Dennis Tuuri

with what we started last week and didn’t get through, which is the apostolic Sabbath. Having gone through now beginning in Genesis 2:2, we’ve gone through references all the way up to the book of Revelation, the first chapter and looked at the practice of the apostles last week, and we dealt a little with the teaching of the apostles. We’ll continue now with the apostolic teaching regarding the Sabbath from Hebrews 4 and Hebrews 10.

And we’ll then deal with the objectionable passages that some people raise from apostolic teaching and deal with them this morning and then conclude that portion of the apostolic practice of the Sabbath. We’re going to begin by going back to what we ended with last week, Hebrews 4:10. I think I went through that material very quickly for some of you, but I’d like to go back over it in a little bit slower speed and hopefully get you to see what we’re talking about in terms of the teaching regarding the Sabbath out of the book of Hebrews.

Remember we said last week talking about Hebrews 4. First of all, then that the book of Hebrews itself stresses the superiority of Jesus Christ and the implications of that superiority for various areas. And we said that in verse 2 of chapter 1, we have Christ the superior revelation. In verses 10-12 of chapter 1, Jesus is talked about as the superior creation. And then in 2:8, the 8th verse, all things are seen in subjection to Jesus Christ.

And then in 3:1, we begin a section about Jesus Christ as the superior Moses and the superior high priest. And 3:1 then continues that and says in verse 6 that we’re his temple. We’re the new house that he builds as the new Moses built. As Moses built a house in the old covenant, so Jesus builds the true house in the new covenant of which Moses was a shadow. And it says in Hebrews 3:6 that we are that house.

We are that temple if we hold fast to the end, if we persevere in the faith. And so that then begins in verse 6, Hebrews 3:6-4:13, a parenthetical section of this book of Hebrews, which is an exhortation to faithfulness to persevere. At the end of that section in Hebrews 4:13, he goes back to the idea that Jesus is the better high priest. And so that’s the context of the remarks that we’re going to be dealing with for a couple of minutes.

And then we’ll talk about the context of Hebrews 10 in a couple of minutes also. And so in Hebrews 3:6, we have this parenthetical section begun. And he says in verse 7, “Therefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, today if you hear his voice.” He then goes on to quote from Psalm 95, beginning at verse 7. So verses 8-11 continue the quotation of Psalm 95. In Hebrews 3:7-11 is a quotation from Psalm 95 and 12-19 of Hebrews 3 then talk about application of Psalm 95 in terms of a general warning against unbelief. There the application of “today” is given to a way of life every day of the week and not just one day of the week.

He makes the application general based upon the exhortation in Psalm 95 which has some specific applications as well. Now I want to just look back again and we did this a little bit last week at Psalm 95 and talk a little bit about it. It’s important that we understand when people quote from the scriptures in the new covenant that we understand what those scriptures mean and we can’t understand what they mean unless we look at the context of those verses as well.

Psalm 95 has been called the Venite, which is Latin for “oh come,” and has been used as we used it this morning as a general call to worship and to special convocation of worship before God by the church since early times. Psalm 95. And as I said this morning when we just after we prayed and before we sang the opening song, I used the first two verses of Psalm 95 to call us to worship. And it’s been used that way throughout the ages.

The Wickliffe Bible Commentary in fact titled Psalm 95 “a call to worship.” It says the hymn section was undoubtedly designed as a processional to be sung as the congregation gathered for Sabbath worship. And then in verses 1 and 2, they say the call is announced: “Oh come, come into convocative worship in God’s presence.” Probably some of the Levitical choir as a procession to the temple began. They say verses 3-5 talked about the fact that there was the basis for the summons issued in verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 95.

And then in verses 6 and 7, the call is repeated. And the idea that Wickliffe says here is that they now have approached, they’ve come to the temple and now there are special acts of worship being talked about as well in terms of bowing down and worshiping before God. Processional starts at the beginning of the psalm, the basis for the call is given in verses 3 and 4, and then in verses 6 and 7 we have the call repeated and now there’s a call to bow down because we’ve reached the temple and we’ve reached the place where we’re going to worship God.

