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Well, it's that time of year again, and this year I feel compelled to share some thoughts about "Christmas." I offer this meditation in a Berean spirit and pray that it will be received the same way.
Nowhere in the NT is there either a command or a teaching to celebrate the Lord’s birth. Some would call this an argument from silence that consequently proves nothing. Others would say that since there is no teaching about it, we are free to participate in its celebration. However, for me the overwhelming silence about the birth of Christ as something we should celebrate, coupled with the obvious and early Christian recognition of Christ’s death and resurrection, convinces me that we ought not to celebrate His birth.
The overall biblical context about the Messiah is His suffering and death, not His birth; believers are to have a share in that death.
The NT gives us much teaching in general about how we are to think of Christ.
The Word of God tells us explicitly that angels are to worship or celebrate the birth of the Messiah, with the implication that we are not to worship Him in the same way.
Christ Himself tells us explicitly and decretically how we are to remember Him.
The early, Messianic community did not celebrate Jesus’ birth. It was not celebrated at all for at least two hundred years after His death. In the fourth century, the Church decided His birth occurred on December 25, which was already a pagan solar feast day. Christians who believe Christ was really born on December 25 are acquiescing to a deceit manufactured by the Church.
Only God can determine times of celebration, holy convocations, appointed times, feast days, and so on.
Christmas is a celebration promoted by the Congregation of Rome, which became the Catholic Church (see #6 above) and if Rev. 18:2 refers to the Catholic Church (as virtually all non-Catholic theologians and commentators believe), we are told in v. 4 to “come out of her”, that is, to not follow her corrupt teachings.
The two NT ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Table (Communion) are concerned with Christ’s death, not His birth.
The Bible tells us that we are to shun anything that we cannot find in, or that contradicts— directly or indirectly— the Word of God.
I purposefully make no reference here to all the various “Christmas traditions” such as the Yule log, stockings, gift exchanging, caroling, the “Christmas” tree and its decorations, holly, mistletoe and of course Santa Claus and his elves. This is because these traditions and many more like them are manifestly of pagan origins. I therefore believe that bible-believing, born-again Christians should have nothing to do with such trappings and indeed should find them abhorrent, even as God does. Yet some would say that the pagan aspect is no longer relevant since society has changed (i.e. become secularized) to such an extent that the very idea of “pagan” is anachronistic. However, I say that we are motivated by the same impulses and guilty of the same sins (at least in our hearts) as the early pagans. Besides which, and just as important, God has never declared a statute of limitations when it comes to sin (which is disobedience). Since He is eternal, so must be His wrath against sin. There will never be a time when God will annul His own righteousness and holiness.
Having said all the above, I realize that most people reading this post will still disagree with my position and either accept the celebration of “Christmas” as normative or else consider it an adiaphoron, that is, a matter of indifference. If it is a matter of indifference for some, then I will not seek to proselytize them by promoting my own position, but such forbearance works in both directions; others should not preach the celebration of “Christmas”, since that constitutes an assault on the Christian liberty of those with differing opinions.
While much more could be said, with many more citations from Scripture, let me end this post with a quote from the Prince of Preachers, CH Spurgeon:
“We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly, we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas; first because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or English; and secondly, because we find no scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and consequently, its observation is a superstition, because not of divine authority” (From the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1971, p. 697).
AMEN.
In this short article, I aim to answer five questions: What is the Sabbath? On what day does the Sabbath fall? What does it mean to “keep the Sabbath?” Should Christians keep the Sabbath? Why is Sabbath keeping so important?
I will not be including a lot of theory here, giving just enough to explain my propositions. Some of this material I have taken from my longer essay The Significance of the Sabbath (See below).
What is the Sabbath? On what day does the Sabbath fall?The Sabbath is the memorial of the day on which God completed His work of creation. That is, it is the seventh day. The Sabbath was not called by that name in the beginning, “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” (Gen. 2:2). From this short passage, two things are evident. First, that on the last day of creation God rested. Second, God blessed that day and made it holy by setting it aside as being unique and special; it was different from the other days of creation. When setting it aside, God made the day “holy.” In other words, He sanctified it (you could say He “holied” it). To sanctify something is to set it aside, making it ceremonially clean, separating it to oneself for special purposes or intentions. In the OT it is to make or declare and to observe something as holy (the core attribute of God himself), pure, fundamentally different from the merely profane, dedicated to a different purpose and so on. So this last day of seven was made holy by God as a memorial of the work He had accomplished. It was His memorial to Himself as creator.
Jump forward to the sojourn in the wilderness. In reference to gathering the manna, in Exodus 16:23, God’s prophet Moses declares that, “This is what the LORD has commanded: Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD [literally, a Sabbath Sabbath]; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’” In 16:26, he says again—in case they missed the importance of it—, “Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none."
These verses indicate clearly that the seventh day was a day of rest—a solemn rest in fact—and that God named it Sabbath—the root of which word means to cease or desist. Further, keeping the Sabbath was a commandment of God; He considered it non-negotiable as we see from Exo. 16:28, “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?’” This verse reinforces what God had already declared in verse twenty-three; the Sabbath was holy and the keeping or observing of it was binding.
But how do we know that the Sabbath and the day of rest from Exodus were the same? In Exodus 20:8, 10-11, God makes it plain that the day being referred to is—in its description of distinction and purpose—identical to the day of rest referred to in the second chapter of Genesis, even though not named Sabbath in Genesis, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
So I believe we are on terra firma if we accept that the Sabbath and Genesis’ day of rest are in fact the same day. However, is the day of rest a creation ordinance? That is, as an aspect of God’s process of creation, does it apply to humanity in general and not exclusively to Jews? Well, first, remember that there were no Jews until Abraham. Adam was not a Jew, neither was Eve. Their children were not Jews or their grandchildren. They were all “Adam”, the name given in Genesis for human beings in general. Even so, in spite of their status as non-Jews and prior to their sin of disobedience, Adam and Eve were still the eligible recipients of the blessing of this rest. In fact, their “pre-fall” life in the Garden was this very rest. That is precisely why God put them in the Garden, not to work, but to keep or maintain (through obedience to God, in service to Him through His creation) the purity and sanctity of the yet unspoiled, garden. (The word rendered as keep in most English translations is the Hebrew word shamar (שָׁמַר) which means to watch, to preserve; in other words to protect. God did not put Adam and Eve in the garden—i.e. Paradise—to work it as gardeners, but to protect it as gatekeepers. (In fact part of the consequence of Adam’s disobedience is that he failed in his royal, Kingly duties to protect heaven on earth by permitting the serpent to enter the sacred enclosure.) In the Garden, there was to be no toil, no tiring and unpleasant labour, and no painful exertion; there was to be no anxiety or worry. As well, we have the testimony of Exo. 16:28-30, which, as I have already said, is ample proof that God’s law is not a condition imposed exclusively by the Sinai covenant. Therefore, we must conclude that this day (the day of rest or the Sabbath), was indeed part of the original creation, and so is applicable to the entire created order, especially since Adam was the federal head or representative of all humanity. As a part of original creation, God did not give this day of rest to the nations in a legal way, as He would later for the Hebrew nation, the father of which was Abraham. God gave the day of rest to, but never imposed it on, the nations.
