The Sabbath Created #2

Introduction: The Christian Sabbath and its Origin

0:07 The following message was preached Sunday, May 17, 1998, to Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church at Sea-Tac, Washington. The speaker is Pastor Robert Martin. This message is the second in a series of 24 titled, The Christian Sabbath.

0:27 Now please turn with me in your Bibles to the second chapter of the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 2. This morning, in response to expressions of desire that we have some teaching on the Lord's Day, we have begun a series on the Christian Sabbath. We are interested in answering the question, what does God require of us under the new covenant established by our Lord Jesus Christ on the subject of the Sabbath?

1:07 Is there a Christian Sabbath that we ought to observe as a matter of conscience before God?

1:17 We began by considering our Lord's opinion.

1:22 We found in Mark chapter 2 that our Lord said that the Sabbath was made for man.

1:29 He spoke of the Sabbath as an institution established or made or created, and He spoke of it as made for the benefit of man. We saw that in that text He does not tell us who established it or when it was established, but He does tell us that at a point in history, a Sabbath institution, not previously existing, was established, and established for the benefit of mankind.

2:03 The who, of course, is Jehovah the living God.

2:08 The when, however, was not at Mount Sinai, but rather at creation on the seventh day of creation.

2:18 I tried to press upon you the importance of beginning where our Lord Jesus Christ begins. That if we begin at Sinai with the giving of the fourth commandment, as part of the law engraved upon tablets of stone, we have not gone far enough back in history.

2:39 If we start with the giving of the law at Sinai,

2:44 indeed we will run the risk of thinking of the Sabbath day and thinking of Sabbath keeping as a duty binding on the Jews, but not upon us.

2:54 Or binding under the old covenant, but not abiding beyond the old covenant into the new, and certainly not binding upon us. As Christians under the new covenant.

3:09 We saw that it is necessary that our thinking begins where Jesus' thinking began.

3:15 And that is with God's establishment of the Sabbath at creation.

3:22 And the text which brings this into focus for us is Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3.

3:29 Here we read, And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work, which He had made, and He rested or Sabbathed on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed or sanctified it, that is, made it holy, because that in it He Sabbathed or He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

4:03 In this verse we find that reference which Jesus has in mind when He said the Sabbath was made for man.

4:12 And in opening up these verses this morning, we saw three things.

4:18 We saw first from this text that God created the Sabbath to be a special holy day different from the other days of the week. A day belonging to Him to be used in a special way.

4:37 We saw second that it is clear from this text that God created the Sabbath to be a day of rest. And we saw third, it is clear from this passage that the Sabbath day is a blessed day, a day blessed of the Lord.

The Perpetuity of the Sabbath from Creation

4:57 Now tonight, I want us to take up three lines of application or three lines by way of conclusion in terms of our consideration of this portion of the Word of God. When we come back next time, we'll begin to look, to ask the question, is there any evidence in the Bible? That the Sabbath was recognized and practiced before Sinai. Anything other than these first three verses of Genesis 2.

5:32 But before leaving this passage tonight, this foundational, this basic passage, I want to suggest to you three, I hope, profitable lines of thought. First of all, as we come away from the Genesis account of the creation of the Sabbath day, I believe that, we ought to recognize that this text, Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3, this text by itself, is a powerful argument for the perpetuity and the abiding validity of the Sabbath.

6:14 Before we leave this text, make our way through the rest of the Pentateuch to the law of God and then on to the new covenant. I think we need to acknowledge that if we had no Scripture, beyond this point, that this text by itself, of itself, is a powerful argument for the perpetuity, that is, the continuing validity, the abiding validity, of the Sabbath day as an obligation upon mankind.

6:45 In his commentary on the passage, Lange says, if we had no other passage than this, there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept, for the universal observance of a Sabbath or seventh day to be devoted to God as holy time by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared. He says a seventh part of time is holy for man. God blessed it and hallowed it. Such, he says, is the deduction, that is, the logical deduction from the language of Genesis 2 and verse 3.

