The Sabbath and the Old Covenant—chp.4

_________________

The Day of Rest

________________________

Biblical Teaching About Time

—An online book about rest and worship—

By Dr. Al Franzmeier

Chapter 4

The Sabbath and the Old Covenant
_________________________

In the previous chapters we examined fifteen ways our world changed during the twentieth century.

 In Chap. 3 we studied the Biblical concept of the seven-day week and why the Sabbath, the seventh day and number seven were considered to be sacred. We now continue with a more detailed look at the Sabbath and the Old Covenant, that Covenant that has now been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

____________________

Thinking about the Sabbath, you may have considered how great it would be if everybody could stop working on the same day to rest, relax and spend time with the family. But think about it. This could never happen in our postmodern world.

For instance, what would happen in any city if no one was in charge of utilities or if no policemen or firemen were on duty for a whole day every week? And what about hospitals? We certainly wouldn’t want doctors, nurses and all the other support people to all take off for a whole day. Think also about bus and cab drivers, airplane pilots, the telephone companies, and the Internet. There are many examples. The whole Sabbath idea is very impractical and quite impossible in our world. Before we can apply these teachings of the Bible to our postmodern world, we have to understand them better. Applications will become more evident later.

It will also not be easy to wade into an extended discussion of this topic in an age that typically wants quick, easy answers. We’re too busy to spend much time reflecting on the past and how we got where we are.  Nevertheless, I invite you to work with me. We’re still a long ways from the end. If you agree, we’ll move on. I’d now like to look at how the people of the Old Testament handled the Sabbath.

Remember the Sabbath by Keeping It Holy
Let’s start with the commandment itself, first given through Moses to the people freed from slavery in Egypt.

‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maid servant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy’ (Exodus 20:8-11).

I want to emphasize several points from this passage, some very similar to the points made in the previous chapter.

1. The week was to be seven days long and the seventh day was always a Sabbath, a day of rest.
2. On the seventh day they were not to labor. Work was for the other days. The seventh was a day to rest. That presented a few difficulties, of course, especially since someone had to prepare meals and care for the animals. They worked around those problems in a variety of creative ways.
3. On the Sabbath no one was to work. That included the children and the servants. Even slaves and animals must rest on that day.
4. All this was a reminder that the same LORD who brought them out of bondage and had given them their beautiful land, was the Creator of all the vast heavens, the earth and the sea.
5. By His grace the LORD rescued their forefathers and fed them in the wilderness with manna. However, He gave them no manna on the Seventh Day. It was a day of rest. On the sixth day they could collect what they needed and it did not decay. So the Sabbath was a day to meditate upon the gracious God who continued to feed them. 
6. Their Creator rested on the Seventh Day, the day without end, and so they also would find eternal rest if they but trusted Him.
7. Above all, the Seventh Day was to be viewed as a blessing from the LORD for all believers throughout the long history of God’s people Israel.

 God had miraculously taken them out of slavery in Egypt to put them on a journey to the land he promised Abraham centuries before.

The same command given from the creation of the world to Adam and Eve and the believers descended from them was now restated in the period of the Exodus. That context is very important. In the the Ten Commandments the LORD said, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” They were free at last and must never throw away their freedom. Their freedom was intimately tied to the grace and mercy of the God who had delivered them from the tyranny of Pharaoh and his evil government. A difficult journey stood before the freed people, a journey through wild country. But by God’s grace they would arrive safely in the Promised Land. On that journey they were to set aside one day every week to rest and to remember the LORD who had set them free and was giving them the Promised Land.

The Apostle Paul calls Christians to meditate upon that same journey. In his letter to the believers in Corinth he writes,

 ‘I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ’” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4). 

What is Paul is talking about? How were they “baptized in the cloud and in the sea”? What does it mean to eat the same spiritual food and drink the same spiritual drink from the spiritual rock? And how is it that Christ is that rock?

Paul is saying that Christ was behind everything that took place in the Exodus. Christ is the goal, “the end” toward which everything moved. All the sacrifices, rituals and days pointed to Him. Believers in Christ now share in all that Christ has accomplished, as did the believers in the Old Covenant era. To understand Paul’s and all the Apostles’—and the early church’s—thinking about Christ as the LORD of the Old Covenant we must learn more about what was behind the Sabbath commandment and the number seven to which it was attached.

