Turn with me to Exodus 20. Exodus 20. This is one of two places in the Pentateuch where the Ten Commandments are listed. The other is Deuteronomy chapter 5. And in both places, the thing that stands out to me is that this commandment, the fourth commandment, is the longest and most detailed of all of them. It takes the most space. The shortest commandment, at least in the English Bible, the shortest commandment is the eighth, which is just four short words in English, you shall not steal. The sixth commandment is likewise four words in English, you shall not murder, but that one takes a couple more letters to spell, so we'll count you shall not steal as the shortest commandment. In the Hebrew text, the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments are all just two words. So, which is good if you're trying to write the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, and you have one as long as the fourth commandment, it's good to have some short ones there too. The second commandment, the one against making graven images is three verses long and 91 words in the ESV, but the fourth commandment covers four verses and takes 98 words in the ESV. In Deuteronomy it's similar proportions and all that's not that important, except to say that so much space relatively is devoted to this commandment and it falls right in the middle of the ten, so it's important. and we need to pay close attention to it. Now there's no end of opinion on the fourth commandment and it remains a point of fierce controversy even among the theologians whom I most respect. At least one Baptist fellowship that I'm aware of and have sympathies with split into three different groups because they had differences of opinion about how the fourth commandment is to be interpreted and applied. So this is a controversial passage, and let's just acknowledge that at the outset. But I think we can untangle a lot of the confusion about it. Here is the commandment itself from Exodus 20, verses 8 through 11. Remember the Sabbath day to keep 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Now, the commandment itself is not all that hard to understand. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, verse 8. And that sets aside a special day, a specific day, as a holy day unto the Lord. And the precise day is then specified. It is the seventh day of the week, verse 10. The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. And then a reason is given why it's the seventh day rather than the first or the third or the sixth, because for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. That verse, verse 11, is a reference back to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis 2 verses 2 and 3 says, "...on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation." So, one in seven days was set aside as holy, and it was the seventh day, Saturday, on our calendars, because that's when God rested from His creative work. The Israelites were commanded to observe that day each week and set it aside for the Lord. The rest of the Mosaic Law then includes numerous specific laws that severely restricted what the Israelites were permitted or not permitted to do on the Sabbath. But the commandment itself, as it appears in the Decalogue, is simple and straightforward, and it simply establishes a fixed day of rest and worship each week that all of Israel was to observe. Now, why is this commandment such a source of controversy? Because there's widespread disagreement in the church about whether it applies at all to Christians, and if so, how should we apply it? And opinion ranges from those who think it calls for strict observance of a seventh-day Sabbath forever to those on the other end who don't think it has any application to the church at all. At one end of the spectrum, you have the Seventh-day Adventists and their predecessors, which were a small group of Baptists that arose in the 1700s known as Seventh-day Baptists, And in their view, this commandment sets up an eternal moral principle that imposes a strict seventh-day Sabbath observance on all people of all times. That's the most extreme view. We'll call it the strict seventh-day Sabbatarians. And then at the other end of the spectrum, you have Christians who believe that this commandment, not only the fourth commandment, but the entire Decalogue is irrelevant to Christians anyway because it belongs to the Mosaic Covenant and has nothing to do with us. And so they wouldn't trouble themselves about how to apply this commandment today because they believe every aspect of the law has been abolished under the New Covenant and therefore the Ten Commandments simply don't have any legitimate application to Christians. and they would oppose the application of any legal principles for believers today. because they say we're not under the law. And they interpret that to mean there is no legal authority that binds us. We call them antinomians. And in this category, there are many hyper-Calvinists, most of the old line, you know, original Schofield style dispensationalists, and then some who would hold to a newer kind of theology known as New Covenant theology. Now, let me say something here as a footnote, because many of those people would reject the label of antinomianism. They think that has a sound of libertinism to it. you know, as if it signified they promote immorality or whatever. That's not what I mean by it, and I don't use that term in order to be derogatory, but antinomianism is the proper theological term for the view that the Ten Commandments are not binding on Christians. You can look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary or any theological dictionary if you don't believe me. So I'm using that term not in a pejorative sense, but in its technical sense. If you believe the Ten Commandments have no application whatsoever to the