The Puritans on the Sabbath

I think that it can be argued that the Fourth Commandment is the most-ignored among the ten, even among Christians. Or should I say especially among Christians? After all, it is we who should best understand the significance of the Sabbath. 

Here is what the commandment says: "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 heaven and 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). 

So we notice several things here. First, the origin of the Sabbath is not in the commandment. That is a common error regarding this commandment, that it began with Moses. No, God Himself relates it back to his own actions in the creation: "On the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because, on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" (Genesis 2:2-3). Surely we understand that this is not a description of the weariness of God. Such an idea doesn't even make sense. Rather, it is a description of His enjoyment of the completion of His work, like the artist who steps back to enjoy the painting that he has just finished. 

Second, Christians strangle every discussion of the Sabbath by wrangling over what we are and are not allowed to do on that day. That discussion misses the point. It also ignores what the description that God Himself gives us in His word: "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; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken" (Isaiah 58:13-14). The Sabbath has never been about rules. That was the error of the Pharisees, which turned the Sabbath into a burden. 

The Sabbath was God's plan for His people to have joy, both in the work that we have done establishing His dominion in a fallen world, but especially in the work that He has done in redeeming us from the curse that sin has placed on us and our work! 

The Puritan Stephen Charnock, in his book The Existence and Attributes of God, chastised the Christians of his day, in words that apply even more to today's Christian, "A sleight and weariness of the Sabbath was a sleight of the Lord of the Sabbath and of that freedom from the yoke and rule of sin that was signified by it."

Joy! Not drudgery! 

Sin, Human Autonomy, and Practical Atheism

In his famous book, The Existence and Attributes of God, Puritan Stephen Charnock tells us, "By the nonregarding [sic, for "disregarding"]of God, men rush into evil. Pharaoh oppressed Israel because he knew not the Lord. If he did not deny the being of a deity, yet he had such an unworthy notion of God as was inconsistent with the nature of a deity: he, a poor creature, thought himself a match for the Creator." He refers to the passage in Exodus known especially for the account of the ten plagues, as Moses tried to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. In that passage, we see comments from Pharaoh like, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice and let Israel go?" (Genesis 5:2).

Charnock called this attitude "practical atheism." He notes that Pharaoh never denied the existence of gods, or even of the God. Rather, Pharaoh denied the sovereignty of God, asserting, instead, his personal autonomy from the will and commands of God. That is why Charnock calls Pharaoh's mentality "atheism," because it was a denial, in effect, of the deity, of the Godness, of God. 

This exemplifies, Charnock continues, the attitude behind all the sins of men, whether or not stated explicitly as it was by Pharaoh. It is, in fact, the false promise made by Satan in the Garden, that Adam and Eve would become like gods, deciding for themselves what is good and what is evil (Genesis 3:5). It is as if he told them, "Forget about God and decide for yourselves." And, like Pharaoh long after them, they accepted the promise of Satan. 

The Commandments of God in Stone and the Hearts of Men

Most people are not aware that God gave Moses the Ten Commandment not once but twice. The first time is described in Exodus 24:12: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to Me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.'" And again in 31:18: "And He gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God." These tablets were the ones shattered by Moses in anger at the idolatry of the Israelites in their worship of the golden calf (chapter 32).

After shattering the original tablets, Moses was then tasked with replacing them with a new pair of tablets, which he himself fashioned. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke'" (Exodus 34:1). As when Adam fell into sin, when Moses broke the commandments, literally, he was cursed with an increase in labor, having to carve and carry the stone tablets himself. 

This historical event came to my mind during a recent Sunday school lesson at my church. Part of that lesson dealt with the law of God written on human hearts. We see this in two places in the New Testament. First, Paul mentions it in Romans 2:15: "[Gentiles] show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." Then the writer of Hebrews mentions it again as part of the new covenant, which he, in turn, borrowed from the Prophet Jeremiah: "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds" (Hebrews 10:16, from Jeremiah 31:33). 

Notice the parallels between these two pairs of events. In each, God gave His holy commandments, but they were broken by men. And then God gave them again. 

By this pairing of breaking and restoration, we see two magnificent things. First is that God does not lower His standards merely because men cannot meet them. To do so would be to betray His own holiness. And second is His mercy. While the breaking of the law naturally incurs the death penalty (Romans 6:23), God's work is restorative, not punitive, for His elect. He restores His law (Isaiah 42:21). And He restores His elect through the imputation by faith of the perfect obedience of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:17, II Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3:21-22). 

