Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript — Reformation Covenant Church

And lastly, if we looked at the Sabbath as a redemptive ordinance, that really what I tried to do the last two weeks is have the foundation for everything else we’re going to talk about. And you’ll see that this morning as we make application from the Sabbath being a creative and redemptive ordinance into the Sabbath being a day of holy convocation. If you have your outlines before you, you’ll see that it’s really fairly simple what we’re going to talk about this morning.

I hope that in my own unsoundness of words, I don’t muck up that simpleness. It’s the simpleness of it that is so compelling to us and should be such an encouragement to us in the faith, and particularly as we come in convocation before God on the Sabbath day, or the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day. As I have mentioned several times, I do use those words somewhat interchangeably—the Christian Sabbath and the Lord’s day.

I suppose one way to think about that—we’ll be talking about this more in a little bit—but the Christian circumcision is baptism. And you have that change of the administration of the sign, as it were, from that change of the covenant sign. And yet it’s proper to think of those things. Baptism as a Christian circumcision—it’s proper, I think, to think of the Lord’s day as a Christian Sabbath. We will, of course, be developing that more over the next few weeks.

But this morning, we want to talk about the very simple concept that the Sabbath is to be a day of holy convocation before God and in the presence of God in the assembly of the saints. And I chose this particular verse because, oftentimes, there is what I think is a somewhat erroneous distinction made: the Sabbath in the Old Testament as being a day of rest—everybody just sat around in their own homes and rested. And the Sabbath in the Christian Lord’s day, the Christian Sabbath, being a day of worship. I don’t think that is proper. And we’ll see why as we go through these passages this morning that we have lined up for us to consider.

But basically what we’re going to be talking about here is we’re going to look first, very briefly, at the Adamic exclusion from Sabbath with God and its implications for his exclusion from true community as well. Then we’re going to see the restoration of Sabbath rest with God—a partial restoration in the old covenant as a result of the redemption that took place and the calling forth of God’s people to himself. And then we’re going to look at the effects of that then on community. And then we’re going to look at the new covenant completion of that restoration wrought in Jesus Christ, the new creation, the new redemption that we sing a new song before him.

And the context of all that is the new covenant community as well. So there’s the Adamic exclusion from Sabbath and rest with God, communion with him, with his people. There’s the old covenant partial restoration with God and with the people, and then there’s the new covenant full restoration in terms of fellowship with God and with his people as well. Very briefly, that’s what we’re going to be talking about this morning.

First, the Adamic exclusion from God’s Sabbath rest. We all know that when Adam sinned, he was cast out of the garden. And he was cast out of the garden specifically so that they might not eat of the tree of life. And so Adam was excluded, as it were, from partaking of the very food which God had originally prepared for him, which would be a sacrament to him, and that it would give life to Adam. And Adam’s exclusion was that he had to be kicked outside the garden, cast away from God’s presence and unable to eat from the tree of life.

Now the result of that exclusion then—and that exclusion is primarily exclusion from the special presence of God. The garden was the special dwelling place of God in a special sense. Adam was now excluded from that garden. Instead of taking that fellowship that he had with God in the garden and extending that over the face of the earth—we know that Adam was given the whole earth to have dominion over—Adam was excluded from that task and now had to be kicked out of the garden and awaited again entrance back into the garden of Eden with the redemption that God offers in his Son Jesus Christ to come.

So man ends up outside of the garden, and he ends up outside of the garden physically, of course, but he also ends up outside of God’s presence in terms of his attitude and the way he lives now as well. His life outside of the garden is characterized by enmity.

Now we know that first of all that enmity is, first and foremost of course, enmity with God. And we read in Romans 8:7 that the carnal, or the natural mind, is enmity with God. And it’s a very good picture of fallen man. It’s a good picture of Adam as he’s kicked outside of the garden. He has fallen, and as a result he is now at odds with the very God who he had been created to have communion with, and in the presence of—outside of the presence—and now not in communion or relationship with God but in enmity with God. And that characterizes fallen man.

By the way, that characterization of fallen man in Romans 8:7 is important for you to keep in mind. How can the man whose very mind is enmity with God, whose whole being is an attempt to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness—how can that man cooperate, as it were, meet God halfway in terms of salvation? He can’t. That’s why that picture is given to us. Adam can only be ushered back into the presence of God through God’s elective work carried out through the covenant mediator Jesus Christ.

