Sabbatarianism

Contents:

Sabbatarianism and G3 2020

The Structure of the Decalogue as a Key to the Nature of the Sabbath

When does the Sabbath day begin?

Colossians 2:16-17

Romans 14:5

Creation Ordinance?

What About Isaiah 56?

Sabbatarianism and G3 2020

In just over a week the G3 conference will be taking place in Georgia where some of the godliest and most influential men in the church, and in my own life will be fellowshipping, opening up God’s word and singing praises to our King. Many of my friends are going but my wife and I, by God’s grace just had our first child Eden Grace Nickerson on December 11th so we will not be able to attend. The first thing that comes to mind thinking about the upcoming conference is my great fomo. I will be very saddened to miss out on the incredible speakers and the wonderful time of fellowship with my brothers and sisters, but I am very thankful to God to spend time with my beautiful wife and our adorable newborn daughter. The second thing that comes to mind, however is that this conference demonstrate a point that I have made as of late concerning the consistency of the application of the doctrine of my beloved sabbatarian brothers.
Featured speakers include John MacArthur, Paul Washer, Todd Friel, James White, Voddie Bauchum, and more. These are some of my favorite men on earth, and they surely are to one another as well. However, they do have their differences. James White and Voddie Bauchum are both sabbatarians of the 1689 LBCF variety.[1] John MacArthur, Paul Washer, and Todd Friel are not sabbatarians. James White and Voddie refrain from work on Sundays, and believe those who do otherwise are in sin. MacArthur, Washer, and Friel believe that it is not sin to work on Sunday. They also teach that it is not sin to work on Sunday, and presumably they at times work, participate in worldly recreation (cf the Confession), go out to eat, get their car washed, etc (causing others to work), on Sundays.
Now, answer this question honestly: Would James White and Voddie be fellowshiping at a conference with MacArthur if MacArthur were:

Unrepentantly having gods before Yahweh, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly creating images, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly using Yahweh’s name in vain, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly allowing their children to disrespect them, and teaching others its alright to do so?
Unrepentantly Killing people, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly Committing adultery, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly Stealing, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly Lying, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?
Unrepentantly Coveting, and teaching others it’s alright to do so?

The answer is an obvious ‘no’. James White and Voddie Bauchum love the Lord too much to partner with men who are unrepentantly rebelling against God in that way. They would (rightly) obey Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by “not associating” with them (1 Cor 5:11).
Why then are Voddie and James White fellowshipping and partnering with men who are in perpetual, unrepentant transgression of the fourth command, which they take to be one of the ten of God’s unchangeable moral law? Why are beloved sabbatarians traveling for hours to attend a conference where MacArthur, Washer, and Friel are speaking, all men who transgress the Sabbath and teach others to do so? Why are MacArthur, Washer, and Friel not treated as false brethren by sabbatarians? I believe this is a very telling inconsistency in the practice of sabbatarian brothe and sisters. My hypothesis is that, most likely, in their heart of hearts, they recognize that the question of the continuity/discontinuity of the Mosaic law is an extremely difficult question (Edward’s said as much!), and because they aren’t fully confident in the position themselves (nor am I- because it is a hard question!), they extend grace to their brothers in that area. It is my view, however, that the very difficulty of the sabbath question itself goes a long way to show that God does not require a day of rest as our sabbatarian brothers suppose.
The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. Sin against God is no small matter. It is a main thing. Therefore, God makes it a plain thing. But the sabbath is clearly not plain! Even among sabbatarian reformed baptists, there is no end of disagreement about what constitutes sin, and what doesn’t on the Sabbath. Sin is a serious matter. You might say it is the serious matter. We are not talking about what sort of carpet color we like, or what type of music we think best, nor even about eschatology or church governement. We are defining what constitutes sin against the living God. One sin cast the whole universe into Chaos. If God forbids something, He makes it plain, ESPECIALLY to His people (more on this below). People may say that it is “legalistic” to try to be specific about what constitutes sin, and what does not. I believe this can be legalistic, when men make up rules that God has not given, and are very specific in endorsing traditions, or when they enforce on God’s people something that is from God, but from a covenant that God’s people at that time in salvation history aren’t under (E.g. circumcision, food laws and the New Covenant community). However, it is not at all legalistic to require that if men call something sin, they be specific in what they mean. There is danger on both sides. If the non-sabbatarian is wrong, he is telling people that it’s not sin to disobey one of God’s eternal moral laws! For sabbatarians, the danger is that they may tell men that God requires things of them that in fact are not requirements of God (Mk 7:8- the Pharisees- though I dont think the issue is exactly parallel with the Pharisees of course, except that it would be considered legalism), and they might be disobeying Col 2:16-17. The point here is that what does/does not constitute sin is a main thing, so we’d expect it to be a plain thing. The Sabbath issue is not plain.

Our second question for consideration is this: If the sabbatarian position is correct, why is it that John MacArthur, Todd Friel, and Paul Washer feel no obligation to refrain from work on Sunday? If the sabbatarian position were true, it would be absolutely remarkable that these men rejected that position. There are three reasons this is so:

Romans teaches that the work of the law is written on the hearts of all men (Rom 2:15). These men should have known, even as unbelievers, that working on Sundays is sin.
These men (presumably) have God’s law written on their hearts not only in the sense of conscience, as all men do; but they have God’s law written on their hearts in a second sense, by the Holy Spirit! (Jer 31). Not only should they be convicted in their natural conscience when their practice and teaching contradict the sabbatarian position, but the Holy Spirit should be in them causing them to delight in the sabbatarian position, and infallibly bringing them to repentance when they contradict it, lest they prove themselves to be false brothers by unrepentantly sinning against God’s moral law! Of course, this is not what you find. Rather, you find them practicing and teaching contrary to sabbatarianism for decades, while God blesses their ministries.
These are learned men. They aren’t simpletons. Dr. MacArthur, Washer, and Friel are men of the Book. They love and study God’s word. They pray, asking God’s guidance in their studies, in their ministries, in their sermon preparation, etc. And God greatly blesses the ministries of these men. Dr. MacArthur has forgotten more than most of us will ever know. If the sabbatarian position were true, how could MacArthur possibly have missed it? I can understand him being wrong on eschatology and things of that nature, but how on such a central point? One of God’s eternal moral commands? The main things are the plain things (see above).

