Shabbat
23: 1-4
Shabbat DIG: How is Shabbat like a date with God? How does the biblical calendar remind us of the agricultural year, particularly in the celebration of the harvest? How does Shabbat speak about creation and redemption? What is the link between Genesis 2:1-3 and Hebrews Chapter 4:10? How does Shabbat give us a future taste of the future world to come?
REFLECT: Do you have a Messianic congregation near you? Do you know how to access a Messianic congregation on the internet? As a Gentile, grafted into the Olive tree (Isra’el), do you choose to observe Shabbat? Why? Why not? Is there anything wrong with attending a Messianic congregation of Shabbat on Saturday and then going to church on Sunday?
Even though Gentiles are not bound to observe the sacred times (Colossians 2:16; Romans 14; Galatians 4:8-17), their freedom in Messiah allows them to do so if they choose to.
The biblical calendar (23:1-2): God said to Moshe, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘These are My appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred festivals’ (23:1-2).” The religious calendar coincided with the agricultural year, particularly in the celebration of the harvest. The feasts of Pesach (Passover) and Hag ha’Matzah (Unleavened Bread) were celebrated at the time of the barley harvest in the late spring, while Shavu’ot (Weeks) was celebrated fifty days later in late spring/early summer during the time of the wheat harvest The fall festivals of Rosh ha’Shanah (Trumpets), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Booths) during the seventh month (September/October) were celebrated in conjunction with the harvest of grapes, figs, and olives.418
Shabbat (23:3-4): The first of the festivals (mo’adim, meaning a time and place to meet) listed in Chapter 23 of Leviticus is Shabbat. The first listed is also the most important. It is a day of cessation from all regular work. It is like a date with God. Our relationship with the Lord is like a bride and groom, and is reflected in Shabbat and these feasts. The pattern for this day was set by the Holy One when He created everything (see the commentary on Genesis, to see link click Aq – By the Seventh Day God Had Finished His Work). We are told that when ADONAI completed all the work which He intended to do in the creation: God blessed the seventh day and separated it as holy; because on that day God rested from all His work which He had created, so that it itself could produce (Genesis 2:3). Thus, the pattern for rest and completion on the seventh day was set from the very beginning of creation.
So, Shabbat is a verb, an action word – it is something that we do. What action is this verb related to? Rest! Rest is an action? It seems strange in our busy society that the concept of stopping and resting is an action. But if you have ever tried to fully participate in Shabbat, I’m sure you will soon realize that it is an action (rest) that takes much practice to be completely lived out. Our minds are simply not trained to stop and not be concerned with life, business, finances, etc. Yet, His provision is so complete. We can fully rest in His completed work and no longer toil in life to earn His love – it is given to us abundantly and freely. There is something about doing nothing (to further our own desires) that enables the Ruach of our Father to minister to us deeply and thoroughly on that day.
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You for being so wonderful! You are such an Awesome Father to Praise! We owe so very much to You: Your gift of eternal life (Romans 5:17), Your great grace and mercy (Ephesians 2:8-9), Messiah’s willingness to take our shame and pain on the cross (Hebrews 12:2), Your steadfast love forgiving me for my sins and placing them as far as the East is from the West (Psalms 103:10-11). Through Yeshua then, let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips giving thanks to His name (Hebrews 13:15). It is a joy to praise You always – when I fall asleep, when I wake in the morning and even in the middle of the night if I wake up. Praising You is such a comfort for it puts the focus of life, not on the problems and trials of life; but on You, our Almighty, Loving and Holy, Heavenly Father. In the name of Yeshua and by the power of His resurrection. Amen
The Torah enjoins Isra’el to do as YHVH did and abstain from all their creative work. The Torah also stresses the importance of Shabbat in other ways. First, there are an abundance of passages – at least forgotten different ones – that teach about the Shabbat. Second, there is at least one Shabbat included in each mo’adim of Chapter 23. Third, by establishing a Shabbat year (see El – The Sabbath Year) and a Shabbat year after seven-sevens of years (see Em – The Year of Jubilee), we can understand that there must be something very awe inspiring about our celebration or acknowledgment of this seventh-day rest.419
There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD. These are ADONAI’s appointed times (see Dw – God’s Appointed Times), the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times (23:3-4 NIV). The seventh-day Shabbat stands at the front of this list of festivals. This is an indication of its importance. Moreover, to further emphasize the teaching of Shabbat-rest, each of these special days contains at least one Shabbat, or day of rest. The first and last days of Hag ha’Matzvot (including Pesach and Resheet) and Sukkot both start and finish with a Shabbat. And Shavu’ot, Rosh Ha’Shanah, and Yom Kippur are each a Shabbat in themselves. We get the impression that Shabbat may be, indeed, the most important of the festivals.
Shabbat in this context is referred to as shabbat shabbaton, the Shabbat of Shabbats, or the most restful cessation. Thus, according to traditional Jewish thinking – based upon the Torah statements regarding Shabbat, the weekly Shabbat reminds us of two things: creation and redemption. Accordingly, each of the feasts teach us something about being a creation of God and about being a redeemed person. It seems, therefore, that Shabbat is intimately connected with the themes of each festival. A special day called Shabbat is there to further emphasize on a weekly basis the themes of creation and redemption of which each feast speaks. But just how does Shabbat speak about them?
First, Shabbat reminds us of creation, in that, it is entirely independent of the month and unrelated to the moon. Its date is not determined by any event in nature, such as a new moon, but by the act of creation itself. Thus, the essence of the Shabbat is completely detached from the world of space. By reminding us of the physical creation Shabbat reminds us that we were all created to be completely dependent upon the Creator for everything. Life was meant to be one of eternal rest in Him and His provision for all of our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs.
