The Lord's Sabbath

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

The Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance and the Puritan Debate

I've already led on as we come to the text that is before us today, we come to a passage that has not been without a considerable amount of controversy. We could say in recent days, and I would extend it to recent centuries.

Last week, by way of a quick review, you'll remember that we addressed the topic of work. And we heard how, according to God's wise plan, we are to exercise dominion in the world. We are to be fruitful and multiply.

We are to subdue. We are to work and to keep in God's good creation. And we considered the first half of that fourth commandment. I alluded to it briefly last week that reflects God's creative activities.

Six days you shall work. And we learned that that work is a good thing created by God for us to joyfully enter into as we fulfill God's purposes in the world. And today we arrive at that seventh day of God's creation, the day of God's resting and a day that has been long debated in the history of the church.

I'm reminded of one instance where differences of opinion on the seventh day were made especially clear. In the middle of the 17th century, just as the Puritan movement was really beginning to flourish, a sharp disagreement arose between the Church of England and their Puritan counterparts.

It was during this time in the middle of the 1600s that the Puritans began to... The Puritans began to first be noticed for their strong convictions about observing the first day of the week as the Lord's day, what we see referred to as in our New Testaments, as a continuation of God's Sabbath day.

Convinced of this evangelical Sabbath, in the words of John Owen, our Puritan forefathers would typically arise on Sunday mornings. I don't know about you, this sounds like a fantastic way to use a Sunday.

They would arise in the morning on the Lord's day. They would enter into personal devotions that would give way to family devotions together. And then about mid-morning they would proceed to church where they would spend three hours in that morning hearing the word preached and singing hymns of praise to God, partaking in the ordinances and enjoying fellowship.

And then after some lunch and a time of rest, would resume that worship for another three hours with the Lord's people, singing and preaching and praying and rejoicing in God their Savior in the company of their dear churches.

And according to their convictions, Sunday was to be given fully to the ceasing from work, resting from the responsibilities of their vocations at home and in their families and in their workplaces and rejoicing all the day in God.

They considered the Lord's day to be the very best day of the week when they would be fully freed, think of that, fully freed from worldly obligations to seek the God whom their souls loved. And for the Puritans, this was an earnest conviction that set them apart from their contemporaries.

In many ways, they were a peculiar people. And few people really understood what it was about them and their convictions about the Lord's day. And so for this reason, the Puritans were mocked and derided.

They were scorned at times, despised for being too rigid, for being legalistic. And though their observation of the Lord's day was a day of happy meditation upon God and the gospel. I'll repeat that again, a happy meditation upon God and the gospel.

It was this practice that first earned them that scornful title, the Puritans. Oh those Puritans, those guys who are austere and long-faced and observe the Sabbath. Now in the midst of all of this, the Church of England pressed hard against the Puritans and their observance of the Sabbath.

And they did so much even to undermine them by officially sponsoring activities on the Lord's day that would steer the surrounding culture and even Puritan Christians away from such an intense devotion on the Lord's day.

And so the Church of England endorsed things like archery competitions on Sundays and public dances and other activities that put people back at work or that drew people away from that single-minded devotion to the Lord on the Lord's day, on Sundays.

Even the Anglican Chapel of King Charles fiercely criticized the Puritans for what he labeled their overzealous worship of God. Now I want to ask you, who was right in this conflict? Setting aside our own preferences, setting aside our own prejudices, if we were to evaluate these two movements based solely on the teaching of Scripture alone, who would we side with?

Who should we side with? Would you side with the Puritans and their day of devoted fellowship? Or would you side with the Anglicans and the rejection of the evangelical Sabbath as a holy day of worship and rest?

Or would you sit somewhere on the fence with one leg comfortably on either side? Regardless of where you land, I believe that our study in Genesis 2 provides a conclusive answer to this debate. In Genesis 2, we're going to look at verses 1 -3 today.

We'll see that God himself models a pattern, not only of work as we saw last time, but of holy rest, and that this holy rest is something that his people are to embrace after him. A pattern of devoting one day in seven as a day that is holy to the Lord.

A pattern that was established not for God's good, but for our good. Today I intend to make one of the most, I was saying to our brother on the way here, one of the most counter-cultural assertions that can be made in the church today.

