Principles for Observing Sabbath as Christians
Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 13
May 2012
Passage from Swiss Family Robinson on Sabbath
This is the 200th
anniversary of the first printing of the book The Swiss Family Robinson.
I read it to my children last week, and I was struck with how naturally
Christian faith was expressed in the middle of an adventure novel:
The
children woke the next morning, eager and springing about like young monkeys.
“What shall we do today?”
“Rest.”
“Rest?”
they repeated.
“‘Six
days shalt thou labor, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.’”
“Oh,
jolly,” said Jack. “I shall take a bow and arrow and shoot. We’ll climb about
the tree and have fun all day!”
“That
is not how you will spend the Lord’s day,” I said.
“But
we can’t go to church here.”
“The
shade of this tree is far more beautiful than any church. Here we will worship
our Creator.”
One by one, the children slipped down the ladder. I took
my wife aside. “My dear Elizabeth,” I said, “This morning we will devote to the
Lord. But it will be impossible to keep them quiet the whole day. After
services, I will allow them innocent recreation, then in the evening we will
take a walk.”
During
our evening meal I spoke about naming the different spots we had visited on
this coast. We began by naming the bay in which we landed Safety Bay. Our first
home we called Tentholm; the islet in the bay, Shark Island; and the reedy
swamp, Flamingo Marsh. After some time we named our tree home Falconhurst. Following
our evening walk, we closed our Sabbath day with a prayer and glad hymn of
praise. We slept with our hearts full of peace.
Review
A. In
the first of these 3 sessions on the Sabbath, we looked at the origin
and role of law. We saw that:
- God is the origin of law, and Jesus is the
ultimate lawgiver and judge, so He has authority to define and interpret
law as God.
- The role of law is to bless
and lead to freedom. We saw this applied to the Sabbath law, “The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
- Therefore we must fight
the urge to use law to condemn and control people by:
- Learning what the Bible
– including the O.T. – says and means,
- Prizing mercy/compassion/love,
and
- Submitting to the Lord Jesus who is the lawgiver and
judge.
B. In the second
session, I introduced Micah 6:8 as a way of keeping these 3 components
in balance:
- Do justice – figure
out what is right and do it, never yielding God’s holiness to compromise,
- Love mercy – Forgive,
show compassion, and seek for God to be merciful when confronted with evil
and the fallout of sin.
- Walk humbly with God
– Never attempt to do justice and love mercy by your own wisdom and
effort, but rather maintain your personal relationship with Jesus Christ,
following in His footsteps, drawing on His wisdom and His power.
- We saw that part of doing
justice is asking, “Is it lawful,” out of a genuine desire to obey
God, but when asked with the intent of finding fault with God, as
the Pharisees did, the third principle of “walking humbly with your
God” is violated.
- One way of walking humbly
with our God is to follow Jesus’ example, and His example in Matt.
12 models gathering together with God’s people on the Sabbath – even
when some of them were unpleasant company.
- We also see from Jesus’
example that we should heal and to do good things on the Sabbath.
This upholds the second principle of “loving mercy.” God’s law is
perverted when it is twisted to prevent kindness to others!
C. Now, I want to zoom out
from this particular passage in Matthew to look at the whole of scripture
and address some other issues which the law of Sabbath raises:
- Is the Sabbath law still binding
on Christians today?
- Why is the Christian
Sabbath on Sunday whereas the Jewish Sabbath was Saturday?
- And how do we sort through
how to apply all those rules in the Bible in light of all the added
church traditions we have today?
1) Is the Sabbath day still binding on
anyone today?
- According to Robertson
McQuilken, most of the early Christians were slaves and were allowed “no
rest day at all… They met for worship at first in the evening, and after
this was made illegal, they met before dawn on the Lord’s Day before going
to work.” Early church fathers encouraged them to be good workers – even
when required to work on Sunday, to maintain a good testimony before their
unbelieving owners.
- The first historical
document I am aware of from the early church which discusses the application
of the law of the Sabbath to the church came from the Council of Laodicea
in the mid-300’s AD. It decreed:
- that Christians should work on Saturdays and rest on Sundays so as
to maintain a distinction between Christians and Jews,
- and furthermore that the
Lord’s Day was a time of rest and joy such that anyone who fasted on a
Sunday was to be excommunicated from the church,
- and that none but
necessary secular labor should be done on Sunday (29th Canon).
- The emperor Constantine acted
on this by decreeing that all government, military, and handicraft trades
cease on Sunday in favor of prayer and public worship. A century later,
the Emperor Leo extended Constantine’s law to all classes of persons.
- During the Middle Ages,
the Roman Catholic church in Europe created an expansive system of holy
days.
- It became a joke that
practically every day had been made into a holiday to commemorate some
saint or another.
- This,
by the way, is one of the two ways that a humanistic culture will drift.
