Dear Congregation,
This Sunday we turn to the Fourth Commandment. Since the catechism spends six questions on the Fourth Commandment, we will spend two weeks working through the biblical teaching on the Sabbath.
This Sunday we will focus on two basic principles:
1) the Sabbath as a creation ordinance — the Sabbath is not merely part of the Mosaic law, but goes all the way back to creation;
2) the Sabbath as a redemption ordinance — and therefore it plays a somewhat different role in the Mosaic economy than it does today in Christ
I grew up in a Baptist church that didn’t pay much attention to the fourth commandment. When I was a senior in high school I worked Sunday afternoon at a local grocery store and never thought twice about it.
It was only during my sophomore year in college that I first encountered a church that took the sabbath principle seriously. At first, I thought it was nuts. Sunday afternoons had always been dominated by football and studying. Taking a whole day for rest and worship would put a serious dent in my academic performance. But I saw the weight of the biblical argument for it: if God blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it, then that means that the sabbath was made for man — not man for the sabbath — and so the sabbath was a good thing (in theory).
When I started observing the sabbath the fall of my junior year of college, I discovered that the practical benefits were tremendous. Knowing that this day was set aside for worship, rest, and fellowship with God’s people meant that I could focus on the delights of this day — rather than worry about what was going to happen on Monday! I suppose some people can become legalistic about sabbath-observance, but I have noticed that when you spend the Lord’s Day doing the things that you should be doing, there is very little time left for wishing that you could do the things that you shouldn’t be doing! (and over time, even the desire to do those things starts to go away as you rejoice that God has given you a day that is set apart from the other six).
Obviously there are lots of good questions about where you draw the line. And there is need for good casuistry in thinking through those questions (I realize that “casuistry” has a bad name these days, but it simply refers to dealing with “cases of conscience” in those grey areas where good Christians may disagree about how to handle a situation). But our catechism provides a good starting point for helping us think through what duty God requires of us in the fourth commandment.
Q. 57. Which is the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment is, Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Q. 58. What is required in the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment requires the keeping holy to God such set times as he has appointed in his word; expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself.
Q. 59. Which day of the seven has 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.
Why Truth Matters
While not dealing with the fourth commandment directly, Carl Trueman offers some helpful reminders of the dangers of “going with the flow” of our culture in his article, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.”
With an increasing number of youth activities now taking place on Sundays, Trueman’s article may suggest that Christians may need to take a different path.
