Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

In this the first Sunday in Advent, we read of an advent, a coming, an appearance of God to his people in Leviticus chapter 9. Leviticus 9. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

It came to pass on the eighth day that Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel. And he said to Aaron, “Take to yourself a young bull as a sin offering, and a ram as a burnt offering without blemish, and offer them before the Lord.

And to the children of Israel you shall speak, saying, Take a kid of the goats as a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering. Also a bull and a ram as peace offerings to sacrifice before the Lord and a grain offering mixed with oil for the day the Lord will appear to you.

Now he’s just given them a summary statement of the offerings for Aaron and his sons first and then for the people. These things can become a little jumbled up in our minds. I wanted to stop and say that we’ll move first to the offerings for Aaron and his sons, then the offerings for the people which include peace and grain.

Verse 5. So they brought what Moses commanded before the tabernacle of meeting. And all the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord. Then Moses said, “This is the thing which the Lord commanded you to do, and the glory of the Lord will appear to you.” And Moses said to Aaron, “Go to the altar, offer your sin offering and your burnt offering. Make atonement for yourself and for the people. Offer the offering of the people and make atonement for them as the Lord commanded.”

Aaron therefore went to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself. Then the sons of Aaron brought the blood to him, and he dipped his finger in the blood, put it on the horns of the altar, and poured the blood at the base of the altar. But the fat, the kidneys, and the fatty lobe from the liver of the sin offering he burned on the altar, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

The flesh and the hide he burned with fire outside the camp. And he killed the burnt offering. And Aaron’s sons presented to him the blood, which he sprinkled all around on the altar. Then they presented the burnt offering to him with its pieces and head, and he burned them on the altar. And he washed the entrails and the legs, and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar.

Then he brought the people’s offering, and took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and killed it, and offered it for sin, like the first one. And he brought the burnt offering, and offered it according to the prescribed manner. Then he brought the grain offering, took a handful of it, burned it on the altar beside the burnt sacrifice of the morning. He also killed the bull and the ram as sacrifices of peace offerings which were for the people.

And Aaron’s sons presented to him the blood which he sprinkled all around on the altar and the fat from the bull and the ram, the fatty tail, what covers the entrails and the kidneys and the fatty lobe attached to the liver. And they put the fat on the breast. Then he burned the fat on the altar. But the breast and the right thigh Aaron waved as a wave offering before the Lord as Moses had commanded.

Then Aaron lifted his hand toward the people, blessed them, and came down from offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people, and fire came out from before the Lord, and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this day of your appearing in our midst and us coming before you. May you, Lord God, through your word present yourself to us. May we in our hearts fall down before you in awe and reverence for who you are as our creator and redeemer. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We are in the middle of a brief diversion from our sermons going through the Gospel of John. We came to John chapter 5 where our savior exegeted the Father’s Sabbath. He explains it and does healing work on it. And we thought it’d be good to take a few weeks and remind ourselves of what the Sabbath is all about.

This day we’re talking about the new covenant Sabbath, the eighth day Sabbath, which was prefigured in the Old Testament. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. It’s proper in the context of our Advent season to be stressing the Sabbath. The Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day is the day when God draws near to his people in judgment, but in blessing as well. There is an appearance of God that is particular to the convocative worship of the church.

And so, it’s good for us in the context of Advent to remember what it is that we’re to consecrate this day to do.

We talked about the Lord Jesus Christ and his exposition of the Sabbath a couple of weeks ago and last week we considered the fact that he declares himself to be Lord of the Sabbath in the synoptic gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And we looked particularly at Matthew 12. Now, it’s a funny thing about that verse because many people would look at that verse and say, well, he says here he’s the Lord of the Sabbath. Therefore, we don’t have a Sabbath. He’s the Lord of nothing. He’s the Lord of whatever it is that we used to think of as the Sabbath. But we don’t do that. It’s a funny thing how those verses are used routinely to somehow play down the significance of the one day out of seven that we’re to honor and worship him according to the ten commandments themselves.

It’s an odd thing. I suppose that most people most Christians today would be in favor of these judges and other people who are trying to get the ten commandments posted in public buildings and courthouses and in schools. But you know, if they are probably consistent to what they actually do, it would be a posting of the nine commandments. The fourth commandment seems somehow fairly irrelevant for the rest of our lives except for maybe getting together. Maybe if we feel like it, if we have the need to worship God one day out of seven, we might go to church that day. The rest of the day is our own.