The more a culture sees man rather than God as authoritative, the more it
will drift away from God’s one-in-seven principle for rest and labor:
- They
will either despise labor like the Religious Humanists in medieval Catholicism
and the Secular Humanists of 20th Century America and make
more and more holidays,
- or
it will go to the other extreme and minimize holidays and overvalue
human labor, like Atheistic humanism did in the modern era of Soviet
Russia and Communist China.
- God’s
word, however, provides a balanced standard to which we may repair.
- Unfortunately, the
European Reformers, starting around the 1500’s reacted to the proliferation
of holidays under Roman Catholicism by jumping to the opposite extreme,
(as they did on other subjects such as the use of artistic expression in
worship).
- Most of them still believed
in meeting for Christian worship on Sunday, and most of them seemed to
believe that there was practical value in taking a day off work, even
though they did not believe it to be morally binding:
- Luther, in his Lectures
on Deuteronomy (p.81) said that the sabbath was “among the ceremonies
that were necessary for the people of Moses, but free for us.”
- Calvin’s catechism states
it thus: “As observance of rest is part of the old ceremonies, it was
abolished by the advent of Christ… It was given for three reasons… to
figure spiritual rest; for the preservation of ecclesiastical polity; and
for the relief of slaves.”
- The belief that the 4th
Commandment was not intended to be binding on Christians has been carried
into the present in a lot of church circles.
- The Scottish Presbyterians
and English Puritans in the 16-1700’s, however, brought a revival of the
idea that the weekly Sabbath was a morally-binding law.
- Robertson McQuilken,
long-time president of Columbia Bible College and Semiary wrote, “Our
Puritan forebears enunciated the theology of the rest day and applied it
to public as well as private life. In one of the most remarkable social
revolutions in history ,the English Puritans taught and achieved total
societal conformity within a single generation.”
- I may be biased by my
upbringing in the Presbyterian church, but I believe that the Sabbath is
still morally binding and should be observed (even though there are
exceptions), and that it should be legally enforced by the state to
some degree. Some of my reasons for this are:
- The
Sabbath is a creation mandate observed from the beginning of the world,
and not instituted by Moses, but rather received additional regulation
under his administration.
- The Sabbath day is placed among the 10
Commandments, all of which are morally binding.
- Sabbath rest is more than
a ceremony; it is a real blessing that provides universal benefit whether
or not you are a Christian or a Jew. In fact, in the 10 Commandments, it
was to be enforced upon the non-Jewish servants and houseguests in the
Jewish households to share the blessing of periodic rest.
- Jesus Himself observed
the Sabbath and thereby taught His disciples to do the same, although
they observed it on the first day of the week after the resurrection.
- The early church also
recognized Sabbath-observance as binding.
- The passages which are
used by anti-Sabbatarians to support their position do not actually prove
that Christians have no moral obligation to keep a weekly holy day of
rest to God. Let’s look at them:
- Colossians 2:13-17 “…He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven
us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt
consisting of decrees against us… taken it out of the way, having nailed
it to the cross... Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to
food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day--
things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance
belongs to Christ.” (NASB)
- When Paul wrote that the Colossians should not let anyone judge
them with respect to meat, drink, holy days, new moon festivals, or
Sabbath days, he was listing a bunch of Jewish ceremonies by which
Jews were prone to judge others’ devotion to God. In other words, Paul
was saying, “Don’t let it bother you if a Jew sees you eating pork chops,
or drinking wine, or celebrating Easter instead of Passover, or following
the solar calendar rather than the lunar calendar, or making your Sabbath
day Sunday instead of Saturday. If that Jew says, “Tsk tsk,” just smile
kindly and don’t let it bother you. Col. 2 doesn’t say anything negative
about the observance of the Christian Sabbath.
- Romans 14:5-13 “…One person regards one day above another,
another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in
his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he
who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who
eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God. For not
one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live,
we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether
we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived
again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. But you,
why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your
brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of
God… So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine
this--not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way.” (NASB)
- Again, what is condemned
here is not the keeping of the Christian Sabbath but rather the arrogant
assumption that we can judge our fellow believers for matters of conscience
that they are accountable to God alone for.
- If this passage were
teaching that Christians should make no distinction in days of the week,
we would have to conclude that the Apostle Paul was a hypocrite, for he
made a distinction among the days of the week by choosing to teach in
Christian churches on Sundays and by commanding the Corinthian church to make
collections for the poor on Sundays.
- “Since the context has to
do with dietary restrictions, some have thought he is speaking of setting
aside certain days for fasting. Recalling that the church of Rome had a
large Jewish contingent, it is at least equally plausible that he had in
mind the Jewish Sabbaths and other holy days, which the Jewish Christians
were at liberty to esteem, and the Gentile Christians to ignore.” ~Paul
Jewett
- Hebrews 3:7-4:11 – “…DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS
IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY
TESTING Me, AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS. THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH
THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, 'THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY
DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS'; AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, 'THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY
REST.'"
