Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

DISCOVERING THE NEW COVENANT
leave us to guess, or to be super-smart or gifted to
understand what is really important. One text that brought
clarification on the Sabbath issue for me was Exodus
31:12ff.
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And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Speak also to
the children of Israel, saying: “Surely My Sabbaths
you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you
throughout your generations, that you may know that I
am the Lord who sanctifies you. You shall keep my
Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who
profanes it shall surely be put to death; . . . Therefore
the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to
observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a
perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the
children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day
He rested and was refreshed.” And when He had made
an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave
Moses the Two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of
stone, written with the finger of God. Ex. 31:12-18
Notice how plain this is. The Sabbath was between
God and Israel and was placed on the table of the covenant
with that relationship in mind. Deuteronomy 5:2-3 makes
the same point.
The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers,
but with us who are here today, all of us who are alive.
The text goes on to reiterate the Ten Commandments
including the fourth, but this time the reason for keeping the
Sabbath is because God delivered them from the Egyptians.
The Deuteronomy account is a reference to Israel only, and
one that was not established before the Exodus, but was a