3. Historical Changes In the Sabbath
Summary
Before the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin, mankind was supposed to start his week with a Sabbath. After the Fall, God commanded man to end His week with a Sabbath. This is charted out below.
The Paradise rest which God provided and which was symbolized in the Sabbath was forfeited by man’s disobedience and would only be restored again by the second Adam’s future obedience. In Christ, the day for the Sabbath is restored to its creation place and man can once again rest in God’s finished work of re-creation and redemption before He goes forth in obedience to the Lord.
Detailed analysis
According to Exodus 20:11 all seven days of God’s creation week were to be a model for man’s dominion and rest. The order of activities on each of the days is instructive for our own dominion activities. In this book, however, we will only focus on days six and seven.
Day six of creation (the day of preparation)
One facet of dominion that was commanded on day six was to prepare for the Sabbath (Ex. 16:22-30). This day was called “the day of Preparation” (Matt. 27:62), “Preparation Day” (Mark 15:42; John 19:14,31,42) or simply “the Preparation” (Luke 23:54). On this day all necessary work was done ahead of time to enable worship on the Sabbath. In the original creation week God’s preparations included preparing a home (Eden) and a community (Eve) in which to worship. God deliberately created Adam (as the head of the home) prior to those two preparations, perhaps as a form of teaching.
Day Seven of God’s Week is Day One of Man’s Week
The days of creation are all counted from evening to evening. By our Western method of counting, day six started on Friday night and finished Saturday night at 6pm. The exact wording for each day is interesting. It says, “the evening and the morning were the first day” (1:5, emphasis added), etc. Adam had not experienced the evening of day six, and maybe not even the morning. Certainly Eve did not experience anything but a short period at the end of day six. This conclusion is reached from the following information. The order of events on day six were a) creation of land creatures (1:24-25), b) creation of Adam (2:7), c) creation of the garden (2:8), d) instructions to man (2:15-17), e) bringing animals before Adam to be named, but also to create a desire for him to have his own mate (2:18-20), f) creation of Eve (2:21-25), g) instructions (1:28-30) and h) ending the day with the declaration that it was “very good” (1:31). If Genesis 1:29-31 is compared with the time span of 2:7-22, it becomes evident that Eve was created toward the end of day six, just in time to hear God’s blessings and commands in 1:28-31 and the ushering in of the Sabbath.
Thus mankind’s first full day was God’s Sabbath day. Day seven of God’s week (as defined by “evening and morning”) was mankind’s first day (as defined by “evening and morning”). This can be diagrammed as follows:
Why did God have mankind start their week with a rest rather than end it with a rest as God did? Because God intended man on every level to demonstrate a commitment to the Creator/creature distinction. Man must not play God by taking dominion in his own wisdom. Instead, God intended man to start his week by bowing to God and listening to God on the Sabbath. It is only as man rests in God’s finished work of creation that he will be in a position to take godly, dependent, and humble dominion of his own.
Adam’s Rebellion Against God’s Sabbath Rest
Adam rebelled against God’s design. He sought to start his week independent of God rather than dependent in worship. When God came to meet with His people in a visible form “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (3:8), He found that they rebelled against His purpose for both Sabbath and dominion. They had bought into Satan’s lie that “you will be like God” (3:5). They had submitted to a wisdom alien to God’s, had sought to take dominion independently of Him, and had worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator. Adam, by his decision, had destroyed the whole purpose and character of the Sabbath and in doing so had made dominion into a demonic activity.
God Shows Mercy, but Rubs Adam’s Face in the Sabbath he Disdained
Praise the Lord! God did not make all rest and dominion impossible for Adam and Eve by throwing them into hell. It’s true, there was cursing of both Adam’s dominion and his rest, but there was also redemption and blessing found along with the curse. Genesis 3:15 prophesies of the coming of Jesus who would destroy the works of the devil. Apart from the coming of Jesus, the promise of rest in the Sabbath would have been false and the Sabbath would have ceased to be a meaningful command. So God placed the time for worship at the end of the week. In effect God told Adam, “So you want to be like God!? So you want to start your week with dominion rather than rest!?? I will let you do so. In fact, to show how miserable all dominion can be apart from grace I will command you to do as I did. From this point on you must begin your week with dominion and only after long and hard striving will I give you rest. The fact that there still is rest is a promise that one day at the end of this age, the promised Messiah will bring true rest. He, as the Second Adam, will accomplish what you failed to.” So the Sabbath was no longer celebrated at the beginning of the week, but at the end of the week. The rest was cursed7 as well as the dominion.
