Intro
Charles Dickens was a famous 19th-century English author who wrote A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities. While many people know him for his works, few know his disdain for the Christian Sabbath. He wrote in one of his novels, “a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale…. Melancholy streets in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire despondency.” To him, God’s call to focus on the things of the Lord made London lifeless. He, therefore, spoke against in his writings and advocated for the government to open museums on Sundays and to allow lectures on non-religious topics. As an unconverted man, we can understand why worshiping God would seem to be burdensome. In contrast to Dickens, we have Henry Burton a Puritan author. He wrote that the Sabbath “is the market day of our souls, wherein we come to God’s house, the marketplace, to buy the wine and milk of the word without money.”
What is your view of the Christian Sabbath? Are you like Charles Dickens who hated it or Henry Burton who loved it? Do you even think that Christians are commanded to keep a Sabbath in the New Covenant? If you do, do you know how to keep it to the glory of God?
Today we will continue our series in Leviticus. Last time we learned that God does require Christians to keep His commandments because He is holy and to keep them out of gratitude for saving us. In our time now, we will answer this question: What is the purpose of the Sabbath? What is the intent of the 4th commandment?
Point 1
Our first and only point today is this: The purpose of the Sabbath is to rest from our works so that we can worship God. The intent of the 4th commandment is to work six days a week so that we can commune with God one day a week.
For the past several weeks, we have reviewed the holiness code in chapters 17-22. The Lord commanded the Israelites to walk in holiness, because He is holy. Moreover, to be accepted by God, they must have holy priests offer holy sacrifices without blemish to cover their sins. Of course, they could not and did not obey perfectly, but these regulations foreshadow to Jesus Christ the perfect high priest and sacrifice who died on the cross to redeem sinners. Now we start a new section in Chapter 23 which lists seven appointed feasts.
Verses 1 and 2 introduce the section. The Lord speaks again to Moses to give a message to all of the Israelites and not just to Aaron. He has appointed festival days which must be observed. Thus, the Israelites must submit their time to the Lordship of God. He sets their agenda and blocks off whole days of their calendar for these appointed feasts. To dwell with God in communion with Him, the Israelites must arrange their lives around Him.
The first appointed feast is the Sabbath. Previously in the Bible, God has created and instructed on the observance of this day. After creating the universe in seven days, Genesis 2:1-3 says, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” Notice first that God rested on the seventh day by not creating anything new. He still worked through sustaining the universe. In John 5, Jesus made this point. The Pharisees accused Him of breaking the Sabbath, because he healed a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. To defend His act of mercy, He said in John 5:17, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” God continues to work on every Sabbath, because if He stopped sustaining the universe, it would collapse. Second, God blessed the day and set it aside for a special purpose for man.
Third, God defines a week as seven days. Why does this matter? After the French Revolution in 1789, the radicals tried to remove all forms of Christianity including the seven day week. They defined a week as 10 days, and three weeks made up a month totaling 30 days. At the end of the year, they had either five or six days extra due to leap year which they called “complementary days.” They instituted new secular feasts for the people to replace a Christian influence. When Napoleon came to power, he ended this calendar and went back to a seven day week. In the 20th century, the communists in the Soviet Union changed the calendar too. They tried having a five day week and then a six day week, but both attempts proved futile. Why? God has designed a seven-day week, because it the best design for man.
The Sabbath command though covers the whole week and not just a day. God commands us to work on the other six days, because it is good. In Colossians 3:23, Paul writes, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Ultimately, a worker who has a human boss should be motivated to excel at his job, since God is his supreme boss. By doing well at his job, he glorifies the Lord. At the same time, if a person chooses not to work even though he is able, Paul warns in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” This commandment does not include people who desire to work, but they are unable. Rather, Paul addresses the lazy and discourages the church from enabling them. If they will not work, then they should starve, so that through their hunger pains, they will be motivated to work.
If we are to work six days a week, what does it mean to rest on the seventh? Leviticus 23:3 calls it a “Sabbath of solemn rest” or a Sabbath of sabbaths. To that end, the Lord orders the people to assembly for a “holy convocation.” The Sabbath, therefore, is not inactivity, but an appointed time to meet together to worship God. In the New Testament, the Jews continued to meet on Saturday to worship. For instance, Acts 15:21 says, “For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” At the various synagogues throughout the Roman Empire, the Jews met together to hear the Scriptures read. Hence, Paul makes the synagogues a central part of his evangelism strategy. On the Jewish Sabbath, he attended their meeting and preached Christ to them. Some of the people came to faith in Christ while others rejected his teaching. Then the apostle would turn to evangelizing to the Gentiles in the community.