Jesus said he’s Lord of the Sabbath. The New Testament says that this is the Lord’s day, not the Lord’s hour, not the Lord’s two hours or three hours or four. This is the Lord’s day.

Now, we saw last week that the observance of the Lord’s day, the Sabbath in the Mosaical instructions and the Sabbath in general and the Lord’s day in the New Covenant Church is a thing of great blessing and joy to us when we do it correctly, when we understand the great blessing it is to us. The Sabbath is a picture of creation and redemption. And we saw the two different versions of the ten commandments last week. Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5.

Exodus 20 ties the observance of one day out of seven, a setting aside of the whole day, a giving rest to all of our servants as well of ourselves. No commerce as a result of that. It saw all of that in terms of the creation of the world in six days, right? God created the world six days he rested on the seventh. Therefore, we enter into a one day out of seven rest.

Deuteronomy 5 when it talks about the fourth commandment ties it to the deliverance from Egypt. We’re to give rest to our servants because we were slaves in Egypt and God has now brought us into rest. These two themes that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance and a redemptive ordinance are sort of saying the same thing.

Turn to Deuteronomy 32, verses 10 and 11. Deuteronomy 32 talking about of course the deliverance of God’s people from Egypt. Begin in verse 9.

For the Lord’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about. He instructed him He kept him as the apple of his eye, and as an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttering over her young, sorry, spreadth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.

So the Lord also alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, and he made him eat of the increase of the fields. etc.

The great blessings ensue here. What’s being described in Deuteronomy 32 is the deliverance of God’s people from Egypt, God’s provision for them in the context of the wilderness and then bringing them into the promised land. So, what’s being talked about here is the redemption of God’s people, just as Deuteronomy 5 ties the Sabbath blessing to redemption.

Now, the interesting thing about this text is that there are two specific Hebrew words that are only used one other place besides these verses in the entire Pentateuch, the first five books of the scriptures and those two words are found in verse 10. He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness. The desert land and the waste howling wilderness. And then we read that as the eagle stirreth up her nest and flutters over her young. So the Lord worked in the context of them. God is fluttering over his people. The scriptures say and this verb translated fluttering or hovering over his people.

The only other place it’s used in the Pentateuch is when the Spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters in Genesis 1, verse 2. So there’s a correlation to God’s work of redemption and the first creation. The Spirit moves on the face of the waters. God hovers over his people as a bird over her young. God is saying here that this is a new creation, the redemption from Egypt and a movement into the promised land.

And in verse 10, when Moses describes the wilderness through which the people were traveling, he describes it as a waste. The wilderness is described as a waste. And here this word, this Hebrew word translated waste is the same word that’s used in Genesis 1 describing the earth as being without form. The earth was a waste. It was without form and that’s the only other place in the Pentateuch where that particular Hebrew word is used.

I think the implications are rather obvious that the redemption of God’s people from Egypt and their movement into the promised land is really described here in Deuteronomy 32 and in many other places that we’ll look at today as a new creation. A new world is being initiated by God. Redemption.

So when we say we’re to honor the Lord in his day because he is the Lord who created us and the Lord who has redeemed us. We’re really saying that we’re to honor the Lord who created us and has recreated us as well, who has brought about a new creation through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we’ll see in today’s text is that the full redemption accomplished through the Lord Jesus Christ, the definitive redemption that the Old Testament looked forward to is described in terms of this new creation and a new creation week that begins on the eighth day as it were, the eighth day of the old creation week, the first day of the new creation week.

Now, the scriptures, the church fathers are replete with references to the requirements of God’s people to honor the Lord on the Lord’s day for the full day. It was routinely spoken of in the early church fathers as a description of what this is what a Christian is. If a guy doesn’t honor the Lord on the Lord’s day as much as it is he’s allowed to do, you know, at that time, some of them still had to work because he had no other choice. But as much as he can set that day apart to himself, this is the mark of the Christians according to the church fathers. And this language is frequently employed of the eighth day to describe this day, the Lord’s day, the Christian Sabbath. This term the eighth day is commonly referred to.

For instance, in the epistle of Barnabas, one of the earliest of the writings of the church fathers, we read this. We celebrate with gladness the eighth day in which Jesus also rose from the dead and appeared and ascended into heaven.

