The Sabbath Fulfillment
By Preston Rhodes, Resonate Missoula
Introduction
In this first part of this blog series, which you can read here, we established that:
The popular understanding of Sabbath actually inhibits true rest and produces anxiety and shame.
The Sabbath commandment was a remembrance of God’s rest in Creation and God’s work of Salvation.
Eternal rest was lost in the Fall and partially restored in the Old Testament, which points to a future complete restoration.
In this second part, we will examine the New Testament fulfillment of the Sabbath and begin to discuss how we apply this biblical understanding to our lives.
The Sabbath Fulfillment
As we concluded in our last blog, God’s rest in creation—lost in the Fall and partially restored in the Old Testament—looked forward to a future Messiah, no longer a shadow, to be our “Sabbath rest.” Enter, Jesus of Nazareth, the bringer of true rest. Early in his ministry, as told in Mark 2 and Matthew 12, Jesus and His disciples walk through a field on the Sabbath and His disciples begin to pluck heads of grain, which is a violation of the Sabbath laws. The Pharisees, furious at His disobedience, confront Jesus. Jesus, in response, first reminds them of how David took priestly bread to feed the hungry, and then says “have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here”. Finally, He responds “The Sabbath was made for man [i.e. for his benefit, his spiritual and physical welfare], not man for the Sabbath [i.e. the Sabbath has no needs that man can fulfill]. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Do you see what Jesus is saying? This isn’t a story about finding a loophole in the Sabbath laws, it’s a story about who Jesus is! Jesus is saying to the Pharisees “I am the greater David and I fulfill all that David typified. I am the greater Temple and I fulfill all that the Temple typified. I am the greater Sabbath, and I fulfill all that the Sabbath typified.” Jesus’s infringements on the Sabbath law appeared to be inexcusable provocations but were actually proclamations of His messiahship. As Paul says, the Sabbath rest was only shadow, but the substance is Christ (Colossians 2:17).
Theologian NT Wright says “The Sabbaths thus functioned, like the Temple, as sign and foretaste. The Temple was a signpost to God’s ultimate intention to fill the whole world with his presence; the Sabbaths were advanced glimpses of the Age to Come, the future somehow nesting dangerously in the present. The Sabbath candles were the sign that one day God’s new day would dawn. And Jesus was declaring that the day had come at last. You don’t need candles once the sun has risen.”¹ Similarly, theologian D.A. Carson writes “That Jesus Christ is Lord of the Sabbath is not only a messianc claim of grand proportions, but it raises the possibility of a future change or reinterpretation of the Sabbath, in precisely the same way that His professed superiority over the Temple raises certain possibilities about ritual law.”²
By saying that the Sabbath was made for man, Jesus reminds the Pharisees that the Sabbath rest was instituted to relieve man of his labors. By saying that He is lord of the Sabbath, Jesus teaches them that He has come to relieve them of laboring for their salvation. Just as he taught the Pharisees, so he teaches us today in the 21st century.
Jesus’s claim that He is the fulfillment of the Sabbath can be made with regard to every Old Testament feast, holiday, type, celebration, or institution. As Tom Schreiner writes, “Paul lumps the Sabbath together with food laws, festivals like Passover, and new moons. All of these constitute shadows that anticipate the coming of Christ.”³ Jesus not only fulfills the Old Testament Sabbath, but also the Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7-8), the Temple (Matthew 12:6), circumcision (Romans 2:25-29), and the entire Old Testament sacrificial system (Hebrews 10:1-18). Everything that all these events and institutions were designed to be and do, Jesus was and did. NT Wright again says “If Jesus is a walking, living, breathing Temple, he is also the walking, celebrating, victorious Sabbath”4
Returning to Hebrews 4, after the author teaches that the Israelites never truly entered God’s rest in the Promised Land, he says in verse 9 “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 that the people of God have been trying to reenter since the Fall is finally available through faith in Christ (Hebrews 4:3).
The book of Hebrews declares that the perpetual Sabbath of the future age has already dawned in Jesus. The holy Sabbath of the Old Covenant was only a shadow of Christ; Jesus, the substance to whom the shadow pointed, has made all days holy. The promised rest of the messianic age has begun now, in Christ.
Later in Hebrews, the author tells us that the law “can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship” (Hebrews 10:1). But on the cross, Christ offered the “once-and-for-all” sacrifice on our behalf. Hebrews 10:12 says “when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” After performing the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus sat down and rested—ceased from His labor of atonement—because there was nothing more to be done, ever. Because of Christ, we no longer have to “labor” in law-keeping and self-works in order to be justified in the sight of God. We no longer rest for only one day, but we forever cease our laboring to attain God’s favor.
