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 10 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 10 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?

The Moral Law, the Ten Commandments, and the Sabbath Question

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, or 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 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, 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, 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 or 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.

He meant the last day of the week. 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.

Yeah, the Seventh-day Adventists actually think that Sunday is the mark of the beast.

Yes.

They actually have that in their writings.

Right, so we gather on Sundays 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, 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 10 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, 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, okay?

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 pointed 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 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 wanna 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.

He is, and He has done all the work, and we rest in Him. He has 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 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 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.

I know, but I think the motivation, 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, your 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.

So, 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, 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?