Sabbath Observance

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton. And with me are Michael Durham. Chris Giesler. David Cassin. And we have

Andrew over here in the hole, ready to come up to bat whenever we call upon him.

But he says he's not swinging today. The bat is staying on his shoulder. But we have a -

I don't have my uniform on. His cleats, they're up in the cubby hole in the clubhouse.

Nobody's gonna go get them. He's got flip -flops on. I can see him right here. There's sandals. He's not getting out on the field, folks.

We have a question sent in. Sorry for the derailment. We have a question sent in about the Ten Commandments and the moral law of God in the

Bible, which is, as we will discuss, it's already showing the premise of the question.

But the question reads, the Ten Commandments are the clearest expression of God's moral law in the

Bible. The moral law should apply to all people in all times, not just Old Testament Israel.

Why do the people in your church not honor the Sabbath as the moral law of God demands?

This will go, or they will go to work sometimes or even patronize restaurants where people work on Sunday.

And we will try to address that, as Chris said, because somebody lit their hair on fire to write it.

Michael? Well, I will say that for folks who are operating with the presuppositions that are obvious for this questioner, this is a very serious issue because they're, given the assumptions that they carry into the question, they have a very clear desire to honor the

Lord, to keep the Sabbath, to do the right thing.

And they would see that a church that would be Sabbatarian in the

New Covenant sense, from their perspective, meaning keeping

Sunday holy, not allowed for work, for employment, and also to not go to places where other people are employed and having them work to serve you, they would see that as a sign of health, that you would honor the

Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath on Sunday. To not do so would look to be disobeying

God, dishonoring the Lord, a bad sign in terms of, is a church healthy or not?

Are these people concerned about the things of the Lord? Are they being submissive and obedient?

And so for someone who has those presuppositions and concerns, I would certainly agree that we need to honor the

Lord. That Christ is King, He has all authority, and we should be obeying all of His commands, and we should be following Him ardently and zealously, and that Sunday is a special day, and we ought to recognize that.

So there's a lot, I think, that we could agree on, even though I understand that the way that we operate as a church and the kind of expectations that we have would be stumbling and offensive to many.

And they don't attend our church and are not a part of our church because that very fact, because we would be stumbling them.

Now if somebody came here and they were very much a strict Sabbath observer, I would do everything

I could to not stumble my brother and to bear with him in his convictions.

I don't know if he would be the stronger brother, or if I would, I don't know if he'd be the weaker one, or I would, but in any case,

I think we could bear with one another and find our unity in Christ. But let's talk about the assumptions that are built into this question, that we would have to agree with all these assumptions prior to getting to the point of whether this is good or bad.

It says that the Ten Commandments are the clearest expression of God's moral law in the

Bible. Okay, first of all, we have to say, well, what is God's moral law? So in other words, what they're saying is there is something out there called

God's moral law. Sometimes it's called God's eternal moral law, the eternal moral law of God. I like to call it the

EMLG for short, the eternal moral law of God. And so they're saying that that's out there, that that exists, okay, and that the clearest expression of that eternal moral law of God to be found anywhere is in the

Bible, and not just anywhere in the Bible. It's found in the giving of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20,

Deuteronomy 5, okay? And often, of course, you're gonna see on the wall somewhere one of those little cartoon drawings of two clay tablets, and they're gonna have some commandments on one side, some commandments on the other.

But when they write them out on those posters, when they put them on the plaques, when you find it in your catechisms, when you find it in the confessions, every single one of those commandments is taken out of context.

When you go back and you read those passages in Exodus chapter 20, verses one through 19,

Deuteronomy 5, verses one through 23, when you read those passages, you're going to find that they are all heavily contextualized to God's covenant with Israel at Sinai.

And there's all kinds of things in there that don't make sense for everybody everywhere. You have to actually take the commandments out of their context, shake them loose of their original

Sinaitic context, and then generalize them, principalize them for everybody everywhere, and that would include the

Sabbath. Now, I would say that these commandments are great commandments, full of the wisdom and truth of God, showing us the righteousness of God, and are wonderful to behold and to meditate on.

However, you have to start with the idea of this, something called the eternal moral law of God.

Now, that might be a handy -dandy theological construct to help explain the fact that God is our creator, he's perfect, he's good, everything he does is good, and because we are his creatures, we're supposed to do what he says, and he gets to set the standards for what we do and say.

I think when you read in Genesis, that we're made in his image, right? So we are made to reflect him, that all mankind everywhere is made for godliness.

And guess what? Surprise, God is the standard for godliness.

And so, there's a lot I agree with the idea of there being this moral law of God, the eternal moral law of God.

But when they say, okay, first of all, there's this eternal moral law of God, the clearest expressions of the

Ten Commandments. Therefore, the Ten Commandments should apply to all people and all times, and not just Old Testament Israel. Okay, well,

I don't follow that, I don't agree with that entirely. I do agree that God is the standard for godliness for all mankind.

But that this law was given to Israel, particularly, there was a beginning to this law, as Paul says, it came 430 years after the promise to Abraham.

And there's an end to this law, because the end of the law is in Christ, and Christ fulfilled the law. And that Paul says in more than one place that we are no longer under the law.

This is not to say that we are lawless. This is not to say that we can do whatever we want, that there's no righteous authority over us.

That is not to say that. It is to say that we follow the authority of Christ, who is the express image of the invisible

God, perfect in all of his godliness. He's king of kings, he tells us what to do, and we rejoice to follow his commands, which are not burdensome.

