In this blog we’ll take a quick look at God’s Holy days and the benefit of obeying them. I’ll look at each one more in depth in another blog series. Also, there’s a lotta good stuff already in print by people who sincerely observe them (non-Jews who are “Christian”, like the Seventh Day Adventists or some Messianic congregations).
Please note: I do not patronize rabbinic law. I do not accord it any more authority than other MAN-MADE LAW. For the most part, ancient rabbinic literature (aka: “Jewish literature”, “oral tradition”) serves to illuminate the NT texts where applicable, so we can get a more accurate understanding of the NT message based on the ORIGINAL FACTS that are relevant to the realities in the text. That means WE DO NOT OBSERVE “JEWISH HOLIDAYS”. More on this in another blog entry.
Here’s a list of the commanded holy days:
- Shabbat (Sabbath)
- Pesach (Passover – no, this isn’t Easter)
- Unleavened Bread
- Shevuot (Pentecost)
- Yom Teruah (Day of Loud Sound or Day of Trumpets – no, it’s not “Rosh HaShannah”/New Year’s)
- Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
- Succot (Feast of Tabernacles)
- haYom haGadol (The Last Great Day)
The key texts for observing the holy days will be listed with each holy day. There are many more texts that will be listed, but we’ll get into that in another blog entry. For now, we’ll just summarize to get started. This intends to be introductory only.
First we’ll take a look at Sabbath observance.
SABBATH
8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of YHWH your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore YHWH blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20)
12 ‘Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as YHWH your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a sabbath of YHWH your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YHWH your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore YHWH your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5)
Basically, Sabbath is the time we REMEMBER GOD AS CREATOR, because God established the Sabbath ON THE 7th DAY OF CREATION, when He “rested” from all His works of creating the heavens, earth seas, and all that is in them, just like the commandment says:
2 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. (Genesis 1)
Sabbath observance is the key to all the holy days because it contains the basic observance of REST or CEASING FROM MAKING A LIVING, and REMEMBERING GOD AS CREATOR, BEING PART OF A HOLY CONVOCATION. That’s how you’re supposed to approach every holy day, plus the various other requirements of each particular holy day observance.
Reading the 4th Commandment texts above, and taking them at face value, you can easily see the requirement to CEASE FROM MAKING A LIVING: “you shall not do any work …”
Also you can see that Deuteronomy expands the requirement to a memorial of DELIVERANCE FROM POLITICAL SLAVERY: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YHWH your God brought you out of there …“. There are profound ramifications for this. We’ll discuss it in another blog entry.
You can see from Genesis 2 the same main concept, except the term used is REST: “He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” So should we. We should CEASE or REST from all our WORK of making a living.
That is how we SANCTIFY the 7th day. Make no mistake: We’re talking about SATURDAY AS THE ONLY AUTHORIZED DAY OF REST in the Bible, NOT SUNDAY. Make sure you see the way God counts in Genesis 1 & 2. It’s very easy: day 1, day 2 … day 6 and SABBATH, the SEVENTH day. Moreover, it’s not ANY DAY you want to make it. It’s the SEVENTH DAY, period:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. … And there was evening and there was morning, one day. … And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. … There was evening and there was morning, a third day. … a fourth day. … There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. … God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1)
The above text shows that God considers the day to begin IN THE EVENING, not AT MIDNIGHT. Here’s another text directly saying that:
It is to be a sabbath of complete rest to you, and you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of the month at evening, from evening until evening you shall keep your sabbath.” (Leviticus 23:32) (This is a holy day Sabbath, not the weekly Sabbath)
Although that text speaks of Yom Kippur, it’s a reference to the PATTERN of observing Sabbaths. This is a PRINCIPLE that is based on the method of interpretation that goes from the specific to the general, based on the fact that the general governs the specific in this case, as expressed in the opening statement of “the appointed times” (“holy day observances”):
23 YHWH spoke again to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘YHWH’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations—My appointed times are these: 3 ‘For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work; it is a sabbath to YHWH in all your dwellings. 4 ‘These are the appointed times of YHWH, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them. (Leviticus 23) [Followed by the list of holy day observances] (Leviticus 23)
Also note that God established the SABBATH during CREATION. He didn’t establish Sabbath when He formed Israel as a nation. Where do you think Moses learned the Sabbath observance? From his ancestors. And where do you think they learned it? From the Fathers of “the faith”: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Where do you think they learned the Sabbath requirement? They learned it from ‘the ancients’ (Noah, Methuselah, etc., back to Adam).