Augustine speaking of the importance of Lord’s day worship says this. The Lord’s day however has been made known not to the Jews but to Christians by the resurrection of the Lord and from him it begins to have that festal character which is proper to it. For the souls of the pious dead are indeed in a state of repose before the resurrection of the body, but they are not engaged in the same active exercise as shall engage the strength of their bodies when restored.

Now, of the condition of active exercise, the eighth day, which is also the first day of the week, is a type because it does not put an end to that repose, but glorifies it. For with the reunion of soul and body, no hindrance to the soul’s rest returns. So, he’s saying there’s this active engagement that the eighth day worship service is a picture of the coming reunion as it were of the dead who were reunited to their bodies in active joy in the face of God.

And he’s saying that this eighth day worship the first day of the week is a picture of all of that.

In fact, of course, Augustine’s great work was the City of God. And in the last lines of the City of God, he speaks and I am quoting now of this, the eighth and eternal day consecrated by the resurrection of Christ and prefiguring the eternal repose not only of the spirit but also of the body. Then we shall rest and see, see in love, love and praise.

So toward the end near the last lines of the City of God, Augustine affirms this idea that the Lord’s day is the eighth day.

Now, where do these guys get this? Where do Barnabas and Augustine and all these church fathers come up with this odd idea of the eighth day? Well, where we’ll see today is that they come up with this from the scriptures themselves.

First, then on the outline, there are sacrificial prefigurements of an eighth day Sabbath. By eighth day I mean the day following the seventh and it is the same as the first day. So there are sacrificial prefigurements of the eighth day Sabbath.

First of all in Exodus 22:30 and in Leviticus 22:27 we are told that the sacrificial maturity of an animal occurred on the eighth day. Exodus 22:30. Likewise you shall do with your ox and your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days. On the eighth day, you shall give it to me.

In the context of talking about the offerings, the first fruits of the flock, it’s the eighth day that the animal is eligible for sacrifice.

Again, in Leviticus, or Exodus 20 or Leviticus, I’m sorry, on your outline, I have it listed as Exodus 22:27. The second reference, that should be Leviticus 22:27. Leviticus 22:27. And we read this in Leviticus 22:27 When a bull or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall be seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day and thereafter, it shall be accepted as an offering made by fire to the Lord.

In order for an animal to be eligible to be sacrificed, it had to be eight days old at least.

Kuyper and Delitzsch in their commentary on these verses says that the one week provision here corresponds to that period of time that the Lord God, the period of time that was fixed by the original creation. And so Kuyper and Delitzsch see in this a prefigurement of a new creation as it were the one week of the old creation being accomplished in this seven days of waiting for the sacrificial maturity of the animal.

Matthew Henry said that it was required to be with its mother seven days for it was a kind of recreation or creation this eligibility for sacrifice on the eighth day. So first of all sacrificial animal matured on the eighth day.

Secondly, the purification of the temple culminated in an eighth day of the completion of the process making it fit for the habitation of Jehovah. 2 Chronicles 29:17. Now they began to sanctify in the first day of the first month and on the eighth day of the month they came to the vestibule of the Lord. Then they sanctified the house of the Lord in 8 days and on the 16th day of the first month they finished it.

Okay, what’s going on here is we’re talking about the reconsecration, the cleansing as it were, the resetting up of the temple under Hezekiah’s reform. The temple had fallen into disuse. How do we get a temple ready again to be used as a place of sacrifice and God’s presence appearing in the context of the way you do it is you got to clean it in two parts. The outer court area is cleaned up for eight days and then the inner court is cleaned up for a second eight days. In both cases, the temple becomes purified then first the outer portions of it then the inner portions of it by an eight day period of time. So the temple is ready on the eighth day the second eighth day. The same way the sacrificial animal is ready to be sacrificed on the eighth day.

Now this these provisions of eighth day purification also refers to the altar. Did I’m sorry I skipped point B.

In addition to the animal, the priest that was to offer the animal, priestly maturity, also was preceded by seven days of consecration. Leviticus 9 that we read as the sermon text. You probably noticed that at the reading of nine, all this stuff happens on the eighth day. Aaron and his sons have gone through a cleansing. They’re getting ready to be the priests in the tabernacle of God. And they go through seven days of washing. They become like new men as a result of this washing, an anointing with oil and blood that’s gone on for seven days. Then on the eighth day, the priests are now ready to begin the sacrificial work in the context of the tabernacle.

