A thought about the seventh day sabbath.
God's seventh-day rest was mentioned before the Law was given. The instinct to get married was also placed into mankind at creation.
If the details of the Law's requirements concerning the seventh-day sabbath had been made as instinctive to mankind at creation as marriage had been, would the Law have needed to restate those details? The idea of getting married didn't need to be re-stated when the Law was given!
So it seems that the idea of keeping the seventh-day sabbath, in the details that the Law later demanded, had not been instituted at creation in the same way that marriage had been.
We don't read of any of the godly men and patriarchs keeping the sabbath at all, before the Law was given.
And Paul stated that he who has entered into God's rest (through faith in Jesus) has ceased from his own works (works of the Law) as God also ceased from his. God's seventh-day rest was a permanent rest - He didn't resume His work of creation on the first day of the next week. So Paul seemed to use the seventh-day sabbath mentioned in Genesis as a symbol of the permanent rest believers enter into, rather than mention that a regular cycle of stringently observing every seventh day should be part of our life as believers.
It could be that Paul didn't need to mention it, seeing he was addressing Hebrews who already had the custom. But if that was something Paul felt was a moral requirement, then one would think we would have a record of Paul requiring it of the Gentiles, but we have none. What we have is in fact the opposite: Paul delivered to the Gentiles the decree if the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem that no such burden should be imposed upon them.
How could Paul have refrained from requiring seventh-day sabbath keeping of the Gentiles, if keeping it had been made a moral requirement of mankind at creation? Evidently Paul, and the Apostles and Elders, seemed to regard the stringent observation of the seventh-day sabbath as more of an institution of Moses' Law than as an instinctive moral instituted at creation.
The Law's stringent requirements regarding the sabbath did however appeal to God's rest on the seventh day as the reason for their existence. Could that mean it was already instinctive and moral to rest every seventh day, though perhaps not with all of the stringency which the Law later attached to it?
If the sabbath was instinctive and considered a moral requirement before the Law was given, we don't see any indication in Genesis that it was regarded as such by anyone. Neither do we see any indication in the Acts of the Apostles nor in the Epistles that it should have continued to have been regarded as such by the Jews nor begun to have been regarded as such by the Gentiles.
Perhaps Moses' statement that God sanctified the seventh day refers to God sanctifying it later, when the Law was given, rather than at creation. The meaning in that case would be that since God entered a state of permanent rest on the seventh day, God was now temporarily requiring the Jews to rest every seventh day in commemoration of God's state of permanent rest, and foreshadowing the rest which remained for God's people while they were still under the Law - a rest which we who believe in Jesus have now entered into.
Jesus did appeal to what was done in the beginning, at God's institution, as a better guide for morals than even Moses' Law, a Law which included compromises allowed by God because of the hardness of men's hearts. But even so, if the record of the patriarchs' practices is definitive, then it isn't certain that seventh-day sabbath keeping was instituted by God at creation at all. All we could know is that God Himself entered a permanent state of rest on the seventh day. But He did later institute a regular seventh-day sabbath observance by Jews, when He gave the Law through Moses.
God's seventh-day rest was mentioned before the Law was given. The instinct to get married was also placed into mankind at creation.
If the details of the Law's requirements concerning the seventh-day sabbath had been made as instinctive to mankind at creation as marriage had been, would the Law have needed to restate those details? The idea of getting married didn't need to be re-stated when the Law was given!
So it seems that the idea of keeping the seventh-day sabbath, in the details that the Law later demanded, had not been instituted at creation in the same way that marriage had been.
We don't read of any of the godly men and patriarchs keeping the sabbath at all, before the Law was given.
And Paul stated that he who has entered into God's rest (through faith in Jesus) has ceased from his own works (works of the Law) as God also ceased from his. God's seventh-day rest was a permanent rest - He didn't resume His work of creation on the first day of the next week. So Paul seemed to use the seventh-day sabbath mentioned in Genesis as a symbol of the permanent rest believers enter into, rather than mention that a regular cycle of stringently observing every seventh day should be part of our life as believers.
It could be that Paul didn't need to mention it, seeing he was addressing Hebrews who already had the custom. But if that was something Paul felt was a moral requirement, then one would think we would have a record of Paul requiring it of the Gentiles, but we have none. What we have is in fact the opposite: Paul delivered to the Gentiles the decree if the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem that no such burden should be imposed upon them.
How could Paul have refrained from requiring seventh-day sabbath keeping of the Gentiles, if keeping it had been made a moral requirement of mankind at creation? Evidently Paul, and the Apostles and Elders, seemed to regard the stringent observation of the seventh-day sabbath as more of an institution of Moses' Law than as an instinctive moral instituted at creation.
The Law's stringent requirements regarding the sabbath did however appeal to God's rest on the seventh day as the reason for their existence. Could that mean it was already instinctive and moral to rest every seventh day, though perhaps not with all of the stringency which the Law later attached to it?
If the sabbath was instinctive and considered a moral requirement before the Law was given, we don't see any indication in Genesis that it was regarded as such by anyone. Neither do we see any indication in the Acts of the Apostles nor in the Epistles that it should have continued to have been regarded as such by the Jews nor begun to have been regarded as such by the Gentiles.
Perhaps Moses' statement that God sanctified the seventh day refers to God sanctifying it later, when the Law was given, rather than at creation. The meaning in that case would be that since God entered a state of permanent rest on the seventh day, God was now temporarily requiring the Jews to rest every seventh day in commemoration of God's state of permanent rest, and foreshadowing the rest which remained for God's people while they were still under the Law - a rest which we who believe in Jesus have now entered into.
Jesus did appeal to what was done in the beginning, at God's institution, as a better guide for morals than even Moses' Law, a Law which included compromises allowed by God because of the hardness of men's hearts. But even so, if the record of the patriarchs' practices is definitive, then it isn't certain that seventh-day sabbath keeping was instituted by God at creation at all. All we could know is that God Himself entered a permanent state of rest on the seventh day. But He did later institute a regular seventh-day sabbath observance by Jews, when He gave the Law through Moses.
By then man had fallen short of the glory of God. They could only commemorate God's rest and the rest that would later be made available through Jesus. Once that rest came, believers ceased from their work. Not their physical work, but their works under the Law.
No comments:
Post a Comment