What does the New Testament say about the Sabbath?

298 Let us now see what the New Testament directly affords us on the sabbath. Is any hint as to its sacredness to be found? Matthew 12:1 is evidently of great consequence here. The Pharisees complained of the disciples' plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. The Lord's answer is remarkable. It is not to rebuke the Pharisees as He does elsewhere, but to shew that the sabbath and other ceremonial enactments have been set aside for sufficient cause, and that a greater than any obligation of the sabbath was there. Could God say, I am greater than a moral commandment? Would that be a divine way of putting things if it were a question of hating a brother or coveting another man's wife? Such a thought would revolt at once. But that is the Lord's reasoning as to the sabbath. First a rejected Messiah made all common, for another obligatory commandment, the sabbath, gave way under God's own eye. Christ was greater than the temple; and if they knew God's heart, they would not have condemned His disciples. All this proved the Pharisees wrong and unjustifiable. But, besides, the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath. Surely this could not be said of a commandment as to right and wrong! He had a title to dispose of the sabbath, through the dignity of His person and office. Could all this have been said if the Lord were insisting on the maintenance of its authority? He adds that it is lawful to do well on the sabbath. The parallel passage in Mark adds, The sabbath was made for man.

Matthew's gospel gives us dispensational changes, and, on that ground, Christ's person as divine; and the place He took as Son of man laid the ground for dealing with the sabbath as Lord of it. Here Christ is the servant-prophet, and we have another ground laid: the sabbath was made for man. It was in favour of — for — man; and hence He who ordered all for man, as the head of the race according to God, was Lord of it. It was a benefit conferred on man for his advantage, and the Son of man was the competent disposer in the matter. Could this be said of a divinely binding law?

87 But that old covenant, in which the sabbath was made legally obligatory, was to be done away, and the time of Messiah, the true rest of His creation, was to come in. We have here, therefore, to consider how the Lord Jesus deals with the sabbath. We have already seen that He does not introduce it in His spiritual summary of practice in the Sermon on the Mount. Nor can the smallest instance be found in which He sets up or insists upon its authority. But when He goes out of Judaism and reveals Himself as Son of man, He declares that He is Lord of it. Speaking in His divine character, when charged with the breach of it, His language is still more striking — "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Grace might labour in a world of sin; but neither the holiness nor the love of the Father and Son could find their rest in a world of sin and misery. No one can find in the writings of the New Testament a word that insists upon the moral obligation of the sabbath. When the question arose between Jew and Gentile Christians as to what was to be maintained as obligatory, the sabbath was not one of the things insisted upon. Have we then lost the rest of God? or even every trace of it here below? God forbid! And I have no doubt that the last words, "The sabbath was made for man," remain in practice a true blessing now for man; but when we come to spiritual hopes of that rest, it is a different matter. The rest of God in the first creation is over, because sin has entered. It will, I doubt not, have its sabbath; but that will be in the millennium, in a new order of things. It is not a seventh day, but the seventh day — God's rest after finishing His work.

88 But our rest is not in this creation. We have been rejected out of it, as Christ has been too, who (if man had not been a sinner as he was) had power to bring in rest, when He first came. But now He has introduced us by resurrection into a new and heavenly rest of God, a brighter and a better hope; and the seventh day, the sabbath, the sign of the old covenant, the rest of this creation, in no way meets our hopes. For the writer of the "Record," who puts us under Adam headship, this might do, but not for a Christian; and, even so, it is impossible, for how could a sinner have the rest of God under the old covenant? And what introduces us into this new and better hope? It is resurrection — the resurrection of our blessed Lord. In the grave on the sabbath (the only rest He found here), He rises up to begin, as the head of the new creation, brighter and better hopes founded on His sacrifice. Hence, to the Christian Church, the first day of the week, as all the New Testament after His resurrection testifies, not the seventh, becomes the sign and pledge of her rest. It is not a law, but established by the testimony of scripture. It is monstrous, as Christians, to say or think that the neglect of that which is not established by law is not ruinous in its nature. We do not pray by law, nor read scripture by law. And this day is marked out in the New Testament. The day of Christ's resurrection He met His disciples assembled; the next first day He did the same. The first day of the week, we read, "the disciples met together to break bread." The first day of the week they were to lay by for the poor, as God had prospered them. And in Revelation 1 it is formally called "the Lord's day," with the testimony that John was in the Spirit on it. To make it the seventh day, and a mere change of day, which scripture always positively contradicts, is to confound the old creation (which is under condemnation by sin) with the new, into which we are risen with Christ in resurrection. That corrupt Christianity, which has lost all spirituality, should have lost this altogether, is but too natural; that reformed Christendom could only go back to the law, and make a seventh day of it, is only one of the sad proofs how little its members have known the privileges that God has conferred on us.

