Rest reigns as one of the preeminent doctrines of Scripture.  Sadly, most people never learn this foundational law of creation.  Rather than seek to understand God’s revelation of the seventh day and the sabbath rest, men prefer to call those who obey God’s Law “legalistic.”  Some even accuse Moses of legalism, especially with regard to the following passage:

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses. (Numbers 15:32-36 KJV)

Amazing, isn’t it, that God would condemn a man to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath day?  Surely he was about to do some evil deed with those sticks, like light a fire to keep warm or to cook his food.   No, the point was not that he would do some evil deed.  He had disobeyed the Law which said,

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:9-11 KJV)

God commanded that no one in Israel, not even the slaves or the animals, work on the seventh day.  God considered this man’s act of collecting sticks to be work.   Moses and the people knew that this act was work.  They did not know the penalty for disobeying the statute.  So, Moses asked God and God prounounced the verdict, death!  But, why death?  Was God looking for extraordinary obedience from man on this particular day?

No, Jesus taught that God implemented the sabbath for man’s sake, not man for the sabbath’s or God’s sake.  The law of the sabbath teaches us the principle of entering into God’s rest.  To enter his rest means that we do not have to outwit every enemy, hoard food, or connive to earn enough money for all our lusts.  It simply means that we learn to trust God.  We don’t use the doctrine as an excuse to quit working and providing for our families.  We don’t use it as a talisman to protect us from stupid acts like jumping off of high cliffs into rock filled water.

The reason that breaking this law brought the death penalty under the Old Covenant is because God means the doctrine to teach us to “lose our soul (life)” in this age so that we will gain it in the next.   Jesus says that if we gain our soul (life) in this age, then we will lose our soul.  He means that we will not attain to the first resurrection of the dead, will not be accounted overcomers, and thus will  not rule in the coming Kingdom of God on earth.  This is that which Jesus taught on the sermon on the mount when he exhorted his hearers to stop worrying about all their needs.  “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.”  Stop worrying about tomorrow and enter into God’s rest today while you still can.