Christian, then you are against the law in a theological sense, and the name for that kind of theology is antinomianism. So those are the two extremes. You've got, you know, the strict Seventh-day Baptists on this end, the antinomians on that end, and in between those two opinions, there's still quite a wide variety of views. the typical Reformed view, the one that's spelled out in most of the Protestant creeds of the 17th century, is that the Christian Sabbath has been changed from the seventh day of the week to the first. And in fact, let me read you from one of those confessions. This is the Baptist Confession of 1689, a confession that I generally would be in agreement with, but I disagree with what it says here. It says, God hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him. which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished. And many who hold to that view then want to impose most of the Old Testament restrictions against work and travel and, you know, fire building and all of that. They want to impose those restrictions on Christians. In essence, what they've done is merely move the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. That was the classic Puritan view, and it's still the view of, I would say, probably most of those who call themselves Reformed today. We'll call that view Christian Sabbatarianism. And in recent years, as more and more people have sort of returned to classic confessional reform theology, this type of Puritan Sabbatarianism has been growing in popularity. There's a revival of the kind of Sabbatarianism that was enforced by the Puritans. And some think that, you know, if you hold to Calvinism at all, you must embrace this kind of Sabbatarianism. So this has become a hotly debated issue in the very theological circles some of us travel in. There is one other classic Reformed view on the Sabbath, and it happens to be where my own sympathies lie. And so for those of you who've been eager to hear what position I would take, this is it. This was the view of Calvin and the early Continental Reformers. And they said, no, there is an eternal moral principle that's contained in the Fourth Commandment, and that's why it's part of the Decalogue, but there's also a ceremonial aspect of this law that was abolished under the New Covenant. And the specific Old Testament Sabbath restrictions pertain to the ceremonial ordinances that were abrogated by Christ. So all those restrictions about fire building and traveling and all of that, those were for Old Testament Israel. They don't apply to the church. Here's what Calvin had to say about the fourth commandment. He wrote, with the seventh day of rest, the Lord wished to give to the people of Israel an image of spiritual rest. And he said, as to this reason, there is no doubt that it ceased in Christ because he is the truth by which the presence of all images vanish. Hence, Calvin said, superstitious observance of days must remain far from Christians. As the truth, therefore, was given to the Jews under a figure, in other words, in kind of typological imagery, so to us, on the contrary, truth is shown without shadows in order, first of all, that we might meditate all our lives on a perpetual Sabbath from our works so that the Lord may operate in us by His Spirit." And so Calvin said the weekly Sabbath observance was ceremonial and the Sabbath day in the Old Testament pictured a reality that prefigured Christ and was fulfilled by Him because He offers the perfect Sabbath rest. The Old Testament Sabbath observances, all those rules and regulations about what you could and couldn't do on Saturday, merely foreshadowed something that was brought to fruition, made clear in Christ. And when you have the substance of the real thing, there's no need to hang on to the shadows and symbols of that thing. Let me illustrate. I think I've used this illustration before, but it bears repeating. When I travel, when I went to Asia last year for a couple of weeks, I took a picture of Darlene with me. Actually, I took several of them on my iPhone. And it was something I could take out and look at to remind me of her. And I would take that picture out practically every day and count down the days until I could see her for real. But when I came home and saw her after two weeks of being away, I didn't pull out that picture and kiss it. I kissed her. And on the way home in the car, she drove me home from the airport. I didn't pull out that picture and look at it. I looked at her. It would be folly and it would be an insult to her if I gave my attention to a mere symbol of her when I had the real thing right there beside me. So it's better to kiss your wife on the cheek than it is to kiss your cell phone on the cheek. And the Apostle Paul says, that's how we should regard all of the ceremonial elements of Old Testament law. The priesthood, and the sacrifices, and the ceremonies, and the rituals, and all these things that were symbols that prefigured Christ and his work in various ways, those things are done away with because we have the real thing now. Those were just shadows, and we have the real thing. It's a sin, actually, to go back to observing something that was merely symbolic. The whole book of Hebrews is about that. So the animal sacrifices, for example, were object lessons that pictured and prefigured the atoning work of Christ. Now that his atoning work is finished, it would be wrong to observe the symbols. The Passover, all the other Jewish holidays, all of these things pictured various aspects of Christ and His work. And so now that the full light of divine revelation has shown us the realities that were only symbolized by those things, we don't need to maintain the symbols. That's why we don't observe Passover or the other Jewish holidays. And there are groups that say we should. They're wrong for this very