Change of the Day - Part 1

Opening Prayer and Introduction to the Sabbath Study

0:00 Good morning, everyone. Good to see you. It's a beautiful Lord's Day. Let's begin our day with prayer.

0:09 Our Father, as we bow before you at the beginning of this Lord's Day, we do come with gratitude and praise as we consider the wonders and the glory of all that you have made. As we look around us and we see the beauty of your creation and we are reminded of your wisdom and your power. We also come today, which is the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, a reminder to us of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and that salvation that was accomplished once and for all through his finished work. And we are reminded of your mercies to us and the great salvation that we have in him. And we pray you would help us today to worship you in spirit and in truth. We pray you would help us right now to lay aside distractions. And to focus upon your word that we might grow in our understanding of the word that we might be built up in the faith and strengthened and that we might not be children tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.

1:21 And we pray that your word would sanctify us and cause us to be strong in the scriptures and well grounded. And we pray that your word would not only shape. Our thinking, but that it would shape the way we feel about you and your word and your world, and that it would also shape and direct the way we walk and the way we live. And we pray you would pardon all of our iniquities, that you would forgive us of our many sins for Christ's sake.

1:56 And it is in his name we pray. Amen. All right.

2:02 Well, we're back again to our study. We're in section seven still. The church's ethics. Most of you look like been here before.

2:11 If you, by the way, if you are a guest, we do welcome you in our adult Sunday school class this morning. But this is the study that we've been engaged in. And we're in this section here. We've considered the abiding authority of the moral law as a rule of life for the believer.

2:27 These are the arguments that were opened up in some detail. And now we are considering specifically the fourth commandment, which tends to be the most controversial in our day. The command. The command concerning the Sabbath.

Review of Previous Arguments for Sabbath Continuance

2:39 So you may want to turn over to Exodus chapter 20. We'll just open up by reading that.

2:59 Does someone want to read that for us? Exodus 20. I think it's eight to eleven. Doctor.

3:06 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.

3:18 You nor your son. Nor your daughter. Nor your male, 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 it and rested the seventh day.

3:36 Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. All right. Thank you. All right.

3:43 So we began a few weeks ago a consideration of this fourth commandment. And this is the broad outline that I've been seeking to follow. First, the biblical basis for the continuance of the Sabbath. Second, the biblical basis for the change of the Sabbath to Sunday, the Lord's day under the new covenant.

4:00 And then the third heading, the proper and balanced observance of the Lord's day as the Christian Sabbath. The first of these three headings we covered, we finished with last week.

4:16 In the first three lessons, I set forth the biblical basis for the continuance of the Sabbath. First, we saw that. The Sabbath was instituted at creation, that it is a creation ordinance. Then we saw that the Sabbath is included in the Ten Commandments, that it is more than a temporary ceremonial regulation, more than just a covenant sign, though it is a covenant sign, both in the old and the new covenant, as we saw.

4:41 But more than that, it's part of that moral law of God summarized in the Ten Commandments, the authority of which continues to abide today. And then last week, we considered two more arguments. The first one, we saw the continuance. The Sabbath was predicted by the prophets.

4:56 And then we saw that the Sabbath was upheld by Christ. The intended blessing and proper observance of the Sabbath was upheld by the Lord Jesus. And there were two important questions with reference to our Lord's teaching on the Sabbath and the gospel records that we considered. The first question, what is missing in the gospels with reference to the Sabbath?

5:17 And there are at least two things that are definitely missing. One, that we saw that there's absolutely no prediction or prophecy of the abolition. Two, that we saw that there's absolutely no prediction or prophecy of the Sabbath principle. And secondly, that there is absolutely no example of Jesus violating, annulling, or depreciating the Sabbath.

5:32 We saw that he kept the Sabbath perfectly. And the second question, what is present in the gospels? At least three things. The fact that Jesus kept the Sabbath, our Lord's teaching of the beneficial nature and purpose of the Sabbath for man.