John Owen on the Sabbath as a Day of Worship

"Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because, on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" -Genesis 2:1-3 

At the completion of the creation week, it was culminated by a day of rest. Which is not to say that God was tired. Rather, the implication is a cessation for the sake of enjoying the product of the preceding labor. For which enjoyment, God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy (KJV, "sanctified it"). We must ask what those actions mean for God. To bless that day was to make it a source of blessing, not to Himself, since God can never be more blessed, but for those to whom He gave it, the humans, male and female, the creation of whom would be recapitulated in the next verses. To sanctify it, or to make it holy, again, cannot be for His own sake, because God is the standard of holiness, the standing apart from mere creation. So, again, His action could only be for the man and woman, created the previous day. 

That distinction is essential, because there are some, influenced by antinomianism and dispensationalism, who claim that the Sabbath, as the day came to be called, was for God alone, and the human elements were created under the law for Israel, not the church, and that it was never properly a day of worship. Yet the words applied, and the attributes of God, preclude the use of the Sabbath for Himself. 

As Puritan John Owen comments on the passage, "'Sanctified' is further instructive in the intention of God, and is also explanatory of the former [word, i. e., 'blessed']. For suppose still (and the text will not allow us otherwise) that the day is the object of this sanctification, and it is not possible to assign any other sense of the words, than that God set apart by His institution that day to be the day of His worship, to be spent in a sacred rest unto Himself, which is declared to be the meaning of the word in the decalogue" (A Treatise on the Sabbath). "He set it apart to sacred use authoritatively, requiring us to sanctify it in that use obediently." 

Owen continues by pointing to Exodus 16:22-23: "On the sixth day, they [i. e., Israel] gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, 'Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord...'" Owen remarks, "The reason of it is plain and evident, for, there being a previous institution of the seventh day's rest (the observation of which was partly gone into disuse), and the day itself being then to receive a new peculiar application to the church state of that people [i. e., Israel], the reason of the people's act, and the rulers' doubt, and Moses' explanation, is plain and obvious." 

Yet, Owen did feel a need to deny that the Mosaic law added ceremonial elements to the sabbath, though he denied that the Sabbath, per se, was part of those Mosaic ceremonies. "The command of the Sabbath, in the renewal of it in the wilderness, was accommodated to the disciplinary state of the church of the Israelites. I admit, also, that there were such additions made to it, as to the manner of its observance and the sanction of it, as might adapt it to their civil and political state, and thus bear a part in that ceremonial instruction, which God, in all His dealings with them, intended... It is no argument, therefore, that this command was not in substance given before to mankind in general, [simply] because it has some modifications added in the decalogue to accommodate it to the existing state of the Hebrews." 

Owen's comments point us to the formulation of the Fourth Commandment, as it is found in Exodus 20:8-11 [emphasis added]: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, 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 heaven and 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." Not only does the commandment begin with a command to "remember," but it the makes explicit what is to be remembered, that is, the actions of God on the seventh day of creation. 

Furthermore, though Owen does not mention it, I would refer the reader to Leviticus 19:30: "You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord." The keeping of the Sabbath is explicitly connected to their revering of His sanctuary, making that connection explicit, though still not exclusive. 

David's Sense of God's Inspiration

In giving his final charge to Solomon regarding the building of the Temple, King David included this statement: "All this He made clear to me in writing from the hand of the Lord, all the work to be done according to the plan" (I Chronicles 28:19). 

There is a lot of substance in this one sentence. 

First, David is explicit about the source of his plans for the Temple, i. e., God. He says, "He made clear to me." The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews develops this statement in Hebrews 8:5: "They [the levitical priests] serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For, when Moses was about to raise the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, 'See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.'" That writer was referring to statements that are found in Exodus 25:9, 25:40, 26:30, and 27:8. What Moses was shown regarding the construction of the tabernacle, David also received when the tabernacle was replaced by the Temple. 

Second, David tells us that he received God's words  by the mediatorial hand of the Lord, i. e., Yahweh, the preincarnate Son. This, too, is a pattern we see elsewhere: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants" (Revelation 1:1). What God would inspire to be recorded in the Scriptures had its origin in the triune God, and was then mediated through the Son to the human writer. This is probably what Peter meant when he mentioned that the prophets were taught by the Spirit of Christ when they predicted His "sufferings and subsequent glories" (I Peter 1:11). 

This refutes some neo-orthodox teachers who claim that the writers of the Bible had no concept of divine inspiration when they wrote (compare II Timothy 3:16). While some may not have had such a concept, some did, as we see in the words of David recorded here. 