reason. And the Apostle Paul specifically includes the weekly Sabbaths among those types and symbols that he says have passed away. Turn with me for a moment to Colossians chapter 2. I want you to see this with your own eyes. Colossians 2. And in verses 13 and 14, Paul is talking about the finished work of Christ and how it has liberated us from our sin, liberated us from the condemnation of the law. And verses 14 and 15, Colossians 2.14 says, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. In other words, Christ freed us, liberated us from all of the ordinances that condemned us, and he utterly defeated the forces of evil, and all of that is done. His redemptive work is finished. There's nothing left to be foreshadowed by any kinds of types or symbols. And therefore, verse 16, he says, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. But notice, in one fell swoop there, he's saying, look, all of the dietary laws, all of the ceremonial laws, all of the holidays, and even the Sabbaths have been done away with. They were merely shadows, but the substance is Christ. Now, the typical Sabbatarian will look at that passage and say, yeah, but that has nothing to do with the weekly Sabbaths. That's a reference to certain feast days and maybe the sabbatical years, like the year of Jubilee. But no, if you follow what Paul is saying here, he uses a clear progression in order to make his meaning absolutely clear. Let no man therefore judge you in respect of a holy day. a festival. That refers to the annual feasts of the Jewish calendar. Or, he says, of the new moon. Those were the monthly celebrations, the feasts of the new moon. Or, of the Sabbath days, and that can be none other than the weekly Sabbaths. We're under no more obligation to observe the ceremonial requirements of the weekly Sabbaths than we are to follow the dietary laws of Old Testament Judaism, or circumcision, or the priestly ceremonies, or any of the other ceremonial aspects of the law. Those things were merely pictures that illustrated Christ and His redemptive work. He is the fullness of rest. He represents the fullness of rest that the Sabbath pointed to. And now that we have the real thing, we don't need to be fixated on the pictures. Now, let me say this, all Reformed theologians, even the ones who most strictly argue for the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, they must all ultimately acknowledge that there is a ceremonial aspect to the Old Testament Sabbath. They cannot deny that. You remember from Our study of the Ten Commandments, more than 15 years ago now, I think, that the Ten Commandments, as we understand them, are simply a summary of God's moral law, the eternal law of God. But even though this commandment falls right here in the middle of this outline of the law's moral precepts, it nonetheless deals with a ceremonial and symbolic observance. And even the strictest Reformed Sabbatarians ultimately have to concede that point. Because the commandment itself spells out which day is to be regarded as the Sabbath, and it's Saturday. But not one Reformed creed or theologian of any stature has ever argued that this commandment should be observed without change from how Moses delivered it on Sinai. The only ones who argue that way are the Seventh-day Adventists and the Seventh-day Baptists, and they are in clear violation of the law, the principle that's set forth in Colossians 2.16. So ultimately, Protestant theologians have never disagreed on whether this commandment has a ceremonial aspect, even though it's included here with the moral law. It has a ceremonial tint to it that makes it stand out in the Ten Commandments as different from all the others. And where theologians disagree is on the question of whether Sunday is given to us as a Christian Sabbath, and if so, how is that Sabbath to be observed? And those questions have prompted, as I said, no end of debate, and to cover every aspect of that debate would take us several weeks. I don't want to do that. So what I do want to do this morning is give you five principles to keep in mind about the Sabbath. This will help you think through the question of how we as Christians ought to regard the Sabbath, apart from the ceremonial ordinances, that governed how Old Testament Israelites were commanded to observe the Sabbath. And at the end, I'll try to show you that there is, as I said, an eternally binding moral lesson built into this law. It is here with the moral law for a purpose, and it's a good purpose. And in fact, there are several moral principles we ought to draw from this commandment. And the moral aspects of this commandment are applicable to us as Christians today. But before we get there, I want to go through these five points and I hope this will help you see how this law fits where it is in the Ten Commandments and why it's there as a part of God's eternal moral law. So principle number one, The Sabbath looked back to creation. Very simple. Principle number one, the Sabbath looked back to creation. The first inkling of the Sabbath appears in Genesis 2, where you have that description of the seventh day of the week of creation. Let me read it again, Genesis 2, verses 2 and 3. And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. because God rested from all His work that He had done in creation. Now you might think, and some people would say, well, right there the Sabbath is instituted because it says, God blessed that day and made it holy. But the fact is, there is no mention of the word Sabbath neither here nor anywhere in Scripture until you get to Exodus 16. That's that occasion when manna begins to come down to feed the Israelites in the wilderness. And before we leave Genesis here, there's just no suggestion in this Genesis passage that God, by blessing the Sabbath day and making it holy, that he somehow imposed Sabbath