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The Power of Sabbath-Driven Work
Christ Church on October 18, 2020
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Easter Sunday 2011: A Rest Remains

Gary Stedman on

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Introduction

We are celebrating Easter, the day on which we commemorate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. But not only did He rise, but all things were restored in Him, which is something we model, not only annually, but also on a weekly basis. We worship on the first day because we are privileged to have a weekly Easter, a weekly memorial of life from the dead. Eventually we may be able to shake the name Easter (a Germanic fertility goddess, for crying out loud), but in the meantime we can rejoice that the names of the baalim don’t mean much to us anymore (Hos. 2:17). Thursday is Thor’s Day, and who cares anymore? This is an endearing quirk of English- speaking peoples—everywhere else Christians have the good sense to speak of Pascha. During the transition, if someone objects that Easter used to be a pagan name, we can reply that this seems fitting—we used to be pagans. But now we are Christians, and Christ is risen.

The Text

“There remaineth therefore a rest?? to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Heb. 4:9-10).

Summary of the Text

The Scriptures in the older testament speak of different rests—all of which the believer is invited to enter into on the basis of faith. God created the world and He rested. God promised Abraham the land of Canaan, which was another rest. And God promised that Jesus would come to bring an ultimate salvation rest. This means that believers throughout history were invited to enter into the antitypical rest of Jesus by approaching every lesser rest with the eye of true and living faith. But now that Jesus died and rose in history, this does not mean that we have no tangible rests to work through any more. No, God helped the Old Testament saints look forward to the resurrection, and He helps us look back to it. There remains a Sabbaath-rest for the people of God (v. 9). But why? Verse 10 often throws us because of the dense cluster of pronouns. We still have a Sabbath-rest because “he” has entered a rest, and has ceased from “his own works,” in just the same way that God did at the creation (v. 10). We need to fill this out.

It is sometimes assumed that the he here is a repentant sinner, ceasing from the futile labor of trying to save himself. But why would we compare the ungodly labors of self-righteousness to the godly work of creation? Why would we compare a foolish sinner to a wise God? Why would we compare an incomplete and botched work to a glorious work that was fully completed? It seems like a really bad comparison.

But what if the He is understood as Jesus? Jesus has entered a rest, just as God did. Jesus recreated the world, just as God created the world. Jesus said it was finished, and God looked at what He had made and said that it was very good. Jesus ceased from His labor of recreating the heavens and earth, and entered into the reality of the new creation. God labored for six days and nights and rested. Jesus labored for three days and nights and rested. Therefore, the people of God still have a Sabbath rest. Therefore, we worship God on the first day of the week (the day He entered His rest) instead of on the seventh day of the week.

A Regulative Reality

First, some background. We do not have the right to worship God with whatever pretty thing comes into our heads. The apostle Paul elsewhere calls this tendency “will worship” (Col. 2:23). In Reformed circles, the desire to honor this truth has been called the “regulative principle”—that which God does not require of us in worship is therefore prohibited. All Protestants need to be regulativists of some stripe, and the best expression of this principle that I have found is this one: “Worship must be according to Scripture.”

But there is a strict version of the regulative principle which is impossibly wooden, and it is not surprising that there are many inconsistencies. We can’t have a piano, because they are not expressly required. We can’t sing songs by Charles Wesley because he and other hymn-writers are not authorized. You get the picture. But we also have no express warrant for serving communion to women, or . . . worshiping God on Sunday.

A Few Hints

The most we have are a few hints. John tells us that there was a specific day that he called “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that they should set money aside “on the first day” (1 Cor. 16:2). We are told of an instance where the disciples gathered on the first day of the week to break bread and Paul taught them (Acts 20:7). But if we are looking for express warrant, this is thin soup.

The Real Reason

How does God require things of us? What does He do to get the message to us? Are His actions authoritative? Well, yes. The material universe was created on Sunday (Gen. 1:5). The Jews had been observing the seventh day Sabbath for centuries. God appears to have told the Jews that the seventh day observance would be an everlasting covenant (Lev. 24:8). But then the day shifted from the seventh to the first without any notable controversy. How could that be? What could account for this? Nothing less than the total recreation of all things. Behold, Jesus said. I make all things new (Rev. 21:5; 2 Cor. 5:17). He came back from the dead on the first day of the week (Mark 16:9; John 20:1), meaning that this was the day on which the reCreator entered His rest. Jesus made a point of appearing to His disciples on this same day (John 20:19). His next appearance to them was a week later, on the following Sunday (John 20:26). The Holy Spirit was poured out fifty days later, also on Sunday (Acts 2:1). And in the main, the Christian church has never looked back.