Probably one of the most counter-cultural assertions that I could make, even in our church today, knowing some of your convictions. That the Sabbath was not just for Israel. That it was not just for the Old Testament.

That the Sabbath was made, in the words of our Lord Jesus, the Sabbath was made for man. Everywhere and at all times. And this is clearly and convincingly seen in this fact, that it is a creation ordinance that was established by God himself when he made the world.

Established on the seventh day, that seventh day that we're going to look at now. So with our Bibles open to Genesis chapter 2, let's read verses 1 through 3. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

The Sabbath Modeled in Genesis 2

Today I have four observations to make from this passage. And the first one that I want to make is this. Number one, the Sabbath modeled. Here we see the Sabbath modeled for humanity. Beginning in chapter 2 and verse 1.

Scripture records how it was that God concluded his creative works at the foundation of the world. In verse 1 we're told that God finished making the heavens and the earth and then all the host of them.

This is interesting language that's worthy of our attention for at least a moment. We know what it means that God made the heavens and the earth. But what does it mean that he made all the host of them?

What is he seeking to convey in those words? This is a phrase that is used only one time in Scripture. And so we can't glean too much except if we look at some of the commonalities. Some of the parallel language that we might find in other texts.

In Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 19. You don't have to turn there. But Deuteronomy 4 .19 or 1 Kings 22 verse 19. We see this language usually refers to two things. First it refers to the sun, the moon, the stars and the celestial bodies.

Or number two, it refers to all the angelic beings that exist in the unseen world. And I think what we're seeing here is the encapsulation of all that is seen and all that is unseen. That here, just before the seventh day begins, God creates everything seen and unseen for his own glory.

And what verse 1 is seeking to convey is that everything that God designed for his creation was made in full. The earth had everything that was needed to sustain life. If you travel the universe with me for a moment, God had designed every last speck of dust on the most distant planet, on the most distant galaxy in the universe.

And every last angelic being that was created to worship God and minister to his people had been made. And at the end of the sixth day, everything that God had set out to do was perfectly complete. Now just appreciate that for a moment with me.

What that would have been like. What that was like. There are some of you in this room who are perfectionists. And you seek to work out every single little detail. Let me tell you, you have never enjoyed perfection like the Lord our God enjoyed at the end of the sixth day.

All the host of them was complete. Seas teeming with life. Birds in tropical trees. Almost neon green in color. Perfect man laboring in the garden. The sun in the most distant galaxy burning just as it was created to burn.

All of it was flawless. And then verse two records that on the seventh day, after God had finished his perfect work, he rested from all the work that he had done. Now this is a fascinating statement. We read this all the time.

We just gloss right over it. But that God rested. When God created the world. Ex nihilo. From nothing. We learned that term a few weeks ago. He could have done this in a single day. He could have done this in a single moment.

He could have spoken the universe into existence in a unit of time that is so infinitesimally small that it could not be perceived or measured. Yet for reasons that we will soon see, he created the world in six literal days and rested on the seventh day.

And that ought to grip our attention. The God who, it is said of him in Psalm 121, neither slumbers nor sleeps. He rested on the seventh day. Now, we could drag this on. But I have a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it.

So I'm not going to do that. I'm going to cut to the chase. Why would God create the world over the course of an ordinary week and cap it off with a day of rest? Why not just make the world in a moment?

Or why not make the world in seven days? And then the next day begins. But why six days of creation and then one day of rest? Was it because God was weary? Was it because God was exhausted from speaking the galaxies into being?

Was the only sovereign and omnipotent God dead tired on the seventh day from the works that he had done? If you have any acquaintance with the God of the Bible, you know that the emphatic answer to that question, these questions, is no.

Then why did God choose a literal week capped with a literal day of rest? John MacArthur and I, we are going to come to different conclusions on this text. But we agree here on what we are seeing in the passage.

He says here, God certainly did not rest due to weariness. But rather, he establishes the pattern for man's work cycle. He only modeled here now the need for rest. So what we find in these opening lines in Genesis 2 is God resting, not for his benefit, but as a model for our benefit.