However, if we say the Ten Commandments is the perfect expression of God's moral law, then we've got to keep the

Sabbath. We've got to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And someone will say, well, after all, after all, if you go back to Genesis, you will find that God rests on the seventh day, and clearly, he's giving this as a pattern to Adam and Eve to follow, which, again, what a wise thing to do, to rest and to recognize that God is the giver of all good things, and you don't have to, as Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 says, don't work your wife and children and slaves and animals and fields 24 -7.

Why not? Why don't you have to do that? Why don't you have to maximize every single moment for work?

Why is it that you can rest? Well, because remember, God rested after he worked, and it's a pattern from creation.

Also, remember, hey, Israel, you were a slave in Egypt, so remember that God is the one who redeemed you and rescued you and provides for you.

So don't work your household 24 -7. Rest and recognize that God is the provider, and that was wise, that there's all manner of wisdom in there, and there's all manner of looking forward to Christ as our

Sabbath in there, but when you go back and you read Genesis, God, we don't have

God commanding Adam and Eve to Sabbath with him, but we can say, well, it's a godly thing to rest.

I would agree with that. But what is the Sabbath, seventh day? What is the

Sabbath in the life of Israel? It's the seventh day. Okay, so there's another assumption made.

Why do the people in your church not honor the Sabbath as the moral law of God demands? They will go to work sometimes, we even patronize restaurants where people work on Sunday.

So how did we get from Saturday to Sunday? When God said, remember the

Sabbath day to keep it holy, he didn't mean the first day of the week. He meant the last day.

This is why there are not just seventh -day Adventists who also, many of them get the gospel entirely wrong, but there are also primitive

Baptists who gather on Saturday, right? Sing only psalms, no instruments in the church, gather on Saturdays, why?

Because we need to honor the Sabbath, okay? And there are a lot of people who worship on Saturday simply because they, hey,

God said, remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy, so let's gather on Saturday. The seventh -day

Adventists actually think that Sunday is the mark of the beast. Yes. They actually have that in their writings.

Right, so what we gather on Sunday is because that's the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and we find evidence in the

New Testament that this is referred to as the Lord's Day because Jesus rose on that first day of the week.

Well, that's a signal of the new creation, first day of the week. Here is the light of the world, he is raised on the first day of the week.

We gather together as new creatures in Christ, and we rejoice that he was raised on the first day of the week.

And do we set aside Sunday as special? Do we make sure that as much as we can, we're off work and we can gather and worship and so on and so forth?

Yes. Why do we do that? Not because we're Sabbatarians, but because we're religious. The Bible is not anti -religion.

The Bible is anti -bad religion. Jesus was all about condemning religion, and you use religion as a covering to look good, but the

Bible is pro -religion when you use religion for communion to love

God. And setting aside special time in your life to gather together with the church, when they gather, and we gather on the first day of the week as is repeated in the scriptures, that's a good thing to do.

But you know what? Gathering together to worship Christ and rejoice in him, that we rest in him as the accomplishment of all of our righteousness before God, and recognizing in him as our true inheritance, that we rest in him, that is not a keeping of the

Sabbath, that is the fulfillment of the Sabbath. So if we're gonna address the questioner directly, would we say that we disagree on the purpose or the telos of the law, and that is the main point of disagreement here with him?

I think so. I think it's also important to remember that when you look at the

Ten Commandments, very specifically, the Sabbath commandment is not about having a worship service.

When you back up, the Sabbath was talked about prior to Sinai, in Exodus, about what they were not allowed to do on that day as God was teaching them, hey,

I'm the one who provides for you. And it's a household instruction in the

Ten Commandments that says, don't work your household to the bone.

You all need to shut your economy down, your household down, one day in seven, particularly the seventh day, recognizing that God is your provider.

They didn't gather together at the tabernacle to go worship. They weren't instructed in that to have family worship.

They weren't told any of that. They were just said, don't work, shut it down. And when you read the

Ten Commandments, the first two commandments are in parallel with the last commandment, which is given twice. There's two thou shalt not covets at the very end.

The first two commandments and the last two commandments are in parallel, and there's a series of concentric parallels that move in.

For instance, the ninth commandment is, do not bear false witness against your neighbor. Well, the third commandment is, do not bear the name of your

Lord God in vain, right? Don't lie with God's name in your mouth. Don't lie with your neighbor's name in your mouth.

See those parallel? Well, guess what's in parallel with Sabbath? Thou shalt not steal, right?

Why? Because God provides for you, so you don't have to steal. You see, that's the sentiment that's in parallel.

You move in one more, honor your father and mother, and do not commit adultery, right? Oh, honor and fidelity to family.

What's at the heart of everything? Murder. Don't murder, right? Which is, that's at the very heart of the

Ten Commandments for a reason, right? Now, so when you read the

Sabbath, remember the Sabbath had to keep it holy to the Israelites. It was all about don't work, don't do anything, shut it down, okay?

Well, when we come to the New Testament, what do we find about the Christians? We find the

Christians gathering on the Lord's Day to worship. Remember, Paul did so in Acts, meeting with the people, and what happens is they get together and they meet, and all of a sudden, it's night.

Why? Probably because they worked. And then they gathered together, and Paul starts preaching, and all of a sudden, it's the middle of the night, and you've got

Eutychius falling out the window, okay? Setting aside a day to gather together didn't mean that they weren't necessarily working.

