Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Fourth Commandment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Fourth Commandment

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 063

Dictation Name: RR171AH63

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Seeing that we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, unto whom all the earth shall be accountable, we come to thee rejoicing that it is thy judgments that shall prevail. Not the will of man, not the will of nations. Teach us so to walk, our Father, that ever mindful of thy word that we, by thy spirit, may be joyful in thee, filled with thy power, ever faithful in thy service, and triumphant for thy kingdom. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 20:8-11. Our subject: The Fourth Commandment. The Fourth Commandment. Exodus 20:8-11. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

We saw last week that one of the problems with the interpretation today of the ten commandments is that a minimal meaning is given. We saw that, with regard to not taking the Lord thy God in vain, it is reduced merely today to profanity. Profanity, we are told, if forbidden, which is true enough, but when we examine the past history of the meaning of this, we see that it had reference to justice. Taking the name of the Lord in vain by false oaths, by whether an oath is taken or not, the ministration of justice. God’s name represents justice. Therefore, wherever justice is not properly administered, God’s name is taken in vain.

Well, the fourth commandment similarly has been limited in its meaning. Now, one of the clearest distinguishing marks of Christianity is its requirement of a unity of faith and life, for as James says, “Faith without works is dead.” As against Pharisaic formalism, St. Paul declared in Romans 2:28-29, “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly.” This fact applies clearly to all the law, and certainly to the tenth commandment. It is not merely an outward profession, it is an inward one that is important.

According to Leviticus 23:1-3, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.” Now this is an important statement because God classifies the sabbath as a feast day. The idea of a joyless sabbath is a contradiction. The old fashioned Sunday dinner and family gathering, including kinfolk, is in terms of Leviticus 23:1-3, the sabbath as a feast day, a celebration of rest, a weekly feast day, is God’s mandate.

Another text is also very revealing: Ezekial 20:12, “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.” The Hebrew word for “sign” is “ot,” meaning a signal, an omen, a prodigy, something remarkable, anevidence. It implies a miraculous appearing also. The sabbath, in this sense, is a sign between God and His covenant people. God made heaven and the earth and all that is in them, we are told, in six days and rested the seventh day. Because God is the absolute sovereign, and because, as Acts 15:18 says, “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world,” there are no surprises or new events for God in time and eternity. History has no surprises for God, He creates it. God rests in His total government and providence. In His absolute control of all things. Now the sabbath is God’s ordained rest for us. It is a sign for us because it is a weekly reminder that the future does not depend upon us but upon God, and we rest in the confidence of His victory. It is a sign of victory. It is a feast day because of this fact.

As Christians, we especially should rejoice, because He is come, upon whose shoulders are the government of all things. Calvin saw three purposes in the sabbath rest. He said, and I quote, “For it was the design of the heavenly lawgiver unto the rest of the seventh day to give the people of Israel a figure{?} of the spiritual rest by which the faithful ought to refrain from their own works, in order to leave God to work within them. His design was, secondly, that there should be a stated day on which they might assemble to gather to hear the law and perform the ceremonies, or at least to which they might especially devote to meditations on its works. But by this recollection, they might be led to the exercises of piety. Thirdly, he thought it right that servants and persons living under the jurisdiction of others should be indulged with a day of rest, that they might enjoy some remission from their labor.” With respect to Ezekial 20:12, Calvin added, and I quote, “We must rest altogether that God may operate within us.”

It is an ironic fact that, in our time, so much is said against the Puritan idea of the sabbath. But a great deal of the success of Puritanism or the people was their sabbath, because they insisted, as Christopher Hill has pointed out, that the working man had to rest, that was God’s purpose, and under the old order which the Lord but not the people called Merry England, working man worked seven days from sun-up to sun-down, so they welcomed the Puritan sabbath.

Calvin saw the sabbath abrogated as man’s rest because Jesus Christ is our rest. He called Him the true fulfillment of the sabbath. “It is now,”he said, “a day of worhsip and prayer, and rest from labor.” The abrogation was, for Calvin, the location now of rest primarily in Christ, rather than in the day.

