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1. The
Meaning of the Term Sabbath
Sabbath is a Hebrew or Jewish word which means the cessation of labor, or to
rest and be idle. Therefore, the Sabbath or holy day derives its name and comes
from rest and idleness and simply means a day of rest during which all creatures
are to rest. Note that God created and worked for six days, but rested on the
seventh. In like manner, we are to work for six days and rest and be idle on the
seventh [Gen 1-2:2]. It follows from this that we are not to celebrate created
spirits such as angels and saints. For the feast day is a day of rest of God our
glory. The Lord alone, and no angel or saint, is our Lord and God.
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2. Why
God Commanded the Sabbath
God
laid out before us all commandments and prohibitions to make us aware of our
inner image and likeness, and to understand how God created us in his image to
become as God is, i.e., holy, tranquil, good, just, wise, strong, truthful,
kind, merciful, etc. All commandments of God demand of us to be godlike; in
fact, they have been given us so that we might be conformed to God. As it is
written, "You are to become and be holy, for I, your God and Lord, am holy,"
says God, "keep my commandments and do them," [Lev 20:26]. From this we are to
learn that God has given us his commandments and counsels that we might become
holy and conformed to God, which is to be like God and as he is. Thus the
Sabbath has been instituted by God that we might desire to become holy as God is
holy and rest like him, letting go of our works as [23] he did and yet perform
God's work in a passive manner for eternity, so that God may do our work [wircklichkeyt]
without ceasing.
This
is a spiritual reason for the Sabbath which was commanded to honor God and to
benefit us. For God is honored when his children become like him who is our
Father. We should regard this foundation alone and not our own benefit. Just as
God is concerned about our benefit and holiness, so we, too, are to be concerned
about and seek God's glory, honor, and the benefit of the neighbor, not of
ourselves.
When
we have eyes only for our benefit, we defile ourselves and make ourselves
unholy, neglecting the reason for the Sabbath. Isaiah understood and declared
all this when he said [Isa l:13f.], "I cannot suffer or tolerate your Sabbaths
and holy days. Your deeds are impure and wicked. Remove from before your eyes
your evil thoughts and cease to do evil." According to this, the finding of our
soul must cease and our eyes must directly behold and focus on God and not on
what is ours.
When
the soul does not become aware of its clarity and inwardness and does not
surrender darkness, impurity, wickedness, and unholiness, it is far from and
alienated from the reason for the instituted Sabbath. God then hates its
Sabbaths and rejects its holy days [Amos 6:4f.]. For in all commandments, the
reason and spirit must be sought and nothing else; that means God alone, who
commands and whose will is to be sought and known in the commandment, is to be
taken seriously. Whoever loves something else fails the commandment and
deceives the self.
Above-mentioned reason is eternal and unchanging. No person must change it, and
no creature can alter the honor of God and slander God without harm. This
reason is spiritual, invisible, and eternal. Thus understood, no person is lord
of the Sabbath, but a servant of God or a servant of this Sabbath. Therefore, we
may not, without notable diminishment, stray even by a hair's breadth from the
reason for the Sabbath.
Faith
and the love of God focus on this reason. And just as little as we are able to
shorten faith or ignore God's love without bringing about our perdition, so
little can we ignore God's Sabbath without condemnation. [24]
A Second Reason for the
Institution of the Sabbath
There
is yet another reason why God has commanded the Sabbath, namely, love of the
neighbor which the masters of the house are to have for their servants and
laborers. It flows from the love of God which is to be understood as follows:
God loves his people and is gracious and benevolent toward them. He knows full
well what benefits and helps his own and serves to strengthen them and make them
whole. He also knows what robs their strength and weakens them and that no work
can last very long and endure without rest. Therefore, God ordered the seventh
day to be celebrated for the well-being of humankind. Employers of laborers and
owners of beasts of burden are to leave the seventh day free for their rest and
leisure, that they may renew their strength and be refreshed.
This
is a physical reason for the Sabbath over which human beings are masters, as
much as in them lies, as I shall note subsequently. And this reason must conform
to the spirit, i.e., it is to be turned into spiritual rest and must be subject
to and serve the first reason, [mar: Note this, for I know it to be true] We
must also remember that too much work, done too fast, tires the mind and causes
it to be slow and slothful and rather reluctant to stretch and to desire the
work of God, so as to suffer and taste it while at rest. I know, of course, that
rest and leisure are just as useless as having to put up with unrest and work,
when we fail to comprehend what purpose putting up with unrest and work may
have.