Why does God issue a Sabbath day? He gives two reasons. First, He created the world in six days and rested. Exodus 20:11 says, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Since God rested on the seventh day and made it holy, He commands the Israelites to imitate Him. Second, the Lord established the Sabbath as a reminder of their redemption from Egypt. Deuteronomy 5 reissues the Ten Commandments. In verse 15, it says, “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. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” Every seven days, the Israelites remember the Lord’s salvation in giving them freedom from the bondage of slavery in Egypt and a new dwelling in the Promised Land.
Finally, God calls the people to observe the Sabbath with joy and not drudgery. Isaiah 58:13-14 says, “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” In this passage, Israel had turned from delighting in the Sabbath to breaking it. They are engaging in their own affairs and pleasures without regard for the Lord. Now God gives a promise of blessing them if they repent. They will delight in the Sabbath and in the Lord. To keep the Sabbath means to commune weekly with the living God and to assemble with others to do the same. If Israel believes in God’s promise, He will bless them for their obedience. Thus, Sabbath keeping should be joyful, since its end is God Himself.
Having examined the Sabbath in the Old Testament, how does the Sabbath relate to Christians today? The Second London Confession of Faith has this helpful summary in 22.7. “As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God’s appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he has particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord’s Day:29 and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.”
The 2LCF makes three assertions. First, God has placed in all humans the knowledge of holy days since the creation of Adam and Eve and the establishment of the creation ordinance. All people, therefore, including people whose beliefs are false have feast days. Muslims worship on Friday and Jews on Saturday. Hindus have special festivals to commemorate their false gods. Homosexuals have gay pride month in June. Obviously, due to their sin, they are not obeying God. The second assertion is that God also gave revelation of this commandment through the Ten Commandments. He wrote the 4th commandment on stone along with the other nine, but He had the rest of the 603 commandments for Israel written on parchment. This distinction shows the permanence of the 4th commandment. Moreover, the tablets with the Ten Commandments rested in the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. According to Hebrews 9:11, the earthly tabernacle was based upon the heavenly one which is the reality. Hence, the veracity of the Ten Commandments comes from heaven.
The third assertion says that due to Jesus’ resurrection on the first day of the week the Sabbath observance changed from the seventh day to the first day. To prove the point, we see early on in the New Testament that the church gathered on Sunday. The disciples, for example, gathered on the first day of the week after the resurrection according to John 20:19. Then, in 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul told the Christians to give money for the collection in Jerusalem on the first day of the week. Furthermore, Acts 20:7 records, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” The congregation gathered for the Lord’s Supper on Sunday as a matter of practice. Finally, John makes reference to receiving his vision on the Revelation of Christ on “the Lord’s day,” in Revelation 1:10. He uses the term as a marker of time to differentiate from other days. Similarly, every meal comes from the Lord, but we only call communion, the Lord’s Supper.
Charles Spurgeon, who practiced and taught for Sabbath keeping, said, “We gather together on the first rather than upon the seventh day of the week, because redemption is even a greater work than creation, and more worthy of commemoration, and because the rest which followed creation is far outdone by that which ensues upon the completion of redemption.” (Spurgeon, MTP, 26:194). The Lord’s Day serves as a weekly habit where we remember Christ’s resurrection from the dead for our salvation, and we respond with praise to Him. To worship on Sunday means we confess and identify with the risen Lord.
Now that I have made a positive case for keeping the Sabbath under the New Covenant, we must address some objections. There are many Christians who love the Lord and know the gospel who believe differently. First, a minority of Christians hold to a continuation of the Sabbath, but they object to changing the day from Saturday to Sunday. Seventh Day Adventists which should be considered cultlike and a few Baptist groups in the 1600s hold to this view. In fact, one Baptist church tried to join the London Association in 1689, but the association objected to their membership over this issue.
The majority of Christians who object to the Sabbath teaching say that the Sabbath should be treated like the sacrifices in the Old Testament that have been fulfilled by Christ. Dispensationalists and New Covenant theologians fall into this camp. John MacArthur, for instance, says that only 9 of the 10 commandments are repeated in the New Testament, therefore, Christians are not obligated to keep the Sabbath.
What biblical passages do these brothers appeal to when making their objections? First, they will cite Exodus 31:17, “It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’ ” Those who object to the Sabbath say that it is a sign for the Old Covenant between Israel and God. Since the Old Covenant has been abolished, then the sign is abolished too. How do I respond? Even though the Sabbath is apart of the Old Covenant, it supersedes it. God included the Sabbath in the Covenant, but the Sabbath commanded proceeded the covenant. The Lord also included worshiping Him alone, making no images, prohibitions on murder and adultery in the Old Covenant too. These commandments, however, are still in force, because God made them apart of the moral law which proceeded His covenant with Israel. In the same way, the Sabbath remains.
