Chapter 1: What does Revelation 1:10 reveal about the Lord's Day?
Revelation, chapter 1, verse 10. There we read that John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. There are lots of days, but there's a special day that in a special way belongs to the Lord, just as the Lord's Supper in a special way belongs to the Lord. If all days are alike, no one day can be a Lord's day.
The Lord's Day, the Sabbath, Sunday, are these all the same day? Why historically has the church gathered together on Sunday, the first day of the week, and not on Saturday? These are important questions, and today's featured teacher on Renewing Your Mind will look to the New Testament to see what it says about the Lord's Day as Sabbath.
W. Robert Godfrey, the chairman of Ligonier Ministries, is teaching today from his series, The Lord's Day, Sabbath Worship and Rest.
If you'd like to dig into this subject more, you can request the entire series on DVD, digital access to the messages and study guide, plus a copy of the scriptures to take with you to Lord's Day worship when you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight. I'll be sure to remind you again at the end of today's episode.
Well, here's Dr. Godfrey on the Lord's Day.
What positively does the New Testament say that bears on the question of the day of Christian worship and the relationship of Sunday to the fourth commandment? And obviously, if this were an easy issue, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I would say perhaps it's a little like the matter of infant baptism.
The New Testament does not say in any single verse, baptize infants, nor does it say in any verse, do not baptize infants, and so we have to look at the totality of the revelation of the Bible to try to answer that question. And I think it's somewhat similar when we come to the relationship of Sunday to the Sabbath.
We have to take the pieces, since there's no one verse that tells us exactly how to think about these things, we have to take the pieces and put them together. And the first piece I want us to think about that I think is very important is Revelation chapter 1 verse 10. I think this is such a crucial verse and is not often sufficiently talked about and thought about.
And there we read that John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Now, being in the Spirit, if we compare that with Revelation 4, verse 2, for example, it's pretty clear he's worshiping. That's what's going on.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of gathering on the first day of the week?
It's actually an adjectival form. So if we wanted to try to capture that in English, we'd have to say, he was in the spirit on the dominical day. In other words, he doesn't say he was in the spirit on the day of the Lord, that phrase we often hear in the prophets of the Old Testament, that eschatological day.
But he's in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, on the Domenical Day, and that adjective, kyriakos, that adjective is only used one other place in the New Testament. And that's in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul writes about the Lord's Supper. Now, that's very important, because you have ordinary suppers, And then you have a special supper, the Lord's Supper, the Domenical Supper.
And obviously, the Lord's Supper is something very special set apart. And that's exactly what we find then, I think, in Revelation 1 verse 10. The Lord's Day, there are ordinary days, there are many days, there are lots of days, but there's a special day. that in a special way belongs to the Lord, just as the Lord's Supper in a special way belongs to the Lord.
And you see, the problem, I hope, for the people who deny any special day in the New Covenant, if there is no special day in the New Covenant, how can there be a Lord's Day? If all days are alike, no one day can be a Lord's Day. Now even putting aside the question, what is the Lord's Day?
If there's a Lord's Day at all, and Revelation 1 verse 10 says clearly there is a Lord's Day, then all days cannot be alike in the new covenant. It really seems to me that's ruled out in principle by Revelation 1 verse 10. Now you may quote me and say, I said you shouldn't rest everything on one verse.
Well, I'm not going to rest it on one verse, but this is very significant, very important, I think, in our reflection. I've tried to offer an exegesis of the passages that are purported to teach that all days are alike to show that's not what they teach. Well, on the other hand, how are they going to explain away this verse that says there's a Lord's Day in the new covenant?
So that's the first point I would like to make relative to this point, that the New Testament does teach a special day. Well, what day could it be? Well, the Seventh-day Adventist scholar that I read says, well, it's Saturday. Well, in an abstract world, that's possible, but it seems to me that runs into trouble with Colossians 2, verse 16, as I just argued.