But in any event, Adam’s exclusion then produces enmity with God. It produces an enmity, as it were, with the ground. The ground is now cursed because of Adam’s fall, and Adam is now cursed to work with the ground, to fight with it, almost, to sweat as it were as he works that ground to till food for himself and for his family. The garden has been turned into—as David Chilton writes about in *Paradise Restored*—a howling wilderness now. And you see that common motif throughout the scriptures. Adam is excluded from the garden and is excluded through incorrect relationship to the ground itself.

And we talked over the last couple of weeks about how creation groans for the redemption of our bodies, the full consummative realization of what we are in Jesus Christ, and the impact of that proper dominion as we spread over the face of the earth and have correct relationship with the created ground itself.

But Adam’s enmity primarily with God, evidenced in his enmity with the creation itself—now in a combative relationship, almost—is also true, and this is what we want to focus on today: his relationship with men. Genesis 3, where that fall is recorded and God’s judgment is foretold, is immediately followed in Genesis—well, first in Genesis 3—the curse itself. He and God curses the serpent, and he says to the serpent that your seed will be at enmity with the seed of the woman, and you’ll bruise his heel and he’ll crush your head. We know that pictures Jesus Christ to come, but think of the implications of that.

Remember Jesus when he came and talked to the Pharisees—2,000 years ago—what did he call them? He called them a brood of vipers, Satan’s seed. He referred to them as Satan’s seed. That would find its manifestation throughout history as fallen man—not as some sort we don’t actually see man out. Jesus didn’t come to do battle with a serpent or with an actual dragon. He came, as it were, in the ones who sought to put him to death. They were Satan’s seed, evidenced in human people. Okay. And so what we have promised from God’s curse of the serpent are two lines of people: Satan’s seed and the seed of the woman.

And so man’s very life itself, his offspring, now will be at war with one another as part of the curse. He’s alienated from relationship to God. He’s alienated with proper relationship even within the family and of course to the extended community as well. Adam is characterized as fallen in enmity with God, with creation, and then also with other men. And this plays itself out in the very next chapter in Genesis 4. Of course, we have the battle between Cain and Abel. And we see that enmity with God—the promise that God would curse the serpent—and as a result also that there would be this warfare among man’s offspring.

We see immediately that occurring in Genesis 4 with the death of Abel at the hands of his brother Cain. And so man’s enmity with other man is demonstrated immediately after the fall in Genesis 4. God puts it there for that reason, I think, to show to us that man rather cannot have proper relationship with man apart from proper relationship to God.

The only unity the scriptures talk about in terms of man—in those, in the book of Genesis, of course—is the unity of unbelief and the unity of evil thought at the tower of Babel, from which God led them into confusion. The only unity man achieves, ultimately, in the book of Genesis is his attempt to be, as it were, God himself and to reach up to the heavens apart from the redemptive work of the covenant mediator to come who was required because of the fall.

Alexander Schmemann in his book *For the Life of the World*—and by the way, because I’m going to make reference to this just briefly here, I ought to say that I do not endorse everything that’s in this book. I would recommend to you, for those of you who are reading *For the Life of the World* or other works by Alexander Schmemann, there’s an article by R.J. Rushdoony in *Salvation and Godly Rule*. I believe it’s on “Incarnation and Indwelling,” I think, is the name of the chapter, and he talks there about a universalistic sacramentalism and about the idea of the church as being the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the errors that those things portray. And it would be good to read that as you read some of his work.

But in any event, there are many very perceptive insights out of *For the Life of the World*. For those of you who are reading it, you’ll recognize that when Reverend Chilton talked to us about food being dead—it’s one of the first things in this book: Schmemann characterizes food as belonging in refrigerators where corpses belong, as being dead. There are some very good insights in Schmemann’s work.

But one thing he talks about in the very first chapter here, in the fall of man, he says that in one of the beautiful pieces of Byzantine hymnology, Adam is pictured sitting outside, facing paradise, weeping. This is the figure of man himself. And so that’s what the implications of Adam’s fall from God are. He now sits outside paradise, looking at it, longing to be within it, and yet weeping, cast out from it. And of course the angel prevents him from re-entering.

One might say that in light of the characterization of unregenerate man we find, for instance, in Romans 8, another perfectly appropriate picture the scriptures give us of Adam outside of paradise is not Adam weeping but Adam cursing at God. And as a result of that, of course, one way to complete that picture for ourselves is to think of Adam in that picture as being alone. He is alienated not just from life in God. He is alienated from his fellow man as well. Brothers themselves killing brother.

