What is the Lord's Day? (I)
Biblical Background
By George van Popta
These articles were originally speeches delivered at the Burlington Reformed Study Centre and the Fraser Valley Reformed Study Centre (1997).
If we are going to explore what the Lord's Day is, then everyone understands that we need to begin with the Old Testament (OT) and see what it teaches about the Sabbath Day.
Exodus 16
Where do we begin? Let us begin at Exodus 16:23. There we find the first record of obligatory Sabbath observance. You know the story. Israel was just in the desert. The LORD was feeding them with manna from heaven. The LORD gave them enough on the sixth day (Friday) so that they could gather twice as much and so have enough for the seventh day—a day the LORD called the Sabbath Day. There would not be any manna on the Sabbath Day. The extra they gathered on Friday would be enough for them on Sabbath.
Some of the people went out on the Sabbath Day to gather manna but found none. This made the LORD very angry. He told them that they were to stay still on the Sabbath Day and not go out. They were to rest.
Exodus 20
This command to rest on the Sabbath Day was set in stone, literally, when God gave the Ten Commandments (Exo 20). The Fourth Commandment says:
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work … For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
This is when and where keeping the Sabbath Day holy, resting from work, became an official covenant obligation. That is clear from Nehemiah 9:13-14:
You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses.
Although keeping the Sabbath Day became a covenant obligation at Mt. Sinai, it had for Israel creatorial significance. It commemorated God's work of creation and God's rest. The Fourth Commandment as we have it in Exodus 20 ties the keeping of Sabbath to God's resting on the Seventh Day of creation week. There we read in Gen 2:2,3:
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
God demanded that his covenant people rest on the Sabbath Day to show that they believed God was their Creator and would take care of them.
Of course a question wants to be asked at this point: Was the Sabbath Day there between Genesis 2 and Exodus 16? Did the patriarchs observe the Sabbath Day? We cannot say with certainty. We can point to how the LORD told Israel to "remember" the Sabbath Day. This seems to indicate a restoration of usage. Perhaps an originally commanded Sabbath Day had been forgotten. The seventh day was holy from the beginning. There was religious activity from the beginning. The early patriarchs may have worshipped the LORD especially on the Sabbath. The fact, however, remains that there is no mention of obligatory Sabbath observance until Exodus 16. Arguments from silence do not convince either way.
Exodus 31
In Exodus 31:12ff we read about how strictly Israel was to observe the Sabbath Day. Anyone who did any work on the Sabbath Day was to be put to death. In verse 16 God calls the Sabbath Day a covenant. It was a sign between Him and his people. It was a holy day. Working on it would desecrate it. Anyone who would desecrate the holy day by working on it would trample this covenant sign underfoot. And so he would be cut off from God's people—excommunicated—and put to death.
Exodus 35
These very strict sanctions are repeated in Exodus 35:1. Anyone who does any work on the Sabbath Day was to be put to death. They were not even allowed to light a fire in their homes on the Sabbath Day (v. 3).
The law about what to do with Sabbath-breakers as we find it in Exodus 31 and 35 is given in the context of the building of the Tabernacle. They had to observe the Sabbath Day even in doing something as holy and great as designing and building the Tabernacle of God.
Numbers 15
In Numbers 15:32-36 we read an account of a Sabbath-breaker being put to death. A man was found to be gathering wood on the Sabbath Day. The witnesses brought the man to Moses. Moses did not know what to do with the man and about his offence. The LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." He had to be excommunicated by the church and put to death.
A very good rule of exegesis is to consider the context of a pericope of scripture. The Holy Spirit is the primary author of scripture. We believe that he did not haphazardly throw laws and narrative together. For instance, if a piece of narrative is inserted in between laws, then we need to ask why the Holy Spirit arranged that part of holy scripture that way.
Here we find an instance of narrative following some law. What is the context in this case? It comes in the context of the Lord giving the law about unintentional sins and defiant sin. In the verses 22-29 of Numbers 15, the LORD gives laws about the sacrifices that are to be brought if someone sins "unintentionally." As Dr. Van Dam says in an article about the word translated here "unintentional," this is referring to the sin of man "…as he wanders away from the demands of God, in his weakness as a sinful human being." Any sin committed because of human frailty could be forgiven. There was a sacrifice for it. But there was no sacrifice for defiant sin (Num 15:30-31). Defiant sin is sin with uplifted hand. It is sin committed in "…open apostasy and impenitent contempt for the law."
