This is part of an ongoing series on the Ten Commandments. God’s word reveals to us the laws he requires for living in the world as he has ordered it, and only by living according to this law are we able to flourish and enjoy our creational purpose: to glorify God and enjoy him. This series explores how Christians, whose identity is in Christ and whose inheritance is stored in eternity, should live under and live out the Ten Commandments.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who [h]stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” — Exodus 20:8–11
In 1929, Joseph Stalin terminated the seven-day week in the Soviet Union. To increase production, he randomly assigned citizens days off and grouped them together, treating them as the nuts and bolts of his constantly whirring machines. One critic wrote that the effects would be disastrous for personal and religious life, believing it would eliminate Christian holidays, worship services, and family life. After all, with only a percentage of the population having their off days on Sundays, and many families having their off days on separately assigned days, it was almost impossible to meet together regularly.
The nepreryvka ended without success 11 years later. You can imagine the time it took to return to normal—how weary the people must have been after working for a ruler who cared more about their output than their good.
We know what it’s like to feel weary, to feel as if we’re working without any rest under the rule of a harsh taskmaster. We know what it’s like for the expectations and to-do lists to pile up, to have things fall through the cracks, to feel discouraged that we let someone down. We know what it’s like to live in a world that never stops, where there’s never enough time.
But God provides a remedy for our unrest.
The Kindness of Sabbath
In the book of Exodus, we see another harsh ruler: Pharaoh. Concerned for his own empire, he ordered that baby boys born to the Hebrews be thrown into the Nile River (Ex. 1:22). Moses witnessed the Hebrews’ “hard labor” and the beating of a fellow Hebrew by an Egyptian (Ex. 2:11). Under Pharaoh, the Hebrew people experienced cruel rulership that offered little rest.
God, however, invited his people to enjoy rest. When he gave his people manna after freeing them from their bondage in Egypt, he gave them enough on the sixth day so they wouldn’t need to gather on the seventh—an invitation to rest (Ex. 16:23–25). In the Ten Commandments, God tells his people to keep the seventh day holy as a weekly day of rest (Ex. 20:8–11). Even after God provides his detailed instructions on how to build his dwelling place, the Tabernacle, he reminds them to rest, yet again (Ex. 31:12–17)!
With his call to rest, God separates himself from worldly rulers concerned about earthly glory. With this call to rest, we glimpse a command and kindness that sets God apart as the King whose reign we long to worship and live under. With this call to rest, we are invited to trust in the providence of a God who knows all our needs.
The Command of Sabbath
When the Israelites honored the Sabbath, they honored the covenant between God and Israel (Ex. 31: 13–17). When they profaned the Sabbath, they violated the covenant and cut themselves off from God and his people (Ex. 31:13–15). Why the severe consequences? Prone to forget, the Hebrews needed a day committed to remembering who God was.
Sabbath can serve this purpose for us today. Puritan Thomas Watson described well our need for rest: “The business of week-days makes us forgetful of God and our souls…. [T]he falling dust of the world [clogs] the wheels of our affections, that they can scarcely move toward God.” Like the Israelites, we’re prone to forget. We strive, forgetting the goodness of God and all he has done for us. When we strive, we grow weary.
Where can we find rest? Sabbath is God’s gift to us, a reminder that he is God—and we are not.
The Fulfillment of Sabbath
The Sabbath commandment served as a reminder that God alone worked out the Israelites’ salvation (Ex. 13:14), so they’d know emphatically that the Lord set them apart as his people (Ex. 31:13).
Years later, Jesus would echo the invitation in Exodus as he spoke to his disciples: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28–29). He would connect his invitation to Sabbath as he spoke to the Pharisees, who tried to exercise their own harsh rule over God’s people: “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:8).
God’s offer of Sabbath is not simply physical—it’s spiritual. Sabbath honors God as creator and recognizes that we are creatures—each entity in his proper place in the creative order (Ex. 31:17). This invitation reminds us that God alone gives spiritual rest through Christ, who won our salvation for us by his perfect work (Rom. 4:16). It points us toward heaven, where we’ll experience the full rest secured for us through the resurrection and live under the rule of Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, forever (Heb. 4:9).
Whose rule will you submit to? To the Pharisees, whose endless religious laws tried to purchase salvation on their terms? To the unrelenting ruler whose main concern is his earthly glory—and who uses you as a means to that end? To the to-do list that never ends?
If you’re weary, desperate for peace and relief, look to your good God, whose rule has offered you Sabbath rest even today.
Footnotes
Natasha Frost, “For 11 Years, the Soviet Union Had No Weekends,” History, May 25, 2018, https://www.history.com/news/soviet-union-stalin-weekend-labor-policy.
Ibid
Thomas Watson. The Ten Commandments. London: Banner of Truth Trust (1965), 94–95.