And so this seven days of waiting culminates in an eighth day of priestly maturity in which they’re able to go in now and actually do the sacrificial work that we found listed in Leviticus 9. God appears in Leviticus 9 in response on the eighth day. He appears to accept the sacrifices of the priest who’s been matured for eight days and for the animals who have also been brought to maturity on the eighth day in terms of sacrifices.

And then third, as I just read from 2 Chronicles 29, the temple itself when it becomes defiled, it falls apart. The way it’s recreated as it were is through eight days of cleansing. And so here in Hezekiah’s temple, the temple itself becomes ready again for sacrifices to go on at the end of two periods of eight days.

And finally, four, the purification of the new covenant altar described in Ezekiel 43, also culminated in an eighth day acceptability. Ezekiel 43:27, speaking of Ezekiel’s temple, says this, when actually we should begin reading in verse 26, Seven days shall they purge the altar and purify it, and they shall consecrate themselves. When these days are over, it shall be on the eighth day and thereafter that the priest shall offer your burnt offerings and your peace offerings on the altar and I will accept you says the Lord God.

So you know if what we have in redemption is a picture of a new creation Deuteronomy 32:10 and 11 and if all these ordinances given to through the Mosaic ceremonial laws are a picture of redemption they’re also picture of new creation and very explicitly that new creation is prefigured or talked about or referred to by these eighth day acceptabilities of the animal that’s going to be sacrificed, the priest that’s going to kill the animal, the temple itself, and the altar on which the animal will be slain.

All four elements you’ve got to go into the context of the temple to the altar with a sacrificial animal and a priest has to sacrifice him. Then the glory of God appears. All of that is pictured as coming together not on the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day, or the seventh day. All of that is pictured as coming together on the eighth day. Very explicit references here.

If redemption accomplished is about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the new creation that the Gospel of John begins with in the beginning ends with breathing on the disciples receive life, receive the Holy Spirit. If this new creation comes about as the definitive work of the greater sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater temple, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, the altar himself cut without human hands who is Jesus and the priest offering that sacrifice which is also Jesus.

If all of that redemptive ordinance occurs and is culminates in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, surely the Old Testament sacrificial system is telling anybody who bothers to look at the details that will be completed and accomplished and the Lord will appear when the Jesus Christ comes and accomplishes that work of redemption for us. The Lord will appear on the eighth day as a picture of the new creation made definitively brought to pass through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why do we gather on Sunday instead of Saturday on the eighth day or first day of the week instead of the last day of the week? This is why because the scriptures prefigured this change of day as it were from the seventh to the eighth, old covenant to new covenant, new creation, redemption accomplished in the work of the savior. The Old Testament prefigured the change of day that we see Jesus and the apostles then participating in when we get around to the New Testament.

But it isn’t just in these sacrificial elements. There are death to life ordinances in the sacrificial in the Old Testament Mosaic ceremonial system and the death to life ceremonial prefigurements also has prefigurements of the eighth day.

And actually the first of these is circumcision and that goes way before Moses of course goes back to Abraham. And we’re told very explicitly in Genesis 17 verses 10-12 that circumcision occurs on the eighth day. It’s the eighth day that circumcision happens. And again, it’s a picture of the cutting away of the old creation and the new birth in the new creation. The fact that this happens on the first day of a second week or the eighth day of the old week.

Now, Galatians 6:15 tells us this. In Jesus Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. You see, why does he say circumcision or uncircumcision doesn’t matter. What matters is a new creation. He’s saying that because that’s what was the point of circumcision was. In other places of the New Testament, we read circumcision or uncircumcision doesn’t matter, but the keeping of the law. Because the keeping of the law is a picture of what our proper response to God is that circumcision is a picture of that lawkeeping. Well, here circumcision is declared to be a picture of the new creation.

It’s why it happened on the eighth day. So, circumcision, a definitive death to life, renewal of covenant, bringing people back from the dead. The way God brings Abram back from his deep sleep, the sign of that covenant renewal and resurrection of the new creation is to be applied on the eighth day. It’s a new creation week.

