The Sabbath in the New Covenant Part 2

KEY SCRIPTURE ON WHICH LAW A CHRISTIAN IS UNDER

Romans 8:1-5 (KJV) “ 1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. “

The Law was not enough. It was a temporary Law that held us until Jesus Christ came and that Law and our sins were nailed to the cross with Him. He bore the full weight of the Law and its penalty upon Himself and made us free from the Law of Sin and Death.

We are not lawless! That is the cry of certain people who want to bring us under the law that it hurts them to hear these scriptures. They accuse us of being lawless. NOT SO! GOD FORBID! We are under however the law of God that is empowered by the New Covenant. Jesus gave His life and paid for it with His blood so that we could be free of the Law of Moses and its penalty. We are under the Law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus. We keep Jesus’ commandments and we find when we read the New Testament, that Jesus expanded greatly on the commandments of God and brought the spiritual realities to us that the Law of Moses only led to.

We keep the Law of God now through faith in the Holy Spirit and mind the things of the Spirit. To be spiritually minded is life.

Matthew 22:36-40 A 36 Master, which [is] the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. A

Jesus made this clear. See, He came to fulfill the Law and bring in a better and New Covenant. He was showing that it is not by the works of the Law that we are made righteous, but if we love God the way that we are supposed to, and if we love our neighbors as we do ourselves, that we will keep the Law and the Prophets.

All the commandments and prophets are tied into these two great commandments of Jesus. You will not give yourself to hatred, or lust, or bitterness, or greed, or lying, or any other evil thing if you love God fully and your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

Jesus was the walking embodiment of the New Covenant. You will see that especially in Luke 4 when He opens the scroll of Isaiah and starts reading about His own predicted ministry and the New Covenant.

Luke 4:18-19 (KJV) “ 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. “

The Jewish Calendar, which all their worship and feasts were based on, were based on weeks of seven days, and Sabbath Years of seven years. After seven of these seven-year Sabbath’s, there was the Year of Jubilee, or the Acceptable Year of the Lord.

It was a time of great celebration and liberty. In fact, the Sabbaths “LOOKED FORWARD” to the Jubilee. Before we get into the Sabbaths, Sabbath Years, and the Acceptable Year of the Lord, we need to make some very basic things clear or there will be confusion.

The Bible makes it clear that Jesus did not come to do away with the Law, but to fulfill it. And HE did fulfill (finish) the LAW at the CROSS when it was nailed to the cross with Him. He completely fulfilled or finished the LAW and suffered the CURSE from the LAW from OUR SIN upon Himself. HE totally finished it and it died there with Jesus on the cross as the New Covenant was born with Him and the Resurrection.

Colossians 2:14-15 (Amplified) “ 14 Having cancelled and blotted out and wiped away the handwriting of the note (bond) with its legal decrees and demands which was in force and stood against us (hostile to us). This [note with its regulations, decrees, and demands] He set aside and cleared completely out of our way by nailing it to [His] cross. 15 [God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross]. “

Galatians 3:10-13 “ 10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. 11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. 12 And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. 13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: “

The Law was fulfilled in Jesus Christ… He finished it basically as it was cleared completely out of the way, and the curse was finished. We are now made free from the Law and now under GRACE.

IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THE SABBATH LAWS, FINE… KEEP THEM ALL. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY THAT BIBLICALLY YOU CAN GET TO HEAVEN THAT WAY THOUGH. YOU HAVE TO KEEP ALL THE LAW ALL OF YOUR LIFE AND NEVER SIN. CAN YOU SAY THAT? JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY ONE WHO EVER KEPT ALL OF THE LAW, AND HE FINISHED IT AT THE CROSS.

So, if you want to keep the Sabbath Laws and the dietary Laws (that usually goes with it), then fine… but if you make it a requirement or law, then know this… you have rejected Jesus Christ and the New Covenant that He gave His life’s blood to b’reeth… or cut. You have rejected Jesus, and you will face God without Him.

See, if you want to go to church on Saturday or Sunday, it really doesn’t matter which one you prefer to go. Actually, I like going many days and worshiping together in Spirit and in Truth, and not just Sunday or Saturday. We are now going to read a direct instruction about this in the New Testament.