That has become the tradition for multiple reasons, and I think it's good.

I think it's great. If you don't have to work on Sunday, I highly recommend not to work on Sunday. I think that's good.

I think there's no better way to fulfill the Sabbath than by gathering together with the body of Christ, rejoicing in his finished work and his resurrection from the dead.

Now, you did touch on this when you addressed the actual

Sabbath command in Exodus. The retort that people usually give is that, as you read it, for in six days the

Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, all that's in them, rested on the seventh. They say that this command is rooted in creation, and we respect creational differences regarding men and women in Christ, so why shouldn't we respect this kind of creational pattern as well?

How would you respond to that when they say, no, wait a second, yes, okay, it was given to Sinai, yes, this is honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that God has given you.

Okay, that doesn't apply, but honoring your mother and father is a good thing, so murdering is a bad thing, don't do that.

So shouldn't we honor this Sabbath? It's a creational thing, so how would you respond to that, keeping kind of the same vein that you've been pushing?

There's a new creation. Right, so the pattern, so the assumption is that because we see male and female, this creational distinction should be kept.

There's also, it's like, okay, we have a distinction between the seventh day versus the other days where God rested having completed his works.

The distinction is, why do we not continue to obey this command?

Well, it's not a command, but let's read the text. When God says, when

God made Adam and Eve in his own image, according to his likeness, according to his own image, he made them, and then he says to them what?

He blesses them and says, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. This is what he says to them, do this.

But it's actually, it's interesting, you back up a little bit before that, he said the same thing to the birds and the fish, okay?

Now, when God says this to the birds and the fish, do you think they all were kind of like looking up, kind of like, you know, listening, and then they're like, okay, and then they get kind of nod towards heaven, you know, the little fish with the fin salutes and says, all right,

I've got my marching orders now, I'm gonna go obey this command. When we find God blessing the birds and the fish to fill out the sky and the seas, you know what they did?

They did, that's what happened, why? Because he blessed them to do it. And in the same sense, he blessed

Adam and Eve to do this, and then they followed through, but it was also a command, so they're obeying this command.

When we read in Genesis chapter two, says, thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished, and on the seventh day,

God ended his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done. Okay, and then

God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it, he rested from all his work, which God had created and made. So he has set apart this day, he's resting from his work.

There's nothing in this verse, this passage, that says that he is addressing this to Adam and Eve, or to the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, or to any of the creatures that he made, that he said, you all need to be fruitful and multiply, be abundant.

And he says that to the fish, he says that to the birds, he says that to Adam and Eve. So, but we would have to extend, if he says this in chapter, if this in chapter two, verses one through three, is wink, wink, he's saying it to mankind as well, then, by extension, he has to be saying it to the other ones he blessed to be fruitful and multiply as well.

He's gotta be saying it to the fish, he's gotta be saying it to the birds, and so on. That never comes up. My dog never stopped barking on the

Sabbath. He barks every day. But when we come to Exodus, it is a very important point that the covenant is looking backwards at creation.

Okay, why? Because the covenant is an amplification of what went down in the creation.

It's a recapitulation. What you have in the creation is an ectype of, in the covenant is an ectype of creation, so that Israel stands in the place of Adam.

And they are being, and Adam is being instructed about how to live in godliness.

And the Sabbath was given to Israel to keep as part of the law, and it was a sign.

It was the sign of the old covenant. It was the sign of the Sinaitic covenant. And if you didn't keep the Sabbath, then you would lose the land.

And in fact, they didn't keep the Sabbath, and they lost the land. And when you come into the New Testament, and Jesus comes and he says that he did not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.

Because he comes as one who is greater than, he begins to say, you have heard it said, and he quotes from the law in a variety of places, some would call it quoting from the moral law, some would say he's quoting from the ceremonial law in another place, some would say he's quoting from the judicial law in another place, as he does in Matthew chapter five.

But he quotes from all these different places in the law, as you have heard it said, quotes or sums up the law, and then says, but I say to you.

And so all we gotta do is listen to Christ and see what does he have to say about the Sabbath. Well, Matthew chapter 11, he says, all you who are weary and heavy laden, take one day off in seven.

No, he says, all you who are weary and heavy laden, come unto me and I will give you rest.

And the rest, he says, is get yoked with me. My burden is light, my yoke is easy.

You're gonna find rest when you're with me. What happens in the very next set of verses?

It's the Sabbath, and Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grain field, and his disciples are hungry.

And so they grab some kernels of grain off of the stock. Uh -oh, they just harvested. Then they took those grains of wheat, and then they ground them in the palms of their hands.

Uh -oh, they just threshed. And by rubbing them together, they mixed the sweat and the salt of their hands into those grains before they ate, oh, now they're cooking.

And they are eating, I'm serious, this is breaking all kinds of Jewish law. Let them cook. And then the

Pharisees jump out of the bushes, because they're always right there ready to say something. They jump out of the bush and say, ah -ha, you're breaking the

Sabbath. And then what does Jesus say to them? Well, that's impossible, they're with me. He says, have you not read about how those who were with David ate the bread of the presence, which was not fit for them to eat, but they were with David, so it was okay?

And have you not read about what the priests do in the temple? I mean, slaughtering animals is hard work, but they do it on the

Sabbath. But why is it okay for them to do it? Because they're inside the temple, so it's holy and fine. And Jesus' point says, they're with me.