An important related question is how do we know that Saturday, of the seven possible days, is the actual day of rest and worship, and not some other? After all, when God sanctified the last day of creation, there were no historians or calendarists to make note that the day blessed by God was eventually to be known by the Hebrews as the Sabbath and by the Romans (for instance) as Saturn’s Day. Our calendars do not go back to the beginning of creation, so how can we be sure that the day known as the Sabbath is the same day as the seventh day of creation? Well, we must arrive at our conclusion by “good and necessary consequence” (that is, deduction or inference) to quote the Westminster Confession. I freely admit that I have found no specific evidence in the Bible to identify our Saturday and the "Jewish" Sabbath as the appointed, hallowed and blessed day of rest and worship. Having made that admission however, I also think it is important to consider the way God revealed His will to His people. God ordained through Moses that the Hebrews remember the Sabbath Day (Deut. 5:12-15), and since God revealed his will to them through Moses, (Deut. 29:1), it is reasonable to conclude that God would also have indicated on which day He wanted them to keep (watch over and preserve) His Sabbath. This conclusion is corroborated by Nehemiah, “You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant” (Neh. 9:13-14, italics added). In other words, Nehemiah is testifying that God revealed this information to Moses, who then relayed it to the people (Deut. 5:2-5a). Now I am assuming here that God would not reveal the nature of the Sabbath without also revealing the time and frequency of its celebration. This, I think, is only reasonable.
Furthermore, God placed the lights in the heavens for “times and seasons” so that His people could not only confirm the seventh day Sabbath, but also the beginning and culmination of each day. In other words, God made the universe to be one big clock or calendar. Allen Ross says, “The Lord of eternity created time so that all his works could fulfill his plan in the seasons and sequences of this life. He then stepped into time to redeem his fallen creatures from death and receive them into his eternal rest. Every celebration in the sanctuary was a participation in the Sabbath rest of the Creator, for Leviticus 23 designates all the festivals as times of special Sabbaths. By using each day, week, month, and season as an occasion for worship, people could truly appreciate the LORD as the creator and sustainer of all life. And because the LORD’s saving acts had taken place in time, each appointed time of worship enabled the people to celebrate him as their Redeemer as well. Then, in the fullness of time God sent forth his Son into the world (Gal. 4:4), and time came to its focal point. The appearance of the Lord of Glory late in time now guides the Christian view of time, not only in its understanding of the plan of God, but also in its seasons of worship” (Holy to the LORD, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, 2002).
In the end though, I think what it comes down to is faith. Since there is no way to prove it one way or another (as far as I know), there is a simple choice to be made. Believers will accept Saturday as the Sabbath, the last day of the week as a matter of faith because it is made plain by Scripture, which for the true believer is the rule of life. Our discernment—informed by Scripture, illuminated by the Holy Spirit and strengthened by trust—will undoubtedly determine our position in this regard.
What does it mean to keep the Sabbath?
To keep, observe, or celebrate the Sabbath, only two things are required according to the Bible, (not Judaic traditions!), rest and remembrance. Two other qualities that I include here as being the outcomes of the first two are holiness and joy.
These qualities should be in evidence whenever God’s people gather before Him in worshipful assembly (calling to mind that according to Christ even when only two are gathered in His name, such an assembly constitutes a legitimate expression of the Ekklesia). If these minimal qualities are not in evidence outwardly in our circumstances and actions as well as inwardly in our minds and hearts (i.e. in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount) then we are not fully honouring God, who brings us together for the purpose of worship.
Rest
Perhaps the most fundamental of the four qualities, rest is essential for physical as well as psychic and spiritual wellbeing and rejuvenation. A person who is not rested is one who is not functioning at optimum levels and may be in a spiral of deterioration leading ultimately to physical and mental breakdown or even death. One who is not in this restful state of spiritual wellbeing will be self-absorbed and unable to remember (in the sense of rehearsing or re-experiencing in the mind) the blessings promised by God to those who love Him.
Remembrance
Remembrance is not just recall of events or experiences, although it certainly includes that. Rather, remembrance in the biblical sense has more to do with being mindful of something that one may or may not have experienced personally. This is the case with Deut. 5:15. Only those who were led by Moses out of Egypt and into the wilderness could ever remember, in the sense of recalling from memory, the exodus. For everyone else that “memory” was an abstract idea and could only be a description of an event that happened to others. So when Jews and Christians alike are called to remember the Sabbath we need to understand that it is in the sense of being mindful, of reflecting upon the meaning and intention of the Sabbath as well as on the One by whom it was given. Those who are not sufficiently rested (and whose attention is therefore focussed on worldly concerns, worries and so on) cannot “remember” the Sabbath because they are overcome by thoughts and feelings that are not conducive to their wellbeing and are therefore ultimately harmful. When this state of mind is present, it acts to block out our recognition of God and our single dedication to Him, which is our holiness or sanctification. It could be said that resting is a negative injunction. The rest called for requires us to stop doing something. However, in Deut. 5:15 there is what we could understand as a positive injunction. We are to do something, not refrain from doing something; we are to remember, to meditate, to consider, to reflect and then to do. Our remembrance must be a meditation—in thought, word and deed—on God and the blessings—especially of salvation—that He has bestowed through sovereign grace. In other words, “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:6, see also 1 Chron. 28:9). I think this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Philippians, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8), knowing that the source of all these attributes is God alone.
Holiness
Biblical holiness is a state of “otherness.” In itself, it is not an expression of piety or religious devotion. However, when one is truly holy (and this state is variable—it can wax and wane) one will consequently manifest piety or sanctified attitudes and behaviour (Matt. 12:33). The quality of “otherness” is to be found in an absolute degree in God. It is perhaps His most striking attribute. When we are able to be mindful of God, we inevitably discover His attribute of holiness and in so doing, we are able to become holy in relation to the world, to be separated from it, to be other than what it is. This holiness is a kind of echo of God’s holiness and enables us to untangle our minds and hearts from the distractions of the world and to be fully engaged by God, living in and for Him alone (Gal. 2:20). In this state of being, we are potentially able to experience great joy.
Joy
When we are in the state of holiness (both subjective and objective), we are able to experience a degree of joy. This joy is the subjective apprehension of an objective state of separation from physical and emotional distractions such as fear, anger, envy, covetousness and so on and a corresponding devotional attachment to God and His Kingdom. This joy is not “happiness” as we understand it. We don’t walk around with a goofy grin or whistle “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” all day long. This joy is experienced more as a deep, settled contentment or a profound sense of assurance. It brings a smile to the heart but not necessarily to the lips. It’s a revelation in the heart of God’s omnipotence and His faithfulness to deliver on all His promises, both curses and blessings.
Should Christians keep the Sabbath?
In a word, “Yes.” But you ask, “Why should Christians keep Sabbath?” There are several answers to that question, and if we cannot give adequate and sufficient answers to this particular question then the whole issue of the Sabbath is moot. It is best here to answer this question in point form with supporting texts from the rule of life for all believers—the Holy Scriptures. The following list has been modified from a similar list provided by John Parsons on his website Hebrew4Christians, and to whom I am indebted.
The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments (Exo. 20:8-11; Deut. 5:12).
As such, it is as binding as the other nine (Matt. 5:19; James 2:10). There is no room to maneuver. If the law (Torah) condemns sin (which it does) then we are as bad as the murderer, the adulterer, or the thief when we disregard the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is blessed by God (Gen. 2:3).
