Tag Archives: Sabbath

The Resurrection Sabbath

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There has been much confusion over which day of the week Jesus was crucified and what day was the resurrection. Jesus said he would be in the grave three days and three nights, Matthew 12:40. The popular tradition is that Jesus was crucified on Friday and arose on Sunday. However, by our calendars, this does not figure as three days and three nights.

The Hebrew Calendar

We must understand that they were not going by our calendar, but rather the Biblical Hebrew calendar as given to Moses. We know that the Passover was ordained of God to begin on the fourteenth day of the first month of the year. Their months were to be reckoned by the appearance of the new moon, not by a calendar page. Just as our months do not always begin on the same day of the week, so theirs did not. Just as our Christmas day does not always fall on Sunday, so their Passover did not always fall on a regular seventh-day Sabbath. So the fourteenth day of the month was not always on the Sabbath, according to the regular consecutive counting of seven-day weeks. However, it would fall on the Sabbath occasionally.

Passover

Fourteen days after the appearance of the new moon, they were to slay the Passover lamb, Leviticus 23:4-8, regardless of what day of the week it was. They were to slay it in the evening, but were to feast on it in the night, verse 8. In their system of time-telling, the day began at evening, when a certain number of stars had appeared. So, although they slew the lamb in the evening of the fourteenth, the night that followed would have been the fifteenth.

This began the seven days of unleavened bread, verses 15-19. This fifteenth day was to be a “holy convocation” and counting from that day to the seventh day following was to be another “holy convocation.” It was to be a day of rest, “no manner of work shall be done.” The word Sabbath means “rest, repose, cease from labor.” Therefore, a day when they were commanded to cease from labor, to rest, could be called a Sabbath. So the fifteenth day could also be a Sabbath, and, counting seven days from that was to be another Sabbath. On every year that the fifteenth day fell on the Sabbath, there would have been a double Sabbath.

We find this more clearly spelled out in Leviticus 23 and Numbers chapters 28 and 29. In Leviticus 23, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are described clearly. The fifteenth day of the first month was to be the feast of Unleavened Bread, a day of rest, a holy convocation, and of offerings. From this day they were to count seven Sabbaths, or forty-nine days, and the day following would be the fiftieth day, which was also to be a “holy convocation” where no work was to be done, therefore it, too, was to be a Sabbath. Here we can clearly see that there would again be a double Sabbath, the forty-ninth day and the fiftieth day.

The Double Sabbath: Resurrection Day

On the Passover when Jesus was crucified, there would have been a double Sabbath. Therefore, He was crucified on the day of the slaying of the lamb, the fourteenth.  Then He was in the grave three days and three nights and arose on the third day, which was the “second Sabbath after the first.” We find mention of this same phenomenon in Luke 6:1 where it mentions the “second Sabbath after the first.” In their calendar-reckoning, there were many double Sabbaths.

The Sabbaths were counted consecutively as the seventh day. However, when there was a double Sabbath, the counting for that next week began with the eighth day, that is, the day after the first Sabbath. Therefore, the whole system of Sabbaths from the beginning foreshadowed the resurrection of Christ which began on the “first day of the week,” and was called “The Lord’s Day.” This signifies the rest which Christians enjoy in the Lord: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God,” Hebrews 4:9.

            Revelation 14:13: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.”

 

The Number Seven in the Bible

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Revelation 1:4: “John to the seven churches which are in Asia… from the seven Spirits which are before his throne.”

The most important aspect of the number seven in the Bible is its relationship to the oath of the Covenant. In English the two words seven and swear, “take an oath”, look nothing alike; however, in Biblical Hebrew they can hardly be distinguished for they consist of the same consonants. [1]  In the Hebrew, to swear could be translated “to seven oneself,” (Strong’s #7650).

The word for week is also from the same root as seven, merely distinguished by inner vowel differences. The noun form of this word is used of Jehovah’s oath of the Covenant promises in Deuteronomy 7:8:

“But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

And Psalm 105:8-9:

“He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.  Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac.”

One sign of this oath, or Covenant between Mankind and God, is to be the Sabbath, a word also closely related to seven, meaning the cessation of labor on the seventh day.

“And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you.’” Exodus 31:12-13 RSV.

The Sabbaths were a sign of the oath. These Sabbaths, or sevens, were not only of days of the week, but also a system of weeks and years. The seven-week period was to be climaxed with a Pentecost Sabbath and the seven-year period was to be climaxed by a sabbatical year, and the seven-sabbatical-year period was to be climaxed by a jubilee year. These are the Sabbaths that God ordained for a sign of His Covenant, his oath.

The Value Pi

The number seven also functions mathematically with the number three to form the value of pi (i.e. 3 1/7), which is necessary to reconcile the line with the circle.  Pi times the radius squared gives the area of a circle; pi times diameter gives the circumference of a circle.  Seven times 3 1/7, or 3 times 7 1/3, give the number 22, which was the number of the Hebrew alphabet letters. Since the alphabet was also used as numerals, it was possible to designate any number by use of some combination of the 22 letters. Therefore, some combination of sevens and threes could describe any number as well as reconcile the rectangular with the circular. It is in this combination that we see the truth of the idea so often expressed that “seven is the number of completion, or fullness.”

In the idea of the reconciliation of the circle and the line, we see how the system was used for time-telling. The passing overhead of the time-telling sun, moon and stars described an apparent circular pattern; the earth represented the linear distance. (This was, of course, the observed, or apparent pattern, not the concept of the space age.) By use of the value pi, the priestly function of time-telling could be more exact.

How This Value Was Important in Calculating Time By The Heavens

In the Book of Revelation, the copious use of the number seven is the sign, the reminder, of the Covenant, the oath.  It would be correct, therefore, for an expanded translation to add to “the seven churches” the phrase “the seven-fold Church in the Covenant,” and to the phrase, “the seven spirits,” the phrase “the seven-fold Spirit of Covenant.”  That is how a Hebrew speaker would have understood it. The seven plagues are those promised in the Covenant to the rebellious and unbelieving, they are therefore Covenant plagues, they were sworn to.

There are spurious attempts to imitate the Covenant number; however, they turn out not to be that number, really, for the seven heads of the beast become eight or ten or so.  In contrast, God’s Covenant seven is never changing.  The number 666 also falls short of the Covenant of God.

The copious use of the number seven in the Book of Revelation is a prominent reminder that the events depicted there are those promised by oath in the Covenant of God. As we shall see, the Seven Stars of the constellation Ash are symbolic of the Covenant Church.

[1]The words are only distinguished by the context. In the original Hebrew, the text had no vowels, so words consisting of the same radicals were interpreted by tradition. In about the tenth century AD the Masoretes added vowels to the Hebrew text.
This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book, Revelation In Context, available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and also at www.Amazon.com and www.xulonpress.com.  Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net.