The first three commandments, which are the prelude to the fourth commandment, are somewhat of a complete unit. As noted in the Overview, the first three commandments deal with our relationship with God. They speak of our fellowshipping with God, and coming to know Him. They speak of our dynamic interaction with God in spirit, and coming to know what He really is like. They are the foundation, and the preparation, for the experience revealed in the fourth commandment.
The fourth commandment is about doing the works of God.
We know, and have spoken in these writings before, that Jesus died and rose again to give us His life. He is the bread of heaven, which, when broken on the cross, became accessible for us to eat. We eat Him, receiving Him into our being. He said, “He who eats me, shall live by me” (John 6:57). Furthermore, He said, “I am … the life” (John 14:6). Jesus is the new kind of life that we are living. He has become life in us.
This type of life lived is typified in what is written in John 14. Jesus said, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from myself; but, the Father who dwells in me, He does the works” (John 14:10). In other words, Jesus’ life is one that does not react to situations from a natural, human standpoint, but from what He senses God doing in the Spirit within Him. God does the works. Jesus’ inner being was communing with God, and full of God at all times. He could sense in the Holy Spirit what God was focused on -- in prayer, in what to say, in what to do -- and He cooperated with God and did what the Holy Spirit was working within Him. He could sense God moving in power in certain directions on the inside, and, in response, that is what He thought about, prayed about, said, and did with His body.
This type of life -- called eternal life in the Scriptures -- was given to us as a free gift. Jesus has become this type of life within us. This is why, in John 14, after saying that the Father “does the works,” He went on to say, “He who believes in me, the works that I do he shall do also” (verse 12). He was not saying, “you see me working miracles. Your going to do miracles too” (though we do work miracles, as part of this life). Rather, He was saying, in essence, “the Father is doing these works in me, and speaking these words in me. Now I am going to give you my life, so that what I do in my resurrected life in the Father, you are going to do on the earth. Just as now the Father is working in spirit, and I live it out on the earth, so after my resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, you will be one with me as I am now with the Father [John 17:21-23]. Whatever I work in spirit at that time, you will do those works on the earth. You will see me working, and will do and think and pray what you see me doing, in the Holy Spirit. You’re going to live a drastically new kind of life -- one full of God, and you will learn to live your life in harmony and union with God, and work what He is doing, and that only.”
That this experience (of working what the Holy Spirit is working within and through us) is what the Sabbath rest prophetically spoke of can be seen in Hebrews 4:9-10. “There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest, has also ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” To enter the Sabbath rest is to cease from our works, and to work the works that God is doing within us. For six days (symbolically speaking -- six is the number of man, especially fleshly man) we worked the work of the flesh, but in the Sabbath rest of union with God in the Holy Spirit, we stop doing the works of the flesh and start walking in the Spirit.
This is why earlier in Hebrews chapter 4, the writer says, “We the believing ones do enter into rest” (verse 3). This rest -- this ceasing from our works, to work the works of the Spirit -- comes by faith. We believe God to do the works, and by faith we fellowship with Him, and do what we see in the Spirit -- that is, we “walk by faith, and not by sight” (not by natural senses, energy and working, but by spiritual senses, energy, and working -- II Corinthians 5:7).
Through the cross of Jesus -- through dying to the flesh to live in the Spirit -- we overcome the kind of fleshly life typified by Saul, the first king of Israel, as recorded in I Samuel 13. Saul and his army were in a tough spot, with the Philistine army putting a lot of pressure on them. Samuel had told Saul, by the prophetic commandment of the LORD, to wait for him to come, and that he would come to him on the seventh day (remember that the number seven corresponds to completion, and the Sabbath rest). But on the seventh day Samuel still had not come, and Saul saw that his people were scattering due to fear and distress, so Saul went ahead and offered up burned offerings instead of waiting for Samuel to come and do so as God had promised. But (as so often happens when we act on our own), as Saul was doing the offerings, Samuel showed up!
Saul’s unbelief caused him to react to the pressure he was feeling from his circumstances, instead of believing God and doing what God had told him. If he had believed God, he would have waited, knowing that God cannot lie and cannot fail.
So, also, we are often tempted to react with our own works, our own solutions, instead of, by faith, waiting for the moving of the Holy Spirit. But, the life of Jesus within teaches and trains us to walk the path of faith, and thus work the works of God, instead of working the works of the flesh according to what our own mind and heart come up with. So, by believing, we do enter into rest.