Honorable and Dishonorable Use According to the Mind of the Potter

"That the creatures have at times deviated from their first rules and settlement is no derogation from the doctrine of God's sovereignty, but rather an illustration of it, as showing that the creatures are still in His hand, as clay in the potter's. Hence we find their innate propensities to be sometimes suspended; at other times, overacted; and at times again quite contrary to the law of nature. And this [is] not casually nor by the force of created powers, nor yet for any private or self-concern, but to serve some special and superior end which their Lord had to be done" --Puritan Elisha Coles, "A Practical Discourse of God's Sovereignty" 

He doesn't quote it, but Coles alludes to a reference from Paul: "You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?' But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay, to make of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:19-21). 

If a potter splits his lump of clay, and uses one part to make a decanter for the finest wine, and the other part for a chamber pot, is that not his power to do? Can the chamber pot pipe up that it, too, wishes to hold fine wine? Of course not! Paul uses such an obvious example to make plain that the objection to God's sovereignty is equally irrational. 

While Coles widens Paul's text to apply to all created creatures, I want to focus, as Paul did, on God's sovereignty over mankind. It is all one to Paul, whether we are speaking of the lesser animals or to man; sentience is not grounds for autonomy. The sentient creation is still under the legitimate rule of his Creator. 

In theology, this is the contrasting doctrines of election, God's choice unto salvation and glorification, and reprobation, God's choice unto wickedness and judgment. Paul applies this dichotomy to an example which the Jewish Christians would have known well, the Pharaoh in Moses's account of the exodus from Egypt: "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth'" (Romans 9:17, citing Exodus 9:16). 

Paul's point in both his potter analogy and in the account of Pharaoh is to show that election and reprobation are not punishments or rewards for men, i. e., not something to be claimed by an autonomous creature. Rather, they are determined by His primary purpose, which is to glorify Himself. Granted, that is a concept that the unbeliever and many professing believers find abominable. Which is exactly the point of Paul's choice of words: "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" (Romans 9:20).

The implied answer is that, "You are no one." 

The Bible and The Watchtower Doctrine of "Soul Sleep"

According to the doctrine of the Watchtower, the human spirit disintegrates at death, and is then recreated at the final judgment. This doctrine is called informally "soul sleep," or more formally "conditional immortality."

In support of their doctrine, Jehovah's Witnesses cite Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10: "The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten... for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." They claim that these verses describe the dead as unknowing and without memory. Is that what they say? Hardly. "Sheol" is the grave, something which Witnesses repeat tediously in other circumstances. What is in the grave? A corpse. Solomon here is dealing with the bodies of the dead, which, of course, have no activity, whether mental, physical, or spiritual. Then the Watchtower commits a logical fallacy called "false equivalency." Even though Solomon is dealing with dead bodies, the Watchtower claims that his statements apply to the spirits of the dead. They offer no exegesis for that transfer; rather, the Society merely expects its membership to swallow the assertion without thought. 

In contrast to the Watchtower's doctrine, we have the words of Jesus in response to the Sadducees, those we might call the Watchtower of His time. He said to them, "Have you not read what was said to you by God: 'I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32, quoting from Exodus 3:6). Did Jesus mean that the bodies of the patriarchs were walking around among His audience. Of course not! Their bodies lay mouldering in their graves. Yet He says that they are alive, present tense, and that God is the God of such. Jesus had no concept of soul sleep or disintegration. 

The Sabbath and God's Creation Rest

When I discuss the Sabbath with antisabbatarians, one of their frequent responses is to claim that the Sabbath was created by the Fourth Commandment, which, they assert, means that it ended with  the abrogation of the ceremonial law at the completion of the cross work of Jesus. 

First, let me say that I agree that the ceremonial law was abrogated exactly because it was completed in the coming, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. However, no, the Sabbath was not part of the ceremonial law. Nor did it begin with the giving of the Fourth Commandment. Were murder, adultery, or thievery merely ceremonial prohibitions because they were framed in commandments? I hope that no one would say so. 

In response to that assertion, I say that, even if that abrogation applied to any of the commandments, it would not apply to the Sabbath, because, contrary to the assertion of the antisabbatarian, it was not created by the Fourth Commandment. God initiated the Sabbath day in Genesis 2:2-3, when He rested from creation work: "On the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation." In response, I usually get something like, "But that doesn't say Sabbath; it was a onetime thing." 

Really? 

That response shows that the antisabbatarian has rarely made any effort to to study the matter. Rather, he is just repeating slogans that he has been given to dismiss the discussion. 

We find this in Exodus 31:13-17: "You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, '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. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between Me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.'" 

God Himself explicitly ties the continuing Sabbath to His rest from the six days of creation. 