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil,
unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one
another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none
of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin… Therefore, let us
fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may
seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached
to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them,
because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have
believed enter that rest…
Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly
had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He
again fixes a certain day… "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS." For if Joshua had given them rest, He
would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a
Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest
has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let
us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through
following the same example of disobedience.” (NASB)
- Here we have a
description of a promise of rest using the word “Today” to refer to three
points in time, to the Jews of the Exodus era, to the Christians of the
early Church, and to the time that we read of it thousands of years later.
- At each time, there was a
promise made of entering into God’s rest, but God’s promise also called
for faith and obedience, and for each time period, the rest is both for
the present and also for a future time.
- The present rest is the
rest of salvation where we trust the good works of Christ Jesus to make
us right with God rather than our own good works,
- but even in that
condition of salvation, we continue to work to cultivate faith, “encourage
one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that
none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” and “there
remains a rest” in heaven in which we will no longer find it work to
cultivate faith, and in which we will find our ultimate rest.
- There are also passages
which speak of the Sabbath continuing well past the time of Christ:
- Into the last days: Matthew 24:3-20 the disciples came to Him
privately, saying, “…what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end
of the age?” … 15 "when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the
prophet, standing in the holy place… then those who are in Judea must
flee to the mountains… 20 But pray that your flight will not be in the
winter, or on a Sabbath…” (NASB)
- And into eternity: Isaiah 66:22-23 “for, as the new heavens and
the new earth which I am making [remain] standing before my face,” (This
is a declaration of Jehovah), “so y’all’s seed and y’all’s name will
stand. And it will be that, as often as a month with its month, even as
often as a Sabbath with its Sabbath, all flesh will come to prostrate
themselves before my face,” says Jehovah.
- I conclude therefore that
even though the details of Sabbath-keeping outlined in the law of Moses
are not all binding on us, nevertheless, a weekly special day of rest
and devotion to God continues to be the morally-right thing
to do.
2. How did the Sabbath get changed from the
7th to the 1st Day?
- First we must remember the
pattern of the Old Testament Saturday-Sabbaths, how they pointed beyond
themselves to the first day of the week.
- Leviticus 23:27-36 “On
the fifteenth of this seventh month is the Feast of Booths for seven days
to the LORD. On the first day is a holy convocation; you shall do
no laborious work of any kind. For seven days you shall present an
offering by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation
and present an offering by fire to the LORD; it is an assembly.
You shall do no laborious work.” (NASB)
- The first day of the week
was the day that each of the three week-long religious festivals began
(Passover, Pentecost, and Booths).
- Then when the last of
these three annual festivals was over, emphasis was placed on the 8th
day (which is the second first day of the week).
- I believe that this set
the Jewish Christians up to anticipate that at the end of the Mosaic
system, there would be a divine emphasis on the first day of the week
rather than the seventh.
- Then Jesus Himself
emphasized the first day of the week after dying on the cross as the final
sacrifice for sin.
- First and foremost, Jesus
rose from the dead on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1)
- Then, when Jesus appeared
to His disciples it was on the first day of the week:
- John 20:19 So when it
was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors
were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stood in their midst and *said to them, "Peace be with you."
- John 20:26 After eight
days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus *came,
the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said,
"Peace be with you."
- The Holy Spirit came down
at Pentecost on, you guessed it, the first day of the week.
- No wonder, then that throughout
the rest of the N.T., the apostles and the churches they planted used
Sunday for Christian corporate activity and worship:
- The gathering in the
upper room in Acts 1 when Judas’ replacement was chosen may have been on
a Sunday, seeing as those who traveled to it were careful to walk no further
than allowed to by the Jewish authorities on a Sabbath and it mentions
staying at a house and then meeting, presumably on the next day, which
would be Sunday.
- According to Acts 20,
Paul was in Troas for a whole week or more, and out of all the possible
days for meeting, he chose Sunday to meet with the Christians there. Acts 20:7 On the
first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,
Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he
prolonged his message until midnight.
- 1 Corinthians 16:1-3 “Now
concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of
Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of every week each one of you
is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be
made when I come. When I arrive, whomever you may approve, I will send
them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem…” (NASB)
- There is also the
enigmatic statement by the Apostle John in Rev. 1:10 that he was “In the Spirit on a
Lord’s Day,” and on that day He received the Revelation which we have as
our last book of the Bible. It is assumed that John was giving a
Christian name to the first day of the week, calling it the Lord’s Day,
just as the Latin languages carry on today “domenica/domingo/Día del
Señor”
- The apostles appear to
have embraced Sunday as the time for church meeting without offering any
apology or explanation when they wrote the New Testament. However, their
disciples in subsequent generations did offer explanations:
- Ignatius (around 110 AD)
wrote in the Epistle to the Magnesians, “the Lord’s Day is
consecrated to the resurrection.”
