Our Weekly Glimpse of Eternity

Christ Offers Us Something Better

We live in a world that is constantly crying for our attention. Our professors demand more work from us. Our friends invite us to more parties. Our families call for more connection. We must attend to our houses, our cars, our finances, our grades, our health, and so much more, or else our lives begin to unravel. And even after we have attended to the bare necessities, there awaits for us a veritable cornucopia of novelties to fill what little free time remains. TV offers an escape from monotony to drama. Video games offer an escape from insignificance to achievement. The doom-scroll of social media even offers us an escape from reality itself. It can feel like we barely have a free moment, much less a free day.

Among the many people and things crying for our time and attention is God. But how quiet his call can seem! Our careers don't crumble if we fail to read our Bibles. Forgetting to pray doesn't erode our social lives. Our pastors don't chide us if we skip church one week. So many unbelievers live outwardly successful lives without doing any of these things! To then say that God should take the foremost position in the ordering of our lives—or especially that he demands exclusive use of an entire day each week—sounds impossible. To call that a blessing sounds absurd.

But if we move about our lives as though all that matters is getting through another day, we lose perspective. We forget God, we forget where we're headed, and we neglect the only source of true joy in this life. Paul said, "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied."¹

Christ offers us something better. Instead of leaving us in our state of worldly busyness, he quietly calls us to lift our eyes to the heavenly rest. There are many ways in which the Lord does this, but the most prominent example used in Scripture is the Lord’s Day. We don’t find the best foretaste of heavenly rest in daily, private acts of personal piety (though certainly those help and are commendable²), but in the day each week that our Lord set apart specifically for that purpose. For us to take full advantage of the blessing offered,³ first we need to understand what this special day is and why God set it apart.

The Lord's Day

From the beginning of the world, God set apart a day for himself. Only six days after God began his work of creation, Genesis records that "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation."⁴ Even at this most early stage of pre-redemptive history, God already had in mind a day of rest. Although very little is said at this point, a couple of things are of note. First, God made the day holy, that is, he set it apart for himself.⁵ Other days could be used for other purposes, but God set apart the seventh day for his own exclusive use. Moreover, this wasn't an arbitrary decision. God didn't set apart the seventh day just because he really liked the number seven. No, God set the seventh day apart because he himself labored for six days and then rested on the seventh. God modeled our rest upon his own rest in creation. The sanctification (making holy) of the seventh day is grounded not in an arbitrary command, but in the very being of God. Even from Creation, we can see that the day carries very special significance.

Very little is said about the worship of God between Adam and Moses, including the observance of his holy day. The next text that speaks to it follows Israel's exodus from Egypt. In preparation for entering the promised land, God gave Israel an extensive set of rules and regulations for life in the promised land. But amidst those rules and regulations, God also taught his people in general how they ought to behave. The most prominent example of this is the Ten Commandments. God wrote on tablets of stone, "with the finger of God,"⁶ ten commands that applied not to sacrifices or to civil government, but to men and women in their relationship with God and with one another, commands that still hold enduring significance. The Fourth Commandment gave his holy day a name, "the Sabbath day," and enshrined the particular type of behavior that God expected from his people on that day.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20:8-11 ESV

God clarified more just a few chapters later:

Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you.

Exodus 31:13-14 ESV

Here, God gave his people new insight into the Sabbath day. He intended it to be a sign not only of his personal holiness and rest, but also of his people being made holy (sanctified) and resting. Even to Old Testament Israel the Sabbath was not a bare command, but a promise of sanctification. It is a sign every week that God is working for us, moving us from sin and corruption towards righteousness and holiness. And because of that promise, the command bears special importance; the Lord said, "Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths." The Sabbath operates as a kind of turning point in the Ten Commandments, transitioning us from our duties to God to our duties to one another. Without it, we fall short in both areas. We can neither work nor worship as we ought. But with it, according to the very promise of God, we can know that the Lord himself sanctifies us in every area of our lives. Even within the Ten Commandments the Sabbath holds a special place.

