Talkin' Sabbath with Sam Waldron

Hey everybody, this is Keith and I'm back at the Y-Calvinism conference here in Tullahoma, Tennessee. And I am excited and honored to welcome to the show today Dr. Sam Waldron. You are a person that I highly respect and hold in high regard and have been very grateful for all that you've done.

And we've met before, even though you probably don't remember it, it was at Shane Waters Church in Jacksonville, Florida. And this is a funny story. You taught on the Sabbath.

I did.

Now we hold a different view and I don't want to argue with you today because I know you're much smarter than me. But three days after you did that, I did a debate on the Sabbath because that had already been planned and you came to do that.

And so I came to listen to you and I was like, oh man.

That is a weird story, I have to admit.

It was a Presbyterian minister in Jacksonville. We had planned it like six months in advance. And I always joke, I tell Shane, I said, you brought Sam in three days before I did my debate because you knew he wanted him to come and slam dunk me.

Well, I don't know that I can do that to anybody, especially to you.

But anyway.

Well, but it was just so funny that it all happened. But I remember meeting you there and really enjoyed our time together and getting to see you and Shane's a great brother. Well the first thing is, your positions on the 1689 seem to sometimes be somewhat different from the Federalist positions and I don't want to get too much into that.

1689 Federalism, Covenant of Works, and the Covenant of Grace

But am I right to say, if I say this, that before the Federalists kind of came along, you were part of an earlier generation of Baptists who were adopting Reformed theology and sort of trying to figure it out.

Yeah, that's right.

And is there more unity coming now? That's where I was getting around to this. Do you see more unity coming now or do you see more division coming down the road?

Well, you know, I don't blame you for saying that you don't quite know where I stand on 1689 Federalism because I'm not quite sure where I stand.

Okay, that's fair.

But yeah, you know.

And I say that with all the respect in the world for Richard Barcellos and all those guys. I mean, these are men of God and we love them.

Yeah.

So, but that long ago, we were trying to figure out, I guess I speak for myself, but I think there are other people like me. How do we defend the covenant of grace exactly from Scripture? Do we believe in a covenant of works exactly from Scripture?

And I guess I have friends that may be slightly different places on those things. I can only speak for myself. So since that time and since actually probably the original edition of the modern exposition, I have always believed in substantially the covenant of works, for instance.

But I was inclined to Murray's position, which was to call it something different and still believe all the same thing. But I'm happy with the terminology covenant of works now and it's a really important part of my theology.

Okay.

Same thing with the covenant of grace. How do you defend the covenant of grace?

Yes.

At that time, when I first wrote the modern exposition, I defended it as a legitimate, like non-biblical title for something the Bible teaches, so that it stood for the organic unity of the way of salvation in all ages of the earth and all ages of men.

And so my goal was to defend the covenant of grace, but I was not willing to identify it with any particular biblical covenant, while 1689 federalism, of course, identifies it strictly with the new covenant.

I was going to ask that, yeah.

Of course they do. And I have been more and more inclined to that position over the years as I've thought.

About it.

You know, the difficulty is when you're first coming into these things, and this is 40 years ago now, long before a lot of things that have happened. Well, 40 years ago, you know, you're working with the conception of the covenant of grace as something that was instituted in the Garden of Eden and has been there ever since, and it's the unifying thing for all of salvation.

I think all of that's true. But, and I said to myself when I was thinking about this way back then, well, look, but the new covenant wasn't made till the first advent of Christ, so how can it be equivalent to the covenant of grace?

Yes.

Now, their argumentation has really brought me a long ways towards that position. The biggest place where I still have a lot of confusion about, and I'm just being transparent as I'll get out here, is the whole issue of republication and the Mosaic covenant as a republication of the covenant of works.

That's a really difficult issue, and I'm not settled on my own views of that.

You did my heart good, because I'm not either. But just hearing you say that and knowing what you're talking about, and this is where I struggle with a lot of that.

Cornelius Venema, in an article online in which he's critiquing Fesco's book, The Law is Not a Faith, or I say Fesco's book, but it's an anthology. He makes the point that there are, he thinks, six different views of republication, and he says that in Fesco's book, the authors hold maybe three or four different views.

And my own response to that is, yeah, I could hold a really mild version of republication as I understand the scriptures, but after that, it gets really confusing to me. And so that's one of those areas that I frankly have to confess I don't quite, I'm not quite sure about.