In
this reason for the Sabbath, changes occur in that a person may effect some
change in line with God's counsel, as we shall show. But that which external
things signify must remain unchanged. External forms are merely signs between
God and humankind. They indicate that God alone, not our works, sanctifies
humankind. And whatever is thus indicated through externals is true for angels
and human beings alike.
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3. For
Whom the Sabbath Has Been Commanded
The
Sabbath has been imposed upon the whole people of God, which means all the
citizens of the divine city, both human and angelic [25] spirits alike. Since it
is true, as Paul says, that we are able to judge the angels through divine
words, proclaimed through Moses, the prophets, Christ, and the apostles,
therefore the angels must bend their knees before God's word and confess that
they, like we, are subject to the divine word. They have to concede further that
it has been said to them no less than to us human beings, "You shall celebrate
Sabbath, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not desire another's goods.
You shall not kill"1—all of which the fall of Satan points to. I
stress therefore that the intended meaning and spirit of the Sabbath must be
observed by angels and human beings alike, as I shall show, despite the fact
that angels are above the law and the commandments.
Therefore, the commandment "You shall celebrate Sabbath" applies to angels and
human beings. You may see this from the fact that angels are freer from external
work and unrest than we are and that God sanctifies and blesses the Sabbath when
he ceases his work of the first Creation. In short, just as God will judge all
creatures through one word and one law, so all commandments of the short law2
apply to all members of the people of God. All who desire to be saved have been
given and commanded the Sabbath. To them the word of Paul also applies, when he
says [Gal 2:16f.], "You are no longer under the law, but under grace," for the
law soon turns into an external testimony and does not remain a commandment.
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4. How
the Sabbath Is to Be Celebrated
What
we must do or leave undone on the Sabbath and how we must act toward God and our
brothers can be said firmly, for Scripture is clear. But it is more difficult to
experience and test than it is to understand, because it exceeds any natural
powers. In our relationship with God we must have rest and peace and pray and
wait for all holiness from God. That the Sabbath is a day of rest is given by
his word and voice, as was stated above. Moses likewise calls it "a Sabbath of
rest to the Lord" [Ex 35:2; Deut 5:12; 16:8; 23]. This rest consists of knowing
that one cannot attain to any holiness save through Christ and that one ought to
be holy as God is holy—[26] which we are incapable of. Therefore, we are without
peace, restless and full of labor and toil and cannot have peace, rest, or
leisure until we yield to God irrevocably. When we know truly that God
sanctifies through Christ alone, without any work or merit, and when we know
and understand that God sanctifies without cost, we are at peace with God and
enter into the rest of God.
Accordingly, the form of the Sabbath and everything about how we ought to "sabbatize"
God and be at leisure is contained in the reason for the Sabbath. It indicates
that creaturely spirits rest in God aright and laudably when they understand and
know, through a highly valued, intense, and strong grace and knowledge, that
God sanctified them through Christ. Those who know this with a creative wisdom
know the manner, customs, and traditions of the Sabbath which has been
commanded. They do what ought to be done, are still, and wait for how and when
God deigns to sanctify them in conformity to himself, for all that is external
is merely a figure and sign of the internal holiness, as Ezekiel prophesies
[Ezek 20].
It
should also be noted that the Sabbath prepares us for the first commandment as
spiritual circumcision prepares us for all works.
Leisure has or is rest and removes the rough skin and the blockage from the
heart when we understand that. Hence, leisure is the knife of circumcision.
The
most direct way of celebrating the Sabbath is to understand in a loving manner
the abundant glory of Christ, the firstborn of all creatures, [Col 1:15]. Anyone
who enters through another door, or even more directly, in observing the
Sabbath, is a thief and murderer. Christ is the perfection of the Sabbath.
Angels and souls must learn from him how to celebrate and they must sabbatize
through and after him.
[mar:
Gelassenheyt] To celebrate the Sabbath of God blamelessly we must not have our
own will, but must let go of our will, and accept and do God's will. That's the
right and proper way to celebrate and to sabbatize, as has often been stated. If
we desire to celebrate a delightful and God-pleasing Sabbath day [27], we must
abandon our delight, will, desires, ways, and our own soul and mind and
everything that delights us. Instead, we must take on the delight, will, desire,
ways, and thoughts of God. Only then do we celebrate well. In other words, we
must unite ourselves with Christ who is the perfection of the Sabbath, as God
says through Isaiah [Isa 58:13], "If you turn your foot from the Sabbath on
which you pursue your own desires or will on the holy day, and if you call or
accept a happy Sabbath on which to praise a gracious God by not doing your will
or desire and by not finding your way or speaking your word, you will then
delight in God and be carried or led through to every height on earth."