Secondly, the purification of deadness culminated in an eighth day of reemergence into fellowship with Yahweh and his people. And I’ve got several citations here. Leviticus 14 verse 10, Leviticus 15:14 and 29, and then Numbers 6. Leviticus 14, these are descriptions of cleansing from leprosy. Leviticus 15 is a picture of the cleansing from issues, a defilement by way of issues. And Numbers chapter 6 is the cleansing of a Nazirite who’s become unclean through contact with the dead body. So in all these manifestations of death there’s a reemergence to life. And in each of these particular ordinances, this happens on the eighth day.

Leviticus 14:10. On the eighth day, he shall take two male lambs without blemish, one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, 3/10 of an ephah of the flour mixed with oil as a grain offering and offering of oil. So on the eighth day, the leper was to bring this stuff. The priest then would go through the sacrificial rites and then the person, this is the last element of the cleansing of the leper. And he would then be declared clean. and he’s gotten back into fellowship with God and his presence. And he’s also now able to reintegrate back into the community from which he’d been cut off.

The leper is a picture of the old creation, the Adamic fall of man. Cut off from each other, cut off from man, cut off from God. And the reemergence into fellowship with God and men happens on the eighth day because it’s a picture of a new creation.

Again, in Leviticus 15:14, on the eighth day, he shall take for himself two turtle doves, two young pigeons, and come before the Lord in the door of the tabernacle of meeting and give them to the priest. Again, eighth day cleansing. And then verse 29, on the eighth day, she shall take for herself a woman with an issue, two turtle doves, two young pigeons, bring them to the priest at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Eighth day, eighth day, eighth day, even the Nazirite in Numbers 6:10 has been defiled by touching the dead. In verse 10, that on the eighth day he shall bring two turtle doves or two young pigeons to the priest at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

So these things all come together in the eighth day. Now Calvin looked at these requirements for moving from uncleanness to cleanness on the eighth day and connected them just as I have on the outline to circumcision noting that they’re both a movement from death to life. And they both therefore happen on the same day on the eighth day. And so Calvin links these two together and says that the leper and the Nazirite is in Calvin’s words born again. He’s born again. And that Calvin said why he is all these things occur on the eighth day with circumcision and a movement from uncleanness to cleanness. It is being born again into the new creation and that’s why it occurs on the eighth day.

So the sacrificial system told us that the ultimate culmination of redemption of the new creation was on the eighth day. And the sacrificial system and the sign of the old covenant rite of circumcision both told us the definitive new creation, the definitive movement from death to life would be ushered in by the appearance of God on the eighth day. All these things pointing to the coming of Jesus Christ to fulfill these requirements.

And then third, the actual sabbatical cycle itself, the specific days that were to be celebrated in the Mosaic ceremonial laws also had prefigurements of the eighth day.

First, the feast of firstfruits. You know, the firstfruits, there’s a sheaf waved. This is in the context of Passover. And in the context of Passover, there’s this Sabbath that occurs in Leviticus 23:11. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your behalf. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. So it’s the Sabbath is the seventh day. The day after the Sabbath is the eighth day that the sheaf is waved before God and accepted before him.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the firstfruits of humanity brought into the temple of God and into his throne room. The great resurrection of the Savior is prefigured here as occurring on the day at the new creation, the new crop, the new field will begin harvest with the resurrection of Christ on the eighth day.

Pentecost in Leviticus 23:16, you’re to count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord. Pentecost, the harvest itself comes in here now. And after the beginning of this, the firstfruits thing, now you got seven Sabbaths. And at the end of the seven week, the seventh Sabbath. On the eighth day of that week, the day after the Sabbath, Pentecost is celebrated.

We sang this morning about this day, the first day of the week, the Lord’s day, the eighth day. And we said that on this day, the Holy Spirit came, referring to the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. What day is it? Pentecost is the day after the Sabbath. Pentecost is the first day of the week. Pentecost is the eighth day of the week. And it is on that symbol and picture of the new creation that the Holy Spirit comes to empower God’s people to move and live and have their being in the context of that new creation.

Third, the feast of tabernacles. This is the great rejoicing feast at the end of the Old Testament agricultural cycle. And the day of tabernacles culminates in a final Sabbath day, which is an eighth day as well. In Leviticus 23:36 Seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. On the eighth day, you shall have a holy convocation, you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work in it.

Again, in verse 39, also on the 15th day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord for seven days. On the first day, there shall be a Sabbath rest, and on the eighth day, a Sabbath rest as well. So, the great picture of the whole calendar of the sabbatical system culminated not in a seventh day celebration. But the last and great day of that whole system was an eighth day Sabbath. The day after the Sabbath on the eighth day explicitly mentioned for us here.

