Question:
Has the Savior changed or not the 4th commandment? (I do not mean another day)
So that all readers may understand I will specify that you are referring to the fourth commandment of the Decalogue (The 10 Commandments), which is the following:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in ityou shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)(NASB)
The Lord Jesus did not change but fulfilled this command. The Scripture says that the Sabbath, which was the day of rest, was a shadow of the true rest, which we find only in Jesus Christ. In the Epistle to the Colossians it is written:
Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day– things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)(NASB)
From its settlement to the coming and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Sabbath, which overshadowed the rest that can be provided only by Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, when we enter the New Covenant with Him. When He was on earth, Lord Jesus was accused that He was violating the Fourth Commandment. Here’s a case:
At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.” But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)(NASB)
Lord of the Sabbath means Lord of the rest. In fact this thing becomes clearer when you look at the things Jesus had told his disciples just before the case when they went in the field to eat crops. Here’s what He said to those who heard Him:
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. (Matthew 11:28-29)(NASB)
Lord Jesus fulfilled the fourth commandment bringing rest for the souls of anyone who seeks the true rest. If you have not entered the New Covenant with the Lord Jesus, you do not have this true rest, whether you respect Saturday or Sunday, or any other day of the week. Hurry to get the true rest that is only at Jesus Christ.
Translated by Felicia Rotaru