“Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ,” Colossians 2:16-17.
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The Old Testament bears witness of Christ Jesus, John 5:39. John 5:39.
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“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made,” Genesis 2:1-3.
Notice He didn’t sanctify the six work days, just theSeventh day of rest. This corresponds to the life and resurrection of Jesus. Throughout His life He worked on our behalf, preaching the gospel, laying out a roadmap to the kingdom of heaven. He did this all while on a cursed earth in a body which was in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Because He was in the likeness of sinful flesh, He had to learn obedience through the things which He suffered. When His mission on earth ended, He was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead; after which He became a life-giving spirit, and through that spirit formed a new creation, the body of the risen Christ, the church.
The work week is finished for all who believe in him and obey Him. We have entered the sanctified seventh day. No longer are we bound to any laws; we have been released from the Law and now rest from our efforts to keep the law. As we walk by His Spirit, every decent law known to man is fulfilled in us. Just as the Psalmist said, “Cease striving and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10. We have ceased striving and now rest in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Lord of the Sabbath.
Hebrews 4:3-11,
3 “For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, ‘As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,’ although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 ‘For He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all His works’;
5 “And again in this passage, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’
6 “Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,
7 “He again fixes a certain day ‘Today,’ saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’
8 “For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.
9 “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. [That is, a sanctified place of rest.]
10 “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”
[We rest from our works, for we are now His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them, Ephesians 2:10. These good works spring forth from us as we walk in our Sabbath rest in the Spirit. These works are of the Spirit; our works, from which we have rested, are of the flesh.]
11 “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience.”
The Son of God, through whom we were crucified and resurrected, set us free from the law of sin and of death, by giving us a new Spirit, a new life, a new body, His body, the church; wherein we walk by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
We need only follow Him, and learn obedience through the things which we suffer, taking the escape He provides for every temptation common to man. Soon we will reach the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.
Jon David Banks, God’s most unworthy servant
“Where morning dawns and evening fades, He calls forth songs of joy”
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org
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