And as we progress through verses 2 and 3, we see this picture come into clearer view still. This passage, and we'll see this again and again, is full of repetition. And the one word that we see repeated here now three times in verses 2 and 3 is this word, work.

God finished his work in verse 2a. God rested from his work in verse 2b. And God again rested from his work in verse 3. Now there's something interesting about this word, work. One might expect that it would be a stately word to describe the exalted activity of creating the heavens and the earth.

Here one might expect to find the distinct Hebrew word Pela that is exclusively used to describe God's mighty working in the world. We see this word in one case in 1 Chronicles 16 .9, where we read, sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wondrous works.

In our Bibles, this word is used exclusively to speak of God's works. It's never used in reference to men. Now surely we would expect a word like this to be used. A word like this to appear in reference to God's mighty, wondrous, creative works.

But it doesn't. In fact, in stark contrast, Bible scholars have pointed out that it is not this stately word of God's wonderful working, but it is an ordinary word for work. A word that was often used of human work throughout the Bible.

Time and time again, it's used to describe basic trade, handiwork, or craftsmanship. And of all the words that could be used, it is the same word that is used in the fourth commandment. In Exodus 20, verse 9, when we read, six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Now, where am I going with all of this? Why the big fuss about the word work? Why would God use, let me ask you, such a common word to describe His speaking the world into existence? I agree with a number of commentators, one of which, I think, explains it quite succinctly.

He says, the word has been deliberately chosen to hint that man should stop his daily work on the seventh day. Another commentator adds, he says, the passage asserts that the Sabbath idea is as old as creation itself.

In observing the seventh day as holy, man is imitating his Creator's example. Here again, God models what man is to do in the ordinary course of his week. Six days out of the week, just as the Lord did in His creative works, man is to be engaged in his ordinary trade, in the common duties of the day.

He is to work and to keep. He is to subdue. He is to labor at home and away, abroad. But this is to be capped off with a blessed day of worship and rest. And at least at this point in the narrative, the principal reason for this is not because God commands it even, but first because He models it for our good.

It is a pattern that is built into the very fabric of God's created order. And whether we like it or not, it is inescapable. As I was thinking through this, my mind went back to one of my seminary classes where we were going through the French Revolution.

And there's a fascinating thing that happened in the midst of the French Revolution that after the revolution occurred, it was in October of 1793, the French National Convention introduced what they called the French Republic Calendar.

And this was done explicitly to de-Christianize France. They wanted no Roman Catholic influence. They wanted no biblical influence. And they thought one of the best ways that we can do this is we can just change the calendar.

We'll just turn everything on its head. And so what they did was they made a calendar that had 10 days per week, 10 hours per day, 100 minutes per hour, and 100 seconds per minute. And for 12 painful years, they sought to roll out this French Republic Calendar.

And they tried and tried and tried to implement it. They enforced it with strict sanctions. They sought to do everything they could. The people were not fond of this and would not expect this from anything else, but tried to have them work nine days out of the week and then rest on the 10th day.

The people bucked it. It drove them mad. They could barely implement it for the full 12 years that they tried. And as a result of this, productivity suffered, trade with other nations suffered. It was reported that it was even detrimental to the nation's livestock and their daily routines.

So on the very first day that Napoleon was appointed as the crowned as the emperor of France, that 10-day calendar was abolished. At the very first opportunity that they could remove that calendar, it was gone.

Now, why?

You'd think surely after 12 years, people would be getting used to a 10-day calendar, a 10-hour day, an androgynous calendar with no Christian holy days, no days of rest, no days of worship. Why was it so difficult?

Because God has made us intrinsically with the seven-day pattern built into the very fabric of our persons. It is a creation ordinance. It is a principle established from the foundation of the world.

And as part of this pattern, God has made us to rest. Some of you are gonna think that I'm here today and I'm going to be beating the drum of law-keeping. I am here to beat the drum of blessing that God made us to live in a seven-day pattern.

And brother, sister, he wants you to rest and enjoy him for a full day as part of your week. Matthew Henry said about this passage, God did not rest as one weary, but as one pleased. And oh, that we too would be pleased to see God and to see all that he has made and to follow him in resting one day in seven.