They're hanging out in the temple. How could they not be at rest? They're with me. And he says,

Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. So all we have to do is listen to what

Christ has to say when they point at him as a Sabbath breaker, because they were working on the

Sabbath. How dare you work on the Sabbath, they said. And Jesus is like, ah, it's impossible. I'm finna break the Sabbath, they're hanging out with me.

We went through the Ten Commandments, I say recently, but within memory. Couple years ago.

Yeah. But it was, you titled it Ten Words, right?

Ten Words About Christ. Yes. And how they find their fulfillment in Christ.

In the question, it talks about the eternal, the moral law of God. And so that's a theological term.

And there's like this overarching idea that the New Covenant is like the

Old Covenant. And all of those things we see in the Ten Commandments and principles for Israel, just move straight over into the

New Covenant. Sure. So we talk about. Murder is still wrong. Yeah, murder is still wrong. Sabbath breaking is still wrong.

So you start defining things, like baptism is corresponding to circumcision.

So you've got this system, covenantalism. And this is how they're defining that, that the

New Covenant is like the Old One. That seems to be within the question.

But as we get into the New Testament, the descriptions are different.

It's not that it's the same. It's that it's new. Yes, now, something that's very important to do is if you want to take

Sabbath seriously, and I hope you do, because it is such a very important, rich theme in the scriptures.

And having done a very thorough study of it myself, I've been very encouraged to ponder the

Sabbath, to remember the Sabbath, to meditate on it, and to see what it was all about. And one of the things that is clear is the relationship between Sabbath rest and the promised land.

That they were learning Sabbath in the wilderness, but they were explicitly told, if you don't Sabbath, you're losing your land.

They were told that before they had their land. And they were to Sabbath the seventh day.

They were to Sabbath the seventh year. They were to Sabbath the 50th year, which was the year of Jubilee.

They were to Sabbath during certain feasts. All of that. They had to keep all of that. Why? Because they were relying upon the

Lord's provision through the blessing of their inheritance, which was the land. And in their rest, they were resting in the land.

They were resting in the land. That was the whole idea. And why could they rest in the land?

Because it was the Lord's provision. When you take that very same idea and you come into the New Testament, we're told that we are to rest in Christ, because He is the fulfillment of those land promises, because He is our inheritance.

And He has done all the work, and we rest in Him. He is finished with His works, so we rest in Him.

And so this is the theme in Galatians 3 and 4, that those who are of faith are the heirs. We inherit the promise because we're in Christ.

It's the theme of Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, where it states,

I remember those guys who didn't inherit the land, but we inherit the land by faith in Christ.

It's the theme of Romans 4 and Romans 8. There's a lot in the

New Testament that shows us that our rest is in Christ, and Christ is our inheritance.

We are co -heirs with Christ, and He's the heir of all things. So 2

Corinthians chapter 1, verse 20, all of God's promises are yes in Christ. That's where we gotta look.

Now, does this mean that we ought to treat the Lord's Day flippantly?

I wouldn't recommend it at all. We love Christ our King, and we want to honor

Him on Sundays because this is the, I believe that is the Lord's Day. I don't think that's the

Christian Sabbath. I think Jesus Christ is the Christian Sabbath. Even as I don't think baptism is the sign of the new covenant, with circumcision being the old,

I think the Holy Spirit is the sign and seal of the new covenant. I think there's, when we think about the ways in which the new covenant is new, there's not a one -to -one correlation of replacing the church in the wilderness with the church of today, right?

It's not a one -to -one correlation. It's all fulfilled in Christ. Right. I'm glad you said something about the resting in Christ work and then attaching it to resting in the land, or made me think of the vineyards that you did not plant.

Yeah. Right, you're being brought into a land that you didn't do the work, but the provision's being provided for you, so that makes that connection pretty easily.

And you just made somewhat of the connection there to Galatians, and I'm wondering in my head without throwing absolute shade at the questioner, how much different is this than the burden put on the

Galatians by those who are wanting to teach that you must have circumcision in order to be basically more

Christian or in the church type of a thing? I think that's astute, yeah. But I don't think,

I'll say this, I do not think the questioner's motivation is to guard the table in such a way.

No, but if you try to take part, if you try to take part of that old and smuggle it in, you get that camel's nose under the tent, and you're smuggling that whole camel in, guilty of the whole law.

But I do think the motivation is different than those who are trying to be Judaizing. Yeah, I don't think it's nefarious, but it's the same error.

And even the mode is different, to wink at something else, the mode is even different. Because the

Galatian heresy was, they were adopting the law. They were adopting the law.

We're gonna get circumcised, and Paul says, you're gonna bring the whole thing in with you, seasons and days and years, you're adopting the law.

That was straight -up heresy. What I notice amongst those who are

Covenantalists is not that they adopt the law, they adapt the law. Right, yeah, that makes sense. They adapt it, and they say, well, it's not

Saturday, it's Sunday, because things are different under Christ, because he is risen from the dead. We do believe that Christ fulfills, and so that's why we worship on Sunday.

And we do believe that Christ fulfills, that's why we baptize, we sprinkle our little babies, boys and girls, and not just circumcised.

Because the new covenant is greater, the new covenant is more expansive, so they're trying to use some of that language.

So they adapt, but they're not adopting, they're not guilty of the Galatian heresy.

Full brothers and sisters in Christ, but I see them adapting it, and I think they're doing so in good faith.

And we gotta remember that a lot of this stuff was kind of happening also in the early church. This is why we have passages like Romans 14.

