The Sabbath and My Freedom - by Graham Maxwell

Chapter from the book entitled "I Want To Be Free"

Of all the laws that God has given, perhaps none has been so misunderstood as His commandment to observe the Sabbath.

When the sun goes down next Friday evening, I expect to join others the world around in acknowledging the continuing authority and meaning of that ancient law, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8. Moreover, I expect to do this in the highest sense of freedom.

Admittedly, this is puzzling to our Christian friends who believe that the truth has set them free from the necessity of Sabbath observance, and particularly the observance of Sabbath on the seventh day. They wonder if our Sabbath keeping might suggest a lingering trace of legalism, a failure to see the truth that would enable us to share their freedom.

In the first place, let it be reaffirmed that the truth about God and His gracious ways will indeed set a man free from all that is meaningless, arbitrary, and superstitious.

This truth includes the good news that, in our relationship with God, we are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:14. How thankful we should be for this. For were we under law, we would be reaping the legal consequences of having violated law. And "the wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23. But our relationship with God is not on a legalistic basis.

The Bible makes it clear, too, that what God desires most is our faith, and that the sinner can find righteousness by faith and not by works of law. For Christ is the end of law, the termination of legalism, as a way of being saved. "Christ means the end of the struggle for righteousness-by-the-law for everyone who believes in Him." Romans 10:4, Phillips.

It is clear, too, that real obedience to the law is love. See Romans 13:8. And we should gladly submit to Jesus’ new commandment that we love one another as He has loved us. See John 15:12.

But if what God is looking for is faith and love, and if, by telling us the truth about our gracious God, Christ is seeking to free us from the empty requirements of legalism, what justification could there be for continuing to recognize so apparently arbitrary a regulation as keeping holy one day in seven? Yet Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for us. Mark 2:27. It was not to be a mere test of obedience but rather to be a help.

I believe that the great purpose of the Sabbath is to remind us of the truth that is the basis of our faith, the very truth that sets us free.

In the first place, the Bible tells us in Exodus 20 and 31 that the Sabbath is designed to serve as a reminder that God created us, that we are His creatures. But to be more specific, according to Colossians 1:16, the One who created us was none other than Christ Himself.

The seventh-day Sabbath reminds us that the One who came to save us is also the One who made us in the beginning. The gentle Jesus who died on Calvary is also the supreme, all-powerful Creator of the universe. God did not send some subordinate person to die for us. The Creator came Himself, One who is equal with God, for He is God. By keeping holy the seventh-day Sabbath we acknowledge our faith in Jesus as not only our Saviour but also our Creator and our God.

What kind of Person, then, is our God? Could He be as gracious and respectful of our freedom as is the Son? The reply comes every Sabbath: God is just like Christ, for Christ is God.

Some Christians prefer to observe the first day of the week as a memorial of Christ’s resurrection. Surely it is a good thought on a Sunday morning to reflect, This is the day on which Christ rose from the grave. And on Friday would it not be well to reflect, This is the day on which Christ was crucified? And on Thursday evening, This is the time when Christ met with His disciples in the upper room?

But the only weekly Sabbath of which the Bible speaks is the one set apart to remind us that the Person who gave His life for us, the One who said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father," is Himself the One who made us, for He too is God.

A second way in which the seventh-day Sabbath serves to strengthen our faith is mentioned in Exodus 31:13 and Ezekiel 20:12,20. There we are told that the Sabbath is designed to remind us that God is the One who sanctifies us.

Our sanctification includes not just forgiveness, but the healing of the damage sin has done. It means the harmonious development of our physical, mental, and spiritual powers until the image of God in which we were originally created is perfectly restored.

The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is an acknowledgment that only the Creator can perform such a marvelous work of transformation. Just as He created us in the beginning, so He has the power to recreate us now.

It is no less a miracle of creation to restore fallen human beings than it was to create them perfect in the beginning. No wonder David prayed as he did after his sad experience with Bathsheba, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." Psalm 51:10.

Some seek to accomplish this transformation by themselves, by rigorous obedience, self-discipline, self-denial. But the Sabbath comes each week to remind us that only by faith in our Creator can the healing work be done. Strange that Sabbath keeping should be thought to be a legalistic act, a denial of true faith!

A third way in which the Sabbath serves to remind us of the truth and strengthen our faith in God is mentioned in Hebrews, chapter 4. There the Sabbath is described as a type and foretaste of the final rest and restoration to come. Just as God rested from His labors at the end of creation week, so there remains a Sabbath-like rest for the people of God.

When the children of Israel marched into the land of Canaan, they failed to enter into God’s rest because of lack of faith. They possessed the Promised Land but did not enjoy the Sabbath-like rest that faith brings. But those who maintain their faith in Christ may begin to enjoy this rest even in this life. And they will enter into it fully when they are admitted to the heavenly Canaan and Eden is restored.

By keeping holy the seventh-day Sabbath we acknowledge our anticipation of this Sabbath-like rest to come, our faith in the second coming of Christ and the re-creation of all things.

These three purposes of the Sabbath answer the three great questions that have stirred the minds of thinking people, the three great quests of philosophy: Where have we come from? Why are we here? And where do we go after we die?

Where have we come from?

The seventh-day Sabbath has always reminded us that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Why are we here? What is the great purpose of life? How do we attain to the greatest good in life?