We can see through these discussions why the fourth commandment comes after the first three. If we could not see and hear God in the Spirit, then we could not possibly do His works. We must first see God (the first commandment), and come to have His image/Word formed in our hearts (the second commandment), and know what He is like (the third commandment), before we can know Him well enough to clearly be lead by Him to flow in His works.
It is true that when we first receive Him, we do His works at the baby level. Confessing Jesus as Lord by the Holy Spirit is an act of faith at the very beginning of our life. But, in the beginning, we do not yet know how to daily, consistently walk according to the power and working of the Holy Spirit. We do rejoice in the new life given to us, and rejoice in God, and in Jesus our Lord, but beyond that we do not know how to do much except be wrapped in His loving arms and gobble down the milk of the Word as He gives it.
But as we grow, we experience His presence more and more consistently. At first it seems kind of “hit or miss,” and we do not know what to do to “make it work.” But, as we grow, we learn how to experience His presence daily, then more frequently, until it gets to the point where we see and experience Him all the time. Similarly, the images we see of Him are first simple -- as forgiver, and as our Father. But, in time, through experience, we learn to discern more of His Word and the moving of His being as we enjoy His presence. We move beyond the milk of the Word, and learn to, by spiritual senses, make out what our spiritual senses are seeing. His image gets clearer and clearer in our heart and our understanding. Our sense of hearing His spiritual Word gets keener and keener. Through this whole process, over the course of time, we get to know God’s name, and the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, more and more fully. We come to know God’s character and His ways and His nature better and better.
As this happens, we also grow in experiencing the reality of the fourth commandment more and more fully and maturely. At first, now and then we get a prophetic Word for a brother, or an anointed Word of encouragement for a sister. As His work deepens, we may get in a situation where we used to react toward our spouse, or some other person, in a fleshly way, but the power of the Spirit of God within gives us a revelation of the self-control He has for us, and a word of wisdom of how the love of God would react in that situation. At that moment we don’t react in the flesh, but see what good, wholesome reaction to this other person that God is directing us into, and we believe God and cooperate with Him and do what He is revealing. We feel the burden of that carnal reaction lifted off of us, and instead respond in the kindness and wisdom of God. This experience is what Paul was referring to when he said, “if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Holy Spirit, you will live” (Romans 8:13). The moving of the Holy Spirit, lifting us out of our natural reactions up into His wisdom and working, is death -- death to the natural (fleshly) life -- and life, His life. This is what Paul meant when He said, “I die daily” (I Corinthians 15:31). This is a daily experience for the believer.
Paul also said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Corinthians 3:17). When the Holy Spirit reveals the glories of His reactions in a situation where we are tempted, we are set free from our fleshly reactions and fleshly feelings. These fleshly things are actually lifted from us, and we are filled instead with the Spirit of God and His love and His wisdom. What a marvelous feeling and experience this liberty is! This is “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). It is actually freedom from the chains of our old, natural life (“the flesh”), and the chains of sin and of living for ourselves instead of for the love of God. It is freedom from these things, to be able to live God’s nature.
As we grow in experiencing this liberty, we see more of His Word, more of His correcting actions within us, more of His setting us free from our feelings and thoughts to have His feelings and thoughts, so that more and more we cooperate with what the Holy Spirit is doing at various times. Each time we experience such things, we are entering more and more fully, step by step, into His rest. This is why Paul says, “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” instead of “you have already entered His rest.” At one level, we have entered that rest. But, there still REMAINS a rest to enter, until we grow to the point where EVERYTHING we do is full of the Holy Spirit, and is done in His liberty and in His wisdom and working. We are growing up to do the works of God, the works of the Spirit within us, more and more. We are more and more ceasing from doing our works, to do His.
Once we see what God was really meaning by the Sabbath rest -- resting from and ceasing from our works to operate in His being, through the death and resurrection of Jesus -- we can see why Paul had such a burden to teach and exhort people to be free from the Law. For example, if you were a Jew who saw that Jesus was our sin offering, then you would cease to bring sin offerings of literal animals to the literal temple to be sacrificed on the literal altar. You would enter into the freedom from guilt that comes through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus for us. If Paul saw a believer feeling guilty, then taking an animal to the priest for a sin offering, he would stop him and say, “What are you doing? You are already forgiven in Jesus. You make Jesus’ sacrifice out to be nothing when you make that sacrifice.”
