Leviticus 23:3
'six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of
solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the
Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. New King James Version
This speaks of the weekly Sabbath that is the last day of every week. We are to cease from labor as the Lord did/does in His work of creation. The Sabbath is more than sitting on the couch refusing to do anything we decide is "labor", and it is not simply a matter of completing the perfect "this is not allowed" list of forbidden activities for a twenty-four hour period every week. The irony to this kind of thinking is that when we finally get to the place where we have accomplished the "perfect" "this is not allowed" list, we find out that we have never ceased from our labor, but we are in fact still working to gain entry into the Sabbath freely offered by the Lord.
Luke 13:10-17
On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."
The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"
When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
NIV
The common conclusion from this scripture is that healing is "allowed" on the Sabbath, and there are many other scripures and examples to back this up ( Luke 6:9,Luke 6:6, Matt 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6). But Jesus speaks of a greater operation than just physical healing.
Jesus says, "Should not this daughter of Abraham...
BE SET FREE ON THE SABBATH DAY...
from what bound her?"
If we look at the restrictions of activity prescribed in the law concerning Sabbath day, we find that the emphasis is on COMPLETELY STOPPING all of our everyday life endeavors, gathering together as God's own special people and abiding in the completed work of God. The emphasis of the Sabbath is on God's completed work, not our own, that is why it is so important that we consciously and specifically CEASE from our own work.
Exodus 20:8-10
[Earnestly] remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God).
Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your domestic animals, or the sojourner within your gates. Amplified Bible
and also...
Leviticus 23:3
six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation or assembly by summons. You shall do no work on that day; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
Amplified Bible
On the Sabbath, we are to come together fully recognizing that OUR COMPLETION, our SHALOM, is not the result of our efforts, but it is the result of God's completed work. Apparently this is monumental truth that the Lord has prescribed the Sabbath "treatment" every seven days in addition to all the other appointed times that speak to us of other important truths we must understand and learn to live in. We can find this principle in the book of Ephesians...
Eph 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God - not because of works, lest any man should boast.
Revised Standard Version
Labor therefore to enter His rest (Hebrews 4:11 King James Version)
The purpose of our work is to get to the place where we can fully enter into His rest.
The first generation of Israel was disqualified from entering this rest even though they meticulously followed all the prescribed offerings, labor laws, dietary restrictions, and special days.
Hebrew 13:18 says:
And to whom was it that he swore that they would never enter his rest? Those who were disobedient, So we see that they were unable to enter His rest because of lack of trust. (from The Compete Jewish Bible by David Stern)
Lack of trust this is the issue. Most translations render the word "trust" as "faith", it is the same thing. Notice as well that "lack of trust" is equal to "disobedience". When we do not trust God, we will not do what He says until we weigh out the pros and cons of His requests. We set ourselves up as judge and jury over what God says and suddenly we find that we are trying to switch places with God.
Jesus said, in John 6:29
"The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
New International Version
And this is the one he has sent...
John 3:16-18
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Revised Standard Version
Everything is handed over to the Son, and the Son has offered to exchange our fatigue and burdens for rest...
Matt 11:27-12:1
"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." New International Version
On the seventh day, STOP...
Cease from all your work, and enter into the Sabbath of the Lord. Believing His provision for your life, His pleasure is saving you, completely, fully, fully healed, restored, rest for your soul. Don't bring anything else into the Sabbath, it is already complete, it is already
Holy.
Hebrews 4:9-11
So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God;
For he who has once entered [God's] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own. [Genesis 2:2.]
Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell].
Amplified Bible
God asks his people through the prophet Isaiah..
Why do you spend your labor on what does not satisfy?
Isa 55:1-2
"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
New International Version
Indeed, one of the promises given to the people of God is that we will eat AND be satisfied...
Deuteronomy 11:13-15
So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today--to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-- then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil.
I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
New International Version
This rest is a resting WITH GOD, not for God.
This day is not the day of deprivation; it is the day of fulfillment, completeness. When you are complete, you don't need anything else. It is ironic that the religious leaders of Jesus times were arguing and debating whether "healing" was allowed on the Sabbath. The Sabbath IS our healing. He (Jesus) is our peace (Ephesians 2:14).
2 Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness
New International Version
Salvation
In the Old Testament "salvation" is translated from the Hebrew word yeshuw` ah (yesh-oo'-aw) meaning something saved, i.e. (abstractly) deliverance; hence, aid, victory, prosperity. It is translated in the King James Version as - deliverance, health, help (-ing), salvation, save, saving (health), welfare.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
In the New Testament one on the Greek words is sozo (sode'-zo); from a primary sos (contraction for obsolete saoz, "safe"), meaning to save, i.e. deliver or protect (literally or figuratively). It is translated in the King James Version as heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be (make) whole.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
Jesus promised His disciples...
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
New International Version
This word "peace" carries the meaning of prosperity, quietness, oneness, and rest. It is derived from another Greek verb that means "to join", so this peace He is giving allows us to join with the Father as one (John 17:20-22).
You are satisfied, still, whole, full, and at ease. You are not performing this, you have not earned your way into this place, but you have come by invitation to a place prepared for you.
In my Father's house are many mansions [abiding places, residences](John 14:2) These are permanent dwellings for us, the Sabbaths are actual habitations in time prepared for us to begin to experience the complete restoration of unity and communion with our Lord. They cannot be viewed lightly, and He cannot tolerate any pollution or mixture in the Sabbath.
The death penalties associated with Sabbath practice in the history of Israel are not arbitrary punishments inflicted for minor infractions of rules, but they are the only possible consequence to pollution of holy and intimate contact with God who is Himself completely Holy and nothing else. Nothing else can co-exist with God here that is not of God, or generated by God. This explains the gravity of introducing mixture into Gods' Holy Days. The warning is to "cease from your work", it can do no good here, only God's goodness is here and that is sufficient. The Sabbath is entirely other, Kodesh, Holy, Holy, Holy.
Adam walked with God in the cool of the day - they talked, there was conversation, it was a way or living. This is not scolding, correcting or chastisement. It is face to face with no enmnity
We are not so familiar as Adam with "no enmity" because we are born of the fallen nature with sin working in us from birth, but here God is giving us, showing us , repeating over and over, week after week, from season to season, year to year,generation after generation - REST AND RELIEF, HEALING AND RESTORATION ARE COMING! IT COMES AT THE END!
and this is it!...
God is telling us to take heart, hang on, come into this promise of restoration, just for a moment, just for a day...Come regularly, come often, you are built and designed for this, this is my delight for you to give you these days, but YOU MUST STOP everything else. This day is holy, and any mixture will destroy it, it will no longer be a Sabbath, it will be an empty shell, a cup of His joy now polluted, a poisoned wine that produces death.
That is what Jesus was talking about when He said, "Should not this woman... be set free on the Sabbath?" He called the religious teachers hypocrites, people with masks. They had the mask of righteousness, but they missed the whole point.
Sin means missing the mark, not just missing the bullseye by a little bit, but missing by not even aiming at the right target and shooting for the wrong goal and using the wrong weapon.
the scripture says,
When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
God is still doing wonderful things and the invite still stands. It is important to remember..
Mark 2:27-28
"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath." New King James Version
And Remember the goal.
Labor therefore to enter into His rest... (Hebrews 4:11)
see also The Feast of Passover and