God has never revoked this blessing, nor has He added to it by blessing the first day of the week (Sunday). Scripture nowhere describes or defines any other but the seventh day Sabbath as the single day of rest and worship. He set this day aside as His day, the day on which we are to honour Him exclusively.
The Sabbath commemorates God’s prototypically redemptive symbol for deliverance from pain, suffering and want, the exodus from Egypt (Deut. 5:15).
The OT memorializes the Exodus as the pre-eminent act of redemption, pre-figuring the ultimate, final and perfect salvation in Christ. It was an historical event and is a symbolic representation of the saving, atoning work of Christ.
The Sabbath brings to mind God as the trustworthy providential sustainer of all things. Thus, it encourages us to acknowledge His absolute sovereignty and our submissive dependence on Him alone (Gen. 2:2; Exo. 31:12-17; Isa. 66:2).
The Sabbath is first mentioned as such in the book of Exodus. In Exo. 16:3 it is introduced in connection with the giving of quail and manna—the” bread” of the wilderness. After a journey of about forty-five days, provisions had run out (or were at least getting very low). The people started to grumble and complain, showing no trust in God even though they had experienced many spectacular miracles already. God further tested the trust of the people when he declared through Moses, “’Let no one leave any of it [the manna] over till the morning.’ But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat. On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather [the manna], but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days’” (Exo. 16:19-21a, 27-29a). In context, the lack of trust in the LORD is plain. The Sabbath encourages us to trust in God as our provider.
The Sabbath is (or should be) a delight, not a burden (Isa. 58:13; Matt. 11:28-30; Heb. 4:9).
It was this that Jesus taught His disciples by declaring (imperatively) “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). In other words, the true Sabbath eases the burdens of life, removing those things that cause pain or suffering. When Christ said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29-30) He was speaking as God, not man. As such, His words are a continuation of “Torah.” The hedges put around the Sabbath by the Rabbis of Judaism, especially of the Talmudic Rabbis—the descendants of the Pharisees—have made the Sabbath unnecessarily complicated and legalistic. Most of the Sabbath-keeping rules are either not Biblical or are misapplications of general Biblical principles. Having said that, if what you do on the Sabbath allows you to be mindful of God, if it gives you peace and rejuvenating rest, gives you joy and thereby sanctifies you, then regardless of whether you follow the 39 traditional melachot (Sabbath prohibitions) or not is up to you. And if by following the melachot you are happy in God, then who am I to object?
Yeshua and His disciples observed the Sabbath day (but not all its customs—Mark 1:21; 6:2; Luke 4:16; Acts 13:13-42; 18:4 etc.).
The NT never abrogates the LORDs Sabbath. Notice, the day is the LORD’s. He owns it because He created it. He gave the Sabbath to man as a blessing, that’s all. The Sabbath is not the Jew’s Sabbath. It is God’s, notwithstanding that He gave the day to His chosen people (those of the promise) in a special way. Moreover, in Exo. 20:10 the LORD makes it clear that the Sabbath rest was intended not just for card-carrying (circumcised) Jews, but also for everyone living within the community of Israel, including slaves as well as uncircumcised foreigners (unclean Gentiles). Even the animals who worked in various capacities were intended to experience the Sabbath blessings. This is as inclusive as it gets.
We must now ask a question on everyone’s mind, “Did Jesus and His apostles keep the Sabbath?”
Jesus was a Jew, born under the law (Matt. 3:13, 15; Luke 3:21; Gal. 4:4) that is to say, subject to the law and all its demands. He was an obedient son (Luke 2:51) whose parents were law-abiding Jews (Luke 2:21-23, 39-42). He attended worship services on the Sabbath and taught in synagogues (Matt. 4:23; Mark 1:21, 39; Luke 4:16) and when young attended a house of instruction as a student of the Rabbis (Luke 2:46). In light of these facts therefore, to assume and teach that Christ would not have kept the Sabbath as a law-abiding Jew is completely unwarranted. Jesus recognized the permanent legitimacy and authority of the moral law, as summed up in the Ten Commandments, and kept them. This must include keeping the Sabbath since the Sabbath was one of the ten. Christ came to fulfill all righteousness (Matt. 3:15) and to be the goal of the Torah—that is, the law, including the Ten Commandments (Matt. 5:17). And if keeping the Ten Commandments is not fulfilling all righteousness, well then I’m at a loss. There are several examples from Scripture concerning Christ and His apostles (including Paul, the so-called antinomian). I offer a few here. Rather than giving exhausting explanations in support of my view, I think it best to decide for yourselves on the preponderance of the evidence: Luke 4:16, 31; 24:27 Mark 2:27-28; Acts 16:12-13; 17:2; Rom. 3:31; 8:3-4
A brief word needs to be said now concerning Hebrews 4:9, as this letter is by all accounts apostolic, perhaps from the pen of Paul or Barnabbas. This verse is important (as is the entire discussion, vv. 1-11) because of the word sabbatismos (σαββατισμός) a noun which Strong’s Concordance defines as “a Sabbath rest.” The verb form is Sabbatizo, which means, “to keep the Sabbath.”
In my view, contrary to established opinion, the writer of Hebrews is not expressing some kind of vague spiritual repose, not a mystical rest in Jesus (i.e. Gal 2:20). The bible used by the first Christians, including the apostles, was the Septuagint (LXX), a Greek translation of the Hebrew. In the Septuagint the use of the word Sabbatizo in Lev. 23:32 is clear and plain. It is referring to the Sabbath day of rest. This same word is used by the writer of Hebrews. The Greek English Lexicon of the Septuagint defines Sabbatizo as “to keep Sabbath, to rest.” The writer of Hebrews knew that his readers would understand this word in precisely the same way they already understood it in the Greek (LXX) version of Lev. 23:22 as referring to the Sabbath day, the day of rest. When the author of the letter writes, “there remains a Sabbath rest” he is referring to an Old Testament reference to the Sabbath. See next point. (As a sidebar, the writer of Hebrews says that there is a rest for the people of God. Who are the people of God? The people of God are all the elect—including Jew and Gentile together. This is strong support for the universality of the Sabbath.)
The Sabbath will be honoured (kept and remembered) in the Heavenly Jerusalem and in the redeemed, resurrected world to come (Isa. 66:22-23. See also Psalms 86:9; Zech. 14:16).Isaiah writes of the end times, saying that in the new heavens and new earth, which God will make, the redeemed (from all nations, not just the “Jews”) shall worship God from “Sabbath to Sabbath.” The Sabbath Isaiah was seeing with prophetic vision is the Sabbath rest described by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9ff).
Why is Sabbath keeping so important?
We could use several verses to answer this question; however, due to the self-imposed brevity of this article, three only will have to suffice, two from Ezekiel, one from Revelation. “Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor keep their rules, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules, and keep my Sabbaths holy that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the LORD your God. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, “Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you’” (Eze. 20:18-20; 31:12-13). “They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Rev. 9:4, italics added). There is a sign by which we proclaim our commitment to the Living God and by whom our commitment is sealed. The sign and seal are really two aspects of the same thing. By them, we are dedicated to God, made “holy unto the LORD.” The sign makes it plain to whom we belong. The seal is the mark of divine approval and ultimate protection of God for His people. Together, the sign and seal separate us as being “sojourners and exiles” in the wilderness. By the sign, we announce to the creation that we have been chosen by God. By the seal, God announces to the creation that He has indeed chosen us and has separated us to Himself as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9).