- Justin Martyr (around 160
AD) wrote in his Dialogue with Trypho that Christians don’t
celebrate Jewish holidays or Sabbaths but do meet on Sunday for scripture
reading, prayer, exhortation and communion, because that was the first
day of God’s creation of the world, and because Jesus rose from the dead
that day.
- The Epistle of
Barnabas (c. 100 AD) says basically the same thing and calls it the “Christian
Sabbath, the 8th day, the day of the new creation.”
- Tertullian, around 200 AD
wrote, “We celebrate the Lord’s day as a joyful day without any fasting
or kneeling.”
- Clement of Alexandria,
also late in the 2nd century wrote that Christians should observe
the Lord’s Day by “casting out bad thoughts, cherishing goodness, and
honoring the resurrection of our Lord.”
- Despite
the absence of a clear-cut command to change from Saturday to Sunday,
considering the Old Testament foreshadowing of a change in the Sabbath,
considering Jesus’ special treatment of the first day of the week,
considering the New Testament’s
statements about the Jewish Sabbath no longer being binding, and
considering the universal practice of Christians from the time of the
Apostles on
I believe it is best to express solidarity with Christians throughout the
centuries by observing a Christian Sabbath on Sunday, the first day of the
week.
Can there be exceptions? Yes
I believe that the principle
of rest is one day in seven, and not necessarily that Saturday or Sunday has to
be that day of rest. “Six days shall you labour and do all your work, but the
seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord.” So one exception could be made for the day
of the week on which you rest.
- The variety of calendars
used throughout history and the adjustments regularly made to the ancient
Jewish calendar so that the three holiday weeks (which God said must begin
and end on certain days of certain months) could all start on Sundays and
end on Mondays, make it difficult to believe that anyone has accurately
kept track of which day of the week is the original first or seventh day.
- I have many Christian
friends who are working in Muslim countries where Friday is the holy day
for everybody, and the culture is such that no one can operate a business
on Friday, so my Christian friends make Friday their day of rest; no
problem.
- Some of us are
professionals who, by nature of our jobs, have to work on Sunday – whether
it be as a pastor, or as a physician or nurse who handles medical
emergencies. These can be valid exceptions to the rule, but in these
cases, we need to establish another day of the week to rest from our
regular work.
- A limit to this exception
is that we should not take so much liberty that we miss out on regular gatherings
with fellow-believers for worship and fellowship.
- For instance, if my Christians
friends in a Muslim country decided to have their day of rest and worship
on Friday, but all the other Christians in the country continued meeting
on Sunday, the Friday-sabbath folks need to give up their liberty for the
sake of solidarity with the church – or else talk their buddies into
switching to Fridays too. Hebrews 10:24-25 “let us consider how to
stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling
together...” (NASB)
- Another limit to these
exceptions is the reason for which we are taking an exception. We
need to be sure that whatever we are doing is purposefully to honor
God, not merely to make more money or to indulge a hobby or to follow a
fad.
- If you can stand before
God and say you took an exception to Sunday because you believed it would
be the best way to bring glory to Jesus, then good for you.
- If, however, you’d have
trouble doing that, then maybe your motives are out of alignment with
God’s will. (Romans 14:5-8)
3. What should we do on the Sabbath?
- The first
word in the 4th Commandment is “remember.” Use the
Sabbath time to stir up to memory the things of God. What things can you
do on the Lord’s day to prompt your mind to think about God and the truths
of the Bible?
- The
second imperative in the 4th Commandment is to “keep holy”
the Sabbath day. That means, make the day different from the others. Make
it special. This opens the door for a lot of creativity, and there is
potential for all sorts of traditions to spring up in your home or
apartment that will make everyone in your household look forward to this
special day of the week. In my household, we make the day special by
having special food, special activities, special books and movies that we
break out on that day, and special music we listen to.
- In the
Gospels, Jesus honored the Jewish Sabbath as the time for religious
gatherings and teaching. Then throughout the rest of the N.T. the
apostles and Christians used the Christian Sabbath for gathering,
discussing spiritual things, praying, breaking of bread, teaching believers,
and collecting offering money. (John 20:19, 26; Acts 1:14; 2:1; 20:7; 1
Cor 16:1-2;). These are the sorts of things we do as church activities, so
it is good and right to follow these examples of Jesus and the apostles in
the traditions of our local church on Sundays.
- Obviously,
in Matthew 12, Jesus taught that it is lawful to heal on the Jewish
Sabbath, so I believe that the ministries of mercy such as praying for
supernatural healing or serving for free with your knowledge of the healing
arts,
or feeding hungry people or providing clothing or shelter for the poor should
all be extended to the Christian Sabbath as lawful. Are any of these
things something you could develop as a part of your Sunday activities?