Between Moses and Christ, the prophets spoke extensively of the importance of the Sabbath to God. John Calvin summarized it best when he wrote,

There is no commandment the observance of which the Almighty more strictly enforces. When he would intimate by the Prophets that religion was entirely subverted, he complains that his sabbaths were polluted, violated, not kept, not hallowed; as if, after it was neglected, there remained nothing in which he could be honoured. The observance of it he eulogises in the highest terms, and hence, among other divine privileges, the faithful set an extraordinary value on the revelation of the Sabbath.

Institutes II.8.29 by John Calvin

But in the New Testament, we see a remarkable transformation in the observance of the Sabbath. From the beginning of Creation through the death of Christ, God's holy day was always on the last day of the week, since, in Creation, he had worked on the first six days and rested on the seventh. But Christ completed his work of redemption, restoring the blessing that Adam lost, not on the seventh day (when he remained yet in the grave), but on the first (when he had arisen from the dead).⁷ The New Testament describes Christ not only as the better Adam,⁸ but also as the God and Creator of all the universe⁹ and the Lord of the Sabbath,¹⁰ so it makes perfect sense that he would have a dramatic effect upon the observance of the day. Just as Christ finished his work on the seventh and so rested on the first day of the week, the New Testament church met together to worship on the first day of the week.¹¹ And in recognition of the stark contrast in the observance of the command, our Lord even gave the day a new name, "the Lord's Day."¹²

While Christ's work changed the observance and name of the holy day, there is much that remains the same. We still observe a pattern of six days of work and one day of rest. The rest that we observe still mirrors the rest of God. But, instead of resting on the last day of the week, we rest on the first. Likewise, instead of recalling God's rest in Creation, we now recall God's rest in Redemption. And to enforce this idea even further, the day that was once called holy—set apart for God—is now called God's—the Lord's Day—communicating the same idea. While Paul twice clarifies that the Old Testament Sabbath command no longer abides in the Church,¹³ the New Testament Lord's Day was the practice of both the apostolic and post-apostolic¹⁴ churches. All major Protestant summaries of doctrine have upheld this doctrine of the Lord's Day even up until the present day.¹⁵

A Foretaste of Heaven

It's not as though we intentionally neglect the God whom we love, but more that we are slow to believe and understand the full blessing of what he has commanded. Despite the biblical clarity on the matter, the Lord's Day is a practice that has all but totally fallen out of favor. Churches continue to meet on the Lord's Day, but few speak of the day as carrying any significance. The command that the whole day be kept holy unto the Lord is almost entirely absent. Even the command that we ought not work is neglected! A command that is, in many ways, central to God's two great works of Creation and Redemption, seems to have almost disappeared. It begs the question: how can so many churches that stand strong on the more pressing violations of God's law—such as rebellion, murder, adultery, and theft¹⁶—crumple so easily on violations of the Fourth Commandment?

There are many potential answers to this problem. Certainly some raise internal biblical criticisms to the idea,¹⁷ but the majority seem to neglect the day more out of ignorance than of malice. If we understood the rich meaning and lavish blessings of God's holy day, then we would be much more eager to honor it. Thankfully, the Scriptures are replete with descriptions of both the day's deep significance and the abundant spiritual blessings that come to those who honor it.

The clearest description of the meaning of the Lord's Day is found in the book of Hebrews. When the author encourages his readers to press on in the Faith towards Glory, one of the analogies he pulls from the Old Testament to describe their situation is Israel in the wilderness, waiting to enter the promised land.¹⁸ The analogy, applied to the church, says that we, too, are in a type of wilderness, awaiting the promised land of the New Earth.

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to [Israel in the wilderness], but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,"As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest,'" although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works." … For if Joshua had given them rest [in the promised land], God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest [in the New Earth] for the people of God.

Hebrews 4:1-4, 8-9 ESV

After applying the rest in the promised land in the Old Testament ultimately to the New Earth, the author attaches one more picture of this rest. Not only was the promised land a picture of the heavenly rest ahead, so was the Sabbath day. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."¹⁹ The Lord's Day is not first a command that we ought to follow; it is first and foremost the best taste in this life of the heavenly rest that awaits us. In his sermon on Hebrews 4, Rev. Dr. Carlton Wynne described beautifully the promise-first nature of the Lord's Day, saying,

We need to remember as members of the Church of Jesus Christ that the Sabbath command is first a promise and then an obligation. It is first a promise. It is a promise that we are heading somewhere. It is a promise that Sabbath rest is coming. And then it is a command. It is a way in which we proclaim to the world, "Jesus Christ is not only my God, he is my guide. And he is leading me to a place of heavenly rest with him forever."