As we learn from Ezekiel, the sign that we are to display (on our hands and foreheads, which is to say by our beliefs as we embody them in our activities) is keeping the Sabbath. When we keep the Sabbath, we are the bride who says to her betrothed, “I love you.” Put plainly, keeping the biblical Sabbath is a sign of devotion demanded by God (Eze. 20:20) as a faithful and sincere admission that we belong to Him, that we are His possession, that we love Him even as we are loved by Him.
Conclusion
Before concluding let me clarify one thing not touched on yet, but which is for many, if not most, a very important issue. If a Christian begins keeping the Sabbath, must he or she give up Sunday worship and fellowship? My answer is no, nothing of the sort is required. You are not required to become a Jew! It was common in the post-apostolic church to keep Sabbath (in families and as part of a larger community) as well as Sunday worship. This was happening well into the third century, when it began to be abandoned (for a variety of reasons) in favour of exclusive Sunday worship. There is no reason whatsoever for a Christian to feel that relinquishing Sunday worship is required.
I could say so much more, but my main purpose has been to present an invitation to Sabbath keeping in as simple and straightforward a manner as I could. More theology (as well as history) would have defeated my purpose had I included it. (There’s probably too much already.) In closing, I’d like to reiterate that the Sabbath belongs to God, not the Jews. It is not the Jew’s Sabbath. It is Adonai’s Sabbath. As a creation ordinance, it was His good pleasure to give it for the benefit of all people, Jew and Gentile alike.
It is my fervent prayer that you will consider with an open mind, free of assumptions and bias, what I have written here. As one who has only recently discovered Sabbath keeping, I have come to experience an underlying completeness, wholeness and peace (Shalom) and a joy that God always intended for the blessing of His people. To Him be all the glory, now and forever.
AMEN.
Background articles
• Christ, the Law and the Prophets
• Why do Christians Worship on Sunday
• Significance of the Sabbath
• Sabbath prohibitions
There are many resources available in print and on the Internet if you need further convincing. Many of these however, are written by those who also have other agendas and unbiblical beliefs. I urge caution and prudence in your search.
As part of my continuing meditations on the Sabbath, I would like to consider specifically the ideas of work and kindling of fires, both of which seem to be explicit prohibitions associated with Sabbath keeping.
In the first version of the fourth commandment (Exo. 20:9-10a) God clearly prohibits work, “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work…” Now the word for work in this passage is עָבַד (abad), and in most of its occurrences in the OT refers to constrained service, (i.e. bondage, forced labour, in other words slavery). This is understandable given the context of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt where, after Joseph’s death, the Hebrew people were enslaved by Pharaoh, as recounted in the book of Exodus.
However, according to my understanding, the overriding context informs us that it was not so much freely chosen work that God was prohibiting but rather work that was reckoned necessary by those having to do it, perhaps even for one’s very existence. This labour was oppressive. By this, the Bible has in mind such work as building, service, heavy gardening, farming, etc. which are all forms of work forced on the Hebrews by their Egyptian taskmasters. In many places the Bible describes such work as “ordinary work” (Exo. 12:16; see also Exo. 16:23; Lev. 23:3, 8; Num. 28:18, 25; Jer. 17:27). It was work in and of the world.
So the work God commanded His people to give up on the Sabbath seems to be work that people were forced to engage in to earn a living, pay bills, buy (or grow) food and so on. Such work was deemed an unavoidable aspect of life during the first six days of the week. Nevertheless, such work done on the Sabbath God considered unnecessary and therefore it was a form of slavery, hearkening back to the dark days in Goshen, before God brought the people up to the Promised Land through the leadership of His prophet Moshe (Moses). This is the general context of the fourth commandment. Engaging in such hard labour was an affront to God who had provided His people with freedom from such slavery. To engage in hard physical labour without rest was in effect to go back into Egypt or slavery, thus repudiating God and His gracious provision of freedom.
By contrast, at least as I understand it, the rabbinic tradition prohibits creative work on the Sabbath but that other mundane forms of labour (i.e. ordinary work) are acceptable. I think the reason given is that on the seventh day (i.e. the Sabbath) God rested from His work of creation. However, I’m unable to find this—at least explicitly—in God’s Word. God never gives this as the reason we should rest. Rather, the references in the Bible are to forms of work that create a deficit in our energy levels, and our peace etc. It is a prohibition against work that is not recuperative and restorative but hard and oppressive.
According to rabbinic tradition, there are 39 types of prohibited work, called melachot. The rabbis maintain that the melachot are those activities by which the Tabernacle was built and include farm work of all types and degrees, working with cloth, writing, building of any kind, making and putting out fires, carrying loads and so on; in other words, any activity by which you may alter your environment. But again, to my mind, this seems to be an inference from Scripture, perhaps even a form of eisegesis.
This idea of the melachot is part of the so-called “oral Torah.” This is the tradition of interpretation taught by the scribes and rabbis of Israel. The oral tradition was given written form and codified as the Mishnah in approximately 200 CE by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. The melachot were quite detailed extrapolations of a few simple declarations from the written Torah. It is to such extrapolations that our Lord refers in such places as Mark 7:6-8. (The website Chabad.org has a brief summary of Shabbat laws.)
A specific form of work prohibited on the Sabbath is the kindling of fires, which the Rabbis considered as a melachah, (Exo. 35:3). Today, all over the world, observant Jews go to extremes in order to be obedient to this prohibition, not only refraining from cooking food but even avoiding having to turn on lights or furnaces. In the two occasions of the proclamation of the Sabbath from the moral law, the Ten Commandments, (Exo. 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15) the ban on fires is not mentioned. In fact, the ban on fires is explicit only in Exo. 35:3 (although arguably it may be implied by other verses). Now it’s important to understand the context of Exo. 35:3, which is the fabrication of the Tabernacle and its various components and ceremonial objects such as vessels, bowls, instruments and the like. For many of these things fires would be needed. And not just simple cooking fires either. In order to forge metal into all the ceremonial accessories, silver, gold, and bronze would need to be melted down, or at least made red hot in order to be worked and shaped. It is interesting that in this regard the form of the Hebrew verb “to kindle” is in the Pi’el, which indicates an increased intensity in the action of the verb. In other words, the injunction seems not against simple cooking fires, but rather raging or very hot fires such as would be required for working metals. Fashioning metal parts with such a fire would require a high degree of effort (metal smithing is hard work). Not only that, it would require a lot of work to gather up combustibles, cut firewood (or make charcoal) and so on. All this would be just the kind of activity prohibited as part of the fourth commandment. This is the view of the commentators Jamieson, Fausset and Brown. As well, the Hebrews were at this time subsisting on manna, which they were (presumably) cooking on the day before the Sabbath in compliance with God’s instructions in Exo. 16:23. Since there would have been no need to kindle cooking fires on the Sabbath, there would be no need for God to prohibit them. I also believe that in describing Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Exo. 12:16 lends support to this theory since it indicates that cooking food on the two Sabbaths of the feast was permissible, thus strengthening the view that no prohibition against fires of the everyday sort—as used for lighting and cooking—was ever intended. “On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you.”
