The Lord’s Day

Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

I remember back-in-the-day, when just about every business (excluding fire, police and hospitals) would all be closed on Sunday, Christian or not, observing a day of rest and family time together. This short topical study that I’m reading through concurs that only a few decades ago, it was impossible in many parts of the United States to find any commercial establishment open on Sunday. In that short time period, our culture has seen a marked degradation in observation of the fourth commandment of God. In a day and age where making and spending money, entertainment and experiencing life takes precedence, we lose sight that knowledge of essential elements precedes encounter, because understanding the reason why we do or do not do what we do is critical to properly experiencing and enjoying, including a day of rest and rejuvenation for our benefit.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

From the early church to the present, virtually all Christian traditions have held that the command to set apart the Sabbath day as holy continues in some form. And this is because unlike the other more ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, the Sabbath was established in creation. Genesis 2:1-3 tells us that the Lord rested on the seventh day and blessed it and Exodus 20:8-11 explains that we should observe the Sabbath day in imitation of God’s activity and rest. The idea is not that on the seventh day the Lord ceased all of His activity or that we are to just sit around and do nothing on the Sabbath day. Instead, as God rested after finishing the initial creation, so we are not to be focused on producing goods and services on the Sabbath. Take a break.

Hebrews 4:9-10 “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”

Today, the Christian Sabbath is the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, for we look back to what Christ has provided through His death and resurrection. In addition to being a day of rest, the Lord’s Day is also a day for worship. God’s people should set apart the day as holy because the Lord redeemed them from slavery to sin and the second death in hell. Scripture connects the remembrance of God’s acts with worship, so if we keep the Lord’s Day in order to remember salvation, worship should be part of celebration that day.

Hebrews 10:24-25  “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

The study on the fourth commandment concludes that what is vital is that we are setting apart the Lord’s Day as holy by gathering for worship with God’s people and resting from our ordinary vocations. Are you hallowing the Lord’s Day?

Blessings.