I love my sabbatarian brothers and sisters to death. I don’t want to quarrel about these things, and hopefully I’ve written everything in a spirit of love. James White and Voddie are two of my favorite people in the world. On this point, I believe they are just a little off; but I’m sure I’m off in a million more areas than they are. What’s important is that CHRIST is at the center. It’s all about Him. I can’t wait to enter the eternal sabbath, with all of my pre-millennial, sabbatarian, Presbyterian, etc brothers and sisters, where we probably won’t even bring a lot of this stuff up again, but we will join hands and worship the King.
If the Lord wills, and if I feel it would honor God, I may do a few more posts on things such as an exegesis of Col 2, Heb 4, Rom 15, Ex 16, Ex 20, Gen 1-2, the sabbath vs the Lord’s day in the early church (they didn’t view them as the same thing), the decalogue as relates to suzerain-vassal covenants of the ancient near east, and interact a bit with some common objections, such as those in “Getting the Garden Right” by Richard Barcellos, which is the best and most up to date defense of sabbatarianism, but which I believe falls short on several counts, though he is a beloved brother and makes some excellent points. These future posts will not be in any “logical” order, but will just sort of ‘come out’ as I am thinking on things/as I have time (or not of course!).

[1] “The sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering their common affairs aforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all day, from their own works, words and thoughts, about their worldly employment and recreations, but are also taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.” 1689 LBC. 22:8.
For a few resources from these men on the sabbath/documentation of their beliefs.
John MacArthur:
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/90-379/understanding-the-sabbath
https://youtu.be/0GlUPpO3ZWM
https://youtu.be/DxQ4ffL7caU
Voddie:
https://youtu.be/oxaJRPBkFt4
Todd Friel:
https://youtu.be/UB6IjK_1DIA
https://youtu.be/qZim6ga_IV4
https://youtu.be/J_mo_6R7t6U
Paul Washer:
(See his forward to this book by Charles Leiter)
https://www.amazon.com/Law-Christ-Charles-Leiter/dp/0984031804

The Structure of the Decalogue as a Key to the Nature of the Sabbath

The Ten Commandments: A Suzerain-Vassal Covenant

It has often been noted that, in the inspiration of the Scriptures, God did not override the personality or writing style of the human authors, but worked through them in such a way that they were preserved, so that Scripture, analogous to Christ may truly be said to be fully God, fully man.

Meredith Kline has demonstrated one such way in which the writing style, or rather, the genre/format of an ancient Near Eastern treaty was utilized in the giving of the Old Covenant, particularly in the giving of the Decalogue as recounted in the book of Deuteronomy.

The following is a brief excerpt. For the full article, see this link: https://www.meredithkline.com/files/articles/Kline-TwoTables-WTJ.html

“Certainly, too, there was no physical necessity for distributing the material over two stones. One table of such a size that Moses could carry, and the ark contain, a pair of them would offer no problem of spatial limitations to prevent engraving the entire text upon it, especially since the writing covered both obverse and reverse (Exod. 32:15). In fact, it seems unreasonable, judging from the appearance of comparable stone inscriptions from, antiquity, to suppose that all the area on both sides of two, tables would be devoted to so few words.

There is, moreover, the comparative evidence of the extra- biblical treaties. Covenants, such as Exodus 20:2-17 has been shown to be, are found written in their entirety on one table and indeed, like the Sinaitic tables, on both its sides.13 As a further detail in the parallelism of external appearance it is tempting to see in the sabbath sign presented in the midst of the ten words the equivalent of the suzerain’s dynastic seal found in the midst of the obverse of the international treaty documents.14 Since in the case of the decalogue, the suzerain is Yahweh, there will be no representation of him on his seal.

But the sabbath is declared his “sign of the covenant” (Exod. 31:13-17). By means of the sabbath, God’s image-bearer, as a pledge of covenant consecration, images the pattern of the divine act of creation which proclaims God’s absolute sovereignty over man. God has stamped on world history the sign of the sabbath as his seal of ownership and authority.

That is precisely what the pictures on the dynastic seals symbolize and their captions claim in behalf of the treaty gods and their representative, the suzerain. These considerations point to the conclusion that each table was complete in itself. The two tables were duplicate copies of the covenant. And the correctness of this interpretation is decisively confirmed by the fact that it was normal procedure in establishing suzerainty covenants to prepare duplicate copies of the treaty text (Kline. 138-139).”

There are two truths about the structure of the 10 commandments that we learn from Kline’s article on the mosaic covenant and suzerain-vassal treaties of the same time period.

The two tablets did not have man’s responsibility to God on one, and man’s responsibility to man on the other (as convenient as that would be pragmatically speaking). Rather, the two tablets were identical copies of all Ten Commandments (Lit. “Ten Words”). One copy was for the Vassal (Israel), and ther other for the Suzerain (YHWH).
The Sabbath was positioned in the middle of the decalogue as the “sign” of the Old Covenant (Ex 31:13). This parallels the Suzerain’s dynastic seal found in the middle of ancient international treaty documents.

Practically speaking, this may shed some light on the Sabbath commands nature as more strictly “ceremonial” as some might categorize it, than the others. The Sabbath was placed in the middle of the Old Covenant documents as the sign of that covenant. As we read in Ex 31:13, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign (א֨וֹת) between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you.” [1]

The New Testament with unparalleled clarity teaches that the old covenant has passed away (2 Cor 3 which is specifically about the Decalogue, Gal 3&4, Heb 8, Rom 5-7, etc). As the Old Covenant has passed away, so has the sign of the Old Covenant (Col 2:16-17). Not only so, but even the whole Decalogue is identified as ” the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” Ex 34:28. Ie, the words of the Old covenant, which has passed away.

Another indication that the Sabbath is tied specifically to the Old Covenant is Moses’ addition to the command in Deut 5: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day” [Deut 5:15, emphasis mine]. As most of us are gentiles, most of us were not freed from Egypt. The relevance the Exodus has for us is in pointing us forward, to a better covenant. Schreiner comments, “The observance of the Sabbath is linked to liberation from Egypt, to the redemption of Israel, functioning as a sign that the Lord has freed Israel from their slavery to the Egyptians. Hence, the Sabbath points back to the rest lost in creation, and forward to the rest that will ultimately be enjoyed in Jesus Christ. Believers should not revert back to the type of the Sabbath any more than they should revert to the type of the OT sacrifices.”