But sometime after the creation, the Fall occurred (see the commentary Genesis Ay – The Fall of Man). Mankind, in his sinful state, continually attempts to assert his desire for independence from his Creator. This has left all of us in a state of spiritual slavery where sin has so bound us that we cannot on our own break away from our desire to live life independent of our Creator.
However, because of His grace, love, and mercy toward His creation, the Creator set out to set us free from that spiritual bondage, whose ultimate end is death. For the wages of your [sin nature] is death (6:23a). This is called redemption – releasing us from the slavery of sin. The result is that when anyone accepts God and receives His redemption accomplished by the atoning sacrifice of Messiah, that person is made into a new creation. Moreover, the chains of sin are broken forever and sinful mankind is changed into a spiritual being whose innermost desire is to a life that is completely dependent upon the Creator (see the commentary on Romans Bu – The New Freedom in Messiah).
YHVH provided a wonderful gift to His people. Once a week, He has created a day serving as a reminder to believers that they are made to depend on God. Hence, we are to cease from our labors. Just as Ha’Shem ceased from making His physical creation because there was simply nothing else to be done, so we are to practice once a week to cease from striving and all daily laboring because there is nothing else which can possibly be done to us – we are complete in Messiah! Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is a new creation – the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new (Second Corinthians 5:17)!
Second, Shabbat also reminds believers of redemption. When Messiah saved us from our sins and atoned for them, ADONAI also redeemed us from slavery to our sin. He made us free to live for Him and free to rest in Messiah’s finished work. Thus, once a week, God provided a reminder of what it means to rest in Him and live as a redeemed person. Moreover, each of the other festivals also contain at least one day of rest. The picture here is that each of the festivals teach us something about what it means to rest in Him and walk as a redeemed person.
In these ways, Shabbat displays its preeminence among the festivals, and the rest on each of the festivals should be considered just as important as the weekly Shabbat and the Shabbats of the other festivals all picture some aspects of what it means to be a new creation and a redeemed person in Messiah.420
The Good News: There is a vital connection to the importance that ADONAI puts on the Sabbath and the revelation of Messiah in it. To see this clearly, we will examine Hebrews Chapter 4. In this amazing chapter, the writer makes a link between the establishment of a seventh day Shabbat by YHVH in Genesis and entering into the eternal spiritual rest we have through faith in the Messiah. The link is the concept or rest.
In Genesis 2:1-3, God did not stop all activities. He, of course, continued to sustain the universe which He had just finished creating. But His rest consisted of a cessation of all His creative work. The creation was finished and accomplished. There was simply nothing else necessary to do other than sustaining the work that He had just completed. Therefore, YHVH rested – not because He was physically tired – but simply because He was finished.
Hebrews Chapter 4 tells us that belief in Yeshua is exactly the same way. The six days of labor in one’s life are the time before he believes in Messiah. It is a time where he seeks to earn God’s approval. It is a time when he strives to do, to perform, to labor and struggle in order to attempt to gain approval of his Creator.
In contrast, when a person trusts in the Messiah for his salvation, he “enters into a rest,” according to Hebrews 4:3a. This is the same kind of rest that YHVH entered into when He finished the creation as is stated in Hebrews 4:4, “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.” Why is believing in Messiah likened to entering a Shabbat-rest? Continuing our study in Hebrews, we find the key in verse 4:10, “For the one who has entered His rest has Himself also rested from His works, as God did from His.”
What, then, enables a person to be accepted by God as righteous? It is not our efforts. It is simply resting in what Messiah did for us! Messiah did all the work for us. He paid the penalty for our sin. He accomplished the atonement. He secured our justification. He completely changed us from His enemy (James 4:4), to His child (John 1:12). He redeemed us from slavery. He reconciled us to God. He forgave us. He saved us! Even the very faith necessary for all of this to be true for us was a gift given to us from our loving heavenly Father, “For you have been delivered by grace through faith, and even this is not your accomplishment but God’s gift. You were not delivered by your own actions; therefore, no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). What more was necessary to make us new creations (see the commentary on Second Corinthians Bd – A New Creation). NOTHING! Except to merely, by faith, enter into the wonderful eternal Shabbat that ADONAI has waiting for all who believe in Messiah.
In essence, therefore, if we understand the message of Shabbat, especially as it is explained in Hebrews 4, we see that the message of Shabbat is the Good News! That is why the Torah deems Shabbat as being so important. If we do not understand the Shabbat, then we are deficient in our understanding of salvation. Hence, once a week God provides us with a visible practical way to remember our rest in Messiah – by setting aside the seventh as He did. Moreover, each of the other festivals (mo’adim) have at least one Shabbat associated with them. This is as if YHVH were saying that whatever else these appointed times may teach, it all begins by entering into God’s eternal rest through faith in the finished work of Messiah.
A taste of the future: Hebrews Chapter 4 also teaches us at least one more important concept about the Shabbat. It tells us that the present Shabbat is just a small test of the future eternal Shabbat we will enjoy because Messiah saved us by His grace (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ms – The Eternal Security of the Believer). This idea is hinted at in Hebrews 4:9, where we read: There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. The writer of Hebrews had already discussed the necessity of entering into God’s spiritual rest for our daily lives (Ps 95). In this verse, however, the writer of Hebrews seems to hint of a future rest. Both the TaNaKh and in rabbinical literature, the Sabbath is viewed as a type of the world to come.
Therefore, when we observe Shabbat in a physical way every week we not only act out the rest we presently have from being in Messiah but we also live out a little bit of what it will be like in the world to come when we will forever experience the perfect blessings of the rest Messiah gave to us through His redemption.421
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