3.5.26 – Order Out of Chaos, Part 3: Sabbath Again?

Why is the Sabbath so important? Why is it part of the Big Ten (Ex. 20:8–11)? What is the purpose of this weekly seventh day? What does it represent? Is it just a day to take a nap in my spiritual La-Z-Boy? Inquiring minds want to know. In my opinion, it is the most important topic in all of Scripture. It is the pinnacle of God's creation week. It is connected to the crowning achievement of God's creation: making a woman for the man. The topic is detailed over and over through the Torah and Scripture, beginning in Genesis 2:1–3. It is highlighted after the flood (Gen. 9). It is reemphasized for the children of Israel after they applied the blood of the lamb, when they were given their daily bread/manna (Ex. 16), and again it is emphasized as an eternal sign in Exodus 31:13–18. After the golden calf incident (Ex. 32), it is the first topic God brings up to the people (Ex. 35:2–3). Why is it so important? What does remembering and keeping the Sabbath really mean?

This seventh day is a covenant sign between Me and you (Ex. 31:17)—like a wedding ring—which takes us back to Genesis 1–2:3, house-building language. It means the house for God to dwell in is complete. And so seven in Scripture always refers to the building of the house so the King can rule. It was the sign between you and Me that the house is complete and God has moved in and filled that sphere (Ex. 40:34).

Of course, on the seventh we do not do creative work (melechah). The six days prior we are to work for the service of the seventh. Huh? But the seventh day has a different kind of work (avodah) that is acceptable and pleasing to the King. There is a type of work in the six days of cultivating the ground and guarding it that is creative. On the Sabbath, we have a different type of work that is permitted and encouraged. Huh?

In the Tabernacle and the two Temches, for example, the priests did an awful lot of work (avodah) on the seventh day. It was not a day that they sat around and stared at the altar. They were constantly working and cleaning and doing all the things that were required of that particular day. Unfortunately, over the years we have inherited a misunderstanding of the concept of rest: sitting on our Dudley Do-Nothing in our spiritual La-Z-Boy with our feet up, smoking a Cuban cigar, or snoozing the day away with "Pastor Pillow" and "Reverend Sheets" :-). The rest that Scripture focuses on is that your enemies have been defeated (something we should be doing daily in preparation for Shabbat), and that your house is bringing order out of chaos to the sphere in which it has been planted. The Lord knows there is plenty of chaos internally and externally.

Again, all this architectural language is found in the creation of everything made by Bezalel, Oholiab, and all the wise-hearted individuals who made the Tabernacle and its structures—creating order out of chaos (Ex. 31:1–6). 

More on this tomorrow. But for today, I want to challenge you with a question: Are you laboring to enter into that rest (Heb. 4:10–11)? Are you building to establish God as King over your life, victorious over the enemy? Shabbat is coming! And so too is the prophetic seventh day of His Messianic Kingdom. Practice now for reigning with Him then :-)

Shalom,
Alan

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