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The Blessings of the Sabbath
- 10/10/10
- 17
I am not a sabbitarian, but sometimes wish I was. At the moment I can’t overcome a few theological issues that prevent me from embracing the view. Thankfully this does not prevent me from honoring Sunday and seeking to set it aside as a special day, one dedicated to the Lord in a unique way. I recently found this quote in Walter Chantry’s Call the Sabbath a Delight. Again, though I am not a sabbitarian, I can agree with him on the blessings that can be ours if we keep this day set apart to the worship of the Lord, to instruction and to fellowship (which is to say if we seek to make it a day set apart from our usual tasks of studying, working, earning a living).
There is blessing to be had in connection with keeping the Sabbath Day. Surely the reference is to blessing which falls on his creatures who enter into God’s rest with him. There is great benefit and happiness heaped upon those who keep the day holy. Our heavenly Father has pledged blessing within Sabbath observance.
Where a weekly day is not spent in the worship and service of God, ignorance of God and his Word increases rapidly both in and outside the church. Families disintegrate, finding inadequate time to instruct children in morality, no time to pray together as families. Individuals are “stressed out” because their souls are neglected and they can find no fountains of spiritual refreshment. Churches are weak and neglected. Few worshippers are present and even fewer are found who will devote time to the Lord’s service within her body.
What blessings are to be found in devoting an entire day to the worship and service of the Lord? His own nearness to his people. A knowledge of the day of salvation. Fellowship with the saints. Homes in which parents worship with children, read the Bible to children, talk with children about moral issues of our day—52 days per year, one entire year out of every seven. Churches full of people seeking to praise God and to find avenues of service to the Lord. Nations whose thought and moral fibre are lifted toward heavenly standards. The Word of God abundantly studied. Prayer multiplied. Spiritual refreshment, joy, progress in the kingdom. Psychological strength.
How trite to proclaim that a Sabbath Day is impractical and impossible. How unspiritual to call it a burden which is hard to bear. It is impossible to conceive of any measure more perfectly designed than is the Sabbath to bring everlasting blessings to individuals, families, churches and communities. Spiritual men bemoan the lack of time to pray, read, worship, witness, teach children. God in his wisdom and grace has provided just such time for these very wishes of the godly by commanding that a day in each seven be set aside, devoted to the Lord.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (17)
Tim, would you consider outlining the theological issues that keep you from being a sabbatarian? That might make a good stand alone post. Blessings!
I second Matt’s request. I’m a non-sabbatarian, too, though I’ve always set it apart as a day devoted to worship, fellowship, etc. I’d love to read your perspective. Thanks!
I’m no longer a Sabbatarian either - though I amen Tim’s post and enjoy the public worship of God and the freedom of a day to be given to overt spiritual pusuits.
Col. 2:16-17, Note the phrase, “a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.” That phrase is used over and over in the OT and has clear reference to the 3 annual feasts, the monthly New Moon celebrations and the weekly Sabbaths. (Read Calvin on this also - referenced in John Frame’s “Doctrine of the Christian Life”) clearly this is referring to the weekly Sabbath - which is “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” You can still retain a general equity, a sanctity in the 4th commandment that we heartily enjoy as Christians - God’s people ought to gather corporately and worship God in Christ, and declare that the God is Lord of our time as well as all things (that is, you don’t have to go the “New Covenent Theology” route to be Reformed and non-sabbatarian).
Ironically, a fatal admission among the Reformed Baptists of which Walter Chantry is a part is the reality that one of their churches pastored by a great man Baruk Maoz in Israel (he ‘retrired’ a few years ago) worships on Saturday. I fully support the fact that that’s what you should do in Israel - but if you read any of the Reformed literature on the Sabbath (Hodges, Princeton, etc.) there is Apostolic precedent for the change of the day from Saturday to Sunday so that the Christian Sabbath, i.e., “The Lord’s Day” is now the first day of the week, Sunday. (And I do agree that Sunday became the day of worship for Christians, though in Scripture it is NEVER called a/the Sabbath). With a reforemed view of the law, what other commandment are we at liberty to alter, modify, etc? Were the Jews able to pick a day in the Old Covenant? Sabbatarians argue on paper that Christians can’t pick the day in the New Covenant and yet by their actions (in this instance) they plainly deny their doctrine.
This is not to throw stones at Reformed Baptists or others, merely an attempt to point out an inconsistency - and to note that believers of many persuasions keep the sanctity of the 4th commandment without being Sabbatarians and without coming under God’s displeasure.
I love the Lord’s Day and enjoy it weekly, but I thank God that I live in the epoch beyond that shadow - for the Substance, Christ (to which the Sabbath pointed) who has come (which is far greater) - and would ask brothers and sisters to not “not pass judment on me/us regarding questions of food or drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.”
Yes, I am very much glad Christ is our Sabbath rest.
If I read Tim’s earlier review correctly, I think he’s still thinking along the lines of obligation. I’m still puzzled by this when I hear others say it’s some sort of obligation. The Sabbath is a ceasing of obligations. You don’t really do anything! In order not to do things on one day, there are a certain number of priority rearrangements one might make during the other six days. You begin to arrange your life around that day. It’s in the same manner we begin to realize that there will come a day when no man will work.
I would concur with Matt. I am currently attending a Messianic Jewish fellowship and find it very interesting. I would love for you to outline your reasons why you are not a complete Sabbitarian.
I’m not a sabbatarian because of Hebrews 4:9-10. As Scott L noted, Christ is our Sabbath rest.
I love what Lauren Winner has to say about the Sabbath. Having converted from Judaism to Christianity, Winner articulates our unspoken frustrations at the exodus of many traditions and rituals that were very much a good idea (just not as an end, but a means).