The term “sabbath” is applied not only to the seventh day in the seventh year, but also to the Day of Atonement, indicating very clearly the relationship of rest to redemption. Before Exodus, we have no reference to sabbath observance. Some see the use of the word “remember,” in “remember the sabbath day,” as evidence of prior observances. However, we routinely use the word “remember” when we tell somebody something that is important, we say, “Remember to do this.” Its doesn’t mean that it’s the repeated instruction.

The sabbath is a covenantal day, and its proper observance requires national participation. While family and church observances are essential, they are partial. A covenanted nation and people is the goal of the sabbath. The sabbath was introduced to Israel just before the law was given, when the rules of manna gathering were set forth in Exodus 16:16-31.

The fourth and fifth commandments differ from the other eight, because they are positive statements. “Remember the sabbath day,” and “Honor thy father and thy mother.” The others are all negative; “thou shalt not.” Because law is a restraint on sin, laws generally must be negative. They are a restraint upon man, and also upon civil government whose concern must be to restrain evildoers. To honor father and mother is a personal command to further the authority of family life, and the sabbath commandment, in this form again calls for positive action in observance, it is not a restraint. This positive aspect is very clear. “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” It is to be a separate and dedicated day. It requires a cessation of labor in order to celebrate God’s feast day, a day of assurance in God’s victory and our rest therein. Remember the sabbath day, rejoice.

It is important to remember that animals are included in the sabbath rest. This is plainly stated in the tenth commandment. In earlier years, when animals were the means also of transportation, many people would give the horses which carried them to church extra oats on their return, so that the horses would also have their feast day and rest for the remainder of the day.

The Hebrew sabbath observance went from sundown the night before till dawn the morning after, which meant a day and a half, and many Christians keep a like observance. In verse 11, we are told that God commands a sabbath rests as our creator, because He is the creator, he establishes the rules of life and the sabbath is such a rule. We are therefore to keep the sabbath as a means of respect for God and for the life He has given us. The day of rest is a day of feasting and worship, because He so ordains it.

In God’s law, all fasting on the sabbath, except for the Day of Atonement, is forbidden. No fasting on the sabbath, and even on the Day of Atonement, after sundown, there was a feast. This is a very interesting fact. Jewish practice quite rightly excluded mourning on the sabbath, and so does Christian usage. No funerals are held on the sabbath. More than fifty years ago, Chief Rabbi Hertz of England predicted that, and I quote, “Without the observance of the Sabbath, of the olden Sabbath, of the Sabbath as perfected by the Rabbis, the whole of Jewish life would disappear.” Well, that’s exactly what is now happening.

Honeycutt tellingly called attention to the dedication of the firstfruits to God. He said, “The whole of the crop was compressed into the first offering.” This was the principle of pars pro toto, the part may stand for the whole, and we can add this also applies to the sabbath. It represents the whole of the week to follow. All of time is dedicated to God and the observance of the one day. To quote Honeycutt again, “By refraining from his own efforts on that day, man effectually recognized divine ownership. Thus, all time belonged to God, as did the whole of the creation. Just as all of the grain, grapes, flock, herds, fruits, etc. belonged to Him and man acknowledged this by sacrificing, a part of the whole, a part of the whole in lieu of the whole, so in the case of the sabbath. Man sanctified a part of the week and in so doing, acknowledged that, in reality, the whole was the Lord’s. Rest allowed the whole of creation to return to its primal{?} condition with the Lord.”

The sabbath finds expression also in the seventh year rest, and in the Jubilee. In pagan cultures, work is seen as misery, and the goal is an escape from work through wealth. Escapism in paganism is both a religious and an economic goal. But, we more than a century ago, George Rollinson said, and I quote, “His law of the sabbath established a conformity between the method of His own working and that of His reasonable creatures, and taught men to look on work not as an aimless, indefinite, incessant, weary round, but as leading onto and end, a rest, a fruition, a time for looking back and seeing the result and rejoicing in it. Each sabbath is such a time, and is a type and foretaste of that eternal sabbatizing in another world which remaineth for the people of God.” What this means then is, we rest. It is a feast day for us because we are on the winning side.