And then on the basis of that then the worship begins. And then as this picture develops it’s then that we see at the end of verse 7: “Today if you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart.” And this is the response of God himself. Now the person that the psalm is written in changes and God now is directly addressing the people on this day of special convocative worship. In Psalm 95, they are reminded that day of convocative worship, which is they now have heard the voice, the call and come to God.

And he then reminds that voice extends out into the rest of the week as well, even under the old covenant. Okay, he doesn’t just relate it strictly to the day of convocative worship on the Sabbath either in the synagogue or the temple, but he says that has implications then. And God challenges them: when he gathers them, the word of God has been spoken to them by God himself and he says don’t harden your hearts in unbelief as they have in the past.

And so he says that this is the basis for the rest of your life. Psalm 95 then has implications for a special day of worship and then implications for the rest of our lives as well.

In verse 9, now, that’s the broad general outline. Some of the specific words used in Psalm 95 that indicates this as well. First of all in verse 1—actually, first of all in verse 1 it’s a corporate coming together, isn’t it? Psalm 95:1 says “Come, let us sing unto the Lord.” It’s not an individual response to God or worship service toward God. It’s a convocation here being talked about. Let us worship. Then in verse 2, “Let us come before his presence”—his special presence here is being talked about. In fact, many people believe that Psalm 95 was actually written for the Feast of Tabernacles and one of the three occurrences when the men actually had to go up to Jerusalem itself into the special presence of God as it were in the city of Jerusalem where he dwelt.

And so that’s probable also because of this verse 2: “Come, let us go into his very presence. And then in verse 2, sing a joyful noise unto him with psalms.” And remember, the psalms were written specifically to be used in corporate worship in the old covenant. And then as we said last week, verses 3, 4 and 5: verse 3 talks about the supremacy of God. Psalm 95, verses 4 and 5 talk about the supremacy based upon his creative acts. So God is seen as the one who created all things. And if he calls us to worship, we’re to come.

Additionally, in verses 6 and 7, the redemption or the recreation of the covenant people is talked about: he’s our God now. We’re the special people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand in a special sense. And so now the redemptive portion of the sabbatical call to worship with implications for the rest of your life is talked about as well in verses 6 and 7.

And then of course the admonition beginning at verse 7 and at the end of verse 7 going on to the end of the verse. What I’m trying to point out here is that there’s a correlation then between using Psalm 95 and a call to a special day of worship that has implications for the rest of our lives. Okay.

Additionally, Hebrews 3 and besides just quoting Psalm 95, also quotes a verse about God’s creative work. Now, it’s interesting about this verse, the way it’s quoted in Hebrews 4:4-5. “For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day in this wise: And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again: If they shall enter into my rest.” So in verses 4 and 5 of Hebrews he brings together Psalm 95 with other references relating to the seventh day rest of God.

Now most people would say and I think probably there’s reason to say this that the primary reference he’s referencing in verse 4 about the resting on the seventh day goes back to Genesis 2:2 where the creative week is talked about and God rested the seventh day. But there’s two other occurrences that he may well have been quoting from here that use the same words in essence and those occurrences were in Exodus 20. First of all, in terms of the fourth commandment in Exodus 20, remember we said in the Exodus 20 Decalogue, the Sabbath keeping is related back to the rest of God at creation.

He could have been quoting from that. He could have been quoting from Exodus 31. In Exodus 31 there’s a section toward the end of that chapter that deals with the Sabbath again and the basis for the Sabbath: the day of holy convocation, rest before God is set again to be the sixth day of creation week and then God’s rest on the seventh day. The point I’m trying to make here is he brings in another set of verses apart from Psalm 95 that also has implications for a perpetual rest that we enter into but also for a special day of rest and from Exodus 20 and Exodus 31 he could well be talking about that special convocative rest day as well.

And then on the basis then of these Old Testament quotes, the writer of the book of Hebrews then begins a section in which he applies this specifically to the people. And he says in verse 6, “Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached enter not in because of unbelief.” Again he limiteth a certain day, saying unto David, saying in David, “Today,” after so long a time, as it is said, “Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

“For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” So he’s saying here that now we go back to Psalm 95 in that call. We go back to the fact that people didn’t enter in because of unbelief. And he’s saying that on the basis of that then there is another day, a future day in which we’re to enter into the rest of God in a special convocative way but also in a lifeful way.

