Exodus 31:13
You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Exodus 31:12-18 and Hebrews 4:1-11
Israel was about to begin building the tabernacle that God described to Moses up to this point. God appointed Bezalel as the head carpenter and assigned him a helper along with an army of skilled workers who would build this amazing structure and the objects it contains. In today’s dollars, the cost of the tabernacle was around $100 million. So this was going to be a very large endeavor and would require every waking hour to get it done in a timely manner.
However, God essentially says, “Not so fast!” Before the Israelites get started, God commands them to obey His Sabbaths for the following reasons:
- They are a sign between God and Israel for the generations to come
- So they will know that God is the LORD
- So they will know that God is the one who makes them holy
- Because the Sabbath itself is holy to Israel
- It is a sign of His everlasting covenant
So the Sabbath was an important sign of God’s covenant with Israel that was to remind them of who He is and all He had done for them. Failure to observe this critical symbol of the covenant would either result in banishment or death. Regardless of all the tasks that lied ahead of them in building the tabernacle, they were to stop on the Sabbath and rest. If God can rest while constructing the universe and all its inhabitants, then so can Israel.
Keeping the Sabbath was a sign of Israel’s obedience and acceptance of God’s covenant. If you recall, the other sign of obedience to God’s covenant was circumcision. Those who did not observe the Sabbath by resting from their work were openly rejecting God’s covenant of which the penalty would be death. Just like God threatened to kill Moses’ uncircumcised son on their way to Egypt, the Sabbath carried the same consequences.
When God rested on the seventh day of Creation, He set the example for Israel and also us that we are to work for six days and rest the seventh. This is healthy for us physically. But as with everything in the Old Testament, the Sabbath is symbolic of something eternal. It’s symbolic of the spiritual rest Christ-followers will enjoy for all eternity in the presence of God. And that eternal spiritual rest can only be obtained by resting in the work of Jesus on the cross.
The author of Hebrews gives a dissertation on what it means to rest. We read in Hebrews, “But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb 10:12). The phrase he sat down can be translated he came to rest. When Jesus took his place in heaven after the resurrection, he entered God’s eternal rest. This concept is spelled out in the fourth chapter of Hebrews.
To summarize this complicated line of thought, the land of Canaan was a symbol of heaven and is spoken about as entering God’s rest. It’s a promise that was not just for the Israelites but it’s a promise to all humanity who follows Christ. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his” (Heb 4:9-10).
So let’s follow the symbology. Obeying the Sabbath was required by Israel to accept God’s covenant with them. Similarly, obeying Jesus and accepting his death on the cross on our behalf is what is required of us to accept God’s new covenant. The reward for Israel was that they would rest from their work. The reward for us is that we get to enter God’s eternal rest. And for those that didn’t obey the Sabbath, banishment and death was the punishment. And unfortunately, those that aren’t covered by the blood of Christ will spend eternity banished from God.
“Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience” (Heb 4:11).
Christ in the Old Testament 
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