The Most-Specious Argument Against Theonomy

Everyone knows the Fifth Commandment by heart: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (Exodus 20:12). The apostle Paul refers to it as "the first commandment with a promise" (Ephesians 6:2). It is the basis of all human government, arguing from the least to the greatest. That is, if we should honor mother and father, then, obviously, we owe even more honor to the king. 

What few people consider, however, is the importance that God lays on this social order which He instituted: "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). 

We observe several things here. First, this is a son who is habitually rebellious, not one who is occasionally ill-behaved. Second, the parents have struggled with him, striving to bring him to order. If the parents are sinfully lenient, that is a different sin. Third, they go to the elders of their hometown for action. That is, men who are familiar with the family, and witnesses of both the efforts of the parents and the incorrigibility of the son. And fourth, most importantly, this son is not a child. He is living riotously, including the abuse of alcohol. At the very least, he is a teenager. He is to be removed from society because of his baleful actions and influence on others. Notice the last phrase, which indicates that one of the purposes of this law is to serve as an example to the rest of society. 

Yet, this is the one law which is immediately attacked by the antinomian whenever the proper role of God's law in society ("theonomy") is discussed. "So you want the government to stone children, huh?" Well, as I have already said, we aren't talking about children here. Nor do I want anyone to be stoned. Rather, they make that choice when they commit an act which is legal grounds for capital punishment. What is necessary is not the same as what is subjectively desired. 

Furthermore, look at what has happened to our society as a result of coddling wickedness in our young people! It is impossible to enumerate the crimes that would be prevented before they could happen if the incorrigible wicked were removed before they started their spree of violence. 

So, to answer the challenge of the antinomian: No, I don't want children stoned. I want a society in which children are brought up to respect their elders, society, and, most importantly, the God who rules over us all. 

Jesus the I Am of Exodus

"The Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.' When Moses told the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to the the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death... When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain'" (Exodus 19:9-13). 

That is part of the account of the Lord's appearance to Moses on Mount Sinai, in part for the giving of the Ten Commandments. 

"Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matthew 24:30-31). 

"The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God" (I Thessalonians 4:16). 

These latter two passages describe the coming of the Lord Jesus in 70 AD in judgment on apostate Israel. Notice the parallels in the two sets of descriptions, one of Yahweh to Exodus-era Israel, and the other to First-Century reprobates among the descendants of that same Israel. The signs associated with the two events are identical! 

The significance of these parallels is that we must conclude that the Person described in each is the same in each: the preincarnate Yahweh and the same Yahweh incarnated in the Person of Jesus. 

Justification and That Essential Four-Letter Word: Alone

"In teaching justification by faith alone, Calvin and the Reformed creeds, like Luther before them, are biblical. Not only does the Bible teach that justification is by faith, but it teaches also that justification is by faith alone. The Bible teaches justification by faith alone not by using the word alone, but by contrasting faith as the means of justification with the only alternative, namely, the works of the sinner. When, in its great passages on justification, the Bible affirms that justification is by faith and immediately adds that justification is not by works, the Bible teaches not only that justification is by faith, but also that justification is by faith alone. So clearly, purposefully, and decisively does the Bible thus teach justification by faith alone that alone is, in fact, in the text. It is in the text implicitly." 

- Rev. David Engelsma, "Gospel Truth of Justification," p. 185, emphasis in original 

When Martin Luther first translated the Bible into his native German he added the word "alone" to Romans 3:28: ""So halten wir nun dafür, dass der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben" (Literally: "We therefore conclude that a man is justified without the works of the law, alone through faith"). Rome has accused him ever since of adulterating the verse. More recently, Mormons have repeated the accusation, and applied it to all orthodox Protestants who hold to Sola Fide, justification by faith alone. 

As seen in the quote above, Luther might have added the word, but he did not add the concept. He merely made explicit what was already implicit. Not only is there nothing dishonest in doing so, but it is a common practice in translating. In fact, the King James Version used by the Mormons does it frequently (the words printed in italics). And Romanist translators have done it in preparing approved versions of the Scriptures. In other words, this is a painfully obvious case of the pot calling the kettle black! 

Part of the reason that Engelsma felt compelled to make his comment so firmly is because of a creeping loss of the Reformation doctrine, even among those who profess to walk in the footsteps of the Reformers. 

For example, in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Anglicanism (Church of England, Episcopal Church in the USA, etc.), number XI says, "Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort..." "Only" appears twice in this one sentence, yet Anglican Theologian N. T. Wright says that the doctrine is an error, and adds works to his doctrine of justification. 