Pressing On to Promised Rest by Rev. Dr. Carlton Wynne

We would be far better served to see the Lord's Day not as a burden that we ought to bear, but as a blessing that we ought to enjoy. It's not so much that we have to give up the things that we love to worship God, but that we get an opportunity to leave behind that which is passing away and to receive a foretaste of the eternal glory that awaits us. The Lord’s Day doesn't distract us from what matters in our lives; it points us to the only life that really matters. Instead of leaving us with only the chores and distractions of the week that so often fill our minds, God quietly calls us to lift our eyes to the heavenly rest before us.

This heavenly rest did not start with Christ in the New Testament. As we have already seen, it penetrates backward, throughout the Old Testament, even to Creation. Before Adam had even fallen, God had already appointed a day of his rest. This lines up perfectly with what we know about Adam and Christ. The Scriptures hold forth that the two hold for us a similar position. Both Adam and Christ were heads of covenants that offered blessing.²⁰ Where Adam failed and brought condemnation, Christ succeeded and brought justification. But what this also entails is that, had Adam obeyed God's command, he, too, would have won an even better glory than that offered to him in Eden. Eventually, Adam and all his posterity would have lived in a yet higher state of glory. We know this because when Christ succeeded where Adam failed, that's exactly what he won for us.²¹

What this means for the Lord's Day is that, for Adam, the Sabbath rest on the seventh day pointed to the heavenly rest that he was promised, once his (sinless and painless) labors were completed. But when Adam forfeited his right to that rest, God didn't remove the day that symbolized it. He enshrined it even more clearly in the Fourth Commandment. He enshrined it, but he didn't move it; it remained on the seventh day of each week, showing that, although the promise of rest still stood for those who believed, it had yet not been won by Christ. Although redemption was promised in the Old Testament,²² it was always promised in a manner that made clear that it had not yet been accomplished. The Sabbath pointed to the rest that Adam had lost, and symbolized that it was still available to the people of God, but not that it had yet been won by Christ.

But in the Lord's Day, on the first day of the week, we receive an even better promise. Not only are we pointed towards the heavenly rest that awaits us, we are also pointed back. By calling the first day holy, Christ reminds us both of the resurrection and of the life that he won for us. Far from being diminished in the New Covenant, if anything, the promise of the Lord's day is further strengthened, and our reason to honor it is even further established.

Delighting in God

How can we drink of these blessings? How can we receive the foretaste of Glory that is promised to us in the Lord's Day? First, we must rest from our work. Certainly, we are encouraged to do what work is still necessary in this fallen world—Jesus allowed his disciples to pick and eat heads of grain on the Sabbath.²³ We must work to protect and heal the innocent—Christ himself performed many miracles on the Sabbath.²⁴ But outside of those exceptions, we ought not work. We must order our lives around this holy day each week to prevent us from having to work. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes this doctrine very succinctly, saying,

This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.

Westminster Confession of Faith XXI.8

Keeping the Lord’s Day holy starts with ordering our lives ahead of time. This is why the commandment begins, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”²⁵ Our natural behavior is to let our work pile up until we have no choice but to do it on Sunday; it takes intentional effort throughout the week to keep it holy. We must work ahead on assignments. We can’t take jobs (except jobs of necessity or mercy) that require us to work on the Lord's Day. We need to plan out and prepare our personal affairs ahead of time to prevent needing to catch up on Sunday (the laundromat and grocery stores are open on other days!). More than that, the command is not only that we are not to work, but even that we are not to require "our sons, our daughters, our male servants, our female servants, our livestock, or even the sojourners who are within our gates"²⁶ to work. That means we need to seriously consider, on the Lord's Day, if we're eating out at restaurants out of necessity or out of laziness. We need to refrain from frivolous purchases at retailers. We should even consider means of fellowship that don't require others to work (like playing a board game together instead of bowling). There is a lot of wisdom required in this matter—we don't want to become Pharisees with extra-biblical lists of do's and don't's—but we ought to think carefully about how we live our lives on this holy day.

