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STICKS, STONES, SABBATHS, and SUNDAYS – 2nd chapter preview
CHAPTER 2
WHO WAS COMMANDED TO KEEP THE SABBATH?
The day off from gathering manna was a precursor to establishing the Sabbath given to them upon their arrival at Mount Sinai. There is no Biblical record of any of the patriarchs of Israel ever receiving a command from God to honor the Sabbath as the Israelites were commanded to do so when God made His covenant with them. Nor is there any record of the patriarchs treating the seventh day differently from the rest. Moses makes this point to the Israelites right before he lists the Ten Commandments:
The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. (Deuteronomy 5:2-3)
Who the covenant was made with and not made with is a crucial point that must not be overlooked. God did not make this covenant with the Israelites’ ancestors; God specifically made it with Moses and the other Israelites who had been set free from Egypt. Along with this covenant came the sign of the covenant, the Sabbath, which was also unique to them.
Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:16-17)
The Sabbath was a sign explicitly given to Israel, the people with whom God was making a covenant. No one else before this moment was included in this covenant or given the sign of the covenant. Nor was there anyone else on earth included in this covenant or given the sign that accompanied it. God made the same point, but in a slightly different way, when He gave further instructions for the people to follow on the Sabbath day in Deuteronomy:
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:15)
The sign of the covenant, the Sabbath, was not given to anyone before the Exodus because those who came before them would not even have a reason to honor it yet. Israel, a slave nation, observed the Sabbath by remembering that Egypt had enslaved them, but God had supernaturally delivered them.
On Mount Sinai, God made a covenant agreement with one nation, the nation of Israel. At this time, the Sabbath became more than a command not to gather manna, but the covenant sign between God and the people of Israel. The covenant and the sign of the covenant were exclusively for them. This point can easily be seen when we allow Scripture to speak for itself. For example, read over the giving of the Sabbath in Exodus 31, and you can’t help but see that God gave the Sabbath to Israel.
And the LORD said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'” (Exodus 31:12-17)
According to the passage, who is commanded to keep the Sabbath? It is impossible to come away from Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 31 with any answer other than “Israel.” God specifically states that “Israel shall keep the Sabbath.” Why does God command the people of Israel to honor this day of rest? God is not ambiguous with His reasoning. He very clearly states that, “It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel.”[iii]
It is also worth mentioning that God explained what it meant to honor this sign. They were to work six days and to rest on the seventh. God revealed to Israel what the Sabbath was and how it was to be observed. These commands did not serve as a reminder of what everyone in the world always knew to be true. Nor was it a reminder to the Israelites about the information they knew but had forgotten.
This was brand new information that was part of God’s covenant between Himself and Israel.
It is also important to address that a mention of creation accompanies the new Sabbath information that God is giving them. However, we must be careful not to read more into this than what was meant. Covenant Theologians will say that the mention of God’s work of six days followed by a day of rest is proof that the Sabbath command had always been God’s law to all of mankind since creation. However, that is way more information than the text provides. The Bible is silent regarding any command for seventh day rest until the giving of the manna and later, the giving of the Sabbath as the covenant sign to Israel. God does not say anything in Exodus 31 or Deuteronomy 5, even resembling a worldwide universal Sabbath day command. The command is only given to Israel.
The “rest” that God was giving Israel as a gift and a sign was analogous to God’s rest in Genesis after He made creation. On day seven, God rested from His work of creation, and the Israelites were to do so as well. This day of rest was to be a tremendous blessing for the people. They were no longer under the ruthless Pharaoh who worked them relentlessly; now, they were under the authority of a compassionate God who commanded them to refrain from work and rest in His provision. In addition, as we will see, the Sabbath was not only a gift to Israel, but it also functioned as a type or pattern that pointed forward to a greater rest to come.
[i] Exodus 16:25-26
[ii] Exodus 16:1-5
[iii] Exodus 31:13
[iv] Sabbatarianism is the belief that the Sabbath is part of God’s unchanging moral law that was given at the time of creation and that all people must continue to observe even today.
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STICKS, STONES, SABBATHS, and SUNDAYS – 1st chapter preview
CHAPTER 1
WHEN WAS THE SABBATH COMMAND GIVEN?
SABBATH SILENCE
THE SABBATH IS ANNOUNCED
On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.'” So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”
[i] Covenant Theology is a framework for interpreting Scripture most commonly held by those who hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. While both confessions contain much truth, I believe that they both share a common weakness in their view of the Sabbath.
[ii] A. Blake White, Obey the Sabbath: Rest in Christ (Abilene, TX: Canon Sense, 2020), 32.
[iii] Genesis 15,17: All Bible references are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments: ESV. (Wheaton, Il: Crossway, 2011)
[iv] Galatians 3:16-17
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Do You Really Know The Gospel?