89 I add, that as long as Christianity is to be the nominal religion of the world, or of a country, it must live by institutions, although its tone and character will be really expressed by its preaching. Now of all these institutions, though there are others, the institution of the christian sabbath has, though greatly abused, by far the widest and most beneficent influence on the masses. It is the poor man's day, and the family day; two objects to which, in the government of the human race, God attaches peculiar importance. And here I may apply the expression, "The sabbath was made for man." In Popery and in Puseyism, christian institutions, blended with an immense power of Satan over the imagination, have been turned into puerilities and superstitions. Man has been put between man and God. The measure of right and wrong having fallen below that of natural conscience, and sin, what I may call, pried into by man, with occasional individual devotedness, the masses have been universally morally degraded, or, if not, turned infidel. The dissenters (while there are many individuals in their ranks more excellent and devoted than myself) appear to me in the old world to be now in an entirely false position; and the same remark applies to all denominations in the new world, where, as there is no Establishment, there can be no dissent. They profess to build up and form the true church upon its own proper principles, and at the same time grasp energetically at the masses and the world. What the state of Presbyterianism is, where it does not come under the category of dissent in the old world, is sufficiently known not to call for any remark from me. The consequence has been, since the full freedom of dissent, a tendency to adapt Christianity itself to the progress of the age, and hence towards latitudinarianism and rationalism, from which the Establishment itself, though with more fixed formularies, knows perhaps still less how to free itself. In the midst of all this God surely carries on His own work; and I have no doubt the just maintenance of the christian sabbath is, as I have said, a great blessing as regards God's government of the professing world. But this is another thing from the truth of eternal life — another thing from the narrow path in which the Christian has to walk.

In the New Testament the Lord sets aside the Sabbath, this sign of the covenant with Israel; for, on the one hand, He was rejected (Matt. 12:1-8), and on the other He was quickening souls in view of a new creation of which they were subjects. (John 5.) The first day of the week is that which belongs to the Assembly, the resurrection day on which the Lord took His place in the midst of His own.

But to return to the case of the impotent man. What could the Sabbath do for him? More than nineteen hundred Sabbaths had passed over him, and he was still withered; but, oh! when Jesus came, He to whom those Sabbaths did but point, one word “Rise!” “and immediately the man was made whole.” What a contrast! Do ponder this. Nineteen thousand Sabbath days could never heal you — still the withered bondslave of sin — yea, and if you could keep them all, and at last break one, and that by only one sin, you would be guilty of all, and never enter into rest. But what a change when the sinner owns himself a ruined sinner; so ruined that the holy law of God could only condemn him, and that for ever. For such an one, sabbath-keeping or law-keeping can do nothing, because he can do nothing. Oh! let this be owned; when nothing can help, then is the time that God reveals the real rest of the soul in Christ. At that moment, one word “Rise,” and the soul is created anew in Christ Jesus. God takes up that soul on entirely new principles: so entirely new, that to go back to the old dispensation of shadows is to deny the gospel, and to bring in another which is not another, but a net of bondage. This is fully discussed in the Epistle to the Galatians. How solemn are those words, “How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” And again, “Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” In the face of such plain scripture, is it not most sad to think, how many are seeking to be righteous before God, by the legality of Sabbath-keeping; and at such a time as this, when such effort is being put forth to lead the very sheep of Christ into this legal bondage, it is well to be really established in grace. In this sense, how full of meaning is such a word as that in Colossians 2:16-17: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” Or again, Romans 14:5, “One man esteems one day above another: another esteems every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Surely one need only compare this with Numbers 15:32-36, (the case of the man who must be put to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath,) and it must be seen that the principles of the two dispensations are as different from each other as light and darkness. In the past dispensation, the Sabbath once commanded, must be kept on pain of death. In this dispensation, the Sabbath is not once commanded, either in the teaching of Christ, or the apostles after Him; nay, more, to return to any part of the law for righteousness, is to deny Christ altogether, and those that thus bring it in are accursed. (Gal. 1:8.)