I think that “today,” another day that’s fixed, speaks then not just of the general rest we have in Jesus Christ. But it speaks of the day that was yet future that Joshua could not give them. And that’s in your King James where it says Jesus, that really should be Joshua. Jesus was the Greek name of Joshua. Joshua couldn’t give them the full final rest, could he? There was another day yet future that the redemptive Sabbath didn’t speak to.

The day yet future was the day when Jesus Christ would usher in full redemption and full recreation with his resurrection. That’s the other special day that is referenced because of Joshua’s failure to be able to give the people rest on the old covenant. There’s another day fixed speaking of the day of full redemption, new creation ushered in by the superior redeemer and the superior creation, okay, Jesus Christ.

But also, of course, with the same application of Psalm 95, a day of worship, rest, and holy convocation when the sheep enter into the pasture that God especially prepared for us into a special protected area as it were, a special place of God’s presence. And it’s at this special place where we come together once a week that God gives the sheep the food. He spreads a meal in the presence of our enemies.

And we rest and we eat God’s special meal on his special day, his new day today that he has given to us. And we rejoice in him and remember then his care of us throughout the past week and his promise and the basis of our meal with him today. His preparation for us throughout the coming week as well. Now, this is an indirect reference in Psalm 95 and Genesis 2 to a dual application in terms of a specific day of rest which figures and prefigures then a life of rest in Jesus Christ.

It’s an indirect reference I’ve given you now an indirect argument. But in the very next verse after this exhortation in verse 9, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” Now we have a more direct reference to a sabbatical system because the word for rest there, as I pointed out last week, is not the word used for rest throughout the rest of the book of Hebrews. It’s a special word. Some people have even gone so far as to say that the writer of the book of Hebrews may have invented this word for this specific verse.

The word has its origins in Sabbath. It’s “sabbatismos.” It’s a Sabbathkeeping. It’s a special Sabbath rest. It’s not just a general rest of God. It’s actually called a rest with reference to the Sabbath using the same root word. “Sabbatis”—awaits for the people of God a rest but a different word from the balance of the section which indicates that rest is sabbatical in nature. So Hebrews 4 both by the indirect references to the Old Testament calls to mind for the people that he’s writing to a need to enter into special convocation on a day and that day then has implications for the rest of our lives.

And then by a direct reference to calling that rest which is in its full ramifications yet future—in direct by direct reference instead of calling that rest a “sabbatismos” a Sabbathkeeping, we have a direct statement from the writer of the book of Hebrews that there remains a Sabbathkeeping for the people of God. And so we have direct and indirect references there to the convocative day that’s special in a certain sense.

Now one other point about Hebrews 4 that’s very important here is that Hebrews 4 speaks of a rest as I said before and we’ve said it several times now that is fully yet future. And some people will say and we’ll deal with this argument more as we look at Hebrews and the book of Romans rather—some people say well what it’s talking about is that the full Sabbath is yet to be actually ushered in by Jesus Christ. There’s no need now to have one day out of seven in which we’re going to have a special day of eating a special meal with God. But of course the problem with that is first of all that Hebrews says there’s a day yet future, there’s a full consummation of that in the future and of course we recognize by looking around us that we live in a world that is still marked by the fall, that is still part of the old creation in that sense.

There’s a “here but not here” sense that Hebrews 4 gives us about the full Sabbath rest of God. And so we have then work to be done. We have sins that we involve ourselves in. And so God gives us a special meal, the Lord’s supper, that becomes then an emblem for all the rest of the meals we eat. But he still calls us to do that one special thing. And it’s because we’re in this “here but not here” sort of category.

And so the same thing is true then of the Sabbath. There comes a time in which the Sabbath rest will be fully consummated and complete and there will no more be one day out of seven. That will be yet future when all things are brought to consummation. But we’re not there yet. Hebrews 4 says it’s yet future. We have to strive, persevere to enter into that rest. And the beginning of that striving and entering in is to hear the voice of God on the special day of convocation and come before his presence when he calls us corporately together to hear from his command word.

Now that’s Hebrews 4. Now we’re going to spend some time in Hebrews 10 because it’s the same book. The same basic exhortation is repeated in Hebrews 10 but from a slightly different twist and a little more obvious in terms of the specific application. Hebrews 5 after Hebrews 4 goes on to talk then about Jesus as the better high priest. And by the way we mentioned last week that this exhortation relating to us being his temple if we persevere in the faith should call up in the images of people who understand the book of Hebrews and its Old Testament motifs that used to show their fulfillment of the new covenant.