Some people regard every day as the same. Other people, this one day is very, very special. Well, what do we do?

This is not a primary issue. This is tertiary at highest, and we can love one another and bear with one another.

We should not have to separate out of each other's churches over this particular issue,

I would not say. But it brings to mind the whole concern about what is the difference between old covenant and new?

How are things different? And I think the only clarity we can get is when we look at Christ and make sure that he's being exalted.

Someone greater is here, something greater than it is here. And I think we can agree about that, but to what degree is that?

That's where there's gonna be some difference of opinion. So the questioner makes the assumption, he says that the starting premise that the

Ten Commandments are the expression of God's moral law, and he would probably say the eternal moral law.

And I think you've demonstrated that that's not the quintessential expression, but the fact that God is moral and does give law.

Yes. Is the quick answer to this that the Ten Commandments were the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai?

It's just that it was particular to them, and it's inappropriate to take that and apply it to the

New Testament church because that wasn't its purpose. It wasn't supposed to continue in that same way.

It's pointing to something, or rather to someone. And now that that someone,

Christ himself, has come, how should we then treat those 10, those 10 words?

Yeah, that's, I think, the crux of it, because after all, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for the doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction, and righteousness.

So that includes the Ten Commandments. It includes the Book of Leviticus, right?

Yes, it does. It applies, very carefully I'm saying this, it applies for Christ's sake.

Okay, it applies for him. So all of these things, in a way, have their prophetic significance in everything that they pointed forward to, fulfilled in Christ.

So there's that. We can always see what was this intended to do in addressing the ruin of creation.

It also anticipates the reign of Christ. Everything that God says in the covenants, whether Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, whatever he says in all those covenants addresses the ruin that happened at creation because of sin, and it anticipates the reign of Christ.

So we have that prophetic movement. But also, because it's addressing the ruin of creation, it's talking about, in covenantal form, what it's like to be made in the image of God, how we're supposed to live in the light of his glory.

And therefore, there's all manner of wisdom that we are to apply in our lives as well.

So when you look at something that says, don't sow two different types of grain in the same field, there's a prophetic significance in which the wheat and the tares don't mix, okay?

And they're gonna be sifted and separated. You can't have both. There's a prophetic significance that's fulfilled in Christ.

There's also wisdom to be had there, things that we can apply and put into practice. Like I gave you one example.

Paul, in talking about whether or not you should financially support ministers, pastors, okay?

Elders, overseers, right? Should you do that? Is that okay? Missionaries, is that okay? He says, well, yeah, don't muzzle the ox.

Now, that is an Old Testament law. And when God gave that to Israel, you know what it meant? It meant don't muzzle your ox.

That big old beast of burden with the slimy snout, your tractor, this was so important to your farm.

Don't muzzle that big old beast who eats way too much for your paycheck. Oh, I don't want to waste this.

He's gonna be threshing the grain. You got him tied to a hitch. He's pulling a heavy sled. He's stomping on all of this wheat that you just cut down.

He's stomping around, pulling the heavy sled, and he's threshing the grain, separating the grains from the husks and from the stock, from the chaff, wheat from chaff, and then at the end of it all, you're gonna get him out of that threshing wheel, out of the threshing floor, and you're gonna toss it up into the sky.

The wind's gonna blow away the chaff and the grain, heavy grain, comes back down. But you know, if you don't muzzle your ox, you're gonna have less of that grain because he's gonna be munching the whole time and you're gonna have less.

Well, God said, don't muzzle your ox. Now, Paul says, that means pay your preachers.

Pay your preachers. Totally legit. He said, I ain't taking anything from you guys, but hey, don't muzzle the ox.

Pay your preachers. Oh, Paul. He just called you an ox.

Yeah, exactly. What's going on with that? Well, there's prophetic significance and wisdom significance all wrapped up into there, right?

Because when it comes down to it, Christ says, pray to the

Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. And he envisions the fulfillment of the promises of God in the kingdom, the gospel advancing and all manner of people being brought to faith in Christ.

And he sees this as a harvest. And he uses all that. He's not just using really pithy illustrations that people can really relate to.

Yeah, he is doing that. But these are all significantly, biblically, richly, deep significant.

And so Paul sees all that and he says, yeah, okay, the harvest, agrarian stuff. Yeah, okay, so when you have someone working as part of the harvest, like a pastor, don't muzzle the ox.

Well, there's wisdom in that when he gives the command, but there's also, you can only interpret that prophetically as it's been fulfilled in Christ in the new covenant.

Now, he didn't say, you must still observe this command to not muzzle your ox for all time.

He didn't say that. We're not under the law. I don't own an ox, at least I don't think I do.

Right, but if you did, you're not allowed to muzzle him.

Now, that would be like, again, keeping the law. I'm keeping the law because I didn't muzzle my ox. But what's the fulfillment of the law?

Pay your missionaries, pay your pastors, right? The real harvest. Right, exactly. And that's where this all was heading to in the first place.

So it's not about a land, it's about a Lord. And he didn't have to go through the threefold. Is this civil? Is this ceremonial?

That's just wisdom. There's this passage, and there's wisdom in it. Yeah, by the way, which one is that?

Is that judicial? Is that ceremonial, like sacrifice?

Is that moral? Is that part of the Ten Commandments moral law? It's agrarian law. How do you classify it, right?

And this is where I'm not against using theological terms and constructs to kind of help summarize some things that come with, because the

Bible is rich and complex and deep, and so sometimes we've gotta use theological terms to get a move on.

