Introduction
The Ten Commandments are connected to each other; together they present the principles of godly living. Thus, the fourth commandment is closely connected to the first three. In the first commandment the Lord invited us to know him as he is, in the second to worship him properly, in the third to show him due respect; the fourth commandment now addresses how we practically have fellowship with our God.
The first three commandments all started with a negative statement: “You shall not…” The fourth commandment also has a negative phrase: “On it you shall not do any work.” Do not get so busy with work that you have no time for the Lord. But the main statement is positive: “Remember the Sabbath day, by keeping it holy.”
Three words here deserve highlighting. First of all, remember. That doesn’t just mean: “Don’t forget.” The Hebrew verb here is more active, and often has the connotation of “commemorate”, “celebrate”. It’s like remembering your wife’s birthday: I shouldn’t just know that it is on December 6, but when the day comes I celebrate it with her.
What should God’s people celebrate, according to the fourth commandment? The answer is the Hebrew word: “Sabbath” (shabbath). A basic translation is: “to stop working”. In the Ten Commandments, the idea of Sabbath is connected to another verb, “to rest”, in the sense of “relax”, “lay back and enjoy”.
A third word to highlight is: holy. We don’t just stop working and relax, but we dedicate this time of rest specifically to the Lord. It is no longer our time; it is sacred time. So the fourth commandment calls us to interrupt our busy lives deliberately, to actively enjoy a sacred time of rest. Christian believers have the great privilege of being allowed to say: enough with work; I will take some time off to enjoy my freedom to rest in the Lord.
Freedom to rest in the Lord
1. The principle of Sabbath
2. The privilege of worship
3. The practice of holy living
The principle of Sabbath
The fourth commandment told the Israelites to take every seventh day off—the last day of the week, Saturday. When the sun went down on Friday night, all work would cease, until sunset the next day. This specific rule for the Sabbath day was given to the Israelites as they traveled through the wilderness, in Exodus 16. The Christian church does not keep the Sabbath day, because it has found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, just like other ceremonies in the law of Moses. But the Sabbath principle is still very much in place and should guide us in our relationship with the Lord.
The Sabbath principle, then, teaches us to celebrate fellowship with the Lord in sacred times of rest. To flesh this out further, we’ll first look at the explanation of the fourth commandment in the two Bible chapters where the Ten Commandments are presented, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 6.
In Exodus 20, it says: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day.” Here we learn that our celebration of Sabbath imitates the Lord’s Sabbath. The Creator did not keep building the world, but finished his work and took time to enjoy it. We, who are made in the image of God and cultivate his world, should also regularly take a step back and enjoy the result of our work. How easily we forget to do that!
Deuteronomy 6 gives a different reason for the Sabbath: “You shall remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and that the Lord took you from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.” Slaves have no choice: they must work for their master whenever he tells them to. When the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, the Lord had set them free and given them freedom, including the freedom to take a break from work and instead find rest in him. Every week they took a break from work to celebrate that. I rest, and I can rest because I am free! And my rest is devoted to the Lord, because he set me free!
The Israelites had to show this understanding of freedom in a practical way: their own servants, including foreign workers, and even their farm animals, should also be given time off. If you celebrate your freedom from slavery, it would be incongruent to work your own servants hard without giving them a break!
This Deuteronomy 6 understanding of the Sabbath as celebration of freedom from slavery is especially important for us, Christians. The Lord set us free from slavery—the slavery and miserable power of sin. We are no longer laboring for the devil, without real reward, without actual rest; no, we now belong to Jesus, who does not treat us like servants but as friends, as sons and daughters of the King. What freedom we have to celebrate! And what better way to do it than to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday work, and to allow those who work for us to have the same privilege!
The privilege of worship
So Sabbath is a sacred rest from everyday work, which honors God our creator and celebrates the freedom we have through Jesus Christ. But how do you make the rest sacred, dedicated to the Lord? A simple answer is: spend that rest in a worshipful manner.
In the Law of Moses we find more detailed instructions about this; for instance, in Leviticus 23. Here we find further insights: first, the Sabbath day was only part of a bigger package of sacred rest, which included several annual holidays and even special years of celebration. Second, on the Sabbath day as well as these holidays, the Israelites were to have a “sacred assembly”.
A church service, we would say. Note the keywords here: “assembly”, which means that people were physically together. Many Israelites would flock to the temple; those who lived too far away would have local gatherings, just like the synagogues in Jesus’ time. But staying home was no option. That still applies today. It is important, a mandate of the Lord himself, that we gather for worship together. Of course, if you are truly unable to leave your house or to travel, the Lord will understand when you cannot be there when the church gathers. But the principle stands: Sabbath means that we show up for him together with the other believers. The catechism is right when it says in q&a 103 that the fourth commandment requires that I diligently attend the church of God.
And that assembly is to be “sacred”, that is, holy and specifically dedicated to God. Sabbath means that we enjoy a time of close fellowship with our Lord. He is always with us, but now we can celebrate our relationship without the distraction of everyday life. Practically, that sacred fellowship means, as the catechism says, to hear God’s Word, to use the sacraments, and to call publicly upon the Lord in spoken prayers but also in psalms and other songs. In our Reformed tradition, we think of the elements of worship as a covenant dialogue, and that is very much in line with the Sabbath principle of God’s assembled people having communion with him.