Early in his ministry, Meredith Kline held basically a traditional reformed view of the sabbath, and you can even see hints of this in the article under discussion. As he continued to study these issues, he came to view the Sabbath as fulfilled in Christ, and no longer binding on Christians as a day of religious obligation. Kline’s mature view of the Sabbath is discussed here: https://meredithkline.com/146/

You can also find it in his last book: https://www.amazon.com/God-Heaven-Har-Magedon-Covenantal/dp/1597524786

For more discussion on the Sabbath as a sign, see:

Is the Sabbath Still Required for Christians?

Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies.

[1] Notice also that the Sabbath is something that is a sign of Israel’s “sanctification/being set apart” not something they shared in common as a moral obligation with the nations.

As Schreiner notes, it may be objected that the Old Covenant is eternal, and thus the sign is “eternal” (עוֹלָֽם׃) Ex 31:17. However, the NT teaches with unparalleled clarity that the old covenant has passed away (Wellum, Dr Stephen J., and Brent E. Parker, eds. Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies. Place of publication not identified: B&H Academic, 2016. p. 244).

Additionally, fleshly circumcision is also said to be an “everlasting covenant” (עוֹלָֽם׃), but we know that is no longer binding on Gods people (Acts 15).

When does the Sabbath Day Begin?

As I’ve said in previous posts, I love my Sabbatarian brothers and sisters to death. Some of my very best friends are Sabbatarians of the 1689LBC persuasion. However, it is my prayer that, with gentleness, I can voice some of my disagreements with the Sabbatarian position. Previously, I wrote about the inconsistency in the practice of my Sabbatarian brothers and sisters with regard to fellowshipping with those they deem “Sabbath-breakers” (E.g. John MacArthur, Todd Friel, Ray Comfort, Tom Schreiner, Paul Washer, etc) [1]. Here, I’d like to address another inconsistency/problem I find when I consider the Sabbatarian position.

There is of course, the question of whether the Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday, which I hope to say in the future [2]. In this post, I want to consider a different issue. In the east/for the apostles, the day does not begin at 12am and end at 12:59pm. Hebrew days are from sundown to sundown (Gen 1:5). To demonstrate why this is a problem, imagine this:

Suppose Sabbatarianism is true, and imagine that one of our 21st century American Sabbatarian brothers has the privilege of traveling back in time to spend a week with the apostle Peter. Peter and our Sabbatarian are fishing together on Saturday. As evening approaches, they bring in the great catch of fish they’d just been blessed with. Peter is called upon by some brothers to settle a theological dispute elsewhere, so our Sabbatarian is left alone with his catch of fish. He isn’t sure how long Peter will be, so he decides to get a jump on cleaning the fish. The sun goes down. Peter returns to find our Sabbatarian working on cleaning the fish, on what Peter regards as the Sabbath! If Peter were a Sabbatarian, he would have to say that our Sabbatarian brother was sinning for working on what we would call “Saturday night”, because for Peter it is now the first day of the week. The analogy could be reversed. Our Sabbatarian might find Peter doing some form of work Sunday night (or worse, watching Sunday night football!), and conclude that he is breaking the sabbath.

The point is, western Sabbatarians define the “day” differently than the apostles. If Sabbatarianism is true, then Peter, Paul, John, etc would view western Sabbatarians as living in sin because they sometimes work on Saturday nights, and western Sabbatarians would view the apostles as living in sin because they’d be okay with working on Sunday after the sun went down because Sunday ends at sundown for them.

Some might object that this is “splitting hairs.” To this, I’d give two responses. First, we need to be able to be specific when we define sin. Not much laxity is permitted in defining sin in other areas. For example, if I were to say “homosexual lust is not sin; only acting on that lust”, I would be plainly mistaken, because all lust outside marriage is sin (Matt 5:27-28). Most would acknowledge this, and would not think that what actually constitutes sexual sin is “splitting hairs” or “legalistic” etc. We are simply seeking to obey God when we ask those sort of questions, and seek clear, unambiguous answers.

Second, I’d ask my Sabbatarian brother/sister who objects in this way if God requires us to celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, or if we are permitted to choose another day of the week as long as we abide by the 1 in 7 pattern [3]. Most Sabbatarians would say that you have to celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday. Hopefully it is clear what is going on here. Two seemingly conflicting propositions are being put forward by our Sabbatarian friend:

You may not celebrate the Sabbath whenever you like. You must celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday.
It is splitting hairs to demand that we define exactly what Sunday “is”; when it begins, ends, etc.

As Steve Hays at Triablogue comments: “It’s vacuous to say there’s one right day of worship when you can’t specify the conditions which single out a particular day, to the exclusion of other candidates [4].”

Again, just to re-iterate so that the practical importance of this issue is not lost upon the reader: If one of my Sabbatian brothers found out I was performing work on Sunday after sundown (excluding acts of mercy, and possibly many other caveats depending on what Sabbatarian you are talking to), I would be accused of sin by my Sabbatarian friend. If an eastern sabbatarian brother or sister who holds to a biblical day (sundown to sundown) were found working on Sunday night, I’d hope they wouldn’t get a pass for some reason. They also would undoubtedly be accused of sin; even though they would be ordering their days the same way as the apostles, as opposed to Sabbatarians on the 12am to 12am scheme. Of course, most Sabbatarians are unaware of this biblical-eastern/western “day” conflict, so they might simply have some thinking to do in this scenario when their eastern brother explains to them the reason his was working; because for him, Sunday is over and Monday has begun. The western Sabbatarian at this point, to maintain his Sabbatarianism consistently do something like the following:

Allow some level of laxity with regard to exactly “when” the Sabbath is celebrated, perhaps allowing it to be defined culturally, thus moving closer to simply a “1 in 7, but the day doesn’t matter” view, or
Adopt the eastern view in order to be able to maintain clarity with regard to when work must end and rest must begin.
Tell the eastern brother (e.g. the apostles) he is wrong about when the Sabbath begins/ends, and that the day actually begins at 12am cause that’s how we do it in Murica

Opting for option 1 would make it much harder to be clear about when it is/isn’t sin to work. Opting for option 2 would be a drastic, counter-cultural shift in the life of the church, and would in essence be an admission that Sabbatarians in the west for centuries had been unwittingly sinning against God by working on the day that was actually the Sabbath (for them, Saturday night). Option 3 is of course, absurd. There may be other options for our Sabbatarian friends, but these are the best I can think of- hopefully they are more clever than I am!

