Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

Sabbath Keeping

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Sabbath Keeping

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 111

Dictation Name: RR171BH111

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the way of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep His testimonies and that seek Him with the whole heart. Order my steps in thy word and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. With my whole heart have I sought thee, O let me not wander from thy commandments, O Lord. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, with joy and thanksgiving we acknowledge all thy blessings unto us. Thou art so often good to us who cannot, at times be good even to ourselves. We thank thee for thy mercies, for thy providential care, for thine unfailing government and for the fact that thou dost go before us to make the way straight for us. Great and marvelous are thy ways, O Lord, and we thank thee. Give us grace, therefore, to take hands off our lives and to commit them into thine omnipotent care. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 31:12-18. Our subject: Sabbath Keeping. Exodus 31:12-18. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.  It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”

In Genesis 17:1, God is establishing His covenant with Abraham. He requires circumcision as the sign of the covenant. Now, in the renewed covenant In Christ, baptism replaces circumcision as the covenant sign, but here in this text we have something different. Sabbath keeping, rather than circumcision or baptism is spoken of as the covenant sign in verses 13, 16-17. Circumcision is a recognition, as is baptism, of the sovereignty of God in salvation. The infant of eight days cannot save himself. The parents, in circumcising or in baptizing a child, look to God’s sovereign grace for the salvation of their child, and they give the child to God in baptism and promise to rear him as the Lord’s possession. Baptism and circumcision bind the child to obedience to God, and to the recognition that he is not his own, but the Lord’s. The meaning is therefore, linked to the family and the person.

Now the sabbath has a different meaning. It is linked both to creation and to redemption. It is also tied to God’ image in man. God created all things in six days and rested on the seventh to set the pattern for us. Human life must reflect the character of God’s life. The sabbath is very, very closely tied to the life of the covenant nation. Circumcision and baptism make the covenant personal. The sabbath is the sign of the national covenant. Tacitus, despite his often absurd beliefs concerning the Bible and the Jews, recognized that the sabbath began with Israel’s break with and departure from Egypt. It represents a civil aspect of God’s covenant, which also requires personal obedience.

Now neither circumcision now baptism constitute abiding public affirmations. We cannot go down the street and look at passersby and say, “He’s been circumcised or baptized.” That’s impossible. On the other hand, while circumcision and baptism are family covenant facts, sabbath keeping, while it also has a personal and family meaning, has primarily a public meaning. Anyone who has lived in a sabbath keeping society knows the difference it makes. It is highly visible, and it is a very public manifestation of the civil covenant.

While sabbath keeping is not a sacrament, it is a sacramental observance. Grace is given to the nation which observes it. Thus, while circumcision and baptism stress the personal and family aspects of the covenant, the sabbath stresses the civil aspect primarily, and then the ecclesiastical.

Now, in Exodus 13:9, the passover bread is spoken of as a sign, and here, the sabbath is called a sign. It is evidence that the nation has separated itself to God. By setting aside that day, by resting on the seventh day, the covenant country openly acknowledges its essential hope that it is not, in itself, nor in its own efforts, nor in its planning, but in God’s grace and mercy. By resting on the sabbath day, the nation asks God to bless the preceding week’s labor. The sabbath rest asks for God to sanctify the work we have done and will do. When a country stops observing the sabbath, it moves into a planned society, because it no longer trusts in the providence of God but rather in the providence of the state.

In verses 14-15, the death penalty is cited. In Numbers 15:32-26, we have the only instance in the whole Bible of its enforcement. We are told that it applies to the defiling of the sabbath, to a high-handed and deliberate move against God to show contempt for Him. In John 5:16-18, we see an attempt to charge Jesus with sabbath breaking, but our Lord declares more than once that works of necessity and works of mercy are permissible on the sabbath day. The sabbath, he made clear, was made for man, not man for the sabbath and He, Himself, was Lord of the sabbath.

The purpose of the sabbath therefore is first, to know the Lord. Second, to remember and rejoice in God’s covenant with us, and third, to rest. The emphasis is strongly on rest. Then fourth, we are told “that ye may know Him.” This may be translated as “that men may know Him,” inclusive of more than those who observe it. Therefore, the sabbath has, very clearly, an international significance, in showing to mankind the relationship between God and a covenant nation. In this sense, the sabbath is a public witness of a nation’s stand, irrespective of the agreement or dissent of the people. Because of this civil and public aspect of the sabbath, there is a public penalty; death. The modern state, whether or not it observes the sabbath, has ceased to be a covenantal state, and therefore, there is no penalty for the most high-handed defiling sabbath breaking. The most we have seen is an occasional fine, and that has disappeared.

