Objection:
The Sabbath is Jewish. It was given only to the Jews and was part of the old covenant made only with the Jews. Further, Deuteronomy 5:15 explicitly states that God commanded the Jews to keep the Sabbath as a memorial of their deliverance from Egypt. Therefore it has no meaning for us who are Gentile Christians.
Answer:
This reasoning goes over much the same ground covered by the claim that the law given at Sinai was intended only for the Jews. See under objection “THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ARE ONLY FOR THE JEWS,” where evidence is presented to show that Jews wrote the whole Bible, much of it directly addressed to Jews, that both old and new covenants were made with the “house of Israel,” and that Christ Himself declared that “salvation is of the Jews.” Yet all Protestantism turns to the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, for spiritual guidance. We all claim a right to the new covenant relationship, and we all preach that “salvation,” which Christ declared “is of the Jews,” is for every person in every land.
We would ask this simple question: Why is the seventh day of the week more Jewish than the first day of the week? The Westminster Confession, which is the most explicit expression of the Protestant view on the sacredness of a weekly rest day, declares that the Sabbath “from the beginning of the world till the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week.” That is a period of at least four thousand years. Yet, for the first half of this long period, there were no Jews. Did the seventh day of the week suddenly acquire a different character and quality at Sinai as God led His chosen people from Egypt to the Promised Land?
Someone may venture to say yes and to support his answer by reference to those Old Testament declarations that the Sabbath was a distinguishing mark and a sign between God and the children of Israel. But if this answer proves anything, it proves too much, for the very same Old Testament records that describe the Sabbath reveal to us also that God describes Himself as being in a very peculiar and distinctive way the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, why should not the Lord command the Sabbath upon His own people?
Sabbath observance was confined to the Jews in the last part of that four thousand year period before Christ because no other people on the face of the earth were faithful followers of God. They were pagans and heathen. So, of course, the Sabbath was closely associated with the Jews during the time of their national history; and as we have noted, so was everything else of the revealed will of God, including all the prophets of God and all the writings that make up the Holy Word.
“But,” someone may reply, “The Bible does not say anywhere that the Savior and salvation were to be confined to the Jews.” Very true. And neither do we read anywhere that the Sabbath was to be confined to the Jews. On the contrary, we have unequivocal declarations of Scripture to show that God intended the Sabbath to have a worldwide application. Let us enumerate a few of these:
- The Sabbath commandment itself declares explicitly that not only were the Jews to rest but also the stranger that was within their gates (See Exodus 20:10). The strangers were those not of the family of Israel; they might belong to any other race, people, or nation.
- Christ declared that “the Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27. He did not say “Jew,” but “man,” and there is no justification for confining the meaning of the word “man” to the Jews. If we should thus limit the word, we would soon come into great difficulty. We read that Christ is “the true light, which lights every man that comes into the world.” John 1:9. Did Christ bring light only to such men as are Jews? Furthermore, the Sabbath was given so that men might have the blessing of rest and the worship of their Creator. Why should God desire that only a tiny fraction of His created beings—for the Jews have ever been a small part of the world’s population—should partake of the happiness of rest and worship?
- How could the Sabbath have been given only to the Jews when it was established at creation, which was long before the days of Abraham—the father of the Jewish race (See Genesis 2:2-3)?
- The prophet Isaiah, speaking of the closing days of earth’s history, when God’s “salvation is near to come,” talks of the blessing that will come upon “the son of the stranger” that “keeps the Sabbath” (See Isaiah 56:1-8).
- Finally, in the new earth, where there will be people of every race and nation, the Sabbath will be kept (See Isaiah 66:22-23).
What of Deuteronomy 5:15, which is said to prove that the Sabbath was given only to the Jews? The text reads as follows: “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.”
Note the setting of this text. The fifth chapter of Deuteronomy consists of a summing up by Moses, with appropriate comments, of the great event at Sinai forty years before when God spoke the Ten Commandments. That Moses was not attempting to repeat verbatim the commandments, but rather to urge the keeping of the well-known precepts, is shown by verse 12, where he says, “Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.”
Therefore the first point to note is that this recital of the commandments in Deuteronomy cannot be taken as a substitute for the form of the commandments found in Exodus 20. In Exodus, we see the record of the commands as God spoke them, and to this record, Moses expressly referred Israel when he urged them, “Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.” And whatever reasons or appeals are presented by Moses must be considered as an addition to, and not as a substitute for, the reasons given by God when He initially spoke the commandments.
God declared that the seventh day is the Sabbath on which all should rest because “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,… and rested the seventh day.” And He added, “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:11.
Let us look again at the context of Deuteronomy 5. Moses proceeds with his paraphrase of the Sabbath command and closes the fourteenth verse—which describes how servants, as well as masters, were to rest—by adding: “That thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.” Then follows immediately verse 15, which reminds the Israelites of how they were servants in Egypt.
What is the natural conclusion, then, for us to read? Simply this, Moses was giving an added reason for keeping the Sabbath commandment, especially that feature of it which had to do with the servants’ resting. That, we maintain, is the natural conclusion to be reached. Moreover, it becomes the inevitable conclusion when specific parallel passages are quoted.
A little further on, Moses gives instruction as to the treatment of a servant and how, after he had served six years, he should be released in the seventh and sent away with liberal provisions from the flocks and herds of the master. “And,” added Moses, “thou shall remember that thou was a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.” Deuteronomy 15:15. Shall we conclude that liberality and love toward servants are a command originating at the Exodus, that all who lived before that time might deal grudgingly with their servants without incurring God’s displeasure, and that God requires only Jews to display such kindness toward servants?
Again, let us read a more detailed command: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:35-37. Shall we take this verse by itself and build up the argument that the command to deal justly in the various affairs of life originated with the Exodus, that previous to that, a man might shortchange his neighbor with impunity, and that God requires only Jews to refrain from shortchanging anyone?
Or take this further statement: “For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Leviticus 11:45. Are we to conclude from this that the command to “be holy” is intended only for literal Israel, who were brought “up out of the land of Egypt”? We believe that even the most vigorous opponent of the Sabbath would hesitate to endorse such an idea. But if both holiness and Sabbath-keeping have a special relationship to deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and yet we agree that all men should be holy, we surely cannot use Egypt as an excuse for violating the Sabbath.
In the light of these passages, and others that might be given, how evident it is that the fact of their Egyptian bondage, when they were treated unkindly and unjustly, was cited by Moses simply as an added reason why they, now that the Lord had graciously delivered them from such conditions, should deal justly and lovingly with others. The law of just dealings with others, especially with those in an unfortunate need, has been binding on men from the beginning of the world. But it took on added force and obligation when applied to those who had been so lately compelled to work as slaves in Egypt.
Instead of weakening the Sabbath command, Deuteronomy 5:15 serves to show how exceeding broad the commandment is and how God intended the Sabbath to prove a source of refreshment and blessing even to servants.
