Lewis Allen guides us through the questions concerning Sunday
I am perplexed. Chances are, so are you. We are perplexed over the Sunday question.
Why are some Christians so convinced that Sunday is the Lord’s Day, which we are commanded to use differently from the other days of the week? And why are other believers so sure that such a notion shows a poor grasp of Scripture, and even obscures the gospel freedom we have in Christ?
Majority position
Today, the majority evangelical position on the Sabbath/Lord’s Day/Sunday question is that there is no special one-day-in-seven each week.
The reasoning is along these lines: we aren’t God’s Old Covenant people, under the Law in the Promised Land, waiting for the Law’s fulfilment in Christ, having to observe outward rules in order to express our covenant loyalty to God. No, Christ has come. He has won for us the spiritual rest of which the Sabbath day is a shadow. We rest in him as we believe the gospel. And we look forward to the rest of heaven. By all means, we must gather to hear God’s Word and to encourage others, and while most of us have Sundays off, let’s use that day. And as Sunday is the day of Jesus’ resurrection, that’s a great pointer to the rest we’ve already entered into through faith, as well as the rest we will embrace at the return of Christ. The Old Testament command has been fulfilled by Christ’s achievement, and his people rest (and, even, keep this command) through their faith in him. To insist on anything else is poor theology, and unworkable practice. So goes the argument.
Unconvincing
I don’t buy it. At least, I don’t agree with the whole picture. My reading of Scripture leaves me persuaded that there is such a thing as the Lord’s Day, and that keeping the day is a command for all Christians. It has a moral dimension. And, like all of God’s commands, this one is given for our good, for our growth in faith and Christlikeness, and for God’s glory.
The issues are big and complex and my space here is very limited. What I propose to do is to offer five conversation starters:
1. Sabbath is woven into the fabric of God’s creation, and his commandments.
At the end of the creation week, God rested (or ‘sabbathed’) from his work of creation (Genesis 2.2-3). He stopped working in order to enjoy this new world from a new perspective, that of completed labour. The day was blessed and made holy. Blessed and made holy for whom? Primarily for God, of course. Look to the Ten Commandments, though, and Israel was to learn that God’s creation week was the imprint of her labour and rest (Exodus 20.8-11). God’s Old Covenant people were called to follow the rhythms of that first week in all that God did. At Sinai, Sabbath isn’t given to Israel as an arbitrary rule, but as a command to imitate the creator (and not make others work relentlessly, as they had been made to work as slaves in Egypt).
Let’s cut to the chase. What about us? Every Christian I know affirms the authority of the other nine commandments. So where is the explicit biblical command that we are not to remember the Sabbath day as followers of the Lord of the Sabbath? The onus is on those who deny the continuing authority of the Sabbath command to show where the master tells us that he is the Lord of a Sabbath which has been removed from the Decalogue. God wove his Sabbath command into creation’s fabric. Does believing God’s promises in Christ give us the liberty to unpick it?
2. The need for rest is written into our lives, and is a sweet pleasure
Our need to rest as well as work is obvious. Stress, burnout, health problems, as well as failing marriages and friendships show that we cannot survive on a regime of work alone. The Sabbath is about rest. I suspect that our very modern ambivalence and often hostility towards the Sabbath command come from the fact that we either don’t like being told when to rest, or that we believe that Sabbath-keeping is all about devoting as much time as we are humanly able to church activities, which for many can be the opposite of being restful.
Sabbath rest, enjoyed by God and given to all made in God’s image, is a creation ordinance, like work and heterosexual monogamous marriage. It is a wonderful gift, provided for the flourishing of humanity. Squander it, and we will die. How wise and kind of God to give us a day each week for physical rest and for the celebration of God’s saving love (Deuteronomy 5.12-15).