This can be diagrammed as follows:
Until the time of Jesus, mankind is commanded to imitate God to show how impossible it is for us to play God. From this point on, worship was at the end of the week. This is the literal meaning of Genesis 4:2. When Cain and Abel bring their sacrifices before God, it is said to be at the end of the week, or as the margin says literally, “at the end of the days.” We have hints in Noah of this same pattern. Again we have hints in the patriarchs that they kept a seventh day Sabbath. In Exodus 16, before Israel even gets to Sinai and before the law is given, they observe the Sabbath on the seventh day. The law at Sinai condemns, but it also gives hope in a future Messiah. The New Testament uses this Sabbath imagery not only to speak of the bondage symbolized in pre-resurrection Sabbath observance, but also the liberty and grace in the change of the day.
Failure to Observe a First Day Sabbath Ignores Christ’s Finished Work
In the Old Covenant, while the seventh day Sabbath was a reminder of man’s inability, it was also a gracious promise of what Christ would do. It symbolized that what is impossible for those in the First Adam, the Second Adam accomplishes. Because Jesus is both God and man, He can satisfy the demand of the law. Christ kept all the demands of the previous covenants and was also punished for “the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Heb. 9:15). By His redemption He made a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17-19; Rom. 8:19-25) and entered His rest (Heb. 4:10). He again gave us the pledge of the first day Sabbath (see below) which held out the promise of our consummation state as we labor for Christ’s kingdom and seek to “subdue all things” (Heb. 2:5-8). Since we are sinners, this would also be an impossible request, so Christ not only enters His rest as God, but as our representative Second Adam He labors to subdue all things to Himself on our behalf (Heb. 1:13; 2:8-18). Before we can subdue the world to King Jesus, we must first rest in His finished work of redemption.
To fail to start our week with rest (on Sunday) is to make the same mistake that Adam made. When Adam broke the first Sabbath by taking his own dominion and looking to another source for wisdom, he forgot that God had already provided everything that he needed for life and godliness. It is true that after the fall, men had to look forward to a new provision that had not yet come (Jesus). Now that Jesus has come, it is an insult to His grace to continue to celebrate a seventh day Sabbath as if He has not come. Colossians 2:11-17 tells us that to continue to observe Jewish days (all of which looked forward to Jesus) is to submit to bondage and frustration in the same way that religious observance of circumcision does. Circumcision was a blessing in the Old Covenant because it pointed to Jesus, but once Jesus has come, to get circumcised insults Christ’s finished work. In the same way, Paul says “Let no one judge you … [with respect to] sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (vv. 16-17). The rest of this book proves that there truly is a “first day Sabbath” which has been restored to God’s people. Because of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday we have been given new power to take dominion as we are supposed to. To ignore or violate the Sabbath is to try to take dominion in our own strength and in our own way.
The Change to “First Day Sabbath” Hinted at in the Old Testament
Isaiah 65-66 anticipates the time when all things will be made new as a result of Christ’s incarnation (66:7-9). This includes ultimately a new heavens and earth (65:17), but prior to that time there will be changes in God’s people (65:18-19), changes in the extent of Deuteronomy 28 type blessings (65:20-25), and even changes in worship (66:1-4) and church government (66:18-21). If priests and Levites in the new covenant will no longer be from the tribe of Levi but will be from the Gentiles (66:21), then it should be no surprise to us that the Sabbath is included in the “new” things when “from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before” God (66:23). Both chapters anticipate radical changes in Christ’s making all things new.
This new covenant creation was anticipated in the Old Testament feast days by the “eighth day Sabbath” which pointed figuratively to Christ (cf. e.g. Lev. 23:39). What is the eighth day? Sunday. This “eighth day” concept occurs repeatedly in the festivals (Lev. 23:5,10ff,15ff,34-36,39).
This new creation was anticipated by the Jubilee year which was the year after the seventh seven. Christ declared Himself to be the fulfillment of the Jubilee (Luke 4:19). Every Sunday is the day after the seventh – a miniature jubilee if you will.
This new creation is recognized to be a new “day which the LORD has made” (Psalm 118:24); namely the resurrection day when Christ entered His rest. This resurrection “day” fulfills in the new creation the function that the old day “made” by God had: it is set apart as His day (Rev. 1:10). This is why Hebrews 4:8 indicates that when Psalm 95 is referring to “another day” (namely the resurrection) it signifies that “there remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:10).
In light of Peter’s exposition of Psalm 118 in Acts 4:10-12, it appears reasonable that when Psalm 118:24 says, “this is the day that the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it,” it is a reference not just to Christ’s resurrection, but the making of a new day of our weekly celebration. It does apply at least to the resurrection of Christ, but it appears to be an ongoing day of celebration.