But if it doesn't fit well in all these different parts in the Bible, we've gotta have some better expressions to grab at big ideas in a more accurate way.

And so, yes, God is in charge. God is right. He's the standard. We're all accountable to him, because we're made in his image.

So in that sense, I believe in this moral law of God. Is the Ten Commandments the best, clearest expression of the righteousness of God?

The Bible itself says no. Jesus Christ is. He is the express image of God.

He is the perfect expression of God's righteousness. He is the image of the invisible God. There is no better expression of God's righteousness than Jesus himself.

So when we're thinking about this and the way that Paul describes the purpose of the law in Galatians 3, 19 through 25, we're explaining in a way that tells the people that we're trying to answer this question to is that we're trying to apply the law as though we're not under the tutor anymore.

So we're not walking back and forth to school and receiving the tutor's instruction about how to get there back and forth.

Not being under that, would it just be better to kind of read the passage in order to talk about what the purpose of the law was?

I'll read from Galatians 3, 19 through 25. What purpose then does the law serve?

It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

And it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if there had been a law given, which could have been life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

But the scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, under guard by the law, kept for the faith, which would afterward be revealed.

Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. So its purpose is to keep and to guard and keep for faith after it would be revealed.

When Christ has come. Right. So this tells you that the law, first of all, Paul deals with the law as a unity, right?

When he talks about the law, he drops the moral, people would call the moral law commands for the 10 commandments. And he talks about, he'll just talk about all sorts of commands from the law.

He'll talk about ceremonial days, feast days. He'll talk about what people would say were universals.

He treats the law as a unity. So does Christ in Matthew chapter five. He treats the law as a unity.

But it's also a particularity because it's to the Jews. Very clearly in the scriptures, it says that the law was not given to Gentiles.

Gentiles grew up without the law. They did not have a law. There are those who were without the law. This is made of, this is a big deal.

Some of them say, well, God's moral law still applies to the Gentiles because he's still

God. I agree. But when you're using the term moral law and the Bible keeps on saying law, that gets confusing.

God, yes, God has authority over all mankind. When mankind rebels against God, that's called sin. That's sin.

That's bad. Sin brings death. That's bad. This is not to say that Gentiles grew up under God's law because the

Bible clearly states in more than one place that that didn't happen. And that's why you made that distinction in Sunday school when he's saying, sometimes he's using the we.

He's using it toward the Jews. Yeah, and so Galatians 2 .15, he starts talking about what he said to Peter about the particularity of the

Jews. We are different than the Gentiles, but even we know we've gotta be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law.

And so he's talking about the we -ness of the Jews in Galatians about how they experienced life under the law and how their transition into the new covenant is by the same means of Gentiles being brought into the new covenant.

They've gotta be saved in the same way. They have the same need of salvation and they have the same standing in Christ, even though their experiences were widely different prior to Christ.

So the law is a unity, not three parts. It's a particularity. It's not to, it wasn't given to all people. And the law is, notice a temporality.

The purpose of the law says it was given until, right? Earlier in the chapter, he says it shows up 430 years after the promise.

And he says it was given until faith came, until Christ came. So there's a beginning and an end to the law.

Right, right. So it's - One to whom the promises had been made. Yes. That one. So it is not, that law in its purpose was not eternal.

God's word is eternal. His scriptures are eternal. His word is forever and ever. Yes, that's true.

But living under the law, that was not eternal. So it has a beginning and an end.

And through Christ, it serves as doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. It is wisely fulfilled and full of wisdom.

In Christ's reign provides a superior righteous rule. You have heard it said, but I say to you, someone greater is here.

Something greater is here. He says it's of the temple. He says it of Solomon. He says it of Moses. He says it of the law.

And so what good is the law? Well, it's good if it's seen in light of who

Christ is. The whole purpose of the law was given so that Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for all who believe.

And so new covenant members fulfill the law in Christ by obeying him. James says, living under the law, you break one, you're guilty of the whole thing.

You are damned. If you break one law, you're condemned for the whole thing. He says, therefore, live according to the law of liberty, which

Paul also addresses in Galatians. And this is a different rule. We're free in Christ.

We're not in bondage. Yeah, I was gonna say, so throwing out theological terms, justification and we're big on, we're saved by grace alone, faith alone, not by works.

So we say we're not saved by law, but then I would hear some people say, but we're sanctified by law.

So the law still has application to us. We're not saved by it, but we're sanctified by it.

And I'd point to Galatians chapter three. I was working through this because I was a Sabbatarian when

I first came here. And I greatly appreciate both your teaching and the way that you treated me because we were not in agreement.

And then others as well, having a different perspective. But looking at it in chapter three of Galatians, he says, oh foolish

Galatians who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified.

This only I want to learn from you. So did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

He's talking about salvation. Did you receive the spirit by the law or by faith? Well, we received the spirit by faith.

Okay, so that's salvation. But then he goes on, are you so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, so having been saved in the spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

That's the sanctification. We don't, we aren't saved by the spirit and then by continuing in the law, in the flesh, we are made perfect.

No, we continue in the spirit, which points us to Christ. And I would say this is, again,

Galatians, Galatians is three and four are gonna be in miniature what Paul does in Romans five, six, seven, and eight.

But to put it poignantly, his illustration about the woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives.

But if he dies, she is no longer bound to him. She's not, she can't go around saying, I must legally obey my husband.