This is the day that we’ll get to in a few months in John in the Gospel of John when our savior gets up in John 7 and he says, you know, come to me if you’re thirsty and you know, I’ll give you life and I’ll give you the water of life and out of your belly will flow rivers of living water. Come to me says to me, when does he say this? Well, John 7:37 says that it’s on the last day, the great day of the feast. So, here we have inspired commentary and we can assume that eighth day, the last day of tabernacles or booths or the feast of ingathering, another name it’s called. We can assume that it’s the eighth day to come.

But here it says that the last day is the great day of the feast. All of redemption is pictured as finally accomplished at the end of that cycle. All of redemption is accomplished in the eighth day. And it’s on that eighth day Sabbath that the Lord Jesus Christ gets up and says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scriptures has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of what kind of water? Living water. Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”

We talked about that, right? The angels moved the waters in John 5. Jesus says it’s living water that’ll come out of us. He says it speaks of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is renewing the face of the earth. And Jesus ties that definitively to the eighth day when he gets up on the eighth day, the last day of tabernacles, and says, “Believe in me.” And living water, the Holy Spirit will come out of the midst of who you are and change the whole face of the earth or the dry planet that sits there without the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The face of the world will be changed by his people because they moved to affect and to bring the lifegiving power of God who is in the process of working out the definitive recreation of all things through the Lord Jesus Christ.

The year of Jubilee, Jesus said, was what he came to usher in. And it was not an eighth day. It was an eighth year, a 50th year at the end of seven cycles of seven. But I think again there we can sort of see that there’s this eighth idea at play.

So we see all these prefigurements in the sacrificial system, in the death to life ordinances and in all the sabbatical system itself we see all these prefigurements this picture if anybody reads their Bibles in the Old Testament they know that things are going to change when Jesus comes they know that when redemption is fully accomplished all things will be brought into a changed pattern that somehow focus on the eighth day and what do we find and where do we find it we find it here in the Gospel of John that very truth that the Lord Jesus Christ ties his own blessing to the eighth day, the first day of the week as the culmination of his new creation work.

In John 20:19 and 26, the same day at evening being the first day of the week when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When does Jesus appear to him? Does he come on the Sabbath? He Old Testament sabbatical day, the seventh day. No, he comes on the first day of the week. And here it’s the first day instead of eighth day. Probably we see in that an emphasis on the newness of everything. Now the first day of the new creation tied to the eighth day celebrations of the old covenant. And on that first day, that’s when Jesus says he’s going to appear to his people.

Leviticus 9 says to Aaron and the priests on the eighth day, do all these sacrifices that picture the Messiah to come. And when you do all these things, I will come to you and make my special appearance to you. Jesus comes on that eighth day as the greater Aaron, the greater sacrifice, the greater peace offering to bring us peace. He comes as the greater ascension offering to usher us into the throne of the father. He comes as the greater purification offering to cleanse away all of our defilements. And he says that he brings his special presence to us of what this new creation is all about on the first day of the week.

The eighth day or first day of the week was prefigured by the Old Testament and it was verified by our Lord Jesus Christ. He authenticated Lord’s day worship on the first day of the week by his appearance to the disciples in John 20:19.

Now, he doesn’t stop there. He comes back in verse 26. A week later, Thomas isn’t there on verse 19. And what do we read in verse 26? His second appearance. We know when his first one is in John. Will he establish a pattern with the second or will he change the day to say, “Oh, it doesn’t make a difference.” No, he establishes a pattern.

Verse 26. And after eight days, how many days? After eight days, his disciples were again inside. Now, understand that the way the New Testament talks about days and nights. This doesn’t mean he went from Sunday to Monday. It means he’s back again on that eighth day of the day after the Sabbath of that week by the reckoning of the days there’s eight days and he appears on that eighth day including the one that he had last appeared on. So all commentators say that they understand this is what the Jewish idiom is in the New Testament. So this is an eighth day appearance and it specifically says eight days I think to draw our attention to what we see here is this great fulfillment of all those wonderful things pictured for us in the Old Testament about the coming of Messiah and the new creation he would usher in.

