Exodus 34:21

God said to Moses in Exodus 34:21-28, “Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Notice that Exodus 34:21 requires the observance of the Sabbath Day as a requirement to live under the Law of Moses. As a matter of fact because the Sabbath Day occurred once a week, it was the most obvious outward manifestation that someone was attempting to keep the Law of Moses. The keeping of the Sabbath Day was definitely part of the Old Covenant: the Old Testament.

One of the Ten Commandments, the fourth commandment said, ”Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” This commandment actually has a very deep spiritual meaning to it. That is why it says to “remember” the Sabbath Day. If you really understand the Sabbath Day, then there is something to know and something to think about it. There is nothing to do. For one thousand four hundred years the children of Israel tried to keep the Sabbath Day from an outward standpoint. That created some very real problems for them, because how can anyone define what is real work and what is not? They certainly did not properly define it during the time of Christ. They condemned Jesus for what He did on the Sabbath Day. Unlike us, Jesus lived under the law and Jesus kept the law perfectly. What did Jesus do on the Sabbath Day? Jesus did on the Sabbath Day the same things that He did on other days: He taught and He healed the sick. He also ate and drank and did what was necessary to be able to eat and drink, such as going through the fields with His disciples to gather food.

Jesus made three revealing statements about the Sabbath Day. Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The purpose of the Sabbath Day even in the Old Testament was to be a benefit to man: not a hindrance and not a chain about man’s neck. From a practical standpoint the Sabbath Day teaches us that it is good to work, but it is also good to have proper rest. From a spiritual standpoint the Sabbath Day teaches us that we should cease from our own efforts to try to become righteous by our own works, and instead rest in Christ as our righteousness.

In Mark 2:28 Jesus said about the Sabbath Day, “Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” One of the problems with trying to enforce the keeping of the Sabbath Day as it was prescribed under the Old Testament law of Moses, is that the religious leaders started thinking that they are lords of the Sabbath, but they are not. Part of the problem in understanding how to keep the Sabbath Day is defining what is work and what is not. You might be able to define what is work for yourself, but you certainly cannot define that for others. Jesus lived under the law, and so He lived at a time when a person was obligated to keep the Sabbath Day literally. As we read in the book of Mark, Jesus had occasion to speak about the Sabbath Day, but He never said anything about what a person could not do on the Sabbath Day, only what a person could do.

The Bible records Jesus statement in Mark 3:4, “And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.” To me this means very clearly: if what you are doing is a good thing to do, then it is alright to do it on the Sabbath day. In other words whatever is good to do on one day of the week is also good to do on another day of the week. It is interesting to note that Jesus was the Lord of the Sabbath, and He was living under the law and speaking to those who lived under the law. However, unlike the religious leaders who wanted to be lords of the Sabbath, Jesus did not talk about what a Jew could not do, but what a Jew could do on the Sabbath.

The true meaning of the Sabbath day is a spiritual meaning. The most thorough teaching about the Sabbath Day to Christians is found in Hebrews 4:1-11 that says, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”

In this passage about spiritual rest, which is the real Sabbath Day for the Christian, we are told several important truths that the Christian needs to know about the Sabbath. Any time that you are experiencing true rest in Christ, you are experiencing the true meaning of Sabbath for the Christian. The actual observance of the Sabbath Day on Saturday has been set aside, and has been replaced with the true Sabbath: rest in Christ through faith in Him. There is a possibility that even the Christian will miss out on this true rest. That is what Hebrews 4:1 is saying, “…lest…any of you should seem to come short of it.” The fact that there is a condition that must be met before anyone can enter into the true “rest” and enjoy it, is emphasized by Old Testament quotations that are made in Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews 4:3 quotes from Psalm 95:11 and interprets it as saying, “if they shall enter into my rest.” “If” means maybe they will, and maybe they will not, and in this case they did not. So, “if” in Hebrews 4:6 means they did not enter into that rest. The emphasis is on the word “if” to mean that the children of Israel never did find the “rest” that God meant for them to have. They never did find what the Sabbath symbolized, because they never had the faith that they needed. We need faith in Christ in order to enjoy the rest that He alone can give. That is the true meaning of the Sabbath. If you are practicing the Sabbath in its spiritual sense, then you have ceased from your own labors and you are trusting in Christ.

The reason we no longer attempt to put into practice the Sabbath Day as taught in the Old Testament law on Saturday is because when Jesus fulfilled the law, He also fulfilled the requirements of the Sabbath Day. We would have never found the rest that we truly need in keeping the Sabbath Day anyway. We need spiritual rest, and that is only found in Christ. It is interesting to notice that there will be an effort required to trust in Christ for this spiritual rest. It says in Hebrews 4:4, “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” As the burdens and responsibilities and challenges of life come your way, you will have to make a mental and spiritual effort to trust in and rely upon Jesus. Without such an effort of faith, you will not be entering into the rest that only Jesus can give to you.

There is one more important truth that Hebrews chapter four reveals. Notice that Hebrews 4:7 quotes King David from the book of Psalm 95:7-8; and then Hebrews 4:8 says, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.” David wrote the words of Psalm chapter 95, and the words are the very words of God because they are a part of inspired scripture. But Hebrews 4:8 says that Jesus was the one who was speaking. That should not surprise us. We know that Jesus is God. The New Testament tells us over and over and over again that Jesus is God. He is One with the Father, and that means that Jesus is just as much God as the Father is. It appears that in the trinity, the Three-IN-One, what One does, they all do. When Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,” undoubtedly Jesus was not only talking about the words that He spoke when He was in human form, but also the words of the Old Testament. Jesus said something very similar with a direct reference to the Old Testament in Matthew 5:18, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

In the passage of scripture in Exodus chapter 34 that reviews the law for us, we are given many reminders of important spiritual principles. The three feasts remind us of what Christ has done for us, and will do for us. Exodus 34:25 has at least two important truths in it. It says, “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.” It reminds us of the Passover feast. Jesus is our Passover. Of course, when the first Passover took place, God said in Exodus 12:13, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Because of the blood there was forgiveness, and there was no punishment for sin. But forgiveness never means a license to sin. Just because Jesus has forgiven you, and just because He will forgive you in the future does not mean that you can allow leaven to be part of your bread. You must have unleavened bread. Leaven symbolizes sin. Unleavened bread symbolizes the need for a Christian to do what he can to keep sin out of his life: to avoid sin and the place of temptation as much as possible.

In Exodus 34:26 the Lord said, “The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.” In other words it is important for believers to recognize and be thankful for God’s blessings to them, including the material blessings. It is interesting that God gave the second half of Exodus 34:26 as part of the covenant. God said, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.” To do so would have been a certain type of cruelty and disrespect for animals and for nature. God has given animals for food, and He has given man dominion over the animals, but He wants us to have respect for the animal life in our world.

God said in Exodus 34:27, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words.” This explains to us one aspect of where the Bible comes from. It comes from God. God chose certain men in ages past to write the Bible. God chose Moses to write the first five books of the Bible. Notice that God gave the very words. God did not give ideas. He gave “words.” That is why the words in the original language are so important: they are God’s words; and we must use a translation where the translators used a word-for-word method of translation. Some translations do not follow this method, and that is why they are weak.

In the last part of Exodus 34:27 and in verse 28 the Bible says, “for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” One reason that Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness was that He was bringing a New Covenant that would replace the old covenant. The first covenant came by Moses, and at the beginning of the giving of that Old Covenant Moses was with the Lord forty days and forty nights. Jesus began His public ministry with forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. It says in John 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” There is a big difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It is the difference between law and grace.

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