- Going
street preaching (Acts 2) or spending time alone with the
Lord (Rev. 1:10) are not necessarily activities we do in church, but these
were also commended by the positive example of the apostles and would be
good for us to do ourselves on the Lord’s Day.
- Rest yourself :
- Regular
work is prohibited on the Sabbath day by the 4th commandment. This is a
somewhat subjective thing, but if you consider something to be work –
especially if somebody pays you to do it, and you do it five or
six days out of the week, then don’t do it on the Lord’s Day. The
point is to get some rest so you can feel that freedom from
work regularly and praise God.
- And if
there are ways you can work ahead during the week or on Saturday
so that you have less to do on Sunday, go for it.
- The
Israelites prepared food ahead on the day before their Sabbath so
they didn’t have to cook on the Sabbath, and we can still do that today.
- I know students
who study hard on Saturday so that they can take the day off on
Sunday. I think that’s the way to do it.
- Christians debate over whether Sabbath
rest can extend to recreational sports or naps.
- Jesus
and the Apostles don’t talk much about recreation and naps, so that is
an area in which we must make our own cautious decision.
- For
myself, I engage in a game or a nap occasionally on Sundays, and John
Calvin was known to play lawn-bowling after church, but these things are
not permissible according to the Westminster Larger Catechism.
- Whichever
way you come down, you will not be reporting to me or to the Westminster
divines, but rather to Jesus in the final judgment, so you have to make
that decision between yourself and Him. It is to your own master that
you stand or fall.
- Also
consider that the pattern of rest extended into annual cycles. I
think it is entirely legitimate to take the pattern from the Mosaic law
of three week-long festivals and try to get three weeks of vacation
per year.
- Celebrate
Passover if you want to; it is not a sin if you don’t, but if
God, in His providence saw value in giving three week-long vacations to
the Jews, then we can use that as a rule of thumb in how much
vacation time we should shoot for.
- And if
that vacation time in the O.T. was centered around religious celebrations,
perhaps we would do well to consider how to use our vacation times not
merely as secular adventure times, but also as times of spiritual
nurture by weaving in times of private and group worship.
- Give
rest to others:
- The 4th commandment specifically says to
give slaves a rest for the day. All of you who own slaves should
give heed to that. Wait, Kansas is not a slave-holding state…
- As for
the rest of us, it is worth considering the application of this principle
to other hired workers. Does the way we observe the Sabbath contribute
to giving rest on day in seven to restaurant cooks and waitresses?
When I lived in Denver, my family found a nice restaurant that opened on
Sunday afternoons and particularly catered to the after-church crowd, but
then closed on Monday to give its staff a day off. I appreciated that.
- Is there
anything for which you have become dependent upon 24-7 service? Telephone?
Gas pumps? Internet? If so, consider fasting from that service one
day a week.
- Are
there chores that Dad or Mom or kids do in your household every
day that you could lift off their shoulders on Sundays?
- It is
not possible for you to lift the burden of work off of every
person in the world who is working on Sunday, so don’t become anxious if
you can’t answer all the questions I’m posing. My point is that part of
the spirit of keeping the Sabbath is to approach the day with a heart
for giving rest to others, and if that is on your mind, God will
direct your attention to a few things you can do, and you can
rejoice in that and leave the rest of the world’s problems up to God!
- Call
Sabbath-breakers to account:
- There is no reason we can’t encourage fellow
citizens – be they Christian or not – to incorporate a weekly rest
into their calendar out of a desire to see them blessed with rest.
- Some day,
some of you might be given a place of authority in the civil
government, and then you would do well to consider how encourage the
Sabbath principle through the making and enforcing of civil law.
- The
death penalty for breaking the Sabbath was imposed during the time of
Moses, but there is no Christian teacher I’ve ever run across – not even
the strictest sabbatarian – who believes that the state should punish
violations of the Sabbath with death any more. The disagreements among
Christians arise over what sort of penalty – if any – the
violation of the Sabbath should incur.
- Although
the loss of the Sabbath rest is its own penalty, I think that civil fines
for a Sabbath-breaker would be in order for those things which are not a
legitimate exception.
- Within
the church, it is appropriate to hold a brother or sister in
Christ accountable who is not taking a weekly day of rest or who is not
gathering regularly with the people of God for worship. It will always be
a challenge to do this with the right attitude of seeking their
blessing – and to have the wisdom to evaluate whether their situation
poses a Biblically-legitimate exception. But if the violation is clear
and if the person does not respond well to this kind of accountability,
it could even become a matter for church discipline which the elders of
the church would have to enforce.
- Find ways to implement
Sabbath-keeping at the larger scale of Sabbath years and Jubilee
years.