We should be reminded then about those days of consecration of the temple and the altar. Remember we talked about that several weeks ago that those days of consecration Aaron and his sons were locked away from the presence of God, weren’t they? For a whole seven days and it was on the eighth day of that consecration that they had passed the test. They persevered through seven days of being set apart from God, consecrated, doing what they were supposed to be doing, keeping themselves clean, etc.

And Moses was out there making sacrifices for them. They persevered through a full week and then they enter that eighth day rest. Okay? And so God tells us, we persevere for the whole week, we’ll enter into that eighth day rest. And that’s symbolized to us, of course, the fact that we come together on Sunday, the eighth day of the week or the first day of the week, which that prefigured. We come together, we hear that call, we enter into the convocative presence of God as we’re in a special sense, eat his meal and that’s because we persevered unto that eighth day and that prefigures for us a whole another realm to come in the future when that eighth day will be the only day there is.

Okay, so that’s Hebrews 5—cuz I’m talking about Jesus as a better high priest. Hebrews 6 has more exhortation in it. Hebrews 7 returns to the priesthood of Jesus in relationship now to Melchizedek, a higher order of priests than Levitical priests because of that. Well, it talks about Jesus in terms of Melchizedek. Hebrews 8 talks about the old covenant as being something that’s disappearing. The shadow fades.

The shadow is a copy of what is to come, but that shadow is now fading and disappearing. And we have to ask ourselves there, for instance, in Hebrews 8, what is the Sabbath rest of the old covenant a shadow or a copy of? Well, it’s a shadow or copy of the rest of Jesus Christ and the change of day that is necessitated because the shadow is passing away. We’ll talk about that in a little more detail.

But go on then to Hebrews 10, the passage that we read and we find now another exhortation to the people here. And what he’s done in Hebrews is he’s built up this whole concept that Jesus is the better high priest. In fact, he’s not even a Levitical priest at all. He’s a Melchizedekian priest. He’s the better sacrificial system. All the sacrificial system pointed to him. All the Levitical priesthood pointed to him.

Melchizedek pointed to him. The temple itself pointed to him and his work in the holy of holies in terms of giving his own sacrifice for his people and not the sacrifice of animals. He’s the high priest that brings that sacrifice. He’s the sacrifice himself and we then become his temple in which we come together to worship him. And it talks then about the whole range of all the old covenant signs and shadows of what was to come.

And it says they’re all fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And so it says that we have then an inheritance that is the true temple and the true temple worship.

So it has that whole line of reasoning to it. On the basis of all that then this exhortative passage says specifically in terms of application to the people that it was written to. It says don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together specifically. And we’ve talked in the past about that word for assembling is “synepigoge.” The Greek word or the word for synagogue being the time of sabbatical worship under the old covenant system on Saturday. But it’s more than that. It’s a “super synagogue.” And so he’s saying in Hebrews 10:24-25 since we have this greater high priest, we have this greater temple system and we have now a super synagogue given to us, the greater synagogue as it were, when we come together to hear God’s word and we’ve been given the gift of the Holy Spirit on the basis of what Christ has done.

Both those traditions then meld together into what? Into an exhortation to us to keep assembling together in a special way for the special worship of God. This command requires a Sabbath day. It requires a day of convocative presence to come together and worship God. And it says really that’s the whole call to the exhortation. That’s the basic thrust of the exhortation period. It has application then for the rest of our lives.

We’re to encourage each other and we’re an encouragement to each other and we exhort each other when we get together here on Sunday and we have communion together and we renew our covenant oath to God as it were and to each other as well. This is a day of special encouragement and exhortation to each other. It’s a day of special encouragement and exhortation from God. And so Hebrews 4 and then Hebrews 10 come together to show us that there is a Sabbath day, there is a Sabbath keeping for the people of God and that the apostles have given us by practice based upon our Lord’s sanction of his resurrection and his appearance based upon the shadows of the eighth day sabbatical rest in the old covenant that was yet future to come.

