Question 116. What is required in the fourth commandment?

 

Question 116. What is required in the fourth commandment?

Answer. The fourth commandment requires all men to keep holy one whole day in seven, which God hath appointed in his word; which was the seventh day from the creation of the world to the resurrection of Christ; and the first day of the week after that, and so to continue until the end of the world; which is the Christian Sabbath, called the Lord's Day in the New Testament.

 

Many people think of rest as just resting. In Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” before creating the heavens and the earth, the kingdom of God is rest itself. The Bible (Revelation) says that in the last days, “those who enter the new heaven and the new earth will enter into rest.” God himself is rest, and Jesus Christ is rest. If we generally think of rest as “resting,” then there will come a day when we have to work again, but when we enter the rest of the kingdom of God, it is not a concept of working and resting.

Before God created the heavens and the earth, there was rest, but the rest was broken when He created the heavens and the earth. And after He finished creating the heavens and the earth, God took His hands off this earth and rested. In Genesis 2:1-3, the words, “God blessed the seventh day and rested” refer to the kingdom of God, that is, the rest in which God rules. The rest spoken of in the creation of the heavens and the earth refers to the cessation of the work of creation in this world. The words, “God blessed the seventh day” refer not to blessing the world, but to blessing the day.

Day is a day in the time and space of the material world. The blessing that God gave on this day in the material world is not a material blessing, but a blessing of the kingdom of God. In other words, it contains a promise that God will give eternal rest through Jesus Christ on the day this world ends.

The Sabbath and Sunday have no relation at all. The Lord of the Sabbath is Jesus Christ. However, Jesus died on the cross, was resurrected, and ascended to heaven. On the day of his resurrection, the disciples gathered to remember Jesus’ words, comfort each other, and share words. This day was the day after the Sabbath. Later generations called this day the Lord’s Day, and today we call it Sunday. However, this has no relation to the meaning of keeping the Sabbath. The act of keeping the day corresponds to legalism. Therefore, there was a time when believers were so obsessed with the day that the term “Sunday observance” came into existence. If believers today are obsessed with the day, this becomes a part of legalism.

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