Anyone have thoughts on Lauren Winner’s book, “Mudhouse Sabbath”?
Tim - you sound like you’re caught in your own mind between being a strict sabbitarian and a non sabbitarian… “.. am not a sabbitarian, but sometimes wish I was. ” You say you wish you were - why??? To go back to law?? To be held accounatble by legalists?? Be careful brother… I’m sorry I think Chantry is laying down law and laying down guilt if you don’t keep the sabbath. If you don’t observe the sabbath as he invisages the consequences are dire….
“Where a weekly day is not spent in the worship and service of God, ignorance of God and his Word increases rapidly both in and outside the church. Families disintegrate, finding inadequate time to instruct children in morality, no time to pray together as families. Individuals are “stressed out” because their souls are neglected and they can find no fountains of spiritual refreshment. Churches are weak and neglected. Few worshippers are present and even fewer are found who will devote time to the Lord’s service within her body.”
Should not families engage in ‘worship’ (a ladden word) every day? Should not families be taught by precept and example morality every day? Should not families pray each day?
Walter is free to call one day a sabbath, just as another is free not to observe that day. Biut in all - do not forsake the gathering together of the saints… and that might not even be on a ‘Sunday’ (or Saturday for that matter….)
Tim
Are the other days if the week “Blessed”? Why do you entitle your post the “Blesssings of the Sabbath”. Is it not in Christ that we are truly blessed?? Brother - you need to work through this issue if you are confused - and by your very post - you are confused and again seemingly close to being held bondage by those who would esteen one day greate rthan another…
KMS -
I really don’t wish to get into a comment debate, but I am curious about your comments. How is it that you find Sabbath observance—a divine institution, not a man-made one—to be legalistic? Do you find church attendance legalistic? Is obeying God’s command to love your neighbor legalistic?
I find this term thrown around a lot, and I’m always curious to know how people define it. What, in your mind, makes an act legalistic?
I am not anonymous. Sorry. Meant to have my initials there.
Why if you keep 9 of the commandments you are doing a great job, but if you keep all 10, people come out of the woodwork to call you a legalist, suddenly “confused and again seemingly close to being held bondage by those who would esteen one day greate rthan another”?
I once heard someone say be careful of building a theology around 1 verse. Yet that is what appears to be happening with Col 2:16-17. How many verses in the NT say something different?
Either “a Sabbath day” isn’t what we think it means in Col. 2:16, or all the other mentions of keeping the commandments of God in the NT don’t mean what we think they mean.
Jhn 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
1Cr 7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.
1Jo 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
Rev 12:17 So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Rev 14:12 Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
If the Old Covenant(OC) physical Sabbath is a shadow of a much deeper reality in the New Covenant(NC) (which is Christ himself), namely eternal rest in Him for our perfection, it would follow that the NC Sabbath is in fact both binding on the believer and possibly even the most moral element of the NC.
Those of us under the NC (under Christ our Covenant) are indeed morally bound to Keep the (NC) Sabbath holy, not by physically resting and returning to work cyclically as in the OC, but by eternally resting in Him for our transformation to perfection and never returning to our own work for that again.
That understanding of NC Sabbath renders it moral indeed.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40
Is there a standard for the believer’s thoughts, words, and deeds? Is that standard summarized in the Ten Commandments? Is it summarized in the slogan “What would Jesus do”? How are we to view the laws contained in the Old Covenant?
The Old Covenant, containing a single, unified law code, was a legal, conditional covenant requiring perfect and complete obedience of all those under it. On the one hand, it promised life to all who obeyed it, and, on the other hand, it pronounced a curse upon all its transgressors. It therefore inescapably brought death to all who sought to be justified by it — not because of a deficiency in the law (itself “holy, just, and good”), but because of the sinful inability of those under its charge. Its distinct purpose being to illumine sin so as to make manifest the Israelites’ and, by implication, all men’s need for a redeemer.
Under the New Covenant, God’s people, having entered the age of fulfillment, now stand as mature sons. Having been set free from the tutelage and bondage of the law coded written upon tablets of stone, they have subsequently been placed under the Spirit’s management — having the new and greater Lawgiver’s own law now written upon their hearts.
As a result, though many of the individual commandments given in the Decalogue and the eternal principles upon which the Mosaic Covenant was founded still apply to those under the New Covenant, God’s people are now totally free from the Old Covenant as a covenant. The usefulness of the Mosaic commands is not therefore to be denied, only that these are now understood to come to us through Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant. In particular, with the obsolescence of the Old Covenant, the fourth commandment, the seventh day Sabbath observance, is no longer obligatory —- its relevance now pointing to that rest enjoyed by all those in Christ.
Take a look at
http://solochristo.com/theology/nct/legalismliberty.htm
Macarthur on subject: http://www.gospeloutreach.net/sabbath.html
Daniel Parks - 13 part discussion - http://solochristo.com/theology/nct/DanielParks_Sabbath1.html
KMS -
Thanks for the response. While I agree with what you said about the OC’s relationship to the believer (the Law can’t condemn those saved in Christ), I think there is a clear difference between observing commands out of obedience, and observing commands in an attempt to achieve righteousness. Interestingly, the answer to the question “What would Jesus do,” is, “Observe the Sabbath,” as Jesus perfectly followed the Law.
Yes, we must be careful that we don’t try to earn God’s favor, but we must also try to be obedient. Finding God in the Sabbath could be, as the post pointed out, a blessing.
I’d be really interested in reading an article on the Ten Commandments as a whole. Perhaps you could do one on all ten. Like several others have mentioned, I’d be interested in hearing a biblical argument for the Sabbath. I’m not a Sabbitarian either, but I’d be interested in hearing an explanation of the views from both sides of the issue.