How to Enter God’s Sabbath Rest

I am involved in a Bible study on Zoom, which includes men from many states across the country. Recently we discussed the Sabbath. Our leader, Steven Cohen, is a Jewish believer in Jesus as the Messiah. He has a web site, Apple of His Eye (https://www.appleofhiseye.org/) with lots of information about Jesus, Jewish issues, and more. Steve opened with the question, “when is the Sabbath?” The answer isn’t as simple as it sounds, and we got a variety of answers from the guys.

The Sabbath, or Shabbat, originated in the ten commandments.
Exodus 20:8-11
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The concept of the Sabbath was patterned after the creation, where God rested on the seventh day (Saturday in the Jewish calendar, from evening Friday through evening Saturday). God knew that people needed a day of rest, so he commanded that they “not do any work” on that day.

Over the years, Jewish rabbis and scholars created many supplemental laws and rules to define certain aspects of the law as given to Moses. The Sabbath was no exception. They created many specific definitions of what “work” was, including how many steps could be taken, what kinds of “work” could be done, and many others.

These rabbinic traditions caused a lot of friction when Jesus came on the scene. In our study we looked at Matthew 12:1-8. The Pharisees criticized Jesus’ disciples for picking grain on the Sabbath, considering it “work”. Ironically, that would have been legal under the traditions since they weren’t actually “harvesting” the grain, just meeting their need like eating any other meal. Jesus goes on to give the example of David eating the consecrated bread in an emergency while fleeing from Saul, another acceptable reason for “bending the rules”. He ends this episode by declaring, “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”. Since Jesus, as the “Word” (John 1:1), wrote the Scriptures in effect, his interpretations are the ones we live by.

Over the years, Christians, especially gentiles, adopted the first day of the week, Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, as their “new” Sabbath. Some Christians, Seventh Day Adventists for example, still observe the Sabbath on Saturday, as well as Jews and many Jewish Christians.

So what’s the answer to the question, “when is the Sabbath?” In our study, Steve gave an answer that could be summarized in Hebrews 3 and 4. The writer quotes Psalm 95 where he tells his people who disobeyed him in the wilderness, “they shall never enter my rest”. He was referring to the promised land, but in a larger sense, relationship with him which is true rest. They couldn’t get there because of their hard hearts and disobedience. But in Hebrews 4:9-11, he says “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”

The Sabbath rest remains for us, just as it was in effect for the original people of God.
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection, we don’t rely on our own works. Like God, who rested on the 7th day, we rest from our own works to enter into God’s rest, where we are forgiven, where we live by faith in the Son of God, where we live by His Spirit, not by our own strength.

The phrase “strive to enter that rest” seems to imply that we have to work for it. But I think it refers to our pursuit of God. The “work” God requires is that we believe in his Son. We go after him by reading his Word, talking to him, entering into a relationship with him.

So, when is the Sabbath? A better question might be “what is the Sabbath?” We do need rest, whether it’s on Saturday or Sunday or some other day. God designed us that way. But the bigger picture, the ultimate answer: It is our position in Jesus, our rest in him. He holds us in the palm of his hand. Hebrews 10:1 says that “the Law is a shadow of the good things to come”. The Sabbath, then, was a shadow, or type, of the rest we have in the atoning work of Jesus!