7:29 Before there ever was an Israel,

7:35 before there ever was a Moses,

7:39 before there ever were tablets of stone engraved by the finger of God at Mount Sinai, from the very beginning, from the seventh day of God's creative work, from the beginning, the Sabbath day existed by the blessing and the hallowing or the sanctifying work of God. And like that, like marriage and labor,

8:07 other institutions which rest on a foundation established at creation, we ought to presume the perpetuity of the Sabbath as long as the earth remains.

8:22 When we consider the perpetuity of the marriage institution, where does the Scripture take us? The Scripture takes us to the opening chapters of Genesis.

8:34 When we consider the perpetuity of labor, where does the Scripture take us? Where does the Scripture direct us? It directs us to the opening chapters of Genesis.

8:45 Like marriage, like labor, institutions that rest on a foundation that God laid at the very creation of the heavens and the earth, so the Sabbath rests on that foundation, on the institution of God. And that being so, seeing that it is grounded there and not Sinai, we ought to presume, we ought to think in favor of the continuing, abiding validity of the Sabbath day as long as the earth remains.

9:24 As we shall see in future studies, the Sabbath was known and observed prior to Sinai. We shall see that at Sinai, God called Israel to remember the Sabbath day as He had created it to be. That is to remember it as a holy day. A holy day.

9:45 Remember, He says, the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And He embodied this duty in written form then in the fourth commandment. And in that way, it became part of the law of Moses that regulated the life of the children of Israel under the old covenant. But it was placed in the law of God as a previously existing ordinance at Christ's first coming, at the time of His establishing of the new covenant.

10:16 He who called Himself the Lord of the Sabbath protested the Pharisees' legalistic over-regulation of the Sabbath, which did not allow even for works of necessity or mercy, but He did not abrogate the Sabbath. He did not remove the Sabbath. He did not replace the Sabbath. He did not cancel the Sabbath.

10:43 After His resurrection, we know that Jesus met with His assembled disciples. On the first day of the week. And the early church also seems to have adopted this pattern for its Sabbath observance, calling the first day of the week the Lord's Day.

11:04 It seems that the perpetual nature of the Sabbath is clear. From the fact that the Sabbath was established at creation, there is much to be learned, there is much to be seen in all that has taken place, all the revelation that has been given since the revelation of Genesis 2, verses 1-3. But this text by itself is sufficient to teach us of the abiding validity of the day. The Sabbath did not begin, it did not begin with the old covenant given at Sinai.

11:39 And it did not end with the replacement of the old covenant by the new covenant.

11:47 We ought to have a prejudice in this matter. And our prejudice ought to be that it is our duty to keep Sabbath every seven days.

11:59 There ought to be a prejudice based on the foundation of this institution at creation. And as we now live under the new covenant, as we now order our lives according to apostolic instruction and example, then I believe we rightly keep Sabbath on the first day of the week. We'll come to this all in turn.

12:21 But unless there is clear proof that God has revoked the Sabbath, that He has revoked what He established at creation, unless there is clear proof that God has revoked the Sabbath as a day blessed and hallowed by Himself, then we ought to assume, we ought to presume, we ought to be prejudiced to believe that it still exists as God's institution, as binding upon this generation and upon ourselves as upon men in every age.

12:57 We ought to have a predisposition to believe that, that an institution established, made at the very foundation of the earth, that it yet abides.

Addressing the 'No Command' Objection: The Law on the Heart

13:12 Now some may and some do object that there is no command given in this text.

13:19 That when we read through Genesis 2, verses 1 through 3, though we read of what God did by His own example, we read of His blessing and sanctifying the seventh day as a day of Sabbath rest, yet it is true, that there is nowhere in these verses an actual command, there is no record that God said to Adam, words to this effect, keep this Sabbath day holy. And I freely admit, I acknowledge that's true. There is no command actually found in these words. Yet that does not mean, brethren, that no knowledge of Sabbath obligation existed.

14:04 The fact that there is no verbal, express command given in this text does not mean that Adam and Eve had no knowledge of an obligation to keep the Sabbath.

14:20 Later in Genesis 4, we read of Cain's murder of Abel. And we read of the judgment of God that came upon Cain because of his sin. Yet there is no record of an express commandment of God prohibiting murder.