5:46 And thirdly, our Lord's extensive clarification of proper Sabbath observance over against the legal system. Legalistic and heartless perversions of the scribes and Pharisees. So that was our focus last week. And then a fifth argument for the continuance of the fourth commandment could be that this is indicated in the New Testament epistles and in the early church.

Introducing the Change of the Sabbath Day

6:07 But we're going to begin to see that now as we pick up with our study today, as we come to consider the change of the Sabbath day. The question that now faces us is why, in the Christian church, has the Sabbath observance been changed from the last day of the week, Saturday, to the first day of the week, the day of our Lord's resurrection, Sunday? The Old Testament Jewish Sabbath was on the last day of the week. And if the Sabbath law is indeed a creation ordinance and a moral command that continues, how can it be right to change that to the first day of the week? And this is precisely the argument that such groups as, uh, Seventh-day Adventists use. There's even a fellowship of Baptist churches that are called, call themselves Seventh-day Baptists. And these people agree that the fourth commandment still applies today, but they believe that we're wrong in observing the Sabbath on Sunday rather than Saturday.

7:18 And perhaps some of you have wondered about this very thing from time to time. So my purpose for the next couple of lessons is to set forth the biblical basis, or the change of the Sabbath. And I have these three headings here. First, the possibility of a new Sabbath.

7:34 And secondly, the coming of the new Sabbath. And then we're going to consider the passing of the old Sabbath. All right? And so our first point is the possibility of a new Sabbath.

7:47 Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it may indeed strike us as strange that if the Seventh-day Sabbath is a continuing moral law rooted in creation, contained in the Ten Commandments, that the day would be changed. Such a thing may not even seem possible to you. There's no way something like that could ever be justified, or it just doesn't make sense.

8:13 But before I show that the day has been changed, I want us to see that there are good biblical reasons why the change shouldn't bother us.

8:23 These are not proofs of the change at this point. I'll get to that later. But these are what we might call biblical realities that rightly understand. And so the first point is the possibility of a new Sabbath.

The Distinction Between Natural Law and Positive Law

8:31 And secondly, the possibility that the day could be changed without any kind of violence being done to the Fourth Commandment. So that's all we're going to do today. All right? And the first one is this, the important distinction between natural law and positive law.

8:49 And this is something that Dr. Fowler has mentioned several times in the question and answer times in our Sunday school class. He's brought this up. And I just want to say a little bit more about that today.

8:58 And what do we mean by distinction between natural and positive laws? It would be helpful for us to understand this in this whole discussion. In our confession, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689, which reflects the Westminster Confession, the Sabbath command is described as a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment.

9:26 And they use those words carefully and deliberately. So the confession asserts that on the one hand, the Sabbath is a moral and perpetual command. But on the other hand, it is a positive command.

9:42 We also see similar language with reference to baptism in the Lord's Supper.

9:47 However, baptism in the Lord's Supper are not referred to in the confession as moral commands. They're simply referred to as ordinances of positive and sovereign institution. Now, what's the difference? It's not a common use in our vocabulary today to use the language of positive law, natural law.

10:08 So we need to understand what they mean by that. What's the difference between a positive command of sovereign institution and a moral command? Or perhaps the more accurate word would be the word that's used there, natural. Positive law and natural law, what's the difference?

10:26 Well, natural law refers to the law of nature. And you may remember early in our studies, that we opened up Romans 2, 14 to 16. It teaches us about the law written upon the hearts of men by nature from the very beginning. Even those who do not have the scriptures have the work of the law written upon their hearts.

10:48 And we saw that that is essentially the same as what is later codified and summarized in the Ten Commandments. That's what is called the law of nature or natural law. That which is law because of the nature of God and the nature of man and the nature of the relationship between God and man. And also man and man.

11:10 That's the permanent relationship that exists between God and man and man and man. That's natural law. Well, the law of nature has existed and continues to exist as long as God is who he is and man is who he is. On the other hand, a positive ordinance or positive, a positive law is something that is not part of the law of nature.