3. Jesus is our Sabbath rest
Jesus Christ came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5.17) and to give us the promised rest of sins forgiven and heaven opened up to believers (Matthew 11.28-30). ‘We who have believed enter that rest’ (Hebrews 4.3), the very rest in God’s love and favour which the exodus generation never arrived at. We are saved by Christ’s perfect law-keeping in the place of all who trust in him. We who belong to him are not under law, condemned by our disobedience, but led by the Spirit into fruitful law-keeping (Galatians 5.18). And it’s the Spirit’s role to empower us to obey what the master teaches, as we love his law.
So, does our trust in Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, take us back to the one-day-in -seven pattern of rest and worship, or lead us on from it? Surely, it’s hard to see a command to observe a day of rest – so important for the Israelites that it was part of the Decalogue – as being as passing as the laws against eating shrimp and wearing mixed fibres. If our trust is in Christ then the day of rest is his gift to his true Israel, the Church. And if Christ has won for us our eternal rest of heaven through his death and resurrection, then aren’t we called as well as invited to seek foretastes of that rest in keeping one day a week for rest and worship?
4. Seven days the Early Church laboured, and did all their work (and rest). Or did they?
Observing a special day was scarcely an easy option for most of the slaves and workers who made up the Early Church, even if they wanted to, as they were at the beck and call of normally pagan owners and employers. Indeed, confident voices tell us that, according to the Apostle Paul, keeping one day as special was solely a matter of private conviction, both then and now (Romans 14.5), and some are sure that the first Christians didn’t. So if they didn’t keep a special day, surely we shouldn’t?
There are a few clues about how the Early Church related to Sabbath. Acts 20.7 and 1 Corinthians 16.2 show us the emerging pattern of believers meeting on the first day of the week. That is the ‘Lord’s Day’, as the Apostle John speaks of it (Revelation 1.10). It is no longer the seventh day, but the Resurrection Day, the first day of the week as the Risen Christ has ushered in his new creation. The three passages of Paul which are usually commandeered by those who aren’t persuaded of the Lord’s Day position are Romans 14.5, Galatians 4.9-11 and Colossians 2.16-17.
The passages speak of special days and Sabbaths. The Jewish calendar was full of them, and each of the three churches written to by Paul was full of believers from a Jewish background (and/or full of Judaizers, as was the case at Colosse and Galatia!). That being the case, Paul’s burden was to warn Christians about losing their liberty in Christ by keeping all of these days and their ceremonies. His target was not the Lord’s Day, but Jewish festival days, themselves a shadow of the gospel, not the reality found in Christ (Colossians 2.17). For the Early Church, as for us, there remains the Sabbath-rest (Hebrews 4.9).
5. The Lord’s Day is a celebration of grace, through rest and worship
My reading of both Testaments leads me to believe that the Lord’s Day is an abiding command and precious gift to the church of Jesus Christ. And, as with many of God’s good gifts, we are commanded to receive it and to honour it. It is the day above all for celebrating God’s good gifts in creation, and for celebrating the gospel, all in anticipation of God’s new creation ushered in by his conquering Son.
Our churches today are full of many overworked people who have precious little time for rest, a number of them being shift workers who can’t be with us on Sundays as much as they would like to be. The Lord’s Day brings up a host of issues to think and talk through, as we seek to set aside the whole day for spiritual and physical refreshment with the Lord’s people. Let’s not be scared to have the discussion about how we encourage each other to get the most out of the day. Above all, Sundays are celebration days. The more we treasure our God and Saviour, the more we want to bring our lives into the rhythms of his grace-filled commands for us.
It was allegedly the Puritan Richard Baxter who said ‘make your Sabbaths your footsteps to heaven.’ He’s right. Spend your Sundays well. Give the whole day to pursuing God, as you come before him on your own, as you enjoy God’s Word with your spiritual family, and celebrate the Gospel in your worship and fellowship.
Do all you can to put aside work. Then you’ll experience that taste of what all the world’s seeking in vain to find: a little bit of heaven on earth.
