Deuteronomy 5:15, “…you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YHWH your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore YHWH your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”
Usually the rationale for keeping the Sabbath is tied to the six days of creation followed by a seventh day of rest (Ex.20:11), however here we see Sabbath keeping grounded in YHWH’s paradigmatic OT work of redemption, the Exodus. Why might Sabbath rest be tied to redemption from slavery? I can think of two reasons.
First, when they were slaves the people of Israel were—we can assume—forced to work day in and day out. There were no “weekends,” there was no rest. And so, when carried out in light of their former weariness under the hard slave master of Egypt, Israel’s weekly rest is a way of embracing and praising YHWH for the freedom that He has given them in Himself. They no longer have to be constantly running, constantly working, constantly keeping their noses above water, as it were….they can rest because they are not under the Slave Master but under YHWH, they are no longer slaves but a beloved bride.
Secondly—and, I think, more primarily—remembering their redemption from Egypt grounds their Sabbath observance because it reminds them that they did nothing to free themselves. Israel was redeemed from Egypt by the mighty hand and outstretched arm of YHWH their God. They did not figure it out, they did not come up with a plan, they did not earn and deserve or even choose their redemption, rather YHWH freed them from their slavery and brought them to Himself. Their salvation from Egypt was from, through, and to YHWH. In light of this, then, it makes sense to set aside a day of submissive rest….a day to remember that it was not them or their sufficiency or their strength etc. that brought them out of Egypt but that it was all gift, all grace, all sovereign love from first to last.
What about for us? What about for those who are not under the Law delivered from Sinai but are in the Son given on Calvary? How is this commandment and its rationale fulfilled in us?
Well, perhaps the first thing to say is that our deliverance is not from the slavery of Egypt, but from the slavery of sin, death, and Satan. That is the situation from which YHWH has delivered us. And He has brought us out of that bondage by offering up His own “mighty hand” to be pierced for us, and by His own incarnate arms being outstretched on the cross. Our God works ultimate redemption for us in Christ on Calvary, passing through the sea of our troubles, dividing the crashing waves of our deserved judgment with His own body, becoming a curse—the curse of the Law—for us so that we, in Him, might die to the Law, die to our Slavery, die to Death itself and be raised “on eagle’s wings” to new life in Himself….so that we might come to the true mountain of God, so that we might enter into the true Promised Land of Triune fellowship, so that we might share in the true Sabbath rest, the rest that is God Himself. This is our story, this is our “Exodus.”
And so, similarly to the two reasons outlined above, we rest in Christ because we no longer have to work day in and day out to “justify” ourselves…to build up a scaffolding on which to stand…the work of proving ourselves (to ourselves, to others, to God) is over and we can rest—must rest—in the finished work of Christ our Lord. Secondly, we rest because while we were slaves to sin and death, while we were utterly lost, while we were helpless, the Father sent the Son to enter in and do all for us, to become all to us, to lift us out of our hopelessness and bring us to Himself. Remembering that, we keep the Sabbath….
And how do we keep the Sabbath? Is it a Saturday or Sunday without work? Likely that ought to be part of it. But, ultimately, we keep the Sabbath by resting from self-justifying work because of the all sufficiency of God for us in Christ. By the indwelling Spirit, may our God teach us how to more and more fully enter into the marrow-deep rest that He has become for us in Jesus Christ.