Likewise, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the main doctrinal document of the world's Presbyterians, says (Chapter XI:1 and 2): "Those whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification..." Yet a movement among professing Presbyterians known as the Federal Vision denies the propriety of "alone," and, like Wright, claims a form of justification by faith mixed with works. 

Such men are dishonest in their profession, pledging their commitment to their respective creeds, while denying such a fundamental doctrine. That is taking the Lord's Name in vain, and "the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain" (Exodus 20:7).

Noah and the Sabbath Principle

Noah and the Ark

A major argument used by anti-sabbatarians to support their claim that the Sabbath was a Jewish ceremony and not for Christians is that the Sabbath didn't appear in Scripture before the giving of the Ten Commandments. That reasoning equates the doctrine with the word, like the cults that deny the Trinity, just because the word doesn't appear in Scripture. 

But the question they avoid is whether the concept appears before Exodus 20. As I say here, it first appears in Genesis 2:2-3, when God blesses the seventh day in honor of His completion of the Creation. But, as I will argue in this post, that verse is not the only place that we find the Sabbath in the pre-Mosaic scriptures. 

One of the antinomian views is that non-Jews are obligated to obey only the Noahide laws, i. e., those rules given to Noah, the progenitor of the postdiluvian humanity. While I deny that assertion, in this case it is actually self-refuting. 

In Genesis 5:28-29, we have this part of the account of Noah: "When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, 'Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.'" Lameck, the father of Noah, prophesies that his son would bring relief from work and toil to his descendants. Notice the exact language of Genesis 3:18-19, God's curse on Adam: "Thorns and thistles it [i. e., the ground] shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

How is this not a Sabbath rest? And does that not make the Sabbath a part of the so-called Noahide laws?

When Men Turn the Name of God into Vanity

Do you know the third Commandment? It is the one that says, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain" (Exodus 20:7). In our modern understanding, this commandment means not to use "God" flippantly, such as, "Oh God, I love pizza!" And it certainly includes that. But isn't it in itself flippant to believe that one of the Big Ten would be about that? 

Our ancestors certainly gave it more weight: "What are the sins forbidden in the third commandment? Answer : The sins forbidden in the third commandment are, the not using of God’s name as is required; and the abuse of it in an ignorant, vain, irreverent, profane, superstitious, or wicked mentioning, or otherwise using his titles, attributes, ordinances, or works, by blasphemy, perjury; all sinful cursings, oaths, vows, and lots; violating of our oaths and vows, if lawful; and fulfilling them, if of things unlawful; murmuring and quarreling at, curious prying into, and misapplying of God’s decrees and providences; misinterpreting, misapplying, or any way perverting the Word, or any part of it, to profane jests, curious or unprofitable questions, vain janglings, or the maintaining of false doctrines; abusing it, the creatures, or anything contained under the name of God, to charms, or sinful lusts and practices; the maligning, scorning, reviling, or anywise opposing of God’s truth, grace, and ways; making profession of religion in hypocrisy, or for sinister ends; being ashamed of it, or a shame to it, by unconformable, unwise, unfruitful, and offensive walking, or backsliding from it" (Question 113, Westminster Larger Catechism). There is little in our mental or social lives that the divines did not put under the Third Commandment. 

I want to especially consider one aspect of the abuse of God's name, and that is the claiming of it by members of pseudo-Christian cults. The worst ones are the ones that simply create a false Jesus, by depriving Him of His full and eternal deity. This would include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostals. They abuse God's name by applying it to idolatrous inventions of their cult founders. In this sense, the commandment is equivalent to the warning given by Jesus Himself: "See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:4-5, 24)

The followers of these manmade pseudo-Christs claim the name of Christ, and will even expect others to acknowledge them as Christians. However, they have claimed the name, not of the Jesus of the Bible, but of an idol, and are, therefore, using His name in vain. And, as Moses wrote, God will not hold them guiltless. They remain in their sins (John 8:24). 

The Sovereignty of God Leaves No Autonomy for Men

 Sometimes it is funny to talk to people not well-versed in sound biblical theology. When I ask them, "Do you believe in the sovereignty of God?," they always answer, "Of course!" Then, however, the footnotes start coming out, like the small print in a credit card commercial. "But He gives us free will, to choose to sin or not, to believe or not, to do good works or not." So, in reality, those people consider themselves to be sovereign, not God. That causes me to wonder if they have skipped over the large portions of Scripture that say otherwise. 

For example, in II Samuel 24:1, we read these words: "The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He incited David against them." The account in I Chronicles adds an additional detail: "Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David" (I Chronicles 21:1). So, we have two different writers in their respective books telling us that God had determined to punish Israel but inciting David to sin. God is sovereign over the sins of men. Furthermore, the two books tell us that God uses means to bring about that sin. II Samuel just tells us that David himself is the means. I Chronicles gives us the additional information that He used Satan to incite David. Thus we know that God is sovereign over not just the sins of men, but over the temptations of Satan, as well. 