The picture is complete: Adam has been cast out of the presence of God. That casting out has had its implications and outworking in his relationship with man. And Adam now stands outside the garden cursing God and cursing the earth itself and also cursing other people in his isolation and alienation.

Now this picture should be somewhat easy for us to conjure up in our images of our society today. If there is one thing that probably marks our society today, it is a radical alienation from all other men, particularly. But of course we recognize that comes forth because of man’s alienation from God. We live in a society that is tempted with every form it throws up to deny the existence of God. To the extent that our modern world attempts to create things apart from an understanding and appreciation of the Creator himself, what we see in the world we live in is one of radical alienation from God.

I was talking to my daughters about going down to the 7-Eleven store the other day. The simple implications of going to a store like 7-Eleven. Think of it when you next time go to that store. This is a store that is—and I’m not saying 7-Eleven as opposed to other markets. Almost all markets would be the same way. The market now is a place where God is excluded. Everything that you will see in a 7-Eleven comes forth from the mind of people who designed these things to be totally secular in what they are. Okay, that may seem real obvious, but think of the implications of your life lived out in a world which is overwhelmingly populated with objects that man has created in a subconscious attempt to deny the existence of God in reality.

When we go into the created order, Romans 1 tells us that God demonstrates, he screams forth, as it were, his very presence—the fact that he is and that he reigns. Fallen man attempts to hold that down. And one of the ways the fallen man attempts to hold that down is by building other artifices to live in, work in, in the midst of instead of the created order that God gives us, that deny that creation, that push it out as well. Paving over, as it were, for us is one indication of man trying to secularize the world.

Now I’m not saying all pavement’s wrong. There could certainly be proper use of pavement. What I’m trying to get is that our society is characterized by building and by edifices that attempt to express and scream forth not the existence of God, but the existence of a secular world apart from the reality of God. And that has its implications for our country. This country may be on the cutting edge in terms of a secular society, and it’s also on the cutting edge in terms of alienation—one man from another.

If you think about the people that you know who are not Christian and think of the emptiness of their life and isolation from each other, you begin to get a picture of what I’m talking about. Twentieth-century man in America is isolated, cut off from man, and he cannot achieve communion with man apart from coming back to communion with God.

So the Adamic exclusion is exclusion from God’s presence. It is also exclusion from convocation, from gathering, from the assembly of the community in relationship to God.

And what we see then as we move on to the second point of our outline is that the Mosaic deliverance that we’ve been talking about for the last couple of weeks, commemorated in the Sabbath, is marked by a restoration of communion with God, and it’s also marked by a restoration of convocation before God.

Now I mentioned before that some people would see the Sabbath as primarily a day of individual or isolated rest from the covenant community. And that isn’t really true. In Leviticus 19:3 and again in Leviticus 26:2, we read this verse: “You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary.” The keeping of God’s Sabbath is coupled to the reverence of God’s sanctuary—worship in the presence of God. God’s sanctuary is his place of special presence with the people. And the Sabbath should be characterized by worship and not simply an isolated rest.

We won’t take time to develop it this morning. We may in future weeks. The idea of rest is in itself a correlation—has in itself a correlation with worship. Rest in the old covenant is not indolence. Okay? Rest is rest in the finished work of God and the deliverance that he had accomplished from Egypt. And then because of that, a recreative rest on that day in which he enjoyed the benefits that God had given to him. He’s entered into the rest of God and evaluating the work that had been accomplished in the deliverance and seeing it as good.

But in any event, those two verses clearly point out the relationship of Sabbath and worship. Israel is now, as we said, on the basis of this deliverance from God, a new creation. In Deuteronomy 32:10 and 11, we see in verse 10 that they have been delivered out of a waste, a wasteland. And that word for wasteland there is the same word used in Genesis 1:2, where the word—where the world itself is without form prior to the creation.

And then in Deuteronomy 32:11, it says that God hovers over the people of Israel and flutters over them and delivers them, talking again about the deliverance out of Egypt. And that language again is found only in one other occurrence in Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters. And so in Deuteronomy 32, what’s being talked about here is that the deliverance from Egypt is a recreation. They have been brought out of the howling wilderness, which is compared to the state of the world before creation itself—a de-creation, as it were. And they were brought forth by the hand of God and the Spirit of God moving over them, recreating them in covenant community and in a covenant relationship to himself.

