Christ on the Sabbath

Opening Prayer and Introduction to the Sermon Series

0:00 Our Father, as we bow in your presence at the beginning of this Lord's Day, we do come before you and acknowledge that you are the only one and true living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That you are the one who has made us, and you are the one who sustains us, and it's because of your grace that, once again, we are found on your day, gathered with your people. And we want to praise you, and we want to honor you in everything that we do today, everything that we say, and we do ask that you would have mercy upon us and not deal with us according to our sins, which are more than the hairs of our head. But we do come to you, our great God, in the name of your Son, and in dependence upon him and his finished and completed work, we thank you that you have given to us a Savior, who is our Advocate, but before the Father, even Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who has made propitiation for our sins. We do pray that for his sake, you would pardon all of our iniquities, that you would draw near to us, that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us. We pray, especially in our Sunday school hour, that you will help us to begin to focus upon your Word, and that you would grant understanding and light and heat.

1:28 We pray also for all the other classes, that you will bless the teachers as they seek to instruct the children, and that you will give understanding. We also want to pray for those people in the world, in Japan especially, who are suffering tremendously. When we see such catastrophic events, we are reminded of your power, and we are reminded that of both your severity and your goodness. We recognize, Lord, that the real question that we should ask in such situations is not how could this happen, but why did it not happen to us? Because we recognize that if we receive from your hand what we deserve, that we would even receive much worse. And yet we are moved with concern for these people, and we pray that you would have mercy upon them, that in your wrath you would remember mercy. And we pray that, that you would work through this situation to awaken many people in Japan to the realization of the frailty of life and the need to be prepared for eternity.

2:46 And we pray that your gospel will find avenues of communication and that there will be those in Japan who will turn to you. And now again, we pray you would help us as we seek to open up your Word. We ask it again. And in Christ's name, Amen.

3:05 All right. All right. We pick up again today in our study. These are the areas we've covered so far, and we've kind of gotten bogged down in this area.

3:24 We've spent quite a bit of time on it. The church's ethics, the commitment to the abiding authority of the moral law as a rule of life for the believer. And we first dealt with the whole question of the abiding authority of the Ten Commandments for Christians and opened up in detail these five arguments. And I'll go back over all of them again.

3:42 We spent several weeks on these. And now we're kind of doing a case study, as it were. We're addressing the whole subject of the Fourth Commandment, which, as we know, tends to be the most controversial of the Ten Commandments. And so that's where we pick up again today.

Outline for the Study of the Sabbath and Review of Previous Arguments

3:57 And here's the broad outline that I'm seeking to follow. First, setting forth a biblical basis for the perpetuity or continuance of the Sabbath. And then we're going to consider the biblical basis for the change of the Sabbath, the Sunday, the Lord's Day, under the New Covenant. And then I hope to address the whole question of the proper and balanced observance of the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath.

4:21 And in the last two lessons, we made it part of the way through the first division, the biblical basis for the continuance of the Sabbath. We covered the first two arguments. First of all, that the Sabbath was instituted at creation. And it was demonstrated by careful consideration of the Genesis account, from...

4:41 the setting forth of the Sabbath law as it is in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. And then also from the words of Christ himself, that the Sabbath was instituted at creation. It is a creation ordinance, like the creation ordinances of marriage and labor and procreation. And we saw that ordinarily whatever...

5:01 we saw that whatever God has ordained at creation applies to man as man, not merely to Israel. And that ordinarily whatever is creational, but is perpetual. And then last time, we considered the second argument,

5:17 that the Sabbath is concluded in the Ten Commandments. And we saw that this in itself establishes that it's more than a temporary ceremonial law and more than just a covenant sign. But we saw that it is a covenant sign, both in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But more than that, it is part of the moral law of God that is summarized in the Ten Commandments, the authority of which, as we saw in the previous studies, continues.

Argument 3: Sabbath Continuance Predicted by the Prophets (Isaiah 58)

5:41 So these are the first two arguments for the continuance of the Sabbath. And now this morning, we're going to press on to consider two more arguments for the continuance of the Fourth Commandment. And so that's where we're going. We'll come now to the third argument, which is the first argument in the lesson this morning.

6:03 And it's this. I don't know what it did that for. Okay.

6:10 The continuance of the Sabbath under the New Covenant was predicted by the prophets. And if you have your Bibles, you want to turn over to Isaiah.

