Reformation
500 WEEK 38: Heidelberg Catechism QA 103
Question 103: What
does God require in the fourth Commandment? In the first place, God wills that the ministry of the Gospel
and schools be maintained, and that I, especially
on the day of rest, diligently attend church to learn the Word of God, to
use the holy sacraments, to call publicly upon the Lord, and to give Christian
alms. In the second place, that all the days of my life I rest from my
evil works, allow the Lord to work in me by His Spirit, and thus begin in this
life the everlasting Sabbath.
The Hebrew word Sabbath means rest,
or ceasing from labor. God established the weekly Sabbath day when He finished
His work of creation in six days and rested the seventh day: “on the
seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested
on the seventh day” (Gen. 2:2). God’s resting does not mean He was tired or
stopped His work of providentially preserving and governing the universe (John
5:17). It means He ceased His work of creation. After creation
week, for example, God did not create
any new people but He brought new people into existence according to His providential laws of reproduction.
God’s rest also means He delighted
in His finished work of creation. “God saw everything that He had made,
and indeed it was very good” (Gen. 1:31); “on the seventh day He rested
and was refreshed” (Ex. 31:17). God was refreshed “in the sense of His
receiving joy and delight in the contemplation of the beauty of what He had
created” (Kelly, Creation and Change, 238). “Then God blessed the
seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work”
(Gen. 2:3). To bless a day means to make it a day of blessing for man. The Lord
Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for
man” (Mark 2:27). To sanctify (make holy) a day means to set it apart from the
other days. By resting the seventh day God set it apart from the other six days
to be a day of rest for man – to imitate God’s rest. Thus, the main
purpose of ceasing from work is not for physical refreshment, but
spiritual refreshment!
“God rested; then He blessed this rest…He
dedicated every seventh day to rest, that His own example might be a perpetual
rule.” Since “it was commanded to men from the very beginning that they might
employ themselves in the worship of God, it is right that it should continue to
the end of the world”
(Calvin on Genesis 2:3).
“The principle
underlying the Sabbath is formulated in the Decalogue itself. It consists in
this, that man must copy God in his course of life” (Vos, Biblical
Theology, 139). “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy [set apart]. 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.” Why? “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 [sanctified] it” (Ex. 20:9-11). The unchanging moral
principle of the Sabbath command is that God created us in His image to imitate
Him in all of life – to work six days for His glory and to rest one day for His
glory. The fall ruined our
ability to imitate God, but redemption through faith in Christ restores our ability to imitate God out
of thankfulness for salvation. “Therefore, be imitators of God as dear
children” (Eph. 5:1); “be holy for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).
The day can
change without changing the moral principle. Christ’s resurrection on the
first day of the week did not abolish the weekly cycle of working six
days and resting one day for God’s glory (Mt. 5:17). Rather, it showed that Christ
perfectly fulfilled the law, paid the eternal penalty of sin, and obtained
eternal life (eternal rest!) for all who believe in Him (He. 4:3). The new
covenant has a new day of rest (just as it has new signs and seals –
baptism and the Lord’s Supper) to show that sinners are saved only by trusting
(resting) in the finished work of Christ alone!
The new day of rest, which “God has
instituted through the church [under the authoritative leadership of the
apostles],” is “the first day of the week, which is called Sunday, or, more
properly, the Lord’s Day, which the Christian Church has observed in the place
of the seventh day from the time of the Apostles [Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:7], in
view of the resurrection of Christ, as appears from what the Apostle John says:
‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10)’.” (Ursinus, 562).
In regards to
Romans 14:5, Galatians 4:10, and Colossians 3:16, most reformed commentators
agree with Matthew Henry: “Paul is not speaking of the Sabbath command. Paul is
speaking about special Jewish feast days, such as Passover, Pentecost, new
moons, and the feast of Tabernacles.”
The main focus on the day of rest is still
spiritual worship and refreshment – to “call the Sabbath a delight,” to
“delight yourself in the LORD” (Isaiah 58:13). This is why there is
still to be a holy assembly every Sabbath (Lev. 23:3; Heb. 10:24-25).
“God will not only be praised and called upon by everyone privately, but also
publicly by the whole church [Ps. 68:26], for His own glory and comfort. It is
for this reason that Christ has added a special promise to such prayers as are
offered up publicly [Matt. 18:19-20]” (Ursinus, 571). The ministry of God’s
Word is still the means by which God saves and sanctifies His elect (Ex.
31:17; Ac 15:21; 20:7; Rm. 10:17; Ep. 4:11-16).
Therefore, “To
keep holy the Sabbath, is not to spend the day in slothfulness and idleness;
but to…devote it to the purpose for which God instituted it” (Ibid., 558); “to
frequent the public gatherings of the saints for the purpose of hearing and
learning the doctrine delivered from heaven [Acts 2:42], and having heard it,
to meditate seriously upon it and inquire into its truth [Acts 17:11]” (Ibid.,
567). It is our daily duty to meditate in Scripture (Ps. 1:2), but “every
seventh day has been especially selected for the purpose of supplying what was
lacking in daily meditation” (Calvin, Gen. 2:3).
“When God forbids
us to work on the Sabbath day, He does not forbid every kind of work [such as works
of love, which our own necessity or that of our neighbor requires (Matt.
12:7-12; Mark 2:27)], but only such works as…hinder the worship of God, and the
design and use of the ministry of the church” (Ursinus, 558). Some believers
work on the Sabbath out of necessity – nurses, public officers, and others. But
they can still make time for private devotions and Bible study.
Every commandment has a wider meaning,
as Jesus pointed out in the Sermon on the Mount. You shall not murder also
means you shall not hate your brother in your heart (Matt. 5:21-22). You shall
not commit adultery also means you shall not lust after a woman in your heart
(Matt. 5:27-28). You shall do no work on the day of rest also means you shall rest
every day from your evil works, allow the Holy Spirit to work in
your heart (by doing your daily Bible reading and prayer), and thus begin in
this life the everlasting Sabbath (cf. Heb. 4:9-10).
To sum up [lest we make too sharp a
distinction between the “continental” and “puritan” view of the Sabbath]: “The
Lord’s Day (Sunday) shall be kept a holy day, devoted to the public worship of
the Lord, to reading the Holy Scriptures, to private devotions, and to works of
love and mercy” (RCUS Constitution, article 180).
NOTE: These Posts were written and designed as bulletin inserts by Pastor David Fagrey of the Grace Reformed Church of Rapid City, SD .
Link to this blog entry as a bulletin insert: Reformation 500 Heidelberg Catechism QA 103
For a double-sided PDF for easy printing: Reformation 500 Week 38
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| Official Seal of the RCUS |
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