Our God will overthrow all powers of darkness, and the sabbath is a sign of rest and feasting, of rejoicing because this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. For us, time is not a dreary round leading only to death, despite its very ugly discoloration by sin, it is a glorious process of redemption. Time is God’s feast time for man. The six days have their griefs and troubles, that in the seventh we declare our faith and celebrate life and victory, and we set forth the fact that the other six, and all the days to come, for us, are ultimately days leading to victory. So, while the world tries to escape from time and work because life for them is miserable, for us, the sabbath is a time of feasting, and it represents, in part, what the whole must be for us, and will be in totality in the world to come. Let us pray.

Thy word is truth, oh Lord, and thou hast ordained from all eternity the victory which is to be ours in Christ. Teach us to feast and to rejoice on thine appointed day, that we might ever be mindful that we are more than conquerors in Christ. In His name we pray, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Why is the wife not specifically included in verse 10?

[Rushdoony] Why is the wife? Because it is addressed to the husband and wife, jointly. Yes. That’s a question that has been raised before, but the Bible addressed the commandment to the heads of households, jointly. Yes?

[Audience] I supposed since the yearly sabbath hasn’t been kept consecutively by anybody for so many centuries like a weekly sabbath, if it were ever to become {?} custom here, somebody would have to arbitrarily say “It’s going to be in this year.” Is that not true, or is there any way of figuring it out?

[Rushdoony] No, there isn’t. Many people do keep the yearly sabbath in the seventh year. The most notable group in this country are the Mennonites.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, they have since the Reformation observed it, and in the sabbath year they make it a time of feasting and rejoicing, and also doing all the odd jobs, repainting the house, the barn, and.

[Audience] Can we use their year right now?

[Rushdoony] Well, any year, I guess, would be an acceptable year to the Lord. More and more people, however, are beginning to keep the sabbath year, individuals across country. Yes?

[Audience] The Supreme Court forbids the posting of the Ten Commandments on school house walls in Kentucky a few years ago.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I was in that case as a witness for the state of Kentucky, trying to retain the Ten Commandments as against the ACLU and others, and the Supreme Court reversed the state courts on that. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] There seems to be a wide latitude among various religions on what constitute work, or things which should not be done on the sabbath. Where is it contained, how do you know what is work and what is?

[Rushdoony] Yes, now Phariseeism did go to all kinds of lengths to provide the most detailed kind of definition. How many steps you could walk on the sabbath, what you could do, and orthodox Pharisees to this day will hire some neighborhood boy to come in and turn on the lights at sundown, or to turn on the kitchen range if they’re going to use it, because for them, it’s forbidden to do such things. I recall a scholar reporting that when he went to visit a very noted Jewish scholar, Rabbi Klausner, they were having a discussion about some point in the Old Testament and Rabbi Klausner was going to confirm his point by reference to a book. And he started towards the ladder to climb up to a top shelf in his library, and he stopped and said, “Ah, I cannot. It’s the sabbath.” Now, that is Phariseeism, and it becomes very rigid. Feasting is permitted but there were those among the Pharisees who felt it was alright to get drunk on the sabbath because that was not labor, that was pleasure. So, you can get into ridiculous extremes.

