Jesus said
"The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath"
Mark 2 v 27
Considering the Lord's Day Practically
Rev Dr Iain D Campbell
If we accept the fourth commandment as still binding, and that the Lord’s Day is the Christian Sabbath, how should it be different from other days of the week? What does it mean to keep it holy? Are there some biblical principles that help us to understand the practical aspects of New Covenant Sabbath keeping? I think there are; I think we can ask certain questions of what we are prepared to do on the Lord’s Day.
Is what I do on the Lord’s Day necessary?
Jesus illustrates this principle in the cornfields, where he plucked grain and ate the corn on the Sabbath day. When he was accused of breaking the Sabbath, he asserted his authority over the Sabbath and illustrated the point that some things are necessary on the Sabbath day.
May our activity be easily postponed to some other day? Or may it enable us to reduce the amount of work needing to be done? We need to be careful here. What is ‘necessary’ may vary from person to person, place to place, or even culture to culture. But the rule of thumb is still a good one. I remember, as both an undergraduate and a postgraduate, making a conscious decision to do no secular studying on the Lord’s Day. God honoured that commitment, I believe. What a blessing not to have been under secular pressure, having been liberated into a spiritual reality! Of course, I had Christian friends who did study on Sunday, and I cannot pass judgement on their decision to do so. All I know is that it was not necessary for me, and I lost nothing by spending my Sundays differently.
Is what I do on the Lord’s Day going to be of benefit to others?
Again, Christ himself provides the example of this. It is no accident that the Gospel accounts combine Jesus’ healing miracles with his witness to the Sabbath, leading him to pose the question on one occasion: ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’ (Mark 3:4). On another, he highlighted the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in their complaint that he had healed on the Sabbath with these words: ‘Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?’ (Luke 13:15-16).
The principle here is that the Sabbath was always intended to improve man’s position and condition. In a good world, it was better for man to work. In a good world, it was better for man to have a wife. In a good world, it was better for man to have a Sabbath day. The day was made for man.
Is what I do on the Lord’s Day going to give credit and honour to Jesus Christ?
Isn’t it ironic that as our society is becoming increasingly multi-faith, it is also becoming increasingly secular? That means the more religions we have, the less religious we become.
The Christian believer is called to buck this trend, and live a religious life that takes up a cross and follows Jesus; and you cannot do that without being noticed!
So the question I want to ask here is whether our Sunday activities exalt the name of Jesus Christ? Do our private activities give credit to Jesus Christ? Does what we do at home on Sunday show that as a family we are devoted to honouring Jesus Christ? And is it obvious that, as a family, our Sunday revolves around public, corporate worship, so that we join with the larger family of God to worship Jesus Christ?
Is what I do on the Lord’s Day going to compromise my witness as a believer?
It is part of the tragedy of the professing Christian church at the current time that she is so divided over this issue of observance of the Lord’s Day as the Christian Sabbath. If we cannot speak with a unified voice on so fundamental a matter as an issue over which Jesus proclaims his own lordship, then we cannot walk together or win the world. Sadly, there are many Christians in the public eye whose Sabbath observance could be a clear and bright signal of devotion to Jesus Christ were it not for the misguided theology that has taught them that no such requirement now remains in existence.
Is what I do on the Lord’s Day going to help the task of the church?
This brings me to a more fundamental point still. Perhaps what is actually lacking in the worldview of today’s Christian is a high enough view of the church. Traditionally, Sunday was the day one ‘went to church’—the day and the institution went together. It is not surprising to discover now, however, that the one stands or falls with the other. As Christians embrace the view that it does not really matter on which day we worship, so they find that the church in which we worship becomes a matter of personal choice too. And at the same time, as church life in modern Western society erodes and gives way to new, ‘seeker friendly’ forms of evangelism, times and days of worship must bend to accommodate the needs of those who are actually seeking.
We need to recover the high ground claimed by the Bible for the people of God. They are the building of Christ (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 2:20), the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) and the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:25, Revelation 19:7). It was for the church that he died and it is the church that he loves. We cannot think of Christ apart from the church, and we cannot think of the church apart from Christ.
And nor must we think of the Lord of the church as distinct from the Lord of the Sabbath. He has joined together place and time. He loves spending time with his spiritual bride, in all the places where she gathers; do we anticipate spending time with our spiritual husband?
What about….?
I realise that issues regarding Sabbath observance are not always easy to resolve, particularly for parents. Increasingly, Sunday has become the day for local sports fixtures, friends’ birthday parties and employment. But if the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, we have it on his own authority that ‘whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels’ (Matthew 8:38).
That means that, whatever the cost for honouring Christ and his day in this world, it is worth it for the honour he will do us in the next. He takes note of every situation, assesses our every motive, and weighs up our every action. He truly does look on the heart, and out of the heart comes the issues of life.