THE DECALOGUE:
A SUMMARY OF GOD'S PRECEPTS FOR GOD'S PEOPLE
The Fourth Commandment:
On Tranquility (Exod 20:8-11)
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Dr. Paul Manuel—2005
A SUMMARY OF GOD'S PRECEPTS FOR GOD'S PEOPLE
The Fourth Commandment:
On Tranquility (Exod 20:8-11)
Dr. Paul Manuel—2005
(There are different divisions of the Commandments in different traditions: In Protestantism (for the most part), v. 2 is the introduction and v. 3 is the first command. In Judaism, vv. 2-3 together are the first command. In Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism, vv. 2-6 are the first command, and v. 17 contains two commands. This study follows the primary Protestant division, recognizing that v. 2 is declarative and v. 3 contains the first imperative.)
You have an advantage in life of which others are often unaware, a stabilizing factor that enables you to keep things in perspective. It is not a secret, but other people miss it simply because they focus on what seems to be a problem.
Two bowling teams, one made up of blondes and the other of brunettes, chartered a double-decker bus for a weekend tournament. The blonde team was riding on the top level and the brunette team was on the bottom. The brunette team was hooting and hollering and having a great time when one of them suddenly realized she didn't hear anything from the blondes upstairs. She decided to go up and investigate. Reaching the top of the stairs, she found the blondes frozen in fear. All of them were clutching the seats in front of them and staring straight ahead at the road. "What's going on up here?" the brunette asked. "We're having such a great time downstairs." "Yeah," exclaimed one of the blondes... "but you have a driver!"You have an advantage in life of which others are often unaware, a stabilizing factor that enables you to keep things in perspective. That advantage is ultimately God, but for Seventh Day Baptists, it includes something else as well.
Most of the commandments in the Decalogue parallel what God expects from all people not just Israelites, what theologians call general revelation. Consequently, these commands also appear elsewhere in scripture (Manuel 2011). Many of them appear in extra-biblical law, as well, like the Code of Hammurabi, demonstrating that non-Israelites recognized and accepted them. One of these ten precepts, however, does not appear in any biblical or extra-biblical address to gentile nations (so also Craigie 1976:157)1 God reserves it for Israel and for other individuals who may choose to adopt it. That command is the fourth in this list, the one On Tranquility.2
Exod 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
Deut 5:12 Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do.Most of the other commands in this list begin on a negative note: "Thou shalt not...." This command begins on a positive note: Thou shalt....3 They are to "Remember the Sabbath day" (see n. 27).4 What precisely are they to remember? ...Because many of these commands were accepted universal norms of moral behavior, the Israelites were probably familiar with them even before the exodus. Their newly-won freedom, though, made it possible for them to experience what was not available to them as slaves in Egypt, a day of rest from their labor. Moses tells the people in...
Exod 16:23a ..."This is what the LORD commanded: 'Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD.... 26 Six days you are to gather [manna], but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.... 29a ... the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days...."' 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.The Sabbath is not entirely new for them. They started to keep it and to experience its blessing soon after the exodus.5 As the Sabbath becomes part of their routine in the weeks and months ahead, God does not want them to forget how it marked their emancipation. So, He says that they must remember the Sabbath day.
Remembering something can simply mean calling to mind what happened in the past, like remembering how the Steelers won the AFC championship. Remembering to do something means calling to mind what happened in the past and acting on it in the present, like remembering to watch the Steelers win the Super Bowl. (I am being positive not prophetic.) Likewise, when God commands His people to remember the Sabbath, He wants them to do something about it, namely, to keep it holy. (He wants their recollection of the past to produce sanctification in the present.) That sounds like a tall order, but God says it is really quite simple....
I. The Sabbath is a time of rest (vv. 8-10).
...a time to stop working. This was a new concept for the Israelites. As slaves in Egypt, rest was a rare commodity, and when God introduced the Sabbath to them earlier, He told them only not to gather food.6 Now rest becomes the primary means of keeping the Sabbath holy, and it applies to everyone: children, servants, animals, even resident aliens.7 Everyone is to enjoy freedom from toil on the seventh day. In this way, the Sabbath accomplishes two things. First...
A. It distinguishes one day from the others.
Until this time, and certainly while the Israelites were enslaved, the days ran together, with no single 24-hour period being different from the next.8 There may have been occasional periods of rest, but they were not consistent and certainly not all at one time. Pharaoh's building projects would not permit such delays, and there was no slave union at that time. With the new cycle, everyone rested, and everyone rested together.
There is something about everyone's resting together that develops a sense of community. The SDB church in Madison, WI, which Linda and I attended for ten years, had lunch once a month in the classroom of the First Baptist Church where the small congregation also met for worship. It may not have been an ideal location, but the fellowship was good, and it extended our time together as well as our enjoyment of the Sabbath, helping to distinguish that day from other days.
If you keep the Sabbath, how do you keep the Sabbath? Does what you do on God's holy day distinguish it from other days, or is the Sabbath simply your day off, an opportunity to do things you do not have time for during the week? Making the day holy entails more than going to church for a couple of hours in the morning.9
Despite the fact that western legal systems have adopted much of what appears in the Decalogue, this command is not a general pronouncement intended for all people. The "you" in this passage is Israel, and the phrase "the Lord your God" is used in scripture only with reference to Israel.10 Consequently, not only does the Sabbath distinguish one day from the others...
B. It distinguishes one nation from the others.
When the Israelites are ready to enter the Promised Land, Moses reviews the commands the people received from God at Sinai and asks in...
Deut 4:8 ...what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?Some years later, the author of Ps 147 answers...11
Ps 147:19 [The Lord] has revealed...his laws...to Israel. 20a He has done this for no other nation....God's law, especially the law of the Sabbath, sets the Israelites apart, marking
them as His people.12
Later, God makes the purpose of this command even clearer, erasing any doubt
that He does not expect everyone to keep the Sabbath.13 We read in...
Exod 31:13 "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.... 16 The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. 17 It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested."The Sabbath is "a sign" of Israel's election, of the people's unique role in God's plan.14 It is what distinguished them from the nations. God's stated purpose for the Sabbath is to make Israel separate, not to make everyone else the same.
Many SDBs appeal to the fact that God established the Sabbath at creation, before Israel existed, as an indication the He intended the Sabbath for everyone.15 The Genesis account, however, is purely descriptive not prescriptive. God commands no one to keep it (also Keil n .d. 1:469), and there is no evidence that anyone in Genesis did. In Exod 31, God makes clear that He intends the Sabbath for Israel, and He cites the Genesis passage as preparation for what He delegates here.16
SDBs are in a difficult position. They regard the Sabbath as an important part of their walk with God, but the vast majority of the Church worships on Sunday and gives no special treatment to Saturday. Is that majority simply misinformed? ...If, after hearing your compelling arguments for the Sabbath and witnessing your sterling example, they still do not change, are they then in rebellion against God? ...Does their unrepentant sin—which is what rebellion is—does that sin not damage their relationship with God and, if left uncorrected, prevent their entry to heaven? That is certainly the logical extension of rejecting the truth. If God expects everyone to keep the Sabbath, then not to do so is sin.
SDBs may take comfort in assuming that most Christians are simply unaware of the Sabbath's importance and that God will somehow overlook their ignorance in the end, but what about the people you know, your friends and your family members who confess Christ and who know about your observance? Are they sinning against God by worshiping on Sunday instead of Saturday? I expect that everyone here knows people who display the qualities of a spirit-filled life, perhaps even better than some who keep the Sabbath, yet who do not consider the Sabbath something they should adopt. Are they outside God's will? Who is right, and who is wrong? SDBs, of course, think they are right and everyone else is wrong, but I caution you against adopting such an extreme position, especially when scripture—like this passage—does not support it.
I am not trying to make a case for Sunday, and Christians are on shaky ground when they assert that God has revised the appointed day.17
- Some people want to keep the Ten Commandments but generalize the fourth one, changing it from a precept to a principle (e.g., Craigie 1976:158). They say, "Your Sabbath is on Saturday; my Sabbath is on Sunday." It does not matter which day a person rests, only that he does so one day in seven.18
- The Israelites discovered that was not God's intention when they tried to gather manna on the wrong day. He chooses the Sabbath; they do not, and He chose Saturday. In other words, there is no "your Sabbath" and "my Sabbath." There is only God's Sabbath.
- Some people go further and say God changed the prescribed day of worship and rest from Saturday to Sunday (so Keil n.d. 1:471; Kalland 1992:55, 56). That was the position of Columbia Bible College when Linda and I were students.
The primary difference between the two days is that Sabbath observance is based on biblical teaching, whereas Sunday observance is based on church tradition.19 Whichever day you follow, do so for the right reason not a contrived one.
- There is also no evidence that God changed the Sabbath to Sunday and no scriptural mandate for worship on the first day of the week, no NT passage that indicates a revision of God's schedule. The Sabbath is the same day it has always been, the seventh day of the week.
While you are not Israel, keeping the Sabbath does distinguish you from others, including other Christians. Be careful, though, what you make of that distinction. As Paul says, "Do not go beyond what is written" (1 Cor 4:6a). While it is an obligation for Israel, it is an opportunity for you to receive blessing from God. As He says through Isaiah...
Isa 56:6 ...foreigners . . . who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it... 7 . . .1 will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy....Are you experiencing and enjoying the blessing of the Sabbath?20
If you keep the Sabbath, why do you keep the Sabbath? There are many reasons that do accord with the scriptures, and I wrote a tract listing several of them. You may pick up a copy from the rack in the foyer after the service. The final reason on that list pertains to the future. SDBs keep the Sabbath because they await God's heaven, for it is the ultimate release from their labor. The author of Hebrews, speaking about your eternal home, says...
Heb 4:9 There remains.., a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;Keeping the Sabbath now is a foretaste of what you will enjoy forever. In other
words, the Sabbath is a piece of heaven on earth.
Part 2
When taking on a project that is outside your area of expertise, it is important to get good instructions, because if you do not get it right, you are likely to get it wrong.
A couple of blonde men in a pickup truck drove to a lumberyard. One of them walked into the office and said, "We need some four-by-twos." "You mean two-by-fours, don't you?" the clerk asked. "I'll go check," the man answered, and he went back to the truck. He returned a minute later, nodding his head. "Yeah, I meant two-by-fours." "Alright," the clerk continued. "How long do you need them?" "I'd better go check," the man answered and went back outside again. Returning to the office, he said... "A long time. We're gonna build a house."Building a house was obviously not their area of expertise, so they would do well to get good instructions. Likewise, keeping the Sabbath may not be your area of expertise, even if you grew up in a Sabbatarian congregation, so you would do well to check God's instructions.
Unlike the other commandments in the Decalogue, the Sabbath command, On Tranquility, has no parallel in general revelation, nothing similar that God expects of those who are not part of Israel. Moreover, the Israelites probably knew nothing about the Sabbath before God instituted it soon after the exodus from Egypt. As slaves, a regular day off., especially one they would all observe together, would have been foreign to them. When the people reach Sinai, God makes clear that their situation has changed.21 Please turn to...
Exod 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.Here, we see that...
I. The Sabbath is a time of rest (vv. 8-10).
A. It distinguishes one day from the others.
How do you keep the Sabbath? Does what you do distinguish God's holy day from other days, or is it mainly a chance to catch up on the things you could not do earlier in the week? Making the day holy entails more than going to church for a couple of hours in the morning.23
In addition to distinguishing one day from the others, a second thing the Sabbath accomplishes is that...
B. It distinguishes one nation from the others.
In Exod 31, God makes the purpose of this command even clearer, erasing any doubt that He does not expect everyone to keep the Sabbath.
Exod 31:13 "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.... 16 The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. 17a It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever...God states that His purpose for the Sabbath, the point of its being a sign, is to make Israel separate, not to make everyone else the same.
