Page 82 - Pentateuch

items come from him, how much more are we to trust in him for forgiveness from sin and hope of eternal
rest in heaven!

The gospel is woven throughout the law, distinct from the law yet pointed to by the law. The gospel rests in
God through his Messiah. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God (Heb. 4:9.)” Strangely
enough, we are to “make every effort to enter that rest (v. 11).” Yet faith in Christ is the way to enter God’s
rest (3:14, 19; 4:2). In Christ, we enter God’s rest and rest from our own works (4:10). The challenge is
never-ending in this life. We will always think we must do more. We will constantly think we are more
important than we really are. Such thought patterns are just as burdensome to us today as were the
additions to the law back in the day of Jesus. Even though we are to make every effort, in Christ, every
effort is rest.

The preaching of Jesus touched on the Sabbath experience in the Year of Jubilee. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus
quotes from Isaiah 61:1. “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for
the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The word “freedom” is based
on Leviticus 25:10: “proclaim liberty throughout the land.” The experience of freedom from debt in the
Year of Jubilee is the background to salvation in Christ. That same experience is designed to teach God’s
people about the needs of others and the responsibility to offer them mercy, hoping that Christ’s Jubilee
can free them too. Yet even the NT walk in Christ anticipates God’s final jubilee when everything will be
restored (2 Pet. 3:13).

Sometimes the echo of God’s original Sabbath comes to us from different cultures. Sometimes these
cultures have practices that speak to us and have the power to rebuke us.

“In the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trek. Coolies had been engaged
from a tribe to carry the loads. The first day, they marched rapidly and went far. The
traveler had high hopes of a speedy journey. But the second morning, these jungle
tribesmen refused to move. For some strange reason, they just sat and rested. On inquiry
as to the reason for this strange behavior, the traveler was informed that they had gone
too fast the first day, and that they were now waiting for their souls to catch up with their
bodies…. This whirling, rushing life, which so many of us live, does for us what that first
march did for those poor jungle tribesmen. The difference: they know that they need to
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restore life’s balance; too often, we do not.

The last two chapters of Leviticus are also tied to the concept of the Sabbath. Chapter 26 is God’s promise
to the people. “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,” says YHWH, all kinds of
blessings will follow (26:3-13). “If you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,” God’s hostile
actions will follow (26:14-45). At the beginning is the command to observe God’s Sabbaths (v. 2). At the
end is God’s judgment that includes the land deserted of people, enjoying its Sabbaths (v. 43). God is
serious about his people resting in him. Refusal to do so is the first step toward idolatry and comes out of a
heart that thinks little of him, even if words of blasphemy are never spoken.

The chapter recounts a series of events that amount to warnings from God to his people. Their
disobedience would bring about a series of increasingly severe judgments marked by phrases like “if after
all this” (v. 18, 21, 23, 27). The language implies God’s chastening (v. 18, 23, 28) to call them back to him.
He wants them to rest in him and has no alternative plan.

99 Lettie Cowman, Springs in the Valley. Quoted by Gordon MacDonald, Restoring Your Spiritual Passion (Nashville:
Nelson, 1986), 26.
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