observances on Adam. In fact, he didn't, and he couldn't have, because Adam was less than a day old and he had no works to rest from. And furthermore, if Adam obeyed God, if he had never sinned in the first place, the garden would have been...his life there would have been a perpetual Sabbath rest. Living in the garden, enjoying the presence of God with a daily existence that was free from any kind of exhausting labor, Eden was designed to be its own Sabbath. And it was Adam's sin that ruined that. But the Sabbath was then instituted after the fall, after the flood, after the Israelites left Egypt. That's the first we read about it, when the manna starts to fall. It was a gracious gift to the Old Testament Israelites that enabled them to experience one day a week a small taste of what life in Eden was supposed to be. a day of rest and fellowship with the Lord. That's what Eden was supposed to be. So keep this in mind. The Sabbath was supposed to be a sample of what humanity forfeited in Eden, but it wasn't instituted as an ordinance. It's not even mentioned in Scripture until the time of Moses. Then around the time of Christ, The Pharisees, legalistically, began to make the Sabbath law and obedience to the Sabbath restrictions a focus of rigid enforcement. And this was sort of, as we've talked about before, the trademark of the Pharisees. It was the thing they picked the most fights with Christ about because they accused Him of violating their Sabbath laws, because they'd made a whole bunch of laws that weren't in Scripture, and tried to impose them on people. And by doing that, they turned the Sabbath into a drudgery. But it was originally intended to be nothing more than a day of pure rest and refreshment for God's people. It was a gracious gift from God. In Isaiah 58 verse 13, God pleads with Israel to call the Sabbath a delight and to seek their pleasure in what pleases God and to honor the Lord's rest and to enter into that rest instead of seeking pleasures of their own. And so the Sabbath day was a commemoration of day seven of creation week, when God rested and hallowed the day. And again, there's nothing anywhere in the Old Testament that suggests God commanded His people to observe the Sabbath until the time of Moses. Nowhere in Scripture do we ever read that Abraham or any of the patriarchs ever observed the Sabbath. There's not a hint that they did anywhere. Now, this is one of the questions about the Sabbath that is hotly debated. So was the Sabbath a creation ordinance, or was this a commandment that was initiated at Sinai? And you will find that most theologians have inferred from Scripture that Sabbath was a creation ordinance, because the reason for observing the Sabbath was to commemorate God's rest at creation, and it was at creation that God blessed the day and declared it holy. And you find that most theologians you read, there are two notable exceptions, John Bunyan and John Gill, both of whom pointed out that there's nothing anywhere in scripture that suggests anyone prior to Moses' time was ever commanded to observe the Sabbath, and no one prior to Moses' time is ever even said to have rested on the Sabbath. Bunyan pointed out, let me quote him exactly, he said, quote, in all the scriptures we do not read that the breach of a weekly Sabbath was charged upon any man from Adam to Moses. And John Gill said, none but the Jews were ever charged with the breach of the weekly Sabbath. And so this goes to the question of whether the Sabbath was purely moral commandment or is it mostly ceremonial. If it wasn't given as a commandment to humans until Moses' time, then it must be mainly ceremonial. Because if the commands and restrictions associated with Old Testament Sabbath observance, if these were moral principles, then they would have been eternally binding on all people at all times, just like the commandments against murder and adultery. You realize murder and adultery didn't become a sin at Sinai. Those things were wrong and people knew it because those laws were inscribed on the human heart from creation. And so again, I think the proper biblical view is that there are both moral and ceremonial dimensions to the fourth commandment. The ceremonial aspect, which calls for the observance of the seventh day in particular, could not have been a creation ordinance, because if it were, it never would have been subject to change. Saturday Sabbaths would be eternally binding if this were a creation ordinance. But at the same time, it's important to see that whatever eternal moral principle is found in this law is eternally Therefore, there is an aspect of this law engraved on our hearts, and I'll tell you what it is, but not yet. My own conviction is that in its broadest form, there is this moral aspect to this law, and it was...that moral aspect is indeed harks back to creation. You could call it a creation ordinance if you want because it's binding on all men of all time. But the specifics regarding the Sabbath day and all those rules about traveling and building fires on the Sabbath and the external features of the Old Testament Sabbath observance, those things are purely ceremonial and they are not binding on believers today. Now, precisely which aspects of this commandment pertain to the moral law, we're going to take up in my final point. I promise you we will get there. But as far as worshiping on the seventh day, on Saturday, is concerned, there is no such ordinance either given or implied in Scripture, and there's no example of a seventh-day Sabbath anywhere in the Old Testament until the time of Moses. that was a particular aspect of the Mosaic Covenant. And this commandment, when given to Moses at Sinai, looked back at creation, that's true. Its whole rationale was drawn from the example of God Himself, who rested from His works on the seventh day. That's exactly