That we would give one day out of our week for the special purpose of beholding his glory, of recounting his wondrous works, and of resting in him. How many people struggle with ill health or poor productivity, poor sleep patterns, spiritual lethargy, uncompleted tasks of mercy and of necessity because they do not follow this basic pattern?

Now I think that this idea alone makes a compelling case. Just exegetically looking at the words, looking at these texts, it makes a compelling case for an evangelical Sabbath. Like I said, this sermon is gonna be just a bit different.

We're gonna press on a little bit further. We're gonna be a bit more didactic yet still. The second observation that I wanna bring is this. We see first that the Sabbath modeled and now let's look together at the Sabbath sanctified.

The Sabbath Sanctified and Set Apart to the Lord

In verse three, we're told that not only did God rest on the seventh day, but that he blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Again, we may overlook this, but this is rather unusual. I'm sure in many times you have interacted with brothers and sisters in Christ and you have blessed one another.

The Lord bless you. May God bless you this week. May the Lord bless you with travel mercies as you hop in a plane and fly across the ocean. In some cases, people will have pastors and elders. I've never been asked to do this.

I'm not sure what I would do if you did ask me, but some people have pastors and elders from their church bless their homes, bless inanimate objects. But let me ask you, have you ever blessed a day? Have you ever seen a day be blessed?

As we've seen already, it was not out of the ordinary for God to bless animate beings. He blessed man in the passage that we looked at last week that the very first words from God to man were words of blessing.

But more than that, he blessed created animals. We see that in Genesis 1, 22, that they would be fruitful and multiply. What does it mean then that a day that the Lord our God, what does it mean that this was a day that the Lord our God consecrated as a special day set aside for him?

Like furnishings in the temple which were called holy to the Lord or the high priest's diadem that was engraved with those Hebrew words kodesh la Yahweh, holy to the Lord. This was a day belonging to God that was set apart for the ceasing of one's labors to enjoy, to honor and to exalt God.

And in blessing and sanctifying this day of worship and rest, God transforms this from a model day. We saw in point number one, a model day now to a holy day. He takes us, I would suggest, on the basis of scripture from a place of description to a place of prescription.

In R .C. Sproul's Reformation Study Bible, you'll notice I'm going to quote various people at different times and part of the reason why I'm going to rely on brothers at various times is so that you know that I'm not off my rocker.

I'm not being novel in this. I'm not trying to bring in some Judaizing heresy. But what I'm preaching here is in many respects historical Christianity. Of course, with some debate. R .C. Sproul's Reformation Study Bible says the seventh day is the first thing in the Torah to which God imparts His holiness, thereby setting it apart to Himself.

It summons humankind to imitate the pattern of the king and so to confess God's lordship and their consecration to Him. It is a sign of covenant with God. It is a type of Christ. And it gives promise of divine rest both now and forever.

Or a quote from John Owen. He said, God sanctified this day, not that He kept it holy Himself, but He sets it apart to sacred use authoritatively, requiring us to sanctify it and to use it obediently.

And again, the repetition. I know that not all of you are crazy about this, but see it with me. It is fascinating. In verses 2 and 3, we find this threefold repetition of the seventh day. In verse 2, seventh day.

Again, seventh day. Verse 3, seventh day. And in these three parallel lines in the passage, if we were to take that passage, put it on a Word document in the Hebrew text, and put these three parallel lines out on that Word document, what we would find is that each line is made up of seven Hebrew words.

And so you've got the three repetitions of seven in the context of three parallel lines of seven. Very biblical numbers here. And what this is conveying is that when God made this day of rest, He made it, in fact, holy.

It was complete. Like His creation, it was flawless. And we're told in verse 3 that this day was made holy because on this day. Why was it made holy? Because on this day, God rested from all His work.

Now, it is at this place that we really begin, I suggest, to connect the dots. The word rest that denotes a ceasing from work. Throughout the Old Testament, it's frequently used to refer to the celebration of the Sabbath day.

In Hebrew, it is the word Shabbat. It's the verb Shabbat that is derived from the Hebrew noun Shabbat, Sabbath. And so you know that I'm not trying to twist Scripture in favor of my assertion here. I'm going to lean again, this time, on one of the most neutral commentaries you can find, where they say, speaking of chapter 2 and verse 3, the command to observe the Sabbath in Exodus 20, in verses 8 through 11, is based directly on the pattern developed in this passage on Genesis chapter 2.