Therefore, if I’m correct in my understanding, people who refrain from the use of fire (or other forms of radiant energy for that matter) because they believe it is prohibited by God, are putting themselves through unnecessary hardship. (However, if they voluntarily choose this course of action, that is a matter between them and God.)
In summary, one generalization I think its fair to make is that on the Sabbath, we are to refrain from all kinds of profane activities through separating ourselves from concerns of the world. This, for me, is perhaps the essential reason for Sabbath; it is to acknowledge the “holy” aspect we are able to enjoy as God’s adopted children. In Sabbath, we “redeem the time”, separating the Holy from the profane, coming before God in the realization that our time (and perhaps our space) has become sanctified, made holy by focusing on God, His laws for our blessing, and on His unique Son who died in order that we—through the reconciliation He made possible by His atoning death—may indeed come before the Throne of Grace.
The traditional Jewish Sabbath Havdalah blessing embodies the proper tone for the entire day: “Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d…Who differentiates between the holy and the mundane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six days of work.”
God has set aside—has separated to Himself, not to Jews or Gentiles, (Matt. 12:8)—a full day for our pleasure in Him. God differentiated the Sabbath from the other six days by His will and communicated that to us through His Word, His speech. Through His speech, He revealed to us the need to separate the holy from the profane (Deut. 5:12). Without this act of speech—His fiat—we would never know God’s will concerning the Sabbath, therefore there would be no difference between the Sabbath and any other day of the week. Sabbath is holy because God is holy and He has sanctified this day and told us so in clear and explicit terms through His Word, so that we may fully understand His holiness and to partake of the blessings of that holiness.
Nor does God ask for only one or two hours on a Sunday morning. Rather, He commands us to give up our worldly concerns and activities on the last day of the week—not simply by refraining from those activities, but by spiritualizing them, sanctifying them, giving them back to Him. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2).
AMEN
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt 5:17).
The question before us is “How did Christ fulfill the Law and the Prophets?” In other words, how has He fulfilled the Torah? In order to answer that question we must first understand a few terms. Three critical terms are “law”, “prophets” and “fulfill.” The word “abolish” is quite straightforward and consistent in meaning in English and Greek as well as Hebrew. According to Merriam-Webster, it means “to end the observance or effect of.” In other words, it means to do away with something, to annul it, to destroy it and so on.
How then do we define the word law? The word in Greek is nomos. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica nomos is, “‘law,’ or ‘custom’. For the Greeks, law generally was thought to be a human invention arrived at by consensus for the purpose of restricting natural freedoms for the sake of expediency and self-interest.” In Greek culture, the nature of law was principally forensic or legal. Law was largely concerned with human rules devised in order to minimize various kinds of harm that one person may inflict on another. Law was also understood as the grease by which the wheels of commerce within society were able to turn freely. It was a worldly concept and different from the Hebrew concept of “Torah” which—though it nevertheless included a legal aspect—was a more comprehensive term meaning “teachings” or “instruction” as opposed to the more restrictive “rules.”
The ideas expressed by the Greek word nomos and the Hebrew word Torah are dissimilar; while overlapping to a degree, they come out of profoundly different—even opposing—worldviews. Fundamentally, Greek law was a human invention. Torah was a gift from God to Israel. Nomos was worldly, Torah was divine. This leads us to the observation that we should be very careful when we employ these words. They are definitely not interchangeable! We need to be mindful that when Christ says by way of Matthew that He has come to fulfill the Law, He has the Jewish idea of Torah in mind, not the Greek idea of Nomos. Moreover, this is not just hair-splitting. The Bible can only really be understood when seen first through a Hebrew lens, not a Greek. The Bible is essentially the outcome of God expressing Himself in a Hebrew context, even when—in the NT—He uses the Greek language to do so. To misunderstand this is not a matter of indifference.
Next, we have the word “Prophets” by which our Lord was referring to the prophetic, especially Messianic, writings. Luke 24:27 makes this explicit. The OT (Tanakh) consists of three broad categories: the Torah, which is the first five books of Moses (but in general parlance the entire OT), the Nevi’im, which is the collected writings of the prophets, and the Ketuvim, which is the collection of general writings of various genres (primarily history and poetry). So our Lord was saying in our verse from Matthew that He was fulfilling, not doing away with, the writings of at least two of the three sections of Scripture. However, since Biblical culture understood Torah to represent the Scriptures as a whole, He is really implying that He has come to fulfill the entire OT or Tanakh. This fact should cause us no discomfort.
Let’s examine the word fulfill. In the Greek of our verse, the word is pléroó and according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon means “to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfillment.” Notice that “fulfillment” does not exclusively mean embodiment or exemplification. Christ does not just embody or exemplify the Torah or the Prophets. He fulfills them by fully accomplishing their conditions and requirements. During His earthly ministry, he did what was written in the complete Torah but also, He did what Israel’s prophets said the Messiah would do. He fulfilled the requirements by being obedient to them.
There are far too many Messianic prophecies to examine, or even list, here. Depending on how you define a messianic prophecy, there could be over three hundred legitimate prophecies fulfilled by our Lord. As well, there are different “levels” of prophecy, some with greater impact than others. Moreover, some prophecies are more explicit while others are less so. Many messianic prophesies happened to Christ in a “passive” sense. That is, He was not actively bringing them about by His words or actions, as is the case with Deut. 18:15-19 or Zech. 11:12. Other prophecies were brought about by His active participation, such as Isa. 53:7 and Zech. 9:9. (Of course, even a passive fulfillment from a human perspective is an active fulfillment from the perspective of the Godhead.)
But since by obeying them He was not thereby annulling either Torah or Prophets, what He was really doing was upholding—that is, defending or witnessing to—their validity and authority. (It is worthy of note that the Bible Society in Israel translates Matt. 5:17 as “Do not think that I have come to nullify the Torah and the Prophets; I have not come to nullify but uphold.” If uphold is in fact the better word—and it’s a big if—the implications for Christians could be profound. For instance, in their preface to The Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels, the translators state that, “The difference between ‘fulfill’ (as it is commonly translated) and ‘uphold’ is immense. ‘Fulfill’ tends to imply doing something to change either the Torah itself or the role that it plays. ‘Uphold’ is the exact opposite: to support and maintain the Torah’s unchanging message and its continued relevance." One could argue this to mean that—at least in some respects—the Torah is still binding on the modern gentile Christian! This is made as plain as can be from the passage concerning the young ruler who approached Christ and asked how he could obtain eternal life. Christ’s answer is very straightforward, “‘If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 19:17b-19). In addition, in verse 21, He drives home the point by saying “If you would be perfect, [Matt. 5:48] go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Instead of relaxing the commandments He actually makes them more stringent (as He had already in His Sermon on the Mount and as Isaiah foretold of Him, Isa. 42:21) with the additional commands for the young man to love his neighbour, to give away all his possessions, and to give up any other attachments in order to follow Christ. He was demanding (not asking for) single-minded devotion. (Christ was certainly aware that the young man kept the commandments imperfectly to say the least. If it could ever have been possible for mortals to keep the law perfectly, Christ’s incarnation and penal death would have been unnecessary. Instead, He shows the young man through the additional requirements that He was miserably unable to keep the Torah according to God’s standard of righteousness and perfection. If he were truly capable of keeping the traditional commandments, he would have had no trouble keeping the additional three.)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ makes it plain through His five “You have heard…” statements (Matt. 5:21, 27, 33, 38, 43) that He is not abrogating or abolishing the law, nor is He illustrating by example that the law is of no further use or is still not required in some way. Indeed, it’s hard not to see that in this sermon Christ supports the Law and Prophets (but not as a means for obtaining salvation, an essential caveat). In these five statements, the Lord builds His hermeneutic upon the solid foundation laid by the Torah, or in other words, He is going deeper into the Torah, teaching that there is more than face value to be discovered.