If we take the Sabbath principle seriously, weekly worship services with good preaching have high priority. That is why the catechism also calls us to maintain the ministry of the gospel and the schools, which is a reference for providing for ministers and making sure that new preachers continue to be trained in the seminary. (The word “schools” in q&a 103 was never meant to refer to day schools for children, but specifically to theological education.)
As I said before, Christians do not keep the Israelite Sabbath. We disagree with Christian sects such as the Seventh-Day Adventists, who follow the literal commandment to keep the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, on Saturday. Let’s be careful about the reason for this disagreement. It is not that somehow the Sabbath was moved from Saturday to Sunday. Rather, our Sunday celebration is a new holiday, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Jewish Sabbath, which (according to Col. 2:17) was but a shadow of the things that were to come. Instead of the Old Testament Sabbath day we have the New Testament Lord’s day.
Think about the reasons for the Sabbath mentioned above: the creation of the world was completed on the seventh day, but the creation of new life took place in Jesus’ resurrection on the first day of the week. The deliverance from slavery in Egypt was a great divine act of salvation, but is now outshone by the deliverance from sin through Jesus’ cross and resurrection. The celebration of the Christian church is therefore superior to the old Sabbath day. The Lord’s Day is so much more than a Christian Sabbath! And our motivation to celebrate and gather for worship should be so much more profound than the reasons stated in the fourth commandment!
The Sabbath principle remains. Regularly we pause our daily business, our work and our chores, and deliberately set aside a day. A day to enjoy the fruits of our labor, a day of restoration, but also a day specifically set aside for our Lord Jesus, spent in worship and fellowship together with our fellow Christians. A day to focus on spiritual growth, but also on good works of charity; as the catechism points out, the fourth commandment indirectly even commands to give Christian offerings to the poor.
It is therefore a sad thing when some Christians have a minimal approach to Sundays: they come to church, at least once if not twice, to fulfill a religious duty and to stay out of trouble with the elders. But for them it is not a celebration, not a joyful day; worship becomes mechanical, there is no time for fellowship with others, and the rest of the Sunday is no different from having a free Saturday afternoon. They feel Sunday as a chore rather than a joyful privilege, because it means you shall not this and you shall not that. But if that is all the Lord’s Day means for you, you are not keeping the fourth commandment, which calls us to a heartfelt celebration of God’s grace.
The practice of holy living
The famous Reformer, John Calvin, identified three moral principles in the fourth commandment. Two we already discussed before: the importance of worshipping together, and the need to give our workers time off as well. But for Calvin the idea of Sabbath has a deeper spiritual sense. We find this summarized beautifully in q&a 103 of the Catechism:
that all the days of my life I rest from my evil works,
let the Lord work in me through his Holy Spirit,
and so begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.
This broader understanding of Sabbath is based on Heb. 4:9, “therefore there remains a Sabbath rest for God’s people.” This chapter of Hebrews points out that even the Promised Land was not the endpoint for the Israelites. It was a picture of God’s peace and rest, but it was not that perfect rest itself. So Hebrews 4 says: Joshua was unable to bring people into the promised rest; only Jesus can do so. Commenting on this chapter, Calvin writes: “He draws the conclusion, that there is a sabbathizing reserved for God’s people, that is, a spiritual rest to which God daily invites us.”
It is interesting to hear how Calvin fleshes out what this spiritual rest means. “Therefore it follows that man becomes happy by self-denial. For what else is to cease from our works, but to put to death our flesh, when a man renounces himself so that he may live to God?” Calvin then concludes: “He who understands that the main object of the Sabbath commandment was not external rest or earthly worship, immediately perceives by looking at Christ, that the external rite was abolished by his coming.”
Here we have a profound understanding of the fourth commandment that extends far beyond Sundays. As Christians, our whole life becomes a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord. The hours in the field or in the office are service to the Lord. Doing laundry and wiping counters with a psalm in your heart. Dealing with clients and students as a way to display God’s love and grace. In the busy life of every day, find your joy in the fact that the Lord is near, and follow the guidance of his Spirit. “In this life we begin the eternal Sabbath,” says the catechism. In a way we live the glorious life of heaven now, even while we are still busy on earth.
So the fourth commandment governs our whole life. The Sabbath principle calls us to dedicate our whole life to serving the Lord, and to find joy and comfort in him.
That does not take away from our need for setting apart sacred time and gathering for worship. At the beginning of the day, it is good and necessary to take time for prayer and meditation, to start your work with the right focus. At the end of the day, it is proper to take a few minutes to thank the Lord explicitly. And we need that time together as the church, to join our voices in praise, to pray for one another, to engage in the study of God’s Word, and to celebrate together the rest we have in Jesus.
Let us be eager to remember that rest, united in one faith and also physically together. May our worship and fellowship be indeed a sacred celebration of the freedom we have through Jesus Christ our Savior!