So what this means is that the Sabbath observance is a moral and perpetual law that is rooted not solely in the covenant identity of Israel, but it is rooted, in fact, in the very fabric of our physical existence.

In the words of Sam Waldron, he says, what was instituted at creation has significance for as long as creation continues. So then we should not be surprised that this Sabbath ordinance appears again in Scripture before the giving of the law in Exodus chapter 20.

Many people missed this particular instance, but in Exodus chapter 16, if you'd turn there with me, in verse 27, when Israel was given instructions on when to collect manna, they were instructed to collect two days worth of manna on the sixth day.

But knowing the nation of Israel, it didn't go as one might expect. It never does with the nation of Israel, or maybe it does. Maybe it goes exactly the way you'd expect. It goes poorly. And so in Exodus 16, we read, after these instructions are given, that verse 27, on the seventh day, some of the people, though they were told to collect twice as much, some people went out to gather, but they found none.

And the Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day, he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place.

Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day, so the people rested on the seventh day. Before the Sabbath command of Exodus chapter 20, in the moral law, we find the Sabbath command applied to the nation of Israel.

Why? Because it was a creation ordinance. It is built into the fabric of who we are. But let me make a further case. If we flip a little bit forward to Exodus chapter 20, in verse 8, the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments, we see here, the Lord says, remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Now, too, this commandment is intriguing for these two reasons. Number one, because he does not say, I command now that the Sabbath day is holy, but he calls the people to look back, by saying, remember the Sabbath day.

We're not looking at the present, we're looking at something that has already been established. Remember the Sabbath day, and he does not say, make it holy, but he says, keep it holy. Now, what then do we make of this?

Genesis 2 emphasizes, Gordon Wenham says, the sacredness of the Sabbath. These verses give the clearest hints of how men created in the divine image should conduct themselves. Or again, to quote from R .C. Sproul, as he is dealing with this, he says, and there is no mention of evening and morning.

Perhaps, oh, this is, you know what, we're gonna scratch that one. I'll take us in the wrong direction otherwise. We'll just focus on Wenham, and then I'll take us to John Calvin, where he says, God rested, then he blessed this rest, and in all ages it might be held sacred among men.

For he dedicated every seventh day to rest, that his own example might be a perpetual rule. This design of the institution must always be kept in memory, for God did not command men simply to keep holiday every seventh day, as if he delighted in their indolence, that is in their idleness, but rather that they being released from all other business might the more readily apply their minds to the creator of the world.

Lastly, that is a sacred rest, which draws from men, from the impediments of the world, that it may dedicate them entirely to God. And so we see that this creation ordinance that is the Sabbath rest, that is the Shabbat rest, was modeled to us by the Lord, that it was made holy by the Lord, that it was inscripturated in the law, in the 10 commandments, what we would call the moral law of God as part of a threefold division of the law.

And now I wanna look at how it is that we apply this Sabbath. What does this mean? So we can look at Genesis 2, and we can say, yeah, of course, God made that day holy. The nation of Israel kept it at the coming of the new covenant, that was abrogated, that was abolished, and now we have a new covenant with new laws.

That was, and I will say this, that was my position. I held that position for years. I'm gonna have a conversation with a brother today after the service, guaranteed, who I argued that position with him.

I put that to him repeatedly. This is the perspective that we must have, but I'm gonna walk myself back. How is the Sabbath applied? That's our third point, the Sabbath applied. How is it then that we interact with the Sabbath law?

Well, some might say that what we need to immediately do then is cancel next Sunday's worship. We're going to move that to Saturday, and then we will persist in worshiping on the Sabbath of Israel. If we're going to be consistent, that is what we must do.

And let me ask you, is that what we must do? We're gonna get there as we move along. The first thing that I want us to see is that this Sabbath law not only applied to the nation of Israel and the old covenant, but it applies to the Christian today, and the first reason is this, after, of course, the creation ordinance of the Sabbath, and that is contained in the moral law that is itself perpetual in nature.

