Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: Weekly Rest in Christ

Transcript

From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: Weekly Rest in Christ · Reformed Thinking

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Hello, and welcome back to Reform Thinking.
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I am your host and I'm really glad you were joining us today.
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We have quite a stack of sources on the table right now, and
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honestly, the topic we're tackling is one that I think a
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lot of us have a pretty complicated relationship with.
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It is one of those subjects that sits in the background of our
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lives, often misunderstood or just ignored until we realize we
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are doing it completely wrong. It is great to be here, and you
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are right about that. We are looking at a collection
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of theological essays and commentaries today that focus on
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a massive shift in redemptive history.
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Specifically, the theme is moving from Sabbath to the
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Lord's Day and transitioning from shadow to substance.
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Now before anyone tunes out thinking this is just about
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ancient history or debating what you can or cannot do on a
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Sunday, I want to hit you with a statistic from our source
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material. It is something that actually
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stopped me in my tracks. I think I know which one you
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were talking about. I bet you do.
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The sources point out that over 3/4 of modern workers suffer
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from severe work related burnout. 3/4 of us, we are
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living in an era where we are constantly connected, constantly
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producing, and the result is that we are absolutely
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exhausted, we are running on fumes.
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It is a staggering number, but honestly, it is not very
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surprising. We live in a culture that
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idolizes productivity. The world tells us our worth is
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measured by our output. If you are not doing something,
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you are wasting time. And so we drown in this ocean of
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exhaustion. It is a spiritual issue just as
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much as a physical one. That is why today's deep dive
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mission is so critical for us. We are trying to answer a very
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specific question. Is there still a holy day of
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rest for Christians, or is that just an Old Testament rule that
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we can basically ignore? Is Sunday just a weekend for
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sports and shopping, or is it something else entirely?
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That is the big question, and to answer it we have to dig
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straight into the theology. As always on Reformed thinking,
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our baseline here is the Westminster Confession of faith
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and a Reformed understanding of Scripture.
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We are not just looking for life hacks today, we are looking for
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God's design. So set the stage for us.
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Why does this matter? Was this whole discussion just
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about catching up on sleep? It is about so much more than
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sleep. One of our sources quotes
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Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher who called the Lord's
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Day the Pearl of the Week. The thesis we are looking at
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today is that the Sabbath isn't just a day off.
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It is a move from the shadow of the law to the substance of
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Christ. The goal is to really understand
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the why behind the rest we so desperately need.
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I love that phrase Pearl the week.
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It makes it sound precious rather than restrictive.
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So let's jump into the origins then.
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Part one of our outline is looking a creation, not just the
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law. This is where we have to correct
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a very common misconception right out of the gate.
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If you ask the average person on the street or even a lot of
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Christians about the Sabbath, they will tell you it is a
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Jewish institution. They think it started with
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Moses. Right, with the 10 commandments,
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I hear that all the time. People say, well, that is for
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Israel, not for us. Correct, but our sources point
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us back to Genesis chapter 2 verses one through 3.
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This is crucial because of the timeline.
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This narrative takes place way before there is a nation of
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Israel. Before Abraham even existed.
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Yes, and before there is any sin in the world, which is a huge
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detail. So this is right at the very
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beginning of everything. It is the text says God finished
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his work and he rested on the 7th day.
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The Hebrew word there is Shabbat, which means to cease.
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Now we need to clarify something here because I think people get
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the wrong idea. Was God tired?
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I mean, he is omnipotent. No, God was absolutely not
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tired. The Creator of the ends of the
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earth does not faint or grow weary.
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He was satisfied, right? He looked at what he had made,
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saw that it was very good, and he ceased his creative work to
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delight in it. He stopped to enjoy the work of
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his hands. That is a big difference.
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It is not recovering from exhaustion, it is a pause for
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satisfaction. Precisely.
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And the text says he blessed the 7th day and sanctified it.
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He set it apart. This brings us to a theological
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term. Our sources use a creation
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ordinance. Break that down for us.
