God calls us to cease from our own labor and enter His rest. This means we trust Him for our growth, our sanctification, our very life. Jesus declared that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. In doing so, He paved the way for Paul to issue the warning, "Let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day." In one sense this is a declaration of independence from the law. However, neither Paul nor Jesus was proclaiming freedom from the law in any kind of libertarian sense. This is not a license to do anything we want. Rather, it is freedom from approaching life on the basis of the law. We answer to a standard higher than that of the Pharisees, not because we have an even more detailed and specific set of rules to live by, but because our righteousness is Jesus Christ Himself, the One who not only fulfills the law, but is the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. We are called to seek Him, and make knowing Him first priority, thereby clothing ourselves with His character.
It is good to read the law. It is good to be familiar with the standard set forth there. God will continue to use it to teach us, to prick our conscience and let us know when we are missing His standard. From it we can learn of Him and of His character. In it is the "scarlet thread" of redemption history leading the way to Christ. But if we approach the law as rules to live by, and seek to do so in the strength of our own determination, even out of a desire to please God, we will find it to be of no use against fleshly indulgence. The law cannot keep you from sinning. Only by seeking Christ as our life, can our flesh be reckoned dead in regard to immorality and can we clothe ourselves in Godly character. This is why Paul preached "only Christ and Him crucified." It wasn't just a salvation message. It was a how to live message. The way you get in is the way you go on. There is no other way for the believer to be righteous before God.
Sabbath rest has nothing to do with a day of the week! Hebrews 4:1-11make this clear. Verse 3 tells us, "His works were finished from the foundation of the world." God created the world in six days. However, this passage would suggest that in the spiritual realm, the most real ream of all, He is still in the "seventh day." That doesn't mean He is doing nothing. Since we are bound to space and time, He is very much at work with us in this context to work out His will in the world. Nonetheless, His works were finished before the foundation of the world. What does that mean for us? It means our salvation was secured from the foundation of the world. "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph.1:4). It means everything needed for us to be "holy and blameless before Him" (same verse) was done before the foundation of the world. "All our prayers were answered before the foundation of the world. "Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him" (Matt.6:8). "All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them [already], and they shall be granted you" (Mark 11:24).
What God has accomplished in the reality of eternity, enters our space and time reality when we by faith believe that we have received it. This is true of our salvation, and our sanctification. God told Moses (Exodus 31:13), "But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying 'You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.'" That's what the Sabbath is all about. The Sabbath is given as a reminder that God is the one who sanctifies (makes holy). Our responsibility is to quit trying to sanctify ourselves and rest in the One who alone is able to make us holy and blameless and righteous. It was symbolized in the seventh day of the week under the Old Covenant. Under the New Covenant, it is our way of life.
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