LAW HOMILY: Remember The Sabbath

The Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath

Our reading of the law this morning, I will be reading from the fourth commandment, and it reads as follows. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. The fourth commandment has, over the course of church history, been split in interpretation of it. Specifically, in Reformed church history, there have been two strains, two views of what it means or what it looks like to obey this commandment.

The Westminster View of a Weekly Sabbath

The first, the Westminster Standards, the view that came from the British Isles, their view on it is, was and is, that it is a, we are required by the fourth commandment to keep a 24-hour Sabbath period every week.

And the day being moved from the Sabbath that we read about here, it does not have Sunday in mind, okay, the day being moved from that, from the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day being based on the resurrection of Christ, nobody argues with, neither the continentals nor the Westminster divines.

So anyway, so they hold a 24-hour period, the entire time is to be made up, according to the confession, in public or private prayer and worship, I'm sorry, public or private worship. So you're either at church or you're doing it privately at home, there's not an option to skip either one, you know, you're required to keep it.

The Continental View of Sabbath Rest

On the continental side, the reformers, and I simply mean there by continental, just the Europeans on the continent, right, but on the continental side, the reformers held that this had a deeper and more broad meaning to the Christian, and that it was intended to be deeper and more broad than a day from the very beginning anyway, this was a mere shadow of what it was meant to be.

And they base their argument largely on Hebrews chapter 4, where the author of Hebrews says that if Joshua had given the people rest, there would not have been spoken of another day by the prophets who came after that.

And yet they did, and so the author of Hebrews says, there remains therefore a Sabbath for the people of God. And what the real difference was between them is the reformers, sorry, the continentals said, keeping of the Sabbath means resting from your works, it means resting from your sins, the entire span of your life and resting in Christ.

It's not talking about a 24-hour period. And Paul tells us that there were no holy days, you know, we are not to allow ourselves to be judged based on the observances of holy days and Sabbaths and new moons.

Holding Different Views Charitably

So both positions, depending on where you see yourself, neither is a dumb position. Very godly men have held each position. And so I believe that we ought to approach that specific command with a reverence, or I should say the observance of that command, with a certain reverence and deference to both sides of the argument.

You know, if you disagree with one or the other, please do so charitably and understand that there were many holy men before you who have held both, you know, or one or the other, I mean, not both together.

Church Confessions and the Broken Commandment

But as a church, you know, we do hold to the Westminster standards with a few exceptions. We also very much affirm and appreciate the three forms of unity, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort.

And so with that being our position, this fourth commandment necessarily kind of butts heads between those three and the one, right? Now having said that, inspect yourself. Look at your heart because either position that you hold, we have broken the commandment and we've broken it very recently.

If you hold the Westminster standard, you know, a lot of times I've seen, and I myself, I personally lean toward the Continentals, but when I did lean toward the Westminster side years ago and I was like, oh, I'm Sabbatarian, I'm keeping this thing.

You break it all the time because you're a sinner, right? You really can't do it. It's kind of like getting, you know, anything else that you get into, you know, whether it's looking at any of the commandments, right?

Confession, Forgiveness, and Assurance

You're going to find yourself falling woefully short. The beauty of it is we're told to confess, and if we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, we are promised. So let us come before the throne of grace now, give you all a few moments, time to pray individually and then I will pray corporately.

So let us pray. Dear Lord, we do confess to you that we have indeed fallen short of your glory. We have broken your laws. We have done so this week in many cases willingly, knowingly, and Lord, we pray that you would please forgive us these sins, that you would also please enter into or put into our hearts through your Holy Spirit an assurance of our pardon and of our salvation that we might not be deceived by the evil one to despair because you are a loving Father.

You are a condescending Father. You are a Father who loves to restore your children. So Lord, please help us that we may go forth in great joy in praising your Holy Name for your glory and our good in Christ's name.

Amen.

Loving and Obeying God's Law Through Christ

Thank you for listening to this homily on the law of God from our Covenant Renewal worship this past Lord's Day. We publish these messages each week because we believe that God loves his law and far from throwing it away, we believe that the death and resurrection of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will actually help us learn to love and obey God's law.

And that's our prayer for you, that as you chew on these expositions each week, that you would both learn to love and come into alignment with the law of God. And we pray that you would do that by the Spirit's power through the finished work of Christ and to the glory of God.

And with that, God bless you.