This week’s Bible study at the Missouri Synod Lutheran church was about the Sabbath. Here are some items:
A. In many debates among Christians about whether Christians should
observe the seventh-day Sabbath, the “no” side argues that the Sabbath
was given to the Jews alone, whereas the “yes” side affirms that it was a
creation ordinance and was given to all humanity, not just the Jews.
The pastor seemed to be affirming the latter, even though he argued
that Christians are not required to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. He
interpreted Mark 2:27 (the Sabbath was made for man) to mean that the
Sabbath was a creation ordinance. By providing a weekly day of rest to
humanity, God provided intervals of relief from the curse of hard work
that God delivered to man in Genesis 3:17-19.
But, with the death and resurrection of Christ, we are now in the new
creation. Jesus’ rest in the grave and the women’s rest on the Sabbath
prior to Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 23:56) was the final Sabbath
observance required by God. Now, the Sabbath symbolizes the freedom in
God’s mercy that believers have, as well as the heavenly rest that they
will enter after death; the pastor cited Hebrews 4 for this. Yet, the
pastor stated that the Sabbath commandment is still binding, on some
level. People even under the new covenant are to set aside time to
rest, as opposed to working all the time. According to the pastor,
Romans 14 and Colossians 2:16 give believers freedom to decide what day
to observe.
B. The pastor said that the Sabbath was revolutionary because, in
the ancient world, people did not get days off. They worked until they
dropped. I would not be surprised if there is truth to that; the
weekend, even the week, was an institution that was rare. But I wonder
if slaves in the ancient Near East got festivals off.
C. The pastor noted that the Sabbath commandment in Exodus 20 and
Deuteronomy 5 offered different rationales. The Exodus 20 version
grounds the commandment in God’s rest on the seventh day after
creation. The Deuteronomy 5 version grounds it in God’s deliverance of
Israel from Egypt. The pastor speculated about the reason for the
difference. In Exodus 20, the pastor said, the people of Israel are
being created into a people at Mount Sinai, out of the Israelites and
the mixed multitude who left Egypt with them. Consequently, God
emphasizes creation. In Deuteronomy 5, Moses is renewing the covenant
between God and Israel. The covenant is based on God’s deliverance of
Israel from Egypt, so Moses reminds Israel of that. Moses is trying to
prepare Israel spiritually for her entrance into Canaan, for she will be
tempted to see her God merely as a desert deity and to worship the gods
the Canaanites worshiped (i.e., Baal), the ones the Canaanites said
caused the crops to grow.
D. I asked the pastor about the Temple and Sabbath and festival
observance in the eschatological passages of the prophetic writings.
Many Christians would apply these passages to the millennium, the
thousand year reign of Christ over earth after Christ returns, but I
recognized that Lutherans are amillennial. Do these passages, however,
suggest that the Temple, Sabbath, and festivals are continually binding
or obligatory, since they will be honored in the eschaton? The pastor
replied that the passages are conveying an image of a perfect
relationship with God (i.e., we’re good with God, and God is good with
us), in language that Israelites understood. The Israelites saw a right
relationship with God in terms of observing the Sabbath and festivals
and sacrificing at the Temple, so the prophets presented a perfect
relationship with God in reference to that. According to the pastor, we
are not meant to get caught up in the details. What is important is
the point: that we will have a perfect relationship with God.