“Tell the people of Israel: ‘Be careful to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you from generation to generation. It is given so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. You must keep the Sabbath day, for it is a holy day for you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community. Exodus 31:13-14
You will remember that the two absolutely indispensable signs of Jewishness (and acceptance by Yahweh) were circumcision and Sabbath observance. If you were to be “saved” as a Jew, these were non-negotiable. Yet both are dismissed in the New Testament, the first by being absolutely undone (Gal 5:2-4) and the second by being almost completely ignored (Col 2:16). So what is going on?
The answer to our question is that both of these external rites were intended to be symbolic (e.g. Col 2:17). Circumcision symbolized one’s whole, unconditional surrender of one’s future to God. But what about Sabbath? The Scripture printed above helps us with that one. We are told in Genesis that God made that day holy (other than all the other six). Why did he do that? What does the text above say? He made the seventh day Other as a sign that he intended to make us Other![1] When Jews treated that day as different from all the rest, God was preparing them for that “Sabbath” day when Another Spirit would come to fill them with another character than the flawed, sinful one that had been ours since the Fall. Since Pentecost Sunday the mark of covenant with God is no longer Sabbath keeping, but Spirit filling.
Is there value in observing a special day of rest and worship? Certainly. But that observance is no longer the indelible mark of faith in God. Holy character is now that mark.
[1] It has been common for a long time to say that “holy” means “set apart.” That definition is based on what is now known to be an incorrect definition of the Hebrew word. The word defines a quality: that which is other than ordinary, or common.
Called To Be Transformed 