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What is a creation ordinance? A creation ordinance is
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something God establishes at the very beginning for the benefit
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of all humanity, not just a specific group of people later
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on. Marriage is a creation
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ordinance. Work is a creation ordinance.
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And the Sabbath, this rhythm of six days of work and one day of
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rest is a creation ordinance. It is structural to humanity.
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So it's built into our hardware, so to speak.
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That is a great way to put it. It is how we are wired.
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One of the fascinating points in the source material is the
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contrast with ancient Near Eastern myths like the Anuma
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Elish. Oh, I remember reading that
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part. It is wild to see the
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difference. It really highlights the
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uniqueness of the biblical God. In those Pagan myths, the gods
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create humans basically to be slave labor.
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So the gods can rest. Spot on.
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Humans do the work and the false gods take a nap.
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But in general it is the exact opposite.
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Completely opposite. The true God rests to set a
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pattern for his image bearers. He invites humanity into his
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rest. He is not a tyrant looking for
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cheap labor. He is a father showing his
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children how to live. That puts a whole new spin on
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it. It is not God saying don't have
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fun. It is God saying do not work
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yourself to death, because that is not how I made you.
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Correct. And that basis in creation is
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what sets up everything else. If you miss that, you miss the
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whole point of the 4th commandment.
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Speaking of the 4th commandment, let's move to the next part of
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our discussion, the two versions of the commandment.
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This is something I had not really paid attention to before
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reading these essays. The commandment appears twice in
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the Torah, right? It does, once in Exodus and once
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in Deuteronomy. And while the command is the
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same, you know, keep the day holy, the reasoning provided is
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different in each passage. That is right.
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This gives us a stereo view of why we rest.
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It adds a lot of nuance to the whole concept.
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OK, let's unpack Exodus 21st. This is the giving of the law at
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Mount Sinai. In Exodus 20, verses 8 through
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11, the key Hebrew word is zakhar, which translates to
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Remember, the rationale given here points straight back to
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what we just discussed, creation.
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It says for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and rested
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the 7th day. Yes, so the logic is clear.
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You are an image bearer. God worked and rested, therefore
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you work and rest. It is about acknowledging that
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we are creatures and he's the creator.
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We fit into his rhythm. OK, now let's flip over to
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Deuteronomy chapter 5. This is 40 years later, right
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before they enter the Promised Land.
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Correct. And here the keyword shifts.
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It is shamar, which means observe or keep and look at the
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reason given in verses 12 through 15.
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It doesn't mention creation at all.
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Right, it says, remember that you are a slave in the land of
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Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out.
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That is a massive shift. Now it is about redemption.
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It is. The logic here is that you were
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slaves who work seven days a week with absolutely no break.
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Pharaoh didn't give days off, but God liberated you.
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Therefore, rest is an act of freedom.
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It is a weekly declaration that you are no longer a slave to
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Pharaoh or to your field or to your economy.
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I really love that synthesis. So if we put them together, what
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do we get? When you connect the dots, the
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Sabbath looks back to creation. God made us, and it looks back
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to redemption. God saved us.
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We rest because we belong to God by right of creation and by
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right of redemption. That is powerful.
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Now we need to get a little technical for a moment because
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our sources bring up the Westminster Confessions view on
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the law. There is this distinction
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between moral law and ceremonial law.
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Can you explain that? Because I think this is where
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people get really confused about whether we are supposed to be,
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you know, stoning people for working on Sundays.
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It is a vital distinction to make.
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The reformed understanding, based firmly on Scripture,
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divides the Old Testament law into 3 categories.
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You have the civil law. Which govern the nation of
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Israel as a political state. Right.
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That is where you get the civil penalties like stoning, then you
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have the ceremonial law, which involved the animal sacrifices,
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the temple rituals and the dietary restrictions, and then
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finally you have the moral law. And the moral law is the stuff
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that is binding forever. Correct.
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The moral law reflects God's own character.
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It is summarized in the 10 commandments.
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Do not murder, do not commit adultery.
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Have no other gods before me. These things do not change
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because God does not change. So where does the Sabbath fit
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into those 3 categories? That is the core nuance here.
