01 - Introduction

God gave the sabbath to Israel as a special marker to distinguish them as his people from all other nations. Having given his people the sabbath when they were in the Wilderness of Sin, just after their redemption from the slavery of Egypt in the exodus, God reinforced its observance a few weeks later when he gave them his law through Moses on Mount Sinai (Ex. 16; 20:8-11; 31:12-17; Neh. 9:14; Ezek. 20:12). Centuries later, at his appointed time, God sent his Son into the world, made under the law, in order to fulfil it and thus render all its shadows obsolete, Christ himself being their reality in the new covenant (Matt. 5:17-20; Rom. 10:4; Gal. 4:4; Col. 2:16-17; Heb. 8:13; 10:18). These shadows included the priesthood, the sacrifices, the feasts and the temple. In the new covenant, therefore, Christ is the believer's priest, sacrifice, feast and temple. The sabbath, of course, is no exception to all this. The real sabbath is Christ, the believer's sabbath (Matt. 11:28-30; Heb. 4:9-10). Hence the main thinking behind my chosen title: The Essential Sabbath. In the days of the new covenant, talk of sabbath-observance misses the point. Sabbath-observance was, from first to last, entirely Jewish, an essential shadow of the old covenant, which covenant was fulfilled, terminated, accomplished and brought to its God-ordained end by Christ, thus rendering it obsolete when he established the new covenant