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Tuesday 7 September 2010

Exodus 31 - Holy Spirit in the OT, and the Sabbath

We see here an example of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit did work in people's lives in the Old Testament, but the big difference between the Old and New is that now He works in the lives of every one who believes in Christ. God pours out His Spirit on all who believe, not just a few. In this case the Spirit gave Bezalel wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Note that these are some of the gifts of the Spirit. He also gave skill in craftsmanship. Some gifts of the Spirit are clear supernatural, others may appear to be "natural", but are endowed with a special anointing. The tasks that Bezalel and Oholiab had were "natural" tasks, ie things that we might have thought any suitably skilled person could do, but God gave them Spirit filled abilities to do them. All tasks within the kingdom are important, and distinctions that we are prone to draw between spiritual and non-spiritual are often meaningless to the Lord.
The Sabbath was a sign of the relationship between God and His people, so that they may know Him, and that He is the One who makes them different. Then God says it is "holy to you". Now we might have expected Him to say "holy to me", but He doesn't, He says "holy to you". This is reminiscent of Jesus' words that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). The seven day pattern reflects the pattern of creation. The Sabbath was a very serious affair, and so we can have some understanding of why the Pharisees took such exception to the way that Jesus seemed to treat the Sabbath. Also why some (though decreasingly few) take exception to the fact that Sunday is increasingly treated as just another day by the society. Now we know that the attitude of the Pharisees was wrong, but we have to be careful that we do not reject the Sabbath principle at the same time.

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