A second popular passage to object to a Christian Sabbath is Colossians 2:16-17. “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” Opponents of the Sabbath argue that we should treat the day as optional like we treat keeping the food regulations in Leviticus. The Sabbath pointed to Christ, and now that He has come, it has ended.
How do I respond to this objection? First, the word “Sabbath” in the passage is plural in the Greek and not singular. This minor change is major. Paul utilizes a common phrase found in the Old Testament to refer to the Jewish worship including all of the Sabbath festivals. For instance, Isaiah 1:13-14 states, “Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” At the beginning of Isaiah, God calls Israel to repentance from their idolatry and to stop trusting in the religious performance to cover for their spiritual adultery. Furthermore, Ezekiel 45:17 states, “It shall be the prince’s duty to furnish the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel.” Once again, the prophet employs this phrase to refer to the Jewish worship customs added in the Old Covenant. Hence, it does not renounce the Sabbath which began at creation, but the additional Sabbath festivals which are tied exclusively to the Old Covenant.
Opponents to a Christian Sabbath also appeal to Romans 14 and Galatians 4:10 to establish the fulfillment of the Sabbath in Christ. These passages, however, both have a Jewish context and deal with Christian liberty issues. They are not debating when to gather together for a weekly holy convocation, but they have conflict over the food laws and Sabbaths including the Passover, feast of firstfruits, weeks, trumpets, and booths.
A final text which we will cover in depth is Hebrews 4:9-10. It says, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” In verse 9, it establishes the people of God—Christians—still have a Sabbath rest. What is that rest? There are three main views. First, some commentators say it is a future rest in the eternal state. Second, other commentators argue that we present rest in Christ through the forgiveness of our sins, but we have a future rest to come in heaven. The last view says that Christians have a present Sabbath observance like the Jews in the Old Testament. I hold to this third view, because the Greek word for Sabbath means Sabbath keeping or Sabbath observance. It does not refer to passive trusting upon Christ for salvation. In four other passages in the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint, uses the same word for Sabbath in verse 9 to describe Sabbath keeping as an activity. We, therefore, should read the same meaning for this passage.
Now turning to verse 10, we must ask, “Who has entered the rest?” Many commentators say the “for whoever” refers to believers. Thus, when believers enter into God’s rest by faith, they rest from their works and have peace. Yet, I take the position that this verse does not refer to believers but to Christ. It should be read, “Christ has entered his rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” Notice that I changed “God’s rest” in the ESV to “his rest.” Why? The ESV supplies “God’s,” but the NASB leaves it as “his.” This one change inclines readers to think this verse is about believers. Moreover, starting the verse with “whoever” or “the one” causes this confusion. Instead, the KJV and NKJV translates it as “he as entered his rest.” Those translations point out the singular. Leading up to this verse, the passage uses the plural to refer to believers like in Hebrews 4:3, but in verse 10, it switches to the singular. Why? Because it is talking about Jesus. Finally, verse 10 gives the justification for verse 9. Why do we have a present Sabbath observance? Jesus completed His mission by dying on the cross, being raised, and ascending to heaven. Now He sits and waits for His return. He has rested from His works, like the Godhead rested after creating the universe. Hebrews 10:14 says, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” In contrast to the Old Testament priests who worked daily offering sacrifices, Jesus sits down, because His sacrifice paid it all. It is finished.
To summarize Hebrews 4:9-10, let me quote Richard Barcellos. He says, ‘There is a remaining Sabbath day to be kept under the inaugurated new covenant for the present people of God on earth because Christ, who is God, has entered His rest via His first-day resurrection, ceasing from the work of redemption, a new creation, just as God rested from His works of the old creation.’ (Barcellos, Getting the Garden Right, 250)
Based upon the veracity of Christ’s accomplished redemption, Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Christians are like the Jews in wilderness. We have not reached Canaan which stands for heaven. We, therefore, do not rest, but we continue to strive and persevere in the faith. The Lord has ordained a weekly Sabbath observance as a means to help us persevere until we go to glory. This truth corresponds with Hebrews 10:24-25. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Through Sabbath keeping by gathering with one another, we will stir one another up to persevere. We do not want to be like the Israelites in the desert who died in unbelief and did not make Canaan. In the same way, we do not want to fall away from the faith, and by doing so reveal that we never knew the Lord.
Yet, without the Christian Sabbath, we would not know how often to meet together. Hebrews 10:25 does not command a frequency. Do we have to meet weekly or could we decide to meet bi-weekly—like some Amish groups, monthly, or even yearly? Could we also go to the other extreme and require daily meetings since the Christians meet daily after Pentecost. The only theological justification for meeting weekly on Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. God gave us six days to work and one day for a holy convocation. Non-Sabbatarian churches, however, meet weekly without any theological justification. They do it based upon Christian tradition which is grounded in observing a Sabbath.