Similarly, if you keep my Sabbaths and choose what I will, you celebrate aright;
as if God were to say that if you choose what pleases me and not you, you keep
my Sabbaths. Thus, the Sabbath must break self-will.
The
holy day means an illumined and bright spirit which is enlightened by the light
that illumines all people Jn 1:9; Isa 58:8]. Such a spirit is lifted above all
the highest hills of the earth and does not delight in created things. Its
delight is solely in God and goes where the reflection of the lofty sun leads
it, for conversion enters in God through light, as Christ says, "Where I am,
there my disciple is also" Jn 12:45ff]. The delight and light are not at all
absorbed by what delights the self. Rather, it is a firm and earnest desire in
God who abhors anything that is not God or that leads away from God.
This
is what had to be said about how and why the Sabbath day was commanded, and of
the appropriate and most diverse [uberbuntigen] meaning of the Sabbath
which celebrates God.
...For
it is [28] written, "This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice in
it" [Ps 118:24]. God must always be praised in spirit only Jn 3:6] .
I
must now consider briefly how the Sabbath is to be celebrated in relation to the
neighbor and our brothers, whom we must grant their leisure. Hence, on every
Sabbath day we must allow our menservants and maidservants, horses, oxen,
donkeys, and all other beasts of labor who worked through the week to be idle
and to celebrate. This is the other reason for the Sabbath, namely, for your
laborers and beasts of labor to refresh themselves and to cool the heat of their
labor and to refresh their bones and restore their strength. This has been
clearly stated by Moses. Six days you shall work and on the seventh day you
shall cease to work, so that your ox and donkey might rest and the son of your
maidservant and the foreigner might relax [Ex 23:12].
What
God says for the benefit of oxen and donkeys, Moses applies to all other
animals who help us complete our work, be they buffaloes, elephants, etc. Moses
says that God demanded that all working animals are not to work on the Sabbath.
Why? The reason is that they might rest. When Moses speaks of the son of a
maidservant, he means all workers. Your children, too, should be idle and
refrain from all work on the Sabbath, says God. Why? To be refreshed and to
relax by resting [Deut 5:12].
Male
and female cooks must have this freedom, too. On the seventh day, they are not
obligated to kindle your fire. The same is true for stokers and others. For God
says, "You shall not kindle a fire on the Sabbath," which has been said for the
benefit of laborers [Ex 35:3].
In
short, God bound all householders to let their workers go idle and free on the
Sabbath. Even more are poor people to be freed from all bonded labor. And their
masters must not prod them to do anything or serve on the Sabbath day, be it
with horse and Buggy, on foot, or whatever. To force their subjects to work or
serve is to act against the will of God and to violate and tyrannize their
neighbor, thus giving sufficient cause to their subjects to oppose their
authority. [29]
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5. The
Desecration of the Sabbath
This
leads us to note the desecration of the Sabbath which is rather common among
today's Christians, seeing that they carry out on the feast day all the things
they would avoid at other times. Neither cattle nor manservants nor maids are
safe from them—in that I am as guilty as they.
On
feast days they use their horses which all week long pulled plows or vehicles.
Then on the seventh day, the Sabbath, they ride cross-country to visit their
friends, seek out merry company, or they collect their debts and do things which
are openly against God who gave us work horses to let them work for six days for
our food. On the seventh day, however, we must let them rest because the One who
gave them to us, granted them leisure, that they might regain their strength and
be able to do the work that is to come. Disregard of this leads to contempt, not
only for the will of God who desires that we give the working animals a chance
to celebrate, but also for the gift of God, which we ought to accept and use
with thanksgiving.
Yet,
we are neglectful and stubborn to do what God demands. From this comes the
horrible vice of disrespect for God when people neither seek nor respect God.
God often punishes this vice on the cattle through whom we sin, when our
animals are stricken and allowed to die or perish. Yet, we refuse to acknowledge
responsibility or sin and we blame warlocks and witches instead. But our
resentment toward God we do not take to heart, deeming our inattention a small
sin. Therefore, God, too, considers us as nothing, which is why things happen,
as we can see.
Similarly, it is an abuse when we force our servants or children to work on a
feast day by tearing them away from their rest. I speak here of the rest of God
and not of play, drinking, high living, and swearing. Those who rest in this
manner celebrate with backgammon, dice, cards, chessboards, drinking bouts, high
living, and bad company; they work against God and [30] the neighbor. Such
rabble should be prevented from having their devilish rest, and be enticed or
forced to do something better. It is better for them to till the field than to
throw dice, curse, blaspheme, get drunk, fornicate, gossip, ridicule, fight,
steal, and murder. Such devilish feast days I do not commend—they provide no
rest. This is readily apparent in drunken servants who cannot lift head or limb
the day after, because of the heavy work they did on the feast day, tapping beer
kegs or in wine cellars.