14:40 There is nothing that's been said in the opening verses of Genesis 4, in three chapters of Genesis. Thou shalt not murder.

14:48 Nevertheless, Cain knew, Cain understood, he had knowledge of the fact that his act in killing his brother was sin.

14:59 And we know that his conscience was alive to that fact because he tried to cover his act when he was questioned by God.

15:10 He acted with a guilty conscience. There was the recognition by him that what he did was wrong. What he had done was wrong.

15:20 Well, my point is this. Just as no expressed, verbalized command against murder apparently was needed before Cain was obliged to keep the fourth commandment, thou shalt not murder, so no expressed, verbalized command was needed before Adam was obliged to keep the fourth commandment to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

15:49 No, no expressed, verbalized command was needed. Where then did Adam and Cain receive knowledge of God's commandments?

16:03 From what source did they come to have a knowledge of God's moral will for them?

16:10 God may, of course, have given them special verbal revelation, a revelation of His law in the form of commandments that's not recorded in the opening chapters of Genesis. But that argument requires us to exercise pure speculation. There's not a word about it.

16:27 Not a word of anything equivalent to the ten commandments given at Sinai spoken to Adam, spoken to Eve prior to their fall into sin or even after their fall into sin. It would be speculation to say, well, it's not recorded, but He must have said something to them.

16:45 It is not speculation to say that as part of the moral image of God imparted to man at His creation that God wrote His law upon man's heart. It's not speculation to say that. To say that though He did not at that time write His law upon tablets of stone, that He did as part of the image of God write it upon the tablets of flesh. Even in man's present fallen state, the remnants of that law written upon the heart remains.

17:20 That's what Paul teaches us in Romans 2, verses 14 and 15. He says that when the Gentiles, who have not the law, that is the written code, do the things commanded in the law, they show the work of the law written upon their hearts.

17:37 Even unconverted, fallen Gentiles living in this present world have the remnants of that original deposit of the image of God. And as part of the image of God, there is an impress upon the heart of the moral character of God summarized in God's law.

17:57 In that law written upon their hearts, there was a rule to guide the consciences of Adam and Eve and a rule to guide the conscience of Cain. In it, Adam and Eve and their descendants in that law written, impressed, stamped upon their heart, there was there a knowledge of the basic moral commands of God.

18:23 There within, though they had nothing given without, there within the image of God spoke using the voice of God. There within, Adam would have heard the words keep the Sabbath day holy. There within, Cain would have heard the words thou shalt not murder.

Why the Sabbath Command is Not Universally Recognized Today

18:48 Now you may ask, if the fourth commandment,

18:53 keep the Sabbath day holy, if that commandment was written on man's heart at creation as part of the moral image of God, why then does the voice of conscience in most of the world, in most of the world, in most of the world, in most of the world, in most of the world, in most of the world, in most of the world, not now say keep the Sabbath holy?

19:15 Now that's a legitimate question.

19:18 If, as the Bible teaches us, at creation, there was a law stamped upon man's conscience by the moral image of God,

19:30 why then do not most men in our day, does not their conscience say to them, keep the Sabbath day holy?

19:40 Most men's consciences, even those who know nothing of the Christian religion, go to any land, go to any age, go to any set of circumstances, most people's consciences, even those who know nothing about Christianity, have never heard the name of Jesus, have never seen the Bible, most men's consciences show an acute awareness of such commandments as thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness.

20:16 There's not a society hardly to be found in the Holy Spirit in the history of the world that countenance murder, cold-blooded murder.

20:26 Lying has never been an activity regarded as right in any society. Feeling is universally condemned.

20:38 Why is that? It's because of the remnants of that law written upon the heart. Most people's consciences, even those who know nothing of Christianity, show an acute awareness of those commandments. Why then isn't the commandment keep the Sabbath holy so universally recognized and remembered?

21:03 Well, I believe there's an answer.

