole physical world major upheaval, disorder and unrest: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life,” and “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken…” (Gen 3:17, 19) The Prophet Joel laments: “The vine has dried up, And the fig tree has withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree— all the trees of the field are withered; surely joy has withered away from the sons of men…How the animals groan! the herds of cattle are restless, because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. (Joel 1:12, 18) Millenia later, the Apostle Paul would write about hoping in Christ’s deliverance from our present sufferings:“because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” (Rom 8:21-22) The long human record of sin and suffering - separation from God’s grace - highlights why we all yearn for perpetual holy rest for our bodies and souls.

In the Book of Exodus the seventh day which was commanded to be kept holy is referred to as the Sabbath, (in Hebrew, Shabbat or שַׁבָּת) meaning to end, cease or rest from doing something. The children of Israel were designated as the assembly of God, an ecclesial nation, a church and state. Throughout the Book of Exodus the people were referred to as a congregation or assembly (in Hebrew, ʿēḏâ or עֵדָה) and they were required to live in holiness by obeying God’s commands or else suffer death or be cut-off from God’s congregation. There were divine blessings and cursings (i.e. withheld blessings). In the Book of Leviticus, the Lord instructs Moses on various national feasts, which He refers to as holy convocations. These Feasts symbolically unveiled God’s amazing plan for the redemption of mankind and restoring the order, peace, and Sabbath-rest. The Feast days begin with the weekly Sabbath: “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.” (Lev 23:3). The rest that is spoken here is not about leisure and doing our own thing (Isaiah 58:13). It is resting or ceasing from customary, secular work (which is distracting and self-centered), and focusing instead on a relationship with our Creator (Who sustains our trillions of cells and our soul). The Sabbath-rest was to be a delight since it was a day of reconciling with God signified by sacrificing two unblemished first-year lambs. “Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” (Psalm 116:8) Besides the weekly seventh-day Sabbath-rest, there were the following other special Sabbath-rests throughout the year: The Feast of Unleavened Bread, The Feast of Firstfruits, The Feast of Weeks, The Feast of Trumpets, The Day of Atonement, and The Feast of Tabernacles (see Leviticus 23).

The assembly of Israel was to live separately from its pagan neighbors, uniquely worshipping the One True God on the Sabbath. Its pagan neighbors falsely worshipped celestial bodies and mythological creatures as gods on different days of the week named after them (Sunday - Sun/Helios god, Monday- Moon god, Tuesday- Tiu/Mars god, Wednesday - Woden/Mercury god, Thursday - Thor/Jupiter god, Friday - Freya/Venus god, and Saturday - Saturn/Cronus god). This is an abomination to Almighty God who created the days, the years and the seasons. But was man’s relationship to his Creator limited to once per week? Psalm 92 is a dedicated song for the Sabbath day, and it begins: “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night…” (Psalm 92:1-2). The emphasis is on glorifying God every morning and evening - not just one day per week. When the Israelites rebelled against God after fleeing Egypt, their generation was banned from entering the Sabbath-rest of the Promised Land: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ so I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’  (Psalm 95:7-11). The prophets of the Old Testament speak about the Sabbath-rest from the Lord when drawing close to Him: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16) The Sabbath-rest only exists in loving communion with the Lord: “At the same time, says the LORD, ‘I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people. Thus says the LORD: ‘The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness - Israel, when I went to give him rest.’” (Jeremiah 31:1-2) We can begin to see that the Sabbath-rest is a state of grace and lasts beyond one literal day.