As pointed out in the previous chapter, seven is the important number in the Old Testament. For instance, the great Day of Atonement was on the tenth day of the seventh month. In the Tabernacle and later Temple ceremonies for that day, a bull was slaughtered, symbolically taking the place of the priests who deserved death because of their personal sins. A goat was also slaughtered in place of the people of Israel. As we now understand it, these sacrifices pointed forward to the sacrificial death of the Christ.

Following those sacrifices, ceremonies in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle (later in the Temple) also involved the use of the number seven. The High Priest sprinkled some of the slaughtered bull’s blood with his finger on the Atonement Cover of the Ark of the Covenant for the sins of the priests seven times. He did the same with blood of the slaughtered goat to atone for the sins of the people.
Then the High Priest went out to make atonement for the altar since the sins of the entire nation were daily placed upon that it in the presence of the LORD. Blood from both the bull and the goat were placed on the horns of the altar seven times.

After all this, one powerful symbolical act remained. The High Priest placed both hands on the head of a second living goat and confessed over it “all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites.” Then the goat was sent into the wilderness to be released and never seen again. So the sins of the people and their guilt were symbolically transferred and taken away.

The goat was called the scapegoat, a term common in our language. When we don’t want to take the blame, we give to somebody else. We make him the scapegoat. The Hebrew name is Azazel. The Bible actually says that the second goat was the ‘goat for Azazel.’ Interpreters disagree on the meaning of the Hebrew term. You will find some who equate Azazel with Satan and still others say that the goat was given to some mysterious supernatural being called Azazel. Some Rabbis teach that Azazel belongs to the class of goat-like demons, haunting the desert. In our day you can still find people who even worship Azazel and his female counterpart Lilith. Azazel is also identified with the serpent that tempted Eve. His form is described as a dragon with hands and feet like a man's, on his back six wings on the right and six on the left. There are a variety of Bible passages used to trace the background of these references. For tons more information about Lilith see The Lilith Shrine.

In Muslim demonology, Azazel is the counterpart of the devil who refused to acknowledge the supremacy of God. His name was changed to Iblis, which means 'despair'. In Paradise Lost (I, 534), the great medieval poet Milton used Azazel as the name for the standard-bearer of the rebel angels.

During the ceremonies the High Priest did not wear his usual elaborate vestments. Instead, he wore the simple white linen garments prescribed for a priest tending the altar. By the way, the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel tell us that white linen is also the garment worn by the holy angels who minister before God in heaven,  It symbolized the highest degree of purity.

When the rituals were completed the High Priest took off his linen garments, bathed himself and put back on his regular vestments. Then he burned the fat of the slaughtered bull and goat on the altar as a sin offering for himself and the people. Finally, the slaughtered bull and goat remains were taken outside the camp or city and burned.

The Day of Atonement, unlike the Sabbath, was a day of fasting. It was the only regular fast day stipulated in the Old Covenant. It was called a Sabbath of rest, a day in which the people were to deny themselves food from the evening of the ninth day of the month until the tenth day ended the following evening.

Since Israelite culture was based on agriculture, the Sabbath was always a complete day of rest, set aside for the worship of God and for sharing among family and friends. It was a day of eating, drinking and celebrating, not fasting. They were not allowed to fast on Sabbath. Sabbath pointed to the blessings of this good earth and the land God had given them. This was a day to celebrate that fact.

We people of the New Testament reflect upon what the Sabbath pointed toward, namely eternal rest, peace and security in a world freed by Christ from sin and rebellion. Baptized into Christ we anticipate that grand Day when He will return to complete the promise given to us upon the cross. For now, he says, “Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The writer of the letter to the Hebrews also wrote, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work” (Hebrews 4:9).

From these and similar passages we begin to see that the Old Covenant Sabbath pointed forward to a better time. Jesus understood himself to be the fulfillment and the fulfiller of the weekly Sabbaths with their promises of rest as well as the Atonement Sabbath of rest. Both Sabbaths pointed to what Christ was to bring, namely rest for guilt burdened people and peace with God through the final sacrifice that He made upon the altar of the cross. Consequently, it is no longer the weekly Sabbath or the Day of Atonement that matters. Both pointed to Jesus. He is the sacrifice and the bringer of rest through that sacrifice. What matters now is following Him every day. That’s where Christians have always gone. We will explore further what God revealed to his people of the Old Covenant about rest, particularly about rest and the land in the next chapter.