The covenant deliverance talked about in the deliverance from Egypt of the nation of Israel is seen as a creation, a recreation, and it’s based, of course, upon redemption. And on the basis of that then we have these verses in Leviticus 23, where God gives his people instruction about the holy convocations they would have with him. And the very first instruction given is to keep the Sabbath.

“Six days you shall work, the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest unto God, a holy convocation in God’s presence.”

The Sabbath is seen then, being based upon creation and redemption in the life of Israel, as the sign of that redemption, the sign of that recreation. And on the basis of that then God says in Leviticus 23:3 that recreation is not seen in isolation from the covenant community. It is seen in the coming together, or the convocation of that community. Israel was on the Sabbath day to come into holy convocation before God, which means they were to assemble people together in their dwelling places.

That then formed the basis for all the rest of the convocations talked about in the rest of this chapter. This chapter goes on to speak about the other convocations of Passover, the first and last days of unleavened bread, Shavuot, Pentecost, trumpets, and the Day of Atonement, and the first and last days of Tabernacles. Next week we’re going to talk about the eighth-day Sabbath in the old covenant and how some of these feasts had an eighth-day aspect to them, which would bring them to the Lord’s day, or the first day of the week, and we’ll talk about the implications of some of these convocations as well. We’ll get into the rest of the chapter next week.

But for now what we have to see, here in this instruction, going on about the holy convocations of God—that instruction to list those holy convocations, all of which find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, begins with a command from God to have holy convocation every week on the Sabbath day.

Now, so we see then man restored to relationship to God and also restored then to relationship with the community. But it’s still a partial restoration. Out of the feasts described in Leviticus 23, only three of them—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles—were the people required to come before the very presence of God in Jerusalem. They were spread out in the land. God still had a special place of dwelling amongst the people where his presence was in a fuller sense, at a special place of worship with God in Jerusalem.

And three times a year the people were commanded to go up to that special place. But the rest of the time they had convocation, as it were, in their dwellings—is what Leviticus 23 tells us—in their own cities. They were isolated, as it were, from the central sanctuary of Jerusalem. They couldn’t go there every week. There wasn’t enough time left to do anything else. And so they were cut off, as it were, still. They were restored to God, but still it was not a full restoration. He appointed to the coming work of the covenant mediator who would fulfill all these things and bring them back into full communion with God and with the covenant community as well.

Now there are other indications of what actually went on in these synagogue services that we have both in the history that have come down to us of what actually occurred in these synagogue gatherings on the Lord’s day—or not the Lord’s day, excuse me—the Sabbath in the old covenant.

We read, for instance, that the synagogue is described as *proseuche*—the name usually used for it is a place of prayer. The synagogue was characterized by prayer. The synagogue was also characterized by teaching of God’s word, of course—the reading of the scriptures and then teaching. And then these three elements—the reading of scriptures, teaching, and prayer—are what characterized the synagogue service.

According to the ancient records that we have, historical records, it’s said that these synagogue services lasted until the evening. They would pray in their sanctuaries till the evening came. They were not a short service as it were that everybody came home back to their own dwellings. When they came into holy convocation before God, it lasted the better part of the day in the synagogue pattern.

Philo tells us with the following quote about some of these things going on: Some priest who is present at one of the synagogues or one of the elders reads the holy laws to them and expounds them point by point till about the late afternoon, and then they would also have a time of prayer. Then following that it would conclude with a time of corporate prayer. And so they were exposing the scriptures to the late afternoon and then praying into the evening itself.

We know that from the New Testament account of synagogue worship that the reading of the law is spoken of as a regular occurrence in Acts 15:21: “the law is to be read in the synagogue on each Sabbath day in every city of the Roman world.” And in Acts 13:15 and 27, both the law and the prophets are read in the Sabbath at synagogue in Antioch at Pisidian.

Of course, we know that our Lord himself—on the Sabbath day—or it says on the Sabbath day that our Lord’s custom, what he did every Sabbath day, in other words, was to go to synagogue. And we know that he went to synagogue and then instructed the people about his very coming, fulfilling the reading of the word in Isaiah. And so our Lord spent the Sabbath in synagogue with his people.

We also have other occurrences of the Lord using the Sabbath for healing services as well. And our Lord then gave us the pattern for our Sabbath observance. There’s a convocation, and then there’s a going forth ministering in the name of Jesus Christ.