Notice that on that eighth day, he doesn’t have to send out, you know, he doesn’t have to go out and visit them in their own households. Why? Because it says on the eighth after eight days, his disciples were again inside. J. Alexander says this is a picture that what they were doing was they were regularly meeting on that eighth day on that first day of the week. It indicates a regularity and a planned purpose for meeting again. and Thomas along with them. Jesus came the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said, “Peace be to you.”

Our Lord Jesus Christ with a double witness says that this prefigured eighth day Sabbath from the old covenant has now been brought to completion. And he by a double witness says that we are to meet with him. He will appear to us the way that God appeared to the people in Leviticus 9. He will appear in his particular special presence to his disciples and later to his people on the first day. the eighth day of the week, the day marking the new creation. This is wondrous stuff. Wonderful picture of the continuity of the scriptures from beginning to end.

The fall of Adam, the fall of the old creation, the recovery and the new creation affected by our savior.

If we understand this, then we understand that we’re in Leviticus 9, right? We read ourselves in the context of that. God comes to be with us today. His special presence is here. He is affected once for all and applies to us every Lord’s day the sin offering, the purification offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has accomplished once for all 2,000 years ago and applies to us today the ascension offering of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has accomplished once for all 2,000 years ago and applies to us today the tribute offering that was placed alongside of the ascension offering. And he has accomplished definitively 2,000 years ago and applies to us every Lord’s day the peace offering, joyous fellowship with him and one another as we get to eat with our savior and with his people.

He comes to us today to bless us. Right after Aaron is done with the sacrifices, he pronounces the benediction on God’s people. And today, the eighth day, the first day, the Lord Jesus Christ has appeared amongst us. And the sacrifices have been applied and we’ve remembered them, the work of our savior. We’ve rejoiced in the fact that these things pictured not just a cleanness and ascension. They pictured a definitive release from sin and slavery in Egypt.

But more than that, because of Deuteronomy 32:11, they pictured to us that we now move in the context of a new creation.

I remember early on in our married life, and you know, my wife and I would have different disputes of different types and you know, some I remember one Sunday specifically, you know, thinking, well, you know, if we just try to work through everything again, we’ll probably get all balled up again. But what we can do is come to God on the Lord’s day and say, you know, we both sinned in some ways. Please forgive us, Father. And everything starts fresh.

A lot of times we want to go back. We want to live in the past. We want to retell why we did what we did, who we did it to. And usually we had good reasons for doing it. Doesn’t do good. God says today, come before him and leave the past behind. Recognize that he has ushered you into a new creation. Nothing less than that through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today is indeed the first day of the rest of your life. And not just the rest of your life, the life of this planet. God says, “This is the day, the last great day of the feast that we’re perpetually in now.” And particularly Lord’s day worship. And the Sabbath is not some dry old crusty, oh, I’ve got to do this today sort of thing. The Christian Sabbath or Lord’s Day is a day of great rejoicing, knowing that the last great day of the feast is what we get to do every week on the Lord’s day, to rejoice, to celebrate, to see the culmination of the new creation affected by our savior.

This is who we are. We must see ourselves as new creations in the Lord Jesus Christ and rejoice in the greatness of what he’s accomplished. The first fruit was waved before God and he accepted it. Now the whole world is being harvested and he fills you with his presence today. He brings his appearance, his advent to you to bless you and to say go forth not in what the past has bothered you about but in newness of life. Move into the future. You’re a changed man and a changed woman today. You’re a new creature in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s why the apostles did it. It’s why they got together on the first day of the week. We had these Old Testament prefigurements. We had our savior putting his two-fold witness that this is the day of Christian worship, the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s day. And therefore, that’s why we see the apostles in places such as Acts 20:7 meeting on the first day of the week.

We read there on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread. Paul ready to depart the next day spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. What do we see? We see what we do. First day of the week, we get together. We get together to have communion to break bread. We gather in convocation. And we gather to hear the word of God preached to us just like the apostles did in the book of Acts.

Why did they do it? If all we had was the apostolic practice indicated here and in the other references I’ve given to you that they met on the first day of the week. I think that should be enough for us. If we’re not sure what day we’re supposed to meet and we see the apostles meeting on the first day of the week, we can assume that the holy scriptures that give us this means this way that the apostles worship is giving us definition for how we’re supposed to worship. We can assume in verse 7 that every once a week we should gather together. We should have communion and we should have a sermon.