what verse 11 of Exodus 20 says, from six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. So that's principle number one, and it's clear. The Sabbath did look back to creation. Now, here's principle number two, and it's equally important. The Sabbath looked forward to redemption. The Sabbath looked forward to redemption. This is a major point according to the writer of Hebrews. Turn for a moment to Hebrews 4. I have you turning all around here today, and that's good for you. It keeps you awake. Hebrews 4, And notice verses 4 and 5, for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, in this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest. Now, notice the point he's making here. This is a little obscure, and you have to read Hebrews 4 in its context, but he's acknowledging that the Sabbath pointed backward to creation and to the example of God's rest. That was our first point as well. But, he says, it also looked forward to a future rest, which the people of God had not yet entered into. And they couldn't enter into that rest as long as they remained in rebellion against God. Disobedience would keep them out of God's rest. And the Bible uses a word in this context for disobedience that speaks of more than just flippant disobedience. It's obstinate disbelief, defiance against God. Verse 6, therefore it remains for some to enter it. It's talking about this future rest. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, defiance against God, disbelief. And again, he appoints a certain day. What day? Today. This is important. Now, what kind of rest do people not enter into because they harden their hearts against God? That's talking about the rest that comes with redemption. And what is the appointed day? Today. He's talking about there the day of grace. That is every day until the Lord returns. And the writer of Hebrews is relying on some familiar typology here. He's quoting Psalm 95 verse 11. That's what he's referring back to, which recounts how God forbid an entire rebellious generation of Israelites from entering into the Promised Land. And Canaan itself, the promised land, was a picture of paradise and redemption for the people of God. And so the writer of Hebrews applies Psalm 95-11 this way. He sees that Psalm as a graphic lesson about ultimate redemption, salvation. And he says it's talking about something more than the Israelites literally entering into the land of Canaan. He says there is another rest. There is a greater rest. It's an eternal heavenly rest that's yet to come, and that, he says, is what the Sabbath pictures. Look again at verse 7. Again, he appoints a certain day. Today. saying through David so long afterward, this is in Psalm 95, in the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts. Now again, that's a quotation from Psalm 95, that's verses 7 through 9. In fact, let me read you Psalm 95 verses 7 through 11. From the psalm it says, For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massa in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. And the writer of Hebrews points out that David wrote this psalm many years after Joshua's time, when the people of God finally did enter Canaan in Joshua's era. David's writing after that, and yet David speaks of a still future rest. So back to Hebrews 4, verses 8 and 9. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. So, the writer of Hebrews is very clearly saying, what the Sabbath points to is a rest that is still yet future. And here's the point, that's what the Sabbath points to, it's the rest of redemption, basically heaven. Salvation by grace through faith, that's the rest He wants them to enter into, verses 10 and 11. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. That's what we do when we trust Christ for salvation, right? We set aside our works and trust instead in His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience." He's writing to Hebrew people who knew the truth of Christ. They'd even identified with Him to a degree. He's saying, look, go all the way with Him. Enter into that rest. Set your works aside, all the ceremonial law, all those observances, set those aside and rest in the finished work of Christ. And that's what this typology of the Sabbath was all about. It's a lesson about redemption and how we enter into it. Redemption is not obtained by working, but by entering into the Lord's rest through repentant faith. By the way, this is why Jesus was so incensed at the Pharisees and the way they corrupted the Sabbath. They had made the Sabbath into a drudgery that was all about rigid laws and stern punishments, and it was never supposed to be that. It was supposed to be a refreshing rest from labor, and it signified the way of salvation. So by messing up the typology of the Sabbath, the Pharisees had actually obscured the gospel. And that's why Jesus said in Mark 2, 27 and 28, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. He's Lord of the Sabbath because He's the Lord of our redemption. So the Sabbath wasn't just a backward-looking ordinance. It was a forward-looking object lesson about the way of redemption. And that brings us to principle number three. Number three, if you're taking notes, the Sabbath has reference to God's rest. The Sabbath has reference to God's rest. See, the Sabbath was a reminder that God rested and it graciously invited the people of God to enter into its rest, His rest, God's rest. In other words, the Sabbath was like a gospel invitation in symbolic form, enter into the Lord's rest. Now, the nature of this rest, the Lord's rest, is extremely significant. Remember, this is God's rest we're talking about. That means it wasn't, and it couldn't have been, the rest of exhaustion. It wasn't a rest that signified weariness. God didn't rest because He needed the refreshment. He rested because His work was finished. And