The synagogue itself, I think, is referred to in Psalms 74:8: “They said in their hearts, ‘Let us destroy them together. They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.’” And that word “synagogue” is, maybe in some of your translations, “dwelling place.” And the reference here seems to be to the fact that in the land there were various dwelling places or synagogues of God. And so we have this idea of the people coming together in Sabbath in holy convocation.

Probably the synagogue has its origins in that command in Leviticus 23. We can’t say for certain that the modern-day synagogue had its origins in that. But we know for certain that they were to come in convocation before God. And it is likely that the Levites who were scattered around these towns as well participated in that and taught the people in these holy convocations.

But the people—as we said—their Sabbath service was only one half, as it were, of what was really to be accomplished through the restoration of man. They were restored back to a correct hearing of God’s word, but they did not partake of communion. They couldn’t eat the sacrifices that were offered in Jerusalem. They couldn’t come into the very presence of God and have a meal with him.

Now, in Jerusalem itself, there were special people called off from the covenant group—the priests—who did eat some of the sacrificial offerings. And the priests did eat the showbread. And so there was a partaking—a partial partaking, as it were—of a meal with God. Yet these things all happened in isolation from the covenant community. It’s restricted to a particular group of people.

And remember we talked before about the old covenant being characterized by this series of concentric circles of growing closer to the presence of God. The only one who could actually go into the Holy of Holies in the temple itself was the high priest, and that once a year. And so we see the old covenant restoring back the people of God to a synagogue convocation. And that restoration, note, is partial, in that we now only have one person once a year entering into the very presence of God.

Additionally, the priests—another very interesting aspect of this—the priest could eat the showbread, but the priests in Leviticus 10:9 are specifically commanded not to drink wine. Okay, this—the priests in the old covenant could not have wine during the sacrificial worship that went on. And so there again is a sign of exclusion from the very source of joy itself. Wine was given to man to make his heart glad and to rejoice. Wine is given, eventually, as we know from the scriptures, to commemorate the coming of the covenant keeper and our then communion with God through the Eucharist.

And they were excluded from that half, as it were, of communion with God in the wine.

Additionally, the Levites—very interesting verse in Leviticus 10—I’m sorry, Hebrews 10. And this really kind of sums up this aspect of being a partial restoration. Hebrews 10:1: “And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.”

Now the priest, it says there, daily stood before God in what he was doing. There’s a restoration. The priest can come before God and offer offerings to point to the covenant keeper, but he cannot enter into the full rest of God. Remember, we talked about God’s Sabbath rest as being characterized by a day of evaluation and judgment. And the scriptures are replete with references to God’s rest being an enthronement, as it were, from which he then evaluates the world around him.

And the priest here is specifically excluded from enthronement, or sitting down. Hebrews 10 goes on to say in verse 12: “But this man—the high priest, the one to whom the high priest pointed to—Jesus Christ to come. This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.”

And so in Hebrews 10:11 and 12 here we see those two restorations characterized. The old covenant—want a shadow of the great things to come—being characterized by communion with God, and yet a standing, not a full Sabbath rest. And the new covenant showing that the covenant keeper to come, Jesus Christ, sat down enthroned, at rest with God at the right hand of God, and he enters into full Sabbath rest.

Having said that, having said that the old covenant restoration—both the fellowship with God and in terms of convocation—was partial, we shouldn’t think from that it was a day of mourning and sadness. It was not to be that way. It was to be a day of great joy.

In Hosea 2:11, we read the way that the Sabbath was to be characterized: “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days and new moons and her Sabbaths and all her solemn feasts.”

Now, this talks about the judgment of God against apostate Israel, but it does give us a picture of what those Sabbaths and convocations and new moons were to be. It says that he will cause all her mirth to cease. That word for mirth is otherwise translated “great joy,” “abounding joy” before God.

We have a description of some of those verses throughout the scriptures that talk about how that joy is to be found in the presence of God. Probably the best scripture to think about is where it says that Jerusalem is the joy of the whole earth, the mirth of the whole earth. And remember that when they did actually get up to go up three times during the festival year, they did go up to Jerusalem. Those three times they used a portion of their tithe, which some people refer to as the rejoicing tithe. They were to come into God’s very presence mirthfully and joyously.

