The Fundamental Principle Governing the Observance of the Lord's Day⤒🔗

The fourth commandment, as ex­pressed in Exodus 20 and Deutero­nomy 5, is the foundational passage of Scripture in reference to our ob­servance of the Lord's Day. However, God's will concerning His day finds expression in numerous other pas­sages in the Old Testament. One of them is the text for this meditation, in which God conveys His will con­cerning His holy day with equal clarity. In addition to the explicit repetition of the fourth command­ment, however, the Holy Spirit em­phasizes certain truths regarding the observance of the Lord's Day which it behaves us to consider carefully.

First of all, it is noteworthy that the Sabbath, referred to in Exodus 20 as "the sabbath of the LORD," is here denominated as the "sabbath of rest." A careful consideration of the Hebrew words used here will at once reveal what God's specific and non-negotiable requirements are for His holy day. Our word "Sabbath" is derived from the Hebrew word shabbat, which means "cessation from labor," and the word "rest" is the translation of the Hebrew word nu'ah, which means "to rest in a goal achieved." The meaning of these words explain why it is stated in the fourth commandment that God rested on the seventh day. On this day God ceased from His creative labors and rested in the achievement of His eternal goal: the creation of the universe and its inhabitants. It is evident from the fourth corn­ mandment that our observance of the Lord's Day is directly related to God's observance of the seventh day of crea­tion, and that our observance of this day is to be patterned after His obser­vance of the seventh day. "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hal­lowed it" (Ex. 20:11).

Therefore, our observance of the New Testament Sabbath, the Lord's Day, must be in harmony with this divinely established pattern: a cessa­tion from all labor and a resting in God's goal achieved.

The New Testament Observance of the Lord's Day←⤒🔗

In what manner are we, the New Testament church, called to "rest in a goal achieved" on the Lord's Day? The answer to this question can be found in examining the reason we rest on the first day of the week rather than the seventh day. The reason the New Testament church rests on Sun­day instead of Saturday (the Old Tes­tament Sabbath) is directly related to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, which occurred on the first day of the week. Every Lord's Day is a renewed commemoration of His blessed resurrection, and this is pre­cisely the reason our Sunday is called "The Lord's Day" that is, the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. On this memo­rable day, God the Father made a pub­lic declaration that He is well pleased with the mediatorial work of His Son, accepting His finished work as full payment for the guilt of an innumer­able multitude of fallen sons and daughters of Adam, whom He has loved and chosen before the founda­tions of the world. On the basis of the accomplished work of His beloved Son, the Father, in a manner perfectly consistent with His holy character, could fully restore fallen sinners to be His sons and daughters forever.

Therefore, the resurrection of Christ was the Father's declaration that His eternal goal to save and perfectly restore fallen, lost sinners, had been fully achieved. And, there­fore, as God rested in the achieve­ment of His creative goal on the seventh day of creation, God like­wise rested in the achievement of His redemptive goal on the day of resurrection — this glorious event which is the basis for the recreation and restoration of what has been ruined and destroyed as a result of our tragic fall in Paradise. On this day God beheld and rested in the finished work of His beloved Son, and could say, as He said upon completion of His creative work, "and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31).

This yields the primary and ulti­mate reason we must cease from our labors and rest on the first day of the week. On this day it is God's revealed will that we rest in the achievement of His redemptive goal: the finished work of His mag­nificent Son. In other words, the rest to which we are called is not a resting that is equivalent to non-activity, but a resting that manifests itself in holy activity, in holy worship of God as Creator and Re-Creator.