Again, to rely on some other brothers to help me explain this, Sam Waldron says, they alone, speaking of the nation, they alone were directly, sorry, speaking of the Sabbath commands and the moral law, sorry, they alone were directly spoken by God.

They alone were written on stone by the finger of God. They alone were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. They alone are said to be written in the hearts of new covenant believers. Is the law applicable to us today, the moral law, at least?

I would suggest that the civil law and the ceremonial law, those have gone by the wayside, but the moral law persists, and I will direct us into how that is. In Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 33, we see this in the Old Testament, a prophecy of the new covenant community.

Brothers and sisters, I don't know if you know this, you are members of that new covenant community.

You are Christians.

And members of God's new covenant if you are in Christ. And in Jeremiah 31, 33, we read, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my law within them.

Now, this nation, the nation at this time, they had no conception of any other law other than their own. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Now, some might say, okay, so we look to one Old Testament passage, is that alone to convince us that we are bound to God's moral law? I would say absolutely not, but we have compelling arguments to make from the New Testament.

And I find it fascinating that the Lord and his providence would work it out, we did not plan it this way, that we would, in our public reading of scripture today, read Matthew chapter five, where the Lord Jesus said, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

He says, in Matthew 5, 17, he says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. That is, I would suggest again, what the Sermon on the Mount is all about.

I think it was Spurgeon who said it, that Jesus did not come to abrogate the moral law, but he came to expound it. As he's teaching, he's teaching about how we are to love our neighbor, how we are to love our enemies, how we are to deal with anger, ideas around murder, and all sorts of things that are bound up in this law.

Now, some have said, and these are dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I don't want you to think for a moment that I am here to prejudge our brothers and sisters in Christ who don't hold to this position.

I am not. These are dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Some will say that every command in the Ten Commandments has been repeated in our New Testament for the exception of the fourth. And so this moral law, it moves into the new covenant, it is abolished, and the law of Christ continues.

These men, these are good, godly, faithful men. As I mentioned, I related with these men for years. Until one day someone pointed something out that in fact the Sabbath command itself is too repeated in the New Testament and in multiple places, frequently by the Lord Jesus.

One author on this topic, he writes, in the three years of Christ's ministry recorded in the Gospels, on six different occasions, he crossed swords with the Jews over the proper observation of the Sabbath.

On six different occasions. Christ himself taught six times about the Sabbath, whereas he taught on one occasion about murder and three occasions about marriage. If this commandment were destined for the dustbin of ceremonial law, why did the Gospel writers devote so much attention to it?

Can you think, he writes, he asks, can you think of any ceremonial law which Jesus spent so much time trying to correct people's practice?

No.

I used to think that as the Lord Jesus was interacting with the Pharisees and the religious leaders of his day on the Sabbath, he was in a subtle way undermining the Sabbath. He was teaching that that Sabbath law, it doesn't really apply.

When in fact, I think what he was doing, he was looking at the excesses of the application of that Sabbath command. The dead religious applications of that Sabbath demand and he was dealing with that in particular.

Case in point, when he was debating religious leaders about the Sabbath in Mark chapter two, and as they were dealing with what they perceived as his transgressions of the Sabbath, he could have said to them, there is no Sabbath, or there will one day soon, there will no longer be a Sabbath.

And I'm just getting ready for that transition. We're getting used to something new. He could have said, there is no more Sabbath, that's old covenant, or there will one day be no Sabbath, that is old covenant, there's a new covenant coming.

But what did he say? He did not say that. But in Mark 2 27, he said to them, and this, this is the Lord's heart concerning the Sabbath. Here is the visible image of the invisible God applying the Sabbath to the life of God's people.

He did not say to them, we must serve the Sabbath. He said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made on that seventh day, going back to the first week of creation, it was made for you.

It was made for your good. It was made to serve you. It was made, just as the Lord blessed that seventh day, it was made to be a blessing to you. Just as the Lord spoke those first words of blessing to those first people, Adam and Eve in the garden, this too is made to be a blessing to his church.

Or in Matthew chapter 12, in the midst of a heated debate on the observance of the Sabbath. Again, he could have cast shade on the Sabbath day. But what does he say? In Matthew 12 8, for the Son of Man.