In verse 13, God identifies the days as “my sabbaths.” In a particular sense, therefore, the day is His and is to be governed by His word and will. Since He gives so much grace and blessing to His covenanted people, He requires a simple response; faithfulness to Himself and to His laws, and resting on His sabbaths. He regarded the act of despising an opportunity to rest as an act of perversity and of contempt for His covenant. The words of verse 13 are emphatic. “Verily, my sabbaths ye shall keep,” or surely my sabbaths ye shall keep. Men should logically enjoy a sabbath rest, not deliberately despise or profane it.

J. Phillip Hyatt has ably summarized the Old Testament meaning of sign, and I quote, “Sometimes it is an omen of a future event, sometimes it is a miracle. Sometimes it is a memorial as of the stones taken from the Jordan. The rainbow is a sign of the covenant with Noah after the flood, and circumcision is a sign of the covenant with Abraham. In Ezekiel 20:12 and 20, as well as here, the sabbath is a sign. Here it is specifically a pledge that Yahweh sanctifies Israel, setting it apart as a nation in covenant with Himself.” The sign of the sabbath is therefore a covenant mark of national as well as personal blessing. To despise a gift and the mark of care and providence it means is to betray the fundamental relationship. The sentence is death, national and personal. Because work was to begin on the tabernacle and its furnishings, this sabbath law is given here to make clear that not even the work on God’s sanctuary could take priority over the sabbath. The sabbath was thus a day of rest for man, and also a way of confessing the priority of God over ourselves and our work.

In Hebraic practice, any person desecrating the sabbath in the presence of two witnesses had to be warned by them of the evil of his act.

At one time, it was the custom for civil officers and legislators not only to have a chaplain open and close convocations, but also for all these members of the body to worship together on the Lord’s day. The purpose was a very important one. Instead of continuing to concentrate on their differences, they united once a week in worshiping the covenant God on whom all must depend. This is why worship was once a basic act of legislative assemblies.

In Deuteronomy 5:14-15, we are told that the sabbath rest must be extended to the poor, to our dependents, to farm animals, that they may rest as well as thou. The sabbath has a societal function among other things.

The covenant signs most plainly set forth in the Old Testament are the rainbow, circumcision, and the sabbath, and in the New, baptism and communion. All are God’s grace and favor to us. Our text concludes in verse 18 with an account of the two engraved stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Each table contained all ten commandments in terms of treaty or covenant law, one copy for each partner to the contract. The word “defileth” used in verse 14 for sabbath breaking can mean also to dissolve, or to break, to dissolve or to break a contract. It means that to be in covenant with God is important, and when we defile it, we say that it is not important and pleasing ourselves is.

We have forgotten to revolutionary implications of the sabbath. Christopher Hill, in his Marxists days, called attention to the significance of the Puritan sabbath for the working classes of England. It rallied them to the Puritan cause. It was there liberation from unending labor and made the Puritan cause popular. I had an echo of this in the mid 1920s in Detroit, Michigan. A very burly auto worker at the Ford plant, I overheard, and he was in a rage. He was in a rage to see laundry on the line on Sundays and an attempt to open stores on that day. He never mentioned the Bible in his angry comments. He saw these things as anti-worker, as aimed against the welfare of the working class, and it has occurred to me that it would be a very interesting subject of research, if the sources are still available, to see how the workers of Europe reacted to the Bolshevik abolition of the sabbath, because the working classes were very hostile to any attempt to turn the sabbath into a work day.

God gave the sabbath to man as a sign of His providential care, as a witness to the fact of His government for their welfare. The decline of sabbath observances is a witness to man’s belief in his self-sufficiency, and a belief that his planning is better than God’s planning. As against the asaity{?} or self-being of God, the modern humanistic state asserts its own assaity{?}, or self-being. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word and for thy kingdom. O Lord, our God, thou knowest that modern man, like the wicked of all ages, is like the sea which cannot rest but is forever troubled. Take away from us the unbelief, the restlessness of spirit, the disquietude, their marks of infection from this age, and give us grace to trust in thee and to rest in thee. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Modern life seems to be to have just about destroyed any chances of rest. People are both employed, husbands and wives, there is no longer servants, there are a thousand tasks to take care of every day of the week, and I remember that service in Spokane, was it? Portland. That lasted three hours or so, and I wondered what you thought about such a protracted service on a Sunday in modern times.