6:20 You probably won't have to turn because we're going to be kind of skimming some other passages in Isaiah, even though I have this one up on the board. Isaiah 58, or on the screen, excuse me, 58, 13.

6:39 If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken this. Now, my purpose right now is not to give a detailed exposition of this text or to try to explain what is meant by not doing your own pleasure or not speaking your own words, or not speaking your own words on my holy day. I do think there's often confusion about what he's talking about there. I hope to come back to that later when we look into the proper balanced observance of the Lord today. But right now, I simply want to point out that here we have certain promises that are made to those who keep the Sabbath. Verse 14, there's the promise of delightful communion with the Lord.

7:42 Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. There's the promise of victory over our enemies. I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth. And that's a language of victory that's borrowed from Deuteronomy 32 and 33.

7:56 And then there's the promise of the practical enjoyment of the benefits of salvation. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. Now, obviously all of these promises are given in Old Covenant poetic language. But do these promises only apply to the Old Covenant?

8:13 Do they apply to us today? The promise of delightful communion with God, victory over our enemies, the enemies of our souls, and of the church, the practical enjoyment of spiritual benefits. Well, some might read this passage and say, well, this passage only applies to Old Covenant Israel.

8:34 God gave these promises to Israel as his Old Testament people, and they have no application to us today. It's interesting that we don't use that line of reasoning with many other wonderful promises that we find in the Old Testament. And we shouldn't use it here. We especially shouldn't use, we shouldn't use it here.

8:54 Why?

Context of Isaiah's Prophecy: New Covenant and Gentile Inclusion (Isaiah 54, 56)

8:57 Because if you consider the overall context in which these promises are given to us in Isaiah's prophecy, you will find that this comes to us in a section of the book of Isaiah where the very focus of the prophet is mainly upon the days of the New Covenant, the times of the Messiah, the days that we're living in now. It's a section in which he often refers to Christ and the blessings that would come, to God's people through him. For example, in this section, going back to the latter part of chapter 52 and then Isaiah 53, you'll remember that well-known passage that describes the sufferings and the atoning work of the Messiah. Then after describing the sin-bearing atonement that Christ would make for sin in Isaiah 53, in chapter 54, he begins to speak of the church's worldwide, worldwide, outreach, the missionary expansion of the church. You'll notice how chapter 54 begins. Sing, O barren, you who have not borne. Bring forth into singing and cry loud.

10:06 You who have not labored with child, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Do not spare. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

10:21 And as you go on through the reading, he begins to talk about, in this section of Isaiah, the Gentiles being brought in to the people of God. And then when you come to chapter 56, the prophet describes the salvation of the Gentiles in the times of the gospel under the new covenant. And at the beginning of the chapter, chapter 58, notice how he relates the Sabbath to the new covenant people.

10:54 Picking up with verse 2.

10:57 Blessed is the man, who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Do not let the son of the foreigner, speaking of the Gentile, who has joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, the Lord has utterly separated me from his people, nor let the eunuch say, here I am a dry tree. For thus the Lord says to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant, even to them I will give in my house, and within my walls, a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

11:40 Now, this is this is very important. God is pronouncing blessing on those who in those days, that is, these days would keep the Sabbath and further confirmation that he's referring to the new covenant is what he says here about eunuchs in the Mosaic law, the ceremonial law. According to Deuteronomy 23, one units were forbidden to come into the congregation of the Lord. But here the prophet is anticipating the coming of Christ, the bringing in of the new covenant.

12:14 And during these gospel times, even the eunuch would have a place in God's house and the eunuch will be blessed. He keeps the Sabbath.

12:24 Of course, initial fulfillment of that is when Philip preached to the Ethiopian eunuch. And you remember, he was converted. And that's the beginning of the fulfillment of the very thing being talked about here in Isaiah, at least in part. But my point is that when speaking of blessings to come under the gospel, the prophet relates Sabbath keeping to the days of the new covenant.

12:48 The continuance of the Sabbath was assumed and promises are made in the prophets to those who keep the Sabbath in these days. So there are these indications in the prophet Isaiah that there will be a Sabbath under the new covenant. So we've seen this. The Sabbath was instituted creation included in the Ten Commandments.