I make the assumption that Sabbath observance is part of God’s law because it’s #4 of “The 10”. The OT clearly states that God said Abraham kept His law. And if Abraham kept God’s law, and part of God’s law is Sabbath observance, then Abraham kept the Sabbath. Really, it’s that simple. Check it out for yourself:
Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, YHWH appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. (Genesis 17:17)
For I [God] have chosen him [Abraham], so that [because] he may [will] command his children and his household after him to keep the way of YHWH by doing righteousness and justice, so that YHWH may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him. (Genesis 18:19)
“Blameless” means obeying all of God’s law with proper intent and results, in both lifestyle and character. You can’t very well teach your children to obey God’s law if you don’t know it and do it yourself, can you? It’s just common sense, not ‘rocket science’ or, God forbid, ‘lawyering’.
Now take a look at the CHRONOLOGY (see chart at the end of this section). There’s an overlap of all the generations. That’s how God’s law and accountability for observing it was passed on from generation to generation. The system is THE ELDERS TEACHING THE YOUTH. Pretty simple stuff. Just common sense at work. Something people don’t know much about in today’s America due to OVER-SCRIPTING OF THEIR DAILY LIVES BY THE GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATIONS. There ya go: Another result of COMMERCE, or as Jesus said, “serving mammon”.
The point: The Sabbath was NOT made for Israel. It was made BY GOD, AT CREATION, FOR ALL HUMANITY (that is, Adam’s descendants). And NO, it’s not “Noahide laws”, nor any of the other double-talk nonsense that you read in the rabbis. One has to wonder: Why would God do that for all humanity instead of just Israel?
What would be the PRIMARY PURPOSE for observing the weekly Sabbath? I believe it is God’s “appointed time” for KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH GOD, so that we keep our lives and our nation on the RIGHT MORAL PATH. Remember: GOD CREATED EVERYTHING, INCLUDING US HUMANS. So, as Creator, He also is OWNER, that is, He’s owner of everything He created. That means He alone has THE RIGHT OF MANAGEMENT of everything created, including humans and humanity. That means, when God tells us we humans (not just Israel) need to obey this or that LAW, then we have the ABSOLUTE OBLIGATION to do so without questioning Him. Paul expresses the principle like this:
On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay …? (Romans 9:20-21)
Paul gets that from the prophet Isaiah (5:9):
Woe to anyone who contends with their Maker;
a potsherd among potsherds of the earth!
Shall the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’
or, ‘What you are making has no handles’?
If we don’t reserve regular time to keep in touch with God, then it’s inevitable that ‘life’, that is, ‘making a living’, will crowd out our consciousness of God and His requirements of us, and fill our minds and activities with COMMERCE (or, as the philosophers will say “existential-materialism”). Commerce has its way of doing that to everybody (Matthew 13:1-23). Then we end up with all kinds of personal and social moral compromise, which leads to the inevitable and insurmountable personal and social degeneration. That’s when our health and happiness drops out of the picture.
How do we keep our lives on the moral ‘straight and narrow’? We use the SABBATH DAY to learn the contents of the Bible and to work on understanding it and applying it to our daily lives and to our communities (and NATION!). The relevant statement in the above texts which applies to our communities is “holy convocation”. It’s the MEETING that occurs when all Sabbath observers get together ON THE SABBATH for the purpose of focusing on what’s important to GOD. More on “holy convocation” in another blog entry.
I’m convinced that Sabbath observance is the key to human happiness, because it’s the key to KEEPING ON THE RIGHT TRACK throughout life. Sabbath observance is for both the individual and the nation, so it keeps EVERYBODY on track, including THE NATION. More on that in the Yom Kippur blog entry.
The above explains WHY it’s important to observe the weekly Sabbath. In a future blog I’ll share the simple first steps I took to SANCTIFY the Sabbath. Sanctifying the Sabbath is how we “make the Sabbath Holy”, according to God’s commandment.
Reality Bible 