How significant is Sabbath to spiritual health?
Let's observe a few points, along with a counterpoint, from Scripture.
1) On the seventh day of creation, God rested. (Gen 2:2-3) This is not just a statement about God, but a statement about the nature of all things, and about what humanity needs.
First, when God rested, it was an indication that He had finished His work. He had designed, and built, a good universe. Things are deeply designed, and designed well. God was pleased. We can trust Him.
Second, the seventh day was set apart, made holy. It was a day of completion, and as such, was designed as a "special" day.
Set apart for who? Special for who? For God's image-bearing creations. For us. As Jesus says much later, "Sabbath was made for humanity." Before sin entered the world, people needed Sabbath! It is a gift designed by our Creator for creatures without sin. Sabbath is not just necessary because of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is necessary because of the connectedness God desires to have with us, a connectedness which is integral to our design.
2) We spent much time on the fact that Sabbath is the first command commanded, the first institution instituted, after the liberation of Israel from Egypt. This in itself is extraordinary.
But now add that a few chapters later, in Exodus 20, when the Lord delivers the ten commandments to Moses, He spends a long time on commandment five: Keep the Sabbath Day Holy. In fact, there's almost as many words in that commandment as in the other nine combined!
This is because, first, this commandment is essential to the other commandments happening. Second, this commandment is the most strange and difficult for humans to abide by: we needed a lot of explanation and encouragement in it.
3) Fast forward quite a bit, and we meet Jesus. Listen to how Jesus explains Himself in Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened..." Doesn't that sound like the condition of Israel under Egypt? The condition of all--slaves or citizens--under empires? What will Jesus offer them (and us)? "...and I will give you rest." Jesus offers Sabbath. The same thing the Lord offered Israel after Egypt, the Lord offers to Israel again, in Jesus.
4) In the middle of the sermon to the Hebrew Christians, the author of Hebrews says, "So there remains a Sabbath-Rest for the people of God." (Heb 4:9) And he admonishes his congregation to "enter" it by putting more and more of their faith in Jesus.
Counter-Point: the admonition of the author of Hebrews to "enter that rest" by faith in Jesus is very different from the admonition in the Old Testament to "honor the Sabbath day." One is a practical act of physical obedience and the other is a spiritual act of obedience. More than this, the apostle Paul takes pains to relieve his congregations from the notion that they had to keep the Sabbath day (eg. Col 2:16).
How are we supposed to understand this? First, know that there is no simple Sabbath command laid on believers today; it's not just "don't work this day or that one." Second, and yet the need the Sabbath was designed to address is still a need today. Third, some kind of Sabbath observance is, therefore, no longer a mandate, but still an essential part of spiritual health.
Think about it this way: we often look at Sabbath and say either, "We need to keep Sabbath," or, "We're not 'under the Law'." Sabbath is either something we're under and need to do, or free from and can safely disregard. But Jesus says Sabbath was given to us for us; it is a gift. Now, being given a gift doesn't obligate you to use it, but it'd be strange to say, "I'm free from this!" Really? It's a gift. It's to improve your life and the life of those you love. It's for you. You can't be "free" of something you were never "under." But you can ignore something that was given to you. Sometimes that's fine to do. Sometimes it's less so.
Conclusion: What they needed then, we still need. We need space-time, regularly, in which to remember God in Christ, and to recharge our faith.
But there's more. God appeals to Israel, to "come away from them and be separate." This is part of what the Sabbath was designed to facilitate. Well, this command is heard in the Exodus stories, later in Isaiah during the exile of God's people, and is quoted by Paul in 2 Corinthians. So slaves need to "go out and be separate." And expatriates need to "go out and be separate." And citizens need to "go out and be separate." The underlying condition doesn't change, no matter whether you're in the oppressed majority, or in the privileged minority. "But our citizenship is in heaven..." (Phil 3:20)
Here's what the underlying condition is: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." (John 17:14, 16) The underlying condition, requiring some distancing practices, is that we aren't of the world. We are of Christ Jesus. We are of the Father. We are of the Spirit of God. We are not of the world. And so for us to live in the powerful world of Empires, under the power of the evil one, with our weakness and limits, we need to practice some "society distancing", some times we separate to the Lord, from the world, for our good, for God's glory.
Sabbath helps.)