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The Westminster Confession teaches that the 4th Commandment
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is moral law. The principle of giving one day
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and seven to God belongs to the moral law that is permanent.
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But what about the specific rules?
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That is the key, the specific day, Saturday, and the strict
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penalties the travel emits, the civil punishments, those were
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part of the ceremonial and civil administration for the nation of
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Israel. So the shadow part was the
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specific day and the strict national rules, but the
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substance or the moral core is that one day of our week belongs
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to God. Precisely.
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The ceremonial aspect has faded away with the coming of Christ,
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but the moral obligation to consecrate a portion of our time
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to God remains. That clears up so much
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confusion. It explains why we don't just
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toss the whole commandment out with the bathwater.
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Let's move to Part 3, which our sources call the Old Testament
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trap and the prophetic sign. This is interesting because the
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Sabbath becomes this massive sign of the covenant.
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It really does. In Exodus 31, God tells Moses
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that the Sabbath is a sign between me and you.
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Throughout your generations, it was an identity marker.
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If you kept the Sabbath, you were publicly declaring that
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Yahweh is your God. And the sources mention a pretty
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intense story from Numbers 15, The man gathering sticks.
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Yes, a man is found gathering wood on the Sabbath and the
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penalty is death. He's stoned by the congregation.
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That sounds incredibly harsh to us today.
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How do we process that? It is very severe to our modern
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years, but we have to understand the context of a theocracy.
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In ancient Israel, God was the literal king of the nation.
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Breaking the Sabbath wasn't just missing a church service, it was
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high treason. So it was a rebellion against
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the crown. Exactly.
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It was a public denial of God's lordship.
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The man was essentially saying I do not ask God to provide for
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me, so I have to work today to survive on my own terms.
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That makes sense in that specific covenant context, and
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the prophets picked up on this heavily later on.
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They did. If you read Ezekiel 20 or
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Nehemiah 13, you see that Sabbath breaking is never just
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an isolated sin. It is always linked with
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idolatry and social injustice. I remember the story of
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Nehemiah. He actually goes and locks the
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gates of Jerusalem, right? He does.
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He comes back and sees merchants coming in on the Sabbath to sell
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grain and wine. And he says absolutely not.
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He shuts the huge city gates and threatens to lay hands on the
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merchants if they come back and try to sell on the Sabbath.
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He was not messing around. No, he understood that if the
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people wouldn't trust God with their time and their commerce,
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they wouldn't trust Him with anything else.
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It was a spiritual barometer. But it wasn't all negative, was
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it? There is that beautiful passage
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in Isaiah 58. That is one of the greatest
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passages on this topic in the whole Bible.
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Isaiah 58 verses 13 and 14. The Lord calls the people to
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turn away from doing their own pleasure on His holy day.
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But He doesn't say be miserable. He says call the Sabbath a
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delight. A.
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Delight, not a burden. Right.
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Call it the Holy of the Lord, honorable.
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The heart issue here is shifting from finding pleasure in your
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own hobbies or your own business to finding your pleasure in God
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Himself. It is about delighting in the
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giver, not just the. Gift And here is the trap part
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of this section in our sources. They couldn't do it, could they?
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No, they could not. The history of Israel is largely
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a history of Sabbath breaking. They couldn't rest.
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And this strictness of the Old covenant acted as a tutor to use
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the Apostle Paul's language in Galatians.
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A tutor like a schoolmaster. Yes, a guardian or instructor.
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The law showed them God's standard, which is perfect holy
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rest, and it exposed their total inability to meet it.
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It showed them that they were slaves to their own sin and
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their own striving. It created a longing for
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something better. Exactly.
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A longing for a better rest than the law could ever provide.
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Which leads us perfectly into Part 4, Christ the Lord of the
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Sabbath. This is where the plot really
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thickens. When Jesus comes on the scene,
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he seems to be constantly getting into trouble on the
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Sabbath. He really does.
