@ freeborn | ἐλεύθερος | 8r0gwg
2025-02-28 15:50:18
I would point you to the following helpful articles for that - I'm afraid I don't have time to write out something new today.
- Ligonier - [The Sabbath](https://learn.ligonier.org/guides/the-sabbath)
- Vos on 'The Fourth Word' in his _[Biblical Theology: Old and New Testament](https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/vos/BiblicalTheologyOldandNewGeerhardusVos.pdf)_ (p. 173) is simply majestic -- just found it free online at monegism - will drop a quote below
- Dr. Lee Irons, [The Sabbath as Eschatological Sign of the Covenant](https://web.archive.org/web/20061113093404/http://www.upper-register.com/mosaic_law/sabbath_eschatological_sign.html) -- this one presents something of a minority view within the 'Continental' Reformed sphere, but has some very attractive insights into what the Lord's Day of rest was for Adam (pre-Fall), was for Israel (under a theocracy), and what it is for us now (not under law, in Christ, living in the 'already/not-yet'). Irons draws heavily from the insights of Meredith Kline, who drew heavily from Vos.
Aside from this, there is a clear pattern in Scripture of believers gathering "on the first day of the week, the Lord's day," for teaching, fellowship, giving of tithes and offerings, etc. With Calvin I would agree that it is not a 'law' but is a 'pattern' and a good example for us to follow. Here's the bigger picture, though, from Vos on 'The Fourth Word':
> The principle underlying the Sabbath is formulated in the Decalogue itself. It consists in this, that man must copy God in his course of life. The divine creative work completed itself in six days, whereupon the seventh followed as a day of rest for God. In connection with God, 'rest' cannot, of course, mean mere cessation from labour, far less recovery from fatigue. Such a meaning is by no means required by
the Old Testament usage of the word. 'Rest' resembles the word 'peace' in this respect, that it has in Scripture, in fact to the Shemitic mind generally, a positive rather than a negative import. It stands for
consummation of a work accomplished and the joy and satisfaction attendant upon this. Such was its prototype in God. Mankind must copy this, and that not only in the sequences of daily existence as
regards individuals; but in its collective capacity through a large historic movement. For mankind, too, a great task waits to be accomplished, and at its close beckons a rest of joy and satisfaction that shall copy the rest of God.
> Before all other important things, therefore, the Sabbath is an expression of the eschatological principle on which the life of humanity has been constructed. There is to be to the world-process a finale, as there was an overture, and these two belong inseparably together. To give up the one means to give up the other, and to give up either means to abandon the fundamental scheme of Biblical history. Even among Jewish teachers this profound meaning of the Sabbath was not entirely unknown. One of them, being asked what the world to come would be like, answered that it would resemble the Sabbath. In the law, it is true, this thought is not developed further than is done in the primordial statement about God's resting on the seventh day and hallowing it. For the rest, the institution, after having been re-enforced in the Decalogue, is left to speak for itself, as is the case with most institutions of the law. The Epistle to the Hebrews has given us a philosophy of the Sabbath on the largest of scales, partly in dependence on Psa. 95 [Heb. 3; 4].
> The Sabbath brings this principle of the eschatological structure of history to bear upon the mind of man after a symbolical and a typical fashion. It teaches its lesson through the rhythmical succession of six days of labour and one ensuing day of rest in each successive week. Man is reminded in this way that life is not an aimless existence, that a goal lies beyond. This was true before, and apart from, redemption. The eschatological is an older strand in revelation than the soteric. The so-called 'Covenant of Works' was nothing but an embodiment of the Sabbatical principle. Had its probation been successful, then the sacramental Sabbath would have passed over into the reality it typified, and the entire subsequent course of the history of the race would have been radically different. What now is to be expected at the end of this world would have formed the beginning of the worldcourse instead.
...he gets into the original task of Adam, that he had a work to accomplish, and that the reward offered is to enter into God's rest - the eternal rest of the eternal seventh day. Adam failed. The Second Adam (the eternally begotten Son of God incarnate) was given a similar task, but with the added mandate to redeem for himself a people. Where Adam failed, Christ succeeded. He asked there for that he might receive the reward for his completed work (John 17). In his last breath, he cried "it is accomplished" -- "it" being not only the original task given to mankind in Eden, but also the redemption of his people. He then entered into heaven - his Father's 'day of rest' - etc.
...this whole section from Vos is worthy of reflection, and I would commend it to any and all.