They’ve demonstrated clearly that this new Christian Sabbath is the Lord’s day, the preeminent of the Sabbath, the first of the Sabbaths, the first day of the week, the day of holy convocation. And so all these verses together in Hebrews come together to tell us if we hear his voice, harden not our hearts. And where is that voice said? Where does that voice come to us? We’ve said before that last week, Revelation 3 tells us that Jesus stands at the door and knocks.

If we hear his voice, he’ll come in and he’ll have dinner with us. And so that voice is specially said to be pealing out as it were on Sunday. And the church bells peal out that voice of God. “Oh, come let us worship him.” My one of my daughters gave me a little horn to take for my birthday on Friday. You probably can’t see it very well, but you know, it reminded me of what we’ve been studying for the last couple of weeks.

And on Sunday, we blow the horn to call people to assemble together. That’s where church bells came from probably—was to sound forth the call of God. And then when we get together, we haven’t attained, have we? Because then the trumpet continues to blow in the word of God, the scriptures. And the scriptures call us to obedience throughout the rest of the week then and to continue not to harden our hearts throughout the rest of the week as well.

That’s what Sunday is all about. That’s overcoming meeting on his day to renew our covenant vows. And then of course, as we pointed out again last week, I’ll mention it again today that in verse 26 then says that if we willfully after that we’ve received the knowledge of the truth, if we sin willfully, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. Now remember the specific application he had just given them was to continue to assemble together to get together on the Lord’s day.

I should mention too of course that the people that this book was written to were people that because of pressure from Jewish sources were forsaking the assembling together. They weren’t getting together on Sunday anymore. They were probably getting together mostly on Saturday. And the writer of the book of Hebrews doesn’t go after them for getting together on Saturday. He goes after them for not being there on Sunday.

Okay, that’s the day they weren’t getting together. And we’ll see that in a little bit too in these other references in the epistles. But the point is that the specific application is to continue to assemble yourselves together. And then in verse 26, he says, “If you don’t do that, if you’ve heard the word, you’ve heard the call, and you still don’t come together, there remaineth no sacrifice for sins and only a terrifying expectation of judgment from God.”

And as I said before, this would sound incredibly important, the preeminence of the church over all areas of life. If we didn’t understand the fact that the Sabbath was given under the old covenant as a sign of the entire covenant and if they kept the Sabbath, it was an indication they had vowed before God on that day to continue the covenant keeping of that day and into the rest of their lives as well. And so the Sabbath is an emblem as it were, a token of the entire covenant. It doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing that’s required, but it means on that day it symbolizes everything else.

And so if somebody breaks the Sabbath, they in essence have told God, “No, I’m not going to be faithful in covenant obedience to you at all.” And so he’s telling them this and he’s saying that, you know, if you don’t do that, then the only thing that’s left is a fearful expectation of judgment. Okay, that’s the apostolic teaching. And as we see from last week and this week together, that apostolic teaching meshes very well with the apostolic practice.

And we said last week, we talked about that last week. Having said that, some people would say, well, that’s fine, but there are also some other things the apostles have said that give us trouble. And we’re going to deal then with the objections to this line of reasoning from the scriptures. And we’ll deal first with Romans 14:1 or verses 1-8 or so.

Romans 14. Beginning at verse one. “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things. Another who is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not. And let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth. For God hath received him. Who art thou that judgeth another man’s servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yay, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike.

Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord. And he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he doth not regard it. He that eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks. And he that eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks.”

Okay. Some people say that this verse from Romans 14 and specifically verses 5 and 6 about esteeming one day above another being wrong means that we can’t have a special convocative day of worship before God in his very presence. They say that, you know, it’s wrong then to hold one day out of seven above the other days. And we have a big problem with this right away just because what we said in the last couple of weeks.

If this was true, then why did the disciples meet on the first chance they had on the first day of the week? And why did Jesus then seem to approve of that meeting by coming to him with his very presence? Again, the way he had the week before—the disciples in John 20:19 and 26 got together the first day of the week and Jesus met them there. Why did in Acts 20:6-7 why did Paul keep the first day of the week by preaching and by breaking bread on that day? And why in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 did Paul actually direct the church to distinguish one day and that one day in the area of ministry or service?