The Lord's Day and the Ministry of the Gospel←⤒🔗

A proper resting on the Lord's Day is therefore preeminently a resting in God's House, where we may hear the gospel proclaimed. Hereby God bears testimony to His Son and His finished work, reveal­ing to fallen and lost sinners that in His Son His eternal goal of recrea­tion and restoration has forever been achieved. His goal having been perfectly achieved, He summons His servants on His day, on this blessed day of commemoration, to bear witness to the Son of His eternal good pleasure, the Lord Je­sus Christ, proclaiming in the midst of the congregation, "This is my be­loved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him" (Mat. 17:5). They are called to proclaim this faithful saying worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), and that for hell-worthy and sin-burdened sinners there is a resting place in Jesus Christ in whom God rests forever. This truth is so richly expressed by Christ Himself when He exclaims, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.... and ye shall find rest for your souls" (Mat. 11:28-29).

The glorious purpose of the proc­lamation of the gospel on the Lord's Day, is that sinners might seek and find rest where God rests, and that in finding that rest by the applying work of His Spirit they may stam­mer in holy amazement and genu­ine worship, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift" (2 Cot 9:15). How beautifully this is ex­pressed in Psalm 132:13-15, "For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. I will abun­dantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread"— i.e., with Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life.

It is God's delight and holy desire, especially on His day, to draw poor, guilty, and undone sinners, by His Spirit, to His beloved Son, to rest in Him in whom He will rest for ever.

Therefore, to seek and find rest in the Son of God and His finished work by faith, is Sabbath obser­vance in the truest sense of the word. God cannot be honored and exalted more on His day than when guilty and bankrupt sinners cease from their own works, acknow­ledging that all their righteous­nesses are as filthy rags, and by faith rest solely in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is the blessed rest which remains to the people of God (Heb. 4:9). Consequently, only when on the Lord's Day we prayerfully, and in dependence upon the gracious op­eration of the Holy Spirit, strive to find rest by faith in God's achieved goal, that is, in Jesus Christ and His finished work, have we truly observed this day in a manner pleasing to God. Only then will we have truly delighted our­selves in the LORD (cf. Isa. 58:13-14), which is the highest purpose for which we were created and the supreme pur­pose for which God has hallowed His day. Only then will our observance of the Lord's Day be what it is meant to be: the beginning of the eternal Sab­bath, heaven itself. There God's church will forever cease from her labors to rest forever in the achievement of God's goal, eternally magnifying a Triune God for the accomplishment of His eternal good pleasure in Christ Jesus.

How blessed are we if, by the gra­cious operation of the Holy Spirit, the Lord's Day becomes a day of rest for us in this sense of the word! Then the precious truth expressed in Psalm 36:8 will become a personal reality: "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures"; or as it is so beautifully expressed in the Dutch rhymed ver­sion of Psalm 36, "Hier wordt de rust geschonken; hier 't vette van Uw huis gesmaakt; een voile beek van wellust maakt hier elk in liefde dronken." (Translation: Here rest is granted; here the fatness of Thy house is tasted; a full river of pleasure makes everyone saturated with love).

The Divine Penalty for the Desecration of the Lord's Day←⤒🔗

A consideration of the manner in which God calls us to rest on His day should therefore make it abundantly clear why the penalty for the viola­tion of His commandment and the desecration of His day is so severe. Our text, in addition to many other passages, states unequivocally that the violator of this commandment must be put to death. The flagrant violation of the ungodly person, as well as the subtle and sophisticated violation of this commandment by the nominal believer, is nothing less than an act of contempt towards God and His revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. In breaking the Sab­bath, sinful man expresses that he has no desire to delight himself in the LORD by resting in His achieved goal.

Therefore, to despise the Sabbath as well as God's ordinance for that day, namely, to "reverence His sanc­tuary" (Lev. 19:30), is a refusal to cease from our labors and to rest in God's achieved goal, and is there­fore nothing less than to despise the Son of God and His finished work! The desecration of the Lord's day is thus an act whereby man insults God to the superlative degree. It is an act whereby the natural man gives expression to His enmity to­ward His Creator, to his blatant de­fiance of His will, and to his utter contempt for His Son. On no other day are these words of the apostle Paul so graphically and profoundly illustrated: "The carnal mind is en­mity against God: for it is not sub­ject to the law of God" (Rom. 8:7), and that men are "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. 3:4). Should we then be surprised that God demands the death penalty for those who desecrate His day?