The Apostle Paul writes that the gospel “is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes…”[1] In other words, belief in the gospel is essential for a person to be saved. Whether a person has walked an aisle, filled out a card, raised a hand, said the sinner’s prayer, asked Jesus into their heart, or even whether or not he or she was baptized, is not the key to determine if one is genuinely saved. The key issue is belief, and the key belief must be the gospel. This means that belief in the gospel is not a secondary or tertiary matter when it comes to determining one’s salvation, it is primary. Since believing in the gospel is required for salvation, it is of utmost importance to know what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he used the word “gospel.”
So, what is the gospel? Many have heard the word “gospel” and can put together the six letters that make up the word. However, it is not enough to just know the word, say the word, or spell the word correctly; we must know the message that the word gospel represents. More than just a word, the gospel is a message that is packed with the truth of God about His Savior. However, the details of the gospel message are becoming less and less known even by professing Christians. As the trusted theologian, Graeme Goldsworthy has written:
It is a matter for some concern that some books and study courses on evangelism seem to assume that every Christian is clear about what the gospel is, and that what is needed most is help in the techniques of explaining the gospel to unbelievers. Experience suggests that this assumption is poorly based and that there is a great deal of confusion among believers about what the gospel is.[2]
Such “confusion” about the gospel is no small matter since it is the essential belief for one to be saved. But sadly, there are many professing Christians who take the liberty to change, and even replace, the gospel message with a message of their own. Usually, this is done somewhat unintentionally by taking too much information away from the gospel, or by adding too much non-gospel information to the gospel. Even though such false communication about the gospel may be inadvertent, it creates a tremendous problem for Christianity. J. I. Packer writes, “The result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.”[3] Of all people, Christians, should not be the ones that are confused about the gospel or taking liberty with the gospel. We should be the ones who know it, believe it, proclaim it, and are adamant about preserving it. As R. C. Sproul has written, “This Gospel is the only Gospel: there is no other; and to change its substance is to pervert and indeed destroy it.”[4]
Changing God’s message of salvation has dire consequences.[5] The result is the creation of manmade false gospels being believed and proclaimed as the one true gospel from God. Such changed gospels are not from God, and do not carry the “power of God for salvation.” If the wrong gospel is being presented, no matter how adamant a professing Christian is in sharing it, and no matter how sincerely someone believes in it, if it is the wrong gospel, then there is no salvation. Instead of saving, false gospels have the opposite effect.[6]As one of the most influential Christian writers of the twentieth century, A.W. Pink, wrote:
The ‘Gospel’ which is now being proclaimed is, in nine cases out of every ten, but a perversion of the Truth, and tens of thousands, assured they are bound for Heaven, are now hastening to Hell, as fast as time can take them. Things are far, far worse in Christendom than even the ‘pessimist’ and the ‘alarmist’ suppose.[7]
What a dire summation of the state of professing Christians’ ability to articulate the gospel correctly. According to Pink, the vast majority of people claiming to be Christians are actually not Christians. These pseudo-Christians have heard and believed a gospel, but it is the wrong gospel, and it lacks the power of God to save them. What is more shocking is that professing Christians are the primary makers and propagators of the false gospels which lead people into false conversions and a false assurance of their salvation.
Of all people, why would professing Christians want to alter the message of salvation? Most likely, they do not miscommunicate the gospel out of an evil desire to mislead others. Instead, the miscommunication appears to occur due to a general lack of knowledge about the gospel message they claim to know and proclaim. This lack of gospel knowledge then leads to the communication of a gospel which is inadequate or even distorted. Despite their good intentions, if professing Christians do not know and understand the gospel, then any attempt to convey the gospel to others will be insufficient.
It is here where we find the source of the confusing, inadequate, and incorrect gospels that well-meaning Christians often proclaim; they just don’t know the gospel well enough to communicate it to others correctly. Good gospel communication requires a good knowledge of the gospel. If an individual does not personally know the gospel, then how can he or she share the gospel correctly with others? Knowing and understanding the gospel personally should produce clearer gospel communication. However, when the knowledge and understanding of the gospel are poor, it is a given, that one’s communication of it to others will be as well.
With so many professing Christians proclaiming different versions of the gospel, it appears that the gospel is unintentionally being redefined to mean anything that a person wants it to mean. Far from being a set message delivered by God, for us to hear, believe, and repeat to others, there is now great liberty taken with the message. Such liberty has substantially clouded the definition of the gospel and, in many cases, created a gospel that is not even close to the original.
Recently, I asked a group of Christians at a local collegiate Bible Study; “What is the gospel?” Sadly, as I expected, the answers they gave significantly varied. One said, “It is a way of life.” Another said, “It is asking Jesus in your heart.” Another said, “The gospel is all of God’s Word.” Still, another man began to explain that the gospel was God getting him through a painful divorce that he had just gone through. And another said, “The gospel is about doing what is right in life.” So, which of the students got the answer right, or is there even such thing as a right answer? In a room, full of professing Christian students there was not even a near agreement on the gospel, but even more concerning is that not one student seemed to be troubled by the differing definitions that were given.