And the word there in 2 Corinthians 9:12-13 which refers to what he told him to do in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. The word there is “leiturgia,” the basis of the word liturgy. It’s service. It’s like a holy worship to God. Why didn’t he direct him to have that liturgical element of giving and worshiping God? And in Philippians 4:18, it’s referred to specifically as worship.

Why would Paul tell them to both worship and to go into a holy ministry before God on the first day of the week? And remember, it wasn’t a suggestion of Paul’s. He gave them order. He gave them with the authority of God. He said, “Do this on the first day of the week.” And it wasn’t just to the Corinthian church. It was to other churches as well. He says, “As I’ve given direction to these other churches as well.” If Paul did that, it seems like he’d be breaking his own word here in the book of Romans to have done that.

J.W. in writing about 1 Corinthians 16 in this chapter, he says that it seems like Paul here actually clung to the number of seven again—the first day of the week, one day in seven. Something that Calvin said never to do in his commentaries. Was John a weaker brother? Because John referred to one day, whatever you might think that day is. Was John a weaker brother in the book of Revelation because he said that one day was the Lord’s day distinguished from other days. Well, to take that interpretation of course would stand the scriptures on its head. It would be to say that there are contradictions in scriptures or it would be to say that John is a weaker brother and that Paul also fell into weakness.

Because it’s the strong brother here who says every day is alike and it’s the weak brother here who says one day is different from the rest of the days. So we have a possibility of some real problems here with this passage. But if you get to looking at it in its context, these problems disappear quite readily. Nothing to worry about because Paul is quite clear in this passage what he is addressing.

He is addressing two things. First of all, he’s addressing a subject in which there was disputation among the people that he was writing to. Right? There was a problem here. People were arguing which is better, this or that way of doing things—eating meat or not eating meat, drinking wine or not drinking wine, having one day special or not having one day special. There was disputation and there was no evidence in the scriptures or the historical writings that there was disputation in the church about the observance of Sunday worship.

No evidence of that whatsoever. So we have no reason to believe that this passage is linked towards Sunday worship at all because he’s addressing things specifically that were disputed. Having said that though these disputed items—he didn’t give liberty to do anything just because there are disputed items. No, he gave it specifically in the context of saying that these things are things indifferent, these things there is no official pronouncement from God on and therefore you can be free to do one or the other even though one is more of a demonstration of faith and the other one is okay.

There’s no disputation but even if there was disputation, he’s saying that this thing is a thing indifferent. This is not something on which God had given specific command in terms of meat, drink or the observance of these particular days the Romans were keeping.

Remember here that this day referenced in Romans is not talking about a Sabbath day of any type overtly. And so we don’t really know what these specific days were. Some people believe that the days written to in Romans 14, the days referred to here are fasting days. Actually, Voss—who is certainly no Sabbatarian—favorably quotes from Denny as saying that abstinence from flesh and wine was only on certain days for some.

And then he goes on to say, “It is not probable that there is any reference either to the Jewish Sabbath or to the Lord’s day in this passage of scripture.” So this passage of scripture isn’t really germane to whether or not we should keep Sabbath or the Lord’s day, but it does refer to certain days and those days were probably, he says, days of abstinence. What he’s saying is that the abstinence from wine and from meat or flesh wasn’t a way of life for the weaker brother.

It was on some days he would not do these things and try to purify himself. Well, we don’t know that. We don’t know that they were days of fasting. They could have been. But we do know the category was one of things indifferent. Now directly, specifically, and everybody agrees with that—even the anti-Sabbatarians.

However, Voss would go on to say and indeed he went on to quote Denny as saying the following: “Though the principle on which the apostle argued—say even though it doesn’t refer directly to a Sabbath or to the Christian Lord’s day—the principle on which the apostle argues defines the Christian attitude to both. Nothing in the Christian religion is legal or statutory. Not even the religious observance of the first day of the week. That observance originated in faith and is not what it should be except as it is maintained by faith.”

Well, now that’s an interesting comment and you’ll find people—you’ll find the logic of people use Romans 14 as a day to say there should be no special day, a one out of seven. You’ll find them falling into this line of reasoning frequently. They’ll deny any legal reference to the Christian faith. Do you hear what he said? “Nothing in the Christian religion is legal or statutory. Nothing. Not even the religious observance of the first day.”

