Sabbath Meditations #4

The Resurrected Cosmos

The Sabbath Day under the Old Covenant was celebrated weekly on the seventh day. The symbolism is significant and links back to the creation of the universe. For six days God engaged in the work of creation. On the seventh He rested.

Under the Old Covenant the duty of God's people was to go forth and subdue the creation, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. On the seventh day they rested, and celebrated. They brought all their work before the Lord for His blessing. They enjoyed the wonderful experience of deep communion with the Lord. He walked among them. In corporate gatherings they celebrated the warmth of human community together before God.

The more productive and blessed their labours in the six days previous, the more blessed their sabbath celebration. If, however, they had experienced six days of wearying struggle without much apparent progress, their sabbath was a blessed respite in which they would find solace, nurture, and new strength.

All of these realities and experiences continue to be true for believers under the New Covenant. The basic six days of labour, one day of rest pattern continues. However, there is one very significant change: the day of celebration was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. The Gospels are all explicit: Jesus rose on the first day of the week; it was the day named subsequently by the apostles as “the Lord's Day”, and it became the day of holy, blessed, and joyful convocation where God's people gathered to commune with their risen Lord.

Just like the seventh day sabbath, the symbolism is very significant. In tying the sabbath institution to the first day, it was ever after to be understood as a rest which involves resurrection. This is the sabbath rest which was remains for the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9) We may put it this way. Up until the time of the sacrifice of our Lord and His being raised from the dead, the cosmos was under the realm of creation. From the time of Christ and the accomplishment of His work upon earth, followed by His entering into His perpetual work in heaven, the cosmos has been under the realm of re-creation.

Resurrection—life from the dead. Re-creating all things around the lordship of Christ. In the New Covenant, we re-create before we work. We celebrate resurrection life with Christ, before we go out to bring that life to the world. Our six days of labour are now a work of re-creation of all things into newness of life. The sabbath is a commencement, not a conclusion.

All of these things were implicit amongst the people of God under the Old Covenant, since the Old Covenant was grounded in God's saving grace, which would be made effective and applicable in the work of Christ. But under the New Covenant these things are explicit—not just because we can far more clearly understand, see, and comprehend the salvation wrought by God in His Son—but also because the whole cosmos has now come under the reign of that grace. Now is the day of salvation unto the whole world.

The entire creation is awaiting its full resurrection into the glory God prepared beforehand. That glory will see all things being summed up in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. (Ephesians 1:10) That glory is progressively coming to pass as the Lord Jesus brings and replicates His resurrection life upon the earth. Life will be brought out of death, as far as the curse is found. The Son of God appeared—incarnate, crucified, resurrected, ascended, coronated, and enthroned—that He might destroy the works of the Devil. (I John 3:8)

The symbolism of Scripture is never empty or vain. By using and deploying the symbols of the Bible, we enter into the reality symbolised, by faith. Every Lord's Day, when the covenant people of God cease from work and gather for celebration and worship, they not only symbolise resurrected life, they actually enter into it.

They commence the week before the Throne of God, entering into the new life, the life of God's Spirit, Who will shape and fructify all their subsequent six days of labour. By our lives, by our work on the subsequent six days we will be bringing life out of death, recreation out of deformation, resurrection out of the grave. We who were dead in our tresspasses and sins have been made alive together with Christ. We go forth to bring that new life, and all its universal implications, to all that God has entrusted to us.