This is the only distinction made between sins: on the one hand, unintentional sin committed because of human weakness, repented of and forgiven; on the other hand, defiant sin committed with full knowledge of the law, of what one is doing, and with a hand raised in contempt for God. Someone who committed the latter sin was to be excommunicated.
That's the context in which we find the narrative of the Sabbath-breaker in Numbers 15:32-36. Contemptuous of the law—the covenant obligation—that forbade work on the Sabbath Day and commanded rest, he went out to gather wood. The church had to excommunicate him, to stone him to death. It seems an extreme punishment for picking up sticks on the Sabbath Day, but he was trampling the covenant underfoot.
Deuteronomy 5
In the second edition of the Ten Commandments, as found in Deuteronomy, the Sabbath Day receives another layer of significance. There, as you know, another motive is added for observing the Sabbath Day. The motive is (Deut 5:15):
Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Here the Sabbath Day now was said to have redemptive significance as well as creatorial significance.
The Prophets
The prophets also spoke about the Sabbath Day. Isaiah 56:2 says that the man who keeps the Sabbath Day without desecrating it is blessed. Again in Isaiah 58:13ff, an extended beatitude is pronounced upon the one who keeps the Sabbath Day holy:
If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.
In Ezekiel 46, we can read about how the gate in the inner court of the temple that faced east was to be opened (only) on the Sabbath Day, and how the prince of God's people was to enter through the gate into the temple yard. He was to stand there in worship while the priests were to offer sacrifices on his behalf.
In the prophets, not only do we find positive statements about the blessedness and joy of the Sabbath Day; we also read prophetic indictments against Sabbath-breakers. In Jeremiah 17:19ff, the prophet forbade in no uncertain terms any Sabbath work. They were not allowed to carry any load on the Sabbath Day, either out of their houses or through the streets of the city. If they would carry a load or do any work, God would burn the city with unquenchable fire.
Amos, in ch. 8:5, indicts the people who longed for the Sabbath Day to be over so that they could get back to work and make money.
If we go to the end of OT history, we can read about Nehemiah, the governor of Jerusalem, getting angry about Jews and Gentiles working on the Sabbath Day (Neh 13:15ff).
If we summarize the OT teaching of the Sabbath Day, then we conclude that keeping the Sabbath Day became a covenant obligation at Mt. Sinai in the Fourth of the Ten Commandments. It had for Israel both creatorial and redemptive significance. Of special significance is the deeper layer added in the Ten Commandments as they were re-given in Deuteronomy 5. That Israel was to commemorate the rest God gave his people from bondage in Egypt on the Sabbath Day shows that the Sabbath is part of God's counsel of salvation. Desecrating the Sabbath Day by working was breaking covenant. Their observance of the Sabbath Day was a sign of their special covenantal relationship with the LORD. Desecration of it was trampling God's grace under foot. And therefore, gathering wood, lighting a fire, carrying a load, or any other work, was punishable by death at the hands of the congregation.
Greater Sabbath legislation
We also do well to remember that the Sabbath Day was part of a greater Sabbath legislation. In Leviticus 22-25 we read law about the OT festivals. There was the Sabbath Day, the Sabbath Year (every seventh year) and the Year of Jubilee—the seventh Sabbath Year. As Ezekiel 20:12 says, after God had set his people free from bondage in Egypt, he had given them his Sabbaths (plural). Jubilee and the Sabbath Year were about redemption. So was the Sabbath Day. All the Sabbath legislation spoke of salvation and it reached its climax in the year of Jubilee.
The New Testament
When we turn to the New Testament (NT), we need to pay careful attention to what Christ did on the Sabbath Days. As he came into the world, as he ministered to God's people, as he preached the gospel, true Sabbath was breaking into the world. His preaching and his healing brought Sabbath rest to the people of God. As Hebrews 4 teaches, the Joshua of the OT could not bring the people of God into the final rest. A better Joshua had to come. Jesus Christ came to bring rest. He is the Lord of the entire Sabbath rest legislation. We've been set free from slavery. The Redeemer has come, and we have rest.