Some scholars have said, well, it's Easter. Well, I suppose that's possible. It doesn't solve the problem of there being a special day in the new covenant, nor does it solve the problem that Easter as a special holiday was really not celebrated widely in the church until later. So does the New Testament itself give us any suggestion as to what day might be in mind?
And you'll be delighted to learn that it does. It does point several times to the first day of the week. Now, of course, it begins that by the references to the resurrection of our Lord on the first day of the week. That's repeated several times in the New Testament, Matthew 28, 1, Mark 16, 2, Luke 24, 1, John 20, verse 1 and 19.
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Chapter 3: How does the New Testament relate Sunday to the Sabbath?
He takes all of this said to Israel and applies it to the church. So, it's the church that now is called to listen as Israel was called to listen. It's the church that's called to believe as Israel was called to believe. It's the church that's called to obey as Israel was called to obey. And the church is warned that if it fails to believe and obey and listen, it will not enter the rest.
So this is a very serious warning. Remember, Hebrews began by talking about the danger of Christians drifting away from the truth. Hebrews seems to have been written particularly to Jewish Christians who have begun to conclude maybe life was better in Judaism than it is in Christianity. Jews weren't persecuted. Christians are being persecuted. Jews had a magnificent physical temple.
Christians have no physical impressive place of worship. Jews had a priesthood that was visible and gloriously attired. We don't have a priesthood. We're called constantly to believe in a heavenly temple and a heavenly high priest and a heavenly this and a heavenly that. We're tired of heavenly. We want something we can hold onto on earth.
And so there is danger that some of these Jewish Christians are gonna slip back into Judaism. And so this is a very solemn warning. that they mustn't drift from the truth, they mustn't slip back, they have to listen, they have to believe, they have to obey. That's what's being laid out here.
Then if we go down to chapter four, verse seven, we read again, he appoints a certain day, today, that's a quotation from Psalm 95, saying through David so long afterward in the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, you see this is coming back to rest as land, entering the land of promise.
Joshua led them into the land of promise. But if Joshua had given them the fullness of rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, verse 9 is the crucial verse. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. That sounds pretty clear, doesn't it? There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
Now, some of you will know the work of John Owen. John Owen, great Puritan theologian and exegete of the 17th century, wrote a huge commentary on Hebrews. It's a big, big commentary on Hebrews. And he spends a lot of time on this verse, laboring to show that this implies we are obligated to a weekly Sabbath in the new covenant.
I really wanted to believe that when I read John Owen, but I was not persuaded. I don't think that's what Hebrews is talking about. Hebrews is talking about heaven, about glory, about the new heaven and the new earth. He's talking about the ultimate fulfillment of all that God intends on the last day. That's the rest we long to enter into.
That's the fulfillment of the promised land and of the Sabbath day. There yet remains a—it's a word that apparently Hebrews made up. There yet remains a Sabbathing for the people of God. 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.
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Chapter 4: What is the relationship between the Lord's Day and the Fourth Commandment?
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? Obey your parents, love your neighbor, all of those elements of the law, not stealing, not committing adultery, all of those elements of the law.
And that's always interesting to ask, why does the Bible do one thing and not another? Why does the Bible not do something we think it ought to do? Well, you know, that probably means we've misunderstood in some way or other.
Well, you can say, well, the Bible doesn't repeat the first table of the law as much as the second table of the law because the first table of the law is really pretty irrelevant in the New Covenant. Is that going to fly as an argument? Is that argument going to go anywhere? that God alone should be our God, that we ought not to be an idolatrous people, that we shouldn't take his name in vain.
Are those things really not important in the New Covenant? No, of course not. The reason I think the second table of laws more frequently held up is because people in the New Testament had more trouble with that. They knew they were only supposed to have one God. They didn't need to be told that all the time. They knew they weren't supposed to have idols.
They were only told that occasionally, but they knew that. I think that's sort of what's going on here, too. We're meeting every day on the Lord's Day. We're worshiping on the Lord's Day. We're fellowshipping with the Lord on the Lord's Day. How often do we need to say that? That's what we are. That's what we do. That's who we are.
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