The story continues: "So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, 'It is enough; now stay your hand.' And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, 'Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done?'..." (II Samuel 24:15-17). The parallel in I Chronicles 21:14-15 says, "So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell. And God sent the angel to Jerusalem to destroy it." The important thing to see here is that God had sovereignly incited the sin, yet still punished Israel for it. Also, it was David's sin (as he acknowledges in II Samuel 24:17), but God punishes the entire nation. That is simply because David was the covenant head of the nation; therefore, his sin was imputed to all of those who were covenantally represented by him. We are also again told of God's use of means, this time an angel (probably a parallel to the curse on Egypt in (Exodus 12:23, "destroyer"). 

The issue is very simple: fallen man wants to keep some of the autonomy promised to him by Satan in the fall of Adam (Genesis 3:5). Even the professing Christian struggles to relinquish his false sense of self-ownership. yet, God claims absolute sovereignty, over man, over sin, over Satan, and even over salvation. We must come to see that God's worldview is God-centered, no matter how much we want Him to be us-centered.

How the Church Paved the Way for Humanism

There has long been a tradition of dividing the Ten Commandments into two tables, commandments one through four and then five through ten. I am OK with that division. The first four deal primarily with man's relationship with God, and the other six primarily with his relationship with his fellow man. They are often portrayed this way in images of the commandments. That might be a bit fanciful. We have no record of how they were divided between the two tablets. Or even if they were divided. Some people believe that each tablet displayed all ten.

That's fine so far. 

There is also a common view that the civil government is supposed to enforce the second table, the laws against thievery and murder, etc., but has no authority over the first four. 

My question is this: Why? 

Sometimes the answer is that the First Amendment to the Constitution forbids it. We have freedom of religion in this land, so we can't have laws against idolatry. Yet our country has a heritage of so-called "blue laws," laws that required businesses to be closed on Sunday in honor of the Sabbath. "Blue," in this case, derives from a historical usage, in which "blue" was used for something which was overly strict. It was a pejorative term, but passed into general usage. The courts have upheld Sunday-closing laws on secular grounds, such as the practicality of providing a day off for workers. 

However, the question must be, Why does the First Amendment - in reality, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment - outweigh God's commandments? Should a cultural preference become the standard by which even Christians are to live, over the Word of God? 

When God tells us, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3), His desire is clear. So also when He says, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God" (verses 4-5). So, on what grounds do we decide that His will in these two commandments is less important that it is when He says, "You shall not murder" (verse 13)? There is certainly no biblical justification for that judgment. 

When the Westminster Standards were originally written, the Larger Catechism, question and answer 109, included among the sins forbidden by the Second Commandment, "tolerating a false religion."  However, in 1788, when the first Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church met in the newly-independent United States, they removed that clause as offensive to religious liberty. Not as offensive to the Word of God. 

What this should tell us is that the secular humanism which has come to dominate these United States is not a new phenomenon, and did not suddenly puff into existence because prayer was removed from government schools in the 1960's. Rather, it was the culmination of that decision in 1788 to place political and cultural considerations above the enscripturated Word of God. The door was opened to the supposed independence of "secular life" from God. Now we have parts of our lives which are designated "religious," and parts which are designated "secular." And the humanists are perfectly happy with allowing Christians to enjoy that distinction, because it turns all of life outside the church doors over to them. And the church doors are only a temporary barrier, until the humanists have secured their territory against that day.

Does God Have a Body Like Men Have?

One of the distinctions between Mormonism and biblical Christianity is the insistence by Mormons that God the Father has a body such as humans have. They also believe this of the preincarnate God the Son. They justify this belief by the statement in Genesis 1:26-27 that God made Adam in His own image. Mormons say that this must be in His physical image. 

There are three arguments against this Mormon claim.

The first I have discussed before, that the image consists of spiritual attributes, not physical. Since I have already dealt with argument, I will not repeat it here. 

The second argument regards the birth of Seth (Genesis 5:3): "When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth." There is a marked change here! Where Adam had been created in the image of God, Seth is conceived in the now-fallen image of Adam. Mormons do not claim that the physical image of men changed from Adam to Seth. That leaves only a spiritual change from Adam's original status to his spiritual status in chapter 5. Therefore, there can be no physical image involved in the creation of Adam. 