Argument 4: Sabbath Upheld by Christ During His Earthly Ministry – Introduction to Gospels

13:07 Its continuous was predicted by the prophets now notice fourthly that the Sabbath was upheld by Christ during his earthly ministry. Now, let's all turn over to Matthew, chapter twelve, Matthew, chapter twelve. Now, before we look at Jesus relationship to the Sabbath in the gospels versus an introduction, let me let me just say something about the gospel records themselves. Why were the gospel records written and handed down to the church in our Bibles? It's a simple question that we need to be reminded of this. Why were the gospel? Why are the gospel records in our Bibles?

13:59 We'll consider consider the following facts. First of all, each of the gospels was compiled not right immediately when these events happened, which would have been prior to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection and Pentecost. Now, these gospel records were compiled. Many years after Pentecost and the inauguration of the new covenant.

14:21 So these things were not written for the Jews. Okay, these were written for the church. Secondly, each was written for the church and those the church was seeking to evangelize at that time. And thirdly, each was written by an inspired theologian evangelist of the church in order to instruct the church and those it was evangelizing.

14:54 And, four, each of the gospel gospels records what should it be? A what there was, in fact, the apostolic preaching of the gospel of Christ as it was authoritatively communicated by the apostles and their associates. Okay, now the obvious implication of this is that the teaching that we find in the gospels applies to the church and is for the church. Now, it shouldn't even have to emphasize that.

15:27 But I do, because it's so important keeping that in mind. It's quite astounding the amount of material in the gospels concerning the Sabbath. Let me just list for you passages to give you a feel for how many there are in the gospels that have reference to the Sabbath and Matthew, the passage we're looking at. And then I've listed passages in Mark and Luke.

15:51 And you may remember that Luke is primarily in his gospel writing to Gentiles. And, John, John's gospel, all of these references to the Sabbath and comments on the Sabbath. So my point is that there's a massive amount of material referring to the Sabbath in the gospels, gospels written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the instruction of the Christian church. But now what is the major emphasis of the gospels when it comes to Christ and the Sabbath?

Christ's Perfect Sabbath Keeping and Distinction from Pharisaic Tradition

16:27 Well, there are two things that I want us to see. First, that Jesus Christ himself kept the Sabbath perfectly. Secondly, that Jesus distinguished true Sabbath observance from the bondage of Pharisaic tradition. So first of all, the Lord Jesus kept the Sabbath perfectly.

16:48 And here's several passages that make it clear that Jesus observed the Sabbath. Now, there are those who have assumed that Jesus rejected the fourth commandment on the basis of his encounters with the Pharisees. They've drawn the. False conclusion that Jesus rejected the Sabbath theologically and deliberately violated it practically.

17:12 But not only is that not true, if it were true, then we don't have a sinless savior. And really, that whole idea strikes at the very heart of the gospel itself. For remember, the teaching of the New Testament is that Christ was born under the law that is under obligation to the law. Galatians four, four.

17:33 And it teaches us that as our. Representative, he kept the law of God perfectly his entire earthly life. And it's that perfect obedience of Christ that is credited to our account when we believe upon him and we trust in him and justification. So people need to realize that what they're actually saying when they argue that Christ rejected the Sabbath or broke the Sabbath during his earthly ministry, that amounts to nothing less than a denial of the sinlessness of Christ, which in turn amounts to a denial of.

18:04 The gospel itself. I'm not saying that they are denying the sinlessness of Christ or the gospel itself, but I'm saying that in effect, that's the logical conclusion of that kind of reasoning. But at this point, someone might object. But Pastor, what about those controversies that Jesus had with the Jewish leaders over the Sabbath?

18:25 What was going on there? Well, here's the second point of emphasis in the Gospels. Jesus distinguished true Sabbath observance from the traditions of the Pharisees. The Pharisees.

18:36 Now it is true that Jesus was accused of failing to observe the Sabbath by the Pharisees. But now for what supposed violations of the Sabbath was he accused? Well, when we compile the examples given in the Gospels, this is what we find basically three things. He was condemned for healing on the Sabbath.

19:03 He was condemned for commanding a man to pick up his mat and carry it home after being healed on the Sabbath. And he was condemned for permitting his disciples to pick, husk and eat grain as they walk through the fields on the Sabbath. So these were the supposed violations of the Sabbath for which Jesus was attacked by the Pharisees. Now I would ask anyone acquainted with the Old Testament, were those things really violations of the Sabbath?

