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“LORD OF THE SABBATH”

REASONS TO HONOR HIS DAY

compiled by Rachel Cory-Kuehl

Last Edit: October 2021

Scripture quoted from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.



1. THE SON OF GOD CREATED THIS EARTH.

          HE BLESSED THE 7TH DAY AND DECLARED IT HOLY.

 

I Corinthians 8:6 “ . . . yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.”

 

Ephesians 3:9 “ . . . and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;”

 

Hebrews 1:1-2 “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;”

 

John 1:1-3 & 10 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. (& 10) He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.”

 

Colossians 1:13-16 “He [the Father] has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”




 

Genesis 2:2 “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation” (NRS).

 

The New Testament is clear , the LORD who created this earth in six days,

                   who blessed the 7th day and declared it holy,

                          is none other than the Son of God.

                                                    He is LORD of the Sabbath.

 

The word “holy” means “belonging to the LORD.” The Son of God declared the 7th day of each week “holy.” He blessed the 7th day long before the Sinai covenant, before Jacob, before Abraham. He has never designated another day. He has never removed the blessing from His day.



2. GOD’S BLESSING IS FOREVER.


I Chronicles 17:27 “For You have blessed O Lord, and it shall be blessed forever.”


Malachi 3:6 “For I am the Lord, I change not.”

 

Human beings are blessed conditionally, based upon their loyalty to covenant. The Sabbath was blessed unconditionally. God did NOT say, “If it works out - we’ll keep it.”



3. THE SABBATH WAS WRITTEN IN STONE

 

Israel was commanded to remember “the sabbath of the LORD your God” (Exo. 20:10, Deut. 5:14). God wrote this command in stone. It was one of the Ten Commandments of God’s “covenant” with Israel (Deut. 4:13, 9:9, 9:11). The stones were put into a gold covered box called “the Ark of the Covenant,” which was placed inside a special tent called the Tabernacle of the Testimony.

 

The Sabbath of the 7th Day was NOT something new. The commandment said “remember.” Remember the day that was set apart as holy - from the beginning. It wasn’t Israel’s Sabbath. It was “the Sabbath of the LORD your God.”

      It STILL IS.

 

Exodus 20:8-11Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 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.”

 

The LORD did not bless and hallow the 7th day at Mount Sinai. He blessed that day at the end of creation week! He simply commanded Israel to “remember.”



4. THE SABBATH IS A SIGN

 

Exodus 31:13 “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: `Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.’”

 

In context, the LORD is definitely speaking here of the 7th Day Rest, not the other prophetic Feasts. He calls the Sabbath a “perpetual covenant” between Himself and the children of Israel forever.

 

We are grafted into Israel - through faith in Yeshua Messiah (Eph 2, Rom 11).

 

Ezekiel 20:12 “Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.”

 

Jesus is the LORD who sanctifies us.

 

Ezekiel 20:20 And “hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the LORD your God.”

 

To be sanctified, is to be set apart for a holy purpose. The Sabbath was “sanctified”(Gen 2:2) and we are sanctified (Heb 2:11) - by Jesus Christ (Eph 5:27).

 

When we keep His day, we are saying that we are citizens of His kingdom - that we worship Him as our Creator and King, and we recognize His right to rule.

 

The Sabbath commandment is the only one containing the elements of an ancient seal. It was placed right in the middle of the Ten. It contains the name of the supreme authority (the LORD), His territory (the heavens and the earth), and the basis of his right to rule (He created the earth, and He redeemed Israel).

 

We rest on that day, because the LORD has commanded us to do so. There is no other reason. When we rest on the Sabbath, we demonstrate our submission to His authority.



5. KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS


Deuteronomy 5:15 “. . . the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day”

 

Who spoke this law from the Mountain? First Timothy 2:5 says “there is one mediator between God and man.”


 

It was the Son of God - on that Mountain. No man has seen the Father (John 1:18, John 5:37, 6:46). Yet Moses, with the elders of Israel “saw God” on Mt. Sinai (Exo. 24:9-11). Whom did they see? Paul wrote concerning Israel, “They drank of that Rock which followed [accompanied] them, and the Rock was Christ” (1Cor 10:4).

 

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He is the Creator.

            Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He declared it holy.

                  Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He commanded it.

 

For a study on the Son of God through the Old Testament, see “The Mediator.”

 

Matthew 19:17 [Jesus speaking] “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments.”


John 14:15 [Jesus speaking] “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”


John 15:10 [Jesus speaking] “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love,”

 

The Ten Commandments ARE His commandments!



6. THE LORD’S DAY


Mark 2:28 “Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”


Luke 6:5 “And He said to them, ‘The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.’”

 

He created the Sabbath at the beginning.

            He repeated the Sabbath from the Mountain.

                  He promised a blessing for anyone who keeps His day holy.