If we want to drink deeply of the blessings offered, we must learn not only how to lay aside our work, but also how to lay aside our distractions. Once we have cleared open the day, it will take intentional work to prevent ourselves from filling it right up again with mindless or secular entertainment. Those things aren't bad, but on the Lord's Day, they distract us from the blessing offered therein. Not only that, they make the day that is supposed to be holy and set apart ordinary and common. Through the prophet Isaiah, God gently chided Israel for this very thing, writing,

If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Isaiah 58:13-14 ESV

The command here is difficult. Just like Jesus proclaimed that he who hates his brother in his heart is guilty of murder,²⁷ the prophet Isaiah proclaims that he who seeks his own pleasure or talks idly profanes the Lord's Day. But in Christ, though we fail to keep God's law every day, we are encouraged to press on, knowing that he has forgiven us and will strengthen us to do even better tomorrow. We would do well to recall the Sabbath command in Exodus 31: "Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths … that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you." Even when we break it every week, and fail to keep it perfectly, it still serves as a reminder that the Lord is sanctifying us, to keep it even better the next week.

Second, once we have rid our lives of the forbidden work and secular recreation on the day, we need to learn instead how to rest in God. We must seek, insofar as we are able, to live out the heavenly worship that awaits us in the weekly foretaste of heaven that we have now. We ought to be in church, every Sunday, as consistently as possible.²⁸ Many churches have both morning and evening services²⁹ to help their members keep the day holy, and we ought to attend them. The Lord’s Day is a great opportunity for hospitality and fellowship at home—I often enjoy having brothers and sisters in Christ over for lunch on Sunday. Instead of seeking our own pleasure on the Lord's Day with things like TV or social media, we ought to seek the pleasure of time with God and his people. Instead of talking idly, talk about the things of God; share stories of his faithfulness or situations that require prayer. Instead of seeing the day as a burden, we should try, as much as we're able, to make it a delight. Dr. Wynne offers wonderful advice here also:

How can you enhance the joy of the Sabbath day for yourself, for your friends, for your family, for your children? Certainly it's to center on worship at church. But outside of church, how can you break from [the busyness of] this world and enjoy God's creation? … How can you delight more in His redemption? How can you delight more in the people of God?

Pressing On to Promised Rest by Rev. Dr. Carlton Wynne

This may sound like an insurmountable task. How can we change our hearts to love something we do not naturally love? But we have the promises of God's Word, that those who keep the day will certainly—though perhaps slowly—learn to love it more and more. We have the wonderful promise of Isaiah 58: "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, … if you honor it, … then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father." God has promised to do what you cannot do, to make you love what you may not presently love.

My own life is proof of the reality of this promise. Learning to call the Lord's Day holy has been the single greatest blessing of my spiritual life. Before I honored the Lord's Day, I didn't particularly love church, reading God's Word, or prayer—though I participated in all of those activities. But the Lord convicted me when I read Isaiah 58, and though I didn't want to, I tried to call the Lord's Day honorable, to turn back my feet from my own pleasure. And although I have never kept it perfectly, little by little I began to love the things of God. I began to love going to church, even looking forward to the Lord's Day as the best day of the week (a foretaste of heavenly rest!). I began to love reading and studying God's Word. I even began to love prayer, both private and corporate. The Lord wrought a dramatic transformation in my life through even my feeble attempts to keep this command.

So I urge you, reader, with the same words of Isaiah 58 that so convicted me: "turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on [God's] holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; … honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly." Look to the promise of the heavenly rest that is offered to you in the Lord's Day. This Sunday, turn from the many worldly works and recreations that seek to crowd every moment of our lives. Lift your eyes heavenward. Look to the Christ that has gone before you, preparing a place for you in the eternal Sabbath rest that awaits the people of God.³⁰ And when you do, I promise, as the Lord himself promised through Isaiah, that "you shall take delight in the Lord, and [he] will make you ride on the heights of the earth; [he] will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."