And this synagogue service as well, on the Sabbath day, was also to be one of great joy before God. This is certainly true of the history of Israel. In the rabbinic writings, it’s said that if one Sabbath was kept correctly, Messiah would come. The Sabbath-keeping is equal to all the other precepts. It was to be a festive day. The fact was that they were commanded to eat at least three meals on that day. Okay? It was to be a festival day of feasting before God and of joying before him.

The rabbinic writings talk about how we’re to come: “Let us go up to meet the bride, the queen of all days.”

Now, that’s interesting, also, if you think about that picture being shown there where the men are commanded to go up to meet the bride—the covenant community to meet the bride the Sabbath. It really has things kind of reversed, doesn’t it? The Sabbath was to be a time when we were to go up to meet our Bridegroom. The church is characterized in the New Testament as the bride herself. And so the Sabbath is not an end to itself. The Sabbath is a day for getting together with God and being festival and joyous the way one would be at a marriage feast.

Special garments were to be worn on the Sabbath day according to rabbinic tradition. And even they were supposed to walk differently on the Sabbath day and talk differently too, if at all possible. It was to be a day consecrated, set apart to God for his purposes. And it became a day of great joy, recognizing as they did this partial restoration to God and covenant community with him and also with the covenant community itself.

Maybe one way to get across this joy that the rabbinic writings talk about in terms of the Sabbath is the following prayer that was often given by the rabbi as a benediction for the Sabbath afternoon service. I’ll read this to you:

“Thou art one and thy name is one. And who is like thy people? A unique nation upon the earth. Glorious greatness and a crown of salvation even the day of rest and Holiness thou hast given unto thy people. Abraham was glad. Isaac rejoiced. Jacob and his sons rested thereon. A rest granted in love, a true and faithful rest, a rest in peace and tranquility, and quietude and safety, a perfect rest wherein thou delightest. Let thy children perceive and know that this their rest is from thee. And by their rest may they hallow thy name.”

At the conclusion of the Sabbath service, there was also a benediction given. Uh, and this particular benediction at the end of the Sabbath day was recited together with a benediction for spices—over spices—to restore the soul saddened by the departure of the day. At the end of the day they’d have another benediction for the day, and it would be given with spices to refresh the soul in spite of its mourning on the loss of the Sabbath day.

Now, those things may sound a little funny to us, but they recognized this restoration to fellowship with God. They recognized that restoration was typified, as it were, on that Sabbath day through the remembrance of the recreation and redemption offered by God. And so they entered into convocation with each other in the presence of God.

The restoration accomplished in the old covenant was partial. It prefigured the coming final restoration given by Jesus Christ. Now we see that—and we’ve talked about this for the last couple of weeks—that redemption offered in Christ yielded forth a restoration of creation Sabbath. And so there is now a new rest entered into on the basis of the new creation.

In John 20:22, Jesus breathes upon his disciples, and we talked there about the image being one—the same one of God breathing life into Adam. Jesus is now the second Adam, creating a new humanity, as it were, through his work on the cross and through his resurrection and ascension. Jesus, as the completion of all the old covenant prefigured, brings about a new creation and a new redemption. And so we now have full fellowship restored with God. While the Sabbath in the old covenant was partial, the Sabbath in the new covenant is seen as a complete restoration based upon the finished work of Jesus Christ, definitively offered once for all 2,000 years ago.

And so on the Sabbath day now, on the Lord’s day, we have a convocation as well. And that’s a day of convocation of great joy, as the synagogue was in the old covenant, but it’s greater joy because the scriptures teach us that now, where the priest stood and ministered in the old covenant, now we serve at the feet of the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. And Jesus, at the Last Supper, told his people that he would cause them to sit upon twelve thrones judging the tribes of Israel. The people of God are seen in Luke 22 as enthroned with Jesus Christ on the basis of his work.

And so our Sabbath rest is not a rest, as it were, of standing before God of partial completion. Our Sabbath rest is a rest of sitting, as it were, a full rest of restoration based upon Jesus Christ. And so now, instead of the priest being commanded not to drink wine, we get together and we do what the priests did. We offer sacrifices to God in terms of our prayers and our offerings. We come before God with high praises in our mouth, and we are commanded now to partake of wine in the communion service weekly.

They had a synagogue service without communion. We have the synagogue service of the new covenant being one where both elements—the preaching of the word is accomplished, and also the partaking of communion, or dinner with Jesus Christ, is entered into as well. Our restoration in Jesus Christ is now finished and complete. We have true covenant community. We have true covenant relationship, rather, with God. And we have that—should be a time of great joy for us.