                        He declared Himself, “Lord of the Sabbath Day.”

 

When John the Revelator wrote that he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” (Rev. 1:10) what day was John writing about? Answer: The 7th Day Sabbath! Of course!



7. THE SABBATH IS INCLUDED IN THE NEW COVENANT

 

In the New Covenant the LORD has promised to write His Law on our hearts. So the Law is not gone. It is internalized. It becomes part of us.

 

Jeremiah 31:31-33 “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD.


 

Jeremiah [continued] ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Hebrews 8:8, 8:13, 9:15, 12:24)

 

You may be thinking, “But I’m not an Israelite.” Ahh - but you are, if you believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and your Savior. You are an Israelite - by faith. You are “grafted in” (Romans Chapter 11). You have been made “citizens of the commonwealth of Israel” (Ephesians 2:11-16).

 

Paul said of the Jews,“God is able to graft them in again(Rom 11:23).

 

NOTE: Individual Jews were “grafted in” to Israel by circumcision. Anciently, Israel was “married” to Yahweh by the “first covenant.” With the death of Christ - the “husband” of the “first covenant”- that covenant was rendered “obsolete” (Heb 8:13). Individual Jews were left without a covenant. That is why the Apostle Paul referred to those Jews who came to God through Yeshua Messiah, as “grafted in again,” this time by the “circumcision of Christ” - circumcision of the heart (Col 2:11).


            See our study: “Who are Israel?

 


8. THE PROMISED BLESSING 

                                                     

Isaiah 58:13-59:2 “If you turn away your foot from [trampling] 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 honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken.”


I want this promised blessing!

 


9. IN THE EARTH MADE NEW

 

Isaiah 66:22-23 “‘For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,’ says the LORD, ‘So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,’ says the LORD.”

 

The prophecy says “all flesh” - not “all Jews.” For me, this verse puts the Sabbath squarely in the New Covenant.



 

I have heard the argument that this verse points to continual worship, not worship at specific times, but the commands concerning worship at Ezekiel’s Temple, seem to negate this argument.

 

Ezekiel 46:1The gate of the inner court facing East shall be shut the six working days; but it shall be opened on the Sabbath day, and opened on the day of the New Moon” (NAS). (See also Ezek 46:3 and Ezek 44:24.)

 

I think the redeemed are going to be very busy - building houses, planting vineyards (Isa 65:21, Amos 9:14), and restoring the destruction of many generations (Isa 61:4) - too busy for continual worship in the presence of the LORD at Jerusalem.

 

The Sabbaths, or “appointed times” will be worship, celebration and rest periods. The 7th Day Sabbath was one of the “appointed times” in the LORD’s list of His Feasts.

 

Leviticus 23:1 “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts. 3 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.”’”



10. JESUS KEPT THE SABBATH. HE IS OUR EXAMPLE.

 

There are some who teach that Jesus broke the Sabbath, and was leading His followers away from Sabbath observance. This argument holds no water. If Jesus had broken the Covenant (law) in any way, He could not have been the sinless lamb of God, and He could not have become our Savior. He also could not inherit the blessings of that Covenant.

 

Jesus said, “I have kept my Father’s commandments (John 15:10).

 

For a detailed account of the miracles of Christ, performed on the Sabbath day, and the incident in the cornfield, please see the study The Sabbath - Objections Considered.”

 

At the end of the six days of creation “all the works were finished,” and the Creator “rested” (Gen 2:2-3). We know that Jesus was the creator.

 

When He came as a man, once again He “rested” in Joseph’s new tomb over the Sabbath day (Matt 8:l, Mk l6:1-2, Mk 16:9, Lk 24:l, Jn 20:l). His work was finished.

 

Creation and redemption are linked by the Sabbath day.







11. THE STANDARD IN THE JUDGMENT

 

Revelation 11:15 & 19 “The 7th angel sounded.” ... “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our LORD and of His Christ ...” “Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.”

 

The Book of Revelation is written as an ancient covenant lawsuit. The LORD is bringing charges against all those who have broken His Covenant and taught men to do so. The 7th angel has sounded. The time for judgment has come (v.18), and the Ark is seen in “the Temple of God” - which is heaven itself (Heb. 8:2).

 

The Ark of Heaven contains the Covenant - the standard in judgment. Why present this Covenant standard at the very end of this age - if it no longer applies?

We pray this study will prove a blessing.

Prophecy Viewpoint


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            Our study is continued with “The Sabbath - Objections Considered.”


RELATED STUDIES


Who are Israel? Two Covenants


A Change of the Law - A New Priesthood


Does Grace replace The Law?


The Ten Commandments - in the New Testament


The Curse of the Law A Yoke of Bondage A Debt Paid


Circumcision - Under the New Covenant


Tithe



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