September 10, 2017
taught by Ken McGarvey
First Baptist Church of Tellico Village, Tennessee
Christians find their heritage in the covenants, laws and promises of the Old Testament. Historically, the church believed that the Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah, and that God then turned to the Gentiles and built the Church as the spiritual successors to the Kingdom of Israel.
In the Old Testament the laws of the sabbath were central. The fourth of the Ten Commandments was 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: 9 You are to labor six days and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You must not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the foreigner who is within your gates. 11 For the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
The concept of the sabbath was given before the Ten Commandments. When God gave the Israelites manna he commanded them to gather twice as much as usual on the sixth day, and then not to gather any on the seventh day. The first week many went out on the seventh day and found no manna.
21 They gathered it every morning. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat, but when the sun grew hot, it melted. 22 On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, four quarts apiece, and all the leaders of the community came and reported ⌊this⌋ to Moses. 23 He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, and set aside everything left over to be kept until morning.’”
24 So they set it aside until morning as Moses commanded, and it didn’t smell or have any maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. Today you won’t find any in the field. 26 For six days you may gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”
27 Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any. 28 Then the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep My commands and instructions? 29 Understand that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day He will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.
In the New Testament Jesus several times clashed with the Pharisees about sabbath observance. In the book of Acts the only mentions of sabbath are in relation to Jewish custom. And in the rest of the New Testament it is only mentioned twice — in Colossians and in Hebrews. In Colossians 2:16 Paul says, Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. And Hebrews speaks of the “sabbath rest” in the future of God’s people.
For many centuries Christians believed that God’s promises to Israel had been rescinded, and that the Church is now “spiritual Israel.” Though they now worshiped God on Sunday, the first day of the week, and called it “The Lord’s Day,” they still treated it as a sabbath, making it a holy day and a day of rest.
When they settled in the New World, many tried to make their communities Christian, and one of the ways was with laws, “blue laws,” limiting activities on the Lord’s Day. Several states had “blue laws” prohibiting conduct of business, selling of alcohol, playing of sports and games, etc. on Sunday. It took a long time for Pennsylvania to allow professional sports contests on Sunday. When I was young, they still had a curfew of 6:59 p.m. for them. I remember listening to the Detroit Tigers playing the Philadelphia Athletics, and the game ending in a tie because they couldn’t play past 6:59 p.m. on Sunday.
In our lifetimes we have seen grocery stores, taverns and malls open on Sundays, which did not happen when we were young. Some states still do not permit auto dealers to sell cars on Sunday.
So then, should we as Christians observe a day of rest on Sunday? Should we play games? Watch NFL games? Wash the car or mow the lawn? Read the newspaper? When we were young many of the Reformed and Christian Reformed congregations in Grand Rapids would not watch television or read the newspaper on Sunday. This led some observers to define a “Dutch dilemma as double coupons on Sunday.”
In Jesus’ day the Pharisees were the conservatives and Jesus was the liberal. (This is not a political definition.) Historically, conservative referred to hanging on to the status quo and being suspicious of change. Liberal meant open, willing to change, to see things differently. The Pharisees held not just to the scriptures, but the traditions that had arisen over a couple thousand years of Judaism. Jesus looked at things differently. “They said,” “but I say.” When Jesus healed people on the sabbath the Pharisees wanted him punished. The Pharisees didn’t believe in compromise, but thought Jesus was often compromising with “sinners” because he talked to them, partied with them, was friendly with them, loved them.
The Pharisees were an ideological party of the Jews. They were what I would call legalists. They believed that if one keeps the letter of the law, one is okay; those who do not are not okay. There wasn’t much room for dealing with anything in context — it was either right or it was wrong. Of course the determinant of right and wrong was the individual Pharisee and others who were like-minded. Since Jesus didn’t think the way they did, their judgment always fell upon him.
I have a pastor friend who believes Sunday should be a day of rest. He told me that a neighbor once asked him to help with a project on a Sunday afternoon. He said he declined, because he didn’t believe in working on Sunday. I didn’t criticize him, but personally thought he had totally missed the boat. Jesus said it was lawful to do good on the sabbath. He said it was okay to lift one’s ox or donkey out of a ditch on the sabbath. It should certainly be good to help one’s neighbor, even if one believed in keeping the sabbath as a Christian.
But, alas, I don’t think the sabbath was meant for us as Christians. Here are several arguments for this position.
1. Never is it mentioned in the New Testament that any believer or church observed the sabbath.
2. Never is it told to any individual Christian or church that they should observe the sabbath.
3. Jesus’ words and actions de-emphasized the sabbath even for the Jews under the law.
4. The fourth Commandment is not repeated or suggested in the New Testament.
5. The believers in the New Testament met together regularly on the first day of the week, in commemoration of the Resurrection. But there is no mention of anything sabbath-like in the practice.
6. From its beginning, the sabbath was always on the seventh day of the week. To make it on the first day of the week is a change suggested or encouraged nowhere in scripture. Seventh Day Adventists (and a few other small seventh-day groups) are at least consistent in their beliefs and practices.
However, there is another element. When the commandment for the sabbath was given, it was based on the creation, when God created for six days, then rested on the seventh day. So man was to rest on the seventh day. While we have no reason to legalistically insist that all Christians avoid all work on the seventh day, we can learn from it. After all, on Sundays sermons must be preached, fires must be extinguished, patients must be fed, diapers must be changed, crime must be stopped
The concept of resting one day in seven is actually a good idea. I wouldn’t legalistically insist that certain parameters must be met. I wouldn’t suggest that people who do so are better than people who do not. But I do think the principle is valid, and following the principle could well help us to be more healthy physically, mentally, and, depending on what we are doing on our day of rest, spiritually as well.