By ROLAND CHIA
THERE is considerable consensus
among scholars of Ancient Near East civilisation that the division
of the week into seven days was not the invention of the people
of Israel. The origins can be traced to Babylonian religion in
which each day of the week is devoted to each of the seven gods
or the spirits of the seven planets.
Although the Israelites did not device this scheme for dividing
the week but inherited it when they entered Canaan, they were
responsible for creating the Sabbath and exalting it as the holiest
day of the week. "Sabbath" comes from the Hebrew word
sabat, which simply means "to cease" or "to desist".
The Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week, is to be a
day of rest, kept holy to God, just as God Himself ceased from
His creative activity and rested.
The relationship between the Sabbath and the seventh day of creation
is profoundly established in the number of texts from the Old
Testament, but chiefly in the fourth commandment: "Remember
the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour
and do all your work, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
Lord your God … For in six days the Lord made the heavens
and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but He rested
on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day
and made it holy." (Exodus 20:8, 11). Although the Genesis
creation narrative itself does not use the term "Sabbath",
the fourth commandment makes the connection between the Sabbath
day and the original creation itself.
For the Israelites, the Sabbath was a day of rest, a day set apart
to remember God and worship him. It was seen as a gift from God,
as Exodus 16:21-30 makes clear when the Sabbath is seen in connection
with the giving of manna. The Sabbath meant reprieve from the
toil of work, but in the cessation of work, a new trust in the
providential goodness of God is established.
In deliberating the importance of ceasing from work, the people
of God were reminded of the fact that it is God - not they - who
sustains the world and keeps it going. But as a day set apart,
made holy for God, Sabbath also taught the Israelites the sacredness
of time. As modern Judaism's most eloquent expositor, Abraham
Joshua Heschel, has put it, "Judaism teaches us to be attached
to the holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn
to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream
of the year."
There is a sense in which the Sabbath and the Lord's Day are very
different days that commemorate different events. The Sabbath
is the last day of the week and commemorates God's rest after
He has completed the work of creation. The Lord's Day is the first
day of the week and commemorates the Resurrection of Christ. But
in many ways the themes that both these days evoke interlock and
overlap.
Both days have to do with redemption: the Sabbath memorialised
God's redemption of His people from slavery in Egypt while the
Lord's Day celebrates redemption in the triumph of Jesus' resurrection.
Both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day are linked to worship. And
both days emphasise the Lordship of God over all creation, including
creation's future.
For Christians, the Sabbath is superseded by Resurrection Day.
The relationship between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian
"Day of the Lord" (Sunday) is best understood when we
reflect upon the relationship between Jesus and the Law.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said that He has come not to abolish the
Law but rather to fulfil it. Through the Resurrection of Jesus,
the Sabbath has been changed forever. The salvation of God, the
eschatological rest symbolised by the Sabbath, is now made a reality
through the Resurrection. The Resurrection of Jesus is therefore
the fulfilment of the promise of the Sabbath. It marks the new
creation, leading theologians to speak of the Day of the Resurrection
as the eighth day.
As Bishop William Willimon has shown, the question for the Christian
is not how should I keep the Sabbath, but how should I keep the
Lord's Day. Sunday has superseded the Jewish Sabbath (traditionally
observed on Saturday). This transition is seen as early as the
second century, especially evidenced in the writings of theologians
like Justin Martyr (AD 150) and Tertullian (AD 155). The Second
Helvetic Confession offers a clear summary regarding the significance
of the Lord's Day:
"In regard hereof, we see that in the ancient churches
there were not only certain set hours in the week appointed for
meetings, but that also the Lord's Day itself, ever since the
apostles' time, was consecrated to religious exercises and to
a holy rest … we do celebrate and keep the Lord's Day, and
not the Jewish Sabbath … "
So just as God entrusted to Israel the Sabbath so that the
world might know God's intention for the world, so Christians
worship God on the day of the Resurrection, signalling not only
that this promise of God has gone to all the world, but more profoundly
that this new reality has already dawned upon us.
In the Resurrection of Jesus, eternity has already penetrated
time, the future has already come, and the promised Sabbath is
already a reality (although its fullness still lies in the future).
Dr Roland Chia is Dean of Postgraduate Studies and Lecturer
in Historical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Theological College.
He worships at the Fairfield Preaching Point in Woodlands.
QUOTE:
'The Sabbath memorialised God's redemption of His people from slavery in Egypt while the Lord's Day celebrates redemption in the triumph of Jesus' resurrection. Both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day are linked to worship.'