21:06 And I believe the answer is that as with the other commands in the first table of the law, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. And in the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

21:32 As with the other commands in that first table of the law, the fourth commandment is so much intertwined with the recognition and worship of Jehovah, the true and living God that where He is not known or where He has been forgotten, the voice of conscience concerning His day is weak, if not silent.

22:02 That command is so much intertwined as with the other commands as with the other three of the first four commandments, the first table of the law. They are so much intertwined with the knowledge of the true God, so much intertwined with His worship that where He is not known or where He has been forgotten, it is no mystery that men's consciences have little or no remembrance of the commandment.

22:29 In this way, most men's consciences in our day do not say to them, keep the Sabbath holy. Having refused to have God's God in their knowledge, having refused to have Jehovah, the living and true God in their knowledge, having stifled the voice of conscience concerning the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. It is no mystery that their consciences are silent regarding the fourth commandment as well. To remember His day, to keep it holy.

The Sabbath's Resonance in Renewed Consciences: The New Hebrides Example

23:03 And yet, wherever the knowledge of the true God is introduced,

23:08 wherever the knowledge of Jehovah is embraced, unless men stubbornly cling to prejudices against keeping Sabbath, the fourth commandment resonates as true in their renewed consciences.

23:27 John Payton, the famous missionary to the New Hebrides, records in his autobiography the conversion of the cannibals of those islands a hundred years ago.

23:39 The gospel made such a remarkable impression upon those cannibals that when they were converted, though there was nothing in their culture that favored the adoption of distinctive Christian institutions. Indeed, there was much in their culture to prejudice them against doing so.

24:01 Nevertheless, when the gospel came, they eagerly took up certain practices as their obvious duties.

24:12 Previously, they went about naked.

24:16 Payton records that one of the first observed influences of the gospel was that they began to clothe themselves. One and all.

24:26 They adopted the practice of giving God thanks at every meal. And of course, by that time, they had quit eating people.

24:34 But they adopted a practice, a practice unknown in their culture. At every meal, they would give God thanks.

24:44 And in any house where that was not a practice, it was regarded as a heathen house.

24:51 Payton goes on to speak of how one and all, they began to keep the Sabbath holy. He says, a conspicuous feature stood out distinctly and at once, the change as to the Lord's day. Village after village followed in this the example of the mission house. All ordinary occupations ceased.

25:20 Sabbath was spoken of as the day of Jehovah.

25:24 Saturday, the day before, came to be called cooking day, referring to the extra preparations for the coming day of rest and worship. They believed that it was Jehovah's will to keep the first day holy. And the reverse was regarded as a distinctive mark of continuing heathenism.

25:51 Now here's a group of people who could not read. They had no Bible in their language.

25:57 They had no great works, great Puritan works on the subject of the Sabbath and its proper observation.

26:07 When God changed their hearts,

26:12 the Sabbath rang. And true in their consciences.

26:17 It resonated with the truth of the fourth commandment.

The Sabbath's Greater Necessity After the Fall

26:27 It seems to me that the most obvious application or observation, call it what you will, from Genesis 2,

26:38 is that clearly the Sabbath is an institution of abiding validity.

26:46 But now secondly,

26:49 not ought we to recognize from this text by itself, with nothing else, from all the Word of God, a powerful argument for the perpetuity and abiding validity of the Sabbath. But secondly, when we consider the place in history that God established the Sabbath, when we consider more clearly the when,

27:13 we ought to be doubly convinced of its continuing validity. Let me explain to you what I mean.

27:21 Consider that God made the Sabbath for man at a time when Adam had not yet fallen into sin.

27:33 At this point, Adam and Eve have not yet been tempted.

27:39 They have not yet taken of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eaten. They've not yet fallen into sin.

27:49 Adam was just as he had come from the hand of his Creator.

27:55 His soul was pure. His conscience was without blemish. His will was spotless. His affections were undefiled.

28:09 At all times, he enjoyed perfect communion with God his Creator.

28:16 We know also that at this time his labor, and he was engaged in labor for that was one of the ordinances of God, his labor was not toiled.

28:29 It was not filled with anguish and pain so that his body and his mind were not exhausted by his work as ours are by our exertions.

28:43 No disease, no pain, no declining or advancing age slowed his steps.

