How is Jesus our Sabbath Rest? | GotQuestions.org

Today's question is, how does Jesus, our Sabbath, rest? In this video I'll answer that question from a biblical perspective.

Afterwards, as always, I'll share some helpful resources, so stick around until the end. The key to understanding how

Jesus, as our Sabbath, rests is the Hebrew word sabbat, which means to rest or stop or cease from work.

The origin of the Sabbath goes back to creation. After creating the heavens and the earth, in six days

God rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made, Genesis 2, verse 2.

This doesn't mean that God was tired and needed rest. We know that God is omnipotent, literally all -powerful.

He has all the power in the universe, He never tires, and His most arduous expenditure of energy does not diminish

His power one bit. So what does it mean that God rested on the seventh day? Simply that He stopped what

He was doing, He ceased from His labors. This is important in understanding the establishment of the

Sabbath day and the role of Christ as our Sabbath rest. God used the example of His resting on the seventh day of creation to establish the principle of the

Sabbath day rest for His people. In Exodus 20, verses 8–11 and Deuteronomy 5, verses 12–15,

God gave the Israelites the fourth of His ten commandments. They were to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

One day out of every seven, they were to rest from their labors and give the same day of rest to their servants and animals.

This was not just a physical rest, but a cessation of laboring. Whatever work they were engaged in was to stop for a full day each week.

Please see our other answers to questions on the Sabbath day, Saturday vs. Sunday, and Sabbath keeping to explore this issue further.

The Sabbath day was established so the people would rest from their labors, only to begin after one day of rest.

The various elements of the Sabbath symbolized the coming of the Messiah, who would provide a permanent rest for His people.

Once again, the example of resting from our labors comes into play. With the establishment of the Old Testament law, the

Jews were constantly laboring to make themselves acceptable to God. Their labors included trying to obey a myriad of dos and don'ts of the ceremonial law, the temple law, the civil law, etc.

And of course, they couldn't possibly keep all of those laws, so God provided an array of sin offerings and sacrifices so they could come to Him for forgiveness and restore fellowship with Him—but only temporarily.

Just as they began their physical labors after one day of rest, so too did they have to continue to offer sacrifices.

Hebrews 10 1 tells us that the law can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.

But these sacrifices were offered in anticipation of the ultimate sacrifice of Christ on the cross, who, after He had offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down on the right of God.

Hebrews 10, verse 12. Just as He rested after performing the ultimate sacrifice, He sat down and rested, ceased from His labor of atonement, because there was nothing more to be done, ever.

Because of what He did, we no longer have to labor in law -keeping in order to be justified in the sight of God. Jesus was sent so that we might rest in God and in what

He has provided. Another element of the Sabbath day rest in which God instituted as a foreshadowing of our complete rest in Christ is that He blessed it, sanctified it, and made it holy.

Here again, we see the symbol of Christ as our Sabbath rest—the holy, perfect Son of God who sanctifies and makes holy all who believe in Him.

God sanctified Christ just as He sanctified the Sabbath day and sent Him into the world in John 10, verse 36, to be our sacrifice for sin.

In Him we find complete rest from our labors of self -effort because He alone is holy and righteous.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. We can now cease from our spiritual labors and rest in Him, not just one day a week, but always.

Jesus can be our Sabbath rest in part because He is Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 12, verse 8.

As God incarnate, He decides the true meaning of the Sabbath because He created it, and He is our

Sabbath rest in the flesh. When the Pharisees criticized Him for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus reminded them that even they, sinful as they were, would not hesitate to pull a sheep out of a pit on the

Sabbath. Because He came to seek and save His sheep who would hear His voice, John 10, verse 3 and 27, and enter into the

Sabbath rest He provided by paying for their sins, He could break the Sabbath rules. He told the

Pharisees that people are more important than sheep and that the salvation He provided was more important than rules.

By saying the Sabbath was not made for man, but man for the Sabbath, Mark 2, verse 27, Jesus was restating the principle that the

Sabbath rest was instituted to relieve man of his labors, just as He came to relieve us of our attempting to achieve salvation by our works.

We no longer rest for only one day, but forever cease from our laboring to attain God's favor. Jesus is our rest from works now, just as He is the door to heaven where we will rest in Him forever.

Hebrews 4 is the definitive passage regarding Jesus' Sabbath rest. The writer to the

Hebrews exhorts his readers to enter into the Sabbath rest provided by Christ. After three chapters of telling them that Jesus is superior to the angels and that He is our apostle and high priest, he pleads with them to not harden their hearts against Him as their fathers hardened their hearts against the

Lord in the wilderness. Because of their unbelief, God denied that generation access to the Holy Land, saying, they shall not enter into my rest.

Hebrews 3, verse 11. In the same way, the writer to the Hebrews begs his readers not to make the same mistake by rejecting

God's Sabbath rest in Jesus Christ. There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters

God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

Hebrews 4, verses 9–11. There is no other Sabbath rest besides Jesus. He alone satisfies the requirements of the law, and He alone provides the sacrifice that atones for sin.

He is God's plan for us to cease from the labor of our own works. We dare not reject this one and only way of salvation.

John 14, verse 6. God's reaction to those who choose to reject His plan is seen in Numbers 15.

A man was found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day in spite of God's plain commandment to cease from all labor on the

Sabbath. This transgression was a known and willful sin, done with unblushing boldness and broad daily in open defiance of the divine authority.

Then the Lord said to Moses, The man must die, the whole assembly must stone him outside the camp. Verse 35.

So, it will be to all who reject God's provision for our Sabbath rest in Christ. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

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for more great content. And check out the details section below this video, there you'll find one book I recommend, along with links to several related questions.

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