May 8, 2012

“Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word [oral] or our epistle [written]” (2 Thess 2:15). It seems that since the surge of Modernism in the late 20th Century, many evangelicals no longer see the need for observing the Lord’s Day as our spiritual forefathers did. Is it time to quit calling Sunday the Sabbath? Have we evolved to be more enlightened than they were, or is there some other motive? Was their interpretation private, or is ours? Was their interpretation faulty, or is ours? Are we the cloud of witnesses or are they? Do we bear false witness when we say we believe in the Ten Commandments while we really only believe in nine? Do we really need to abolish the custom of having weekends off? Would it be good to open our businesses on Sundays and force our employees to work so they cannot go to church? Where do we draw the line between greed and obedience? The pop interpretation nowdays is that every man can rest whichever day he chooses, go fishing, and thus fulfill the fourth commandment. The main two passages used to support this view are Romans 14:4-6 and Col. 2:16,17. Let us look at them.  We will show that the Matthew Henry Commentary and others believe these two passages are not referring to the seventh day, but rather to the new moon Sabbaths. Romans 14:4-6 Who are you to judge another’s servant?  To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Matthew Henry Commentary Now let us look at how our fathers interpreted these verses. Below is a quote from Matthew Henry’s Commentary. He was a puritan who wrote around 1700. Matthew Henry shows that the apostle was not referring to the Lord’s Day, but to the traditional Jewish Sabbaths that took place at new moons, on feast days, and on Saturday. Those who thought themselves still under some kind of obligation by the ceremonial law esteemed one day above another-kept up a respect to the times of the Passover, Pentecost, new moons, and feast of Tabernacles; thought those days better than other days, and solemnized them accordingly with particular observances, binding themselves to some religious rest and exercise on those days. Those who knew that all these things were abolished and done away by Christ’s coming esteemed every day alike. We must understand it with an exception of the Lord’s Day, which all Christians unanimously observed; but they made no account, took no notice, of those antiquated festivals of the Jews.” Sunday as the Lord’s Day is the fulfillment of the Sabbath shadow. This is what Christians have always believed and practiced from the early days of church history. Dictionary Of The Apostolic Church In Ep. ad Magn., attributed to Ignatius, we meet with an early admonition, emphasizing the distinction: ‘Let us, therefore, no longer keep Sabbath after the Jewish manner…and rejoice in days of idleness… But let every one of you keep Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law’ (ch 9). In the nature of things, the two days could not continue to be equally observed in the Christian Church. The Sabbath must needs give place to the Lord’s Day: the seventh day of the week to the first. The legislation of Constantine (A.D. 321), which recognized Sunday as a feast day, must have been no small factor in the case; though, again, that would not have been enacted if the custom of keeping the Lord’s Day had not already been predominant among Christians… But there is a clear distinction between the two; and for Christians the Lord’s Day is paramount. The Fourth Commandment was still held to be binding; only Sunday was tacitly substituted for ‘the seventh day.’…Great as the authority of the Sabbath is, the authority of the Lord’s Day for all who accept the resurrection of our Lord is equally great or even greater. Peloubet’s Bible Dictionary Christ’s words do not remit the duty of keeping the Sabbath, but only deliver it from the false methods of keeping which prevented it from bestowing upon men the spiritual blessings it was ordained to confer. The almost total silence of the epistles in relation to keeping the Sabbath doubtless grew out of the fact that the early Christians kept the Sabbath, and that this period was one of change from the seventh to the first day of the week, and any definite rules would have been sure to be misunderstood. For many years both the first and the seventh days of the week were kept as Sabbaths; and gradually the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, took the place among Christians of the seventh day, and they had the fullest warrant for the change. The Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue is just as binding now as it ever was, or as any other of the Ten Commandments. Those who argue that God has abolished this Sabbath, but has written the Sabbath law in our very natures, must have strange ideas of the wisdom of a God who abolishes a command he has made it necessary to keep. Christians in keeping the Lord’s Day keep the Fourth Commandment, as really as do those who keep what