- You may
not be at liberty to take a year off of work every seven years, but you
could always ask your boss for a sabbatical and see if he or she
would consider it.
- And if
you are an employer yourself, you could offer sabbaticals to your
employees.
- If you
get into farming, do research on what would happen to soil
fertility if, every seven years, you took a year off from planting. Would
you still do it as a way to show honor to God even if it couldn’t be
proved that it would affect soil fertility?
- Remember,
we don’t have to do this legalistically, but we can use the
principles of the O.T. to give us some idea of what is a reasonable
practice, and then we can work in that direction.
- And what
about the Jubilee principle? Are there ways that you could
organize your own indebtedness so that it does not exceed 7 years
or at most 50 years? How about doing the same for people you loan to?
- “The
Sabbath law is a plan for the world’s tomorrow. The Biblical law works to
eliminate evil and to abolish poverty and debt. The Sabbath law has as
its word the recreation of man, animals, and the earth, the whole of
creation. The Sabbath thus reveals the design and direction of the whole
law: it is a declaration of the future...” (Rushdoony, p.157)
- There
may be other ways that God leads and empowers you to do to revolutionize
the world, implementing the Sabbath principles on a larger scale beyond
anything we’ve seen in our generation. Go for it as God leads you!
APPENDIX A: Overview
of Biblical Law on the Sabbath (NASB)
“Thus the heavens and the earth were
completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which
He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had
done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He
rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:1-3)
“’Six days you shall gather it, but
on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.’ It came about on the
seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.
Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long do you refuse to keep My commandments
and My instructions? See, the LORD has given you the sabbath; therefore He
gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place;
let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.’ So the people rested on the
seventh day. The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander
seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.” (Exodus 16:26-31)
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep
it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is
a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your
son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner
who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth,
the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the
LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
“You shall surely observe My
sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations,
that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. Therefore you are to
observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall
surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be
cut off from among his people. For six days work may be done, but on the
seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does
any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel
shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their
generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the
sons of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on
the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:12-17)
Moses assembled all the congregation
of the sons of Israel, and said to them, “These are the things that the LORD
has commanded you to do: For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day
you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does
any work on it shall be put to death. You shall not kindle a fire in any of
your dwellings on the sabbath day.” (Exodus 35:1-3)
“For six days work may be done, but
on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation.
You shall not do any work; it is a sabbath to the LORD in all your dwellings.”
(Leviticus 23:3)
Putting out new loaves of showbread in
the holy place (Lev. 24:8) and offering extra animal sacrifices (Num. 28:10).
“On the first
day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the
seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by
every person, that alone may be prepared by you… For seven days you shall eat
unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the LORD.”
(Ex. 12:16…13:6),
“On exactly the tenth day of this
seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation
for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the
LORD. You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement,
to make atonement on your behalf before the LORD your God. If there is any
person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from
his people… It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all
your dwelling places. It is to be a sabbath of complete rest to you, and
you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of the month at evening, from evening
until evening you shall keep your sabbath… On the fifteenth of this seventh
month is the Feast of Booths for seven days to the LORD. On the first day is a
holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work of any kind. For seven
days you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you
shall have a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to the
LORD; it is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work.” (Leviticus
23:27-36)
“When you come into the land which I
shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the LORD. Six years you
shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in
its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath
to the LORD; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. Your
harvest's aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines
you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year. All of you shall
have the sabbath products of the land for food; yourself, and your male and
female slaves, and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as
aliens with you. Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall
have all its crops to eat. You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years
for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven
sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. You shall then sound a ram's horn
abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall
sound a horn all through your land. You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year
and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a
jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of
you shall return to his family.” (Leviticus 25:2-10)
“You shall remember that you were a
slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a
mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God
commanded you to observe the sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5:15)
“Bring your worthless offerings no
longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of
assemblies-- I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.” (Isaiah
1:13)
“To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, And choose what
pleases Me, And hold fast My covenant, To them I will give in My house
and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters...
Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, To minister to Him, and to
love the name of the LORD, To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning
the sabbath And holds fast My covenant; Even those I will bring to
My holy mountain And make them joyful in My house of prayer… For My house will
be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.” (Isaiah 56:4-7)
“Look, in your fast day, y’all find
pleasure and y’all drive all your laborers. Look, it is for strife and fighting
that y’all fast and for striking with a wicked fist. Do not fast like today to
make your voice heard in the height! … Is it for this you call a fast and a day
of acceptance for Jehovah? Isn’t it this – a fast I choose: to open the
manacles of evil, to spring the bindings of the yoke and to send forth the
oppressed [as] freemen, and tear off every yoke? Isn’t it to split your bread
for the hungry, and bring home the poor vagabonds? … 13. If, on the Sabbath,
you make your foot turn away from doing your pleasure during my holy day and
you call the Sabbath “a delight,” Jehovah’s holy thing “honorable,” and you
honor it instead of making your ways – instead of finding your pleasure… Then
you will indulge yourself over Jehovah, and I will make you ride upon the high
places of earth …” (Isaiah 58:3-14 NAW)
Thus says the LORD, “Take heed for
yourselves, and do not carry any load on the sabbath day or bring anything in
through the gates of Jerusalem. You shall not bring a load out of your houses
on the sabbath day nor do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I
commanded your forefathers. Yet they did not listen or incline their ears, but
stiffened their necks in order not to listen or take correction. But it will
come about, if you listen attentively to Me,” declares the LORD, “to bring no
load in through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to keep the
sabbath day holy by doing no work on it, then there will come in through the
gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David… and this
city will be inhabited forever… But if you do not listen to Me to keep the
sabbath day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem
on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates and it will devour
the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched.” (Jeremiah 17:21-27)
“The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again
and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His
dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His
words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against
His people, until there was no remedy. Therefore He brought up against them the
king of the Chaldeans... Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away
to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the
kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah,
until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept
sabbath until seventy years were complete.” (2 Chron. 36:15-21, cf. Lev.
26:34ff)
APPENDIX
B: Theologians on the Sabbath
What is the
function of the Sabbath? How is it fulfilled? I would like to share with you
the thoughts of three great minds from the 20th Century on this
topic:
Geerhardus Vos
Geerhardus Vos, theology professor at Princeton at the
beginning of the 20th Century, in his classic book, Biblical
Theology, touched on the fact that the Sabbath has three meanings, one practical
(the need to get some rest and religious instruction), one soteric (the need
for sinful men to be saved and given peace with God), and one eschatological
(the need to look forward to the fulfillment of all of God’s plans).
·
[Utilitarian] “It would be a mistake to base its observance
primarily on the ground of utility. The Sabbath is not… a fixed day to devote
sufficient care to the religious interests of life… It has its main significance
apart from that, in pointing forward to the eternal issues of life and history…”
·
[Soteric] “The universal Sabbath law received a modified
significance under the Covenant of Grace. The word which issues into the rest
can now no longer be man’s own work. It becomes the work of Christ… The
resurrection of the Messiah… was to [the early church] nothing less than the
bringing in of a new, the second, creation… our lord died on the eve of that
Jewish Sabbath, at the end of one of these typical weeks of labour by which His
work and its consummation were prefigured… Sabbath… Sabbatical year… Jubilee…
from all this we have been released by the word of Christ, but not from the
Sabbath as instituted at Creation… Inasmuch as the Old Covenant was still
looking forward to the performance of the Messianic work, naturally, the days
of labour to it come first, the day of rest falls at the end of the week. We,
under the New Covenant, look back upon the accomplished work of Christ. We
therefore, first celebrate the rest in principle procured by Christ, although
the Sabbath also still remains a sign looking forward to the final
eschatological rest…”
·
[Eschatological] The week of seven days was known before
the time of Moses… the Sabbath, though a world-aged observance, has passed
through the various phases of the development of redemption, remaining the same
in essence but modified as to its form, as the new state of affairs at each
point might require… The principle underlying the Sabbath is… that man must
copy God in his course of life… ‘[R]est’ cannot, of course, mean mere cessation
from labour… It stands for consummation of a work accomplished and the joy and
satisfaction attendant upon this. Such was its prototype in God. Mankind must
copy this, and that not only in the sequences of daily existence as regards
individuals; but in its collective capacity through a large historic movement.
For mankind, too, a great task waits to be accomplished, and at its close
beckons a rest of joy and satisfaction that shall copy the rest of God…
Therefore, the Sabbath is an expression of the eschatological principle on
which the life of humanity has been constructed…
Robertson
McQuilken
Robertson McQuilken, missionary, professor, and president of
Columbia Bible College and Seminary (now CIU) in the late 20th
Century focused on some of the more practical applications in his book, An
Introduction to Biblical Ethics:
·
The
Sabbath is not limited to a certain time or ethnic group. It was originally
“given to all mankind” at creation as a “pattern for those made in His image.”
It shares universal application to mankind together with the other creation
ordinances of substitionary atonement, marriage, and work. These things apply
to all mankind at all times in history.
·
The Sabbath is not a result of sin. “Periodic rest is of
the nature of God.” God’s rest on the seventh day was “not merely a contrived
model for humankind.” It was given “before man had fallen.”
·
The Sabbath was made for fellowship with God: It is not
to deprive us of productive labor, but rather to give us more time to enjoy
Him. “Just as two lovers long for a time of quiet when they can stop their
regular activity and spend unhurried time together, so God designed a gift of a
special time with those He loves, time that is ‘holy,’ set aside for that
purpose of companionship.”
