Charles Hodge
An edited extract from Hodge’s Systematic Theology, vol 3.
What, in the opinion of the whole Jewish and Christian Church, is the sanctification of the Sabbath which God requires? It may be said, in general terms, to consist not merely in ceasing from worldly activities, but also in consecrating the day to the duties of religion. That this is the correct view is proved:
(1.) Not only by the general consent of the people of God under both dispensations, but also by the constant use of the words to hallow, to make or keep holy, and to sanctify. The uniform use of such expressions shows that the day was set apart from a common to a sacred use.
(2.) From the command to increase the number of sacrifices in the temple service, which proves that the day was to be religiously observed.
(3.) From the design of the institution, which from the beginning was religious: the commemoration of the work of creation and, after the advent, of the resurrection of Christ.
(4.) In Leviticus 23 a list is given of those days on which there was to be “a holy convocation” of the people – that is, on which the people were to be called together for public worship – and the Sabbath is the first given.
(5.) The command is constantly repeated that the people should be faithfully instructed out of the law, which was to be read to them on all suitable occasions. To give an opportunity for such instruction was evidently one of the principal objects of these “holy convocations” (Deut 6:6, 7, 17-19; Jos 1:8). The instruction of the people in this way was made the special duty of the Levites (Deut 33:10) and of the priests (Lev 10:11; see also Mal 2:7). The reading of the law was doubtless a regular part of the service on all the days on which the people were solemnly called together for religious worship.
Thus in Deuteronomy 31:11,12 we read: “When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law.” Such was the design of the convocation of the people. We know from the New Testament that the Scriptures were read every Sabbath in the synagogues; and the synagogues were among the earliest institutions of the chosen people. 2 Kings 4:23 at least proves that it was customary at that period for the people to resort on the Sabbath to holy men for instruction.
In Psalm 74:8 it is said of the heathen: “They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land”. The word here rendered synagogues means assemblies, but burning up assemblies can only mean places of assembly – as burning up churches, in our mode of expression, can only mean the edifices where churches or congregations are accustomed to assemble. What other places of assembling the Psalmist could refer to, if synagogues did not then exist, it is hard to understand. But admitting that synagogues were not common among the Jews until after the exile, which is a very improbable supposition, the fact that reading the Scriptures on the Sabbath was an established part of the synagogue service goes far to prove that it was a sabbatical service long before the exile.
(6.) The place of the Fourth Command in the decalogue, the stress laid upon it in the Old Testament, the way in which the Sabbath is spoken of in the prophets and the Psalms, all show that the day was set apart for religious duties from the beginning.
(7.) This may also be argued from the whole character of the old dispensation. All its institutions were religious; they were all intended to keep alive the knowledge of the true God and to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. It would be entirely out of keeping with the spirit of the Mosaic economy to assume that its most important and solemn holy day was purely secular in its design.
It is admitted that the Ten Commandments bind the Church in all ages, while specific details contained in the books of Moses, which were designed to point out how the duties they enjoined were then to be performed, are no longer in force. The Fifth Commandment still binds children to obey their parents, but the Jewish law giving fathers the power of life and death over their children is no longer in force. The Seventh Commandment forbids adultery, but the ordeal enjoined for the trial of a woman suspected of that crime is a thing of the past. The same principle applies to the interpretation of the Fourth Commandment. The command itself is still in force, yet the Mosaic laws respecting the mode of its observance have passed away with the economy to which they belonged. It is unjust therefore to represent the advocates of the continued obligation of the Fourth Commandment as Judaisers. They are no more Judaisers than those who hold that the other precepts of the decalogue are still in force.
There are two rules by which we are to be guided in determining how to observe the Sabbath – in deciding what is, and what is not, lawful on that holy day. The first is the design of the commandment. What is consistent with that design is lawful; what is inconsistent with it is unlawful. The second rule is to be found in the precepts and example of our Lord and of His Apostles.