We now are commanded to drink wine. We sit around the banqueting table, enthroned, as it were, subjects of the King, ruling with him in the new covenant and new creation based upon his redemptive work.

In 1 Corinthians 5 and 10, we talked about this last week. The congregation of the saints is compared to the Jewish feast days and the great joy that would be accompanied by them. We now, on the basis of Christ’s work, there is now a special presence. There’s no longer a special sanctuary at one place in the land that people are excluded from. Now the sanctuary of Jesus Christ is with his people, and now, as it were, that sanctuary goes to fill the whole earth. And the special place of meeting with Jesus Christ is that assembled covenant community on the Lord’s day.

Therefore, the new Sabbath that we enter into, the new Lord’s day, the Sabbath of recreation and redemption, it should be one also marked by a convocation of great joy. If the old covenant synagogue was to be a time of mirth and of gladness and feasting before God, how much more in the new covenant are we commanded to come together in holy convocation with joying and mirthhing before him over the new creation that we have been accomplished in Jesus’s life.

And so we see this is characteristic, of course, of the new covenant church. And in the book of Acts, what do they do? They get together every day. In Acts 2:46, rejoicing before God in their covenant community as well:

“And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, in breaking bread from house to house, to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”

They rejoiced in what Jesus Christ had accomplished, not simply in restoring them to relationship with God, but then in the benefits of that restoration for the covenant community as well. We are no longer alienated and isolated from Eden, and we’re no longer alienated and isolated from covenant community as well. Restored back in. And so they, on a daily basis, got together and participated in and celebrated in the restoration accomplished through Jesus Christ.

Now the basis for their joy, first of all of course, is in the very presence of Jesus Christ in that covenant community itself. In Matthew 18:20, we read—most of us are familiar with that verse. It says:

“Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them.”

And some of you probably recognize the fact that verse is in the context of discipline. It’s in the context of having a person who falls short of what is to be done in terms of the scriptures being reprimanded by people. If he doesn’t hear the reprimand and encourage him to participate in the life of faith by walking in obedience to the commands of Christ, he is then to be taken to the church. And if the church then refuses to hear, he is cast out and treated as a Gentile or unbeliever, or as a tax gatherer rather.

Well, that’s the context of Matthew 18:20. The context is the church itself. And so what’s being talked about in Matthew 18 is the fact that in the church congregated—two or three gathered together. The word there is *synagogue*. The base word for synagogue. Okay, to assemble. Where two or three are assembled together, there is Jesus Christ in the midst of them now. We know that what that’s talking about is the special presence of Christ in the covenant community itself, in the gathered church.

Now in Jude 1:24, read the following:

“Unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To him be all glory and honor.”

What’s being talked about here should remind us that language should remind us of Hebrews 10, where we’re encouraged to get together, to come into convocation, not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Hebrews, as we said before, is a book characterized by perseverance in the faith, a call to continue in what God has called us to do. And Jude then, verse 1:24, says to him who is able to keep you from falling, okay, to keep you persevering, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory.

Now certainly that speaks ultimately of the consummation of all things, when we’re presented once and for all before the glory of God when Jesus returns. But this also has an obvious implication, or it should, to the Christian that this was written to—that God who would keep them from falling would be the one who would present them holy before him, faultless before the presence of his glory. And that presence was characterized, in the New Testament church, is understood in the context of the church gathered together on the Lord’s day.

The presence of Jesus Christ is what characterized their meetings. An awareness of that presence and enjoy, therefore, the presence of Christ who was resurrected and ascended. Now remember that Jesus, the day of his resurrection, was that day, wasn’t it? And they got together on that day, and Jesus Christ stood in the midst of them. A week later, again on the Lord’s day, Jesus Christ came and stood in the midst of them. Jesus set the pattern for what they were to expect every Lord’s day when they came into convocation. They were to expect the presence of Jesus Christ.

And we should expect that when we come to church on Sunday, we come to meet in a special way and have Jesus in our midst in a special way, as Matthew 18 talks about. That is particularly true when we go to the second half of our service, which is the communion service itself. And we have the elements there, commemorating, as it were, Jesus Christ and his work.

And Jesus tells us in Revelation: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” It may seem a little funny to read the fact that we as we wait as Jesus enters, be with us. Let us not forget that he himself is the true door. But we’re basing that upon what Jesus says in Revelation 3:20. He stands at the door of the church and knocks. And in that opening up of the door and our understanding his desire to come and eat with us, he manifests himself in a special presence in the communion service.