Natural Law, Positive Law, and the Mosaic Covenant

Well, that leads into the question I mentioned to you, and I'm sorry I hit you with that kind of something different, because I did tell you before lunch we were going to talk about the idea of natural law and positive law.

But that leads into that, because you helped me, because I have struggled, I'll be honest with you, I've struggled with tripartitism only because I see the Mosaic Covenant as a unified covenant. And when we start dividing the law into parts, it seems to me to somewhat make it almost like a house of cards.

If one part falls, it kind of falls or stands together. And I know you may not agree, I'm just telling you where I'm coming from, but when you taught on natural law versus positive law, and made the distinction of what comes to us by nature versus what comes to us positively from scripture, am I explaining that correctly?

That was helpful for me, and Wellam would describe, and I think also Thomas Schreiner would say a transcendent law. Would you think that when you say natural law, and when they say transcendent law, that you're referring to the same thing, or maybe not?

I don't know, I haven't read them enough to be able to say what they mean by transcendent.

Law.

Okay. Well, how do you define natural law? I guess I would...

Yeah, I define natural law in pretty much the way the confession does, and I don't see anything contradictory between natural positive law and the tripartite view of the law.

Okay.

So natural law is the law revealed in creation, and I think it's spoken of in Romans 2, for instance, 12 to 15. I think that's a really important passage, and so when Paul speaks of the work of the law written in the heart, that is the key passage on natural law.

And what the confession would say is that that's substantially equivalent to the Ten Commandments, and that was there in Adam's heart, it's there in Genesis, it's there continually. The only... I'm not sure if I want to say it's an exception or not, the only... Where natural and positive law come in is that every one of God's covenants, there are different positive laws in addition to the moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments.

There are different laws that are made that are not based in general revelation, and so not necessarily continual. They're based in special revelation, and therefore are subject to change.

Very close to things that I've said, and again, sometimes this podcast I just use to make sure I'm either right or wrong.

But you know, the Confession of Faith actually uses the natural positive law distinction when it talks about the Sabbath in chapter 22, so it basically calls the Sabbath both a natural and a positive law.

And let's... Can we touch on that for a minute?

Yeah, sure.

Because I'm not a Sabbatarian, but I want to make sure I understand this correctly, and if I'm talking about it, I want to make sure I never misrepresent someone I would disagree with. So when you say, and I think I heard you teach this, that there are aspects of the Sabbath that are positive law, and that what is natural is that there's one in seven, days that we are called to rest, but the additions to that in the Mosaic Covenant, the positive law, would be the things that we are not required to, but we are required to rest one day in.

Seven.

Yeah, that's pretty close.

Clean me up.

Here's the way I would put it. Look, there are some things that are embodied in the Sabbath law that are perpetual and a matter of general revelation or natural law. That God should be worshipped, that God should be worshipped corporately, that a period of...that a time's going to have to be appointed by God to do that.

All of those things are natural. But what has to be said in addition to that is, so what is the appointed time? In the old covenant, it was the seventh day. The new covenant's the first day of the week.

That's the distinction as I understand it. So that seventh day versus first day, revelation of seventh day versus revelation of first day, that's positive law. But so the way, what I liken it to is I see the natural law as the foundation of the Sabbath house, and I see positive law as the superstructure of it.

So the foundation's always the same. The cement blocks and the poured basement, that contour's never going to change. But the superstructure, the first day structure, is going to change with the resurrection of Christ.

The Sabbath, the Lord's Day, and Church Membership

Here's a conversation I've had with my local Reformed Baptist brothers, including Shane, as we mentioned, because obviously he and I have some distinctions on this. And I remember you mentioning this in your lesson when you were there, and you had mentioned Lord's Day guys.

And I don't know who you were referring to, you said something about the difference between a Sabbatarian and a Lord's Day guy. And you said, I don't remember exactly what you said, but you made me, I was like, well that's me.

Because I would say, I totally affirm Sunday's the Lord's Day, that's the day we should worship, that's the day we should focus the entire day on the Lord, this is the Lord's Day. And so in that way, I would say, functionally, I think I behave more like a Sabbatarian than even, you know, I don't want to say other Sabbatarians, but other people who may not be Sabbatarian.

I would say functionally, I worship on the Lord's Day, I consider the Lord's Day the Lord's Day. I just have a hard time stepping over and saying this is the Sabbath. And so how do you treat somebody like me?