The design of the command is to be learned from the words in which it is conveyed and from other parts of the Word of God. From these sources it is plain that the design of the institution, as already remarked, was in the main twofold. (1.) To secure rest from all worldly cares and duties, to arrest for a time the current of the worldly life of men, not only lest their minds and bodies should be overworked, but also that an opportunity should be afforded for other and higher interests to occupy their thoughts. (2.) So that God should be properly worshipped, His Word duly studied and taught, and the soul brought under the influence of the things unseen and eternal. Anyone who makes the design of the Sabbath as thus revealed in Scripture his rule of conduct on that day can hardly fail to observe it aright. The day is to be kept holy unto the Lord. In Scriptural usage to hallow or make holy is to set apart to the service of God. Thus the tabernacle, the temple and all their utensils were made holy. In this sense the Sabbath is holy. It is to be devoted to the duties of religion, and what is inconsistent with such devotion is contrary to the design of the institution.
It is, however, to be remembered that the specific object of the Christian Sabbath is to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. All the exercises of the day should therefore have a special reference to Him and to His redeeming work. It is the day on which He is to be worshipped, thanked and praised, the day in which men are to be called upon to accept His offers of grace and to rejoice in the hope of His salvation. It is therefore a day of joy; it is utterly incongruous to make it a day of gloom or fasting.
The second rule for our guidance is to be found in the precepts and example of our Lord. In the first place, He lays down the principle: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath”. It is to be noted that Christ says, “The Sabbath was made for man”, not for the Jews, not for the people of any one age or nation, but for man – for man as man, and therefore for all men. Moral duties, however, often conflict; and then the lower must yield to the higher. The life, the health and the well-being of a man are higher ends in a given case than the punctilious observance of any external service. This is the rule laid down by the prophet Hosea: “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offering” (6:6). Our Lord quotes this passage twice in application to the law of the Sabbath, and thus establishes the general principle for our guidance, that it is right to do on the Sabbath whatever mercy, or a due regard to the comfort or welfare of ourselves or others, requires to be done. Christ therefore says expressly, “It is lawful to do well [that is, as the context shows, to confer benefits] on the Sabbath days” (Mt 12:12; see also Mk 3:4).
Again, we are told by the same authority that “the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless” (Mt 12:5). The services of the temple were complicated and laborious and yet were lawful on the Sabbath. On another occasion He said to His accusers, “If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at Me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement” (Jn 7:23,24). From this we learn that whatever is necessary for the due celebration of religious worship, or for attendance on it, is lawful on the Sabbath.
The frequency with which our Lord was accused of Sabbath-breaking by the Pharisees proves that His mode of observing that day was very different from theirs, and the way in which He vindicated Himself proves that He regarded the Sabbath as a divine institution of perpetual obligation. It had been easy for Him to say that the law of the Sabbath was no longer in force – that He, as Lord of the Sabbath, had erased it from the decalogue.
It may indeed be said that, as the whole of the Mosaic law was in force until the resurrection of Christ, or until the day of Pentecost, the observance of the Sabbath was as a matter of course then obligatory, and therefore that Christ so regarded it. In answer to this, however, it is obvious to remark that Christ did not hesitate to abrogate those of the laws of Moses which were in conflict with the spirit of the gospel. This He did with the laws relating to polygamy and divorce. Under the old dispensation it was lawful for a man to have more than one wife, and also to put away a wife by giving her a bill of divorcement. Christ declared that neither of these things should be allowed under the gospel. The fact that He dealt with the Sabbath just as He did with the fifth, sixth and seventh precepts of the decalogue, which the Pharisees had misinterpreted, shows that He regarded the Fourth Commandment as belonging to the same category as the others. His example affords us a safe guide as to the way in which the day is to be observed.
All zealous, devout people in a natural religion are enemies to the gospel. By natural religion I mean that which is the product of the remnant of God’s image in fallen man, a little improved by the light of God’s Word. All such cannot endure to hear that God’s law must be perfectly fulfilled in every tittle of it, or no man can be saved by doing; that they must all perish for ever who have not the righteousness of a Man who never sinned, who is also “God over all, blessed for ever,” to shelter and cover them from the anger of a holy God, and to render them accepted of Him; that His righteousness is put on by the grace of God, and a man must take himself to it and receive it as a naked, blushing sinner; that no man can do anything that is good till gospel grace renew him and make him first a good man.
There is never better fruit of preaching than when the hearers are sent away hungering and thirsting after the Lord’s mercy.
Robert Traill