If all this is what we had, this is enough. But of course, we have more than this. We have other instances of the church meeting on the first day of the week. And what we have in addition to this is our savior’s own appearance on that first day of the week recorded twice for us in John’s gospel. And we have all the Old Testament prefigurements of the culmination of the new creation on the eighth day when Christ would appear to his people.

See, we have a wealth of scripture information here. I feel sorry, you know, for our Seventh Day Adventist brethren who don’t quite understand the joy of what’s happened with history as a result of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and how history has moved forward very dramatically into new creation time.

This is why Paul wrote to the Corinthians and he says that I’ve given orders to the churches of Galatia in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. I’ve given orders to the churches of Galatia. So you must do also. So on the first day of the week, let each of you lay something aside. He gave orders. He didn’t give suggestions. What he wanted you, what he told the churches in Galatia and the Corinthians to do was to bring their offerings, their alms offerings on the first day of the week.

It says, “Lay them aside.” The word really should be maybe better translated, put them in store. And I don’t think that means your own storehouse. It means the storehouse of the Lord. Jesus said, “Lay up treasures for yourself, but lay them up in heaven.” We’re to lay up stores the alms stores here in the Lord’s day first day of the week. We’re doing just what Paul established here as well.

Our alms offerings given to those that have special needs are given on the first day of the week because that’s that extension of mercy of the spirit coming out from our innermost being.

Paul said that this giving of the people, these giving these offerings of the people, he tells us in Philippians 4:18 that these offerings that they brought were a sweet smelling aroma to God. You see, that’s why he put them in the context of worship. There’s sacrificial language used. Jesus has been sacrificed once for all 2,000 years ago. But in response to that, we bring up a sweet smelling offering to God on the day that God says we’re to come into convocative worship, have the application given to us of sin, ascension, burnt offerings, peace offerings. This is the day of those sweet smelling offerings to God that are represented by us, his people, bringing forth our sacrifices not of animals, but the sacrifice of praise and the sacrifices of hearts willing to extend grace and benevolences to others.

When we get around to Revelation 1 and John says that he is in the spirit on the Lord’s day, now do we understand what it is a little better? It’s the Lord’s day because he claims it as his own. He’s the Lord part of the Sabbath. It is the Christian Sabbath. It is the day of the Lord, the Lord’s day for us. And where are we supposed to be on the Lord’s day? We’re supposed to be like John, like those apostles, like Paul. We’re supposed to convocate together for communion and the preaching of the word, and the offering up of prayers, sweet incense to God. We’re supposed to be in spirit on the Lord’s day.

But notice, as I said before, the Lord’s day doesn’t end when the services end. The Lord’s day, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5. Every definition of day that there is in the Law in the New Testament, this Lord’s day here, it extends to the entire 24-hour period of time. This is a day that God says should be highly favored to us. This is the day we’re to honor the Lord of this day.

I asked the children last week, I asked you today, have you honored the Lord Jesus Christ this morning? And will you before you got to church. Did you honor him? This is his day. Did you honor him here in the context of church? And will you honor him with the balance of this day?

Now, my guess is that some did and some didn’t last week, honor Christ the rest of the day. But I hope you see in this change of day prefigured by the Old Testament, given the stamp of approval by our savior, and then practiced by the apostles that indeed this is the day to set aside the whole day to honor the Lord of this day, to be in spirit, to rejoice in what Christ has accomplished and bring rejoicing to the rest of the world.

You know, this is a wondrous thing that Christ has accomplished, a new creation. This is a wondrous time of year, the advent of the Savior, to affect what we’ve been talking about this morning and definitively to find all these things completed and fulfilled in him. This is a day that has great, this is a season rather, that has great joy throughout it. And if we can train ourselves to delight in God this day, he says he’ll bless us with all the blessings of heaven and all the blessings of exercising dominion in a proper way and being a lifegiving spirit and force to the world as the Holy Spirit takes what we have this day celebrated and remembered into the rest of our lives.

Let’s pray to that end.

Father, we do thank you for this day. We ask your forgiveness, Father, for not honoring it correctly. We pray that you would help us to rejoice and what a wonderful thing this eighth day Sabbath is this day of new creation. We thank you Lord God for telling us why the church fathers early in the church’s history saw the importance of using this terminology on occasion the eighth day the Lord’s day the first day of the new creation help us father to believe that we are new in your sight and help us as we come forward bringing our tithes and offerings to consecrate ourselves anew to honoring you one day out of seven in Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.