“Jesus is my Sabbath Now”???? Are we being Bamboozled?

 And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying, “Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath?” in order that they could accuse him.  But he said to them, “What man will there be among you who will have one sheep and if this one fell into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Then to what degree is a man worth more than a sheep? So then, it is permitted to do good on the Sabbath.”

Matthew 12:10–12 (LEB)

If one does a You Tube search on the phrase “Jesus is my Sabbath”, countless videos will populate on this subject from famous preachers and influencers. They all have one thing in common and it is that they promote the idea that the Sabbath is no longer valid, it is wrong to keep the Sabbath, or anyone that tries to keep the Sabbath is putting themselves back under the law.

The consensus seems to be that “Jesus is my Sabbath now” among most Christians, implying that they get their rest from some supernatural transfer from Jesus. Also today, many Christians are often found to be burned out, plagued with ailments and emotionally unstable. Replacing God’s commandment to physically and mentally rest from work with “Jesus is my Sabbath now”, somehow imparting rest on a person’s body, does not embody the words, “come to me and I will give you rest”. It is simply trickery by an enemy to draw people away from God.

Where did this idea of abandoning the commandment of Deuteronomy 5:12 (LEB),  “Observe the Sabbath day to make it holy, just as Yahweh your God has commanded you.”, and replacing it with “Jesus is my Sabbath now” originate? It didn’t come from ancient Rome’s religious system because their decree was to “work on Saturday and go to church on Sunday, resting if possible”, recorded as Roman law at the council of Laodicea in 347 CE. Their change of God’s law was a result of antisemitism to distance themselves from anything that seemed Jewish. Emperor Constantine referred to the Jews as “those despicable Jews who murdered our Lord”. Anyone found Judaizing by keeping the Sabbath would be excommunicated or anathema to the church under the Roman canon. Contrast this with Paul, who said that the Jews were, Romans 3:2 (LEB), “entrusted with the oracles of God”. One of these “oracles” was the benefits of resting on the Sabbath.

However, the Jew’s view on the Sabbath, at least now, is that one cannot and should not try to keep it if one is not a Jew or has not converted to Judaism. A well known Rabbi told me this personally through email. As far as Judaism is concerned, non-Jews can only practice the Noahide laws, which are defined by them outside of the Bible. No Sabbath rest for you.

One place to garner support for the argument that “Jesus is my Sabbath now” is from the letter to the Hebrews.

Hebrews 4:4–11 (LEB): ⁴ For he has spoken somewhere about the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,” ⁵ and in this passage again, ‘They will never enter into my rest.’ ” ⁶ Since therefore it remains for some to enter into it, and the ones to whom the good news was proclaimed previously did not enter because of disobedience, ⁷ again he ordains a certain day, today, speaking by David after so long a time, just as had been said before, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” ⁸ For if Joshua had caused them to rest, he would not have spoken about another day after these things. ⁹ Consequently a sabbath rest remains for the people of God. ¹⁰ For the one who has entered into his rest has also himself rested from his works, just as God did from his own works. ¹¹ Therefore, let us make every effort to enter into that rest, in order that no one may fall in the same pattern of disobedience.

In this version of the Bible verse eight is speaking of Joshua. In other versions, such as the King James version, it is translated “Jesus”.

Hebrews 4:8–9 (KJV 1900): ⁸ For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. ⁹ There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Is it Joshua or Jesus? Since the real name of Jesus in English is Joshua, I suppose it is up for interpretation. The professional interpreters did not know what to do consistently, and we may never know for certain what the writer was thinking.

The word to focus on is in verse nine. It is “rest” in the KJV and “Sabbath rest” in the LEB. It is the Greek word “sabbatamos”, and means “Sabbath rest”.

Verse eleven tells us to: “Therefore, let us make every effort to enter into that rest, in order that no one may fall in the same pattern of disobedience“. Here, “rest” is a different Greek word. So “that rest” is referring back to “Sabbath rest”. The word rest in this case means actual rest. In this chart it is compared to Hebrew words that the Greek word was used for in the Septuagint. This was a Greek translation of the Old Testament done in 200 BCE.

