To those who say the Sabbath was given only for the Jews:
Jesus, driving out those selling in the temple area, quotes Isaiah, “My house will be a house of prayer” (Luke 19:46, Isaiah 56:7).
In the same place the LORD says, “my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” He also says “foreigners … who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it … I will … give … joy in my house of prayer” (Isaiah 56:6-7).
Jesus says, “the Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27) — for humanity.
Astronomically, the seven-day week is the one major calendric pattern that seems completely arbitrary … the day, the month, and the year are repeatedly marked and defined by the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the seven-day week. The seven-day week originated when they, and we, were made (Genesis 2:2-3). The week is an historic God-ordained cycle — a commemoration of Creation!
The Sabbath helps to fulfill the Creators purpose in fashioning men and women “in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). It is “a day of sacred assembly” (Leviticus 23:3) and a day of rest. The Sabbath was created as a taste and a type of “entering his rest” (Hebrews 4:1) — as when the faithful are gathered to Abraham in “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). |