·
“Christ
said ‘Yes’ to the rest day, but a resounding ‘No’ to the rabbinical additions.
He contended with the scribes continuously over their interpretation of the
law, with the complex hedge they built around the law to protect it.” However,
He recognized “exceptions to the law of rest: [namely] works of necessity and
mercy… Christ came to fulfill [obey] the law… He put an end to the transitory
ceremonial aspects of the law [instituted in Moses’ time] while reinforcing
through His own example and teaching the eternal, moral elements of the Old Testament
revelation… His life and teaching seem to favor a continuing moral obligation
to obey the forth commandment, but to strip it of all the scribal additions.”
·
“What
is very clear in Paul’s teaching is that the old ceremonial system of
sacrifices and holy days was fulfilled in Christ and was no longer binding on
the believer.”
·
“The
high view of one day set aside as the Lord’s Day in a special way, a day built
theologically on the biblical commands concerning a rest day, is a direct gift
from the Puritans.”
·
“The only way the careful observance of the rest day
commandment could displease our Lord would be if a person looked to that
obedience as a means of earning merit or as a way of salvation.”
·
“In
a thoroughly humanistic age in which man is the center, ‘God first!’ thunders
from Sinai. The first table of the Decalogue proclaims this ultimate message:
‘Above all else, O man, guard your relationship to your God.’”
Rousas John
Rushdoony
My thinking on the meaning of the Sabbath has been developed
more than anything else by a thick book by R. J. Rushdoony called The
Institutes of Biblical Law. While I do not agree with everything I read
there, I thought these quotes were very good:
·
“The
purpose of the Sabbath is … the rest and release of redemption and
regeneration” (p.140). “The pattern of the Sabbath is God’s creation rest...”
(p.128)
·
“The
goal of the Sabbath, as Hebrews 3 makes clear, is the promised land, the new
creation in Jesus Christ. The Sabbath therefore sets forth the restoration and
restitution of all things in Christ.” (p.141)
·
“The
essence of the Sabbath is our rest in Christ, and our growth in the knowledge
of that salvation by His grace.” (p.153)
·
This
is pictured in the greatest of all Sabbaths, the jubilee year, but what is it
that inaugurates the Jubilee? It is the Day of Atonement! The day on which God
provides a way for His people to be forgiven of their sin by killing a
substitute, a lamb without blemish.
·
“On
the close of the great Day of Atonement, when the Hebrews realized that they
had peace of mind, that their heavenly Father had annulled their sins, and that
they had become reunited to Him through His forgiving mercy, every Israelite
was called upon to proclaim through the land, by nine blasts of the cornet,
that he too had given the soil rest, that he had freed every encumbered family
estate, and that he had given liberty to every slave...” (quoting C. D.
Ginsburg’s commentary on Leviticus)
·
The death sentence in the law of Moses for the violation
of the Sabbath implies that the observation of the Sabbath was life-giving.
(p.137) “The Sabbath is life to the man who looks to the Lord for life, and allows
God to work throughout all creation as the great re-creator.” (p.144)
·
The Sabbath was a covenantal sign – a sign that
God and man were in agreement. “The commandment does not merely require a cessation
of work, but to ‘remember to keep it holy… Holiness in itself implies
authority; it is separation and dedication in terms of God… the rest of the Sabbath
comes from the fact that covenant man is under authority… To be under authority
and to acknowledge sovereignty requires knowledge… Growth in the knowledge of
God and His law-word is thus important to the celebration of the Sabbath.”
(p.151) “To rest in the Lord is to accept His authority and to trust in Him”
(p.154).
·
“The
Sabbath… looks backward to the creation rest for its pattern and faith;
it looks upward to God in the assurance of His grace and victory; it
looks forward to the great Sabbath consummation.” (p.146, quoting
Gustave Oehler’s Theology of the Old Testament, a well as Augustine’s Confessions)
·
The
following Jewish anecdote is quoted by many people, “The people of Israel said:
‘Lord of the whole world, show us the world to come.’ God, blessed be He, answered:
‘Such a pattern is the Sabbath.’” (p.156, quoting Jalk. Rub.)
·
“[T]he
Sabbath has always had reference to the future. The pattern of
the sabbath is in the past, from the Sabbath of creation. The entrance
in to the Sabbath is also in the past; for Israel, it was the redemption
from Egypt; for the church, it is the resurrection. The fulfillment
of the Sabbath is in the new creation. The Sabbath is a present rest,
based on past events, with a future reference and fulfillment.”
(p.156)
·
“The
Sabbath law is a plan for the world’s tomorrow. The Biblical law works to
eliminate evil and to abolish poverty and debt. The Sabbath law has as its word
the recreation of man, animals, and the earth, the whole of creation. The
Sabbath thus reveals the design and direction of the whole law: it is a
declaration of the future that the law is establishing.” (p.157)
