By the time this article is published, the summer holiday season will be coming to an end. We all enjoy having a break from the routine of daily work – surely there’s nothing controversial about that? And yet the most controversial of the Ten Commandments is number four, relating to the Sabbath.
My own position is that the moral law is expressed in the Ten Commandments, which continue to have universal and binding authority. The Sabbath continues today, being celebrated now on the first day of the week (the Lord’s Day). This view is expressed in the Westminster Confession, the 1689 Baptist Confession, and the Savoy Declaration.
Others, taking a “New Covenant Theology” position insist that Old Testament laws are only binding on believers insofar as they are repeated in the New Testament (and they say that the Sabbath is not). They believe that the Sabbath points only to our rest in Christ, and to the future eternal Sabbath rest.
Jesus wept
John 11v35 is not only the shortest verse of the New Testament, but also one of the most remarkable. There …