therefore, the rest of the Sabbath, the rest that's spoken of in the Sabbath, is not a rest that is made necessary by fatigue. It's a rest that celebrates a finished work. In other words, the Sabbath signified entering into God's rest with Him. He was graciously sharing His rest with His people. the rest of His finished work. And that's why the forward-looking aspect of the Sabbath is so central to the meaning of this law. The eschatological rest of redemption, that yet future rest, and the historic rest of creation, both of them signify the finished work of God Himself. And the Israelites were not under this law supposed to think that they were earning their own rest by working the other six days of the week. That wasn't the point at all. Their earthly work was never finished. And yet God graciously gave them one day a week to enter into His finished work, His rest. So this is absolutely central to the meaning of the Sabbath. This is all about the gospel. It's all about salvation. The Sabbath was a token of divine grace, and it pictured the rest we obtain through salvation. It's not a rest we earn by our own works. It's a rest that is graciously given to us by Christ, who has done all the saving work on our behalf, and He's finished His work. In other words, And get this, the purpose of this law was theological, not utilitarian. It was given because it teaches us something about God, not just because it was useful to humanity. But it reminds us of the eternal Sabbath rest that is entered into by those who cease from their labors and find their salvation in Christ alone, in His finished work. That's what it prefigured. And that's why, as Christians, we regard the form of Israel's Sabbath observance as predominantly ceremonial, and therefore obsolete today. We who have entered into the true rest purchased for us by Christ don't need to retreat to the shadows of holy days or new moons or Sabbath days. But those things are a shadow of things to come. The substance belongs to Christ. Is that clear? Principle number four. The Sabbath observances had a unique significance to national Israel. As I said, the Sabbath commandment doesn't appear until the time of Moses and it is found here in the Ten Commandments for a very specific reason. This Sabbath law was the formal sign of the Mosaic Covenant. Every covenant that God ever made came with a sign that sealed the covenant. When God made a covenant with Noah, He gave him a sign of what? The rainbow. Genesis 9, 12, and 13, and God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. So the rainbow was a sign of Noah's covenant. When God made a covenant with Abraham, he gave him a sign. It was a sign of circumcision. Genesis 17, 11, he says to Abraham, you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. And in precisely the same way, when God made a covenant with the people of Israel through Moses, The Sabbath was the sign of that covenant. Look at Exodus 31. This is Exodus 31, starting in verse 12. And the Lord said to Moses, You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, above all, you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath because it's holy for you. Whoever profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh is a Sabbath of solemn rest. holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death." This is a capital crime. Why is it so important? Verse 16, therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day rested and was refreshed. So this was a sign of the Mosaic Covenant, the Sabbath. Now notice, this sign had specific significance for the Israelite nation. It's not a covenant God makes, like he did with Noah, for Noah and the whole world. This is for the people of Israel. Verse 17, it is a sign forever between me, and that's the Lord, and the people of Israel. Nothing in Scripture ever suggests that God demanded seventh-day Sabbath observance from any other nation, ever. And so, someone might ask, then, why does this commandment appear in the Decalogue? Why is this in the Ten Commandments, which is a compendium of all the moral laws that God requires of all people of all times? The Ten Commandments is applicable universally and in every era. It's just simply spelled out in Commandments on Stone as part of the Mosaic Covenant, but it applies to everybody. So why is this commandment in there? Well, the reason is found in the form of the covenant itself. See, when covenants were made between kings and nations in the time of Moses, it was common. to incorporate some sign into the treaty that would then seal the covenant. The sign had a special significance. If you made a covenant with a king and you broke any other part of the covenant, you could find forgiveness and the covenant would remain intact. But if you abandoned the sign of the covenant, it signified that you had forsaken the covenant altogether and the covenant as a whole was deemed irreparably broken. The structure of the Decalogue is exactly like those kingly treaties. In fact, the Ten Commandments, that's a summary of the Mosaic Covenant. In Exodus 34 verse 28, the Ten Commandments are referred to as the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. In fact, if you're still in Exodus 31, look at verse 18. Immediately after I stopped reading there, verse 18 says, and he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. What was on those stone tablets? Ten Commandments. And those two tablets of stone were the formal covenant document, written by the finger of God. And therefore, they had to include the sign of the covenant. That represented the whole covenant in shorthand form. And as a written form of the covenant, written by God Himself, those Ten Commandments written on stone had a particular significance to the nation Israel because that was the nation with whom this covenant was made. Yes, the Ten Commandments