And thirdly we have the statements of Moses to Deuteronomy 4. He is reminding did to the idolaters at Baal Peor (described in Numbers 25), and at the giving of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20): "You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice" (Deuteronomy 4:11-12). This is Jehovah, who is identified as the preincarnate Christ by Mormons. I agree with that identification. In His mediatorial role, the preincarnate Son mediated the giving of the Ten Commandments to the covenant people. 

Moses continues (Deuteronomy 4:15-18): "Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth." 

In both sections of the chapter, Moses emphasizes the lack of physical form of Jehovah. And to bring the point home even more strongly, he warns the people not to make anything as a physical representation of that divine presence. Notice that he also doesn't make what would be a rational suggestion if the Mormon doctrine were true, to look at themselves as the representations of a supposed divine image. That would have been the rational argument, rather than to warn them against the images of animals, if the divine nature had had a physical image! 

Together, these three arguments from Scripture show that the doctrine of the Mormons has its origin in the same pagan mindset described by Paul in Romans 1:20-23: "His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." There is nothing of a biblical basis in it.

When Times Are Chaotic, Does It Mean That God Has Abandoned Us?

As I am writing this, America is in the grip of chaos. America has been shaken by understandable protests over the police killings of black people. In most places, those protests have wound down, but there a few cities, such as Portland, OR, which still see a lot of property damage and some violence. At the same time, we face the attack of the coronavirus. In some states, hospitals are at capacity, yet we still see a death toll which has surpassed one-hundred fifty-thousand.

Why are these things happening? Where is God as we face these things?

Well, we can be glad that God is where He has always been,on His throne. He is no less in control during days of chaos that He was when our society was at its most placid.

So, does that mean that there is no spiritual dimension to these circumstances? I would definitely not suggest that! Rather, it is not God who has failed us. I think that it is the organized church which has failed.

When Jesus gave us the Great Commission, He gave us a step that most Christians ignore: "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). We are fine with making disciples and baptizing them. In fact, there are even some mission organizations that proudly state that they do no more than that. But the command of Jesus did not stop there. In fact, even in those first two clauses, many Christians make a false assumption, equating "making disciples" with "making converts." Of course, a person must be converted first, but he is not then a disciple. Rather, it is the third clause that makes a convert into a disciple, for a disciple will obey all that Jesus has commanded us.

I place the blame for the chaos not on President Trump or on Democrats, as culpable as they may be. Rather I blame the pietists and dispensationalists in the American church. The pietist defines his faith as just a private relationship between himself and Jesus. He never intends for his private religion to have an impact on the world - and it doesn't. The dispensationalist (and I am using the term in its classical sense, such as seen in Scofield's Bible) denies the validity of God's Law in today's world. If anything, he might replace it with rules, such as hairlength for men. But they never notice that the Great Commission says nothing about obeying the rules of men; the obedience which is commanded is to what Jesus commanded.

Where are those commands? The answer is easy: all of Scripture was mediated to its authors by Jesus (see, for example, Exodus 20:2, , Luke 24:27, and I Peter 1:11). It is the same moral law (not the ceremonial law) which was proclaimed to Israel by Moses. Jesus is the author of the Ten Commandments, and He is no schizophrenic, teaching one morality today and a different one tomorrow, contrary to the claims of the dispensationalist. And it is because the dispensationalist has deprived American society of these guiding moral principles that men now act like lawless animals. And it is because the pietist leaves his faith in the closet that the church provides no solution to a crumbling society. God has not abandoned us; the American church has abandoned God.

What Is the Fear of God?

To the modern reader, there may be nothing written in Scripture more bewildering than one short phrase: "the fear of God." For example, believers are given this commandment: "You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the LORD your God" (Leviticus 25:17). In contrast, the fear of God is described as the one thing that unbelievers lack: "There is no fear of God before their eyes" (Romans 3:18).

Then we have this verse: "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, that you may not sin" (Exodus 20:20). Do not fear, but fear?

Ah, but then we see some light at the end of this tunnel: "That you may not sin."

Consider also this verse: "You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him" (Deuteronomy 13:4).

From our own cultural perspective, we naturally see "fear" as meaning "be afraid." And the example from Exodus shows that it means that in the Bible sometimes, too. However, it has a broader meaning than we give it today.

We Americans have never had a king, so we sometimes miss some of the imagery of the Bible, which unreservedly portrays God as an absolute king, even calling Him, "He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords" (I Timothy 6:15). The God of the Bible is King in such an absolute sense that He is king of all kings, and lord so absolutely that He is lord of all lords. We are to understand His rule as so singularly absolute that we have no higher words by which to name it.