Furthermore, in Matt. 23: 2-3, Christ makes it plain that He expected His disciples to follow the Law of Moses (i.e. the Torah) and to heed and obey the word of the OT prophets in spite of the fact their efforts would be insufficient. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, [i.e. having inherited his authority] so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.” (The problem with this verse is that it sounds like our Lord is condoning the Pharisaical teachings and only condemning their hypocritical actions or lack thereof. However, I feel certain that this is incorrect. This is made plain in several places such as Matt. 23:13-33 and Mark 7:1-13. Matt. 23:33 is perhaps Christ’s strongest denunciation of these people in the entire NT, leaving His position crystal clear. The Pharisees had so corrupted the Torah—not only its very words, but also its intended purpose—that people were unable to be guided by it as a spiritual tutor. This is reinforced by a version of the Gospel of Matthew that a few scholars such as George Howard and Nehemiah Gordon (not to mention the early church fathers Papius and Clement) believe to be the underlying Hebrew original of Matthew’s account. In that version, Christ does not say, “So do and observe whatever they tell you.” Rather He says, “So do and observe whatever he tells you” the antecedent of “he” being Moses. If this is the case, it is devastating evidence that Christ is upholding and not just completing the Torah.)
Indeed, Christ is clearly teaching here that the Torah and the Prophets are authoritative as a basis for ethical and moral behaviour. However, it might be argued that His words in these verses are to be accepted only contingently since He had not yet fulfilled the Law and the Prophets through His atoning death alone; it being understood by the Church that His atoning death closed or completed the Torah and every prophecy concerning Him. This is implied by most English translations of Matt. 5:17 in their use of the word “until” (Gk. heōs, Strong’s # 2193)) which in itself is a perfectly legitimate translation. However, most translations ignore the small but very important Greek word “an” (Strong’s # 302) following heōs and which is an untranslatable word making the statement following it conditional or contingent. The time that the word until is referring to (“until all is accomplished”) is not the moment of Christ’s death, (which was imminent) as this would leave much still unaccomplished and unfulfilled, including the great tribulation, the second coming, the binding of Satan, the millennial age, Armageddon, and of course the eschatological final judgment, to name a few. It therefore must mean that the Torah and the prophetic writings would remain in place up to the point in history when all things (every single one) are accomplished. We know from Scripture that the ultimate accomplishment or fulfillment will be the Day of the Lord and the Great White Throne judgment at the last when Christ judges the nations, brings in the eternal state, and history ends. We just don’t know when that will occur (Matt. 24:36). This is the contingency implied by the words heōs an. When all things are accomplished, then and only then will the Torah—along with all the rest of Holy Writ—become redundant.
How did Christ uphold the Torah and the Prophets? He did so by maintaining their authority, particularly of the moral law, as well as the authority of the prophets to interpret, explain or mediate the will of God (Deut. 8:3, Matt. 4:4); by teaching doctrine based on Torah; by exemplifying Torah moral values through His perfectly righteous life and by completing the Torah as well as the prophecies concerning Himself through His atoning death, bodily resurrection, and in the future, His second coming and the final judgment.
No one can seriously doubt that Christ upheld the moral Torah (summed up in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments) but what about the civil and ceremonial aspects of Torah? Did He uphold these? I understand that both the civil law and the ceremonial law were actually Israel’s application of the moral code within the context of national life. The moral code was the basis and ultimate justification for all the various requirements of both civil and ceremonial Torah. (By the time of Jesus’ ministry the leaders within Judaism had forgotten this and had simply added a multitude of burdensome regulations not found in Scripture i.e. Matt. 15:8-10; Mark 7:6-8, citing Isaiah and Ezekiel). Therefore, because of this, by upholding the moral Torah, He was also upholding the other aspects of Torah as well. Moreover, we have evidence from such verses as Luke 17:14; Lev. 13:1-2, 6, and 9 that Christ was both very familiar with ceremonial law and had no misgivings about maintaining or upholding it. Matt. 17:24-27 reinforces Jesus’ willingness to support and uphold the requirements of the ceremonial law. In this particular case though, He makes it plain that neither He (as the firstborn son of God, the King) nor His disciples (as adopted sons) were any longer bound by these ceremonial requirements. This is especially so in the case of the sacrificial system which was at the very heart of the ceremonial aspect of the Torah. By being the final offering for sin (Heb. 9:13-14, 22, 25-26 etc.), Christ has paid our debt, God having nailed it to His cross (Col. 2:14).
As far as the civil law is concerned, we have the example of Matt. 22:20-21 to indicate that Christ was not an opponent of civil law and was obedient to it as long as it did not conflict with His spiritual kingdom (John 18:36). And certainly, we have the testimony of Peter and Paul in their epistles maintaining this neutrality with civil authorities.
With this brief survey, my intention has been to demonstrate that Christ not only did not abrogate the Torah (i.e. Law)—He in fact was a staunch supporter of it and made it a requirement for all those who would follow Him. And of course, that means that we too must support and maintain the Torah, since God gave it to the remnant, His people, of which we are now a part (Rom. 9:24-26; 11:17-18; Eph. 2:19 etc.). The ramifications of this conclusion are apt to take many by surprise. A case in point is the question of the Sabbath, which is firmly imbedded in the moral law of God. God has never changed the obligation of righteousness to observe His—not the Jewish—Sabbath or day of rest (Matt. 12:8); it is as binding on us as are the other nine commandments. The problem for the Church however—the dilemma she is in—is that the Sabbath is not Sunday, it is Saturday. If we maintain a rest on the first day of the week instead of the last, we are guilty of disregarding, if not disobeying, the fourth commandment and as James tells us in his epistle, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2:10).
SOLI DEO GLORIA
IN THE MORE UNCERTAIN AND TENUOUS DAYS OF OLD, people were never as sure as we seem to be today of finding their way through life. There were fewer safety nets then and it was harder to know when you were on the right course, or doing the right things to guarantee happiness. To be sure, there was no welfare system as we know it today and health care (such as there was) was for the rich. The same was true with education. And in the realm of the spiritual, people were largely in the same predicament. Were they lost? Were they on the right course? How were they to know if they were truly walking in the way of the Lord, on God's pathways, with God's blessings?
The people of Israel had the Torah to help them find their right relationship with God, but even the most devout Jew would, from time to time throughout his or her life, stumble, thereby becoming a law-breaker. The Torah contains 613 commandments, found in the books Exodus through Deuteronomy. These commandments, or laws, told Jews how they were to live their lives and what their attitude toward God should be. But the laws were not exhaustive; they did not cover every single possibility, therefore there was always room for failure. Rather, the laws were models for how to behave and how to believe in general ways. For instance in Leviticus 19, verses 9 and 10, we read, "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyards a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien." If this were a specific injunction, then it would not apply to the farmer who, for instance, grew olives or pomegranates instead of grapes. He would not be beholden to keep the commandment since it would not literally apply to him. Although this was still a model for what God expected, it was external to the actual believer. It was not an internal, self-correcting mechanism for adjusting or monitoring one's walk with God. So the problem was this: "How are we to know when we are keeping God's commandments and walking in His ways as He wants us to do?"
