Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
The French philosopher and atheist, VOLTAIRE, once boastfully predicted that in 100 years Christianity would be nothing but a relic of the past. He did acknowledge, however, that if his prediction was to come true, one thing needed to change above all others: He said, “There is no hope of destroying the Christian religion so long as the Christian Sabbath is acknowledged and kept by men as a sacred day.” And in saying this, Voltaire highlighted just how critical observance of the Sabbath is as part of Christianity.
And I trust you will agree with me when I say that 21st century NZ is a good illustration of this truth. There was a time in New Zealand where Sunday was the day when people went to church. But not any more. Sunday for most New Zealanders is now just a second Saturday. And it is not much better in the church. As little as 50 years ago, two services on Sunday was the norm in pretty much every denomination. Now, it is unknown in nearly every denomination. And in terms of observing the Lord’ Day, what one commentator has said is quite true of many professing Christians, which is that Sunday is now a second Saturday interrupted by church.
And in the same period of time that this has happened, we have seen a breakdown in the family, the decriminalization of homosexuality and prostitution, legalized and increasingly prolific gambling, rampant corporate greed, same-sex ‘marriage,’ and we are now considering legalizing assisted suicide. Christianity ain’t doin’ well in NZ or anywhere in the West for that matter.
And a decreased observance of the Christian Sabbath has come about in large part because many churches that claim to uphold the 10 Commandments would be more honest if they spoke about the 9 Commandments. Let me give you an example: We have a book in our church library that I have been very blessed by and which has been a great help to me as we have worked through the Lord’s Days of the Heidelberg Catechism. We have other books from the same author in the library and I have some in my study also and I would gladly recommend books by that author to anyone. The author is a Reformed Church minister. However, on the topic of the Sabbath, listen to what he says, “The binding nature of Sabbath observance has been eliminated.” Now, he says elsewhere that “we still need to obey the Fourth Commandment.” But those words are immediately followed by a ‘but…’ “We still need to obey the fourth commandment … but…” And mention is then made of some principles that remain.
So, there are two possibilities: It could be that we are just old-school traditionalists, cut from the same cloth as the Pharisees, who will eventually reach enlightenment and go the way of the rest of the Christian church and be satisfied with one service and a day on which we can pretty much do as we please after 11am, or it could be that Voltaire was right in recognizing something very special about the Christian Sabbath being a sacred day. And if it is, then we had better pay close attention to what we read in these verses given the fact that more and more people pay less and less attention to these words at all.
Well, what cannot be argued by anyone is that in these verses in Deuteronomy 5, GOD SPEAKS TO BELIEVERS ABOUT SABBATH DAY OBSERVANCE. Where the argument arises is how we are to understand what He says. But what we find as we consider His words are two things in particular:
First, He PRESCRIBES A SOLEMN COMMAND, and second, He PROVIDES SEVERAL ARGUMENTS for keeping His command.
I. So first of all, as God speaks to believers about Sabbath Day observance, we see that He PRESCRIBES A SOLEMN COMMAND. And to prescribe is to issue forth or to set down or to impose.
A. And we will be very brief here. Look at the words: “Observe the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.” What we have here is not advice or a recommendation or a ‘take it or leave it’ suggestion; with these words the Lord is prescribing or laying down a solemn command. Just as we are commanded to honour our father and mother in the 5th Commandment, and not to murder in the 6th Commandment, and not to commit adultery in the 7th Commandment, so the words of vv12-15 are the 4th Commandment.
B. So, why then do so many argue that we are no longer bound to keep the 4th Commandment? Well, it is because, they say, it has been FULFILLED BY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. That is the reason given in the book I spoke about earlier, for example. And this is said because of the words of MATTHEW 5:17. Let’s turn there briefly. As part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says,
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, I am sure you can see from v17 that Jesus came to fulfil not only the 4th Commandment but the whole of the law and the prophets. So why the 4th Commandment is singled out as the only one of the 10 that is no longer binding is not clear from this passage. And we will have to explore how the Lord Jesus fulfils the 4th Commandment. But the greater part of Jesus’ words here have to do with Him not coming to abolish the law, and that to relax the 4th Commandment and teach others to do the same is a serious sin, and that He requires more in terms of righteousness than even the Pharisees were striving to achieve. And what this means becomes plain in the next section of ch. 5 as Jesus talks about the 6th and 7th Commandments and actually takes them deeper in terms of what they require than was thought at that time. So to isolate one phrase from vv17-20 as justification for relaxing the 4th Commandment is a pretty serious and perverse misuse of what Jesus says here.
1. Let me illustrate how wrong this is: The 6th commandment is “You shall not kill.” And if I were to preach to you that the binding nature of the 6th commandment has been eliminated but that certain principles of the 6th commandment remain, or that the binding nature of the 7th commandment – the 7th commandment being “You shall not commit adultery – has been eliminated, but that certain principles of the 7th commandment remain, I hope you would have stern words with me and your elder about what I was preaching. God said in Duet., You shall not kill or commit adultery, and what that means for you and me today is You shall not kill or commit adultery. And this is true even though Jesus came also to fulfil commandments 6&7.