summarize God's moral law for all people of all time, but as a written record of the covenant, Those two tablets of stone had a particular significance for Israel and the covenant sign therefore had to be prominently featured in this document which represented the whole covenant. The fourth commandment was the sign of the covenant. Now, other more specific laws pertaining to the Sabbath spelled out precisely how Israel was to observe this sign. And virtually all of those commandments, all those additional commandments that you read elsewhere in Exodus and Deuteronomy and throughout Moses' writings, all the restrictions on the Sabbath, pretty much all of them are ceremonial in nature. For example, the Jewish Sabbath required a special offering. Numbers 28 verses 9 and 10, you don't need to turn there, I'll read it to you. Numbers 28 verse 9, on the Sabbath day two male lambs a year old without blemish and two-tenths of an effa of fine flour for a grain offering mixed with oil and its drink offering, this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. Now, that mandates a special sacrifice every Sabbath. That's clearly ceremonial in nature and it's not observed even by the most rigid Sabbatarian today. Even the most extreme Seventh-day Baptists don't follow that part of this. You had other specific laws that forbid the Israelites to travel, or to kindle fires, or to bake bread, or to even boil water. They couldn't gather sticks, they couldn't do their housework, they couldn't do any kind of work And those were all symbolic ordinances that signified the utter separation of the nation of Israel unto the Lord and their seclusion from the rest of the nations. They were different from every other nation. But those Sabbath restrictions pertained to covenant Israel only. They were never enforced by God on any other people, either before Moses or after the appearance of Christ. because those commandments were ceremonial in nature. And the proof that they were ceremonial is found in God's own words through the prophet Isaiah when God tells Israel that He despises their Sabbath keeping. Isaiah 1.13, bring no more vain offerings, incense is an abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. And Hosea 2 verse 11, God says, I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. So those Sabbath restrictions were for the nation of Israel only. They were merely ceremonial. And the hypocrisy of the Israelites made the Sabbath observance itself an abomination to God. And that's why nothing in the New Testament ever commands Christians to observe the Sabbath or to obey any of the Old Testament restrictions related to the Sabbath. When the Jerusalem Council met in Acts 15 to consider which aspects of Moses' law pertained to the Gentiles, there was not even any mention of the Sabbath. And that would be remarkable if any observance of the ceremonial Sabbath was supposed to be required of Christians. And furthermore, nowhere in the New Testament are we ever warned that any breach of the Sabbath was a sin. Nowhere are we ever commanded to observe a certain day. And as a matter of fact, in Romans 14, the Apostle Paul portrays the weaker brother as the person who observes holy days, and the stronger brother is the one who esteems every day alike. That's Romans 14, verse 5. Paul regarded it as a matter of utter indifference whether we observe any holidays or not, any holidays or not. I mean, people get...there are these Christians, you know, who get all upset about Christmas and Easter and Halloween and all of that stuff. And Scripture says very clearly multiple times that for Christians, it's a total matter of indifference whether you observe any day or not. So let no man judge us in the matter of Sabbath observance. That's what it says in Colossians 2. There are no ceremonial restrictions against Sabbath activities for Christians like those that are binding on Old Testament Israelites. And that brings us to this final principle, the one you've been waiting for me to explain. Number five, the Sabbath is full of moral significance. The Sabbath is full of moral significance. Please don't get the idea that I'm saying that the Sabbath is utterly devoid of any relevance to us, that there's no moral principle in it or any of that. I am not suggesting that the Ten Commandments have been reduced to nine. But I am suggesting that we as Christians need to understand this law apart from the ceremonial trappings of the Mosaic Covenant. To reinstate the ceremonial Sabbath laws is as wrong as going back under any of the priestly or dietary or ritualistic principles of the Old Covenant. But there is a moral aspect to the Fourth Commandment. To quote Turretin, one of my favorite Reformed theologians, he said, it is a mixed commandment, moral as to its substance, ceremonial as to its circumstance. Now that requires some unpacking. Really the question is this, what are the moral principles that underlie this commandment? What can we take away from this out of the Ten Commandments that applies to us? Well, number one, this is a unique commandment. To quote Calvin once more, since this commandment has a particular consideration distinct from the others, it requires a slightly different order of exposition. That's what Calvin said. He went on to say, we need to take care to separate that which is moral from that which is merely ceremonial. Without reconstituting the ceremonial aspects of the law, we have to be careful to affirm what is morally binding in it. What is that? Let me suggest several moral principles that we need to draw from the fourth commandment. In fact, Calvin himself named three. I'm going to add a fourth. And let me read you, though, from Calvin. This is from his catechism, the Genevan Catechism. He asks, what then? Is there anything in the fourth commandment beyond ceremony? Answer, it was given for