SABBATH THOUGHT 2026-01-03—MEANING OF THE SABBATH

May God bless you on His Sabbath day!

As the sun sets on a Friday evening, true Believers begin observance of God’s weekly Sabbath. The seventh day of every week is set aside and ordained by the Creator not simply as an observance but as a day to remember[1]. The weekly Sabbath is meant to remind people of some very, very important things.

Over the course of six days, God finished His work on the heavens and earth and all life. On the seventh day, He ceased from that work and rested; therefore, He called the seventh day the Sabbath.

GENESIS 2:1-2 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work [of the heavens and earth] which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

When God revealed the seventh-day Sabbath to the ancient Israelites, He first commanded that they cease from all labor:

EXODUS 20:8-10 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

God commanded them to cease from work on the seventh day, using the example of when He rested after working six days:

EXODUS 20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. …

The seventh-day Sabbath rest came after God finished His work; therefore, God commands all to cease from their labor as well. Not just the ancient Israelites, but all mankind and even all animals. The seventh-day Sabbath was intended to be a rest for the entirety of the heavens and earth. While not specifically mentioned in the Bible, it is likely even the heavenly angels keep the seventh-day Sabbath. Ceasing from work and resting is so important that God also highlighted the seventh-day Sabbath by making it holy:

EXODUS 20:11b … the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

But notice WHEN God hallowed the seventh-day Sabbath:

GENESIS 2:2-3 And on the seventh day God ended His work [of the heavens and earth] which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The seventh-day Sabbath was not only established at creation, the day after creating Adam and Eve, He sanctified and hallowed that day. It is meant to be kept by everyone (even animals), not just Israel.

Without getting into the meaning behind numbers, God assigned the first six days to work and the seventh day to rest. This is a very specific and entirely unique pattern established by God; so much so, that He calls it a SIGN:

EXODUS 31:13, 15-17 “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. … 15 ‘Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16 ‘Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. 17 ‘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.’

The pattern of working six days and then resting on the seventh-day is a unique pattern that is called a week. God commands all to observe the seventh-day Sabbath rest and made it a sign between Him and His people. Why is it a sign? There are three primary reasons. The first is the seventh-day Sabbath was created BY the One True God and no other:

EXODUS 20:10a but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. …

Observing the seventh-day Sabbath acknowledges that it was made by the One True God. The seventh-day Sabbath reveals and names the God of the Sabbath—YHVH (Yehovah, Yahweh). The second reason the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign that observers recognize Him alone as Creator:

EXODUS 20:11 For in six days the LORD [YHVH = Yehovah, Yahweh] made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

The third reason the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign is because those who observe it are sanctified by the One True God[2]:

EXODUS 31:13 “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.

Those who observe the seventh-day Sabbath are set apart from all others, including those who might likewise believe that God is the only Creator. Sunday-keepers may declare that God is Creator but they are not separated unto Him like those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath, which is EVIDENCE of their convictions.

Observing the seventh-day Sabbath in the unique seven-day weekly pattern of working six days and resting one acknowledges that the One True God created the seventh-day Sabbath, declares Him as the only Creator of the heavens and earth and all life, and sanctifies unto God those who believe these things. Altogether, observing the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign of people who KNOW that the One True God is the Most High above all other gods.

God created the seventh-day Sabbath but why did He do it? Interestingly, He made it for mankind:

MARK 2:27 And He [Jesus Christ] said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Why was the seventh-day Sabbath made for man? While it was the culmination or endpoint of His physical creation, it is not the only rest. The seventh-day Sabbath points to a ‘rest’ that is yet to come:

HEBREWS 4:1, 9-10 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His [God’s] rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. … 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

The seventh-day Sabbath was made for mankind to identify and know the One True God as the only Creator. While He alone made the heavens and earth and all life, He is also working to bring about a new creation—an eternal and spiritual heavens and earth and all life. The seventh-day is a shadow of the spiritual Sabbath rest yet to come! God is working to create a New Heavens and New Earth and New Children. Once that work is finished, all will enter into a new and final rest!

Those who believe in evolution deny the existence of a spirit realm because physical life cannot ‘evolve’ into spirit life. Only through a non-physical transformation; i.e., a spiritual metamorphosis[3], can physical life become spirit. If macro-evolution were possible, physical cells still could never become spirit on their own. Observing the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign of those who know that the One True God is SPIRIT[4] and that HE made the heavens and earth and all life and that HE is the one who sanctifies people unto a new spiritual realm beyond the physical.

In fact, that is why God called it the Sabbath—the word means a “temporary rest.” God created a repeating pattern of working six days, resting one, and then going back to work. The seventh-day Sabbath rest is not an endpoint, it is a temporary intermission. Seven days cannot be the number of completion because the last day of Feast of Tabernacles is the EIGHTH day. That is why “a promise remains of entering His [God’s] rest”—this physical creation is a shadow of things yet to come.

The seventh-day Sabbath is absolutely and uniquely linked to the One True God and His plan of salvation. However, nations throughout millennia have had calendars with other (sub-lunar) cycles of time. The more notable ones include the ancient Egyptians who used a period of ten days called a decan, Mayans and Aztecs with their 13- and 20-day cycles, ancient Romans who had an eight-day period, and Javanese who had a short five-day cycle.[5] Of these, perhaps the most widespread was the Egyptian decan. In fact, it is still in use today—by witches and cartomancers (fortunetellers usually involving Tarot cards). The Sabbath of the seven-day week points to the Most High God whereas the decan is dedicated to pagan Egyptian gods[6]:

[The decan] divides the 30º of each zodiac sign in set of 3, with a different planetary rulership for each set. Decans are also referred to Faces … these are the 36 Faces.

The Egyptian term for “decan” has been translated to mean “the living,” as the decans rose (i.e. were born), lived, and then set (i.e. died) and was based on the Earth’s diurnal motion (sunrise to sunset to midnight to sunrise) and the stars that rose over the horizon each hour (also known as the Helical Rise). …

Decans have a have been described visually in sophisticated images and symbolism primarily connected to gods, goddesses, daimons or spirits.

Satan and the demons mimic the ways of God as a means to distract and deceive people from God or, worst of all, to deny Him. For example, the pagan holidays begin and end at sundown the same way God defines a day. Christmas Eve and All Hallows Eve (Night of the Dead) are the start of Christmas and Halloween, respectively. Another example is the Quran, which is the book of Islam (a religion that worships the moon god, aka, Satan[7]). It is an obvious counterfeit to the Bible that is the Word of God. It should be no surprise, then, that the decan is dedicated to pagan gods to distract from the seven-day week with the Sabbath that points to the One True God who is the only Creator of the heavens and earth and all life.

The seventh-day Sabbath only and always points to YHVH and no other. Because the seventh-day is holy, no other gods can claim or use it for themselves. The Egyptians had a 10-day cycle that acknowledged their many gods whereas Islam and Allah claim the sixth-day, Friday. No other god uses the seventh-day.

The seventh-day Sabbath is unique to God and is a sign between Him and His people, including many Christians in addition to the Jews. Observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is a sign between God and His people who acknowledge, recognize, and KNOW that He alone is the Most High God.

May God’s grace and peace be upon you!

Steven Greene

https://sabbathreflections.org

sabbathreflections@gmail.com