In his article, Hays expands this issue to Sunday according to the Gregorian calendar, as opposed to the Jewish calendar, and the problem of time zones. He notes how time zones, etc. would not be a problem for Jews all living in Israel; these problems arise only when we try to take a command that was meant as a covenant sign for a specific nation (Israel- see Sabbath: The Structure of the Decalogue as a Key to its Nature), and try to apply it directly to the New Covenant community globally. His article is interesting to say the least.

I praise God that even when I disagree with brothers and sisters, we can still stand together and worship our King; one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Until next time:

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, ²⁵to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time^[^h^] and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 24

[1] https://solagratia1517.wordpress.com/2020/01/07/2113/

[2] Suffice it to say for now, that the New Testament never refers to any day as the “Sabbath” except Saturday. The early church fathers continued to call Saturday the “Sabbath”, and called Sunday “the Lord’s day.” From the earliest days of the church, the disciples of the apostles themselves made a distinction between the “Sabbath” and the “Lord’s Day” and worked on the first day of the week (Sunday). Additionally, the “seventh” day is clearly the day God rested on in creation, and is what is written in the decalogue. If “not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law” refers primarily to the decalogue, as our Sabbatarian brothers and sisters insist, it is strange to find that whole words have passed from the very tablets themselves.

[3] Notable, Scripture never commands Christians to meet on any particular day, let alone the first day of the week. It simply commands them to meet (Heb 10:25). People may attempt theological gymnastics to deny this, but it is a simple fact. Nor does the church’s example/the regulative principle offer assistance here for those who would strictly obligate believers to meet on Sunday, since we find in the NT believers meeting on days other than the first day of the week, even “day by day” (Acts 2:42-47).

[4] http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/sunday-worship.html

Colossians 2:16-17

God’s word must be our final authority. The exegesis of the actual words of Scripture must always have the final word in our doctrinal disputes. I’ve postponed a primarily exegetical post with regard to the Sabbath issue until part 4 because it is with the exegetical posts above all that I want to be most thorough (though still not exhaustive), and most careful- thus they are most time consuming, whereas simple pointing out what I perceive to be internal inconsistencies is relatively quick and easy.

First, our text. Then, a few preliminary considerations. Finally, common objections, and a demonstration of how simple exegesis and a little OT knowledge go a long way in settling the controversy.

Our text:
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or 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.”
Μὴ οὖν τις ὑμᾶς κρινέτω ἐν βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει ἢ ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς ἢ νεομηνίας ἢ σαββάτων, ¹⁷ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ.

Preliminary Considerations:

The apostle Paul was the apostle to the gentiles (Acts 9:15). In all his letters, the sabbath is mentioned once; here in Colossians 2, where the Sabbath is called a “shadow” and something not binding on the New Covenant community. This fact is absolutely astounding. If Sabbatarianism were true, there would be no doubt that the Sabbath would be quite a prominent theme for Paul, considering 1) the gentiles to whom Paul ministered were not Sabbath keepers before knowing Christ 2) about half of Christians in the 1st century were slaves, who would be met with quite a bit of resistance if they tried telling their masters they weren’t working Sundays 3) historically, the early Christians did work on Sundays after their early morning meetings to celebrate the Lord’s day, yet their apostle, Paul never had a word to say to them about the matter. He simply calls the Sabbath a shadow, not binding on Christians, and goes as far as to say that no “day” is binding on the Christian but what a Christian binds himself to in his conscience (Rom 14:5).

The importance of this point is hard to overemphasize: a large group of 1st-century gentiles suddenly deciding not to work on the first day of the week would create a HUGE stir, not to mention persecution and resistance from the world. There would be massive temptation and pressure to work on Sunday, and Paul would have to address it in his letters. However, you don’t find a peep from Paul about the sabbath (which for Paul was Saturday), except that he says it is a shadow, not binding on Christians. Another golden opportunity for a clear command to keep the Sabbath would have been the council in Acts 15 where the apostles meet specifically to address issues of the relation of the Mosaic law to believers. However, not a syllable is uttered about the Sabbath, though we do find the command to “Abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality (Acts 15:20).” Not a word is ever uttered by Paul encouraging his gentile converts to “remember the Sabbath” or “hold fast the Sabbath” or any such thing, nor by any other apostle, nor by any church father for the first few centuries of church history, even by those who were disciples of the apostles themselves. In fact, we find quite the opposite (something we will come to in a future post). Historically speaking, suffice it to say for now, as the revered Church Historian Gonzalez writes, “Many may be surprised to learn that connecting Sunday with the fourth commandment finds very little warrant in the early church, and that calling Sunday “the Sabbath” is a relatively new phenomenon.”pviii[1] Schreiner notes, “The Lord’s Day was not viewed as a day in which believers abstained from work, as was the case with the Sabbath. Instead, it was a day in which most believers were required to work, but they took time in the day to meet together in order to worship the Lord.” [2]

Now, to focus more specifically on the text at hand:
The plain teaching of this text appears to be that Christians are not bound to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is said to be a “shadow” in the same category as food, drink, festivals, and new moons. “Shadow” (σκιὰ) is the same word used in Hebrews 10:1 concerning Old Covenant Sacrifices: “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” These shadows are irrelevant now that the reality has come, and they are no longer to be a basis of judgment (Col 2:16).

The Sabbatarian objection in one way or another typically either limits the application of this text to days other than the weekly Sabbath, or tries to say that only part of the Sabbath is abolished: namely, the part engraved on the tablets that says to rest on the seventh (הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔֜י) day. (Scott Clark attempts to argue the first position in this post, and his position is thoroughly refuted in the comments on his post: https://heidelblog.net/2014/11/sabbaths-or-sabbath-in-colossians-21617/)

In attempt to argue that the weekly sabbath is excluded from Paul’s (ultimately, God’s) thinking here, Sabbatarians point out that “Sabbath (ESV)” is actually plural, ie. “Sabbaths” (σαββάτων).