Now the day of gathering was one of great joy because it was one of the awareness of the presence of Christ. But it was also one of encouragement to each other, that they would enter into that presence. Okay? They were to encourage each other not to fall short, as Jude says, so that they might be prevented from falling short before his very presence.

And so, for instance, it’s characterized by—Pliny, in his letter to the emperor Trajan in the early centuries, he says this: “It was the custom of these Christians to meet before the light to sing a hymn to Christ as God and bind each other in an oath, not to some crime, but rather to refrain from theft, robbery, and adultery, not to break faith, and not to betray trusts.”

The great joy that they would meet in that day was also a day of encouragement to each other to persevere in the faith. And when we get together here, it should be a day of encouragement to us as we look toward the rest of the week, not to come short of the grace of God, so that we might come back into his very presence at communion next week, not having been excommunicated and cut off from the presence of Christ, but rather persevering, and as a result persevering in his presence as well.

And so the day, the Lord’s day, the new Christian Sabbath, should be a day of encouragement. It should be a day of awareness of the presence of Jesus Christ. And it should certainly be a day then of convocation before him in covenant community. And that certainly did mark the early church.

This joy that the early church was characterized by, based upon the presence of Christ, was also a joy, as I said before, in community. It was an awareness that because Jesus was with them, he had called the covenant community back into being. The church was seen as the body of Christ. If somebody was missing from the church service on the Lord’s day, they would talk about it as if a limb from the body had been cut off or displaced that day. And you can imagine what your life would be like without one of your limbs. It would be very difficult. That was the kind seriousness with which they took the scriptural records that the church is the body of Christ. And when the church comes into holy convocation before him, we’re commanded to come together and to not—with some of us missing—as limbs, as it were, missing from the body.

It’s interesting how some of the things that would tend to draw Christians away from the Lord’s day were talked about in the early church as well. Let’s see. I’m going to read a quote here from Tertullian. He blames the Christians for joining in heathen festival days and sarcastically refers to the impossibility of the heathen being willing to join in the Christian festivals. He says:

“Oh fidelity of the pagans to their sect, which does not claim any solemnity for itself—no Lord’s Day, no Pentecost—would they have shared with us.”

So Tertullian says that when the pagans would not at all come into our celebrations, our holy convocations, and yet some of us absent ourselves from our convocations to attend their convocations. And he criticizes the church for that kind of action.

Another early writer, in the first three centuries of the church, says the following: “Make not your worldly affairs of more account than the word of God but on the Lord’s day leave everything and run, come eagerly to our church, the gathering, for she is your glory. Otherwise, what excuse have you if you do not assemble in the Lord’s day to hear the word of life and be nourished with the divine food?

“If the heathen keeps their festivals and the Jews remain idle one day and assemble in their synagogues, if they then—who have no salvation, who are not saved—bestow care at all times on those things, what excuse has he who withdraws himself from the assembly of the church?”

Now, it’s not just a thing where he’s talking about there: they do it, we should do it too. What he’s saying is that these people who have no salvation, who are cut off from relationship to God and true community, who are Adamic, isolated, alienated beings—if they yet come together in pagan festivals or in Jewish synagogue service of joy, how come we’re not gathering together if we have been brought back into salvation with God and into right relationship with God and then into right relationship with the covenant community?

That should be a day of holy convocation then, set apart for the convocating of the saints. A whole day set apart for assembling together in the presence of Jesus Christ with his covenant community.

Now it’s certainly true that in our day and age these admonitions are necessary. Understanding of church observance in America is probably not much better than an understanding of what the present apostate Jews do in their synagogue services, or what pagans do in terms of their festivals of convocation as well. And in fact, all too often in the churches, people will actually absent themselves from the Lord’s service, from eating dinner with Jesus Christ, from hearing his word, for what purpose? To get together for other secular purposes.

Now, it’s also true that this same thing could be said to be true in terms of families. What I’m trying to point out here is that the New Testament church recognized the need to come in convocation because of right relationship. And because of that, they were now in a new creation and a new redemptive body in Jesus Christ. To hang on to the old, to isolate ourselves from that new creation convocation, and instead go to convocation with members of the world that are perishing, with the old order, is to fail to understand the uniqueness and the completeness of the new creation wrought by Jesus Christ.

We come out of a world—and particularly that’s true in this country—that is dead and dying, that is alienated. And we