[Rushdoony] Yes. It used to be common in this country for people to go to church and plan to spend the day there. For one thing, they came on wagons, or on horseback, and driving five, ten, fifteen miles took a long time, and they planned to stay, so it was a day of eating together, of visiting, and it was a highly-prized day. In some instances in the Deep South, where the countryside was heavily wooded, they would come once a month on Sunday and worship from early morning until evening, and also visit and dine together. Some of those groups still do that, because they find that so marvelous a thing to spend an entire day together. It was a totally different view of life. Let me say those that came together once a month would worship at home in the family out on their farms, and it meant there was a very relaxed temper. As I pointed out, there was a relationship between the planning state and the non-sabbath observing country, because what the state does is to take over and play god, and the people do also. Well, if you’re God, you’re going to be very restless, or if you think you’re god, because you can’t control everything. Most of your life is out of your control and the result is a restlessness. It is interesting that the senior Masserick{?}, who was not a Christian, wrote a book in which he traced the rise of suicide to the loss of faith, the inability of men to rest, and it’s still regarded as a classic in the field. Yes?

[Audience] In the regard to your question about how Eastern Europeans reacted to the Bolshevik elimination of Sunday sabbath during this last week on TV, they showed the Russian church in Sacramento which was standing room only, and as the camera panned across the faces of the congregation, it said it all.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes.

[Audience] In verse 15, is says “six days may work be done,” and I was curious to the idea of five day work week that we’re used. Where does the idea of the weekend come in?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Six days may work be done, not necessarily be done. The alteration in the days of work came about from the abuse made of the working man. In the Medieval Era and for a long time beyond the Middle Ages, there were a great many holy days on the calendar, days when there was no work, Saints day or other day and, as a result, men rested. They were still very productive. In fact, because they didn’t have to pay as much as we do in taxes, they could earn more in a shorter time. Well, what happened with the modern age as with the last century, the de-Christianization set in in Europe. The working day was made seven days, and long hours; fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours, and it took a dreadful toll of human life. Then, as labor began to rebel against this, the hours were shortened and then the working week. The sad fact is that at the critical point, the churches did not go along with the working man, at first they did. A study has never been made of the early protest against this prolonged week, but at first the churches did protest against unending labor without rest, but later they were silent. Now, it was somewhat later that this kind of thing came into this country and especially it began among the railroads. They required 365 days of work of their workers, and with very, very little regard for their safety, and they created an animosity that still exists in the conflict between capital and labor. It was tragic that, at a critical point, this de-Christianization set in, and the churches did not continue to be vocal but became pietistic, and we are reaping the consequences now. Yes?

[Audience] I know it’s many context to become pharisaical in interpretations, and I guess my question is to what extent can the church enforce the law or use it in a disciplinary role, or more to the point, some people’s needs of necessity of mercy are not necessarily other people’s, so, to what extent is a conscience and to what extent is it, can it be universally applied?

[Rushdoony] The church here has a teaching ministry, because the sabbath is primarily, and this the church has forgotten, a civil covenant with God. It’s a civil covenant with God, and this we’ve forgotten. There’s not much that God requires of the state, apart from maintaining of a biblical moral standard, but it does require that this civil covenant, the sabbath, be observed, and at this point, the church has failed because it has turned it exclusively ecclesiastical day. It doesn’t see the civil aspects except to require sabbath closing or to try to work for that. I mentioned the fact that legislators always worshiped together, and this was very strictly regarded, because there had to be a common standing in terms of the Lord. They had to both acknowledge both parties, or all parties if there were more than two parties, that they were alike under God. Now, this was carried out in a number of spheres of life. For example, in the Netherlands, and this was not exclusively there, the annual market day, the number one market event of the year, was also in a sense, religious, in that it was the culmination of their harvest and therefore, not only a time for selling at the public square, but also for acknowledging God’s goodness and His bounty. And at that time, if two men were bitter enemies in the community, and never spoke to each other, no matter what they did after harvest, they had to lock arms and walk up and down the whole length of the marketplace chatting, because they had to affirm that the community came above their own differences, and at a day like that, a community day, they had to affirm their basic peace, their rest in the Lord. Now, there are all kinds of things like that that used to be done to indicate the public awareness of a sabbath rest, of the fact that God’s requirements take priority over man. This is why the old fashioned, non-ecclesiastical sabbath, the civil sabbath, stressed the peace and community of the people one with another, of the legislators, one with another, and it was a very important thing, and knowledge of it has all but disappeared in our time. Yes?

