The Sabbath is not mentioned again until the law is given to Moses, where Israel are commanded to keep every seventh day "holy". Exodus 20:11 tells us that this is because when God rested on the Seventh day he made it holy. Few details are given on how to keep the Sabbath holy, except that it is to be a day of rest rather than labour (note that no commands are given that it is to be a day of worship, simply a day to abstain from labour). Ex 35:3 adds that no one is to light a fire in their dwelling on the Sabbath day, but other references - Ex 31:12-18; Lev 23:3 and Deut 5:12-15 simply repeat the command to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. There are two other references in the law: Numbers 28:9-10 details the offerings to be made on the Sabbath (two lambs a year old without defect, also a drink offering and a grain offering), and Lev 25:1-7 covers the Sabbatical Year in which no sowing or reaping is to be done. Little is heard of the Sabbath again in the Old Testament, although in Jeremiah 17:19-27 it is added that no loads are to be carried on the Sabbath day.

In the synoptic Gospels Jesus comes into conflict with the Jewish religious leaders over the Sabbath. Matt 11:25-12:13; Mark 2:23-27 and Luke 6:1-11 describes Jesus and his disciples picking corn from the cornfield on the Sabbath. No doubt the Jews had inferred that if they were not to reap during the Sabbath year they were not to reap during the Sabbath day, and accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. Jesus' answer is very interesting, he gives two examples of the law being broken by people whose needs override the obligation to keep the law: David when he was hungry entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread which only the priests were supposed to do, and the priests themselves in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent. So Jesus is not saying their interpretation of the law is incorrect - i.e. that it is permissible to pick corn on the Sabbath - but rather he is someone who, like David and the priests - is able to override the obligation to obey the law. This is the meaning of "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath".

More interesting still is that in Matthew just before this dispute over the Sabbath comes Jesus teaching on rest. He says "come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest" - Jesus is going back to the original creation meaning of the Sabbath, as a special rest in God, rather than simply a rest from work one day in seven. To rest in Jesus is the reality which the "seventh day" Sabbath (evening and morning Sabbath) points to. Jesus is not destroying the Sabbath but revealing its truth.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 5:1-18, we read of another account of Jesus disputing with the Jewish religious leaders over the Sabbath. Jesus has cures a lame man on the Sabbath and tells him to "pick up his mat and walk" (John 5:8), in contradiction to Jeremiah 17 which says no loads are to be carried on the Sabbath day. Jesus answer this time is to say "My Father is always at his work on this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17), again Jesus is disputing the literal meaning of "rest" and "work" on the "evening and morning" Sabbath. For Jesus, doing God's "work" overrides the obligation to "rest" on the literal Seventh day. Jesus refers back to the law's requirement to honour your Father - since the Father is working, Jesus must work in order to honour him (John 5:19-23). Jesus continues his justification by discussing eternal life (John 5:24-28), so again we see Jesus making the connection between the true meaning of the Sabbath (eternal rest or eternal life in God) and rejecting the Jews literal evening and morning interpretation. This concurs with John's general contrast of Jesus' "commandments" and the Jewish "law" (Jesus even refers to "your Law" (John 10:35)) - unlike other books in the Bible where "law" and "commandments" are often interchanged, in the Gospel of John, Jesus' teachings are always referred to as his "commandments" and the Jewish teachings as "the Law" and they are always shown to be in conflict.

The Gospel of John contains a number of disputes between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders over the Sabbath. In John 7:22-24 Jesus uses another example of the obligation to keep the Sabbath being overridden, with the case of a child being circumcised on the Sabbath. John 9:13-16 goes back to the basic question facing the Jews. Jesus was certainly not resting on the Sabbath - as the "evening and morning" Sabbath required - but his work was going about healing. This point is sometimes lost because today we identify the Sabbath with worship, a busy day full of activity in doing the "work of God", whereas this is going against the spirit what the Law requires. The Sabbath of the Law is simply a day of rest. What Jesus challenges is what is the true meaning of entering this rest. Is this rest an "evening and morning" rest - a literal rest from activity? In that case, of course the Jewish leaders are correct and he should "rest" from healing. But if the true Sabbath rest is living in God, then "doing God's work" is not inactivity but activity, and Jesus is justified in not "literally" resting, in not keeping the "evening and morning" Sabbath, because he is keeping the truth Sabbath which overrides obligation to obey the literal Sabbath.

Paul's teachings of the Sabbath are well known. Paul follows Jesus' insistence that the evening and morning Sabbath of the law is "a shadow of things that were to come; the reality however is found in Christ" (Col 2:17). Any attempt to confuse Paul's teachings are based on the error that there are two Laws - something never stated in the Bible and which only leads to complete confusion.