The last objection for this sermon is that Sabbath keeping is burdensome. To refute this objection, lets read Mark 2:27-28. “And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” Leading up to these verses, the Pharisees accuse Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath because they plucked grain heads to eat from the field. They did not harvest the grain but took a snack. In response to their accusations, Jesus reveals their misunderstanding of the Sabbath by point to David’s actions. He ate the holy bread, because he needed food. Thus, mercy to his stomach trumped the prohibition of eating the only bread that was available. Meanwhile, God made the Sabbath to serve man and not man to serve the Sabbath. Notice that He made the Sabbath for man and not for the Jews. It is for humanity. Second, Jesus did not say that the Sabbath was abrogated, but it is a blessing. Hence, as Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus has the authority to explain what can and cannot be done.
Charles Spurgeon also considered the Sabbath to be a blessing to man. “Marriage and the Sabbath are the two choice boons of primeval love that have come down to us from Paradise, the one to bless our outer and the other our inner life.” (Spurgeon, MTP, 20:42)
Since we have looked at the biblical teaching on the Sabbath, how do we keep it? In Matthew 12:1-14, we can derive three principles on how to keep the Sabbath. First, do works of piety. Primarily, this means gathering with fellow believers on Sunday to worship God. God has established this day as the day to worship, although we can have additional meetings on other days. For this reason, we did not cancel church when it fell on Christmas last year, and we do not have a service on Saturday evening. By worshiping on Sunday, we are declaring a message to the world: Jesus Christ lives. He rose from the grave. What if you are out of town on Sunday? Then go and visit a church and worship with other believers. Be encouraged in the Lord and sit under the Word. What if are sick? Stay home! Out of love for the church and out of love for your body, rest at home to recover.
In addition to coming to church, engage in ministry opportunities. You could go to campus and evangelize or organize a Bible study on Sunday evening. You could also use Sunday as a day for hospitality or visitation. Finally, going to the nursing home services is a wonderful way to share the Bible with others. Lastly, you can keep the Sabbath as individuals. Give yourself to Bible reading, prayer, hymn singing, or reading Christian books. In our home, Karise and I have begun reading Luther’s commentary on Galatians on Sunday evenings to edify our souls.
Besides works of piety, you may engage in works of necessity. All of us have work which must be done daily. We have to cook food for meals, get dressed, shower, feed animals, or change an unexpected flat tire. However, look to ease your burden through simplifying your work. For instance, we used to make waffles every Sunday morning, but it is labor intensive and made our mornings rushed. Now we have baked oatmeal. Karise makes the mixture on Saturday night. Then on Sunday morning, I place it in a pan and put it in the oven. Forty minutes later we have breakfast without much effort. Despite the planning that we can take to alleviate work, some jobs need someone to work seven days a week. To keep the streets safe, we need police officers. We also need firemen to respond to emergencies. Farmers have to round up calves who have gotten out of the fence. Powerline workers need to restore electricity so that people will not freeze. These works are allowable and show love to your neighbor.
The third and last work allowable on the Sabbath are works of mercy. The Lord encourages us to give aid to those who are sick and in trouble. Parents should go to the store on Sunday to get medication for their children. Women should cook food to drop off for a shut-in who cannot go to church. We need doctors and nurses to work on Sunday to care for patients in the hospitals and nursing homes. These professions engage in compassion for hurting people. The Sabbath does not forbid it.
As much as God calls us to keep the Sabbath, we should also keep it with the right attitude—joy. Imagine if you were required to watch NFL games all day every Sunday, and you loved football. Would it be a burden to keep this commandment? NO! You love to do it. You would see it as a blessing not a curse. If football is not your interest, imagine you had to go shopping, hunt animals, read, or do anything else which you love all day once a week. Would you complain? Absolutely not! You love it! In the same way, God, whom you love, has given you the freedom to not feel guilty for resting every Lord’s Day so that you can enjoy Him. If the Lord is your greatest treasure and joy, keeping the Sabbath will not be a burden. It will be a delight!
Brandon Rhea (Ph.D. Historical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is a pastor and an ACBC certified Biblical counselor. He met his wife, Karise, while doing pulpit supply in 2013-14. In April 2016, he accepted the call to pastor at Faith Baptist Church in Kirksville, Missouri. He loves history and has a heart for street preaching and evangelism. He is the author of “Spurgeon’s Forgotten Sabbatarianism” and teaches “Spurgeon on the Law & Sabbath” for Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