Considering this divine penalty, must we not tremble for our Western civilization, as well as our own nation, which blatantly and contemptuously tramples on God's commandment concerning His day, especially in view of what we read in Hebrews 10 con­cerning those who sin willfully after having received the knowledge of the truth (which obviously is appli­cable to our nation)? God's Word states here, "Of how much sorer pun­ishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and bath counted the blood of the covenant [which is the reason God can achieve His goal!] an unholy thing?"

The sobering and troubling con­clusion we must come to in view of our text is that our nation, due to its persistent violation of the fourth commandment, has forfeited the right to exist! The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament, and since in Him there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17), we must assert that He views His day and its desecration in identical fash­ion as He did in the days of Moses and Israel. Scripture tells us, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek. 18:4). What is true for man individually is true for nations as well: The nation or the civilization that sinneth, it shall die! Also to our nation and civilization it applies, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. 3:10). It should be evident that our text clearly confirms these truths.

The desecration of God's day is therefore a very serious matter in­deed, and it behooves the church, as well as her individual members, to urgently and unceasingly call our local communities and our nation to repentance from this sin whereby we so deeply insult the God of heaven and earth. For, unless there is repentance, also our nation "shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah" (Isa. 13:19). The Lord of the Sabbath, whose pre­cepts our Western civilization so wickedly and arrogantly defies, warns us most solemnly, "I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible" (Isa. 13:11).

Conclusion←⤒🔗

How evident it is from our text that the observance of the Lord's Day (or the lack of it) is a matter of utmost importance — a matter of life and death. We must take God's day seri­ously, because God takes His day seri­ously. Our attitude towards, and our observance of, the Lord's Day, is an unmistakable indicator of our atti­tude towards God! If we do not take God's Day, and His precepts govern­ing this day, seriously, it inevitably reveals that we do not take God and His Word seriously.

If we truly love God, we will love and reverence His day, and weekly we will long for the moment that we may cease from our labors, in order to go to God's sanctuary, God's ordained resting place, to find rest for our weary, sin-burdened souls in Jesus Christ. Then the confession of David will be our wholehearted confession, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple" (Psa. 27:4). Then we will long for the day which God has ex­pressly sanctified for the purpose of showing forth His lovingkindness in the morning and His faithfulness every evening. Then we will yearn to be in His house where it pleases the Lord to make His people glad through His work, and where He causes them to triumph in the works of His hands. There, in response to the declaration of the gospel, they, in beholding Jesus Christ by faith, may cry out in holy amazement, "O LORD, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep" (Psa. 92:5).

However, if we do not love the Lord's day; if it is an unwelcome interruption of our pursuit of the riches and pleasures of the world; if we do not desire to cease from our labors in order that we might rest in God's achieved goal and enter into His rest (Heb. 4:10), how serious  is then our condition! Our text tells us that God's judgment is certain upon all who do not honor His day — who do not honor and believe His revelation of Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ by means of the gospel. Everlasting death and eternal restless­ness will be the inescapable future of all who in unbelief have trodden the Son of God under foot, who count His blood as an unholy thing, and to whom God swears that they will not enter into His rest because of their unbelief (Heb. 3:18).

May God graciously grant that we may observe His day not merely in an external sense, but in spirit and in truth. By grace, our observance of His day will then truly be an expres­sion of our heartfelt desire to love the Lord with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind.

May our observance of the Lord's Day therefore be in harmony with Isaiah's exhortation in chapter 58 : 13- 14, "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleas­ure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speak­ing thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD." If we may observe the Lord's Day in such a fashion, our Sabbath-keeping will be in harmony with His revealed will expressed in our text. Then only will it be "a sabbath of rest... to the LORD" (Exo. 35:2)!