The Covenant Sign of the Sabbath
A common question in Sabbatarian circles is whether or not believers should go out to eat on Sunday. The line of reasoning is that even though the believer may be observing the Sabbath, he or she is not letting the people who are serving him or her observe the Sabbath. Meredith Kline has an interesting paragraph on the subject in Kingdom Prologue, p. 81.
Whether the Sabbath is viewed as God’s promise of the consummation of the covenant order or as man’s pledge of devotion to the covenant suzerain, it is always a sign of the covenant. In this primal sign the covenant receives comprehensive expression, for the Sabbath brings out the nature of the covenant as both personal relationship and historical kingdom program. For Israel the Sabbath was the sign of the covenant par excellence (Exodus 31:16, 17). That the Sabbath was appointed to the covenant community at the creation suggests that it is of perpetual validity, as long at least as that community experiences life and history as a succession of days. However, if we appreciate this essential connection of the Sabbath with the covenant, and especially if we recognized that the Sabbath is always covenantal promise and privilege as well as duty, we will avoid thinking of it abstractly as at any time after the Fall a universal ordinance of general application to the world at large. The Sabbath belongs to the covenant community exclusively.
According to Kline, it seems that so long as the people serving you are not in the covenant, there should not be a concern. Presumably, if they were in the covenant, they would not be working on the Lord’s Day. However, it still may not be prudent to [even indirectly] encourage people in their anti-covenantal activities. This is a very sticky situation, for one could suggest a multitude of examples where we may be encouraging people in this direction.
Please feel free to add to this discussion with comments.
i think that everyone is part of the covenate and that no one schould work on sundays,but what if your job requires you to work on sunday and you have no choice to because you need a job or if you are a doctor and you say your not going to work on sunday because its the lords day but somone at the hostpital calls you and said they need you because somone is dying are you going to say no or go help them. so i think that under certain circumstances god allows you to do your job.but i think that on sunday you should do as little as possible but not that you sit in a dark room all day just staring blankly into space just that you rest and spend time with your family and worship the Lord.in conclusion, their are many circumstances where you have to work but i dont think a group of people can decide wether you work on sunday or not i think its more personaland you as a person have to decide so im really not sure if i support it or disagree because so many of us including me usually go out to eat on sunday but i do think that when we go out were just supporting them to be open but also i know that your not really supose to work on sunday so its really what you think but mostly important on sunday we need to remember that its the Lords day.
Comment on September 5, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
If Kline is correct, this would release me from some worries I have had. For instance, with the job I had, I wanted to switch my Sunday hours with another fellow employee so I can observe the Lord’s Day. But I had imagined that this would make him violate the fourth commandment (even though he is not a Christian in any sense). Does the non-Christian violate the fourth commandment every Lord’s Day?
Good quote, however.
Comment on September 21, 2007 @ 10:14 pm
If you’ll read the OT, you’ll see that the commandment concerning the Sabbath was not just for the Jew (the one in the covenant) but also for the stranger in the land. Not only were the Jews not to work on the Sabbath, but they were not to have their servants (whether Jews or not) nor their animals (not even human) work on the Sabbath. If, therefore, Sunday is “the Christian Sabbath” then eating out on Sunday is a sin. But is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? When discussing the Sabbath, how that the 7th day Sabbath was not the fulfillment of God’s promise, Paul says in Hebrews 4 “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God from his” he obviously is referring to heaven, not to Sunday. To prove this, he goes on in the next verse, saying, “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”
Comment on October 4, 2007 @ 3:03 pm
jk,
I one views the servants and animals as being part of the larger covenant community, this argument fails at that point.
Thank you for bringing up Hebrews 4. It bears significantly on the discussion. How would you reconcile this passage with the Sabbath being a creation mandate? The Sabbath principle is something not simply given to the theocratic nation of Israel, but something bound up in the fabric of creation. The principle will work itself out differently at various points in redemptive history (e.g. we rest on Sunday - the Lord’s Day rather than Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath), but I see the principle of 6 days of work and 1 day of rest as enduring.
Thanks - I look forward to your response.
Comment on October 7, 2007 @ 7:20 am
I also started a discussion at my blog specifically entitled: Sabbath rest vs. Sabbath day- Is there a distinction?
http://thywordistruth.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/sabbath-rest-vs-sabbath-day-is-there-a-distinction/
I invite your comments. Lord bless!
Jim Richardson
Comment on December 26, 2007 @ 1:25 pm