2. However, it seems that for a minister to stand up in the pulpit and read out, “Observe the Sabbath Day,” and then to call upon the Lord’s people to observe the Sabbath Day is rampant legalism and not taking into account the change from OT to NT and ignoring what surely is just a ceremonial command that at best gives us some principles but nothing that might trample on our Christian liberty. It is illogical and inconsistent.
C. Now, it would be disingenuous of me to give the impression that a phrase from Matthew 5:17 is the whole argument of those who take a more relaxed attitude about the 4th Commandment. There are at least TWO OTHER REASONS that people give for holding that view that feed into their understanding of Matthew 5:17. So let’s consider them in turn:
1. The first is: What about the CEREMONIAL Law? Aren’t we freed from laws about the temple and the priests and sacrifices, etc, which we call the ceremonial Law? And isn’t the Sabbath a part of the ceremonial law?
a. Well, we are freed from the ceremonial law. These laws, as the Book of Hebrews clearly spells out, pointed Israel forward to the work of the Lord Jesus. But with His coming and His death and resurrection and the destruction of the Temple, their usefulness was ended – they were the shadow, He is the reality; they were the signs, He is the thing signified.
b. But we are talking here about one of the 10 Commandments, which is not ceremonial law but moral law; the abiding law; the permanent law. Consider this fact: We are told in Exodus that Moses wrote the law or the book of the covenant on parchment of some sort, which included what we call moral law and civil law and ceremonial law. But we are told also that God Himself wrote the 10 Commandments on stone tablets. And that truth alone already speaks volumes about the continued validity of this commandment. The 4th Commandment is moral law.
2. But, and here we come to the second reason, aren’t Sabbath laws lumped with other ceremonial laws in ROMANS 14 and GALATIANS 4 and COLOSSIANS 2, as things NT believers are no longer bound by? Doesn’t Colossians 2, for example, urge us to not let anyone judge us with regard to a “Sabbath”?
a. Well, we could hear a useful sermon on each of these passages, but let me very briefly explain the key point Paul is making in those passage. Already by the time Paul was writing, the NT church was observing Sunday as the Lord’s Day and their day of worship. We know this from Acts 20 and 1 Cor. 16. But there were Jewish believers teaching that a true Christian continued to observe Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, etc, and the Jewish Sabbath, the Saturday. And according to them, this together with being circumcised was a necessary part of salvation. That is what the apostle Paul was taking aim at. Were Jewish believers free to be circumcised if they wished? Yes they were. Were they free to observe Passover and the Jewish Sabbath if they wished? Sure. But they were not to see this as a necessary part of their salvation and they were not to require this of other Christians. So the Apostle is not saying in those passages that the binding nature of Sabbath observance is eliminated; that believers are now free to ignore this commandment.
3. The 4th Commandment continues to be a solemn command of God to His people: “Observe the Sabbath Day.”
D. Now, perhaps you are thinking also about the several run-ins that Jesus had with the Jewish leaders about the Sabbath? We read one of them earlier as He healed the woman with a disability on the Sabbath. And there is much for us to learn about Sabbath observance from those run-ins. But strip away everything else and this central truth remains: Jesus observed the Sabbath Day! And thank God He did! He had to in order to be your Saviour. He had to keep God’s law perfectly in order to be an acceptable sacrifice. We saw this in an earlier Lord’s Day, “Man has sinned, man must pay for his sin, but a sinner cannot pay for others.” If Jesus had not observed the Sabbath as God commanded, perfectly, He would be a sinner like you and me who could not save us from our sins. So while Jesus did come to fulfil the 4th Commandment, He did not come to abolish it or relax it. In fact, He kept it, perfectly, Himself.
So, the 4th Commandment is a commandment. And it is part of God’s moral law, not the ceremonial law. And observing the Christian Sabbath is not what Paul is addressing in Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2.
II. Secondly though, in addition to God PRESCRIBING A SOLEMN COMMAND, we see also that He PROVIDES SEVERAL ARGUMENTS for keeping His command.
A. The first is found in v13a and we might call it the RATIONAL argument: “Six days you shall labour and do all your work.” You see, if God had said observe 6 days and work 1, well then we would have had reason to think Him somewhat irrational and unfair. How could we possibly survive under that scheme? But God knows that we must work in order to provide for ourselves and others so all He requires of us is one day in seven. It is fair and rational then that we set this one day aside to worship Him in a special way.
B. The second is found at the end of v13 and we might call it the JUSTICE argument: “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.” Here it is as though God says, This day is what I am owed! I am God and I have made this day the Sabbath. If you rob me of this day, and use it for yourself, then watch out! Just as I will not hold guiltless any who misuse my name, so I will not hold guiltless any who misuse the day I have claimed. It is just then that we set this one day aside to worship Him in a special way.