Similarly, the other day, a man knocked on my office door and introduced himself as an assistant to a well-known evangelist that was coming to Dallas to put on a massive evangelistic crusade at the convention center. The assistant was canvassing the area and distributing fliers to help increase attendance. As I spoke with him, I discovered that he had been on staff with this popular evangelist for five years. He spoke at length about the details of the massive evangelistic crusade and how they were hoping for 10,000 people to be saved. “Wow, that is a lot of salvations!”, I said. Then I asked the man, who apparently knew all about evangelism, “Well, if you don’t mind me asking, what is the gospel?” He replied, “What do you mean?” “Well,” I said, “you work for an evangelist, you are helping with an evangelistic crusade, and you are expecting 10,000 to be saved at the event. So, what is the gospel that will be presented at the convention center so that 10,000 people can be saved?” A seemingly easy question for a man who has worked for a major evangelistic organization for five years. However, the question sent him scrambling for an answer. And what he did next seemed to be a bizarre mental exercise of saying everything and anything Christian that he could possibly think of in his attempt to define the gospel. Unfortunately, he never landed on anything close to a biblical definition of the gospel. After quite some time of rambling, he finally stopped. Exhaustedly he replied, “Wow, I really needed that! It has been a long time since I’ve had to think about the gospel.”
How could this be? I would like to say the problem of defining the gospel found with the group of college students and the staff member for the big-name evangelist were rare, but the more I ask professing Christians to define the gospel, the more I realize just how prevalent the problem of clear gospel proclamation has become.
Can the content of the gospel message be whatever we determine it to be? Can each Christian make up his or her own gospel? While our relativistic culture would undoubtedly say, “Yes!” We, as Christians must say, “No!” As those who are to represent the Word of God correctly, we must understand that we do not have the right to create our own individual gospel message and call it, the gospel. The gospel is a far more precise message than many Christians are willing to admit. The gospel is a message that has been determined by God that we are to believe, and proclaim to others, as is and unaltered. We should not treat any important message with such subjectivism and especially a message from God Himself that involves eternal salvation.
With that said, let me ask you, “What is the gospel?” Really, think about it for a moment. How will you answer this question regarding the foundational belief of the Christian faith? What will you say? What words will you choose to speak about salvation? For many professing Christians, such a question would cause much anxiety and even panic, but this need not be the case. The gospel can be known. We as Christians just need to do a better job of studying the gospel that God has made abundantly clear in His Word.
Author of The Missing Gospel of Modern Christianity
[1] Romans 1:16: All Bible references are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments: ESV. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007)
[2] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), 81
[3] J. I. Packer, introduction, in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1983), http://www.the-highway.com/Death.html.
[4] R. C. Sproul, Getting the Gospel Right: The Tie That Binds Evangelicals Together (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 100
[5] Galatians 1:6-9
[6] Romans 1:16
[7] Arthur W. Pink, Studies on Saving Faith (Memphis, TN: Bottom of The Hill Publishing, 2011), 12
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Are You Striving for Peace?
Author of The Missing Gospel of Modern Christianity
Comment: The first word of the passage is “strive.” To strive is to put forth great effort to achieve something.
Question: What does the author want these believers to strive to do?
Answer: To put forth earnest effort to achieve peace with everyone. This is not the generic pray for “world peace” that is wished for at a beauty pageant. Such peace is easily wished and hoped for. No, this is a real-life, daily, effort on your part to have peace with all of the people that you are in your life.
Comment: Striving for peace with everyone is not a suggestion but a command. Christians are to be makers of peace. Jesus even said that those who make peace are the sons of God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).
Comment: Striving for peace and making peace are extremely similar commands. Both put the effort on You to be the one who is doing the work to bring about peace in your relationships.
Question: What are you doing to strive and make peace with the people in your life?
Question: Are you returning anger with anger, sharp words with sharp words, gossip with gossip? That is not striving or making peace. Confess, repent, and seek peace.
Question: Who should we strive to have peace with?
Answer: Most likely, the author has in mind fellow believers.
Question: Can Christians have discord, disunity, and disharmony?
Answer: Most certainly, but this does not make it right. Christians should be exemplary in the peace we experience with one another since God commands us to do so. Paul writes the Corinthians several times about the church of Corinth not living in peace with one another:
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. (1 Corinthians 1:10-11)
Comment: Quarreling and division is the opposite of peace and unity. Paul had to appeal to this church, to brothers (assumed believers) to stop such sinful behavior. Much later, Paul writes the Corinthian church again. Let’s see if they have fully obeyed and are keeping the peace.
For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. (2 Corinthians 12:20)
Question: Were they striving for peace?
Answer: No. Quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder are not ingredients to making peace. Paul warned them that he was coming to visit them, and it was not going to be a sweet visit. He was going to call them out on their sin.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Trey Talley
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