Does the fact that the text has the plural “sabbaths” actually restrict Paul’s meaning to non-weekly sabbaths? Honestly, I don’t understand the Sabbatarian’s logic here at all. “Sabbaths” could be a succession of weekly sabbaths, or it could be different sorts of sabbaths including the weekly sabbath and various feasts. What it certainly is not is all the Sabbaths except the weekly sabbath. The weekly Sabbath was the most prominent holy day in Judaism, and is exactly what anyone, Jew or Gentile would immediately think of when they heard the word “Sabbaths.” No Gentile hearer or Jewish hearer for that matter would ever listen to the letter of Colossians being read, and conclude after hearing 2:16-17 “Oh, he just means the non-weekly Sabbaths.” In honesty, i must say that it appears to me that the only way to interpret the text that way is if you interpret it in light of a pre-conceived theology that excludes the possibility that Paul is saying that we are not under the weekly Sabbath. As Schreiner notes:

“Some argue, however, that “Sabbath” in Colossians 2:16 does not refer to the weekly Sabbaths but only to sabbatical years. But this is a rather desperate expedient, for the most prominent day in the Jewish calendar was the weekly Sabbath.”[3]

And again,
“There is no doubt that the sabbath is in view here since Paul specifically uses the word “Sabbath.” Some have attempted to say the reference is to sabbatical years instead of the sabbath day, but that is surely special pleading. Sabbath years may be part of what Paul has in mind, but the sabbath day is particularly in view.” [4]Pg. 178.

In addition to this, anyone can easily find where the Old Testament clearly, repeatedly refers to the weekly sabbath in the plural (Ex 31:13, Lev 19:3, Isa 56:4, Ez 20:12-24, etc just for a few).

One example will suffice:

“And the LORD said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths (plural), 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 is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. 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 he rested and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:12-17

Yahweh begins by referring to the sabbath in the plural, then continues expounding upon the sabbath but using the singular, putting the issue beyond doubt when He says in the text “six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath.”

Additionally, the OT regularly groups festivals, new moons, and sabbaths together when the weekly sabbath is in view. Paul is simply using the OT formula. This is made clear from a comparison of Num 28-29 with 1 Chron 23:31 where those three (festivals, new moons, and sabbaths) are clearly grouped.

First, In 1 Chron 23:30-31 we read, “And they were to stand every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt offerings were offered to the Lord on Sabbaths, new moons, and feast days, according to the number required of them, regularly before the Lord.”

Now, we may ask: on what “sabbaths” were burnt offerings offered to the Lord? Num 28:9-10 answers this question:

“On the Sabbath day, two male lambs a year old without blemish, and two tenths of an ephah 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.”

Second, Paul is following a numerical pattern here. “Feasts” were annual, “New Moons” were monthly. That means “Sabbaths” must be…you guessed it: weekly

Paul has simply reversed the order from the OT uses in Duet 28-29 and 1 Chron 23:31. The OT passages go from daily, to weekly, to monthly, to annual observances. Paul goes from annual, to monthly, to weekly.

Are Christians under obligation to food laws? (Col 2:16). To observe Passover (annual 1 Cor 5:8)? New moons (monthly)? Absolutely not. Those things were shadows. The Sabbath (weekly) is in the same category in Paul’s mind- and more importantly, in God’s mind (cf Rom 14:5).

It may be that Hosea foresaw this, when he used the same grouping in Hos 2:11- “And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.“

As for those who believe that Col 2:16-17 is, in fact, referring to the weekly Sabbath, but only in a Jewish/seventh day sense, a few things should be noted.

There is no evidence whatsoever in the NT that the “Sabbath day” was moved from Saturday to Sunday. We can theologize, do exegetical cartwheels, and make inference after inference till we are blue in the face, and at the end of the day the fact remains that it is simply not in the Bible.
One of the main arguments for the decalogue being the eternal moral law is that it was written by the finger of God and put into the ark of the covenant. Many of my reformed brothers and sisters say that it is the decalogue in particular of which Jesus spoke when He said “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished (Matt 5:18). To them, the rest of the law passes away in a sense, but no the decalogue. Not to sound trite, but there are a few jots and tittles in the following: “הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔֜י”- or in English “THE SEVENTH.” The ordinal number “seventh” with the definite article “the” are etched in stone, written by the finger of God, in the ark of the covenant, and also based on the creation account. Is that moral? My sabbatarian brothers and sisters say, “no…it’s a principle of one in seven.” Now I understand that saying it’s “just a principle of one in seven” is necessary to make the traditional reformed theological framework stay together, but where does that idea come from? As far as I can see- not from the Bible. The Bible doesn’t say “one in seven.” It says “THE SEVENTH.” There’s no way around it. So, are part of the ten commandments not moral? It would appear so. That greatly weakens the traditional reformed view of the decalogue in general. Something can be in the ark of the covenant, written by the finger of God, in the decalogue, part of a creational pattern, and not be “moral.” So then, why couldn’t a bit more of the Sabbath command be simply “positive law/ceremonial.” Why not the whole thing? At first we are told that the way that we know what is moral/not moral is by simply looking to the Ten Commandments- then we are told that not everything in the Ten Commandments is moral. How then can we know what is moral and what isn’t? (The same problem exists for covenant theologians elsewhere in the decalogue. E.g., the promise of long life in the land in the 5th command but we are getting off topic and can discuss that another day.) The point is, even the strictest covenant theologians don’t have a fully intact decalogue- they all admit that not even all within the 10 commandments is moral, and there isn’t a clear, consistent answer coming from our covenant brothers as to how we know exactly what is/isn’t moral within the decalogue.

As we saw in Ex 31 above, the Sabbath is the sign (see Sabbath: The Structure of the Decalogue as a Key to its Nature) of the Mosaic covenant, and as that covenant is obsolete (Heb 8:13), so are it’s food laws, festivals, new moons, and the sign of the Old Covenant: the Sabbath. “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace (Eph 2:14-15).” “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.” (2 Cor 3:7-11).

Perhaps all of this, specifically with regard to the Sabbath, is what Hosea predicted when he wrote:

“And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.”
Hosea 2:11

Now, I would see the immediate fulfillment of this passage referring to the time of the exile where the Isrealites would not be allowed to observe any holy days, etc. and then typologically apply it to the New covenant situation

John Gill, who himself believed in a Christian Sabbath interstingly goes straight to the New Covenant application. He comments:

“her feast days; which the Jews understand of the three feasts of tabernacles, passover, and pentecost; typical of Christ’s tabernacling in human nature; of his being the passover sacrificed for us; and of the firstfruits of the Spirit; which being come, the shadows are gone and vanished, and these feasts are no more: her new moons, and her sabbaths; the first day of every month, and the seventh day of every week, observed for religious exercises; typical of the light the church receives from Christ, and the rest it has in him; and he, the body and substance of them, being come, these are no more, Colossians 2:16,“

Sabbatarian Richard Barcellos also seems to acknowledge that Hos 2:11 is reffering to the weekly Sabbath. Louis Lyons interacts with his comments here:

Part 1: http://www.thepastorspen.org/2020/01/reformed-baptist-leaders-now-agree.html

Part 2: http://www.thepastorspen.org/2020/04/richard-barcellos-proves-that-reformed.html?fbclid=IwAR1_IhyvqfhKo2OjVycYkjhkq9_1mUslXF08tyOZ3_ZCeFfIF5LMtguWQqk

Romans 14:5

In this post, we will consider what Romans 14:5 tells us about the issue of the Christian and the Sabbath. Here is the verse:

“One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind (Romans 14:5).”