With the coming of the New Covenant, something very radical occurred. Whereas before, God expected people to come to Him in worship and awe, now they were not. With the birth of Jesus, God instead had come to the people! In coming to us, He made obsolete the necessity of the ceremonial and civil aspects of the Torah—and which were the outworking of the Torah’s moral foundation in the corporate life of national Israel. Now doing good deeds, practicing austerities, obeying the laws or any other such thing was no longer binding on the believer (actually they never had been—salvation has always been a matter of grace and faith). For the New Covenant, consummated through the blood sacrifice of Christ, rendered the previous covenant redundant in the sense that Christ—as the goal of the Torah and its laws—fulfilled all its requirements. As is said by the apostle Paul in Romans, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Rom. 3:21-22). And further, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Rom. 3:28).
Jesus himself is our guarantor, for He says categorically "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom” (Luke 12:32). And elsewhere He says "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).Thus, we now understand that God is with us if we but believe and accept. But still, the problem remains, "How are we to know when we are keeping God's commandments and walking in his ways as he wants us to do?" Put differently, "How do we know we are being fruitful; that is to say, how do we know when we are filled with God's holy presence." Jesus Himself says "And I will ask the father and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:16-18).
Jesus is telling us that we need to have the Spirit, His Spirit and the Spirit of God; that is, the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. Paul confirms this for us in Romans, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death…. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you” (Rom. 8:1-2, 8-9).
Let's turn to Paul and hear what he has to say about life by the Spirit. "But I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law…. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16-18, 22-23).
What Paul is telling us is that there is a way to know when you have experienced Rebirth in the Spirit and a way to measure how well you are letting the Spirit work through you. He calls it the "Fruit of the Spirit". Let’s now have a little closer look at this Fruit, to see if we can understand it a little better, and let it work in us with greater impact in our lives and the lives of those around us.
What is fruit? Fruit is, as we all know, the nourishing part of the plant that encases the plant seeds. By making its fruit nourishing and tasty, as well as attractive to the senses, the plant is assured of progeny because the seeds are spread around, sown, if you will, by people and animals after the fruit has been eaten. Thus, fruit is--as it were--a kind of promise of immortality, of the continuance of life, albeit life in a different form. So Paul's use of the word fruit is not accidental or arbitrary, but carefully chosen to convey the very specific ideas of nourishing life and life everlasting.
Another aspect of fruit is that it is an outcome, that is to say, the result of something preceding it. Let's use the example of the grape on the vine. From the seed comes the vine itself and then the branches and finally, on the branches, the fruit. The grape is the result of all that has preceded it. Again, we speak of fruition when we wish to describe the logical and progressive outcome of a set of actions. What Paul is telling us is that once we have the Spirit in us, once we have been reborn in the Spirit, the Spirit will naturally--just as the vine brings forth the grape--bring forth its own kind of fruit in us, for remember, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Therefore, if we have the Spirit in us, we also will have its fruit; that is, we will begin living our lives according to God's will, for He is in us and works through us by way of the Spirit. Paul does not stop here however. He goes on to enumerate the traits or qualities of this fruit growing within us. It is seeing and understanding the very specific qualities that enable us to answer our central question "How are we to know when we are keeping God's commandments and walking in his ways as he wants us to do?" By examining the qualities of our own lives and comparing them with the qualities of the Fruit of the Spirit we are better able to understand how the Spirit can work through us and to see when we are allowing thorns, weeds and briers to grow up around the vine, choking the tender fruit that should be so precious to us.
The first quality that Paul describes is love. Jesus and the apostles understood love in different ways. Eros, Phileo and Agape are Greek words describing the most common ways. Eros is personal, intimate love. It is the human, warm personal love that is so commonly sung about on radio and television. It is the love of passion. It is the love of Valentine’s Day, of sentimental letters and of the broken-hearted.
Phileo is the love that friends and comrades share. It is the love that is expressed by philanthropists and moralists. Both of these forms of love return a reward to the giver in the form of some kind of emotional gratification, even the painful gratification experienced by the spurned lover. Both Eros and Phileo are forms of feeling love. Agape, on the other hand is that impersonal kind of love that finds its fullest expression in the altruistic, the selfless, and the noble. It is the love of doing. In this kind of love, there is no gratification to the giver, no self-serving feel-goods, no emotional kickbacks. It is the quality of love that is completely unconcerned with the self. One of the Lord's best examples of this kind of love is the parable of the Good Samaritan. "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' Now Jesus asked his listener "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him". Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:30-37).
Sometimes Eros and Phileo will rise to such heights--as in the self-sacrifice of parent for child--and then become Agape. Agape is the love God has for us. There is nothing that God needs from us since by His very nature He already has everything. There's nothing in it for Him, yet He gives us His love anyway. This love is about sacrifice, pure and simple. It is about giving absolutely everything to the beloved and for the beloved. It is a no holds barred, no quarter given kind of love. Agape is the love of giving for the sake of giving, helping for the sake of helping, dying for the sake of life in the Other. More than this, it is the oneness that comes when all dualities disappear, when there is no distinction between thee and me. This is the love Jesus spoke of when He said, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love…. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:9-11).
So when we have love, we don't just feel for one another; we do for one another. In this doing, comes a sense of righteousness that we experience as an inner and sublime joy.
Let us understand that by joy we do not mean mere happiness. Here joy refers to self-surrender, the knowledge that overtakes one who is relinquishing her own sense of self and all that goes along with it. Joy depends on love. When we love someone, as the Samaritan loved the injured man by the side of the road, then we experience joy, that sense of the fullness, richness and rightness of one's actions. Experiencing joy is what Christ does and wants us to do. When we are truly walking with Christ, and the work we do becomes an authentic expression of the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we are joyful. But if we are not with God, if we cloud over or allow His light to be denied us so that the Spirit cannot perform His work (Eph. 4:30), then we are truly miserable. And misery is the absence of joy. When we experience misery we know that something has come between our Dear Lord and ourselves and we need to go back to the Well to drink, "'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me…streams of living water will flow from within him'. By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive” (John 7:37-39). This joy then, is not worldly happiness. It is not that feeling we get when "life is good". This joy is the knowledge of our right relationship with Christ; the mutual joy felt by the father and his prodigal son. Who can dismiss this joy: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate” (Luke 15:20-24). This joy is as natural and sustaining as the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.
Now, when we have love and joy in our lives we become peaceful. And when we are peaceful, we are restful; we experience stillness. And I think this is the thrust of the meaning here. To have peace is to have rest. "By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Gen.2:2). It is when we are truly restful and at peace that we can fully experience any given moment. This is how, I believe, God experiences His creation. In this sense peace, stillness or rest is the positive experience of God in our souls. And there is peace even in our daily activities. For peace does not describe the absence of activity, rather it describes a state of mind, an attitude that is unshakeable because it rests in the unshakeable, "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal” (Isa. 26:3-4).