He’s saying even that which we think is very important is not a matter of law, but it’s a matter of faith. And so they draw this false dichotomy—Denny does—and we quoting him favorably between faith and law and therefore their objection to Sabbathkeeping is not one based upon an exegetical argument of Romans 14. It’s one based upon a false distinction between law and faith. They’re saying, “Yeah, it’s perfectly okay for the church to say, ‘Let’s get together on Sunday, but we can’t make it a rule.’ And if somebody doesn’t want to come, well, I guess he just doesn’t want to come.”

And in fact, they say that not only does that apply to the Sabbath, to the Lord’s day observance, it applies to everything in the Christian life.

Now this is interesting because what the implications are is that there is nothing—now if you fall into this line of reasoning and say it applies to the Lord’s day. There’s nothing that you can ever go to a brother about and say “this is the law of God. You must obey it.” You can only hope to appeal to faith—strong faith and weak faith—but you can’t make definitive pronouncements about anything in terms of a legal standing. Okay?

Now that really would also—even if people don’t actually state that outright like Voss does—that’s the position they end up with because Paul goes on to talk about the fact. Let’s see in verses—he goes on to talk in verse 17: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, enjoying the Holy Ghost.”

Then in verse 21, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak.” And if you’re going to say here that it means the broadest application, anything, then what you’re saying is that if your brother gets offended because you pray, then you shouldn’t pray. After all, prayer is, you know, not that important. Says here that anything that’s going to cause your brother to stumble in an area, you shouldn’t do. Well, that’s ridiculous, isn’t it?

What if your brother stumbles at you reading the Bible? See, it’s obvious from this statement that Paul is—the “anything” here is qualified by the fact that he’s talking about things that are indifferent in terms of the Christian faith on which we have no definitive rule of God affecting. And if you look at it that way, then it’s a perfectly sensible remark for Paul to make.

Let’s take wine for instance. That’s one of the areas here that is things indifferent. Is wine a thing indifferent always? Well, no, it isn’t. We’re commanded by God to get together to have the Lord’s supper. And he tells us that we’re supposed to have bread and wine. And so we get to the Lord’s supper and if you have a weak brother, you know, and he says we shouldn’t have bread, we shouldn’t have, you know, leavened bread or we shouldn’t have unleavened bread or we shouldn’t have wine.

If God has made pronouncements that we’re to have bread, we’re to have wine, it’s no longer a thing indifferent. And you can’t tell, “Oh yeah, I guess it’s if you want to have grape juice and maybe you’d like to have uh carrots instead of bread. I guess that’d be okay.” It’s not okay because God has given us specific direction about those specific items. So even in the thing that Paul is addressing here, things indifferent, he uses one example, wine, by which we know the thing is not indifferent in other cases.

It’s only when it’s indifferent that Paul says give your brother leeway for his conscience and don’t make him stumble. Of course, implied in this is that wine apart from the Lord’s table is a thing indifferent and we shouldn’t make judicial judgments on our brother for partaking or not partaking.

Now, one other way that this verse is used: they’ll say, “Well, that may be true, but still, it says that the days were all supposed to be the same now, and that all days are holy to God, not just one day out of seven, unlike the Old Testament, in which you have these very glaring specific references to various days that people were supposed to keep.” Well, there’s several problems with that, too.

First of all, the Old Testament saints were saved by the same blood that we were saved by. They were part of the same covenant community in a manner of speaking—although under a different administration in the old covenant—but they were saved in that sense. They were members of the covenant of grace and they have the same devotion toward God that we have. The scriptures are replete with references—Deuteronomy 6 is a great one, you know—to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. That goes out the old testament. Everything you do is supposed to be according to the old covenant teaching. Every day also is supposed to be a day in which you live your life to God and so that it’s not like back then they only had one day they thought about God and the other six days they didn’t think about him at all.

That’s not what happened back then. That’s not what happens today. There’s continuity in terms of the whole life being consecrated to God and that whole life consecration being specially signified and sealed or as it were demonstrated through a one day a week observance.

Secondly, Hebrews 4 tells us that the final rest in which there is no distinction of anything in terms of many of these things—that day of final rest of absolutely no distinctions is yet future. Okay, it’s not been ushered in fully and consummatively. Hebrews 4 is real clear about that.