But
when servants or maids wish to relax or refresh their weary limbs or rest in
God, the head of the house owes it to God to let them rest. How Christians
observe this, however, I need not tell you. It is obvious that the masters of
the house, because of their gluttony, force their male and female cooks to
greater work and less rest on a feast day than on a work day.
And
they aggravate their children and servants ten times more than on work days,
forgetting their obligation to God which they accepted in their baptism. They
contravene God's commandment and voice and show themselves at odds with their
faith, for the leisure which a householder must grant his employees on the
Sabbath is a work of faith for all who understand God's mercy and hold vividly
in mind what goodness God has shown. We should ever be mindful of God's gracious
deeds and that God has freed our forebears from the laborious and unbearable
service which oppressed them in Egypt and led them to rest and leisure [Ex
13:6]. Therefore, we in turn should respond with works of mercy and willingly
allow our employees to rest and be idle on the seventh day. For this reason God
says, "You shall not work on the seventh day, etc., so that your servants and
laborers might rest" [Ex 20:10f.]. You must recall how you served in Egypt and
how God brought you out of the furnace of servitude and that therefore God
commanded you to keep the Sabbath [Deut 5:12-15].
[mar:
What faith can do] Faith is a strong wisdom which truly tastes God's goodness
and knows how God has liberated from servitude in Egypt; it empties itself
toward the neighbor [31] who serves us, and makes us want to afford him rest and
freedom also, because we know that this pleases God.
Therefore, those who force their servants and employees to work on the Sabbath
are not believers at all. For this reason the spirit of God says, "I desire
mercy and not sacrifice" [Hos 6:6]. Speaking of external works and practices,
it is better for you to allow your employees to rest than for you alone to
refrain firmly from works of necessity. This must be stressed and means that you
must be merciful just as God was merciful toward you. Therefore, it is against
God, their own faith and Christian obligation, and a terrible abuse, indeed,
when the masters of the household coerce their servants.
It is
especially abusive and contrary to the nature of the Sabbath when debtors are
made to pay their debts on feast days, [mar: Note this, you rich usurers] For a
debtor becomes even more agitated (when he is reprimanded on the Sabbath because
of his debt and is unable to repay) than if he is warned on a weekday when he
works.
Those
who would gladly pay up but cannot, are most aware of how this saddens and
wearies them. How can I rest in God when I cause my brother unrest and upset him
with my restless work? If we would rest in God we must forgive our debtors, not
only their transgressions, but also their monetary debts, which they are unable
to repay, as the gospel story indicates which tells of the servant who
oppressed a fellow servant because of a debt [Mt 18:24-34]. The reason is that
we must be of one mind with God who wants us to forgive. Thus we should wish to
be sanctified by God on the Sabbath also and to forgive sins, just as we want
our sin to be forgiven by God and to be sanctified [Mt 5:20]. That is what we
call keeping the Sabbath holy externally, when we are united with God inwardly
and desire to receive forgiveness of sin and holiness from God…
It is
a terrible abuse among Christians to demand repayment of monetary debts on the
Sabbath [Isa 1:13; 56:2], but it is just as offensive to hold hearings on legal
matters which involve penalties or payments. The exception might be hearings
that lead to peace or avert unrest and involve no greed. For the commandment of
brotherly love and unity is greater and higher than the external Sabbath.
Therefore, we need not heed the Sabbath when peace can be achieved and nothing
but peace is sought.
To
sum up, I would like to see ungracious householders and raging or unbelieving
Christians to be persuaded as they are told, "Look, you want to rob me of my
rest and harass me today on the Sabbath. But for God's sake I am not obligated
to serve you today." In a similar way a debtor might speak out against the
lender, "Look today I should rest in God, but you are out to torment me,
contrary to the rest and freedom granted by God. Therefore, I refuse to answer
you today."
But
servants should not turn this freedom into carnal disobedience, as they are
wont to do. When it is said, "You are free on the seventh day and not obligated
to work," they forget that they ought to work six days. They then seek to have a
good Monday as well and in addition work unfaithfully on the other days, too,
while still wanting to enjoy the freedom of the Sabbath. This is just as much
against God as when they are forced by their masters to work on the seventh day.
For
six days servants are to work faithfully—not for the sake of appearance, but
wholeheartedly [Col 3:22]. None of the six days is free or given to leisure.
Lazy servants should accept this as much as that on the seventh day the servant
must rest or be idle. Both householders and servants must heed God's
commandments and honor them to the best of their ability. Then everything will
be well and no one will harm the other. [33]
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