Clowney on what the law of the Sabbath pointed to

From pages 55-57 of: How Jesus Transforms The Ten Commandments

A SIGN OF REDEMPTION
God's creation rest and the Sabbath that marks it point to another rest—the rest of redemption. The Sabbath is the ordinance that expresses God's covenant with his people. It is a sign not only of creation, but of redemption. The Israelites keep the Sabbath as a memorial of their redemption from slavery in Egypt and of their being brought to rest in the land God promised them. The Sabbath looks forward to a complete and final rest in perfect communion with God. By marking out that day, God's children are reminded that they belong to God as physical creatures and depend on him for their very breath. They are also reminded that their purpose is not the labor itself so much as it is their communion with the God who made them.

A PEOPLE SET IN PLACE AND TIME
The Sabbath serves yet another purpose for Israel. It marks God's claim on the Israelites as his own people. They are a Sabbath-keeping nation. Their regular observance of their weekly holy day marked them out as belonging to God, in distinction from the pagan nations that surrounded them. This claim on them will one day be extended as God lays claim to many other people and nations. In this sense. the Sabbath is a sign not only for Israel, but also for the other nations whom God will incorporate in his rest. Isaiah tells of a day when God will say, "Blessed be my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance" (Isa. 19:25). The beginning of the accomplishment of this promise is God's faithfulness in rescuing his people and in showing his grace and his power to bring them into God's Sabbath rest.

In the land God gave them, there was to be a holy place, the temple, where God would set his name, but there was also a holy time. We are perhaps more familiar with the idea that God set apart a particular place where his people would come to worship him when they came to the Promised Land. The temple pictured God's dwelling among his people as the holy place of his presence. God dwells in Zion. We are less familiar with the idea of a holy time. The pattern of seven was applied to the holy times of God's law. The seventh day is joined with the seventh (sabbatical) year, since the land was to lie fallow on the seventh year. After seven sevens of years came the year of Jubilee, the fiftieth year, which was the climax of the sabbatical system. As we examine Christ's fulfillment of the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, we will see that he accomplished all the times of the Sabbath, the Sabbath year, and the final Jubilee freeing all those enslaved by sin.

We see how rich the Sabbath principle is. It provided the people physical rest, which was a reminder of their created nature. It provided them with a reminder that God's presence offers them true rest. It reminded them of their redemption from slavery, and it held out a hope for them of a permanent rest to come, in the Promised Land. As the writer of Hebrews points out, however, "there remains . . . a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Heb. 4:9). As history moves on, it becomes obvious that the physical land of Israel is not the final rest.

THE SIGN OF A GREATER REST
There is a deep spiritual meaning to the Sabbath. True rest can be found only in the presence of God. In the Old Testament, God leads his people from captivity through the desert to the land of rest. In that land, the people meet with him in his temple and find peace and protection in his presence. Even this rest remains a symbol of the final rest that comes with Jesus Christ. The Sabbath, then, not only looks back to God's rest after he had completed his work of creation (Gen. 2:2-3) but also looks forward to the final peace given through Jesus Christ.