11:38 It is something in addition to the law of nature that is not demanded by nature. In other words, no one would ever know or even suspect that God required it apart from his sovereign institution of it. There's nothing in the positive law itself that is inherently moral or part of that law that is inherent in the nature of man. And that's the law of nature.

12:04 And that's the law of nature. And that's the law of nature. As created in the image of God. And let me illustrate.

Illustrating Natural and Positive Law with Adam and Ordinances

12:07 I've mentioned this already several times, so this is kind of a review. But when Adam was in the Garden of Eden, as created in the image of God, there was the law written upon his heart, an innate consciousness of his obligations to God within his heart. The work of the law was written in his heart. Adam understood that he must not lie, he must not murder or steal or take God's name in vain and so on.

12:34 However, Adam was also... He was also given a positive law in the Garden.

12:39 Do you remember what was it?

12:43 Well, God commanded him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

12:50 Now, there was nothing inherent in Adam's nature or in God's nature that would indicate that there was anything wrong with eating from that tree. It was just a tree, like any other tree in the Garden. There's nothing by nature morally wrong with eating fruit from a tree. The only thing that made it morally wrong was that God commanded Adam not to do it.

13:17 And it was a test of Adam's submission to God's authority. It was a positive law in addition to the law of nature. Okay? Baptism and the Lord's Supper are also examples of positive law.

13:32 They're not part of the law of nature. They didn't exist in the Old Testament, but only came into existence with the New Covenant. David was not obliged to be baptized. Abraham was not required to partake of the Lord's Supper.

13:48 If they had been part of the law of nature, they would have been required, and those ordinances would have always existed from the very beginning. But there's nothing naturally or inherently moral in being dunked in water or in eating a piece of bread and drinking from a cup. They are only obligations, moral obligations now, because God requires them now. The same can be said of circumstances.

14:11 David had to be circumcised, but we don't have to be circumcised. You see, natural law never...

14:20 Circumcision is not a part of natural law. Natural law never changes, but positive laws can be changed and sometimes are. So you begin to see the difference between natural law and positive law. Now, all of God's commands are either positive laws.

Sabbath Elements as Natural and Positive Law

14:40 I'm talking about in the full scope of Scripture as a whole. All of God's commands are either positive laws or they are reiterations and reinforcements of natural law. And some of them are a combination of both. And that's what the Confession is talking about when it refers to the Sabbath as both, a positive, moral, and perpetual command.

15:08 They're saying that it's both.

15:12 There is a perpetual... There's a natural and perpetual moral principle.

15:18 There is a principle that is embodied in the Sabbath command. And there are also positive elements that, if God so wills, may be changed. Now, a little reflection on the Sabbath, and you'll see what I mean. Okay?

15:33 First of all, what aspects of the Sabbath reflect natural law, perpetual moral principle? Well, first, there's the fact that God must be worshipped and that the worship of our God should be our priority as those who are dependent upon Him. For our lives and our being and it is our duty to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The worship of God should be our priority.

16:01 God must be worshipped. Secondly, there's the fact that man was made by God as a social being related to others. And therefore, God ought to be worshipped socially or corporately.

16:16 Thirdly, there's the fact that the physical body and emotional constitution of man needs periods of rest and refreshment. And fourthly, there's the fact that in order to worship God corporately and in order to enjoy needed rest, a certain amount of time has to be set aside for that.

16:41 Okay? These are things that require time. A block or blocks of time set aside to do them. And fifthly, the fact that God alone has the authority to appoint such time or times.

16:55 Okay? That's all part of natural law. God must be worshipped. The worship of God must be our priority.

17:02 The fact that man was made by God as a social being related to others. And therefore, God ought to be worshipped in the context of those social structures and relationships that God has established corporately. Three, the fact that the physical body and emotional constitution of man needs periods of rest and refreshment. The fact that in order to worship God corporately, in order to enjoy needed rest, a certain amount of time has to be set aside for that.

17:25 And the fact that God alone has the authority to appoint such time or times.

17:31 Or to leave it up to us. He could do. He could be the one. But he has the authority to determine that.