Ma 'am, he's dead, right? You don't have to obey your husband, he's dead.

If you want to put that chair in a different room, go ahead. You know, if you want to plant something else in the garden, please go ahead.

You're not bound, but he's dead. You realize he's dead, right? If you want to get married again, you're completely free to get married again, right?

She said, well, I can't get married. I was married to my husband. He's dead, right? So Paul's illustration there in Romans seven, one through three, he says, therefore, verse four, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, right?

Folks who say, you know, you gotta keep the law to be holy. No, you're dead to the law.

You're married to another. To him who was raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to God. How do we bear fruit to God? Because we're married to Christ.

We're bound to Christ. For when we are in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

That's prior to Christ. Those who were under the law were in the flesh, and the law aroused the flesh to do what?

Bear fruit unto death. So what did the law do? It brought transgressions. Verse six, but now we have been delivered from the law.

Hello. Delivered from the law. That's the language he uses in Galatians. You're set free. Having died to what we were held by.

You're dead to the law. So that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

And this is what Paul was getting at in 2 Corinthians 3 when he says, I am laboring to write Christ upon your hearts.

The living word of Christ upon hearts of flesh and the ministry of the spirit, not the ministry of the letter in stone.

It's called fruit of the spirit, not fruit of the law. Exactly. So truly being in Christ, being with Christ, that is keeping

Sabbath. Yes. You are resting in him. Is that what the writer of Hebrews is getting at when he says, for if Joshua had given them rest, he's speaking of that next rest,

God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a

Sabbath rest for the people of God for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Therefore, let us strive to enter that rest. He's talking about the rest that God provides.

And from what you were saying, this is pointing to the rest that we have in Christ.

So being with him is keeping Sabbath all the time. Well, and again, how do you, because Jesus said, abide in me.

You abide in me, but my words abide in you. Okay, so there's a call to be active in that, right?

So the example is given in Hebrews four of that, right? The analogy was what?

That Joshua, the successor of Moses, Yeshua, brings the people into their promised inheritance, right?

That is purposefully recapitulated in Jesus, Yeshua, successor of Moses, bringing

God's people into all their promised inheritance. So verse 14 says, seeing then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, right?

Joshua, with the Ark of the Covenant, passes through into the promised land, right?

Well, our Yeshua, our high priest, he has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God. Seeing that, let us hold fast our confession.

And that's a way to rest, holding fast our confession of Christ, but also, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

We're coming to a throne of grace. We're not coming with sacrifices to sprinkle blood upon a mercy seat.

We're coming to the throne of God, the completed work of Christ, finding everything that we need in him. That's a way of resting, right?

So, resting isn't lack of all activity. I'm going to go to sleep now. Even Jesus said, when he says, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest.

He says, put my yoke upon you and learn from me. Right, so there's an activity going on.

There is some working going on, but there's a resting going on at the same time.

Well, I think we can wrap that up for this episode. We'll move on to what we recommend for this week.

Michael? I'm currently reading through and over halfway through a book called The Beauty of the

Lord, Theology as Aesthetics by Jonathan King. And he's writing about how in that theology, that doctrine of God, doctrine of our salvation, our look at Christ throughout the scriptures, there's a lot of emphasis on making sure that what we believe is true.

That's great. And that what this is is good, yes, but it's also beautiful.

So there is an old word, fittingness, to everything that is revealed about Christ in the word as the last

Adam and the true Israel. How everything fittingly comes together in Christ and that there's a beauty to the way that the gospel is proclaimed throughout all of the scriptures.

Chris? I've recommended this one in the past, but I thought I'd bear mentioning again.

It's called If One Uses It Lawfully, The Law of Moses and the Christian Life by Matthew Ferris.

And he goes through and he talks about kind of the background in covenantal theology and the eternal moral law of God, where they get that terminology from and how they're using it.

And then he goes into how Paul talks about the law, that he never says that you must do these things, but how does he use it?

He uses it lawfully. Dave? On a recommendation from Jacob Call, I read the book

Total Truth by Nancy Piercy, written in, I think this version was 2008.

I had the audio version of it, which I actually really, really enjoyed. But it makes it a little difficult to mark up your book when you have the audio book.

But I was kind of, I was listening to it while I was driving, and I do not recommend trying to take notes while you drive.

But I had a little piece of paper and I would write something down and it was like, all right, I really shouldn't be doing this. So don't do that.

Don't text and drive and don't take notes and drive. But it was so. I do that every day.

But it was so interesting. I really enjoyed, she was a disciple and devotee of Francis Schaeffer.

Actually went to Labrie and studied with him. She's a really interesting lady.

But really kind of hammered home, part of her thesis was that, especially Western society up through Aquinas and others, really talked about the fact value dichotomy in most people's thinking.

It's almost as if the way they view the world, their worldview, has facts in one story and values in the second story.

The twain don't meet. You deal in secular facts and reason when you're dealing with science, when you're dealing with engineering, when you're dealing with the law or business.

But when you talk about values, well, that's in the second story, where I am at church, or your philosophical views.

And the difference between those two, the gulf between them, your mind yearns for consistency.

So if you have a very secular way of thinking in science, that's going to bleed over into your values.

It just will. And in her quintessential example in the 20th century was, of course,

Darwinism. Darwinism in the sciences bleeds over into your philosophy, bleeds over into your values.

