 |
A Guest Column by Pastor Brian D. Jones Published on GreatControversy.org November 20, 2003
Take Back Your Sabbath?
Reply to a Christianity Today Editorial
In the Where We Stand department of the November 2003 issue of Christianity Today (pp. 42, 43) appears the editorial “Take Back Your Sabbath.” While it makes some good points (in theory) about the deplorable commercialization of God's holy day, the article comes disappointingly short of authoritative insight into the biblical meaning of the Sabbath. Reference is made to Exodus 20 (without quoting any portion of the chapter) to make the twofold point that the Sabbath was “a labor law for the protection of workers and a symbolic participation in the life of God.” The writer then refers to Deuteronomy 5 to point out that in God's plan, labor, while good, is not to be coerced or performed under conditions of bondage, physical or spiritual.
While these points are not objectionable, faithfulness to Scripture would discover, in examining the origin of the Sabbath, that God established this holy day as the crown of creation week, before sin (with its accompaniments of bondage, exploitation and materialism) entered into human experience. God's stated reason for sanctifying the seventh day is plainly expressed in the following words: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:1-3). God's rest from His work of creation was not for the relief of exhaustion, for God does not faint or become weary; He neither slumbers nor sleeps (see Isaiah 40:28; Psalm 121:4). Rather, He rested in love (Zephaniah 3:17) to commune with His new creation, chiefly His newly created beings, Adam and Eve. Jesus made this clear by pointing out that the Sabbath was made for man, and is to be observed under the Creator's Lordship (Mark. 2:27, 28). Therefore, even if sin and all its burdens had never contaminated human experience, the Sabbath would still have continued as a gift of time steeped in the wonders of eternity. God expressly ordained the Sabbath as a day of worship to keep His creation sensitively and refreshingly attuned to the dymanic relationship with our Creator that is to flourish during the entire course of our existence, throughout eternity.
We must never forget that God's particularly stated reason for establishing the Sabbath is found in the fourth commandment of the Decalogue: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:11). This is God's explanation for the institution of the Sabbath, not man's. If the Sabbath were observed in accordance with God's command: a) to “keep it holy” and (b) cease from labor (Exodus 20:8,9), then atheism, idolatry (which includes covetousness); and injustice of every sort could gain no foothold in human experience. Why? Because by worshipfully acknowledging God as our Creator, we are perpetually reminded that we owe Him our existence, and consequently our hearts, and lives and full allegiance, which includes total obedience implicit and explicit. We thus make ourselves available for His gracious work upon our hearts, whose constant aim is to bring us into ever more intimate union with Himself (John 17:21-26).
Since the intrusion of sin into our world shortly after its creation, the Sabbath has disclosed hidden treasures of additional significance for humanity. We remember that the Sabbath was not originally given in connection with sin for God instituted it as a gift for a perfect and unfallen world (Genesis 2:1-3). However, when sin blighted the human soul, a new interior dimension of the Sabbath became evident. God caused the day to serve as a refuge from the wearisome toil that now became a part of the human lot (Genesis 3:17-19). It also serves as a reminder that though we are fated to return to dust, we are still made in the image of God and through a saving connection with Him, we remain children of eternity. “And hallow My sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you; that ye may know that I am the Lord thy God” (Ezekiel 20:20). What a remarkable blessing that God should make this weekly milepost in time, during the days of our pilgrimage here, a sign between Him and His faithful children that He is our God. Who is so expert a theologian as to inform God that this blessing is superfluous or passe?
“Moreover, also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them” (Ezekiel 20:12). If man had never sinned the Sabbath would still have served to enhance his relationship with a God who loves to commune and fellowship with His intelligent creation. But another latent reserve of blessing inherent in the Sabbath came into exercise in consequence of sin—the reminder and manifestation of God's power to sanctify and restore His worshiping people. It is a fitting connection, for it takes the power of the Creator to recreate and sanctify human minds infected with sin. Accordingly David cried out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). And Paul declared , “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [creation]: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
While not wishing to detract from the editor's excellent points in his article, it seems surpassingly strange that he would say the Hebrew Bible does not treat the Sabbath as a day of corporate worship. Scripture teaches: “Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:3). The Hebrew word used here for convocation is “mikraw,” which signifies a public meeting that is generally associated with reading, instruction and worship (Numbers 10:2, 3; Nehemiah 8:8). Moreover it is a meeting that often brought people into the presence of the Lord in His sanctuary, as a simple concordance study of the word will confirm. Consider also Psalm 42:4: Isaiah 56:2-8; 66:22, 23, all of which indicate that Sabbath observance in ancient Israel was inextricably bound up with corporate worship in God's sanctuary, according to His express instruction through the prophets.