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If you read through the Gospels, a huge number of his conflicts
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with the religious leaders, the Pharisees, happen on the Sabbath
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day. So the obvious question is, was
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he breaking the law? That is the critical question,
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and the answer is an emphatic no.
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Jesus was born under the law. He kept the moral law perfectly.
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If he had sinned, he couldn't be our Savior.
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So what was he breaking? What he was breaking were the
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traditions of the Pharisees. The man made rules.
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Yes, the Pharisees had billed what they called a hedge around
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the law. They added hundreds of extra
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regulations about how far you could walk, what you could
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carry, what constituted actual work, if.
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You took a day of delight and turned it into a day of anxiety.
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They absolutely did. So when Jesus is walking through
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the fields and his disciples are plucking grain in Mark chapter
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2, the Pharisees. Say look, that is unlawful.
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But Jesus points out that the Sabbath was never meant to
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prevent satisfying basic human hunger or take the time he heals
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the man with the withered hand in Mark chapter 3.
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The Pharisees were literally watching him to see if he would
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heal just so they could accuse him.
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Think about the hardness of heart there.
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They cared more about their technical rules, and they cared
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about a suffering man being restored.
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Jesus asks them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do
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harm? To save life or to kill?
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And he makes those key declarations.
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He says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
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That is the ultimate anti legalism statement.
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The day is a gift to humanity. It is not a tyrant meant to
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crush us. But then he drops the real
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bombshell. He says the Son of Man is Lord
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even of the Sabbath. That is a claim to deity, plain
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and simple. It is a massive claim.
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He is saying I own this day, I created it and I define what it
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means and he. Clarifies what is lawful.
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Our sources call them works of necessity and mercy.
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Yes, the example of the sheep in the pit from Matthew 12 is
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classic. Jesus says if you have a sheep
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that falls into a pit on the Sabbath, you lift it out.
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How much more valuable is a man than a sheep?
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So healing, helping, saving, these fit the Sabbath perfectly.
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They do because they are restorative.
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They are consistent with God's character.
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But then we get the great invitation in Matthew 11.28.
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This is really the pivot point of history regarding REST.
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Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
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you rest. Notice the shift there.
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Rest is no longer just a day on the calendar.
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Rest is a person. Jesus fulfills the demand of the
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law. He takes the heavy burden of our
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sin and our striving, and He gives us true rest for our
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souls. So we don't rest to get God to
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love us, we rest because we are already safe in Christ.
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Amen. We enter into his rest.
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But this brings up the practical question that confuses so many
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people today. If Jesus is the fulfillment and
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the 4th commandment specifically says the 7th day, why are we
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meeting on Sunday? Which brings us to Part 5, the
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resurrection and the shift to the Lord's Day.
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This is the core of that shadow to substance transition.
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The reason Christians meet on the first day of the week,
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Sunday, is not because a Pope decided it's centuries later or
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because of the Emperor Constantine, as some people
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claim. Right, it is because of the
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resurrection. It is entirely because of the
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resurrection. The resurrection changed the
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flow of human history. All four gospels go out of their
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way to emphasize that Jesus rose on the first day of the week.
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So the Old Testament Sabbath was day 7, commemorating a finished
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creation. Correct.
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God finished making the physical world, so he rested.
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And the New Testament Lord's Day is Day one commemorating what?
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Commemorating a finished redemption, the new creation.
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When Jesus rose from the dead, he launched a brand new age.
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And look at the pattern he sets. Jesus appears to the disciples
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on that first day, then the text says 8 days later, which in
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Jewish reckoning is the following Sunday he appears to
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them again. He is establishing a new rhythm.
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He is. And think about Pentecost.
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Pentecost falls on a Sunday, doesn't it?
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Yes, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the New
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Testament church, It all happens on the first day of the week.
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Our sources also point to Apostolic practice right there
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in the Bible itself, like Acts 20 verse 7.
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It says on the first day of the week when we were gathered
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together to break bread, it was already the habit of the early
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church. Paul tells the Corinthians in
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First Corinthians 16 to set aside their collection on the
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first day of every week. And then there was Revelation
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1.10. John says I was in the Spirit on
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the Lord's Day. That phrase in the Greek kuria
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kehemra is fascinating. It uses a very specific
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adjective, kuriakos, meaning belonging to the Lord.