The hallowing of the seventh day, was the expression of God’s rest in a finished creation, and a type of God’s rest in a finished redemption. Now, reader, what part had man in creation? Just so much could he have in redemption. He was but a creature, brought in to everything made ready to his hands: so it is in the new creation. In the case of Israel, too, redemption was God’s own work. The sending of bread from heaven was God’s own work; and as the recipient of God’s grace, the Sabbath was then given to Israel. In no other way can you be brought into God’s rest in Christ, but as a debtor to the boundless grace of God, that spared not His only begotten Son. Oh! gaze at the wondrous cross of Christ! Behold, in God’s raising Him from the dead, God’s own testimony that the work of redemption is finished — finished with glory! glory to God! glory to Christ! Oh, the glory of the cross! Oh, the eternal efficacy of that peace-speaking blood! Can there be any wonder that souls seeking peace by the old beggarly shadows of the law should be kept in darkness and bondage? Ah! how beggarly, compared with the glory of the cross. (See 2 Cor. 3:7, 18; and 4:3, 6.) Yes, the ministration of death “is done away,” “it is abolished.” To one who desires to be subject to the word of God this is enough. To one who has not ceased, and will not cease from his own works, these thoughts will be really shocking. To speak of the Sabbath as a past shadow, could not be endured by any but such as have been brought into God’s present and eternal rest in Christ.

Now comes the practical turn to which the Apostle applies this. "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a feast, or new-moon, or sabbaths; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." vv. 16, 17. A Christian man who knows the victory of Christ for us should not surely entertain the idea of going back to these elementary forms of working good. Hold fast your actual place in Christ, act consistently with it. As to eating and drinking or ordinances relative to the year, month, and week (and the Apostle takes particular care to speak not merely of feast or new moon but of sabbaths) remember that these things but prefigure the body or substantial good found really and only in Christ. In fact, these times and seasons point chiefly to what God will give His people by-and-by. The new moon was a remarkable type of Israel being renewed after fading away, as the sabbath was the type of the rest of God which He will yet enjoy and share. But whether it be peace or drink offerings or the feasts in general, they are connected as the shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. This we have. The Jew had the shadow, and he will have the things to come by the grace of God under the new covenant by-and-by. We are given the substance of Christ now. It is a question here of Jewish days. The Lord's day has nothing to do with Judaism; it is not only apart from, but in contrast with that system.

The Lord's day is as distinctly a Christian institution as the Lord's supper, the Jew having nothing to do with either. It is very important to see that God has put honour upon the day of resurrection and grace. When people are radically loose or begin to slip away from the Lord, an early symptom is carelessness about this day. There ought to be an exercised conscience about it, not only for our own selves, but also as to servants within and others without our houses. It is of very great consequence that the sense of liberty and grace should not even have the appearance of laxity or selfishness.