In Judaism the term was taken up in the sense of to give someone a good rest (LXX). anapausis in cl. Gk. meant repose, relaxation, recreation, a rest from something.

R. Hensel and C. Brown, “Rest,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 254.

It also says we should rest so as not to be found in the “same pattern of disobedience”. The reference goes back to verse seven where it quotes David in the Psalms.

Psalm 95:7–11 (LEB): ⁷ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today if you will hear his voice: ⁸ “Do not harden your heart as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, ⁹ when your ancestors tried me. They put me to the test, even though they had seen my work. ¹⁰ For forty years I loathed that generation, and said, ‘They are a people whose heart wanders. And my ways they do not know.’ ¹¹ Therefore I swore in my anger, ‘They shall surely not enter into my rest.’ ”

The Israelites did not have any water at one point of their journey and they were griping and complaining to Moses. God told Moses to strike a rock at Horeb to give them water, then called the place Massah, but God was so angered by their attitude and disobedience that he did not allow this generation to enter into the promise land, or “His rest”. Moses reminds them of this in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 6:16–17 (LEB): ¹⁶ You shall not put Yahweh your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. ¹⁷ You shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and his legal provisions and his rules that he has commanded you.

What seems to be a theme is that disobedience angers the Father. “They are a people whose heart wanders. And my ways they do not know.’  Therefore I swore in my anger, ‘They shall surely not enter into my rest.’ ” Those who were disobedient were not allowed to enter His rest. Forgetting the Sabbath, or teaching it is not valid, is exactly this. It is disobedience and not knowing the ways of the Father, who made it clear that it was important to rest on the Sabbath. This is also something Jesus reinforced.

Matthew 5:18–19 (LEB): ¹⁸ For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one tiny letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all takes place. ¹⁹ Therefore whoever abolishes one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps them and teaches them, this person will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Being least in the kingdom does not mean one will be reduced to a trash collector on the streets of gold. These following verses in Isaiah seem to be speaking about a future kingdom of God. It is hard to understand why resting is such a burden to people that they must rail against it. Being least in the kingdom could be referring to the people in Isaiah 66:24.

Isaiah 66:23–24 (LEB): ²³ And this shall happen: From new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh shall come to bow in worship before me,” says Yahweh. ²⁴ “And they shall go out and look at the corpses of the people who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Another argument against the Sabbath is of course, “Jesus abolished God’s laws” (like the Sabbath), so we no longer need to be burdened with them. This implies that the instructions God gave His people were bad and could not be followed.

Deuteronomy 30:11–14 (LEB): ¹¹ “For this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too wonderful for you, and it is not too far from you. ¹² It is not in the heavens so that you might say, ‘Who will go up for us to the heavens and get it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it?’ ¹³ And it is not beyond the sea, so that you might say, ‘Who will cross for us to the other side of the sea and take it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it?’ ¹⁴ But the word is very near you, even in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it.

What if the Sabbath is actually not bad, but it is something beneficial that was given to humanity at creation? A day to rest from the labors of day to day life where one forgets about regular responsibilities and simply rests? It is a delight, yet through history there has been a movement to bury and impugn the Sabbath. What if it is one of the secret weapons God’s people have to thrive in this world? What if an enemy has worked very hard to ensure no one properly taps into this type of weekly rest and refreshing?

The Jews added volumes of rules about how to keep the Sabbath making it burdensome. This was something Jesus pointed out in scripture where he tells them they are following man’s traditions, not God’s commandments. The Christians outlawed the Sabbath and created a whole system of theology to convince people not to follow the fourth commandment of simply resting from their work. Does this not make anyone suspicious? “They are a people whose heart wanders. And my ways they do not know.“

The type of rest that Jesus offers is freedom from the bondage of manmade tradition and lies leading us away from the Father. This opens our eyes to the blessing that the Sabbath brings into our life along with physical, mental and spiritual rest one day a week that our bodies are craving. Try it. As Paul said, “the law is spiritual”.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash