The Westminster Confession of Faith
states in Chapter 21, Section 7, “As it is of the law of nature that, in
general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so,
in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all
men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath,
to be kept holy unto Him: which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection
of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ,
was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called
the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian
Sabbath.”
The Free Presbyterian Church heartily agrees with
this succinct summary of Scripture regarding the duty of man to observe one
day in seven as God’s day. The Confession correctly presents the basic premise
of the fourth commandment — that a seventh of the time allotted to man is
to be observed as a sabbath or day of rest (which is the meaning of the word
“sabbath”).
It should be carefully noted that the fourth commandment
not only stipulates that one day in seven is the Lord’s, but it is also written
in such a way as to permit the change of the actual day of the week for the
observance of the Sabbath without violating the commandment itself. This commandment
does not say that man is to remember “the seventh day to keep it holy,” but
he is to “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” We point this out because
of the error of many in insisting that the word sabbath means “seventh.”
It does not. As already noted, the word “sabbath” means rest or cessation.
The Lord simply commands us to keep holy the day of rest. Moreover, the fourth
commandment does not state that “the seventh day of the week is the sabbath.”
Rather, it states that “the seventh day is the sabbath.” In other words,
by the term “the seventh day” the Lord speaks of the day following the six
days of labor, whatever those six days of labour might be. Therefore, by
this clear language, the fourth commandment was written so as to allow a
change of the day for the observance of the sabbath without in any way violating
the commandment.
The resurrection of Christ ushered in the change
of day for the observance of the sabbath. One might wonder why the first
Christians, who were Jews themselves, suddenly began to meet for worship on
the first day of the week. The explanation can only be attributed to our Lord’s
rising from the dead on that first day to signify the finished work of redemption.
Thus the principle of the fourth commandment—one day in seven being the Lord’s—remained
unviolated, while the keeping of that day took on a much fuller meaning that
it had in Old Testament times. The Christian Sabbath or the Lord’s Day, continues
to be not only a memorial of God’s finished work at creation, but it is also
a memorial of Christ’s finished work of redemption.
“There remaineth therefore a keeping of sabbath
[the literal rendering of the original text] to the people of God…” (Hebrews
4:9). We believe therefore that the observing of one day in seven is still
binding on mankind. The Lord has graciously given us six days for work and
recreation — we are not to rob Him of the other, the sabbath day. The Free
Presbyterian Church therefore holds that since the believer is “not without
law to God, but under the law to Christ…” (1 Cor. 9:21), he is to sanctify
the Sabbath “by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments
and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time
in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is
to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.” (Shorter Catechism, 60).
