1 – “You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.” (Exodus 31:14, ESV)
RAF: This seems strange doesn’t it? first, because REST has to be commanded. And secondly, that failure to use this rest should be punished by death. But Scripture elsewhere affirms the necessity of both. First, that in refusing to rest, man makes himself to be his own god. He is above God, not recognizing that all came from Him and that He ultimately is to be relied upon and seen as the provider of all things. To fail to rest is to refuse to acknowledge God as God, and that He has made all things, and that we are to look to Him, trust Him and not imagine everything in life depends upon us and our own efforts. Nor are we to be so greedy, that we are not satisfied with what can be obtained in the normal appointed course of work. But secondly, this weekly rest is shown to be a type or shadow of the “rest” to come, which is the heaven obtained not by works, but by resting in the finished work of Christ. And this is what cuts a man off from the household of faith – not to rest in the finished work of Christ. To try and obtain justification before God by effort, rather than by faith alone. It speaks to the very heart of the Gospel.