17:36 He has the authority to determine that. All right? Now, what aspects of the Sabbath are positive law?

17:46 The fact that the exact portion of time God requires is one whole day in seven. Okay?

17:56 And the fact that the exact day God required under the old covenant was the seventh day. That's all positive law. That's not inherently part of natural law. Okay?

18:09 All right. All right. Now. These are positive elements of the Sabbath command.

18:15 And there's no reason that they may not be changed if God so wills and makes his will known regarding that. Now, the sequence of one in seven, as we've seen already, is rooted in creation. And doesn't change, as we'll see. But God didn't have to create the world in six days.

18:35 There's nothing inherently moral in how many days he took to create the world. He could have very well created it. And one. All of it in one day.

18:42 In one word. If he had chosen to do so. But that way of creating it was not something inherent in the character of God. But that is what he did.

18:51 He chose to do. And we saw that that has implications for our understanding of the Sabbath. God chose to do it in six days and to rest on the seventh day. And then when it comes to the actual day that the Sabbath is to be observed, that too is positive.

19:04 Therefore, some significant event in redemptive history could shift the Sabbath to another day. If God so willed it, and that's exactly what happened, as we're going to see later. So there's this important distinction between natural and positive law, which allows for the possibility of the law being changed without doing any violence at all to God's moral commandments, God's moral law. All right.

Distinction Between Commands and Supplementary Data

19:33 Second, there's the important distinction between the actual commands given in the Ten Commandments and the supplication. Supplementary data attached to them, which allows for the possibility of the day being changed. I touched on this a few weeks ago, but I remind you that there is a distinction to be made between the actual commands themselves and their enforcements or supplementary data attached to them as given in Exodus 20 and also in Deuteronomy 5, where the commandments are reviewed. Each of the Ten Commandments continues in force.

20:12 But the enforcements. Enforcements and supplementary data attached to them in the Old Testament may vary and even change. For example, how is the read the first two verses of Exodus 20, how the Ten Commandments are introduced in Exodus 20? Someone want to read that with a good loud voice?

20:50 OK, now, do you recognize that there that there's something unique in that statement to the history of the nation of Israel? But when God introduced the Ten Commandments, the redemption of Israel from Egyptian bondage is used as a motivation for Israel to keep the Ten Commandments. But under the new covenant is the believers redemption from sin, which that redemption was a type of our redemption from sin through Christ. That is the primary motivation.

21:19 We have been redeemed from Egyptian bondage, but we have been redeemed from sin. You remember, we saw what we saw concerning the fifth command, the fifth commandment. Attached to the fifth commandment there in Exodus is the promise that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord your God gives you. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord your God gives you, which is a reference to the land of Canaan.

21:46 But the land of Canaan, as we learn in the New Testament, is a type and a pointer to that eternal inheritance that God has promised to his people. Through Christ in that inheritance includes not merely that little strip of land on the east side of the Mediterranean Sea. It includes the whole earth, the new heavens and the new earth and the new covenant. People of God are throughout the earth.

22:13 They're not confined to one place in one nation. Therefore, in the New Testament, Paul gives the fifth commandment a new covenant enforcement. He says in Ephesians chapter six. Honor your father and mother.

22:30 Which is the first commandment would promise referring to the Ten Commandments that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. You see, there's a change in the promise. But again, the law itself, the moral law, the natural law, the command to honor your father and mother does not change. That law, as well as all the other command nine commandments, is perpetual and continues.

22:59 But the enforcement is indeed changed. The command is perpetual. The enforcement is provisional. All right.

Ambiguity in Old Testament Sabbath Day Specification

23:09 So what is my point? My point is that there is no reason why it is not possible for the actual command. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, to remain while the old covenant application of it to the seventh day of the week does not remain. Indeed, it could be argued that it's not the actual command itself.

23:32 It's the command itself that specifies on which day the Sabbath is to be observed. It's the supplementary data attached to the command that does that. And even when the seventh day is stipulated in the supplementary statements that follow the command itself, there's a degree of ambiguity there. And let me explain what I mean.