Colossians 2:14-18 (KJV) “ 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. “ 18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,“

Colossians 2:18 (Analytical Literal Translation) “ Stop letting anyone decide against you* [fig., judge you* as not being worthy], delighting in [false] humility and religious worship of the angels, basing his authority on [things] he has not seen, being conceited without cause by the mind of his flesh,”

See, there are those who will always be arrogant and want to judge you not worthy to be one of Jesus’. You worship on Saturday, so you are not a Christian. Or, you worship on Sunday and you are compromised with this Gentile world-view. Honestly, it takes great spiritual pride and arrogance to use something like the Sabbath to judge others.

This is not the end-doctrine of God’s Word. Religious Pharisee-like people tend to make it so. To fixate on such things shows a “religious spirit” and not the Holy Spirit, for the Word of God opposes it.

Let no man judge you therefore in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or new moon, or of the Sabbath Days.

The Feast Days and Sabbaths were looking forward to a spiritual truth. They were religious rituals in the Old Testament, and looked forward to real spiritual blessings and realities in the New Testament.

Colossians 2:14-18 contains some of the most dynamic truths of the Christian Faith.

1. Jesus finished the transgression and fulfilled the Law of Moses and its penalty on the Cross. When Jesus said, “it is finished”, the Old Covenant and the judgment for sin was finished right there.

2. Jesus overcame Satan and his hierarchy of power at the Cross and at His death, He overcame the Enemy. He triumphed over the powers of the Enemy completely!

3. Don’t use religious rituals of the Old Covenant and of Traditions become things that cause strife and a judgmental attitude. Those rituals and Sabbaths were part of a Law that looked forward to a spiritual reality that we have now, and is not to be points of dispute.

4. Sabbaths and holy days were shadows of the reality that is manifested in the body of Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:17 (AMP) “ Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.”

Isn’t it amazing how something that God intended to be a blessing to man gets twisted by religion into something to argue over?

The Pharisees liked to give Jesus and the Apostles a hard time over the Sabbath especially, because they had built a whole religious system over the idea of the Sabbath. They missed the whole point that God had tried to make. The disciples had picked ears of corn as they walked on the Sabbath hungry, and they were attacked by the religious crowd.

Mark 2:24-28 “ 24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. “

Jesus made it clear that the Sabbath was made for man, and not the other way around. We were never meant to be slaves of the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was to be a blessing of rest for us. By the way, this has nothing to do on which day that you gather to worship. The Early Church tended to gather on Sunday in honor of the resurrection, but also if Jews who still had their traditions were nearby, would gather on Saturday with them also to worship.

In John 20:19-20, we see that Jesus rose to the great joy of His disciples on the first day of the week, or our Sunday! In Acts 20:7, you see the Disciples gathering on that same day of the week (Sunday) to have service and break bread (the Lord’s Supper). Even some 40+ years later, on the Isle of Patmos, John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) praying when God gave Him the Revelation (Revelation 1:10). It is not like that there is no biblical reasoning to come together and worship on Sunday. There is.

Plus, it was not odd for them to meet at houses at different times through the week to worship as well. DON’T GET CAUGHT IN A RELIGIOUS TRAP.

There are always people wanting to go too far in one direction or the other. One group never thinks about God or giving time to God, and never thinks of the Sabbath or the rest that is in God and takes time with God at all. The others go too far the other way and makes a law out of resting to where you are sinning if you go to church on Sunday. How can something meant to be a blessing be twisted into a curse?

The balance of the truth is found in God’s Word. Let God be true and every man a liar.

In John 9:14-17, Jesus was condemned for forming eyeballs from dirt for a man and restoring His sight. In Luke 13:11-16, a woman who was plagued by a spirit of infirmity for 18 years was delivered by Jesus on the Sabbath, and they condemned Him again. Matthew 12:1-12 also follows what Mark’s account gave above where Jesus tried to teach them that the Sabbath was made for man as a blessing, and not man made for the Sabbath.

Religious persecution for breaking Sabbath Traditions is not a new thing. They were persecuting Jesus and His disciples for it in the gospels.

NOTE that it isn’t that there is not a reference to the Sabbath in the New Covenant. There is, and you can see the difference in the way that Jesus dealt with it even before the finishing of the Old Covenant and the Law. There is a deeper liberty and spiritual rest that is deeper than just resting one day of the week or worshiping just one day in the week.