So integral was the practice of corporate worship among the Jews on the Sabbath day, that Luke wrote: “And He [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read” (Luke 4:16, cf. Acts 13:14-27). Jesus did not make Himself subject to the baseless traditions of men, but observed only that which was in keeping with His Father's will, including matters of time and place for corporate worship (Matthew 15:6-9; John 5:30; 6:38). By His example and teachings Jesus pulverized the unscriptural rabbinic concepts of Sabbath-keeping, while affirming the perpetual sanctity and value of the day as an aid to mankind (not only Jews) for knowing and serving God and receiving His restorative power. He identified Himself as the Lord of the Sabbath, thereby signifying His role of co-Creatorship with His Father (Luke 12:1-14). Also compare Genesis 2:1-3 with Mark. 2:27,28 and Hebrews 1:1-3.
To miss the fact, as the editor of Christianity Today seems to do—that God appointed the Sabbath as a day of corporate worship expressly to honor Him as the Creator—dilutes the force of his appeal to reclaim the day of worship for religious ends. He argues that we ought to refrain from commercial activity on Sunday in part as “a platform for countercultural witness.” While we agree with his point that the flagrant materialism of our society is repugnant and ungodly, yet it strikes us from the study of God's word that the Sabbath is of too sacred a character to be used as a tool of protest. It is a divinely appointed day of worship. Obedience to God on His own terms, obedience rendered to please and honor Him, without a backward glance to see who is aroused or offended by our example, is the most effective statement we can make regarding His righteous will and sovereign authority.
We wholly agree with CT's editor that God's weekly day of worship is suitable for “a cessation from paid employment, a respite from commercial activity, an investment in relationships, a receptivity to divine wisdom, a celebration of creation, and intentional acts of kindness.” All this is in keeping with God's holy day. But the editor's lack of clear Scriptural understanding of the Sabbath is made evident by his suggestion: “Churches and small groups should experiment with mutual covenants to take back their Sabbath time.” God has not left us to cast about in a wilderness of speculation and experimentation on this issue. His laws are not subject to human tampering or re-invention.
When we fall out of harmony with God's plan, and substitute another day of worship in place of His appointed 7th day Sabbath, then our restless human minds that have not entered into His rest, labor to contrive socially redeeming reasons for keeping a spurious sabbath. The Sabbath is not really ours to experiment with—it is God's holy day to be kept in His appointed way. Let us keep this holy tryst with God on His terms (see Isaiah 58:12-14) and not according to some ecclesiastically negotiated program that could eventually crystallize into a regimen of standardized Sunday observance, with stigma and punishments attached for noncompliance.
The Bible plainly foretells that because of its collective failure to worship the Creator on His own terms, mankind will fall into the demonically set trap of a fervent, fanatical and furious allegiance to a corrupt being who commands all the world worship according to his lurid lights (see 2 Thessalonians 2:2-10). The masses will follow this beastly power because they do not receive a love of the truth that they might be saved (see verse 10).
The love of truth is offered to all by the Holy Spirit. It is ours to receive as a gift, just as salvation is (Acts 2:38; Ephesians 2:8; Romans ch. 5). Revelation 13:11-17 makes it clear that God will permit Satan to work mighty miracles that lend seeming authentication to the beast's power to command worship. God is not putting us to an arbitrary test, but wants us to understand that unless our lives are fully submitted to the authority of His word, Satan will ceaselessly be about the business of contriving persuasive delusions of a religious guise, because he desperately wants to lure us into worshiping him (see Luke 4:4-8, cf. Isaiah 14:12-14). He can best do thus by usurping God's authority, most effectively achieved by calling into question the validity or relevance of God's word. This was the strategy he employed in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-5) and it is the strategy he employs in a far more cunning, spectacular and coercive form at the end of time (see Matthew 24:24, 35; 2 Timothy 4:2-4; Revelation 12:17). This power wars against the saints (Revelation 13:7,12) who are defined in Scripture as those who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).
They bear God's seal in their foreheads, a condition which definitively contrasts with the status of those receive the mark of the beast in their foreheads or in their hands (see Revelation 7:1-3; 14:1-5 contrast Revelation 13:15-17). God identifies His Sabbath as a sign or seal between Him and His people (Exodus 31:13, cf. Romans 4:11). What then can be said for Sunday observance which man has posited in place of the Sabbath for all manner of reasons unsustained in Scripture? Who will take credit for this mark, or sign, or seal of humanly-ordained religious observance? Proper credit has already been taken. Papal Rome claims Sunday observance as a mark of her ecclesiastical authority, and summary evidence of its power to modify or change the laws of God—a candid admission, though not a commendable one (see Daniel 7:25).
Especially in light of the prophetic warnings of God's word relative to these matters, would it not behoove us to become thoroughly familiar with all that God has to say about His Sabbath by reverently and systematically examining Scripture on this subject, rather than by taking guidance from an editorial that makes only passing reference to Holy Writ, or from a single church or coalition of churches that formulate their views in a labyrinth of subjective speculation that flouts Scripture or perverts it in the cause of supposedly progressive revelation? Man's search for relevance, including the Sabbath question, will result in constant failure unless he formulates his understanding in harmony with God's word (see Matthew 7:24-27; 1 Corinthians 3:11; John 14:21-24). When we do this then we will have no disposition to “take back our Sabbath,” but rather to come back to God's Sabbath, and enter into His rest, which is glorious. (Isaiah 11:10).