28:52 In other words, Adam was a perfect man living in a perfect world enjoying perfect fellowship with God.

29:02 And yet, God made the Sabbath for Adam in that world.

29:09 He made the Sabbath for Adam in that world as much as he made it for us in this fallen world.

29:18 Adam was to step aside from his ordinary labors every seven days to keep a holy day of rest.

29:28 And on that Sabbath day, he was to worship and to commune with God in ways not possible on the other six days. On that day, even in the state, the perfect state that he enjoyed, on that day, his soul and his body were to receive rest, rest and refreshment.

29:51 Now, if such a day was needful for Adam before the fall and before the curse, if it was a day of blessing to him, how much more, brethren, is it needful for us and a blessing for us who have sins to confess, whose labors are toiled, whose bodies are declining, whose souls need more communion with God than we can possibly have on the other six days?

30:25 If the Sabbath was a blessing in that world, how much more was it made for man in this world, given our peculiar needs in a fallen and sin-cursed world? God's creation of the Sabbath for a perfect world shows us what a blessed day it is for those of us who live in a fallen world. And it ought to doubly convince us of the day's continuing validity until we are ushered by Christ into our heavenly Sabbath we ought to treasure this day as a blessing of the Lord meant to be a foretaste of that day when we shall enter into His rest.

The Supreme Motive for Sabbath Keeping: Godliness and Imitation of God

31:11 But now in the third place, and with this point I close, this text, with its context, points us to the supreme motive for keeping the Sabbath holy.

31:24 This text, with its larger context, points us to the supreme, or ultimate motive for keeping the Sabbath holy.

31:35 Now, as we're going to learn as we go through other portions of the Scripture, there is, no doubt, great benefit that comes to us from keeping the Sabbath. For example, our bodies are refreshed, our spirits are refreshed by the right keeping of this day. And yet the highest motive for keeping the day is not the benefit that comes to us. The highest motive for keeping the day has reference not to us, though the day was made for us.

32:06 The highest motive has reference to God Himself. Let me explain what I mean.

32:13 Everything that we know about the Sabbath leads our thinking in this direction.

32:20 When God created the Sabbath, He made the day for man, but who was man? Man was His image-bearer.

32:32 Man was made to be the living, visible, accurate representation of the Sabbath. man was His image-bearer. man was His image-bearer. man was His image-bearer.

32:37 man was His image-bearer. man was His image-bearer. man was His image-bearer. man was His image-bearer.

32:38 man was His image-bearer. The character of God. That's who man was made to be.

32:43 And in making man, in giving him the image of God, God enabled man, He gave him the capacity to use the day in a way patterned after God's own Sabbath rest.

32:59 That's part of the image of God. A capacity to use the day rightly. To use it in a way patterned after God. He gave man the capacity to imitate Him.

33:10 And He enabled man to derive from the day blessings like God Himself derived from the day. We'll see when we come to Exodus 31 that we are told that God was refreshed in His keeping of the Sabbath.

33:28 Well, man has been given a capacity to be refreshed in the keeping of the Sabbath like God is refreshed. God enabled man to derive blessing from the day like He Himself derived from it.

33:42 Now, Adam, bore God's image. And in his Sabbath keeping, he was to imitate God like a son imitates his father. And as image bearers of God, you and I are still to do that. That is still to be the supreme motive for keeping Sabbath.

34:05 When we come to the Ten Commandments, there the creation Sabbath is embodied in the fourth commandment. Well, those Ten Commandments are a reflection of God's moral image.

34:17 And under both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, with those Ten Commandments as the standard by which holiness is measured, God says to us, you shall be holy for I am holy. In other words, you are to be like me and I have given you a pattern. I have told you how I want you to act so that you will be like me.

34:45 Everywhere that we turn in the Bible, the great motive for keeping the Sabbath is to be like God. The great concern of Sabbath keeping is not the benefit that comes to us. The great concern is godliness.

35:04 Godlikeness. That's the real issue.

