The Sabbath and Law The Sabbath and Law

5. The Sabbath and Law

St. Augustine spoke of the goal of history as “the great Sabbath which has no evening.”249 He concluded hisConfessions with a statement on the meaning of the sabbath as the goal of history:

(XXXV.) 50. O Lord God, give peace unto us: (for Thou hast given us all things;) the peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath which hath no evening. For all this most goodly array of thingsvery good , having finished their courses, is to pass away, for in them there wasmorning and evening.

(XXXVI.) 51. But the seventh day hath no evening, nor hath it setting; because Thou hast sanctified it to an everlasting continuance; that that which Thou didst after Thy workswhich were very good, resting on the seventh day, although Thou madest them in unbroken rest, that may the voice of Thy Book announce beforehand unto us, that we also after our works (thereforevery good , because

Thou hast given them us,) shallrest in Thee also in the Sabbath of eternal life.

(XXXVII.) 52. For then shalt Thou so rest in us, as now Thou workest in us; and so shall that be Thy rest through us, as these are Thy works through us. But Thou, Lord, ever workest, and art ever at rest. Nor dost Thou see in time, nor art moved in time, nor restest in a time; and yet Thou makest things seen in time, yea the times themselves, and the rest which results from time.

(XXXVIII.) 53. We therefore see these things which Thou madest, because they are: but they are, because Thou seest them. And we see without, that they are, and within, that they are good, but Thou sawest them there, when made, where Thou sawest them, yet to be made. And we were at a later time moved to do well, after our hearts had conceived of Thy Spirit; but in the former time we were moved to do evil, forsaking Thee; but Thou, the One, the Good God, didst never cease doing good. And we also have some good works, of Thy gift, but not

eternal;after them we trust to rest in Thy great hallowing. But Thou, being the Good which needeth no good, art ever at rest, because Thy rest is Thou Thyself. And what man can teach man to understand this? or what Angel, an Angel? or what Angel, a man? Let it beasked of Thee, sought in Thee, knocked for at Thee; so, shall it bereceived , so shall it be found , so shall it be opened. Amen.250

Westcott spoke of the sabbath rest of Hebrews 4:9 as “a rest which closes the manifold forms of earthly preparation and work (the Hexaemeron of human toil): not an isolated sabbath but a sabbath-life. . . . The Sabbath rest answers to the Creation as its proper consummation.” Westcott, citing St. Augustine, then called attention to rabbinical commentaries:

The Jewish teachers dwelt much upon the symbolic meaning of the Sabbath as prefiguring “the world to come.” One passage quoted by Schoettgen and others may be given: “The people of Israel said: Lord of the whole world, shew us the world to come. God, blessed be He, answered: Such a pattern is the Sabbath” ( Jalk. Rub. p. 95, 4). In this connexion the double ground which is given for the observance of the Sabbath, the rest of God (Ex. xx. 11) and the deliverance from Egypt (Deut. v. 15), finds its spiritual confirmation. The final rest of man answers to the idea of Creation realised after the Fall by Redemption.251

This view of the sabbath is not only the teaching of the church fathers like Augustine, and of rabbis, but also of modern Protestant commentators. Lenski, who pointed out that “God rested ‘from his works’ (not ‘from his labors’),” noted that it was the ordained eternal rest from before creation.252 Schneider noted further that “this ‘rest’ is not a forlorn bliss blotting out activity. It is rather the ‘active rest’ (Luther) in which the perfected Church adores and praises God.”

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Hebrews 3 and 4 are the foundation for this interpretation of the sabbath. Canaan, the Promised Land, was a foreshadowing of the true sabbath, but the true sabbath could not be identified with it. Beyond all the types, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” (Heb. 4:9), or, it can be translated, that there remains a sabbath, or a sabbath-rest, to the people of God. As Moulton noted of Hebrews 4:10, “Man’s sabbath-rest begins when he enters into God’s rest (Gen. ii. 2); as that was the goal of the creative work, so to the people of God this rest is the goal of their life of ‘works.’ ”254

Certain general observations can now be made concerning the sabbath. First , the foregoing makes it clear that the sabbath has always had reference to the future. The pattern of the sabbath is in the past, from the sabbath of creation. Theentrance into the sabbath is also in the past; for Israel, it was the redemption from Egypt; for the church, it is in the resurrection. The fulfilment of the sabbath is in the new creation. The sabbath is a present rest, based on past events, with a future reference and fulfilment.

Second , and closely related to the future reference of the sabbath, the law of the sabbath required providence, i.e., a provident people. Because of the short-term nature of debt, only emergency debts could be contracted. In each century, sixteen years were sabbaths, including two jubilee years. While God promised an abundant harvest for faithfulness to His law, it was still necessary for man to use that abundance providently, or else he would be unable to live. Providence in management means an obviously future-oriented perspective. Instead of a past-oriented and consumption-centered economy, the sabbath produced a production-centered, future-oriented, and rest-conscious society. A provident society can rest with peace and security, and a productive society is best able to enjoy rest.

Third , a sabbath-oriented society best gives rest. A generation ago, railroaders in the United States worked seven days a week, ten hours a day, every day of the year. Clearly, such working conditions were antibiblical and, in terms of biblical law, criminal. Not surprisingly, the railroad tycoons were on the whole a group of thoroughly reprobate men. When the fourth commandment rules it unlawful to deny even the earth and domesticated animals their sabbath, how much more so the denial of rest to man? And yet, clearly, the shorter working hours, the paid vacations, five eight-hour-day work weeks have failed to give men true rest. The increase of heart attacks, ulcers, and other stress-induced ailments and diseases makes it clear that the change in working conditions has not been any help to man. Because the older order, ungodly as it was, still was closer to a Christian faith and order, man had, in the face of lawless working conditions, a greater ability to rest than does the man of the late twentieth century. In a sabbath-oriented society, the provident man, having lived debt-free, finding rest in Christ, and able both to work and to relax,

has a peace and joy in life lacking in a phrenetic generation.

But, fourth, since all law has reference to the future, and is in essence a plan for the future, the sabbath law is a plan for the world’s tomorrow. The biblical law works to eliminate evil and to abolish poverty and debt. The sabbath law has as itswork the re-creation of man, animals, and the

earth, the whole of creation. The sabbath thus reveals the design and direction of the whole law: it is a declaration of the future the law is establishing.

Thus, while Colossians 2:16-17 makes it clear that the formalisms of the Old Testament observances are ended, the essence of the law is in force and is basic to all biblical law.

Non-Christian thought, when oriented to the future, faces a double penalty. First , it is past-bound. The “civil rights” revolution, for example, has only the vaguest sense of the burdens of responsibility, which any person thinking in terms of reality and the future needs to have. Instead, the “civil rights” revolutionists speak endlessly of past evils, not merely real or imagined evils of their own experiencing, but all evils which they believe their ancestors suffered. Similarly, some labor union men, and American Indians, dwell endlessly on past history rather than present reality. This inability to live in the present means a radical incapacity for coping with the future.

Second , the non-Christian, as he faces the future, is at best utopian and unrealistic. As Mumford noted, “each utopia was a closed society for the prevention of human growth.”255 _{Man is reduced}

to economic man and viewed in terms of an externalism which destroys man.256 Utopianism not only presents an illusory or dangerous picture of the future, but it also distorts and destroys the present. Utopianism thus affords man no help as he works towards the future: it gives man

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