Meditation – Keeping the Sabbath Holy (The Lord's Day - Part 3)
by Isaac Overton
The Sabbath is about God’s plan, the end goal, that he has for his creation. A plan to dwell with his creation, to rule over his creation, and as we participate in God’s rest, we anticipate that final rest that will be ours when we dwell with the Lord and rejoice in his reign in the new creation. And this all brings us to one final thing that we need to think about on this topic of the sabbath rest. As God set the sabbath pattern for us in creation on the seventh day, he now calls us sabbath by sabbath to set aside one day in seven, week by week, to dwell in his presence, to recognise his rule, to rest in Christ, and to worship God as we find in Psalm 92 – the Sabbath Psalm. As we follow the sabbath pattern in our own lives, God calls us to set aside one day in seven as dedicated to him.
Now as reformed believers, our confessions teach this; that we must still set aside the Lord’s Day as a sabbath rest. In the Heidelberg Catechism (Q&A 103) we read:
“Q. 103. What does God require in the fourth Commandment?
A. First, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I regularly attend the assembly of God's people to learn what God's Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through his Spirit, and so begin already in this life the eternal Sabbath.”
For many Christians, however (and maybe you’re one of them), you either disagree with that or perhaps you’ve never even really thought about it. I’d like to take a moment now to think a little bit about this. What did it mean to keep the actual sabbath day holy? And why does the catechism teach us that God still calls us to recognise the day of worship?
Firstly, what does it mean to keep the sabbath holy? Let’s go back to Genesis 2:3 and read again:
“So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”
To start with, God called the day holy. What does that actually mean? That word “holy” literally means to separate, or set apart. Now in the supreme sense, God alone is holy. He alone is set apart from creation, being over it and above it. This is why the cherubim cry out in the heavenly throne room: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty.” He is holy, exalted above all things.
Now God is holy, but on occasion God also declares something in his creation to be holy. In declaring that a thing is holy, God is not saying that it’s holy in the sense that he himself is holy. What he is saying is that the holy thing is to be dedicated to him. That’s what holiness means, it means a person or thing is set apart exclusively to be dedicated to God. In 2 Corinthians 6, for example, the Apostle Paul teaches us that we as his people have been set apart to be holy. The tribe of Levi in Moses’ day was set apart as holy, they were separated and dedicated to God in a special way. And so, when God made the seventh day holy, this is what it means: God set apart the seventh day for himself.
In other words, the seventh day was created as a day dedicated to God, that’s what Genesis 2:3 means. This is why in the New Testament, the day of worship is simply called “the Lord’s Day”, because it is set apart and belongs to him. Calling it the Lord’s Day is exactly the same thing as calling it holy. In effect, God declared that the sabbath was the Lord’s Day right here in Genesis 2:3. Isaiah 58:13 shows this very clearly:
“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honourable; if you honour it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth”.
The sabbath rest is a rest of worship, a rest of ceasing from our own labours, and delighting in God. That’s what it means to say that it is holy, it’s a day dedicated to the Lord, made for delighting in the Lord.
Now the question is still there: What does this all mean for us today? So far all we’ve done is considered how the sabbath worked in the Old Covenant. But what about the New Covenant? Well, let me give you three reasons why I believe that, as Hebrews 4 tells us, there remains a sabbath rest to the people of God. I think that the Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 103 gets it right, we are still called to recognise the Lord’s Day as holy and dedicated to God. Let me lay out a few reasons why I believe that this is what the scriptures teach us.
Here’s the first reason I believe that the sabbath day still remains: it is a creation ordinance. It was not established as part of the Mosaic covenant; it was established on the seventh day of creation. Christians who argue that the sabbath has passed away under the Old Covenant fail to realise that the sabbath preceded the Old Covenant. It is woven into creation, and transcends the Old Covenant. Like marriage, it was established at Eden as a creation ordinance. Dominion, work, marriage, the sabbath – all are creation ordinances. As Jesus said, the sabbath was made – not for the Jews only – but for man as a whole. The sabbath is a universal creation ordinance, a universal call to all people to come and worship. Even the Mosaic law itself recognised this universal call of sabbath worship, as we see in Ex 20:10 where we find that uncircumcised non-Jews were required to observe it. Mankind as a whole was made to worship God, and the sabbath day, as the day of worship, is therefore a universal requirement. The sabbath is a creation ordinance.
The second reason I think we can say that the day of worship remains is because: it is a moral necessity. The moral significance of the sabbath can be seen in the fact that it was included in the Ten Commandments. In Hebrews 10:16 we learn that in the New Covenant God will write His law upon the hearts of his people:
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds”.
According to the logic of Hebrews 10:16, God would therefore write the moral law of the Sabbath on our hearts. He would cause us to delight in it, even as Israel neglected it. And – lest you think that the moral principle of the fourth commandment has passed away – consider Matthew 5:17, where Jesus said:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
The ceremonial aspects of the Old Covenant have passed away, the book of Hebrews makes that abundantly clear. We no longer sacrifice animals, for the shadow of animal sacrifices have passed away, and the sacrifice of Christ to which they pointed has now been accomplished. But the moral imperatives of God’s law remain as his will for our lives. The moral imperative of the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, remains today: God still doesn’t want us to kill people. He doesn’t want us to commit adultery, steal, covet, dishonour our parents, take his name in vain, or make idols. And neither does he want us to profane the day of worship. The moral imperative of the fourth commandment remains.
The third reason why the day of worship remains is because: God never repealed it. As you read the Old Testament, there’s no doubt about it: God commanded his people to keep the sabbath day. For us to stop doing that, then, we need to see clearly from scripture that God has done away with the moral duty of the Sabbath, but we simply do not find that in scripture.
We do find that the day has changed, the apostolic example shows that the day of worship changed from the seventh day to the first day, which is fitting when you think about it. The seventh day of the Old Covenant looked forward to Christ, and the first day of the New Covenant looks back to what he’s accomplished. And how do we know the day of worship has changed? Again, because Christ changed it by apostolic authority. Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2 both show that the apostles changed the practice of worship on the seventh day to worship on the first day. In the book of Revelation, full of its seventh day symbolism, the apostle John is called up into the heavenly worship on “the Lord’s Day” (Rev 1:10). And so this is why we worship the Lord of the Sabbath Sunday by Sunday because it’s his will that we do so. We don’t gather to worship on Monday, or Tuesday, we follow the apostolic example and worship together on Sunday.
Let me put it this way: if you don’t think we need to keep the sabbath holy any more, you would want to make sure that you are certain from scripture that God now only has nine commandments for us instead of ten! So then, keep the sabbath holy. Set aside Sunday for the purpose that God made it: to worship him. Thats what the day is for! Thats why it is such a wonderful gift because it’s a day for rejoicing in God. Dedicate the day to delighting in God. The sabbath was made for man, to be a blessing to us as we take one day in seven to focus on delighting in God and worshipping him. Resolve in your heart and life to keep the sabbath holy, even as God created it to be holy. It is a means of grace, and a means by which we will know God more. And if this is all new to you, maybe you’ve never heard of this before, then let me encourage you like Bereans to search the scriptures to see if these things are so.
Here are three resources to help you do that: “The Lord’s Day”, by Joseph Pipa Jr; “Call the Sabbath a Delight”, by Walter Chantry; and “The Day of Worship” by Ryan McGraw (Pipa's volume is in our church library!).
SDG.