And on a practical level, then the third opposition to that argument is that practically speaking, those people who hold to not having one day of special convocated worship before God, what they really seek to do or they end up doing anyway is to bring that day down to the level of all the other days of the week. Okay? They don’t really in practice raise every day of the week to a level of what we would normally experience on Sunday in terms of worshiping God and turning our thoughts to him in a special way. They don’t do that the rest of the week. They can’t. And what they end up doing then is instead of raising that seventh day or instead of saying the seventh day is now the standard and all days meet up to it, they lower the seventh day down to the standard of the other six days.

Well, Romans 14 is no verse that tells us that we are not to distinguish a day that God has commanded we distinguish and a day that Paul specifically stated the churches were to distinguish in terms of giving. Whether or not you believe that Paul’s exhortation was one to Sabbathkeeping or not, the point was he made distinction of days. And so Romans 14 cannot be used to deny any distinction of days whatsoever.

It’s not a verse to use in terms of a day that God has commanded we do. And that’s our whole premise—is that God has repeatedly throughout scripture commanded us to keep one day out of seven. And under the new covenant administration, that day is the first day of the week, the day of Christ’s resurrection. So, so much for Romans 14.

Second, first we’ll look at is Galatians 4:9-11. Galatians 4:9-11.

“But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage. Ye observe days and months and times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all.”

So Paul says here that he is worried about these Galatians that they’re observing days, months, times, and years. And the argument that people use is that anybody who observes days, months, times, and years, then Paul is going to be worried about. But that’s not at all what he’s saying here.

Of course, first of all we have to recognize that there was an Old Testament ceremonial observance that was now brought to completion and these are the things that Paul is talking about. He’s talking about the weak and worthless elementary things, the Old Testament shadows of the reality to come, and he specifically here in talking in terms of observance of days says “days, months, seasons and years” and that is clear—at least in my mind—it’s clearly a reference to the sabbatical yearly cycle that we talked about as characterizing observances in many forms under the old covenant administration beginning with Moses and going to the time of Christ.

Okay, that old covenant administration was one of these various things: days, months, seasons and years. This sabbatical cycle then referred to the Mosaic administration of the ceremonial law under the old covenant. Okay? And that’s specifically what Paul is refuting here and saying don’t do these things. You’ve fallen back under these things. I’m afraid of you.

Again, even Voss here now says that these specifically apply to the Mosaic law observances required by Israel. Notably, he says, the yearly cycle of the sabbatical calendar of the old covenant dispensation or administration. And that’s true. So, first of all, Galatians 4 doesn’t talk against new covenant administration of the day of the week. It talks about old covenant ceremonial observances.

But even that isn’t even far enough to say what Paul is talking about in Galatians, because he goes on throughout the rest of the epistle to say that it’s the Old Testament ceremonial observances that are kept for means of justification that’s specifically what he’s talking about. What I mean by that is it wasn’t wrong for them to observe old covenant ceremonial observances anymore. We know that Paul in this same period of time—we just read from Acts, you know—he was trying to get to Jerusalem to be there for the feast of Passover. We know that he engaged in circumcision of Timothy, for instance.

There’s a good example right there because in the same book of Galatians, he talks to him about circumcision and he says if you circumcise yourself, you have to keep the whole law. Well, does that mean that he put Timothy under bondage to the whole law? Did he damn Timothy by circumcising him? Well, no, of course he didn’t. What he was talking about in Galatians was the use of Old Testament ceremonials specifically as a means of obtaining justification or righteousness before God. Okay?

And that’s the same thing true of the observant of these days. He’s not condemning the observance of days. Paul observed old covenant days as well in his life as recorded in the book of scripture for us. He—and this is why by the way some people think the indifferent days of Romans are things are days of the old covenant cycle. If a person wanted to keep both Saturday and Sunday in the Roman church that was fine. Paul says if you want to keep just Sunday that’s fine too. That’s a thing indifferent. The old covenant seventh day at the end of the day at the end of the week—that particular sabbatical observance. Well, in any event, Paul kept certain days but he did not keep them for the purpose of justification by faith.

And so as a result of that then we see that it was old testament ceremonials specifically kept for the purpose of justification that Paul is speaking against in Galatians 4 and it’s not new covenant Sabbath by any stretch of the imagination.