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It is the exact same word used by Paul for the Lord's Supper.
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So just as a supper belongs to Jesus, this day belongs to
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Jesus. Exactly, and historically the
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term Lord's was often used in the Roman Empire for the Emperor
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you had the Lord's treasury or the Lord's army.
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John is in exile on Patmos, probably suffering under the
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emperor demission, and he is claiming the day for Christ, not
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Caesar. So the logic here, getting back
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to the Westminster Confession, is that the positive or
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appointed part of the law changed.
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Yes, the moral principle of resting one day and seven stays,
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but the appointed day shifted from the last day of the week to
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the first day of the week to honor the greater work of
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redemption. It is the Christian Sabbath.
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OK, I can see the theological logic there, but we have to
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address the objections. This is part six of our deep
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dive because there are plenty of Bible verses that people throw
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out to say we don't need to do any of this anymore.
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The most common one people bring up is Colossians 2 versus 16 and
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17. Right, Paul writes.
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Let no one judge you regarding a festival or a new moon or a
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Sabbath. And he calls them a shadow.
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Does that mean we can just ignore the whole concept?
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This is where we need to be very careful with our reading of the
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text. Paul is referring specifically
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to the Jewish ceremonial calendar.
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The Sabbaths mentioned there are grouped with new moons and
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annual festivals. These were the specific feast
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days and the ceremonial aspects of the Jewish Saturday Sabbath.
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The shadow versus the body. The Greek uses the word skia for
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shadow versus soma for body or substance.
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The substance is Christ. Paul is saying do not let anyone
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judge you for not keeping the Jewish ceremonial laws.
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He is not throwing out the 10 commandments.
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No, he is not saying the moral principle of resting one day and
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seven is gone. The shadow, the animal
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sacrifices, the specific Saturday strictures, that is
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gone. The moral core remains intact.
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What about Romans 14 where Paul says one person esteems one day
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is better than another, while another esteems all days alike?
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Again, context is key. Paul is writing to a mixed
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community of Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome.
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They were actively arguing over dietary laws and Jewish feast
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days. He's telling them not to quarrel
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over these disputable matters. He is not abrogating one of the
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10 commandments. Here is the one I hear the most
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in modern circles though, the argument that every day is holy.
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People say I worship God every day, so I don't need a special
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day. It sounds very pious, doesn't
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it? It really does.
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People say all of life is worship.
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And it is true that all of life should be worship.
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We should offer our bodies as living sacrifices on a 280
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afternoon or a Thursday morning. But let's be real about human
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nature. When someone says every day is
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the Lord's Day, in actual practice that usually means no
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day is the Lord's Day. Ouch, that hits close to home
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for a lot of us. We are creatures of time.
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We need rhythms. If you do not carve out specific
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dedicated time for something, it gets swallowed up by the urgent
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things of life. God commanded a specific day
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because He knows we need an anchor.
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If we treat every day the same, we end up treating the holy
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things as common. So moving to part 7 practical
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application, how do we actually keep this day without becoming
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modern day Pharisees? Because I definitely do not want
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to be the guy out measuring how far I can walk from my house.
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We have to avoid two major ditches.
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On one side is legalism. Think of 7th day Adventism or
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the Pharisees. This is the error of thinking
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that keeping the day strictly earns you salvation, or binding
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your conscience with a bunch of rules that simply are not in the
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Bible. Like saying you can't play catch
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with your kids in the yard, right?
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If the Bible doesn't forbid it, we shouldn't invent a rule
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against it. But the other ditch which is far
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more common today is liberalism or pragmatism.
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This is the Second Saturday mentality.
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Where Sunday is just for catching up on errands, watching
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10 hours of football and getting your inbox ready for Monday
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morning. Exactly.
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And that is where most modern evangelicals live.
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We need to recover what the Puritans called the positive
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duty of the day. So which we actually do.
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First and foremost is public worship.