19:32 No, they were ludicrous, ridiculous, Pharisaic traditions. Someone has made the comment, if these charges were the worst the Pharisees could do, then what an impeccable Sabbath keeper Jesus must have been. Surely, if the scrupulous Pharisees could do no better than this with all their eagle eyed observance of Jesus, then Jesus Sabbath keeping must have been exemplary. Now, this distorted way of applying the Sabbath was characteristic of the Jews of that time.

20:05 Alfred Adersheim in his really famous monumental study of the life and times of Jesus, the Messiah, says this of the Pharisees in the time of Christ, quoting him. They provided for every possible and impossible case. They entered into every detail, a private family and public life and with iron logic, unbending rigor, and the most minute analysis they pursued and dominated man laying on him a yoke, which was truly unbearable and nowhere was this more true than in the manmade rules and regulations that were invented by the Jewish lawyers with reference to the Sabbath. Well, to the Sabbath. Let me give you some examples. For example, a limit was set on how far you could travel on the Sabbath day. Two thousand cubits from home, but no further. But it was possible to overcome this restriction. The night before the Sabbath, you could take some food and set it out two thousand cubits away from home. And when you arrived at that spot, you could say, this is my

21:08 new home because there is a meal all ready for me. And from there, you could travel a further two thousand cubits. And this rule got even more and more complicated. If in some way you linked buildings together with a piece of rope or a beam, then you could claim your neighbor's home to be linked with your own, thus making the two one. And in that way, it was possible to travel all the way down the street before you actually started your two thousand cubits. Some other examples. You could ride your donkey on the Sabbath day, providing you saddle him the day before. The way you dress was carefully controlled on the Sabbath as well, especially if you were a woman. Women were not allowed to wear any pin or jewelry on the Sabbath because if they took it off to show a friend, they would be carrying a burden on the Sabbath. If you cut your finger, you could always put a little piece of cloth around it to stem the bleeding. But if you suspected that by doing this, you would help the healing process, that would be breaking the Sabbath. Some of the rules were even more ridiculous than those. Those are pretty ridiculous.

22:18 But for example, you were allowed to dip a radish in salt, but you could not leave it in the salt too long or you might be pickling it. And that was work on the Sabbath. If you found some dirt on your dress, you could brush it off, but you couldn't rub it. You could throw something in the air and catch it with the same hand. But if you caught it with the other hand, that was considered work. If you were moving hay for the animals, you must use a different hand than the one you normally use. So if you're right-handed on the Sabbath, you had to use your left hand to move the hay. Now listen to this one. If a hen that was being fattened, its purpose was to be fattened for the table. If such a hen laid an egg, that egg could be eaten since egg laying was not the hen's daily work. The purpose of that hen was to be fried chicken, one might say. However, if an egg-laying hen, a hen that you had for the purpose of laying a hen, was to be fried chicken, one might say.

23:20 If that hen was normally used to gather eggs from, if an egg-laying hen laid an egg on the Sabbath, she was working, and that egg could not be eaten. So that's the kind of context that Jesus was living in. The Pharisees had all these man-made rules and regulations, and they were not teaching the people why the Sabbath was given in the first place. And by this perverse legalism, they had made what was intended to be a blessing for man, a tremendous blessing for man.

23:53 And they were not teaching the people why the Sabbath was given in the first place. And by this perverse legalism, they had made what was intended to be a blessing for man, a tremendous burden. Well, with that background now, let's look a few moments at this passage in Matthew 12. And here we have a classic example of Jesus' encounters with the Pharisees about this.

Exposition of Matthew 12:1-14 – Jesus' Arguments Against the Pharisees

24:06 Listen as I read, beginning in verse 1, down to verse 14.

24:12 And at the time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. But he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. But if you had known what this means, I

24:59 desire mercy and not sacrifice. But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Now, when he had departed from there, he went into their synagogue, and behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, that they might accuse him? Then he said to them, What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value, then, is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And he said to them, What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath? Then he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. So here's the situation. The Pharisees were accusing Jesus of breaking the Sabbath because he permitted his disciples to pick and to eat grain as they walked through the fields, and because he healed the man on the Sabbath. And let me just point out that plucking some ears of corn from a neighbor's field and eating a little for refreshment was allowed, according to Deuteronomy 23, 25. So the disciples were not stealing here. Again, what they are being accused of is breaking the Sabbath. Now,