The Practical Application of the Christian Sabbath
So, if Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Sabbath, what does that mean for us practically? How do we “honor the Sabbath”, as the Ten Commandments demand? How do we enter into Sabbath rest?
As with most aspects of following Jesus, the answer is simpler than we may think. The Christian observes the Sabbath by ceasing to labor for their own righteousness, trusting instead that Christ’s finished work is sufficient as their righteousness. You honor the Sabbath by experiencing the spiritual rest (freedom from sin, newness of life) you have by virtue of being buried and raised with Christ. This spiritual rest is not to be limited to one day of the week, but must be practiced daily, perpetually.
JD Greear, pastor of Summit Church and former President of the Southern Baptist Convention writes “The point is not that Sunday is the new Sabbath and it now becomes the day upon which all Christians everywhere must worship. The point is that Christ is Himself the Sabbath, and if we are resting and rejoicing in His resurrection, we have fulfilled this Commandment.”5 Theologian Andrew Lincoln writes “In the Old Testament the literal physical rest of the Sabbath pointed to future rest; but since Christ has brought fulfillment in terms of salvation rest, it is the present enjoyment of this rest that acts as the foretaste of the consummation rest which is to come.”6
John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, says “During our whole lives we must aim at constant rest from our own works, in order that the Lord may work in us by his Spirit. This is not contented with one day, but requires the whole course of our lives, until being completely dead to ourselves, we are filled with the life of God. Christians, therefore, should have nothing to do with a superstitious observance of days.”
If you are like me, this understanding of the Sabbath has been foreign to you through most of your Christian life even though it has been the dominant Christian view throughout history. In order to help this idea sink down into your bones, I want to restate it multiple different ways. Sabbath rest today is not a physical rest, but a spiritual one. We do not cease from our labors by resting physically one day in seven, but by resting spiritually every day and forever in Christ by faith alone. We experience God’s true Sabbath rest, not by taking off from work one day in seven, but by placing our faith in the saving work of Jesus every day. To experience God’s Sabbath rest is to cease from those works of righteousness by which we were seeking to be justified. The New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament Sabbath is not one day in seven of physical rest, but an eternity of spiritual rest through faith in the finished work of Christ seven days in seven. Every day is a celebration of the fact that we have been freed from the burden of sacrifices and rituals necessary to gain acceptance from God. You observe the Sabbath every moment of every day to the degree that you rest in the work of Christ for you. That is what it means to say that Jesus is our Sabbath rest.
In Resonate, we occasionally use a diagram called the “Semicircle” in our discipleship groups which teaches us about work and rest. The Semicircle teaches that we should not “rest from work”, but should “work from rest”. It is tempting to believe that “work from rest” demands a specific schedule of rest days versus work days, but in reality it is a much more freeing and beautiful picture.
To “work from rest” means that the finished work of Jesus is the foundation of all our value, identity, and work. It is the belief that you cannot lose God’s love by your failure, ineptitude, or sin, and you cannot earn God’s love by your success, competence, or good deeds. Only those who work out of the understanding that God’s love for them rests on the unchanging perfection of Jesus can find true joy and peace in all they do. This is good news, and much better than some sort of ritualistic calendaring.
The Sabbath command in the Old Testament was an ordinance that foreshadowed the coming rest that Jesus Christ would bring. Christ is our true Sabbath rest. God’s desire is that we enter into His spiritual rest now, rather than trying to keep the letter of the Old Testament Sabbath command. His aim is that we keep the substance of the Sabbath, not the shadow. For who, when standing at a lookout point high in the Swiss Alps, looks at a picture of mountains on their phone? Or who, having arrived at their destination, continues to look at the map that showed them how to get there? Who chases the shadow when the substance is before them?
Conclusion
In this second part of our blog series, we have established:
Jesus is the substance of the Old Testament Sabbath shadow.
Christians observe the Sabbath by ceasing to labor for their own righteousness, trusting instead that Christ’s finished work is sufficient as their righteousness.
God has designed us to “work from rest”, meaning that the finished work of Jesus is the foundation for all our value, identity, and effort.
Christians, therefore, do not hold to a Jewish practice of the Sabbath (resting from work one day in seven), but a Christian practice of the Sabbath (resting from works-righteousness every moment of our lives).
In the third and final part, we will discuss the practical implications of this understanding of the Sabbath, with the hope of freeing us up to have a greater rest and joy in Christ and the life He has given us. If you have any questions regarding anything I’ve written, please either leave a comment below or email blog@resonate.net and I will address your question in the final part of this blog series!
