“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”[1]

The great desire of the human heart is to find rest. In an increasingly chaotic world all around us, we cry out for rest. Just as great, if not greater, is the chaotic world inside each one of us.

Jesus alone promises us that rest:

“Come to Me, all you who labour 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.” (Matt 11:28-29)

What is that rest?

• It is the blessing of a conscience at rest in this life:
  “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1)
• It is the promise of perfect rest consummated in the life to come:
  “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labours, and their works follow them.” (Rev 14:13)

This lies at the very heart of the gospel.

Keep the main things the main things

When it comes to the gospel, it is imperative that we keep the main things the main things.
To this end God has given us visible signs to aid our weak faith and assure us of the main things that lie at the heart of the gospel.
In baptism we have a visible sign that emphasizes the importance of “the washing of regeneration” and union with Christ.
In the Lord’s Supper we have a visible sign that regularly keeps before us the need for ongoing communion with Christ as we participate in the benefits of His death.

Also, from the beginning of time God gave us the sign of the weekly Sabbath as a recurring reminder that ultimately God promises us an eternal rest in Him. God instituted this weekly Sabbath to keep this hope alive in our breasts.

Later, under Moses, various other sabbaths were introduced as part of the ceremonial law, as a help to the Jews as they waited for the coming Messiah.[2]
These were but “a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Col 2:16-17); hence it is no longer necessary to observe these additional sabbaths now that Christ has come.

But the weekly Sabbath did not originate with Moses; it dates from creation itself and is built into the way we were created.

“God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Gen 2:3)

The Ten Commandments

Later, God reaffirmed the importance of the weekly Sabbath sign in the Ten Commandments.
The Commandments summarize God’s universal moral laws for the whole of creation for the whole of time. Or, as the Westminster Confession puts it: “The moral law does forever bind to obedience all, justified persons as well as others.” And, “Christ in the gospel does not any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation.” (WCF ch 19, § 5)

The Sabbath commandment in Exodus looks back, to remind us of our Creator, the One in whom alone we find our rest:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” (Exod 20:8,11)
Andrew Stewart notes: “The Sabbath principle takes us back to creation and reminds us that everything and every person belongs to God. God owns our lives, our land, our time and everything else we possess… God’s lordship was recognised by resting or ceasing from normal activities on the seventh day. God himself had rested on the seventh day and instructed mankind to follow his example (see Gen. 2:1-3).”[3]

Forty years later, the Sabbath commandment was repeated, but enhanced to remind God’s people of the rest that is found in redemption from their slavery:
“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deut 5:12, 15)

In their wilderness wanderings, the Sabbath commandment kept alive (or, should’ve kept alive) their hope of rest yet to be found in the Promised Land.
But they failed to remember what God had done for them. They forgot, disobeyed and missed out on that rest: “So God swore in His wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” (Heb 4:3)
The writer to Hebrews notes that the rest promised in the Promised Land was a type of that better rest that awaits the people of God. He says: “If Joshua had given them rest, then God would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a sabbath-rest (Gk. sabbatismos) for the people of God.”

The Sabbath is a perpetual reminder, pointing God’s people to that better rest.

The Sabbath Neglected Today

In the light of this I find it incredible that the Sabbath is held in such low esteem among many Christians today. Some ignore it altogether dismissing it as no longer applicable, or even useful to observe, under the gospel.

But how can they ignore the Ten Commandments, even one of them?
The excuse usually made is that ‘the other nine commandments are all repeated in one form or another in the New Testament, while [at least they claim] the Sabbath commandment is not.’

In this they are wrong. The Sabbath commandment was reinforced by Christ when He claimed for Himself the title: “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:28)
An odd title indeed to claim for Himself if the Sabbath was about to become irrelevant!

He then went on to assert: “The Sabbath was made for man.” (Mark 2:27)
Again, I find it incredible that some interpret this as: “If the Sabbath was made for man, that means we can do what we like. We don’t have to respect the commandment; we can abolish it.”

• But all God’s commandments are “made for man”, i.e for our benefit: “What does the Lord your God require of you, but… to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good.” (Deut 10:12) Does that mean we can abolish any law we like (or dislike) because that law was made for our good?
• For that matter, “woman was made for man” (1 Cor 11:9), i.e. for his good, since it was “not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18). Surely this means that woman is to be valued as a precious gift from God, not held in low esteem.

When Jesus spoke those words in Mark ch 2 He was not dispensing with the Sabbath sign, but rather He was rebuking the Pharisees who had obscured the benefit of the sign by corrupting it under a mountain of burdensome rules that completely obliterated the real meaning of the Sabbath, i.e. as a sign of that blessed “rest” that Christ offers us in the gospel.

Restlessness Today

It is not only the Pharisee in Jesus’ day, and the legalist today, who has lost sight of the purpose of the Sabbath.
But those who reject its relevance today are equally at fault, and deny themselves this wonderful sign that strengthens our of hope in God’s rest.

Is this, I wonder, part of the problem contributing to the increasing restlessness among so many Christians today?
Is this why, in some cases at least, church life (and even worship itself) gives the appearance of lots of sound and fury, but little by way of substance?

Have we forgotten how to rest in Christ, and trust Him?
Have we ignored the Sabbath sign and lost sight of where it is pointing?

Resting in the Joy of the Lord

Derek Thomas comments on Psalm 92 which, he notes, is titled: “A Psalm. A Song, for the Sabbath Day”:

“Every Lord’s Day is a day of worship. It is a provision of God that every seventh day we take stock of our lives and gather collectively for worship. And worship is designed to help us get things into proper perspective.”

It is in worship, especially, on each Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath, that we are effectively reminded of the rest we already have in Christ, and that better rest that awaits each one of us in Him.

“Worship is what we were made for, and our lives become unhinged when true worship is neglected… Worship involves coming into God’s presence and appreciating just how wonderful He is. In fact, worship is doing what we were made to do. And there is no joy to be found anywhere to compare with the sense of real satisfaction gained by doing what we were meant to do. That’s why real worship is an occasion of real joy.”[4]

I close with these words of Andrew Stewart:

“Christ’s yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matt. 11:28–30)… When He had completed His work of redemption He entered His rest (Heb 1:3), and provides an everlasting Sabbath rest for the people of God (Heb. 4:9). This is what Christians celebrate each Lord’s Day, which is the weekly Christian Sabbath given to us by God for physical rest and spiritual nourishment.
“For this reason, our Lord said that the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27). When we sanctify that day by resting and renewing our souls with the bread of life we recognise that ‘the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath’ as well as being Lord of all.”

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honour Him,
Not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.
.                                                     – Isaiah 58:13–14

[1] Augustine, in the opening paragraph of his Confessions
[2] Eg. In the 7th month, the 1st, 10th (Day of Atonement), 15th and 22nd (Feast of Tabernacles) were all observed as sabbaths, whatever day of the week they fell on – see Leviticus 23. Also, every 7th year was a sabbath – see Lev 25:4.
[3] Andrew Stewart, commenting on Deuteronomy 15:1-23
[4] Derek Thomas “Help for Hurting Christians”