Rev H M Cartwright
As is common in the directions given to us in the Word of God, we are told how we are not to keep the Sabbath, as well as how we are to keep it. As long as those who have been brought by grace to love the Lord and His law have another law in their members warring against the law of their mind (Rom 7:23) they need to be exhorted not to be conformed to this world (Rom 12:2) and to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts (Titus 2:12). The Fourth Commandment is positive in its form but, when it comes into contact with human sinfulness, it opposes characteristically-sinful human behaviour.
We are to turn away our foot from the Sabbath. In these words we are warned against trampling the Sabbath Day under our feet. We can do this, not just literally by running marathons for charity, as some do, but by making it a day for doing what we want to do ourselves – rather than what the Lord requires of us, as good for ourselves and glorifying for Him. What we desire to do on this day should be in keeping with what the Lord desires us to do: not “doing thy pleasure . . . not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words”.
Certainly, unnecessary travel and the innocent activities and pleasures which might be legitimate on other days are, when introduced to the Sabbath Day, means of trampling the Sabbath under our feet. But so also are the unspiritual and worldly thoughts and words and activities which are too much with us. This does not mean that we are to be inhuman or inhumane and ignore the common necessities and courtesies of life but we are to beware of the things of the everyday week intruding into the Sabbath in such a way as makes us unmindful of its holy nature and purpose and draws us away from God and from the holy exercises and pleasures for which it has been set apart.
The Westminster Larger Catechism (Ans 119) sums up the negative aspects of the passage from which our title is taken when it asserts that “the sins forbidden in the Fourth Commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, all careless, negligent and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; and by all needless works, words and thoughts about our worldly employments and recreations”.
On the positive side, the Westminster Larger Catechism (Ans 117) asserts that “the Sabbath, or Lord’s Day, is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship: and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of the day”. It is a day to be occupied with work which is of deep spiritual and eternal significance – to be taken up with contemplation of the revealed glory of God, doing spiritual good and preparing for heaven.
Patrick Fairbairn says that the Sabbath was designed to carry the heart up in holy affection to its Creator and outwards in acts of goodwill and kindness to men on earth. It gives us time and conducive circumstances to attend to our spiritual concerns, to consider our relation to God and to engage in those activities which would promote our communion and fellowship with Him.
What desecrates the Sabbath is primarily the unspiritual and worldly mind. What makes the Sabbath tolerable or pleasant to such as are under the power of the carnal mind is the admission as much as possible, at least in one’s mind, of the things which at best belong to other days.
We are to call the Sabbath a delight – a luxury, a pleasant thing. Calling it that does not mean just giving it that name, but really finding it and treating it as such. We are to find pleasure in the Sabbath Day when it is kept in accordance with its chief purpose, saying of this day what the Psalmist says of the day of the gospel, or the day of grace in general: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). Robert M’Cheyne spoke of the Christian Sabbath with all its blessings as one of those pleasant fruits of Christ and His sacrifice, which are sweet to the taste of those who sit down under His shadow (Song 2:3). How different this is from the attitude of those who long for the Sabbath to be gone so that they can get on with the worldly business which lies nearest to their hearts (Amos 8:5).
The heart is to be in the observance of the Lord’s Day. “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). The law of God is “the perfect law of liberty” (Jas 1:25) to those who love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30), who “delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom 7:22). His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt 11:28-30). Those who conform to the Sabbath requirement bemoan their poor Sabbath keeping, but the Sabbath is their delight, the activities of the Sabbath give them pleasure, and the idea of an eternal Sabbath, perfectly kept and enjoyed, fits in with their idea of heaven. As one commentator (Delitzsch) puts it, the Sabbath is to be a pleasure to us because it leads us to God, and not a burden because it leads us away from our everyday life.
At the heart of gospel Sabbath-keeping is the concern to honour the Lord, whose holy and honourable day it is: honour Him by recognising His authority to set this day apart, by endeavouring to keep it as He requires and, as the Westminster Larger Catechism (Ans 117) puts it, by “making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship”. We are recognising, as James Fisher puts it, that “God is the sovereign Lord of our time, and has the sole power and authority to direct how it should be improved” – “because the observing of one day in seven for a Sabbath flows from the sovereign will of God appointing it, and could never have been observed more than any other part of time merely by the force of nature’s light”.
James Fisher, The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism Explained, Ans 58:3 and 58:22.
The Fourth Commandment is probably the one that is most readily and thoughtlessly and fearlessly broken, and one of the reasons is that more than the others it seems to rest on the absolute authority of God. People may see a measure of self-interest in having a day of rest, as they see in having laws against killing or stealing, but why should it be the Sabbath and why should they keep it as the Bible requires? One recent commentator (Motyer) has said that the Sabbath is not for the mere indulgence of personal pleasures or preferences but is conducive to sweet delight in the Lord and His ordinances. It is loved as the day which by God’s appointment commemorates creation, testifies to the accomplishment of redemption and points us forward to glory. Are we endeavouring to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy out of regard for what God has declared to be His will?
James Walker’s The Theology and Theologians of Scotland 1560-1750 was first published in 1872, when the situation had not degenerated to the extent to which it has subsequently done. In challenging the common contempt for what has been called “the Scottish Sabbath”, he writes: “I do not comprehend how any person with religious feelings and sympathies should not be ready to admit that at least there is something very grand about the Scottish Sabbath, in its idea of a day of communion with the Unseen and Eternal; of adoration of our Maker and our Saviour; of self-examination and moral excellence; of acquisition of religious knowledge; and all this in order to the spiritual elevation of the soul, the replenishing of our moral energies, and a closer hold of the verities which have a place in our creed”. As James Fisher says in his The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism Explained: “If Adam in innocence needed a Sabbath for the more immediate service and solemn worship of God, much more do we, who are sinful creatures, and so immersed in worldly cares, need such a day” (Ans 58:33).
Pp 187-188.