The Perpetual Obligation of the Weekly Sabbath

Q. 59. Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?

A. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week, ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.

Traditionally orthodox Christianity has affirmed with the Westminster Catechisms that the 4th Commandment has a perpetual obligation and that we, as Christians, observe the first day of the week as a Sabbath, or day of cessation from work, called the Lord’s Day.

Some have disagreed with this opinion, especially since the dawn of Dispensationalism, and have asserted that either the 4th Commandment, being part of the Mosaic Law, does not oblige the Church, or that it was a merely ceremonial law pointing to the rest that there is in Christ, and thus terminated in his Resurrection. Let me look at the latter view held by some Covenantalists. (Dealing with the Dispensationalist argument would involve a long refutation of a whole system of hermeneutics.)

1. The Sabbath was Instituted before the Fall

I believe that one of the reasons that there is still a weekly Sabbath is that it was instituted at Creation before the Fall and was not part of the ceremonies introduced in the Mosaic economy; neither was it connected to the sacrifices and other bloody ceremonies introduced between the Fall and Moses. How would something instituted as unconnected to Christ's death be abrogated by that death?

2. The Sabbath is in the Context of the Ten Commandments as a Complete Unit

The Ten Commandments were a summary of the complete obligation of man to God (a.k.a. the Law). Each commandment was an archetypal law that represented a class of obligations to God under them, e.g. the commandment not to commit adultery contained much more under it, such as the commandment not to lust, and the commandment not to kill included the commandment not to be angry. This is well expressed in the historic confessions and catechisms of the British non-conformists, esp. the Westminster Larger Catechism Questions 91 to 152.

Similarly, we are obliged to keep all those days special that God has set aside at any moment in time. If it were merely ceremonies, then that would be included under the archetypal commandment concerning worship (the Second). God wanted to emphasise the observance of the Sabbath as a perpetual obligation.

3. The Problem in the Early Church was the Festival Sabbaths, not the Weekly Sabbath

The NT period was one of transition from a Jewish congregation (εκκλησια) to a global one. The difficulties with this transition are apparent throughout this period and various approaches are used depending on the circumstances. Paul circumcised Timothy on one occasion, but refused it for Titus on another. Another problem was the observance of the various days that God had given in the Mosaic Law, most of which were Sabbaths, or days of cessation from work to engage in religious duties. This is the context in which Paul said the following:

“One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it.” (Rom. 14:5,6a)

“So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Col. 2:16-17)

Note the following:

• Both of these are in the context of the eating of various foods, etc., i.e. we're talking about the ceremonial law instituted under Moses.
  
• Although I originally believed that there was a distinction in the use of the plural form of the word 'sabbath' (σαββατα/των), I remembered afterwards that there was something special about the word 'sabbath' in the Greek. Consultation of my lexicons and grammar showed that this was the case and that the plural form of 'sabbath' can refer to either 'sabbaths' in the plural or 'sabbath' in the singular. However the lack of the characteristic definite article (e.g. τα/των) would tend to indicate that it is not the Weekly Sabbath, although this is not conclusive.
  
• The Festival Sabbaths were a shadow of Christ given after the Fall, but the Weekly Sabbath was not a shadow of Christ’s work because it was given prior to the Fall. The Festival Sabbaths involved more than rest and worship; they were intimately connected to figurative ceremonies and especially sacrifices, which were shadows of Christ as Hebrews tells us.
• Since the beginning of the Church, one day in seven has been observed as a day of rest from labour and for the convocation of God’s people for worship. We see this weekly observance and assembly for worship on the Lord’s Day. The day of rest (or Sabbath) then quickly made the transition from the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Lord’s Day. In my opinion, the dispute in the Early Church was not one over the observance of a weekly day of rest and convocation of God’s people, but the observance of the Festival Sabbaths.
• It may also be the case that the problem was like that experienced with Seventh Day Adventists in modern times, and some were insisting on observing a day of rest and worship on the seventh day of the week.
  

4. Christ’s Commandments on the Sabbath Made Irrelevant by the Antisabbatarians

My last argument against the view that there is no weekly Sabbath for the Christian is that Christ’s discussions about the Sabbath in Matthew 12:1-14 and Mark 2:23 – 3:6 become a bit redundant under this view of the Sabbath (i.e. that there is no weekly day of rest and worship). What are we to make of Christ’s Lordship of the Sabbath? It seems that there is no Sabbath over which He is Lord. The statement that the “Sabbath was made for man” indicates that it was not merely a ceremony that was to terminate in Christ’s Resurrection, but was designed for man’s perpetual good. Why bother to teach us more about Sabbath observance when the Sabbath was about to disappear forever?

In summary, I reject the case for Covenantalists rejecting the Weekly Sabbath for the following reasons:

1. The Sabbath did not terminate in Christ’s death because the Sabbath was instituted before the Fall, i.e. before Christ’s death was necessary.
2. It makes the inclusion of the 4th Commandment in the Ten Commandments incongruous, and destroys the completeness of the unit as the summary of God’s Law enscripturated as archetypal commandments.
3. The chief text used by the Antisabbatarians would appear to refer to the Festival Sabbaths, not the Weekly Sabbath, because they were part of the festivals and sacrifical system that foreshadowed the death of Christ.
4. Christ’s teachings on the Sabbath do not seem to be consistent with the imminency of the abrogation of the Weekly Sabbath.

(See also these articles on the Blue Banner website.)
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