Luke 4:14-21—Sabbath fulfilled
Luke tells us that when the Lord began his earthly ministry, he attended the synagogue service in Nazareth and there read from Isaiah 61 about the Year of Jubilee. Then he said that this scripture was fulfilled in their hearing, fulfilled that very day. He had come to proclaim the good news, the rest, the OT Jubilee was pointing forward to. All the Sabbath legislation of the OT which came to a climax in the year of Jubilee was fulfilled that day as Christ began his gospel-preaching ministry.
Let us now look at those places in the gospel and see what the Lord Jesus did on various Sabbath Days in order to put into effect that gospel Sabbath rest—to be the body that cast a shadow back to the OT Sabbaths.
Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23 - 3:6; Luke 6:1-11
In these parallel passages, two events are recorded. The disciples plucked some heads of grain on the Sabbath and, as Luke tells us, rubbed them in their hands. Effectively, they were harvesting and threshing. The Pharisees objected to this Sabbath Day work.
Their objection would have been based on Exodus 34:21 ("Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest") and on the prohibition of picking up manna found in Exodus 16.
How did the Lord respond? He did not debate different interpretations of the OT texts (and those debates were current). Rather, he told the Pharisees that they needed to understand that the Son of Man, the Messiah, was now in their midst. He made reference to how David broke the law by eating the holy temple bread and how the priests desecrate the Sabbath Day by working at the temple without incurring guilt. Then he solemnly told them that one greater than the temple was in their midst. They needed to realize that. The Son of man, the promised messianic king of the house of David, the fulfilment of the Sabbath Day gospel, was in their midst. What were they arguing about?
Then he healed the man with the shriveled hand on the Sabbath Day. The scribes and Pharisees objected to this as they considered it work on the Sabbath Day. Since the man's life was not at stake, Jesus ought not to have healed him. The Lord responded by saying that it was good to do good on the Sabbath Day.
The contexts in which the Gospel writers place these episodes are also very instructive. Matthew places these episodes right after he records Jesus speaking those famous words:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-30).
Matthew tells us that these Sabbath Day episodes happened "at that time." This is instructive. He came to give rest—the redemptive rest proclaimed by the Sabbath Day. Especially the healing of the man with the shriveled hand shows how Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the royal Messiah, the one greater than the temple, came to give rest. The man no longer had to worry about his bad hand. He could function again in the community.
Mark and Luke place these same episodes in a different context. If you look, e.g., at Mark 2, then you see that Mark places them right after he records how Jesus proclaimed himself to be the bridegroom. The time for festivity has arrived with the coming of the bridegroom. The new kingdom order has come. The new comes in place of the old. The new cannot be sewn on to the old just like a new patch cannot be sewn on to an old garment. The new cannot be poured into the old just like new wine cannot be poured into old wineskins. With the coming of Messiah a new era has arrived. He has brought the redemption proclaimed by the Sabbath Day.
Other Sabbath Healings in Luke
Luke 13:10-17 the Lord heals a woman who was chronically deformed for 18 years on a Sabbath Day. The synagogue ruler objected because there were six days to do such things and work ought not to be done on the Sabbath Day. Jesus showed the hypocrisy of such sentiments. Any Jew would "unbind" his ox or donkey to let it drink on a Sabbath Day. How could they object to his "unbinding" this woman and set her free from Satan.
At Luke 14:1ff, we read about the Lord Jesus healing a man who was afflicted with dropsy on the Sabbath.
These passages show us what our Lord Jesus Christ is about. He is about healing; setting people free; liberating those who had been bound by Satan; bringing Sabbath rest. He sets us free from the dominion of the evil one, sin, and all its miserable consequences.
John 5:1-15
In the Gospel according to John, we find similar teaching. In John 5, on a Sabbath Day, the Lord healed a man paralyzed for 38 years. He told him to pick up his mat and walk. The Jewish leaders met the man walking through Jerusalem carrying his mat. They told him that he was breaking the law.