Do you kick me out of your church?

No, I don't kick you out of the church, in fact, if you read the appendix here, our view is that there are certain exceptions to the confession of faith that are consistent with membership in a 1689 church.

And I had interaction with Sean Wright at Southern Seminary and Mark Devers' articles on this, and that's what's in the back of the fifth edition of my book, to say, look, it's never been true, it's not true that you have to be full subscriptionist to be a member of a 1689 church.

And I quote Jim Renahan and other people on that point. But here's what I would say to you, and here's my big argument against Lord's Day people. It's that, look, you're going to say one day in seven, you're going to say it's a day of worship, you're going to admit all these parallels between the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, and yet the Lord's Day is not a Sabbath.

That doesn't make any sense to me, you know? So that's kind of my argument in my book, Lectures on the Lord's Day, that's published by Jeff Pollard and Chapel Library. I point out like, I just gave you a couple, I point out like eight or nine or ten parallels between the Lord's Day and the Sabbath, and ask the question, how can you not see the continuity there?

And if there's continuity, is it not a Sabbath, right?

Do you want my answer?

I'd be glad to hear your answer.

I do see a continuity, but I also see somewhat of a discontinuity. I would argue that it would be similar to, and I'm sure you've heard this before, I'm not teaching you anything, but I would argue the distinction would be such as the discontinuity between the Passover and the Lord's Supper.

There is a genetic connection between the two, but one is not the other. We don't call the Lord's Day the Passover. Therefore there's a genetic connection between the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, but I don't call one the other because I see a distinction.

So that's really where I would leave it. That would be where I would leave it.

Let me push back then.

Please.

But look, you see, and maybe it comes down to this. It comes down to the fact that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance, and it's the fact that it's a creation ordinance. And this not just on the basis of my interpretation of Genesis 2, 3, for instance, but on the basis of Exodus 20, on the basis of Hebrews 4, on the basis of Jesus' wonderful words in the Gospels in Mark 2, that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

That language there harks back to creation. And if it's a creation ordinance, if it's creational, it's got to be perpetual in some sense. You see?

So...

Hey, I want you to know how excited I was that I knew you were coming, and not because.

I...

This is honestly something I've thought a lot about, and I've always wanted to talk.

To you about it.

Yeah.

So thank you for sitting down with me. And I hope I... I certainly wasn't trying to engage in a debate. I really wanted to know, you know, how you come to your conclusions, and I really enjoy.

Having...

Well, I'm glad to talk about this issue. It's really important to me. But look, let's close by saying. In my view, a person could hold your view and be a member of our church, as long as their practice wasn't really offensive in terms of the whole church as a whole.

But it's the same thing with other doctrines, like particular redemption, for instance. Sean Wright assumed that if a person disagreed about the Sabbath, or he also said the six days of creation... Six-day creationism.

He also said particular redemption, that they couldn't be a member of a 1689 church. And that's not strictly true at all.

Yeah.

Okay?

Now, are you a six-day creationist?

I am.

But you would say it doesn't have to be... Not required.

Now you're...

I don't want to say this publicly, but I think I could, as long as someone believed in a real...

A literal Adam.

Literal Adam and Eve.

Yeah.

I could, if other things didn't prevent it, I could swallow hard and let them in.

Amen.

Brother, can you tell our audience, if they're interested, because I know you're the president of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, and you guys are open to students and things like that. Tell people how to get in touch with you, if they're interested.

Oh, they need to go right to our website, which is cbtseminary .org, and then they're going to see loads of stuff there. They're going to see stuff from our Man of God Network, podcasts, and all sorts of things there.

They're going to see Pastor Ron Miller's particular Pilgrims podcast, which is wonderful stuff. My own three-minute walks through the 1689 Confession. But they're also going to be able to find out all about what's required, what our different programs are, and all of that stuff.

You know what really excites me is your church partnership program. You guys still do that, right?

I absolutely do, yeah.

Where a church and then their pastor can go, or members, or whatever. That's something I think... When I heard about that, I was like, that could really benefit someone like me, because my church sent me to seminary long before.

This was a long time ago. If that would have been available, I would have been your student, and I would have been a Sabbatarian.

Man.

That's a loss.

Dr. Waldron, thank you so much for sitting down with me.

You're welcome.

I really, genuinely appreciate it.

Good talking with you.

Yes, sir.