The Christian Sabbath

The Lord God gave festivals and holy days to the Jews under the old law in order to prepare his people for his Son's work on earth.  Indeed, his Son perfected and fulfilled these days: the Passover by his death, and Pentecost by his sending the Holy Spirit.  In chapter four of his work, "To the Jews", the North African Latin writer, Tertullian, wrote of the fulfillment of the Jewish Sabbath in the Christian dispensation:

"The observance of the Sabbath . . . was to be only for a time.  The Jews say that in the beginning, God sanctified the seventh day by resting on it from all his works which he had made, and so Moses said to the people: 'Remember the Sabbath day and sanctify it.  You shall not do any kind of servile work on it' (Exodus 20, 8-10).  This pertains especially to the soul.  Thus, we should understand that not only on the Sabbath but every day we should always avoid servile work.  We should understand that this is how God wills for us to keep the Sabbath.  The Scriptures signify both the eternal Sabbath and the temporal Sabbath.  It is written in Isaiah 1, 14: 'My soul hates your Sabbaths.'  And, in Ezekiel 22, 8: 'You have profaned my Sabbaths.'  Thus, we distinguish between the temporal Sabbath as human, and the eternal Sabbath, of which it is written in Isaiah 66, 23: 'From one month to the next, from one day to the next, and from one Sabbath to the next, all flesh shall come to adore in Jerusalem, says The Lord.' "

The 'servile work' here is the sins those commit who are in the captivity of the devil.  In Galatians 5, 13, St. Paul writes that we are not to misuse the freedom we gain as Christians to pursue the works of the flesh, which he enumerates in verses 19-20.  This might also put us in mind of the words of The Lord Jesus: "No man can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6, 24).