Moses spoke with the Lord inside the tabernacle in the wilderness and he pleaded to understand the Lord’s will and to experience His grace, to which the Lord replied: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:14) After the Israelites reached God’s promised land, there was also to be a separate Sabbath-rest for the land every seventh year: “Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit; ‘but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. ‘What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.” (Leviticus 25:3-5) This Sabbath-rest signaled a time of joy and appreciation to God for his mercy and grace in gifting the Israelites a fertile land (In Hebrew, it was beautifully described as a land flowing with milk and honey). Under God’s favor, the Israelites and their land would rest and not suffer the ravages of war. Moreover, there would also be a Jubilee Year celebration - a year-long Sabbath-rest- every 50 years - a time of deliverance from bondage, where slaves would be set free, lands returned and debts forgiven. It was on an auspicious Sabbath day in Nazareth, that Jesus taught in the synagogue, opened the Book of Isaiah and read: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” (Luke 4:16-19). The acceptable year of the LORD was the Jubilee Year- Christ was proclaiming that His public ministry is the fulfillment of the Jubilee Year - the acceptable year of the Lord - a Sabbath spiritual rest! It was characterized by healing broken bodies and liberating oppressed souls - giving afflicted people the rest they yearned for, through reconciliation with God Himself.

When Christ, Who is the Creator (Logos) and Lord of the Sabbath, dwelt among men, He shone greater depth on the Lord’s Sabbath. He received harsh criticism from the Jewish religious authorities regarding keeping the Sabbath. He performed works of righteousness - healing body and soul on the Sabbath - providing the true Sabbath-rest (Matthew 12:1-12). He taught that keeping the Sabbath included doing good to both man and beast (verse 12). He also explained that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Man needs the Sabbath-rest, that is, communion with God. It is recorded in Scripture that the Lord healed several people on the Sabbath, and in return, they glorified God (Luke 13:13) thereby “keeping the Sabbath.” We all need the Lord’s Sabbath-rest for our restless souls. The Lord says to all: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) When the disciples walked throughout Judea and Galilee alongside Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, they were keeping the Sabbath regardless of the day of the week. When the disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees asked Christ, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” (Mark 2:18-20) Wherever Christ is present, there is Sabbath-rest and there is no fasting or mourning.

The author of the Book of Hebrews writes: “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: ‘They shall not enter My rest. Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:1-10) This is a powerful chapter explaining how we enter the Lord’s Holy Sabbath rest, as it was instituted from the beginning of Creation. Notice that those who followed Joshua and kept the Jewish Sabbath ordinances did not find that rest. The Scripture is clear: “For we who have believed do enter that rest.” (verse 3) We are able to enter the Lord’s rest, the true Sabbath-rest, if we hearken in obedience and faith to Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath. Thus, for people of God, there is no one-day observance of the Sabbath - to live in Christ is to remain forever in the Sabbath-rest as He originally ordained from the creation of the world. To do God’s righteous will is to keep the Sabbath. It brings wholeness and completion to our lives. For this reason, the Apostle Paul warns the Colossian Church: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Col 2:16-17). Christ is the ultimate reality behind the festivals and sabbaths.

After the Lord’s resurrection, early Jewish Christians gathered in the synagogues on the seventh day Sabbath as was their Jewish custom, but also on the first day of the week (Sunday)- the day commemorating the resurrection of the Lord of the Sabbath (John 20:19; Acts 20:7). The Greeks translate our English word for Sunday as - Kyriaki, which literally means “The Lord’s Day.” In Jewish numerology, the number eight represents a level beyond the natural world; in other words, transcendence or a connection to the divine. It marks a new beginning. It is therefore meaningful that Orthodox Christians gather for divine worship on Sunday, which is not only the first day of the week, but also the eighth day. Just as the first day of creation week the Logos illumined the universe by declaring “Let there be Light,” so also we see Christ’s same Light of the resurrection on the eighth day - the New Dawn of the spiritual re-creation of mankind. Sunday is not a weekly Christian replacement for the Lord’s Sabbath since the Lord’s Sabbath-rest is found in Christ, thereby, transcending time. There is no finality to the Lord’s Sabbath-rest. It is worth noting that in Leviticus 23, The Feast of Tabernacles included a Sabbath-rest on the eighth day, calling for a holy convocation. The first seven days were kept by the Israelites in individuals booths made with branches from palm trees and willows. Living these seven days of the Feast in booths represented being temporary sojourners of this world while being citizens of another nation - a spiritual kingdom not of this world. However, the eighth-day of The Feast represents the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God with mankind, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me,“Write, for these words are true and faithful. And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.” (Revelation 21:2-7) This is the true Sabbath - the ultimate rest for the people of God as was intended before the Fall of Man. To God be the glory now and forever!