Sabbath – A Reminder of Bondage

Now see for what purpose God gave the Sabbath, and why we are now free from it. “But the Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou: not thy son, and thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maid servant, nor thine Ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.

And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arms therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day” (Deut. 5: 14,15).

God told the Israelites that because they had been bond slaves in Egypt under the Egyptians and had served false gods, it remind them of that, he commanded them to keep the Sabbath. Every Sabbath they remembered their slavery due to disobedience, and the chains of sin that bound their hands, feet, tongues, ears, eyes, bodies. The Law was weak and nobody became righteous through it. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ became man and fulfilled the righteousness, which God demanded through law.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8: 1-3).

What man could not do, the Lord Jesus Christ did and set us free from every bondage. He bore our burdens, punishment and condemnation and became a curse for us. That is why we are completely free and come under a new law- the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, while those who come under the former old law come under the law of sin and death. Thus in observing the Sabbath, the Israelites remembered their slavery under their slavery under their hard task- masters, but now, the Lord Jesus Christ has broken all chains of bondage and has given us His own true rest.