Should Christians observe the sabbath? Today we talk about how and why we should understand the Sabbath as an ongoing practice of the Church's obedience to the 4th commandment today.
This particular question about the observance of the Sabbath has become especially close to home for me lately, since I have transitioned into the PCA denomination over the last year. This Presbyterian denomination by and large is Sabbatarian, that is, upholds an observance of the Sabbath day. In my own experience, I have seen that most Christians do uphold the Sabbath; the question is normally not whether one observes the Sabbath, but how and to what extent should the Sabbath be observed. In this light, answers are all over the map! I have found the book "Call the Sabbath A Delight" by Walter Chantry to be highly influential and helpful to this topic as I have considered this whole question over the past several years with great sobriety.
One of the main occurrences in the New Testament has to do with Jesus' own words concerning the Sabbath: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath." (English Standard Version, Mark 2:27-28). In this brief but powerful statement, Jesus identifies the Sabbath's effect in terms of its mandate in the creative order, as Chantry points out: "Our Saviour and Teacher clearly understood that 'the Sabbath was made' at creation, not at the institution of the Mosaic covenant or the Abrahamic arrangement [...] At creation week he revealed that it would bring blessing to man." (55).
Christians have also employed a hermeneutic that sees Jesus' own words of the two great commandments as a summary of the Ten Commandments- have to do with 1. loving God and 2. loving our neighbors. If we are to maintain this hermeneutic, it seems inconsistent to say that of the Ten Commandments, nine of them are binding and one has been disregarded! In another great OT/NT correlation, the author of Hebrews 4:7-10 does say rather clearly "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God", and this conclusion stands in stark contrast of what the author of Hebrews takes liberty to identify as points of discontinuity in the OT/NT, such as cleansing rites of purification (Heb. 9.10). Hebrews becomes especially helpful as a test case, due to all of the Old Testament quotations that are present in the writer's development of doctrine. If ever there was a book that should make mention of the Sabbath's discontinuity for the NT, it would be Hebrews! However, this is not the case, which does seem to suggest that there are exegetical reasons to see the Sabbath as that which is upheld, not that which is overthrown as a relic of the past.
Although Chantry does list many negatives of observing the Sabbath (what one should not be occupied with), he focuses primarily on the positive implications of the Sabbath, focusing on the delight and joy of the day which is to be spent worshiping and enjoying the Lord. Meditating on the Sabbath being to the LORD (Ex. 20.8-11), Chantry has this to say: "This is not a narrow or restrictive requirement. A heart that loves the Lord will leap for joy at the prospect of a day with him" (20).
As a brief but helpful articulation of what Chantry has in mind, the Westminster Confession of Faith (the statement of Faith used within the PCA) gives word to how one should keep the Sabbath:
"This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up, the whole tim
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