24:01 In the Hebrew language, ordinal numbers, first, second, third, and so on, are used in two different ways. Sometimes as names for the days of the week, like our Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and so on. At other times, simply with reference to a sequence of days. For example, imagine that I take my boys camping.

24:25 The camping trip begins on Tuesday and goes through Friday. Well, I might say that on the first day, we went fishing. Now, that would mean that we went fishing on Tuesday. Not Sunday, the name given for the first day of the week, but the first day of our camping trip, Tuesday.

24:48 Or if I tell Mr. So-and-so on Wednesday to work the next six days and rest on the seventh. The word seventh doesn't mean Saturday in that conversation. In that context, the seventh day would be the Wednesday of the following week.

25:08 Well, again, Hebrew ordinal numbers are used in both of these ways. And context has to make the determination in determining which way they're being used in any given context. And my point is that there's a degree of ambiguity in Exodus 20 between these two meanings. The commandment does not necessarily specify any particular starting point, though it refers to sequence.

25:33 The sequence of six days you are to labor and the seventh is the day of rest. Now, think with me about this for a moment. I want you to consider some facts. First of all, it's difficult for us to know what day of our modern week the Jewish Sabbath was observed under Moses.

25:55 It's difficult for us to know that. Secondly, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the Jews themselves in the time of Moses to know for sure if the day they kept as the seventh day was exactly the same day that God rested from creation. In other words, it's difficult for us to know that. In other words, if you divided by sevens, going all the way back to creation, was the actual day that Israel observed as the seventh day really the seventh day?

26:31 Well, I don't think there was any way they could be sure of that. I don't think it was necessary for them to be sure of that. There are indications that while the Jews were in bondage in Egypt for 400 years, they didn't keep the Sabbath. Or at least they weren't allowed to keep it properly.

26:50 Certainly the Egyptians did not observe it, and I doubt that they allowed their slaves to observe it either. So when the Sabbath was revived and renewed by Moses after the Exodus, some day had to be chosen as the starting point. That day may have been strictly traceable by the visions of seven. They may have kept up with it for all of those centuries.

27:11 It may have been strictly traceable by the visions of seven to the actual seventh day of creation. It may have been. But I think it's doubtful. At least doubtful.

27:21 Third fact. There are indications that even early Israel, in early Israel, I'm sorry, the sequence of Sabbaths may have begun on a different day each year. Some scholars have argued from Leviticus chapter 23 that the day of the Passover each year, which was the 15th day of the month of Abib, was observed as the Sabbath. The seventh day after that was another Sabbath.

28:01 And the weekly Sabbaths for the rest of the year were counted from that point. Now the 15th day of Abib, of course, would be like the 25th day of December when we have Christmas. It would fall on a different day of the week each calendar year. So according to this understanding, the Sabbath occurred on a different day of the week each calendar year.

28:24 Beginning from, counting from the 15th day of Abib. Now that theory is speculative to some degree. It's a bit unclear in Leviticus. But the scripture doesn't rule it out either.

28:37 Certainly by Jesus' time, the Sabbath did fall on the same day of the week every year. But my point is, it is not so simple. It is not so simple to determine exactly what day was observed as the seventh day in the Old Testament. Though it did always mark the end of the seven day sequence.

The Human Element in Calendar Determination

28:55 In addition to all of this, we have to be honest, brethren, and acknowledge that the establishing of calendars is to some degree a human decision. God didn't send us a calendar down from heaven. Humans establish calendars. In fact, it's impossible to exclude the human element in the determination of the calendar.

29:23 For example, God is not revealed to us in the Bible. Where to put the international date line on the planet Earth? Human beings have made that decision. By the way, the international date line sits on the 180th line of longitude in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

29:46 It is the imaginary line that separates two consecutive calendar days. It is not a perfectly straight line, as you'll see. For various reasons, they've made it wiggle around certain islands and so forth. It's not a perfectly straight line.

