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Grounded-In-Biblical-Truth | |
Sovereign Grace Doctrines
Concerning 'THE GOSPEL' - JESUS CHRIST
CHRIST TYPIFIED BY THE FIRST SABBATH
GENESIS 2:1-3
GOOD NEWS FROM THE REDEEMER
DANIEL E. PARKS, PASTOR
JUNE 26, 1999 - RADIO MESSAGE #273
I. A sabbath is a “cessation from work; rest.”
II. The first sabbath was the seventh day of the first week, following the six days in which God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 2:1-3): “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
III. The first sabbath was a type of Christ. The Old Testament sabbaths are called a “shadow” of Christ in Colossians 2:16f, in which text believers are exhorted to “let no one judge you ... regarding ... sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” The sabbath was a shadow cast by the then-coming Christ, and was therefore a type of Him. Observe:
1. God observed the first sabbath after finishing the work of creation; Christ entered into His sabbath after finishing the work of salvation. It is important to note that the first sabbath was observed by God alone. The writer of the above account in Genesis repeatedly and emphatically makes this point crystal clear. It was God alone who had worked; it was therefore God alone who ceased from work and rested. Man had performed no work during this time; man therefore could not cease from labor nor rest. There was neither a commandment from God to man to observe a sabbath nor any intimation that any man observed a sabbath until 1440 BC (at least 2500 years after the creation), when God instructed Israel to observe the seventh-day sabbath (Exodus 16:23-30).
Likewise, Christ alone finished the work of salvation and then rested therefrom. In His high-priestly prayer to His Father at the end of His earthly ministry, He acknowledged that His work was to “give eternal life to as many as You have given [Me]”; and He declared “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:1-5ff). He therefore shouted in victory as He expired, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). He afterward entered into His rest (Hebrews 10:12): “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.”
2. The first sabbath was, like its anti-type the sabbath of Christ, a perpetual rest. On the first sabbath, God rested forever -- not for one day only -- from the work of creation. He never again returned to the work of creation.
Likewise, the sabbath of Christ from the work of salvation is a perpetual rest. There has never been, nor will there ever be, the need for Him to return to the work of salvation. He has given eternal life to all God’s elect, and is forever resting from this work.
IV. We enter the sabbath of Christ through faith in Him (Hebrews 3:14-4:11): “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end .... Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us [in this New Covenant age] as well as to them [Old Covenant Israel]; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest .... There therefore remains a rest [Greek sabbatismos, “sabbath observance”] for the people of God.
For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience.” William Gadsby (1773-1844) has therefore rightly written:
The Sabbath was a day of rest;
The day the Lord Jehovah blest; / A lively type of Christ.
The laboring poor may venture here;
The guilty banish all their fear, / And lean on Jesus’ breast.
When foes without, and foes within,
Wrath, law, and Satan, guilt and sin, / The child of God molest;
Fatigued with sin, distressed with fear,
He enters into Christ, and there / He finds a settled rest.
Your servant for Jesus' sake.
Address all questions to pastor
Daniel E. Parks (2 Corinthians 4:5) e-mail RedeemerBC@aol.com
Pastor, Redeemer Baptist Church
2801 Cleveland Boulevard, Louisville, KY 40206 / 502.899-9205