Stele is the Greek for still or stillness. It means essentially a post in the ground. It is this sense that we have described by Paul. This unshaken firmness gives us equanimity not at the mercy of the ever-changing whims of the world. In this peace, we are able to see things of our world very clearly, just as God saw His own creation clearly, while He rested on the seventh day. In the state of rest or peace, we are not influenced by the glamour of the Deceiver and so are not shaken by calamity or sorrow for we know that in the still clarity of the heart, we see all things just as God intended for us.
The positive expression of this state of inner peace, resting firmly in our love of Christ, is patience. Patience normally means forbearance but here I'd like to push that idea a little farther. I'd like to consider the possibility that here Paul means forgiveness. Patience here is expressed in Paul's words, "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Col. 3:13-14). We don't normally think of patience in this way. In the King James Version of the Bible, the word used in place of patience is long-suffering, which I feel gives a more accurate description of what Paul had in mind. Only a long-suffering, forbearing person is able to turn the other cheek, "If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:29-31). So what Paul and Jesus are asking is to go beyond forbearance, to go into forgiveness. This is not easy. We must be aware that too often those who wish to harm or exploit us misread patience as weakness or cowardice. We must take care that we do not allow ourselves to be hurt yet we must seek ways to let the quality of patience transcend mere tolerance of abuse into the transformation of both abused and abuser. To bear one's own abuse by another is to contribute to it and Jesus cannot be asking us to do that. The secret of patience is found in the Golden Rule, treat others as you would like to be treated by others: with respect. But don't misunderstand. Patience by itself is not possible in that it cannot last. It becomes possible and lasting by the experience of love, joy and peace that comes from letting the Spirit of God into your life. When you are infused with the Holy Spirit, it becomes easier to forgive, because it is God's nature to forgive. When you are feeling resentful or vindictive, hurt or abused ask yourself "Am I now, at this moment, in the presence of the Kingdom?" Surely the answer must be, if you are honest with yourself, a resounding "No!" And if you are not in the Kingdom of God, it means you are tottering on the brink of the Abyss. By letting patience into our lives, we are allowing ourselves to forgive. Then and only then will we find the Kingdom.
And this forgiveness can lead us to kindness. Kindness in this case means something like magnanimity or grace. Kindness then is a flow of giving to those who lack, not because they deserve it but because we have it in ourselves to give, in the same way God has it to give us. The receipt of kindness is not earned by the wretched. Are we kind only to those we believe are deserving of it, or do we give it freely? God gives His grace--His kindness--to us freely and abundantly, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:4-10).
This is the grace--or loving-kindness--shown so often by Jesus to the lame, the blind, the deaf and even those who, in our own eyes sometimes, perhaps didn't warrant it, as in the case of the woman caught in adultery or the Canaanite woman who asked Him to heal her daughter. In these cases, Jesus showered his kindness--His grace--upon them, deserving or no. When we have the patience or forgiveness that comes as a natural consequence of the Holy Spirit, kindness--which is our grace--streams naturally out of us and cannot be constrained unless we constrain the very Spirit of God that is in us.
And so we come next to goodness. And what of goodness? I'd like you to consider the first five qualities of the fruit of the spirit--love, joy, peace, patience and kindness--as outwardly directed, that is, directed toward others, with goodness as their perfect summation and conclusion. These qualities then, stream out from the Spirit of God within for the benefit, succour and relief of outward creation, which is creation apart from us, other than ourselves. And goodness is the crowning glory of them all. In goodness, the other five qualities are joined in perfect balance and proportion so that to be good is to be loving, joyful, peaceful, forgiving and kind. In the end, only God is truly good and to be truly good is to be godly. Here Paul is telling us that the five qualities gathered and expressed together lead one to be good. Good to whom? Good to others. But what of yourself? Are you not part of the equation? If the fruit of the Spirit is only for others, how then are you to grow in God's love and goodness and become better in His sight? How does the Spirit affect you? What does the Spirit do for you?
The final three qualities of the Fruit of the Spirit are for your righteousness and goodness. They are God's gifts just for us, for our own quality of life. With faith, gentleness and self-control we see how the Spirit affects us most personally and intimately.
Faithfulness can be considered as the loyal adherence to the object of one's faith. I think Paul has two objects in mind here. One is God, specifically the Holy Spirit. He wants us to adhere or cling to the Spirit in spite of the vicissitudes of the world. He wants us to give our undeviating allegiance to God because only God is worthy of such an allegiance. One early biblical example of this faith was Abraham who was so faithful to God that he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar. Job is another example. Job was severely tested. Yet, in the end, his faith in the ultimate goodness of God sustained him through all his trials. It is through faith that we are given the assurance that suffering will end as well as the poise, strength and equanimity to endure until it does. And this leads us to the second object of faith. When we truly have faith in God and his innate goodness, we become faithful to ourselves for through faith in God, become worthy in His sight. We are worthy, not because we deserve it or are qualified for it. We are worthy for one reason alone. We are worthy because God loves us. His love makes us worthy to ourselves and it is that worthiness of oneself that Paul describes here as faithfulness. When we are worthy, we have a reason to have faith and obtain it through grace. It is not something we have to work for but simply accept. This faithfulness is our own authenticity. It is our integrity in spite of all the trials we may have to endure. It tells us about us and how we are to react to the trials and joys that life in the world sends our way. In faithfulness we are more able to be calm, unshakeable and honest--with ourselves and with others. It is this calm certitude we have when we are able to live as Jesus describes in the parable of the house built on rock, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matt. 7:24-27).
Through faithfulness in ourselves as instruments of the holy will we become gentle. For what need is there to be anything but gentle, not only with others but with ourselves especially. Gentleness with ourselves results in knowing that nothing good can be forced. Since it is God's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, nothing we do can make any lasting difference, nor alter His will for us. When we know this, we are able to be gentle with ourselves and consequently life becomes less of a struggle and more of a journey. The only thing remaining to us then is to get closer to God; to align ourselves as closely and intimately as we can with Him. This truly is the blossoming of the interior life and the riches of God's kingdom will be available to us every moment of every day. And when we are able to be gentle with ourselves, self-control becomes easy and effortless because self-control is transmuted into God-control.
When most of us think of self-control we are flooded with impressions and images of struggle and effort. And so long as the self instead of the Spirit governs us, it will indeed be a constant struggle. But imagine one who has undergone Rebirth in the Spirit. She has gradually let the Spirit of God blossom within her as the mustard seed in the farmer's field; she has let the leaven of the Holy Spirit transform her very substance so that even the very molecules of her body have become holy. Is it conceivable that one such as she could ever struggle with the temptations and turmoil of the World? Would she have to fight, to struggle? No more. To the degree that she has experienced a true conversion, life's temptations will become easier to understand and to overcome.
We struggle a hundred times a day with issues of self-control. Should I have that last pastry? I'm attracted to my secretary, but I'm married. What am I to do? Can't I have just one more drink, please? The answers will become easy only when the questions become unimportant. Hopefully by now we can see that these and many more such questions are answered automatically when, and only when, we have experienced genuine Rebirth in the Spirit. For the Spirit Himself will not only open our eyes and lead us into the Light, but the Spirit is that very Light by which we see.
Our question, that was before impossible to answer, with life by the Spirit becomes impossible to ask. Paul's words are affirming as well as comforting "There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus."