A great many churches have very strong feelings about what can and cannot be done on a sabbath. I believe that it is a matter to be determined by each person in terms of their careful study of scripture, and their conscience. I think some people are needlessly troubled. I was in one church visiting once, and I knew the people well. There was scarcely a person in the church I did not know, and there was one man whose work required that he work on Sundays, periodically, regularly in fact, so that he’d have about one Sunday morning a month free. He was always free by 5:00 Sunday night, and was always at church. He was one of the most dedicated givers, one of the most resilute of tithers, and yet he was made to feel that somehow he was sinful and had to find another job. I thought that was morally wrong, because, in the New Testament, what our Lord does say, referring to the Old Testament, that there are things that must be done on the sabbath, like rescuing a calf from a pit. Now there are works of necessity in our time, some things require continuous operations, like power plants. So, those are works of necessity. We cannot, I believe, be too rigid. When we stress the details, we forget that the sabbath say is called by God a feast day, and we become joyless inspectors of infractions rather than happy celebrants of our victory in Christ. Any other? Yes?

[Audience] It seems like the main problem I’ve had is not people who really want to work on Sunday, it’s those who want to recreate and really to enjoy hedonistic escapism, as you referred to it. The key word for this is holy in this commandment, to distinguish our celebration from hedonistic pursuits which we see.

[Rushdoony] Well, there’s a double-edged point there, you see, and you’ve put your finger on it. We do have a hedonistic idea of rest today, because we also have a hedonistic view of work. We’ve destroyed the meaning of both work and rest, so that whether we work or rest, neither is holy unto the Lord. That’s the problem. We have destroyed the meaning of both, and I believe that you cannot have a true meaning of rest if you do not have a true meaning of work. Yes?

[Audience] Well, of course, some vocations are forms of work anyway. Physician, and an official of the government, so forth, can’t stop because of the sabbath.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s very true. To me, one of the curious facts, I did some study on this, and I couldn’t find any indication that in the Old Testament celebration of the sabbath year, the priest or the Levite got the time off, theirs was continuous.

[Audience] From {?} onward I wondered why the priest didn’t take off.

[Rushdoony] Well, apparently that was the Old Testament practice. Everyone else did but they didn’t. I’d be happy if somebody finds something different in their research. Any other questions or comments? Well, we should remember the key here is that it is a feast day, rejoicing in victory. That’s the first and foremost fact, and it is when people lose that fact, and I think false eschatologies, which have seen only defeat ahead, have taken out the joy from the sabbath day. I mentioned the fact that the old fashioned sabbath observance was a family reunion, and as a boy, families would get together at the home of one or another relative every Sunday, rotating, for a dinner of three, four, five families that were kin, went from twenty, to forty or fifty, eating together, and having a marvelous day of it. A family reunion, weekly. And that, I think, is in the spirit of the sabbath, a feast day holy unto the Lord, and since the next commandment has to do with “Honor thy father and thy mother,” and the commandments are interrelated, we should recognize that connection. Well, let us….yes?

[Audience] Could you make a comment on the, why is Saturday the seventh day, and why do we celebrate?

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes. The, very briefly, I’ve touched on this a few times. The Hebrew sabbath was in terms of the day, of the date, not in terms of the day of the week. It was on the first day of the first month, the eighth day, the fifteenth, the twenty-second, and the twenty-ninth, so it was always constant in terms of the calendar, just as our birthdays are, but as far as the day of the week is concerned, it changed constantly, just as your birthday from year to year is on a different day of the week. Well, what happened was that as Jerusalem fell and with the various revolts, it was obvious it would not be reestablished, neither Jerusalem nor Judea. Maintaining the Hebrew calendar became more and more difficult except for limited purposes, but for the working week, the rabbis decided that they would take Saturday, so they switched from a date in the calendar to a day in the week, and ever since, the Jewish sabbath has been on Saturday. This was not the original sabbath, it was in terms of the day of the week. As a result, there has been a great deal of misunderstanding of what the Old Testament observance was. Because of the change, the Jewish calendar now prevails only at one point, the date of our Lord’s resurrection, Easter. It is still governed, and that’s why it shifts every year in terms of the calendar, but it’s in terms of the same time by the Jewish calendar. So, we’ve retained the Jewish calendar at that one point, as have the Jews with regard to passover. Well, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee that thou hast called us to rejoice. To be confident in thy victory, to know that thou shalt prevail, and we in thee. Make us zealous in thy service, and joyful all the days of our life. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.