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The core of the day is gathering with the body of Christ.
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Hebrews 10.25 tells us not to neglect meeting together.
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It is not just about listening to a sermon alone in your car.
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It is about being physically present with God's people.
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And rest ceasing from what the confession calls ordinary
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employments. Yes, put the laptop away.
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Do not check the work e-mail. Step off the treadmill of
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productivity and commerce. But we mentioned earlier, what
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about nurses, police officers, firefighters?
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And this is where the works of necessity and mercy come into
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play. It is lawful and good to do
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those things. If you are a nurse, your work on
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Sunday is a work of mercy. You are actively caring for the
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sick that honors God. But if you are a stockbroker,
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checking the overseas markets on Sunday afternoon.
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That can wait until Monday. That is not a necessity.
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What about recreation? That is always the big debate in
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reform circles. Can I watch the game?
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Can I go for a hike with my family?
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The criterion our expert source gives is very helpful here.
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Ask yourself, does this activity help or hinder my delight in the
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Lord? Does it crowd out worship?
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If going for a hike makes you marvel at God's creation and
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refreshes your soul for the coming week, that sounds like
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true rest. But if watching football makes
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you angry at the referees and keeps you away from evening
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fellowship at church. Then maybe it is a hindrance.
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It is really about the hearts orientation.
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That makes a lot of sense, and our sources say preparation is
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key to making this work. It is, the Puritans used to say
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the Sabbath starts on Saturday night.
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If you stay up until 2:00 in the morning watching movies, you are
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going to be a wreck on Sunday morning.
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You won't be able to engage in worship.
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The Pearl of the Week shouldn't be an exhausted afterthought.
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No, it should be the highlight. Family worship, good food,
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hospitality, having friends over for lunch.
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It should be the absolute best day of the week.
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I love that vision, it makes it sound like a feast, not a
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funeral. That is precisely what it should
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be, a weekly feast of grace. We are coming to the end of our
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outline here, Part 8 conclusion focusing on the ecological hope.
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That is a big theological word for our listeners.
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It just means the doctrine of last things, the end of the
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story. The Sabbath points us forward.
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Hebrews chapter 4 speaks of a Sabbath rest that remains for
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the people of God. O our weekly Sunday rest is like
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an appetizer. Yes, it is a foretaste.
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Every single time we stop working on Sunday, we are
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practicing for heaven. We are reminding ourselves that
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one day we will cease from our striving and our sin forever,
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and we will enjoy perfect, uninterrupted fellowship with
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God. That really puts those burnout
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statistics from the beginning of the show into perspective.
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We are burning out because we are trying to find our ultimate
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rest in this world and our careers in our status.
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But true rest is coming. And true rest is sound in Christ
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right now. So as we wrap up this deep dive,
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what is the final call to action based on all these sources?
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To the unbeliever, the message is stark but incredibly hopeful.
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There is no true rest for the wicked.
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You can take expensive vacations, you can sleep in
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every weekend, but your soul will never be at rest until you
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find it in Christ's finished work.
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Stop trying to earn your way to peace.
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And to the believer. Stop striving.
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Receive the given of the day. The Lord's Day is not a
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restriction on your freedom. It is a liberation from the
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tyranny of the urgent. It is God looking at you and
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saying you are free. Rest in me.
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That is a beautiful place to land.
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We've moved from creation to the law, through the cross to the
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empty tomb, and landed right on our Sunday from shadow to
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substance. It is a remarkable progression
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to study. Thank you for walking us through
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that. Now, before we sign off, I want
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to leave you, our listener, with one final thought to Mull over.
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Think about your smartphone. Think about your digital life.
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If you cannot turn off your device, if you cannot step away
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from the endless stream of notifications and news for just
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24 hours, are you really a free person or are you a slave?
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Is there a digital connectivity becoming the new Egypt that we
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need deliverance from? Something to think about as you
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prepare for this coming Sunday. That is a challenging thought.
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It is. Thank you to everyone for
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joining us on this deep dive into the Lord's Day.
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This has been reformed thinking. We will see you next time.