Of course, ““A text without a context is just a pretext for what we want it to mean” (Ben Witherington The Indelible Image p 41), so let’s take a look at the broader context. First, for an overview of the context of Romans, see the post I did on the purpose of Paul’s letter to the Romans. This is very important to the consideration of what Paul is addressing here in Rom 14. Here’s one of the most relevant sections dealing with the historical background to Romans.

“…problems in the Roman church were initiated by the edict of Claudius in A.D. 49 that expelled all Jews from Rome. In Acts 18:2 we find that this expulsion included Priscilla and Aquila, who appear to have already been Christians at the time. This (and a few other arguments put forth by Donfried) strongly suggests that the expulsion included all Jewish Christians. Thus, the church at Rome from A.D. 49, until the death of Claudius in A.D. 54 would have been almost entirely Gentile. Jewish Christians, upon returning in A.D. 54, would come back to find a Church radically devoid of the Jewish elements that were present when they left in the expulsion. It is easy to imagine the issues that might arise in such a situation, and it is these that we find addressed throughout Romans.”

Now, for the immediate context:

“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”
Romans 14:1‭-‬23

It would seem at first glance, that when Paul says, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind (Romans 14:5)” he is making all observance of “days” a matter of conscience, and explicitly teaching that they are not an issue of objective morality. And, as I believe will be made clear, that is exactly what he is teaching. Paul is writing specifically to address Jewish Christians who were trying to enforce upon the consciences of gentiles religious days of observance, the most prominent of which for Jews was the Sabbath day. Paul likely had in mind more than the Sabbath, but he almost certainly had in mind the Sabbath in Rom 14.

Those who “esteem all days alike” are very clearly not living in sin. As a matter of fact, Paul was in the category of those who “esteem all days alike”, because he put himself in the category of the “strong”, ie those who feel freedom of conscience in these matters (Rom 15:1).

In our passage, Paul is addressing matters of conscience. Some people see it as objectively sinful to eat certain foods, and to break the observance of certain days. Others believe these things are not objectively sinful. Paul says that all of these matters are matters of conscience. Paul was writing to those (specifically Jews, cf the background to Romans) who hold to religious days of obligation; days during which you were required to perform/abstain from certain actions, the breaking of which constituted sin against God. Paul says “All days are alike” in the sense that in the New Covenant there are no “days” that are commanded to be kept, the breaking of which would constitute sin against God. All “day keeping” is relegated to a matter of conscience. Being that the controversy in Rome was of Jews trying to enforce the Mosaic law on Gentiles, and the observance of food laws and specific days, the Sabbath was likely the day at the forefront of Paul’s mind as he wrote Romans 14. (Note also that the only time Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, actually uses the word “Sabbath” once in all of his letters, to teach that Christians are not under it- see post on Col 2:16-17)

We find a similar point made in Galatians (which we will not treat in full here, but may at a later time). “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain (Gal 4:8-11).” Just briefly, Paul here seems to be relegating all observance of days/months/seasons/years (as religious days of obligation) to a former time in salvation history (cf salvation-historical discussion of 3-4). Specifically, he has in mind Jewish days/months/etc (e.g., the Sabbath which would fall in the “days” category”), which he puts in the category of enslavement to the same sorts of things the gentile Galatians had previously been enslaved to (cf 4:1, 3, 7, 22-25 “slave/slavery.”)

What of the Lord’s day?

However, all early Christians (presumably including Paul) very often met on the first day of the week, and this seemed to be a special day for them. The early church fathers referred to this day as “The Lord’s Day.” If everyone thought the Lord’s day was special, then what does it mean to “esteem all days alike”? In what sense did Paul himself “esteem all days alike”? We’ve just seen that they were all alike in that no day was a day of religious obligation.

We have to ask then, in what sense did Paul and the early Christians “esteem” the Lord’s day? One thing is certain: it was not a day of obligation. If someone did not attend the Sunday gathering, it did not constitute sin.

So then, why was the Lord’s day special to them? First, a few considerations that are somewhat an aside about the Lord’s day:

The phrase is used once in Scripture- in the New Testament’s apocalyptic book, Revelation: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10). There is nothing in the context of Revelation to make us suppose this is Sunday.
One of the primary reasons (and a good reason, consistent with grammatical-historical exegesis) we associate “The Lord’s Day” with Sunday, is that the early church fathers did so- though they were consistent with the NT in that they never called it the “Sabbath”, or said that we were obeying the 4th command of the Decalogue by observing the Lord’s day.
The NT constantly speaks of Christians meeting “on the first day of the week”- ie, Sunday.
The “Day of the Lord” (Lord’s Day), is a consistent theme of the OT. It is a day when God brings judgement upon the ungodly. Unfortunately, we Christians (including myself!) are not shaped in our thinking by the OT nearly enough, and so often we simply run along with our tradition that “the Lord’s day is Sunday”, without ever so much as thinking what the significance of the relationship the OT “Lord’s Day” might be. Meredith Kline argues that Rev 1:10 is intentionally not referring to the OT “Lord’s Day” because of the difference in the Greek between the Septuagint “Lord’s day”, and John’s “Lord’s day”, but that John had to be purposeful to avoid this direct association because any readers with OT knowledge would be so quick to make it. Kline doesn’t believe the Lord’s day in Rev 1:10 is referring to “Sunday.” I disagree, but you can find a discussion of his view here: https://meredithkline.com/146/

I personally do believe that the “Lord’s day” in Rev 1:10 refers to Sunday, but I don’t think the Bible is as plain about that as most people presume (ie, the phrase is used once, in an apacolyptic book that is notoriously difficult to interpret), and I think that more needs to be considered concerning the relation of this day to the OT “Lord’s Day.”

