Trinity Free Church Huntingdon

The feasts we have been looking at have all been annual celebrations but the one most frequently observed is, of course, the Sabbath, which merely means Rest. Associated with God’s resting on the seventh day of Creation it was given by God as a rest day for His people, and observing the fourth Commandment is still essential for a Jew who takes his faith seriously.
But, to protect the Law and to protect the people who might otherwise stray into infringing it, the rabbis of former years had built what they called a Fence Around The Law, consisting of regulations and prohibitions that God had not commanded. The section on the Sabbath consists of 39 categories of activities that may not be performed on the Sabbath and each of these is divided into 39 making a total of 1521 Sabbath rules, which makes life very difficult for conscientious Jews. It also leads to some things which to non-Jews may seem rather trivial. However, we must not forget that medieval Christian theologians also engaged in some equally doubtful activities like the learned discussion to decide how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. How important it is that we should rely on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who “will teach you all things” because “the world by wisdom knew not God” and God “will destroy the wisdom of the wise”. Man-made religion is not a sure foundation!
But what of Sunday, the Lord’s Day? Is that a Christian Sabbath ordained by God or is that, too, man-made?
Jesus broke the rabbis’ Sabbath rules but He did not reject the Sabbath. He put it into perspective. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” He said. God intended it to be a blessing. So, how does the Lord’s Day differ from the Sabbath?
Victor Buksbazen puts it like this.
The Sabbath commemorates a completed Creation : the Lord’s Day commemorates a completed Redemption.
The Sabbath is a covenant sign “that you may know that I am the Lord” and its observance was commanded by Law : the Lord’s Day is a day of voluntary worship, a day of witness to what God has done through Christ and represents the covenant of Grace.
The New Testament shows how difficult the Jewish Christians found this but eventually the struggle, emphasised by so many non-Jews coming to Christ, was settled at the first Christian Synod in Jerusalem, when Jesus’ brother James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, ruled in favour of Paul’s plea that Christians did not have to follow the practices of Judaism. This led to Christian Jews being forced out of the synagogues into a fellowship which was distinctly Christian. Christianity was no longer a sect of Judaism but the Ecclesia, the Christian Church, as it is today.