W. Robert Godfrey

But while Owen, I wasn't convinced, proved that this verse alone points to a weekly Sabbath in the new covenant, what it does clearly teach is that the concept of Sabbath is not irrelevant to the new covenant.

In fact, the hope that we have can be expressed in terms of Sabbath.

Sabbath is not a mosaic.

institution that just utterly passes away and has no continuing significance.

No Sabbath was established at the creation by God and is the way of talking about the fulfillment of all that God is doing in history.

So, from the beginning of history till the end of history, it's all about Sabbath.

is one way of looking at it.

Sabbath in the Old Testament as shadow, but also Sabbath in the New Testament being substance.

Now, if Sabbath is that foundational, is that central, is that much of a bookend to all of human experience,

then we shouldn't be surprised if there continues to be a Lord's Day, a weekly day, a fulfillment, even if as transformation of Sabbath into Lord's Day in the new covenant.

And I think that's what the New Testament is teaching over and over again.

that the Sabbath, far from being simply fulfilled and put away, continues to be a guide, a teacher, and that the apostles did see that the Lord's Day is the fulfillment of the Sabbath day and that they are interconnected, that Aquinas was right.

There is a ceremonial element to the fourth commandment, namely the seventh day,

but there is also a moral dimension that there is a day appointed for us to meet with God.

So I think all of these pieces taken together point us very much in that direction in a helpful way.

And that practice then of the church needs rightly to be understood that way.

Now, some people have said, well,

Why isn't this more explicit?

Why isn't the whole Ten Commandments restated in the New Testament?

Doesn't the New Testament mainly focus on a reiteration of the second table of the law?