Back to our main point: how did Paul and the early Christians esteem the Lord’s Day? They celebrated it as the day Christ rose from the dead, but did not hold it as a day of religious obligation, the breaking of which would constitute sin.

The simple fact is, the NT never commands Christians to meet on Sundays; it simply records them frequently meeting on that day (and other days; even “daily” Acts 2:46, 5:42). That said, they NT does command us with these words:

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (Heb 10:24).”

However, this verse says nothing about specific days; in fact, it encourages us to meet “all the more”, which seems to indicate that the author does not have only Sunday in mind since Sunday only comes once every 7 days, and you can’t make it happen “all the more.”

Meeting on the Lord’s day, however, has been the tradition of the church since the days of the apostles. While it is not sin to miss a gathering on Sunday, most bodies have continued the tradition of the apostles, and meet on the first day of the week to celebrate the Lord’s day (though for the apostles, the “day” was defined differently- see Sabbatarianism Pt 3. Internal Issues in Sabbatarianism: When Does the Day Begin?). If your local church meets on Sunday, you ought to be seeking to avoid forsaking the gathering. If your church meets on Saturday, I’d tell you that I prefer to continue the tradition of the apostles and meet on the day Christ rose, but I would not; and could not tell you that you were living in sin, or else I’d be going beyond that God has clearly said in His word.

Just to make things perhaps a bit clearer as this comes to a close, we will consider something that made be analogous from the life of Jesus.

In Luke 4:16, we read “And He [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was His custom (εἰωθὸς), He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read.”

For as long as anyone could remember, the Jews had met on the Sabbath to worship YHWH (cf same word in Acts 17:2). However, there was no command from God to meet publicly on the Sabbath. The Sabbath command only had to do with cessation from work, not public worship. Public worship on the Sabbath was a tradition the Jews followed, not a command of God. That’s why Jesus could go into the wilderness 40 days and nights and not be in question of violating the Sabbath by forsaking the gathering.

In the same way, meeting on Sunday is a venerable ecclesiastical tradition. It is the day that Christ rose from the dead. It is the day that most local churches meet to worship our King, and therefore is a day that most Christians should be seeking to meet with their brothers and sisters to be encouraged and worship! But it is not a day of religious obligation, the breaking of which constitutes sin against our Lord.

Creation Ordinance?

As Schreiner notes, the best argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath is probably the argument that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance. Exodus 20:8-10 details the Sabbath command, and verse 11 grounds the command in God’s resting on the seventh day [1].

On the surface this argument seems quite formidable. Generally, when the NT appeals to creation in reference to some teaching, the teaching is binding for today. Take for example:

Marraige between one man and one woman (Matt 19:3-12; cf Gen 2:24).
The prohibition of homosexuality (Rom 1:26-27).
The prohibition of woman having authority over men in the church as pastors (1 Tim 2:12-13)
The freedom to marry and eat any food (1 Tim 4:1-4)[2].

The Sabbatarian’s argument runs as follows:

Premise 1: Commands rooted in creation are binding today.

Premise 2. The Sabbath Command is rooted in creation (Ex 20:11).

Conclusion: Therefore, the Sabbath command is binding today.

The problem with this argument is premise 2: “The Sabbath Command is rooted in creation”, or perhaps more precisely, the problem is with the word “rooted.” I believe that the following will demonstrate that the Sabbath command is not “rooted” in creation as an ordinance, but as Schriener notes, as an “anaology.”[3] In the Sabbath command, Israel mirrors God’s rest by resting on the seventh day. However, God’s resting wasn’t a command/ordinance (there’s no command in Gen 2, nor is the word “sabbath” used). Rather, it was a pointer to a greater rest; a rest that we might enter (Psalm 95; Heb 3-4). God’s rest in creation has different application depending upon what covenant you are under.

This will come out more clearly in our considerations below, but perhaps another example of this sort of thing will be helpful before we proceed.

Consider this text:

“For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.

Leviticus 11:44‭-‬47

What was the basis of the Israelites dietary laws? The text tells us: “Be holy, for I am holy.”

This shows us unmistakably that truths about God can have different applications depending upon which covenant you are under.

God is has always been, and will always be holy. Under the Old Covenant, Israel mirrored this eternal truth about God by dietary laws (among other things). Under the New Covenant, we know that all foods are clean (Mark 7:19; 1 Tim 4:1-4). Under the NC, the application of God’s holiness is: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet 1:14-16).” Dietary laws are not any part of our application of the truth of God’s holiness; but they were for the Isrealites under the Old Covenant.

In the same way, God’s resting on the seventh day also has application for today. However, the application of this act of God is different under the New Covenant than it was under the Old. Under the New Covenant, God’s seventh day rest is applied in:

Coming to Christ for rest now (“Today if you hear His voice…” Heb 3-4). In Matthew 11:28-30, cf the following two accounts (intentionally placed in this order by Matthew) of Jesus’ actions demonstrating that He is “Lord of the Sabbath” in Matt 12. See also Heb 4:3 “we who have believed enter (present indicative verb) that rest”
The eschatological rest we will enter either when we die, or when Christ returns (Heb 4:11). Cf also the fact that the seventh day has no evening/morning, and Heb 3-4 says that it is open for us to enter by faith.

Now, for some considerations showing that it is improbable that the Sabbath should be considered a “creation ordinance.”