The seventh-day Sabbath has always reminded us that the great purpose of life is our sanctification, our restoration to the image of God by faith in the One who made us perfect in the beginning. This is the purpose of life, and this is how we may attain to it.

Where do we go after we die?

The seventh-day Sabbath points forward to the second coming of Christ, the final rest and restoration to come.

Since the Sabbath is so important, it was only natural that the great adversary would seek to destroy it. Satan’s purpose is to destroy faith in Christ, to undermine our confidence in Him as the Creator. But this he could hardly hope to accomplish so long as men continued to recognize all that is represented by the Sabbath. Therefore, he lent his influence to the neglect or perversion of the Sabbath, or to the substitution of another day.

It was a day cleverly chosen. The first day of the week had long been observed as a pagan holiday, the great and holy day of the sun. Besides, many early Christians were eager to dissociate themselves from the Jews. There was no more conspicuous mark of Judaism than the observance of the seventh day, and the substitution of the first day of the week was regarded by some as evidence that the Christian had made his break with legalistic practice of the Jews.

Many devout Christians who do not observe the seventh-day Sabbath have a faith that is an example to all. They have rightly rejected legalism, and they have considered the keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath as its chief example.

But mankind has paid a heavy price for neglecting the Sabbath or substituting another day. For without the Sabbath to provide the answers to the three great questions of life, other solutions have been substituted.

Where have we come from?

Without the seventh-day Sabbath to remind us that in the beginning Christ created us, room has been left for the substitution of the theory of the evolutionary origin of the human race. Or, as others say more scientifically, We don’t know where we’ve come from.

Why are we here? How do we attain to the greatest good in life?

Without the seventh-day Sabbath to remind us that righteousness and salvation come by faith in Jesus Christ, room has been left for the substitution of the fundamental error of righteousness by works. Or, as others have said more carelessly, We don’t know why we’re here. So let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Where do we go after we die?

Without the seventh-day Sabbath to point forward to the second coming, to the rewards of faith and the results of sin, room has been left for the substitution of the belief in the natural immortality of the soul. Or, as others prefer to say, We don’t know where we go after we die. So again, let’s eat, drink, and be merry.

This is why the seventh-day Sabbath is so vital a part of God’s last message to the world. The main difference between the many religions in the world and true Christianity lies in the answers to these three great quests.

I like the way Moffatt has interpreted Ezekiel 20:12: "I gave them My Sabbath, to mark the tie between Me and them, to teach them that it is I, the Eternal, who sets them apart."

Most of the world has broken this tie, the seventh-day Sabbath. God’s last message to the world is the restoration of this tie. It is not a message of legalism; it is not warning people that they must keep the Sabbath and the other commandments of God lest they be destroyed. On the contrary, it is a message of love and faith.

We preach Christ as the One who created us in the beginning, as the One who is working to recreate us now, and as the One who is coming again to restore all things. And when we preach this, we are preaching the seventh-day Sabbath.

If the Sabbath means so much, what is the proper way to keep it holy?

Our spiritual forefathers, the Jews, tried hard to live up to every requirement of the Sabbath commandment. As a safeguard, they multiplied rules for its correct observance. Yet, when Jesus came to live among them, He had to tell them that in spite of their efforts their way of spending the Sabbath hours was in error. The trouble was that they had forgotten what the Sabbath represents. They were simply obeying an arbitrary command to refrain from work.

They failed to realize that the Sabbath speaks of God’s original purposes for man, of the peace in the Garden of Eden, of the rest that was offered in Canaan, of the Sabbath-like rest yet to come when our world is restored. Instead, they were looking for an earthly kingdom to be set up by force.

Above all, they had forgotten that the Sabbath speaks of the Creator’s power to heal, that a sinner cannot heal himself, that salvation comes by faith and not by works of law, however good those works may be.

So confused were some of them as to the purpose of the Sabbath, that on crucifixion Friday they nailed their Creator to the cross and hurried home to prepare for sundown worship. They cleaned their sandals, tidied their homes, and wished He would hurry up and die so they could bury Him before the sun went down.

He did die in time. And all heaven watched as those Bible-quoting murderers settled down to keep another Sabbath.

The same grave mistake may be made by Sabbath keepers today, if unthinkingly they merely obey a command not to work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. For no matter how careful they may be, they do not really keep the Sabbath holy, and they miss all the benefits of its true observance.

It is significant to notice that when Moses repeated the Ten Commandments in the book of Deuteronomy, he mentioned the exodus rather than creation as the reason for Sabbath observance: "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and for that reason the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day." Deuteronomy 5:15, NEB

This is no discrepancy in Scripture, nor a lapse of the great leader’s memory. The purpose of the seventh-day Sabbath is to remind us of the truth about God. He is not only our Creator but our Saviour and Redeemer as well. The One who created us free is now exercising His creative power to release us from any kind of bondage and give us back our freedom once again.

How strange that the Sabbath should ever become a symbol of subjection to legalism, when from beginning to end it is identified in the Scriptures with freedom!

As God designed it, the Sabbath is to strengthen our faith in Him and in Jesus Christ. It answers our questions about God and the meaning of life. It sums up the truth that sets us free.

And the man who is willing to set aside these sacred hours and who seeks intelligently to enter into the meaning of this day, is acknowledging to himself, to his neighbors, and to God, that he gratefully accepts this liberating truth.