Title: The Biblical Meaning of the Seventh Day
Hebrews 4:4-9
God's promise of rest is not a thing of yesterday or today. The author of Hebrews says in verse 3, “From the creation of the world it has come to pass.” So, what does the rest mean that this has been done since the creation of the world? The author of Hebrews makes it clear that the rest of heaven we are waiting for with hope comes from the rest of God.
1. God's Rest
Hebrews 4:4 says, “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.” Here are some things we can learn from this verse:
God said that his work was finished when the seventh day came. And on the seventh day, he said, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on this day he rested from all the work that he had created and made.”
What catches our attention in these words is that He blessed the seventh day and made it holy. This is the biblical origin of the Sabbath. So, what attitude should we have on this Sabbath issue? The people of Israel took the seventh-day Sabbath day to be holy. So they even created the tradition of elders to keep the Sabbath day more holy.
Even some of the Christians today, such as the Adventists, insist on the Saturday Sabbath, which Israel has kept under the law, and argue that if Christians do not keep this Sabbath, they cannot achieve salvation. We can learn a biblical lesson about what God's rest means from verse 4 and how we should behave toward this rest.
God said he rested from all work on the seventh day. The word that God rested here means God's rest, and this rest does not refer to the rest in the sense that it is limited to the seventh day of the seventh. Please see verse 5. He said, “There they will not enter my rest again.” The Sabbath that God enjoyed on the seventh day did not mean the Sabbath that was commanded by the law, but the new rest of God who said, “You cannot enter my rest.” Therefore, the Sabbath, which is commanded by the law, is a shadow of this kind of God's rest, and it is made to last until complete rest comes. This is a very important issue.
2. God's Rest in Two Meanings
What does it mean when you say that you will not enter the rest that God said is my rest? That's not to say you can't get into the Sabbath keeping. It means that we cannot enter into the eternal rest that has been promised to us.
This rest appeared at first as a model. That is the Canaanite Sabbath that He spoke to Israel. God's rest is one gospel. Israel was the first to receive this gospel message. But they said that they could not enter because of their disobedience. God's rest was promised to Israel, but the promise was in vain because of Israel's disobedience. Then, has God's rest gone forever? Said it wasn't like that. Please see verse 8. “If Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that.” The rest of this other day is important. God rested on the seventh day for the rest of this other day, and since this Sabbath is God's Sabbath that is certain and must be fulfilled, the Sabbath was set in the Law and commanded to keep it.
But the secret of that rest was revealed. Since God's rest has not yet been realized, the hope of rest is still in effect. Verse 9 says, “Therefore, a sabbath remains for the people of God.” And in verse 10 it says, “He who has entered into that rest rests from his work, just as God rests from his work.” In Revelation 14:13, regarding the rest that partakes in God's rest and rests, he says, "Blessed are those who die in the Lord, and they will rest after their toil, according to what they have done." Paul lived his life hoping for this kind of rest (Philippians 1:22-26). This rest is the eternal rest of heaven.
The legal Sabbath is now meaningless. The Sabbath is a shadow of things to come, and Christ has come as the reality of that shadow, and he has given us the sure promise of true rest and revealed the form of that rest. Therefore, the Sabbath was necessary according to the law even for the Jews in the age when they did not know what the true Sabbath was under the law, but in Christ, the Sabbath has no meaning. Against this, Paul commands us not to judge for the Sabbath in Colossians 2:16.
Conclusion: The legal Sabbath was abolished in Christ. If you want to keep this Sabbath, you must also keep the commandments of the other laws, and even if you keep those things, you will not be made righteous or you will be saved. Rather, it is cursed by the law and leads to condemnation. God has given us a new day to celebrate God's rest and put our hope in it. The Bible speaks of that day as the Lord's Day. This is the day of the resurrection, when the Lord overcame the power of death and rose again with a body of eternal rest. For us who are united in the resurrection of Christ, the new day of the Lord will not be the shadow of the law, but will continue until the day of our eternal rest.