26:11 the argument has been made from this passage by those who oppose the continuance of the Fourth Commandment was that what Christ is doing here is he's nullifying the necessity of keeping the Sabbath, or at least he's introducing a new, freer, more lenient, more faithful, more faithful law. But that is not what Christ is doing here. He is not excusing the disciples for violating the Sabbath. He is asserting that they had not violated the Sabbath, and he's correcting the false legalistic notions of the Pharisees as to how the Sabbath is to be kept. Let's notice briefly our Lord's arguments. He points out that the Pharisees' interpretation of proper Sabbath observance in general and their accusation of Jesus' in particular were wrong for the following reasons. First of all, their interpretation contradicted biblical precedent. And here he argues on the basis of several Old Testament examples. In verses 3 to 4, he uses the example of David eating the showbread to appease his hunger

27:24 when he was fleeing from Saul. And here was an example of physical necessity. In verse 5, he uses the example of the priests performing their priestly labors on the Sabbath. And here again, we have a work of necessity and also a work of piety. Now, some point out that Jesus puts it this way. He speaks of David in verse 4, entering the house and eating the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat. And he said to the priests in verse 5, have you not read how in the temple they profane the Sabbath and are blameless? And they say, see, it was not lawful for David to do that, but Jesus says it's okay.

28:05 Well, the priests did profane the Sabbath. But Jesus says it's okay. But no, Jesus is putting it that way for the sake of argument. In other words, what he's doing, he's saying that according to the way you Pharisees interpret the Sabbath, David did something unlawful when he ate the showbread. And the priests profane the Sabbath every Sabbath. He's using sanctified sarcasm. He's accommodating his language to their point of view to make a point. He's showing where their point of view ultimately leads them.

28:38 According to the way you interpret the Sabbath, David broke the Sabbath when he did that. The priests break the Sabbath every single Sabbath. And he's showing that works of necessity and piety are not forbidden. Secondly, Jesus points out that the Pharisees had missed who he is. Verse 6. Yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple. And the point seems to be if the priest and their devotion.

29:08 To the temple exert great effort on the Sabbath certainly does not wrong for my disciples to exert great effort on the Sabbath and their devotion to me. The second nest necessitating the picking of some grain and eating it along the way, because I stand here before you as one who is greater than the temple.

29:31 Thirdly, verse seven, Jesus implies that being merciful is the spirit that ought to underlie our Sabbath keeping.

29:43 Which is. Going to go on to give a vivid illustration of in a moment when he heals the man with a withered hand as an object lesson in Mark's account, we find that he also added at this point the statement that the Sabbath, the second we looked at a few weeks ago, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was given to mankind to be a blessing. It was given for the sake of his well-being, the implication being, therefore, that to neglect that which is necessary to your own.

30:15 Or another's well-being out of the pretense of keeping the Sabbath is a perversion of the Sabbath. It's a misuse of the Sabbath. It's a misinterpretation of the Sabbath. Fourthly, in verse eight, Jesus underscores that he is the Lord of the Sabbath, thereby, in effect, reminding them that this law is my law.

30:38 And therefore, it's enough that I've declared my disciples guiltless. Had the disciples violated my law, I could have seen to my own right and honor without the help of. You hypocritical Pharisees, fifthly, in verses nine to 13, Jesus gives a vivid illustration of the fact that just as works of necessity and piety are fitting for the Sabbath works of mercy, I didn't finish that sentence, should go on to say works of mercy are not forbidden either. He deliberately he's there.

31:14 This this man with a withered hand is there. The Pharisees are watching him. They ask him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And he deliberately.

31:20 Deliberately heals this man on the Sabbath, knowing that it would make the Pharisees angry. And he does it partly as an object lesson to make it clear that works of mercy are not forbidden on the Sabbath. And then sixly, something else he does there is he points out how the Pharisees applications of the Sabbath contradicted their own practice. Verse 11.

31:50 What man is there among you?

31:53 If you're who has. One sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out of how much more value than is a man than a sheep. Therefore, it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath. He points out their hypocrisy here when it was in their own self-interest.

32:11 They themselves contradicted their own principles of Sabbath observance. So I trust we see, brothers and sisters, that Jesus is not rejecting the Sabbath.

32:24 Neither did he or his disciples violate the Sabbath here. And if there's still any doubt about that, look at what he says at the end of verse seven.