The NT plainly teaches that those in the NC are not under the Sabbath command (See: Sabbatarianism Pt. 4: Colossians 2:16-17. Also see: Sabbatarianism Pt. 5: Romans 14:5).
There is no Sabbath command in Genesis. No sabbath command is given until Ex 16, after the people of Israel have been brought out of Egypt and constituted a nation, Yahweh’s chosen people. All that is mentioned in Gen 2 is God resting on the seventh day; a day incidentally, without evening or morning (which has implications for Heb 3-4).
There is no record of anyone man or woman keeping the sabbath prior to Ex 16. Neither Adam, nor the patriarchs, nor anyone else was ever said to have kept the sabbath.
The sabbath was specifically said to be a sign of the Old Covenant (Ex 31:13). The Old Covenant has passed away, and with it, the sign of that covenant. See Sabbatarianism Pt 2: The Structure of the Decalogue as a Key to its Nature
Nehemiah 9:13-14 seems to explicitly teach that the Sabbath command was first given at Sinai. Though he was a sabbatarian, John Bunyan did not believe that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance, and he uses Neh 9:13-14 (among other arguments) to demonstrate this. For his full treatise, see: https://biblehub.com/library/bunyan/the_works_of_john_bunyan_volumes_1-3/questions_about_the_nature_and.htm
Not everything in creation is eternally binding. We are not bound to be vegetarians, or nudists, or farmers, though all these are aspects of man’s state in creation.[4]
When it comes to marraige, divorce, homosexuality, gender roles, and dietary matters, appeals to creation come from the NT and are clearly establishing these matters as creation ordinances, whereas the Sabbath command the reference to creation is in the OT and appears to be only by way of anaology.[5]
Gentile nations are often reproved for their wicked immorality, but never for sabbath breaking.
The Sabbath command does not appear to be written on mens hearts; not even presumably regenerate men’s hearts, who God promises will have His law written on their hearts (E.g. John MacArthur, Paul Washer, Todd Friel, etc). Not even Sabbatarians themselves seem to take the Sabbath command with the same seriousness as the other commands they consider moral, because they do not exercise church discipline on men like MacArthur etc. See: Sabbatarianism Pt 1. Sabbatarianism and G3 2020.
In the earliest centuries of the church there is no historical evidence that the church kept a sabbath. It was clear that they observed the Lord’s day, but they did not consider Lord’s day observance as a replacement of the Sabbath, or a fulfillment of the fourth command. Rather, we actually find distinctions being made between these days (more on this later). This is remarkable considering that if the apostles establised the Sunday sabbath at each church they planted, no evidence exists to show this, especially when you consider the persecution that would have arisen among gentile converts (most of whom were slaves and lower class citizens) who suddenly refused to work on Sundays!
The Sabbath command, engraved on stone in Ex 20 commands rest on the “seventh” day. Creation ordinances are generally thought to be written on men’s hearts, and inherently unchanging. However, sabbatarians allege that this creation ordinance changed from the 7th to the first day. This seems inconsistent with what it means to be a “creation ordinance.”

One final side-note related to the last point. My sabbatarian brothers often argue for the change of the Sabbath from the 7th day in the old covenant to the 1st day in the new covenant essentially by noting that under the covenant of works, we “work, then rest”, but under the covenant of grace we “rest, then work.” The idea that we rest in Christ before we do any meaningful work is true enough; but one thing is striking. The bible never makes this application to the sabbath command. The sabbath is always, and only a seventh day reality, dealing with work, then rest. This is consistent through and through, and continues to be the application even when we come to the NT (Heb 3-4).

It is true that we rest in Christ, and receive salvation by Him alone before we do any meaningful work; but this is only theological postulating, and not an application that Scripture ever actually makes to the sabbath command. I believe this same sort of theological postulating leads prysbeterians to conclude that just as circumcision was the sign of the old (“administration” as they would say since they believe in one “covenant of grace”) covenant, baptism is the sign of the new covenant, and since infants received circumcision under the old covenant, they should be baptized under the new. One can understand how that conclusion is reached via theological postulating, and there is a sense in which baptism is the sign of the NC, but the conclusion that infants should be baptized is simply not supported exegetically. I believe a similair phenomena takes place with this sort of argument for a 1st day “sabbath.”

[1] Wellum, Dr Stephen J., and Brent E. Parker, eds. Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenantal Theologies. Chapter 6. “Good-bye and Hello: The Sabbath Command for New Covenant Believers.” B&H Academic, 2016. p. 167-168.

[2] Schreiner. 168.

[3] Schreiner 169.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

What about Isaiah 56?

In Isaiah 56 we read the following:

Thus says the Lord:
1 “Keep justice, and do righteousness,
for soon my salvation will come,
    and my righteousness be revealed.
²Blessed is the man who does this,
    and the son of man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,
    and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

³Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and let not the eunuch say,
    “Behold, I am a dry tree.”
⁴For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
    who choose the things that please me
    and hold fast my covenant,
⁵I will give in my house and within my walls
    a monument and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
    that shall not be cut off.

⁶“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
    and holds fast my covenant—
⁷these I will bring to my holy mountain,
    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
    for all peoples.”
⁸The Lord God,
    who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,
“I will gather yet others to him
    besides those already gathered.”

This text appears to support the Sabbatarian position in two ways: First, it speaks of the Sabbath being kept by gentiles, which a Sabbatarian may see as support for the idea that the Sabbath is a part of God’s eternal moral law. Second, the keeping the Sabbath seems to have a close connection with “keeping justice” and “doing righteousness”, and may even be equated with those things in Isa 56:1-2. I want to make two observations concerning this text. First, the Sabbath was the sign of the Mosaic Covenant (Ex 31:13-17). Note in our text in Isaiah the close connection between the Sabbath and “Covenant” in both Isa 56:4 and 6. As a matter of fact, each time “Sabbath” is used in Isa 56, “covenant” follows on its heels. What is the significance of a Gentile keeping the Sabbath? It is the sign of the Mosaic covenant. In other words, the gentiles being spoken of are proselytes to Judaism. They’ve converted from paganism to join themselves to God’s people in the worship of the One True God, and to walk in his ways- In this phase in salvation history, the Mosaic covenant was the only game in town for walking rightly toward Yahweh, so naturally a gentile who wanted to worship Yahweh and walk in His ways would seek to walk according to the covenant which Yahweh had given, and consequently adot the sign of that covenant. The being kept by these gentiles is showing that they’ve chosen to worship Yahweh and walk in His ways- in justice and righteousness. Not only would they adopt the Sabbath, but they would also be brought to the other elements of the Mosaic covenant, such as the temple, the place of worship (“My holy mountain”, “my house of prayer”), and the sacrificial system- see verse 7.

Second, this verse ironically militates against the Sabbatarian position in one way. Namely, it makes it nigh impossible to argue that in Colossians 2:16-17 Paul intended only days other than the day outlined in the 4th commandment in view when he used the plural “Sabbaths.” Notice again Isaiah 56:2 where the singular “Sabbath” is used, and “profaning” is mentioned which clearly indicates that the fourth commandment is in view, and the seamless transition to speaking of “Sabbaths” (plural) in v4. This is a clear demonstration the “Sabbaths” (plural) can refer to THE sabbath of the fourth commandment. This has already been demonstrated far more extensively in the section on Colossians 2:16-17 where the OT use of the triumvirate “new moons, festivals, Sabbaths” is considered, along with all of the other times in the OT when “Sabbaths” (plural) are spoken of and the day outlined in the fourth command is in view, but it is notable that the seem truth is present here as well.