Marxism, same thing. So her thesis is that you have to have total consistency, total truth, and that you actually, there is a

Christian way to do science. There is a Christian way to do business and engineering and law. The way we would say it in our modern parlance, all of Christ for all of life.

Mm -hmm. So total truth, that's the reason for the book itself.

And it's really a tour de force of the different philosophies but it's constructing a

Christian worldview and only the Christian worldview is consistent with how life actually is.

And she talks a lot about the ministry that Francis Schaeffer and his wife had to so many people in the 70s and how much that affected her.

So highly recommend it. I'm recommending, well, my summer's been kind of covered up and full of historical content, whether that be through podcasts or audio books.

And it mostly pertains to American history but some World War II, some Cold War history.

And it would be considered what people call revisionist history, which I would just say it's a different, from a different perspective and with a different outlook as to what did happen in some of these scenarios.

But one of the places that I continue to jump back to is the bank war during the 1820s, late 1820s and 1830s.

And I've gotten to really dive deep into the character of Nicholas Biddle and Andrew Jackson and really enjoyed some of the personal back and forth that all these men had with their advisors on what to do during the bank war because you're dealing with men acting in history and you're dealing with men acting against each other as enemies and acting with their friends against their enemies.

So it's really interesting to watch how those two tried to play the situation and how it all played out.

But I would recommend trying to find histories about stuff that you realize are buried within your own education.

Anybody who grew up in public schools understands that certain things were buried, certain men were buried, specifically men who were supposed to be your heroes.

And you need to go find those men. There are gems about their lives. There are things about their lives that they obviously did not, when they were teaching you, want you to know.

Some of them ended up being very devout, godly men. And that's something that wasn't talked about in your school.

So somebody like me, grew up in public school, that's very important to me to go back and find heroes that I was never meant to find.

Adding to that, reading historical events can help you with understanding the time that you're in.

Obviously, the first thing that you want is wisdom, the first, and a following Christ in wisdom in order to look at and apply in the times, but knowing where you're at sometimes also helps.

And I think history helps better with that than, and it is a form of wisdom, right? Like you're reading back in history to gain wisdom about specific enemies for specific times, replaying the same plays.

Because the devil has a playbook and there's only so many plays in it. And he will throw those back out whenever he gets a chance.

And I think he's doing that again recently. We have said that we are not gonna address the

Kirk assassination. And I think that's good, we should wait on that. But if you are looking to find a way to act in light of those things, because you realize you haven't acted when you should have,

I actually suggest as a second recommendation, finding organizations like a

Turning Point USA. I know that's kind of tailored toward college students or like around that age.

So it's not gonna really be tailored toward our age group, but there are groups out there like the Old Glory Club that are around our age.

And I know my dad's a part of certain things, but finding like -minded men outside of your church is not a bad thing.

And in trying to find ways to fellowship with them, to be active in your local community or in your state, especially if you are a gifted person,

I encourage you and recommend you apply your gifts there as well. Yes, they're great in the church.

Yes, they're great at work. They can also be great in the political realm. So that's my recommendation for this week.

Michael, what are you thankful for? I am thankful for the backyard of our church house that is filled with homemade playground equipment.

Thank you, Brother Jeff DeForest. And the work that the

Deacons have done to make it a fun place for the families to gather after Sunday night and after Wednesday night.

I'm thankful for the long nights together as a church, hanging out together and hearing the roar of all of the children and enjoying conversation and fellowship.

I'm just thankful for the liveliness and the life of our church that our good shepherd has brought about here.

Very thankful. That backyard needs to be sprayed so bad. I gotta talk to Jake and Ben about when they're gonna mow on Saturday because I gotta spray it.

I looked at it coming in and I was like, this is rough. So I'm thankful for my brother.

He checks in on me and I greatly appreciate it. He knows I'm going through different things.

We're in contact a lot, so he knows what's going on in my life and he knows my weak points.

We grew up together. He was my first friend, so he knows me well.

And so I'm just grateful that he checks in on me and I can check in on him.

I know he's praying for me and I know that we're in the same boat, raising children and trying to follow the

Lord, so I'm really grateful for him. Amen. Dave. I am grateful for my father -in -law,

John, and my mother -in -law, Betsy. Every Saturday night, my daughter is with them having dinner, spending time at their house, and then she goes to church with them the next morning and they give her a very stable, safe place and a little bit of a respite from her college life, college dorm.

But they just love her and take care of her and she is just, she's safe there.

She's well cared for there, spiritually and physically, of course. Betsy is just an incredible, wonderful woman and she's just pouring her life into my daughter and John is an amazing man.

And his legacy and his children and grandchildren will echo for generations. So I'm very thankful for both of them.

Amen. I am thankful for the Lord's preservation of his word. We will never know the amount of or intensity of all the attacks on the word throughout history.

Not before us and not after us and not even during our time. There is a constant assault on the text of scripture and it's gonna be never ending until we see the end of this history and the

Lord returns. So I'm thankful that the Lord and constant face of the enemy preserves his word and by extension we know from that word he preserves all of his own.

So we are kept just as closely as the

Lord's breaths and that is such an encouraging thing but to just not even fathom the amount of attack on the

Lord's word in history past and in history present and future, that's kind of mind boggling too, right?

Like we obviously can't comprehend the complexity of God but we also can't, in our finiteness, we can't even comprehend the attacks the enemy brings against God.

So that is a great encouragement to know that even though we may be used in the preservation of that word as finite creatures, it's the

Lord's work and it doesn't fail. And that wraps it up for today.

We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?