C. The third argument we actually find in Exodus 20:11a, which is where this command is first given, and we may call it the CREATION argument: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” And here the Lord simply says, Follow my pattern; I worked 6 days and rested on the seventh so you also must rest one in seven! On that day, don’t do your ordinary work but instead observe the day as a day of holy rest. This is the creation argument.
D. The fourth argument we find here in Duet. 5:15 and we may call it the REDEMPTION argument: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” The firstborn of the children of Israel should have died with the firstborn of Egypt, for they too were sinners. But God accepted the sacrifice of a firstborn Passover lamb instead. So now the people of Israel and their time now belonged to Him. What He required of them in return though was that they observe the Sabbath Day as a testimony of His redeeming work. On this day they were to remember back to God’s wonderful work of redemption.
1. And I wonder if you can see how this argument, the redemption argument, heads in the direction of understanding why the Christian Sabbath is no longer the last day of the week but the first day of the week and how it is that Jesus fulfills the 4th Commandment?
2. The Sabbath of the OT pointed back to a sacrificial lamb and redemption. But Jesus is “the lamb of God who [came] to take away the sins of the world.” 1 Peter 1 says we have “been ransomed … with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without spot or blemish.”
3. And if I were to ask you when it was that Jesus ‘reset the clock of redemption,’ you would reply? On the Sunday of His resurrection. The new creation began that day. That is the day that death and sin and the grave were conquered. That is the day that Jesus appeared to His disciples demonstrating the transfer from Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sabbath. That is why observing the first day of the week became the practice of the apostles, again, as we see in Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor. 16:2. And that is why that day is called “the Lord’s Day” in Rev. 1:10.
4. This day puts us in mind of Jesus’ work of redemption. The Psalmist says, “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” This commandment is a call to rejoice and be glad on the happy day which gives us space to celebrate the redemption that is ours in Christ!
5. But there is more we can say in terms of the redemption argument as we think back to what we said earlier about Jesus coming to fulfill the whole law. In LUKE 4 we read about Jesus in the synagogue, reading from Isaiah 61 and saying, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your presence.” You see, Isaiah 61 talks about one who would proclaim good news to the poor and bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to captives and release bound prisoners. So the link between Sabbath and Jesus is plain – the promised Sabbath of rest and rejoicing and redemption and release and refreshment and restoration has come in Jesus.
a. And Jesus illustrated this in our earlier reading from LUKE 13 and the healing of the woman. For 18 years she had been bound by a disabling spirit. But Jesus healed her on the Sabbath, saying to the Pharisees, “Ought not this woman … be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath Day?” Release came on a Sabbath Day in order to point to the greater redemption and renewal that has now come via the cross and the empty tomb!
6. Jesus called Himself the LORD OF THE SABBATH in Mark 2:28. As the Creator, He made the Sabbath. As the Word of God, He gave the Sabbath command. As the Lamb of God, He has redeemed us as the fulfillment of the Sabbath. And as the Great Physician, His Sabbath healings point us forward to the perfect Sabbath rest that awaits us in heaven.
7. And all of this is the redemption argument that God gives for observing the Sabbath day. Because of the Lord Jesus, we begin our week immersed in redemption by Christ.
E. Well, we shouldn’t need any more arguments, really, but there is one more in the commandment. And this one we find also back in Exodus 20 and v11b, and we might call it the BENEFIT argument: “Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God has blessed this day as it is rightly observed. One commentator puts it this way, “It is not only a day of honour to God, but a day of blessing to us; it is not only a day wherein we give God worship, but a day wherein He gives us grace. On this day a blessing drops down from heaven. God Himself is not benefited by it, we cannot add one cubit to His essential glory; but we ourselves are benefited.” You will benefit from the observance of the Christian Sabbath.
1. ISAIAH 58:13-14 says, “If you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honourable; if you honour it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD.”
2. And if that were true for OT Israel, who only had the shadows, how much more is it true for you and me who have the fulfillment of this day in person and work the Lord Jesus Christ?
So God Himself supplies a rational argument – I only require one out of seven, a justice argument – you owe me this one day, a creation argument – do as I did, a redemption argument – use this day to especially remember your Redeemer, and a benefit argument – it will be good for you.
Brothers and sisters, young people and boys and girls, what we have focused on today is the continued validity of the 4th Commandment for NT believers. We haven’t said much at all about how we go about doing that. By way of the simplest of summaries, what God says in the text is a negative – “do not do any work,” and a positive – “keep it holy.” But we have spoken about that in the past and we shall speak about that in the future. For today though, please don’t be swayed by anyone who tries to convince you that to observe the Sabbath is legalism and a trampling of Christian liberty because Jesus has fulfilled the 4th Commandment. You know now that that is a misuse of Scripture and a misunderstanding of what Jesus teaches. In this passage God where God speaks about the Sabbath, He actually gives His people a solemn command and several arguments for keeping His command. And as we look to Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, who rose victorious on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, we have every reason to observe the Sabbath Day. Do you agree? Amen.