The Three Sabbaths of Jesus

One

Creation



We are told that God made the world and all that is in it in 6 literal days (Gen 1,2 Ex 20:11, 31:17)* On the seventh day God rested or ceased from His labor. He did not rest because He was tired. God did not say that if He makes one more blade of grass He will expire. He ceased because the creation was completed. There was nothing else that could possibly be done.

God did everything through His Word. John tells us that this Word was made flesh in the man Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:14-17). When God wanted to say or do anything, He did it through His Word or His Son (Heb 1:2).

God “sat down”, as it were, to indicate that nothing could be added to the work of creation. Notice that God rested or ceased after His work (Gen 2:3). Adam did not labor, therefore he could not cease. Adam lived in rest, fellowshipping with God every day. Adam was given one commandment:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Gen 2:17)

We know that man fell into sin and everything was ruined. Man now had to leave the place of rest (Eden) and had to labor every day that he wanted to eat. God also went back to work.

Two

Redemption



Jesus always aggravated the people that wanted to earn God's favor by following some version of the Mosaic law. Strange, because the Law pointed to Messiah and the work that he would accomplish. Jesus told them that he could do nothing that he might want to, but only what he saw the Father do first (John 5:19).

One day, which happened to be on the weekly Sabbath, Jesus healed a man who had been sick for 38 years.

And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day. (John 5:16)

Jesus next said something to them which was like throwing gasoline on a fire.

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work (v 17)

Please allow a personal paraphrase here:

My Father works seven days per week and THAT is why I do also.

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. (v 18)

Jesus watched his Father and so kept on working, right up to the cross.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Heb 10:12)

Jesus sat down. It was not because the work before and during the cross was exhausting. It was. A less determined man would have died during the scourging. He sat down because the work of bringing men to God was finished. There was nothing else that could possibly be added to his work. He ceased because the work of redemption was complete. If any man tried to add something to the work of God through Christ, he would be a rest-breaker or a sabbath-breaker. Our only proper response now is faith in the work of God.

Three

Restoration



Jesus' work in obtaining eternal redemption is now complete. That does not mean, however, that he has nothing else to do. There is some more work remaining in putting down all resistance to the will of God.

Christ must rule the earth as supreme dictator for 1,000 years.

Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. (1Cor 15:24)

There will be no more war, no more labor, no more struggling. Then Jesus, with all his subjects, will enter into the final rest of God forever.



Oct 2, 2023





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