[Audience] The legislators, to do that, they would have to share our faith.

[Rushdoony] They would have to share . . .?

[Audience] They would have to share our faith.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and they don’t. Yes? You had a question, too.

[Audience] She had a question, too, first.

[Rushdoony] Oh.

[Audience] How did the Lord rest?

[Rushdoony] Could you tell me what she asked?

[Audience] How did the Lord rest?

[Rushdoony] How did the Lord rest? Well, that’s a good question. When we get to heaven, maybe we’ll find out. Meanwhile, God is always working and always totally at rest, so our human ways of talking about things do not apply to Him. But God, in creating, deliberately did all things in six days and on the seventh, did nothing, to set the pattern for us. So that we would, as image bearers of God, rest in Him, and trust in His government. Yes?

[Audience] It’s been pointed out by at least one author, I’d like maybe to get your comment on this. That our modern concept of rest is very different than the Bible, the biblical concept of rest, and the sabbath rest. We tend to think of it more in terms of relaxation, playing games, total inactivity, or perhaps taking nap, or something to do on a free day. It was pointed out that the biblical concept of a sabbath rest perhaps had more to do with the idea of worship than relaxation. And, that not worship in the sense of drudgery of here’s one more activity I have to do on my free day, I have to get dressed up and meet with some people for several hours, but it was the idea we have the opportunity of freedom of time to be before the face of God, and to worship Him, and the appreciate what He has done for us, prepare us for the work of the next week. In other words, it was the worship aspect of it, and I was wondering if you had a comment on that?

[Rushdoony] Worship is a part of the sabbath, but the primary meaning of the sabbath rest is peace. Yes. It’s taking hands off our lives, because we know God is in charge. That’s why one of the worst forms of sabbath breaking, which I know some people are very prone to is to do a lot of planning. Since they’re not working at their business on that day, they do a lot of the planning on that day, and that is exactly the heart of what is the most severe violation of the sabbath because you’re saying, “My providence has to function, not God’s.” So, it’s simply taking hands off your life. So, this can be done in different ways. Now, I’ve cited this before and I know some people across country don’t like it, but Calvin’s activity Sunday afternoons was bowling, and he defended it, he loved it, because he said he worked endlessly. The number of times he preached in a week was enormous. He was constantly in the cathedral teaching a vast number of people from all over Europe. That’s how we have his commentaries, they were his lectures as they were taken down. He was constantly on the firing line with the opposition, not only from Geneva, but elsewhere. So, how did he take hands off these things so he wouldn’t be able to think about them? Why, he’d go and bowl, and the physical activity there took away from the mental activity and enabled him to relax and rest. Yes?

[Audience] Is it not possible though to even see those activities as a part of worship? In other words, isn’t our whole life a part of worship and so that bowling, in my, the way I look at it, would not be necessarily unworshipful.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The whole idea is the sabbath rest means we’re not putting trust in what we do, but in what God has done. That’s all important. That’s the heart at observing the sabbath.

[Audience] Isn’t that exactly the writer of Hebrews is getting at? The first four chapters builds up to a discussion of sabbath rest, and sabbath rest is described there as salivation in Jesus Christ.

[Rushdoony] It is salvation, the fullness of it is heaven where his servants shall serve him, we are told. But they also, at the same time, have rest. At that point they are like God. They do not weary in their labor. They have perfect peace, perfect rest. Any other questions?

[Audience] I have one.

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience] In the context of peace being the most important issue rather than worship, would it then make a difference as to how long a service lasts, I mean would four hours be better than one hour?

[Rushdoony] No. [laughs] It’s not by the gross, or the volume, or the hour, but by the quality. One hour can be wonderful and it can be totally worthless, and four hours can be marvelous. I’ve been in day-long services that were wonderful, and one hour services that have been punishment, and vice versa. One of the worst I ever attended was very long, by the hour, but it didn’t make for holiness. Yes?

[Audience] Would it follow in this context that it be proper to require that a child, when they’re in school, not do their studying on the sabbath, because that is their work?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Very good point. The child should not do their homework on the sabbath. They should do all those things before. It’s a day of peace, and we are the losers in our time because we have lost that ability to rest. We have more time than anyone else has ever had, but we don’t rest. We are infected with a restlessness of our age. Well, our time is about up. Let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee that in Jesus Christ we have a rest now and forevermore. Teach us to take hands off our lives and to trust in thee, to know that thou art God, and thy will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Make us joyful in the rest that is ours. 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