In the same way, once we see that the Sabbath was a prophetic revelation of being free from man’s works to do God’s works, we will see that there is no need for a literal Sabbath. No wonder Paul said, “Do not let anyone STEAL YOUR REWARD [the reward/gift/blessing of experiencing the divine works in the life of God]” (Colossians 2:18). He said this right after saying, “Do not let anyone judge you in food, in drink, in a holy day, in a new moon, or in Sabbath days” (Colossians 2:16). Christians don’t need literal Sabbaths, such as a Saturday Sabbath or the substitute of going to church on Sunday. Instead, we have the real thing. We do not need to stay away from our job and from mowing the lawn on either a Saturday or a Sunday in order to do some “holy” thing, like going to church. Instead, we have ceased from our feelings and works to be filled with God’s feeling and works, and have moved into that TRULY HOLY place, the Holy Spirit! This is why the Holy Spirit is called the Holy Spirit -- to receive Him and flow in Him is to experience the very holiness of God! He is the very holiness of God. The “holy place” is the Holy Spirit. To be in Him is to be in the holy place. Thus, we can “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” during all seven days of the week.
We have this rest (ceasing from our works) and this holiness (to flow in God’s unique nature, and to be about His works and His business), whether we are mowing the lawn or resting on the couch.
In the fourth commandment, the emphasis is on remembering, and on “keeping.” We need to remember, and to continue remembering daily, to cease from our works, and to believe in His presence, receive Him, and flow in Him. It is so easy to become sidetracked, especially with dead religious works. When we first become believers, it is easy to know that we are saved, “not by works of righteousness which we have done,” but rather “by grace [the working of God] you have been saved” (Titus 3:4-7, Ephesians 2:8). This is the beginning level of “rest.” But many believers -- I would venture to guess even most believers -- eventually fall under taking New Testament Scriptures as law, and try to do them by the works of the flesh. This cannot be done. You cannot successfully take them as law that you have to keep. Rather it must be done by faith, and in the Spirit.
People couldn’t even keep the Old Testament laws without error -- which all dealt with things of the flesh, like not working on Saturday, not killing your neighbor, not stealing, and doing sacrifices with animals. The things spoken of in the New Testament scriptures are even harder! Now we have to work miracles, heal other people, and prophesy to one another. If we couldn’t keep the old law, how could we possibly live the New Testament life?
If the wonderful works spoken of in the New Testament scriptures, such as “love your enemies,” “return good for evil,” “be zealous to prophesy,” “all of you think the same things,” and “be one-souled,” can be done by our own natural efforts (instead of by faith, by letting God fill us with these things and causing us to grow up into them and then do them), then Jesus would not have needed to die. But, He died and rose again, so that His resurrection life working within could lift us up into all of these wonderful works. “We are His workmanship [literally, His doings], created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). God does the working, and we get to receive these things and “walk in them.” He does them, and we walk in them.
What a wonderful rest this is! How refreshing to “sit in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). We get to sit down and rest, not on a couch, but in the heavenly realms of the Spirit. We sit in the place of God flowing through us, like a mighty river of life. What a place to rest this is!
But, again, this is something that can be forgotten, so we must “remember” to “keep” this as a reality that we experience, and not fall from grace. We must “encourage one another day by day, while it is still called ‘today,’ lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). This is written right in the middle of the Hebrew writer’s teaching about the “rest” in Hebrews 3:7-4:11. We need to encourage one another, so that we don’t slip into the sin of unbelief, and start living our own life apart from God again. We need to encourage one another, so that we don’t slip into religious obligations, instead of walking in the life of Christ (Colossians 2:8; all of Colossians chapter 2 is very apropos to this discussion). We encourage one another by speaking life-giving Words that remind us how great this life in Christ is, and that it only comes by death, that it only comes by ceasing from our works, that it only comes by faith, and that it only comes by the working of the Holy Spirit. When we taste afresh “the good Word of God” (Hebrews 6:5), and flow in a fresh moving of the Holy Spirit, it reminds us of what this Christian life really is.
This will keep us from “having begun in the Spirit,” now trying to “perfect” [meaning become complete and mature] ourselves “in the flesh” (Galatians 3:3). It will remind us to keep walking in true holiness of the true Sabbath rest. Let us pray for one another, and speak the Word of God to one another, so that it won’t become true for us what Paul wrote to the Galatians, “You have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
This will allow us to walk in the reality of the Fifth Commandment….