three reasons. One, to figure or to give us a picture of spiritual rest. Two, For the preservation of ecclesiastical polity, in other words, to give the people of God one day each week on which they come together. And three, for the relief of slaves, or as Calvin wrote elsewhere, to give a day of rest to servants and to those who are under the authority of others in order that they might have some respite from their toil. Now, as I said at the beginning, many Christians believe that Sunday, or the Lord's Day, as it's commonly referred to in Scripture, and also in the early church's writings, the Lord's Day, they say, is the Christian Sabbath. They believe that when Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, God thereby changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first. And I won't spend a great deal of time answering that, except to say that the whole idea is sheer conjecture. Nothing in Scripture ever refers to Sunday as the Sabbath, ever. And in fact, throughout the book of Acts, the seventh day was still referred to as the Sabbath because Paul would go to the synagogue on the Sabbath when they were meeting there. That was Saturday. I don't see any biblical warrant for treating Sunday as a Christian Sabbath, and neither did Calvin, by the way. Nowhere did Calvin ever refer to the Lord's Day as the Sabbath or suggest that we should regard it as a Sabbath. That was an innovation by later reformers and the Puritans especially wrote it into most of their creeds, but it was not the view of the early reformers. I love the Puritans and I rarely disagree with them, but they did sometimes have legalistic tendencies and their tendency to multiply Sabbath restrictions was one of their legalistic tendencies. Still, I think there is an important moral aspect in the fourth commandment that warrants setting aside one day each week for ceasing from our labors and worshiping the Lord. And we accomplish this when we devote the Lord's day to Him. I just wouldn't call it the Sabbath. There may also be a moral principle in the six-to-one work-to-rest ratio. I think God made us so that we function best with one day off every week. And conversely, one of the moral principles underlying the fourth commandment is the principle of work. Think of it backwards. The commandment itself is about a day of rest, but it includes this imperative, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. which is to say Christians ought to work hard when it's time to work and rest in the Lord when it's time to rest. That's the moral principle. Work hard when it's time to work, rest in the Lord when it's time to rest. And so the reason for the Sabbath is a moral principle. One full day a week devoted to the Lord. The ratio is a moral principle. One day of rest for every six days of work. And above all, I believe the rest commanded by the Sabbath rule is a moral principle. Pay attention here because I think this is the most important principle of all. Here is the rest principle that lies at the heart of the Sabbath law. It is in worship that we are to find our primary refreshment. That's what this law teaches us. Where do you go? What do you do when you seek refreshment for your soul? Do you turn, first of all, to television and worldly entertainments? Do you seek your principal rest in recreational activities and spiritually empty amusements? Because those things have the rightful place. I wouldn't outlaw them, but it's certainly not the prominent place our culture gives to them. If you can do those things as unto the Lord and glorify God in them, then that's fine. I'm not suggesting you should never watch football or even play football on the Lord's Day, but that's not the first thing we should turn to when our soul needs refreshment from the toil and labor of the work week. The Lord should have that priority. And not just on Sunday, but every day of our lives, we need the spiritual refreshment of communion and fellowship with God more than we need the carnal refreshment of exercise and recreation. We need the rest of worship and fellowship with the people of God more than we need the mindless entertainments this world has to offer. You know, it always troubles me when somebody tells me he skipped church because he just felt he needed some time off. Time off from what? If you don't see worship and devotion to the Lord as more restful than any form of worldly entertainment, then you have the wrong idea of worship. If you're not coming to church with the idea of refreshing your soul and invigorating your spirit, then you're coming with the wrong thing in mind. Psalm 37 verse 7 famously says, rest in the Lord. In Matthew 11, Jesus said, "'Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy laden, 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.'" That's the best rest of all. That's the rest the Sabbath points to. That's where the moral principle of this commandment lies. It's all about the gospel. And I would urge you to seek your ultimate rest right there in the finished work of Christ because it's a complete rest from all of our labors. That's the true Sabbath. Let's pray. Lord, it is to the praise of Your glory that the whole work of redemption is complete and Christ is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high until His enemies are made His footstool. You've invited us to enter into that rest. And I pray, Lord, that none of us, no one in this room would fall short because of unbelief or disobedience. Give us grace to enter fully into the rest of redemption and may our whole lives be one long Sabbath celebration. In the name of Christ, who is our Sabbath, we pray. Amen. You have been listening to Pastor and Teacher Phil Johnson. For more information about the ministry of the Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Copyright by Phil Johnson, All Rights Reserved.