32:34 If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. You would not have condemned the guiltless. He explicitly declares that he and his disciples were guiltless of violating the Sabbath. And if the Pharisees had really understood the Sabbath, they wouldn't have condemned him.

32:55 So he's not rejecting the Sabbath or violating the Sabbath. He is correcting the fall. Perverse, unbiblical strictures of the Pharisees. So this is the emphasis that we find in the Gospels when it comes to Christ and the Sabbath.

Sabbath Clarification Consistent with Christ's Teaching on Other Commands

33:10 This is the emphasis of those gospel accounts, remember, written under the inspiration of the Spirit for the instruction of the Christian church. Two things. Jesus kept the Sabbath and Jesus liberated the Sabbath from his Pharisaic misinterpretations and oppressive, unbiblical strictures. Now, that's the same thing Jesus does with other commands of the law in his teaching, isn't it?

33:36 Same thing. It's no different than what he does in the Sermon on the Mount. We see that, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount as he underscores the proper interpretation and application of thou shalt not commit adultery and thou shalt not murder and so on over against the misinterpretations and shallow applications of the scribes and Pharisees. We see it on the occasion when he corrects the Pharisees.

33:59 They're nullifying of the command to honor their parents. Parents by their tradition. And in all of those instances, he was not abolishing the moral law. He was correcting the false, heartless, externalistic interpretations of the Pharisees with the Sabbath.

34:17 As with the rest of the moral law, our Lord's emphasis was upon recovering the divine intention of those commands.

The Abiding Nature of the Sabbath Principle in the Gospels

34:29 Now, certainly this emphasis of the gospel Gospels points. To the abiding nature of the Sabbath principle. Ask yourself two questions. I think it will help you to see this.

34:42 First question.

34:48 What is missing in the Gospels with reference to the Sabbath? That's the first question. There are at least two things that are definitely missing. One, there's absolutely no prediction or prophecy of the abolition of the Sabbath principle in the Gospels.

35:08 Nowhere. Secondly, there's actually no example of Jesus violating, annulling, or depreciating the Sabbath in the Gospels. The second question. What is present in the Gospels?

35:26 The fact that Jesus kept the Sabbath.

35:30 Our Lord's teaching concerning the benefit of the Sabbath and its purposes for mankind.

35:39 Sabbath is made for man to be a blessing for man. And thirdly, our Lord's extensive clarification. Of proper Sabbath observance over against the distortions of the Pharisees. That's what you find in the Gospels.

35:56 Now, on the face of this emphasis in the Gospels, at the very least, I think it is extremely difficult to see how anyone can argue that Sabbath keeping is irrelevant to the church. The Gospels were written for the church by the inspired theologians of the church. Recording the apostolic preaching of the church. For the instruction of the church.

36:21 So why then bother to record in such detail Christ's teaching about the proper observance of the Sabbath if there is no Sabbath for the church? If Sabbath keeping has nothing to do with the church. I don't see why we would have all this teaching. Wouldn't make any sense.

36:40 Wouldn't have any purpose. Listen to these comments from a book by Beckwith and Stott entitled The Christian Sunday. They make this same point. But if Jesus.

36:50 Part of the Sabbath is purely ceremonial and purely temporary. It is remarkable that he gives so much attention to it in his teaching. And also that in all he teaches, he never mentions his temporary character. This is even more remarkable when one remembers that he emphasizes the temporary character of other parts of the Old Testament ceremonial law.

37:09 By contrast, he seems to speak in Mark 227, which is a parallel passage to the Matthew passage of the Sabbath as one of the unchanging ordinances for all man. This is even more remarkable when one remembers that he emphasizes the temporary character of other parts of the Old Testament ceremonial law. By contrast, he seems to speak in Mark 227, which is a parallel passage to the Matthew passage of the Sabbath as one of the unchanging ordinances for all man. It was given for man.

37:22 Wasn't just given, remember we saw a few weeks ago, for Israel. It was given for mankind. He's referring back to the original creation ordinance. So what are the arguments that we've seen thus far for the continuance of the Sabbath?

Summary of Arguments and Future Topics

37:36 It was instituted at creation. It's a creation ordinance. It's included in the Ten Commandments. Its continuance was predicted by the prophets.

37:46 It was upheld by Christ during his earthly ministry. Now, there's just one thing. There's just one more nail to drive, and God willing, we'll come back to it and we'll see that a continued Sabbath is indicated in the New Testament epistles and in the early church.