The Old Testament refers to the Ten Commandments as the "Testimony of Moses", but in the New Testament the Spirit is the "Testimony of Jesus". The Old Testament refers to the Sabbath as a sign between Israel and God (Ez 20:20), but the New Testament says "you were marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit" (Eph 1:13), so the evening and morning Sabbath of the Law was only and is only a symbol of the true Sabbath, the true rest in God, which the seal of the Spirit brings.

Perhaps the clearest explanation of all this is found in Hebrews 3:7-4:11. The author refers to the fact that separation of God and man will one day be ended. This separation could have ended "Today" if man had not hardened his heart. Because man has rebelled against God, he has not entered God's rest (Heb 3:7-11). Clearly this "rest" referred to is not an evening and morning rest. The author is not saying the rest has not been entered because people refused to stop work! No, he says "they were not able to enter because of their unbelief" (Heb 3:19). So the rest the author is referring to is the eternal rest in God - the true Sabbath we have seen in the gospels and the letters of Paul.

Hebrews chapter 4 begins with the statement "the promise of entering his rest still stands" (Heb 4:1). We have discovered the rest is not the evening and morning Sabbath rest of ceasing to work, but the eternal rest in God, the true Sabbath. Indeed, the author clarifies this in verse 3: "his work has been finished since the creation of the world". So the author makes it quite clear that this eternal rest in God is the same eternal rest without evening and morning that we read about in the story of creation.

When can we enter this rest? The author says "God again set a certain day, calling it Today" (Heb 4:7). We can enter God's eternal rest whenever we cease rebelling and believe. This "Today" is contrasted with the evening and morning Sabbath of the Law: "if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day" (Heb 4:8). This whole argument culminates in verses 9:11.

"There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us therefore, make every effort to enter that rest".

This is the true Sabbath, rest in God, entering God's eternal rest. Resting from our own attempts at finding God. This is why "Seventh-day Adventist" is such an important name. The Advent - 'coming' or 'arrival' - is a Seventh-day Advent, it is an entry into rest, an entry into God, we arrive at our vision of God, we achieve our spiritual ecstasy like Paul and John in Revelation, taken into heaven.

Now at last we can turn to Revelation to understand why Sister White described the Third Angel's message as "Righteousness by Faith in Verity". How can Rev 14:9-12 be about Righteousness by Faith? It appears to be about people receiving the mark of the beast being tormented in burning sulphur. Yet let us look closely at the text:

"And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who received the mark of this name" (Rev 14:11)

And earlier the first angel has said "Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water" (Rev 14:7).

So we can understand that Revelation 14 is about creation ("worship him who made the heavens..." and the entering of God's rest ("there is no rest day or night"). Note those how have the mark of the beast have no rest day or night. Is it not clear that day and night rest - evening and morning rest, the evening and morning Sabbath - is the mark or sign of the Law (Ez 20:20)? It is living under judgement, under rebellion. Those who try to enter God's rest as an evening and morning rest will not enter. This is why Rev 14, the Third Angel's message, is about Righteousness by Faith, because it is only through faith that we enter the true Sabbath rest (Heb 3:19; 4:10), which is the Righteousness we have by Faith. At the end of chapter 14, John in Revelation reminds us of the contrast between the Commandments of God, given by Jesus, and the Law which came through Moses ("obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus" Rev 14:12).

So Sister White has helped us to understand that this true Sabbath rest is God's eternal rest, not the day and night Sabbath rest, for "there is no rest day or night" (Rev 14:11).

Yet this true Sabbath rest has been lost to Christianity for 2000 years. Christianity has assumed God's rest refers to a day and night rest - just as the Third Angel warns us against. Seventh-day Adventism took the first step against this error by moving the holy day back from Sunday to Saturday - restoring the day and night Sabbath back to its original symbolic meaning. However we now need to complete the Sabbath message - to preach the full Sabbath message - and hold the light of the truth up higher still. The symbolic meaning of the revelation of the Sabbath is its rest in God's eternity without evening and morning. Adventism needs to offer up - to sacrifice - the day and night Sabbath into the fires of truth. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the blazing furnace, in the flames Jesus appears with the true believers.

As each Adventist offers up the day and night Sabbath as a sacrifice, so collectively the Sabbath message will be transformed into the most intense visionary experience of God. We enter his rest as our soul is flooded with the spiritual ecstasy of heaven. Each Christian will experience "the third heaven" (2 Cor 12:2), will receive "visions and revelations" (2 Cor 12:1), will be "caught up to Paradise" (2 Cor 12:4). The true Sabbath experience means we become "a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor 5:17). God will "set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come" (2 Cor 1:22). Entering this vision, receiving his Spirit will give us "God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began" (1 Cor 2:7). "I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it" (Rev 2:17). The true Sabbath is a roaring, exploding vision of God - like Rev 1:13-17 - once we arrive at the Seventh-day Advent we shall understand the truth and purpose of our movement.