It was a real blessing to take part in a traditional Jewish Seder meal and listen to the Messianic Jewish host explain the meaning and significance of each element of the meal. When we were finished, the host encouraged all the Christian participants to observe the traditional Jewish Sabbath. It was a moving experience and launched me into prayerful study to determine how my wife and I should approach the Sabbath. In the end, neither my wife nor I felt led to observe it on a weekly basis as do the Jews. Speaking for myself, I felt that way long before ever attending the Seder meal. What the study did do for me was to show me why I feel the way I do about traditional Sabbath observance. Such is not unusual, for simple discernment often precedes deeper understanding.

Controversial as the subject is and having had my fill of so many self-appointed defenders of man’s religious kingdom who are threatened by the many tithe articles the Father led me to write, I never figured to write anything about the Sabbath. That is until recently when I heard a man argue for keeping the 4th commandment with the following twisted logic: “I recently informed my wife that I will begin sleeping with other women because of this new found freedom (that) I have in Christ to disregard the 7th commandment which says ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’.” The man’s inference being IF in Christ the 4th commandment concerning the Sabbath no longer applies, then neither does the 7th commandment concerning Adultery. I hope dear friends, that you find the man’s crass and manipulative analogy as nauseating as I do.

Here’s the problem I have with such warped reasoning. It is written “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart … and love your neighbor as yourself … the law and the prophets hang on these commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). What that means is the law, which includes the ten commandments, is wholly derived from perfect love for God and one’s neighbor. Whether or not there is a 7th commandment is wholly irrelevant for the man who truly loves God and his neighbor as himself; such a man would NEVER do anything so selfish, so thoughtless so hurtful to God, his own wife or his neighbor, as to sleep with his neighbor’s wife. The man who suggested as much, has a very serious love problem if he thinks the 7th commandment is the only thing stopping him from committing adultery. I shudder that the man was introduced as “a prophet”.

Several times since the Father first led me to put in a garden, He has prompted me to read Genesis 1 and 2 where He has shown me things I’ve never noticed before. In meditating on Creation as it was before the fall, the Spirit has led me to consider that Eden was perpetually in God’s 7th day of rest. In other words, before the fall it was always the Sabbath in Eden because Creation was on God’s (kairos) time. It was only after the fall, that death and thereby chronos time, entered into the picture.

Consequently, Adam’s work tending Eden was wholly compatible with God’s Sabbath rest. That work and rest are compatible in God’s kingdom? It blows the mind. But that answers a few questions I’ve always had concerning the many accusations Jesus endured from the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath.

Specifically, when the Pharisees accused His disciples of breaking Sabbath, Jesus replied “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:23-28). Thus man came first, but the Pharisees made the Sabbath out to be more important than man. So what were they doing that so offended the Pharisees? They were threshing and eating grain while walking on the Sabbath. But from Jesus’s perspective, the disciples were working in His garden (Psalm 24:1) where by following Him, they were under His covering and on His time (kairos). Thereby they were abiding in the Sabbath rest of the Son where it is not a sin to pick and thresh grain while walking with the “Lord of the Sabbath”.

When the Pharisees accused Jesus yet again, He replied that His Father was always working (John 5:15-17), and so was He; in other words, like Father, like Son. It’s worth noting in Genesis 1-2, that God, who made Adam in His image, did not tell Adam to rest from tending the garden prior to the fall. And so for Adam, it was also like Father, like Son.

These things have made me consider God’s purpose in making the Sabbath and His commandment in the Law. Likewise what it really means to break the Sabbath, since Jesus clearly demonstrated that healing and restorative work in His time in His garden does not defile man’s Sabbath.

There is no doubt the Father wants us to rest from our toils. And for us to draw near to Him in fellowship where we are spiritually nourished. But is the Sabbath rest God wants for us a rigidly timed religious observance, from the stroke of sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, where we pack all the work of Saturday into twice the work on Friday and save the dirty dishes for Sunday? Or do believers enter into a never-ending Sabbath rest through abiding in the Son (see Hebrews 4:1-11)? Certainly the latter is more in keeping with the perpetual Sabbath rest the Creator built into His Creation.

Concerning the law, I will say something that no doubt will infuriate some believers. The law is given for those who have a love problem. Since the law hangs on the 2 greatest commandments to love God and your neighbor, pray tell would the man who truly loves God, worship false gods, make idols and graven images or take God’s name in vain? Likewise, would the man who truly loves his neighbor as himself sleep with his neighbor’s wife? Clearly then, the law is given for those who are selfish, hard-hearted, stubborn, stiff-necked and hard-headed, in whom love is not perfected, and who, therefore, need God’s stern warning “THOU SHALT NOT!” and the specificity of innumerable acts of sin.

I suspect God’s purpose in making the Sabbath for man, is to teach us repentance by reminding us of that from which we fell – God’s beautiful self-sustaining garden where we knew only life, fellowship, and rest – where God’s work for us was joy and never toilsome – and to give us hope and a glimpse of the place He is leading us back to. He did say, after all “REMEMBER the Sabbath”. I don’t think God is talking about the 7th day of the week so much as He is expressing the longing of His heart, for us to re-join Him in His garden where it is always the Sabbath. Surely Jesus echoed that same longing when He said to the disciples at the last supper “REMEMBER Me” (Luke 22:19). What if in saying “remember the Sabbath” and “remember Me” Jesus is calling us to wake up from the stupor that the fall has foisted on all of us?

To be sure, we are of ancient Spirit, breathed from the mouth of the Creator into these living tabernacles of clay. Within each of us abides a portion of His Spirit – the same Spirit that was present even before the world began. So when He who is timeless says to us “Remember the Sabbath” and “Remember Me”, do we not fall short when we believe it to mean nothing more than a future command to “take Saturday off” and to “thank Jesus for the wine and the bread”? Might God have intended a deeper meaning for those with ears to hear? A longing in the Creator’s heart as old as the fall?

What if remember means, remember? Would He tell us to remember if there were nothing to remember? Is it possible on the day we finally meet Him face to face, our eyes would be opened with startling recognition wherein we exclaim with joy “You! I remember You! I remember our home!” And the Father’s reply: “welcome home, My prodigal child!”

Until the day I fully awaken from this infernal slumber, I hope to go about God’s work to restore what He has entrusted to me while at the same time abiding in the Sabbath rest of His Son. Like Jesus who works because He sees His Father working, I too shall work because I see my Savior working.