38:03 God willing, we'll be seeking to do that as we come back next week to consider the whole question of the change of the Sabbath to Sunday, the Lord's Day, under the new covenant. But there's a glare on that back there. I can't see it. Wait a minute.

Q&A: Distinguishing Moral and Positive Law in Sabbath Observance

38:21 Okay, we still have. We have a couple of minutes, a few minutes anyhow. Are there any questions before we break off? Yes.

38:27 Comments.

38:35 Mm-hmm. We were checking in on the Jewish Sabbath. We were on the 22nd floor. We were just about to get into this elevator, this hotel elevator.

38:58 And somebody from our party ran over and said, don't get in that elevator. It's a Sabbath elevator. We had no idea what they were talking about. Well, this elevator operates automatically on Saturday.

39:08 It stops at every single floor automatically so that the Orthodox don't have to push. They don't have to push any of the buttons on the elevator because that would be work on the Sabbath. So it still is a new place in the spirit that you spoke of that Christ condemned, not by us, though, but by others. Well, let me ask you this.

39:28 Are you 100% sure that it's not being applied in any way that's pharisaical by us, if you mean by us, the Christian church? Are you absolutely sure of that? I know what you're saying, but I'm just trying to. But make us think a little bit.

39:49 I was thinking when we get to the whole question of the proper balance observance of the Lord's Day, we may find out. I don't know. There may some of us find out that we've had some legalistic ideas about the Sabbath that aren't really true to Scripture. We may not.

40:31 We may. So we'll see. We'll see when we get to that. But I agree with you that in general, that's our understanding of the Sabbath.

40:41 If we mean by that what our confession teaches and what we have understood as churches is not the same as the Pharisees and what you see in Orthodox Judaism, which is very legalistic. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to distinguish between the moral aspects of the Sabbath versus the positive aspects.

41:04 The moral aspects, of course, because they pertain to us as creatures and God as creator, they're still in force because we're still creatures. I mean, we don't cease to be creatures before God just because Israel's not around. And we still ought to worship God. We ought to rest, et cetera, et cetera.

41:25 But then it also is important to keep in mind that there's positive aspects of the Sabbath, like the day itself has changed. It's positive. And the civil sanctions in the Old Testament, which seems so severe, are no longer in force because they're additional. They're not built into the moral nature of the Sabbath.

41:46 And thus, and that clears up all the potential problems people might have. Yeah. Well, we talked about that last week. Some, you know, we talked about the Sabbath as covenant sign and the Sabbath as moral law.

41:59 And as covenant sign, we saw that there were attachments. There were attachments to the Sabbath under Moses as a covenant sign. Some of the ceremonial regulations, the civil sanctions, special Sabbath feast days and so forth. And that's what he's meaning by positive.

42:17 Do you know what he means by positive law? Does anybody know what Tom means by that? Why don't you explain? Well, a positive law commands, but it doesn't necessarily pertain to us as creatures and as him as creator.

42:34 And therefore, it can change. An instance of this is circumcision. Circumcision is positive in its nature. It applied.

42:42 God did not command men to be circumcised from the creation. He commanded Abraham and his descendants to be circumcised. Yeah. It doesn't have to do.

42:51 It's not something that's integral to being a human being or a male. Right. It's not part. Males can be uncircumcised and they're not less human because of it.

42:59 Yeah. It's not part of permanent human relationships or God were relationships. It's not part of the law that should in our heart. It's not something that we would know unless God specifically revealed it.

43:12 Perfect. One great example of a positive law is not eating of the tree in the garden. There was nothing inherently evil with eating the tree in the garden other than that. God said you're not to do it, but it was a positive law.

43:25 But a natural law or what we sometimes call a moral law is something that is inherent in our very being as creatures who are accountable to God and to one another. And that's what you're talking about. It's good. Yeah.

43:45 Mm hmm.

44:00 Yeah. I haven't ever. I haven't. I have a hard time with that, too, because if someone that's one of the arguments that a certain school of thought uses that the Sabbath is not repeated in the New Testament.

44:11 It's actually talked about quite a bit in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, particularly in the Gospels.

44:20 Yeah. Well, our time is gone and appreciate the interaction. Sorry, we didn't have a little more time to take questions, but we'll pause. Again, down the road for questions, comments.

44:32 All right. Chuck, would you close this in prayer?