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The
Westminster Confession of Faith states in Chapter 21,
Section 7, “As it is of the law of nature that, in
general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the
worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral,
and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages,
He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a
Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him: which from the
beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ,
was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection
of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week,
which in Scripture is called the Lord’s Day, and is to
be continued to the end of the world as the Christian
Sabbath.”
The
Free Presbyterian Church heartily agrees with this
succinct summary of Scripture regarding the duty of man
to observe one day in seven as God’s day. The
Confession correctly presents the basic premise of the
fourth commandment — that a seventh of the time
allotted to man is to be observed as a sabbath or day of
rest (which is the meaning of the word “sabbath”).
It
should be carefully noted that the fourth commandment
not only stipulates that one day in seven is the
Lord’s, but it is also written in such a way as to
permit the change of the actual day of the week for the
observance of the Sabbath without violating the
commandment itself. This commandment does not say
that man is to remember “the seventh day to
keep it holy,” but he is to “remember the sabbath
day to keep it holy.” We point this out because of
the error of many in insisting that the word sabbath means
“seventh.” It does not. As already noted, the word
“sabbath” means rest or cessation. The Lord simply
commands us to keep holy the day of rest. Moreover, the
fourth commandment does not state that “the
seventh day of the week is the sabbath.”
Rather, it states that “the seventh day is the
sabbath.” In other words, by the term “the seventh
day” the Lord speaks of the day following the six days
of labor, whatever those six days of labour might be.
Therefore, by this clear language, the fourth
commandment was written so as to allow a change of the
day for the observance of the sabbath without in any way
violating the commandment.
The
resurrection of Christ ushered in the change of day for
the observance of the sabbath. One might wonder why the
first Christians, who were Jews themselves, suddenly
began to meet for worship on the first day of the week.
The explanation can only be attributed to our Lord’s
rising from the dead on that first day to signify the finished
work of redemption. Thus the principle of the fourth
commandment—one day in seven being the
Lord’s—remained unviolated, while the keeping of
that day took on a much fuller meaning that it had in
Old Testament times. The Christian Sabbath or the
Lord’s Day, continues to be not only a memorial of
God’s finished work at creation, but it is also
a memorial of Christ’s finished work of redemption.
“There
remaineth therefore a keeping of sabbath [the
literal rendering of the original text] to the people of
God…” (Hebrews 4:9). We believe therefore that the
observing of one day in seven is still binding on
mankind. The Lord has graciously given us six days for
work and recreation — we are not to rob Him of the
other, the sabbath day. The Free Presbyterian Church
therefore holds that since the believer is “not
without law to God, but under the law to Christ…” (1
Cor. 9:21), he is to sanctify the Sabbath “by a holy
resting all that day, even from such worldly employments
and recreations as are lawful on other days; and
spending the whole time in the public and private
exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be
taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.” (Shorter
Catechism, 60).
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