30:02 It has been moved slightly over the years to accommodate needs of varied countries in the Pacific Ocean. There's a close-up, and you'll see how much it varies here. Immediately to the left of the international date line, the date is always one day ahead of the date or day. Immediately to the right of the international date line in the Western Hemisphere.

30:30 On the time and date code shown here, you'll note that Tonga, I don't know if you can see that from your seat, but there's Tonga, and Samoa, which is just barely north of Tonga, have the same time, but they're one day apart, as Samoa is in the Western Hemisphere on the opposite side of the international date line from Tonga. As you travel further west, you'll note that the time in Fiji is one hour earlier than Tonga. You'll also notice that Hawaii, further to the east, up here, of Samoa is one hour later in time. So travel, if you travel east across the international date line, results in a day or 24 hours being subtracted just by stepping over that line. Travel west across the international date line, results in a day being added. And that means that a day which is the Sabbath on one side of the line will not be the Sabbath on the other side of the line.

31:43 And that's simply a fact. That's an indisputable fact. And that date line is a human...

31:55 There has to be some place where the time changes, and this is the date line that's been determined. Alright, now let's imagine a group of people lost on a desert island. That would be kind of a pretty desert island to be lost on. I don't know how you'd ever get any further than that spot right there, with that big mount behind you, but anyhow.

32:17 Imagine there's a group of people that are lost on a desert island who, over the years, have forgotten what day of the week it is. But perhaps they have a Bible with them, and they're reading the Bible. They become converted. They come to the conviction that they need to observe the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's Day.

32:38 There's no way for them to know what day of the week any given day is. So would it be wrong for them to choose a particular day, one day in a regular sequence of seven, to observe as the Sabbath? Well, I think in those circumstances, I don't think it would be. Well, in a sense, that's the kind of choice that has been made whenever people in the history of the world have adopted a new calendar.

33:06 And so my point is, in all of this, is simply to underscore that there's nothing in the nature of the Sabbath command itself that makes it impossible for the day in which the Sabbath is observed, to be changed, if we have divine authority for doing so. If indeed Jesus and the apostles, for good reasons, changed the day from the seventh, what had been considered as the seventh, to the first, there's no real contradiction in doing that with the terms of the actual commandment itself. So long as there remains a seven-day sequence, six days work, one day rest. And I hope to demonstrate that Christ and the apostles did change that.

33:49 And that that's abundantly testified to in the New Testament in various ways. So there's this important distinction between natural and positive laws. There's the important distinction between the actual commands given in the Ten Commandments and their supplemental data, both of which at least allow for the possibility that the day could be changed, not arbitrarily, but if we have divine warrant for doing so in Scripture. It's not doing violence to the moral law for the day to be changed.

Questions on Sabbath Observance Timing

34:26 And so now we're ready to begin to consider the fact that the day of the Sabbath was changed, which I'm going to pick up next time. And then we're going to look at the passing, what the New Testament teaches about the passing away of the Old Covenant Sabbath, and what we learn about that in the New Testament. Well, I'm stopping now for questions. And you can...

34:49 You can make comments or ask questions related to this Sunday School lesson or any of those that have preceded it on this subject. Try to keep to the topic at hand. I think this brother here had to stand up first. Yes.

35:03 Tom, is that right? Yes.

35:13 Yeah. Does everyone understand his question? He's pointing out that the Jews generally observed the Sabbath from sundown on, would be Friday, to sundown on Saturday. And it's also true that many of the early Puritans did that.

35:33 The New England Puritans, for example, observed the Sabbath from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday. And why do we not do it that way? That's his question. And it's actually a question that I plan to take up when we deal with the proper balanced observance of the Sabbath.

35:52 And I'm wondering if I should get ahead of myself and say something about that now or not. I'll just say this, that I don't have a problem with someone observing the Lord's Day that way, personally. And my fellow pastor, when I was in Easley, that was the way that his family observed the Lord's Day, from sundown on Saturday evening to sundown on Sunday evening. I do think that part of the reason the Sabbath was observed that way in early American history and in Israel was because that's the way days were defined in the culture at that time.

