Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
sign of the rest provided by that deliverance event.
Nehemiah confirms this interpretation once again:
You came down also on Mount Sinai, and spoke with
them from heaven, and gave them just ordinances and
true laws, good statutes and commandments. You made
known to them Your holy Sabbath, and commanded
them precepts, statutes and laws, by the hand of Moses
Your servant. Neh. 9:13-14
Ezekiel 20:10-12 conveys the same understanding:
Therefore I made them go out of the land of Egypt and
brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them My
statutes and showed them My judgments, which if a
man does, he shall live by them. Moreover I also gave
them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me,
that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies
them.
These Scriptures could not be more definitive regarding
the time of the establishment of the Sabbath. These passages
remove all ambiguity about the time and location of
the Sabbath command. Each one places the Sabbath right in
the heart of the covenant with Israel and was to be between
them and God. It was not a Creation ordinance as I had
been taught to believe. It is not binding on all people for all
time. This again agreed with what I had learned in the New
Testament. The entire message of the Bible fits together.
The Sabbath was a day established by God as a covenant
between Himself and Israel. Jesus came to fulfill the Law
and to be our Sabbath. Christians rest in the finished work
of Christ as their Sabbath rest. As children of Abraham,
Christians are counted righteous because of their faith, just
as Abraham was before the Law or circumcision. The entire
biblical picture is in agreement from beginning to end.
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