35:09 And if, as God's image bearers, we truly desire to be living, visible, accurate representations of the character of our Creator, if we want to be that before the eyes of a perverse and wicked generation, then we must regard keeping the Sabbath as with the keeping of the other Nine Commandments. We must regard it as our solemn obligation.

35:37 Professor Murray made a statement in his book Principles of Conduct that I think summarizes all I'm trying to say to you under this point. When I first read this statement, I was shocked by it. The more I've considered it, the more sure I am that Professor Murray has not overstated the case. He says we are never more like God.

35:58 And when we keep the Sabbath day,

36:02 we are never more like God. And when we keep the Sabbath day,

36:10 what is the supreme motive for keeping the Sabbath?

36:15 To be like God. To bring Him the honor and the glory that comes from having His character visibly, accurately displayed through our imitation of His own behavior.

36:33 God kept Sabbath. God keeps Sabbath. He calls us to keep His Sabbath commandment in imitation of Himself.

Future Studies and Call to Diligent Scripture Search

36:47 Now in coming weeks, there's much to be done.

36:52 Next time we're going to begin to look. And I want you to read the rest of the book of Genesis.

36:59 Especially the next few chapters. And I want you to ask yourself a simple question. Is there any hint, any indication, anything found in these opening chapters that shows that a knowledge of the Sabbath day was possessed by those who followed after Adam? By his descendants.

37:25 There are a couple of passages that I believe are very clear.

37:31 And then in the book of Exodus, before we ever come to chapter 20 in the giving of the law, I want you to read, if you would, the opening chapters up to chapter 20 in the book of Exodus and ask yourself the question, any sign that the children, that Moses and the children of Israel knew anything about a Sabbath institution before God gave them the law at Sinai?

37:56 And then having considered that, we'll move to the fourth commandment, to the tenth commandment. And see how it's framed. See what is said. See what principles come out of that commandment.

38:06 And then begin to work our way through the rest of the old covenant. Look at those statements. What was there that God further revealed about this day? What is it?

38:19 What is there that resonates true with these opening verses of Genesis 2? What is there that was peculiar to the old covenant and to the children of Israel? And what appears to be of abiding validity for us who live not under the old covenant, but under the new? And then God willing, we'll move from that into the New Testament and look at the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

38:42 Look at the example and the teaching of His apostles.

38:47 And then having laid that groundwork, at that point we'll come back to our opening question and ask, is there a Christian Sabbath? And if so, how are we to observe it? And at that point I hope that whatever lack there is of practical application along the way will be more than satisfied as we begin to probe and begin to ask questions in terms of how should we keep this day? How should we deal with our children in keeping this day?

39:23 What guidelines are there? What principles are there to help us to rightly order our behavior on the Lord's day?

39:34 I want to ask you, keep before you the example of the Bereans.

39:41 Their nobility was in their willingness to receive the Word with all readiness of mind. I'm not going to ask you to be gullible. I'm not going to ask you to swallow what I tell you just because I tell you. You search the Scriptures to see whether these things are so.

39:58 But I ask you to hear me, with an open mind.

40:04 And if it is necessary, brethren,

40:07 to make not only, as I said this morning, an intellectual change, but a moral change,

40:14 I hope, one and all, we are ready to mortify the flesh if that's what is necessary to giving to God His day.

Closing Prayer

40:26 Well, let us pray.

40:31 Father, as we turn again to You at the close of this day, we ask that You would cause Your rich blessing to rest upon us. Lord, please continue to teach us as we go to our homes. We pray, Lord, that You will help us in the night hours that we might meditate upon these things. Lord, we pray that You would teach us how to keep Your law.

40:57 We pray, O Lord, that You would teach us how to keep Your ordinance. We pray, Father, that You would teach us how to honor You on Your day. We thank You for the Sabbath day. We thank You for the blessing that it is.

41:12 We thank You for hallowing it, setting it apart, making it different. We thank You, Lord, for making the Sabbath for man.

41:22 We ask, Lord Jesus, You who are the Lord of the Sabbath, that You will help us by Your grace and by the Spirit to learn how to observe this day in such a way that we escape the errors of the Pharisees and yet maintain Your Word and Your will in our day. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.