The Lord’s Day
A letter was published recently in one of our local newspapers attacking the Lord’s Day. The writer contended that the Sabbath was for the Jews and belonged to the Mosaic law. To keep it today is to be in bondage to the law and under the curse of the law, he said. He did recognize the Lord’s Day but claimed that it had no connection with the Sabbath. Even its observance was optional according to him.
This contention reveals a total ignorance of Scripture. Like marriage (Gen. 2:21-25), the family (Gen. 1:28) and human government (Gen. 1:26-28), the Sabbath (Gen. 2:1-3) is a creation ordinance—not something brought in for the Jews by the law of Moses.
Like the other creation ordinances, therefore, the Sabbath is for the whole human race—for man (Mark 2:27—“man” here very clearly refers to mankind). Nor is it only for the Old Testament. It is for all time. No more than marriage, the family and human government does it belong only to that Old Testament time of types and shadows.
Hebrews 4:9 uses the word “Sabbath” when it tells us that there still remains a rest (“Sabbath” means “rest”) for the people of God. If you look in a good concordance, you will see that the word “rest” is literally, a “Sabbath rest” or “Sabbath-keeping.” It is interesting that the Holy Spirit deliberately uses here the Hebrew word “Sabbath” instead of the different Greek words for rest that were in use when the book of Hebrews was written. The Holy Spirit is saying, then, that the Sabbath is not finished.
We begin to enter that rest by observing the Sabbath and keeping it holy. How else? Only now we keep it on the first day of the week. The Lord’s Day is our New Testament Sabbath. Hebrews 4:10 shows us this by defining true rest as a ceasing from our own work. Isn’t that exactly what we do on the Lord’s Day? We cease from our own work, not as an end in itself, but that we may worship and praise God.
The day is changed but the Sabbath is preserved! Christ changed the day by rising from the dead, appearing to His disciples and pouring out His Spirit all on the same day of the week (Matt. 28:1ff; John 20:19; Acts 2:1-4). He made the change also by His word in Acts 20:7 and I Corinthians 16:1-2. As the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28) and as the great Rest-giver (Matt. 11:28), the first day of the week is now His day, the day of rest. Because it is His, its observance is not optional.
Hebrews 10:25 also shows us that the observance of the day is not optional. It commands us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is. The word “assembling” here refers to the gathering together of the church for the purposes of drawing near to God, holding fast the faith, provoking one another to love and good works, and exhorting one another. This we must and will do, God permitting.
Nor do we call the Sabbath a curse. We call it a delight (Isa. 58:13-14)! It is no burden to us to worship God, to sing His praises, to pray to Him together, to hear His Word and to keep the company of fellow-believers on that day. The Sabbath is a burden only to those who say, “When will it be gone, that we may buy and sell grain?” (cf. Amos 8:5).
God’s word is clear. Let us obey it! In these days of unrest in the family, in society and in the hearts of men, let us labour to enter the rest that still remains for the people of God by keeping the weekly Sabbath, the Lord’s Day. Rev. Hanko
What About Ishmael?
One of our readers asks: “As I do not believe in common grace, but that God blesses only His own people, would it be right to say that Ishmael was saved because God blessed him (Gen. 17:20)?”
Genesis 17:20 says; “And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold I have blessed him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly.” This is the answer to Abraham’s prayer (18), “O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
One is very much tempted to conclude from these verses that Ishmael was a child of God, except that this is not all the information we have about Ishmael.
First, Genesis 17:19-21 excludes him from God’s covenant and, it appears, from salvation—the covenant means we are God’s people and He is our God (cf. Gen. 17:7-8). Some explain verses 19 and 21 to mean that Ishmael himself was saved while his generations, for many years, had no place in God’s covenant—compared to Isaac’s. This, too, is an attractive explanation, except for two New Testament passages:
Romans 9:7-9 is one passage. There God’s word makes Ishmael the first example of one who is not a child of God—though born of Abraham by physical descent. In the context, this must mean that Ishmael was reprobate.
Galatians 4:22-31 supports Romans 9. We acknowledge the difficulty of using an allegory to prove anything other than the main point of the allegory. This allegory does say, though, that Ishmael was born after the flesh, not after the Spirit. In light of John 3:5-6, this must mean that he was unregenerate. In addition, as one born after the flesh, he is called in Galatians 4 a persecutor. This means that his mockery of Isaac was not just childish malice or envy, but the opposition of an ungodly person to a child of God.
That leaves the question, “Does God, then, bless the reprobate?” Because of the passages referred to, we must conclude that He does not bless them with any of the blessings of salvation or of His covenant.
Does He bless them with temporal blessings? It depends, it seems to us, on what one means by blessings. If one means that God shows favour, love, or mercy to them, then God does not bless them (cf. Ps. 1; 5:4-6; 11:5-7, etc.).
How then do we understand Genesis 17:20? The answer must be found in the fact that the word translated “blessing” often refers to temporal prosperity and to all the earthly gifts God gives men. God does give them gifts, and His gifts are good (James 1:17).
Scripture texts that use the word “blessing” in reference to presents, gifts or earthly prosperity are Genesis 33:11, Joshua 15:19, I Samuel 25:27, II Kings 5:15, Proverbs 11:25-26 and Malachi 2:2. This, I believe, is the sense in Genesis 17:20. In speaking of Ishmael’s blessings, Genesis 17:20 not only excludes him from the blessings of the covenant, but mentions fruitfulness, many children and a great nation as the only “blessings” God promised him.
That God “blesses” the reprobate in this way, does not mean He favours them or desires to save them. He is not favourably inclined to them at all. Malachi 2:2 makes that clear. There God says, “I will curse your blessings; yea, I have cursed them already.“
Like many others, therefore, Ishmael received good gifts from God, including a place in a covenant home. As one born of the flesh, however, he did not care for these things and persecuted those who did. Ishmael was not one of God’s children! Rev. Hanko