A millennium later, when God's people return from exile in Babylon and are rebuilding Jerusalem, gentile merchants come to ply their wares and have no reservations about conducting business on the Sabbath. Jews begin buying those wares on the Sabbath, and Nehemiah rebukes them for desecrating the Sabbath but says nothing to the gentile merchants. It would have been a perfect opportunity to tell them about the Sabbath. Instead, Nehemiah locks the city gates and prohibits them from entering on that day,24 because he understands that God's purpose for the Sabbath is to make Israel separate, not to make everyone else the same. In fact, nowhere in scripture does God rebuke gentiles for not keeping the Sabbath.25
SDBs understand the value of the Sabbath as a day of rest, and we have experienced the blessing God promises to those gentile believers who do keep it, but we must be careful about imposing on other gentile believers what God does not impose on them. ...By the same token, those who generalize the Sabbath command to Israel and say that God was establishing a principle of one-day-in-seven or that God changed the Sabbath to Sunday after Christ's resurrection err in the opposite direction, for neither Sunday view has scriptural support. The primary difference between the two days is that Sabbath observance is based on biblical teaching, whereas Sunday observance is based on church tradition. So, whichever day you follow, do so for the right reason not a contrived one.
Be careful what you make of your distinctive practice. As Paul says, "Do not go beyond what is written" (1 Cor 4:6a). While Sabbath observance is an obligation for Israel, it is an opportunity for you to receive blessing from God. As He says through Isaiah...
Isa 56:6 ...foreigners .. . who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it... 7 . ...I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy....Are you experiencing and enjoying the blessing of the Sabbath?
If you keep the Sabbath, why do you keep the Sabbath? There are a number of reasons that do accord with the scriptures, and I wrote a tract listing ten of them. You may pick up a copy from the rack in the foyer after the service. There is another reason as well, an eleventh one that pertains to the future. SDBs keep the Sabbath because they await God's heaven, for it is the ultimate release from their labor. The author of Hebrews, speaking about your eternal home, says...
Heb 4:9 There remains.., a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;Keeping the Sabbath now is a foretaste of what you will enjoy forever.[26]
The Decalogue appears in two places. In Exod 20, God gives to former slaves this ten-point representative summary of His larger 613-command corpus. In Deut 5, He gives their descendents the same summary with a few variations. The first of these variations appears in this fourth command. The opening verses in both places, stating that the Sabbath is a time of rest, are almost identical.27 What follows adds that...
II. The Sabbath is a time of remembrance (v. 11).
Exod 20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.What God's people must keep in mind on the Sabbath is that...
A. It commemorates the work of creation.
A command to keep the Sabbath does not come until Exod 16, after God frees Israel, as Moses indicates in the second version of this precept. Look at...
Deut 5:15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.What God's people must also keep in mind on the Sabbath is that...
B. It commemorates the work of redemption.
Some laws need teeth—consequences for transgressing them—before people take them seriously. In such cases, it does little good to prohibit something, unless you are also prepared to punish those who violate it. If you are going to enjoin certain behavior, you must be able to enforce it. Like other commands in this list, desecrating the Sabbath is a capital offense, as God makes clear more than once.
Exod 31:14b Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death.... 15b Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.
Exod 35:2 . . . the seventh day shall be. . . a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.It may seem strange to execute someone for refusing to rest, but that is how strongly God views the sanctity of the seventh day.
One year after the Israelites receive this precept,33 a case arises to test the strength of this penalty. Is God serious about executing those who violate the Sabbath command?
Num 15:32 While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.This case erases any doubt the Israelites may have about God's attitude toward those who desecrate His holy day.
We do not live in a society that regards the Sabbath. Even in Israel today, transgressing the Sabbath is not a crime, let alone a capital offense. If the death penalty were in effect here in America, would it change how you keep this precept? ... Do you need the threat of punishment to observe the Sabbath as God expects?
Do you claim to be a Sabbath keeper? ...If you are on the roll of this church, then the answer is yes, because our "Articles of Practice" define a member as one who gives "evidence...of observing the Sabbath of the Lord, which is the seventh day of the week." So, do you give "evidence...of observing the Sabbath"? ... How would God, who sees what you do on Sabbath afternoon, evaluate your performance? The test of your commitment is when something else comes up on Saturday, something you want to do but that is not appropriate on God's holy day. That is the moment of decision.
- Will you let conviction fall victim to convenience?
- Will you set aside God's precept for your preference?
Isa 58:13 If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken.If you keep the Sabbath, how do you keep the Sabbath? God says here that the Sabbath is for your good, but it is not for your gratification. In fact, the Sabbath is not about satisfying your needs or wants, but about focusing your attention on God. It is "a Sabbath of rest to the LORD" (Exod 35:2; emphasis added). Therefore, any activity that turns your attention from God is inappropriate on the Sabbath.
We would do well to consider how much of what we do or do not do derives from our own opinion of what is appropriate rather than from God's word. Would your observance be different—more discriminating—if He were enforcing the death penalty for disobedience? ...Because we do not live in a theocracy, desecrating the Sabbath is not a capital crime. It is not even a misdemeanor—for which we breathe a sigh of relief—but the severity of the biblical sentence still reflects the significance of the day in God's economy. It also indicates that God has established a standard of observance He uses to evaluate His people's obedience, a standard you must learn and follow if you want your observance to please Him.34
This commandment, On Tranquility, establishes a time of rest and remembrance. It is an ordinance the Lord gave specifically to those He redeemed from Egypt, as a sign of their distinctive place in His plan. It is also an ordinance He invites others to observe, and it is a precept with perks. One perk in particular is available to all.
- To Jews, who must keep the Sabbath, He says...35
Isa 58:13 .. .keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath... 14a then you will find your joy in the LORD....
- To gentiles, who may keep the Sabbath, He says...36
Isa 56:6 ...foreigners ... who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it... 7a . ...1 will... give them joy in my house of prayer.If you are not enjoying the Sabbath, then you are not experiencing the Sabbath as God intends. His holy day should be a blessing to you not a burden on you.
I do not observe the Sabbath because God instructed everyone to keep it—He made it a requirement specifically and exclusively for Israel. I observe the Sabbath because God invited anyone to keep it—those who are not Israel—and because He promised to favor those who do. As He says through Isaiah...
Isa 56:2 Blessed is the [one].. .who keeps the Sabbath....It is an offer He does not extend to any other day.
Appendix: The Sabbath Was Made for Man
Seventh-Day Baptists and other Sabbatarians often appeal to Jesus' statement in Mark 2:27 to support the view that the Sabbath is a universal command, a day God expects all people to observe.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.Nevertheless, for any given passage, context controls meaning and, in this case, there are at least four aspects to the context of Jesus' statement that indicate he was not making a universal pronouncement.
- First, part of his audience was the disciples who, as Jews, believed that God gave the Sabbath specifically to Israel and not to the nations. There is ample evidence in scripture for this view37 and no indication, either in the gospels or epistles, that the disciples thought Jesus intended a change in their understanding of such an important issue.
- Second, another part of his audience was a group of Pharisees, for whom a universal statement would have been unthinkable and would have elicited considerable outrage. None of the gospel writers, though, records any such reaction.38
- Third, this epigram was part of Jesus' justification for the disciples' plucking grain on the Sabbath, which some Jewish authorities considered a violation of the command to rest on that day. Jesus' purpose in making the statement was not to apply the precept more broadly (to gentiles), which would have been completely off the topic, but to apply it more properly (to Jews)—that the Sabbath is to be a blessing not a burden.39
- Fourth, the statement itself may have been a common proverbial saying within rabbinic circles and not unique to Jesus, who simply uses it here to make the point that God intended His command for the good of those to whom He gave it.40
For the Bibliography and Endnotes see the pdf here
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Relevant and civil comments are welcome. Whether there will be any response depends on whether Dr. Manuel notices them and has the time and inclination to respond or, if not, whether I feel competent to do so.
Jim Skaggs