Not one Christian in ten thousand could give a decent biblical defense of our practice of worshiping God on the first day, and yet here we all are. Look at us go. Can we account for this through an appeal to the stupidity of blind, inexorable tradition? No—we should actually attribute it to the fact that two thousand years ago God overhauled everything, raising His Son from the dead in broad daylight. Jesus entered His rest, and consequently we may rest and rejoice before Him.

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Reformation for the World

Christ Church on

Introduction

One of the great blessings that God has bestowed on us is a community of Sabbath celebration. As we commemorate Reformation Day and All Saints Day, this is a good opportunity to remember what our feasts are for.

The Text

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…” (Ex. 20:8-11)

Sabbath and Feasting Are for the World

Sabbath rest has from the beginning meant giving rest. As the command makes clear, the requirement to rest extended to family, visitors, and even to animals (Ex. 20:10). The Sabbath principle also applied to the land (Ex. 23:10-11, Lev. 25). Debts were to be cancelled every seven years (Dt. 15:1-2). Furthermore, in the 50th year (the seventh sabbatical cycle of seven years), a year of jubilee was proclaimed which required the release of slaves, the return of inheritance, and rest for the land (Lev. 25:8-17). The year of jubilee is in many ways the supreme expression of the Sabbath principle, and it began with the sounding of the trumpet on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 25:9-10) which celebrated the forgiveness of Israel’s sin, the gift of the covenant, freedom, release from slavery, and mercy. As we have rightly emphasized over the years, Sabbath means feasting. The Sabbath was one of the feasts of the Old Covenant (Lev. 23:1-3). But these feasts were not merely for the enjoyment of those who threw them and their friends. The Feast of Weeks was for the fatherless, the widows, and the strangers (Dt. 16:10-12). The Feast of Tabernacles was for the fatherless, the strangers, and the widows (16:13-14). And this emphasis was to be a way of life for Israel because they had once been slaves in Egypt (Dt. 24:10-22). The offering of firstfruits and tithes was likewise for the world (Dt. 14:27-29, 26:11-15). The Jewish leaders who established Purim also clearly understood the Sabbath principle (Est. 9:18-22).

Let Us Keep the Feast

It is no accident then that as the early church grew and multiplied, at the center of that covenant community was the doctrine of the apostles, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers (Acts 2:42). At the center of the early church was worship, the Sabbath Feast of the New Covenant. And because this Sabbath Feast was the Old Covenant feasts all grown up and glorious, it’s not surprising that there was almost immediately problems distributing the bread to the widows (Acts 6:1). When the gospel breaks out in a city, one of the greatest challenges should be figuring out how to care for all the orphans and widows. This challenge appears to be the origin of the deaconate, and immediately following the close of the canon, we find deacons assisting with the Lord’s Supper and

taking the bread and other alms out to the poor of the church and community (e.g. Tertullian). This is the probable connection for why the deacons came to be primarily liturgical assistants in the middle ages rather than leaders of mercy ministry. But in the Reformation this was recovered by all the major reformers. Worship – and the Lord’s Supper in particular – was for the world. The gifts of bread and wine and milk and honey that were placed on the table during the offertory were alms for the poor. When we break the one loaf here, it is meant to be multiplied to feed thousands.

Conclusions and Applications

As we celebrate Reformation Day and All Saints Day, we do so as people who are thankful and grateful all the way down to the ground. This is because we understand the gospel, and when we do, we immediately see our mission. There is a rich legacy of mercy ministry that has been handed down to us in the Protestant Reformation. Hand in hand with the recovery of the gospel and faithful worship was the recovery of mercy ministry.

As we pursue this calling it must be remembered that part of this means not carelessly creating more strangers, fatherless, and widows. There is no either/or dichotomy here. The command is still there to love your wife, love your children, and love your neighbor. But the promise is that there will be more oil. There will be more than enough bread to feed them all.

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