Exodus 35:1-3--Sabbath Regulations

Sabbath Regulations​
35 Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do. 2 Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. 3 You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.”

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A vert short passage, and a very short blog likely.  God takes the observation of the Sabbath day seriously, in fact it's deadly serious--we've talked about that already.  A refusal to celebrate the Sabbath was a refusal to be a part of God's covenant, and a refusal to associate yourself with God, His name and His works--first and foremost, the work He did in the six literal days of creation.

Would the theory of evolution even have such a foothold in our society if people observed the Sabbath because, they knew and believed that in six literal days, God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them?  We would certainly be following the example of the Lord Jesus who, tradition says, made atonement for our sins on Good Friday and was dead and off the cross and buried before the beginning of the Sabbath day because He was in the tomb for three days--part of Friday, all of Saturday and part of Sunday.  It would seem that even Jesus "rested" in a sense on the Sabbath day and did the work of atonement (and everything else that happened at the cross) on Friday and the work of raising himself from the dead on Sunday.

For those that are stumbling across this blog first, I would point you back to my  blog for Exodus 23:10-19 to see what I said there about if Christ or the apostles through the Holy Spirit ever revoked or modified this commandment in the same way that the Kosher laws were lifted so that the the gospel could go to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.  I think I can emphatically say, "No," to that.  I think we as Christians can still celebrate the Resurrection of Christ and observe the Sabbath as we are commanded without needing to change the day that we worship to make it an "us" vs. "them" mentality to prove to the world that we're not Jews--but in a sense we are.  We have been adopted into one family, and have been grafted into one vine and we are all part of one flock--both Jews and Gentiles alike have became one in Christ.  That is not to say that we need to become "Jewish" first to be saved--Paul addressed that in the book of Galatians and other epistles where he told the Gentiles that they did not need to be slaves to the law, and that they did not need to be circumcised to be saved, but the Sabbath precedes the Law and proceeds circumcision and may very well even be part of the gospel message that we are "messing up" by not observing it, because it is something that has its ultimate fulfillment in the new creation.  God does not abolish the Sabbath, but Jews and Gentiles alike who are in Christ celebrate it forever as they rest from all of their work of this life and find their ultimate rest in Christ.

​Let us not be Antisemitic or Anti-Sabbath in our orthodoxy or orthopraxy for the sake of trying to put daylight between God's covenant people of Israel and God's covenant people, the Church--because the Bible doesn't do that.  All who are part of the Church are part of the true Israel and are sons and daughters of Abraham (and more importantly, sons and daughters of God) by adoption through Christ.  Those who believe in their religion of good works or are atheists or believe in some other way of salvation outside of Christ are not part of true Israel or the Church no matter what their DNA says--it is not your DNA that will save you on the Day of the Lord (the day of judgment for all people).  Your identity will be found in Christ and His finished work or outside of Christ in someone or something else.  Those who are in Christ will be known for their love for God, His Word, and His Law--all of it, including the law to keep the Sabbath.