We are aware, alas! that some persons have, through ignorance or misguided feelings, said things in reference to the Lord's day which we utterly repudiate, and that they have done things on the Lord's day of which we wholly disapprove. We believe that there is a body of New Testament teaching on the important subject of the Lord's day, quite sufficient to give that day its proper place in every well-regulated mind. The Lord Jesus rose from the dead on that day. (Matt. 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1) He met His disciples, once and again, on that day. (John 20:19, 26.) The early disciples met to break bread on that day. (Acts 20:7) The apostle, by the Holy Ghost, directs the Corinthians to lay by their contributions for the poor on that day. (1 Cor. 16:2.) And, finally, the exiled apostle was in the Spirit and received visions of the future on that day. (Rev. 1:10.) The above scriptures are conclusive. They prove that the Lord's day occupies a place quite unique, quite heavenly, quite divine. But they as fully prove the entire distinctness of the Jewish Sabbath and the Lords day. The two days are spoken of throughout the New Testament with fully as much distinctness as we speak of Saturday and Sunday. The only difference is, that the latter are heathen titles, and the former divine. (Comp. Matt. 28:1; Acts 13:14, Acts 17:2, Acts 20:7; Col. 2:16)

Having said thus much as to the question of the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's day, we shall suggest the following questions to the reader — namely, Where in the Word of God is the Sabbath said to be changed to the first day of the week? Where is there any repeal of the law as to the Sabbath? Where is the authority for altering the day or the mode of observing it? Where, in Scripture, have we such an expression as "the Christian Sabbath?" Where is the Lord's day ever called the sabbath? [For a fuller exposition of the doctrine of the Sabbath, see "Notes on Genesis." (Chapter 2.) Also "Notes on Exodus." (Chaps 16. & 31.)]

The Evangelist proceeds to show that the Lord justified His followers on another ground — by the enunciation of a weighty truth concerning the sabbath which the Pharisees had nullified by their tradition. The distinction of this utterance from the Lord's historical allusion to the Old Testament is marked in the narrative by the phrase, "And he said unto them." For He proceeded to introduce to them a new phase of the subject, illuminating it by the truth of God, as it could emanate from Himself only. In their ignorant zeal, under a thin veneer of piety, they had made the sabbath a yoke of bondage grievous to be borne. The Lord pronounced authoritatively, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." The object of the institution of the septenary season of rest was not the punishment of man, but his blessing.

The Question concerning the Sabbath. Verses 23-28. The question concerning the Sabbath is closely connected with the preceding parable. The Sabbath, not a seventh day, but the seventh day, was the day on which God rested in Creation. It was also the sign of His covenant with His people Israel. Plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath to eat them is nowhere forbidden in the Law. It was one of the hard and burdensome man-made traditional injunctions. The Lord cites David's case. Mark adds that David was not alone hungry, but "he had need." David, though anointed King, was despised and in need. His greater Son and His disciples were in the same condition. What is greater with God, the maintenance of an ordinance or the need of Man? Surely the latter. He, the humble Servant, was none other than the Lord of the Sabbath. He had rested in His Creation work and instituted the Sabbath for His people. He had become the Son of Man for the need of Man. As the Lord of the Sabbath He speaks, "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath." On the ground of Grace the Sabbath no longer exists. We have the Lord's day, the first day of the week to enjoy communion with our risen and glorified Lord, resting from our daily occupation. Blessed privilege to adore Him on that day and to follow His own example of doing good.

In reading the Gospels, we cannot but be struck with the frequency with which our Lord's recorded works of mercy were done on the sabbath, incurring the anger of Pharisees and scribes. Israel had wholly broken the covenant, so He was setting aside the sign of it, and showing also that there was no rest for God in a creation that had been ruined by sin. Hence that great word of His, recorded in John 5:17, "My Father works hitherto, and I work." We are delivered from the law, and it no longer forms the basis of our relation with God. We stand before God in righteousness, accomplished by the work of Christ, and therefore we begin with rest on the first day of the week, instead of reaching it at the end by works of our own.

The sabbath however had a typical significance, foreshadowing the rest of God, into which ultimately we shall be introduced, according to Hebrews 4. When we read, "There remains therefore a rest to the people of God" (Heb. 4:9), the margin tells us that the word used there for "rest" is literally "a keeping of a sabbath" — the only place in Scripture where that particular word is used. In our chapter therefore the sabbath is prophetic of that rest into which God will ultimately bring the true Israel, and the feasts of the Lord, which follow, are prophetic of the steps by which that rest is to be reached.

The Sabbath was the seventh day; the Lord's day is the first.