Now think of the average person on the street who randomly runs into the President, or Prince William, or some TV or sports celebrity. In such a circumstance, the person is often struck dumb with awe, trembling even. He isn't afraid of the personage in the sense that he fears that he will be hurt. Rather, he is struck with such an awe that he cannot conceive of any other thought or action.

To a greater extent, that is the fear of God described in Scripture. The believer is so in awe that he cannot be distracted by any lesser concern or influence. That is why Moses can say that it is fear of God that inspires us to serve Him and hold fast to Him. This isn't a fear of punishment. Rather, it is an awe that precludes any lower considerations. Moreover, the hard part for an American is that it leaves no room for personal autonomy. God is the absolute sovereign, not me. This is not a democratic concept!

The Sabbath in the Pre-Mosaic Period

Anti-Sabbatarians often argue that the Sabbath was part of the Mosaic ceremonial law, and was, therefore, abrogated by the incarnation, atoning work, and resurrection of Jesus. I addressed that argument in part here.

One of the reasons that I disagree with that argument is that the Sabbath was not created by Moses, unlike the actual ceremonies, such as the sacrifices or the priesthood. Rather, the Sabbath was a creation mandate, established by God in the creation period of Genesis: "On the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation" (Genesis 2:2-3). Thus the Sabbath was not a Mosaic ritual, but was rather a creation mandate, just as marriage was.

Generally, the response I get is something to the effect of, "Then prove that anyone celebrated the Sabbath between the creation and Moses." There is so little thought put into that statement that it is obvious that they are merely repeating something that they have been told. The reason I don't believe that it is the result of study is that it is an argument from silence that cuts both ways: if I can't prove that people kept the Sabbath during that period, neither can the anti-Sabbatarian prove that they didn't. Additionally, even if the argument were correct, it is not to the point. The failure of the people to keep the commandment is not proof that the commandment was... Well, was what? Good advice? The anti-Sabbatarian doesn't say. They also don't say why failure to obey the land sabbaths didn't abrogate that law (Leviticus 26:45, II Chronicles 36:21).

Now lets fast-forward to Moses, in the receiving of the Ten Commandments. What we notice is that eight of the Commandments begin with "you shall" or "you shall not." The Fifth Commandment starts with"honor." However, only the Fourth Commandment begins with "remember." "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 heaven and 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). Remembering involves something that existed in time before our effort to remember it. The commandment even refers to the creation in its phrasing. Therefore, that one word proves that the Fourth Commandment wasn't creating the Sabbath; it was restoring it.

Jesus, Justice, and the Woman Caught in Adultery

There is a strange and controversial story found in John 7:53-8:11. In the story, the Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman who was caught in adultery. They say, and correctly, that the Law required those convicted of adultery to be put to death (see Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22). Yet, we notice at least one problem with their presentation: Where was the man caught with her? So, the Pharisees ask Jesus, what do You say that we should do with her?

Jesus does not respond with law. Rather, His response is to point at the character of the woman's accusers. Rather, He says, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her" (verse 7). In our popular culture, this has been taken to mean that any person with any sin has no grounds for criticizing the actions of any other person. Well, we know that Jesus meant no such thing, because He had prescribed righteous judgment just before this story (John 7:24). And that indicates the problem that He had with the Pharisees in this case. Their accusations did not come from righteous grounds, regardless of their pious citation of Moses. Note that these are men who had allowed a guilty man to depart without punishment, while they were prepared to punish the woman with death! I think that this was the specific intent of the response of Jesus, quoted above. These men had justified the man because they shared his same proclivities for illicit sex, but they still wanted to play at being righteous! They all walked away in shame because Jesus had torn off the bandage with which they had been hiding their perversion. 

If the text is a legitimate part of John, a question which I am not qualified to answer, then why is it here? 

I started thinking about this story because of something I read in my private Bible study this morning: "I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin" (Hosea 4:14). Doesn't that sound a lot like the story from John? And in it I found what I surmised about the story that I described above. Jesus was exemplifying the same redemptive purpose that He, in His preincarnate state, had inspired in the prophecy of Hosea. 

Jesus was not, and is not, opposed to true justice. After all, He was also the source of the Law. He was the Yahweh who revealed the commandments to Moses in Exodus 20:1. However, He is also our compassionate Redeemer who went to the cross on behalf of His people. Notice how He deals with the repentant thief on the cross next to Him (Luke 23:40-43). He promised the thief that he would be with Him in Paradise in just a few hours. However, He did not take the thief down from the cross. The thief was redeemed and forgiven, but still received the due temporal, legal consequence of his wicked acts (Luke 23:41). There is no sign here of the sentimental supposition that no one can judge the sins of someone else.