36:31 Personally, I think in our culture today, in our society, days are not defined that way. And I think it's best to observe the Sabbaths in accordance with the way the concept of the day is understood in the society that we live in. But I don't have objections if someone in good conscience does it the other way. That's my own feeling about it.

36:59 Now, some of the other pastors may put me on the spot because I've never actually talked to them about that. I don't know where they stand on that. But it's a good question. It's a very good question.

Clarifying the Obligation of Positive Law

37:12 Does anybody else want to comment on that? Yes. Well, one thing I would say, just to be careful,

38:17 we would be wrong to take what we're looking at today and draw the conclusion that we can just have the Sabbath any day. Because there is a positive law. A positive law has to be obeyed. When God told Adam not to eat of the tree, because that was positive law and not moral law, didn't mean that it was okay for him to eat of the tree.

38:36 And so if the New Testament or the Old Testament has designated a particular day as that day, that's the day that we need to be observing it. Even though the day designated is a positive law, not a moral law. You understand what I'm saying? Baptism is a positive law.

38:54 But that doesn't mean we say baptism doesn't matter, because God's commanded it. And it does then reflect upon our heart. One of the factors about, for example, the tree in the garden, was it was a test of Adam's submission of heart to God's divine authority over him. In a way that a natural law to the same degree would not be.

39:22 Though the natural law was too, but he inherently had that consciousness created within him that these certain things were wrong, you're not to do them. But that was not true with the tree. To look at the tree, well what's wrong with any other tree? It's just a tree, like all the other trees in the garden.

39:37 Now I hope we all recognize that. This special tree in the garden didn't have like a glow around it. The fruit wasn't poison or something. It was just a tree with fruit, like all the rest of the trees.

39:51 But the difference was God said you're not to eat of that tree. That was a positive law. But it also, his response to that, was a revelation of his heart toward God, you see. And so, to say that the day, the actual day itself is a positive command, doesn't free us from observing the day God's appointed for us to observe.

40:19 That's the day we are to observe. And the question we come to then when we come to the New Covenant, is there a day? Does the New Testament indicate a particular day that's to be set aside by the Christian church as that special day? And hopefully we'll see.

Examples of Changed Positive Laws

40:36 I'll be able to convince you that it does. I don't know. I would have to think about that. I haven't really thought about that.

41:02 I'm not always entirely comfortable with drawing a completely one-to-one parallel between the Passover and the Lord's Supper, though I think there are connections between the two. But I don't know. I'd have to think about that. Of something that was a positive law, that was changed.

41:24 I'm sure there probably are, and if I had time to give it some thought and really think through that, there may be. You know, off the top of my head, I can't think of something. Do you understand what he's asking? Are there other examples of something that was a positive law in the Old Testament that we still observe today, but something about it's been changed in the New Covenant?

41:49 Yeah, but I wouldn't say that's changed because in the Old Testament circumcision of the heart was required as well. That's not something new. But circumcision did symbolize that. Well, it depends on how you view baptism.

42:18 You know, some people would draw the parallel between baptism and circumcision that you're drawing between Passover and the Lord's Supper, and that baptism is an example of a positive law. A positive law of change. What symbolized circumcision of the heart in the Old Testament was physical circumcision. What symbolizes it in the New Testament sacramentally is baptism.

42:42 Well, yeah, so Matthew's pointing out something that I think is significant, that many of the ceremonial laws were positive laws, and that's why they could be changed or they could become obsolete under the Old Testament. There's nothing inherently moral with whether you eat this or eat that. But it was a positive law. God established these what we might call hedge laws in Israel to keep Israel separate from the nations. Not in the sense that they were to hate Gentiles and not interact with Gentiles.

43:47 We're going to see that in the study of Acts tonight. But to maintain them as a separate, unique people through whom the Messiah was to come. And Paul talks about that. And Paul talks about that in Galatians 3, that the Old Covenant was like a tutor and it was like a hedge around the people of God.