We should not too quickly brush this objection aside. Both Nehemiah 13 and Jeremiah 17 forbade the carrying of burdens on the Sabbath Day. The man was carrying a burden. It was an open and shut case. Neither should we try to rationalize the matter by debating how to define "a burden." The Lord does not enter that debate. He does not say: "Oh, but carrying a mat does not qualify as carrying a burden."
Rather, the Lord spoke of his relationship with God the Father and declared himself to be God. He said: "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."
And so the Jews hated Jesus for two reasons:
For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).
He revealed himself here as the one who came to do the good work of the Father, to bring healing, joy and life to God's hurting people. They saw him as a Sabbath-breaker—covenant-breaker—and so wanted to kill him. They did not recognize him as the Mediator of the covenant; the one who fulfilled the covenant; who had fulfilled the Sabbath day—all the Sabbath rules and laws; that he was Rest from God.
Summary
The Gospels shows that the Lord Jesus often healed the ill and distressed on the Sabbath Day. What better day to do so? He came into this world as God Incarnate to bring about the redemption the Sabbath Day of the OT looked forward to. He came to inaugurate the final and everlasting Jubilee. He forgave sins and healed God's people of the miserable consequences of sin. In these Sabbath Day episodes, he was bringing into effect the true and definitive meaning of what the Sabbath Day was about. He was giving rest. He is the true Prince (Ezek 46) of God's people who opens the doors to the heavenly temple—the very presence of God—and bring us in, in to Sabbath rest. As LD 38 says, we may today live in the joy of that eternal Sabbath rest. When Jesus Christ died, rose again, and ascended to heaven—and we with him—he brought us into that Sabbath. And so, the OT Sabbath, with all of its regulations, is fulfilled and no longer binding upon us.
The Epistles
The Apostle Paul makes this clear. In Colossians 2:16,17, he wrote: Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
The Judaizers were insisting that the Gentile Christians keep the Sabbath Day. Paul said, it's over in Christ. There is no continuing legal requirement to keep a Sabbath Day for the NT church. The Sabbath Day was a shadow; the reality is found in Christ. The reality of the Sabbath Day is not found in the Lord's Day but, rather, in Christ. The Sabbath Day did not give way to the Lord's Day; rather, it gave way to Christ. Christ is the body; the Sabbath Day is part of the shadow he cast back over the OT. Christ is, now, the Sabbath.
Just like the food laws of the OT, just like the law of circumcision, so the Sabbath Day was a shadow of Christ. Just like you don't need to be circumcised to be part of the people of God, and just like you don't need to keep the OT food laws or observe the OT feast days, neither do you have to keep the Sabbath Day. To insist upon keeping the Sabbath Day would be to bring us back to the shadows of the OT.
In Galatians 4:10,11 Paul said that by insisting on observing special days with legalistic rigor, one undoes the work of Christ.
In Roman 14:5, Paul said that the observation of days is a matter of conscience: One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
Just like now there is no holy place so there is no holy time; rather, all is holy.
The Lord's Day
The OT Sabbath Day is gone. However, there is the continuing command to worship. The NT calls us to be a worshipping community. The NT shows us in several places, that the first day of the week came to be the day for Christian worship in celebration of the resurrection of Christ, the better Joshua, who brought us real rest.
By what is the first day of the week to be characterized? By joyful worship proclaiming, and rejoicing in, the completed work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's Day is a new day. It is not the OT Sabbath Day in NT clothes. It is not a day to be hedged in by all sorts of rules and taboos. It's not about picking up sticks. It's about worship.
Bibliography
Carson, D.A., editor. From Sabbath to Lord's Day: A Biblical, Historical and Theological Investigation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.
De Lacey, D.R. "Holy Days," Dictionary of Paul and his Letters. Eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, Daniel G. Reid. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1993.
Jewett, P.K. "Lord's Day," The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (4 Vols.). Ed. G.W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979-1988.
Laansma, J.C. "Lord's Day," Dictionary of the Later New Testament and its Development. Eds. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1997.
McCann, Jr., J.C. "Sabbath," The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (4 Vols.). Ed. G.W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979-1988.
Sloan, R.B. "Jubilee," Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Eds. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1992.
Van Groningen, G. The Sabbath-Sunday Problem. Geelong: Hilltop Press, 1968.
Westerholm, S. "Sabbath," Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Eds. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1992.