44:05 And some of those Old Covenant ceremonial regulations, that's what they served that purpose. But they were positive commands. They weren't moral commands. And they don't apply now under the New Testament.

The Necessity of a Publicly Fixed Day

44:22 Yeah. It also seems to me that it needs to be a single day. A single day that's fixed publicly. By which I mean it can't be that Christian A says, oh, I'm going to take Tuesday off.

44:34 That would be my one day in seven to be set aside for spiritual things and the worship of God. And Christian B says, oh, I'm going to set aside Thursday. Because then some employer of Christian A is going to say, well, no, your day off is not that. So it has to be a single fixed day like the Lord's Day Sunday or Saturday.

44:58 Because it's got to be public in nature. It's got to preserve public worship. In case someone's thinking, oh, well, as long as I take one day in seven off, it's fine. Yeah.

45:09 Well, I hope that... Yeah, that was a point I was making a while ago, you know, that we're not at liberty just to decide what day that's going to be for us.

45:16 If God has designated the day in the Scriptures, that's the day that we are to observe. And I hope to be able to demonstrate that He has designated the day. Yeah. Yes?

Hypothetical Questions on Calendar Accuracy

45:28 I'm tying into the Heimlich idea. I think there is good reason to believe this day is exactly seven days going back to the resurrection of Christ. But I think it's possible that it's not. So are you saying that the fact that it's on the human side calendar, do you have the possibility of...

46:01 Is it wrong, do you think, or is it right that we're doing it? What if it was discovered, right? Yeah. I mean, it ties into what you were talking about.

46:10 Yeah. Yeah. Does the reason of the commandment remember the Sabbath, or is it more remember Sabbath day? Yeah.

46:23 Yeah. Yeah, well, in the Old Covenant, it was emphatic, you know, the seventh day. But again, like I explained, you know, I'm sure there's difficulties in determining which day. Did they really...

46:35 Were they really able to count back in sequences of seven to the last day of creation, the first day of the existence, you know, of the entire creation completed, and to be able to prove that the seventh day that they were observing was in the sequence of seven went right back to that day? And I think that it's probably difficult to do that. Now, the point you're making is, is it difficult to do the same with regard to the Lord's day? I don't have, right now, a hand, the information and knowledge to be able to say whether it is for sure or not.

47:13 But conceivably, it may not be. And that's the point you're making. And, yes, so I think it goes back to the fact that the day is positive. It's not moral.

47:27 And that Christian church has to do the best that it can to establish that sequence. And that...

47:33 And that the church has done so. Christian churches have. And that's been handed down to us through the centuries. And I don't know.

47:40 I mean, it's a good question. I mean, it's a...

47:42 It's... It's a hypothetical question.

47:45 But if someone were to discover at some point that if you trace the days back, this isn't... The day we're observing is not actually the day that Jesus rose from the dead, I'm not sure what we would...

47:56 I really don't know what we should do with that.

48:05 Yeah, I mean, I think it's universally... Understood that Sunday's the first day of the week in the human calendar.

48:30 Now, like I said, we have to accept the fact that there is a human element to the establishment of the calendar. And even with regard to the international date line and everything. Our...

Closing Prayer and Anticipation of Future Study

48:40 So, the pastor's pointing those... So, time's up.

48:43 So, yeah, very good. Good points. Good questions. All right, let's pray.

48:48 Our Father, we thank you for this opportunity that we've had to consider these things. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your concern for us and for your glory. And that you've established that we are to set aside one day in seven to worship you, to engage in works of ministry, and also to rest.

49:09 And we thank you that you've done so. And we rejoice in the Christian Lord's Day, which we commemorate the first day of the week in which the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. We pray that you would draw near to us. We pray that you would draw near to us on this Lord's Day.

49:27 Help us to love your commandments and to rejoice in them, not to count them as a heavy burden. We pray that you would continue to help us as we study this subject to learn more accurately and clearly and in a balanced way how you would have us to observe this day in a way that brings honor and glory to you. And it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen.