Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Choir: [Singing]

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Few have really comprehended the exact character and principle of grace. God was not at all interested in the seventh day as an inflexible, recurring seventh. And the sacred character of the Sabbath did not belong to the seventh day of a permanent series, but rather to its relative place in many shifting series of sevens, whose counting began from constantly changing starting points.

Let us flee with horror from any legalism that would bind us to the observance of days. And when we are thus free, the Lord will possess our Mondays and our Tuesdays, our Wednesdays and our Thursdays, our Fridays and our Saturdays, our Sundays and all our days and weeks and months and years because He has bought us and possesses our hearts in simple grace.

Oh, praise God for deliverance from the bondage of keeping days. And may He restore to us the glory of lives that are overflowing fountains, never knowing a time when the living water is not surging forth.

Choir: [Singing] God's word is good to learn and obey to teach, rebuke, correct, and train. Equipped by Him, we can pursue the work God has for us to do. God's word is all the Christian needs to grow in grace and to do good deeds.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled The History of the Sabbath.

Some Christians believe that they are obligated to observe Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a holy day of rest. Others believe that Sunday has been established as the Christian Sabbath day, and they must observe it just as strictly as the Jews kept the seventh-day Sabbath. Still, other believers hold that it does not make any difference, and that any day could be observed because all days are alike to the Lord.

Stay tuned as we examine this hotly debated issue and explore the history of the Sabbath. The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 14, we're looking at verses 5 and 6. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled The History of the Sabbath.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. It is so wonderful to know that Thou art our God. We rejoice in Thy sovereignty. There is none like unto Thee. Thou alone art God. Thou hast ordered all things after the counsel of Thy will and Thou art steadily bringing to pass all that Thou hast planned.

In the midst of a frustrated world, Thou hast given us peace through Jesus Christ. In a changing world, Christ is our stability. In a worried world, Christ is our security. In a sinful world, Christ is our pardon.

What can we do but bow before Thee and praise Thee for Thy faithfulness? Speak to us in this hour and bless the truth to each listening heart. We worship Thee through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We have now reached in the 14th chapter of Romans, the fifth and sixth verses, where we read, "One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord."

Now there are devout Christians who hold that Saturday should be observed as a day of rest because they believe that the Old Testament law of Moses is binding on believers today. Other equally devout believers hold that Sunday should be observed and that its observance should be just as strict as that formerly demanded for the seventh day. A third group believes that it does not make any difference and that any day could be observed because all days are alike to God.

My personal belief might be called a combination of two of these points of view, but I also hold most strongly that no individual has the right to judge someone whose opinion is contrary to his. This tolerance in secondary matters is the central thrust of the 14th chapter of Romans.

If I were to confine myself merely to explaining this passage, I could leave it here and go on to the next phase of the revelation. But since it is my custom to bring to your attention all that scripture teaches on a given subject, I propose to treat the Sabbath question in detail. Important biblical principles are involved, and I believe that clear understanding of these principles will make us better students of the Word of God and better Christians. I present, therefore, what I believe the Bible teaches about the Sabbath.

I propose first to trace the history of the Sabbath. And in another study, I shall deal with what I believe is a great Protestant error of attempting to observe Sunday as a Sabbath, and shall go on to show our freedom in grace, and bring out what I believe to be the teaching of the Word of God on this subject.

Let me stress, however, that I do not criticize anyone who differs from me in this matter. I reserve the right clearly to point out the error in teaching that denies the deity of Christ or the nature of His redemptive work, but on such matters as the Sabbath, there must be the broadest tolerance and tenderest love for those who hold other opinions.

Before proceeding to my exposition, I wish to give credit once and for all to an author who has written at considerable length on the subject. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer in his book entitled *Grace* has devoted half a hundred pages to the question of the Sabbath as a test of grace. Although I do not agree with all that he says, he has marshaled the evidence on the Sabbath question so thoroughly that it is a great time-saver to follow him in some points. And the gravity of the problem is set forth in his introduction.

The distinction between the reign of law and the reign of grace is at no point more sharply drawn than in the question of the observance of the seventh day of the week or the first day of the week. For these two days are symbolical of the ages to which they are related. Likewise, at no point is personal religious prejudice, which is born of early training and sentiment, more assertive than on the Sabbath question. It was our Lord's liberal teaching on the observance of the Sabbath which, more than anything else, provoked the wrath of the Jewish leaders against Christ.

And it may be observed that there is no religious subject today which so draws out personal convictions and opinions. The reason is evident. Few have really comprehended the exact character and principle of grace.

To many, Christianity is a system of human works and character building from which merit accrues. The question is a far deeper one than the observance or the manner of observance of a day. It is the fundamental question whether grace is to reign supreme in place of law or whether it is to be commingled with law. The roots of this problem reach down to the bedrock issue which forms the very structure of the two opposing principles of pure law and pure grace. For its solution, the question demands more than a superficial opinion.

The first mention of any Sabbath is early in the book of Genesis, even before the fall of Adam. We read in Genesis 2, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had done in creation."

Now some people claim that this setting apart of the Sabbath by God in the Garden of Eden established a law that is binding on every member of the human race. And to support this claim, they are obliged to maintain that the Sabbath belonged as much to the Egyptians and to the Philistines as it did to the Jews. But since they have no historical evidence that any nation other than Israel ever kept the Sabbath, they're in a difficult position. Moreover, there is positive historical evidence that these other nations did not keep any Sabbath, and that the Jews were the only nation which did.

Nowhere in the Bible is there mention of Sabbath observance before the time of Moses. Further, it should be remembered that Genesis was not written until the time of Moses. When one looks into the Bible for religious observances before Moses' day, he'll discover that prayer, circumcision, and sacrifices are mentioned, but Sabbath keeping is not once mentioned. The argument from silence, of course, is not final, but it's almost incredible that there would have been no mention of the Sabbath if it had been observed before the time of Moses.

The patriarch Job, for example, lived several hundred years before Moses. The story of his life and his philosophical discussions with the men who came to visit him are very revealing. Here was a man who had no scriptures to guide him. And yet he was earnestly seeking the will of God and endeavoring to conform himself to that divine will.

Job and his friends discussed creation, the flood, and many details of human obligation to God, but there is no mention of the Sabbath. It seems impossible that they would have omitted the Sabbath from their discussions if it were observed at that time.

Some have used the argument that there must have been a Sabbath observance in Jacob's time because the Bible states that he fulfilled the week of Leah before marrying Rachel. We can easily dismiss this argument, for the week or the seven is merely the fourth part of the lunar month. And in this instance, refers to the fourth part of the woman's cycle and to the week of wedding festivities. There is no hint of a seventh day with religious observances and sacrifices.

It is important to note that God has taken the trouble to tell us in two different places in scripture that there was no religious Sabbath before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. First, when Ezra and Nehemiah were rebuilding Jerusalem after the captivity, a great revival broke out when the law was rediscovered and its observance re-established. The Levites led the people in worship.

And the Septuagint describes to Ezra these words, "Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai, and speak with them from heaven, and give them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments. And Thou didst make known to them Thy holy Sabbath, and command them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses Thy servant." This is found in Nehemiah 9:13 and 14.

Now underscore this sentence and mark it well, "Thou didst make known to them Thy holy Sabbath." This should settle once and for all the time of the establishment of the Sabbath. It was made known to the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai. The religious Sabbath did not exist before Moses.

Second, in the prophecy of Ezekiel, God Himself tells why He did not destroy the sinful people of Israel who were so stubborn and stiff-necked. We read in Ezekiel 20, "I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they dwelt. In whose sight I made Myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt. So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them My statutes and showed them My ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. Moreover, I gave them My Sabbaths as a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I the Lord sanctify them."

Now this passage from Ezekiel corroborates Ezra's statement that the Sabbath was made known by God at Sinai. Furthermore, it was for a sign between God and the nation of Israel only.

Further proof that the Sabbath was not observed even by Israel before God gave special revelation concerning it is to be found in the passage where the Sabbath was first made known. The 16th chapter of Exodus tells how the children of Israel murmured against the Lord because they were hungry. And it names the very day on which they murmured. It was the 15th day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt.

Hearing their murmurings, the Lord appeared to all the nation in a cloud of glory and announced through Moses that they would be fed. Their day began, of course, at sunset. And on that first evening, God sent quail to feed the people. In the morning of the first day of the week, the manna fell from heaven. And the same wonderful provision continued day after day.

On the sixth day of the week, God for the first time revealed the Sabbath to the people. We read, "On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers a piece. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, 'This is what the Lord has commanded. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. All that is left over, lay by to be kept till the morning.'"

"So they laid it by till the morning as Moses bade them. And it did not become foul and there were no worms in it. Moses said, 'Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.' On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather and they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?'"

"'See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore on the sixth day He gives you bread for two days. Remain every man of you in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.' So the people rested on the seventh day."

The events cover eight days, ending with the first Sabbath that the Lord made known to the people through Moses. This was the very first religious Sabbath. If anyone argues that the first day mentioned in this chapter was also a Sabbath, his claim can be refuted by noticing that on that day, they set out from Elim and traveled to the wilderness of Sin, a distance of over 20 miles.

Later on, a Sabbath day's journey was clearly prescribed. After the ascension of Christ, the disciples returned from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem, a distance described as a Sabbath day's journey and which was less than a mile. One authority has measured it and reports it to be 4,854 feet, a far cry from the more than 20 miles that Israel journeyed on the last seventh day before the seventh day was turned into a Sabbath by the revelation of the Lord.

And since the people moved only when the Lord told them to, we can see that this 20-mile journey on the Saturday before the revelation of the first Sabbath, definitely indicates that they were not observing that Saturday as a Sabbath.

Now in the midst of the 10 Commandments later given to Moses, we can find the explanation of why God chose the seventh day, rather than the sixth or the third or some other day in the week. We read, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it."

Now that this is an explanation and not a suggestion that the Sabbath was previously kept has been proved by the texts we have already cited. But even stronger proof will come in a further study, when we consider the Sabbath as a glorious picture of all that is centered in salvation through grace, apart from the works of the law.

We have already seen God's explanation through Ezekiel that the Sabbath was a sign between Him and the nation of Israel. This is, in fact, a divine quotation from the book of Exodus where in a later chapter this truth is declared and established.

"And the Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the people of Israel, you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I the Lord sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shalt thou work, but the seventh is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Wherefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign forever between Me and the people of Israel, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.'"

Now, how can verses so clearly applied to Israel be made to apply to the Philistines, the Greeks, the Romans, or the Americans? The law and the Sabbath which was its sign, was the mark which distinguished Israel from all other nations.

What is it that will cause men to observe a day simply because it's the seventh day, especially since God so ordered the Sabbaths that the series was continually broken? For example, in the ordinary course of events, the people of Israel observed a series of seventh days. Then there would be a cluster of sacred days followed by another series of seventh days.

Furthermore, each year the Sabbaths fell on different days, so that in the course of a few years, if every year were divided into sevens, the Sabbath day would be during a part of the year on the seventh day, then on the fifth day, and on the third day. There was constant change.

If you take a piece of paper and write out numbers 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, and continue constantly in a series of sevens, you will discover that when you begin the year as God began it, on the first day of the year, that you might well have a Sabbath falling on day 7, 14, 21, 28, but pretty soon there would be a cluster of days and then they would start out again on A7, A14, but in the total picture it would fit on days that are not a multiple of seven.

And so it is that in the course of the years, every, every day became the regular seventh-day Sabbath. Only the principle of an approximate seventh day was observed. The present system of observing every seventh day regardless of the months or years has existed only since the time of Pope Gregory who devised the Gregorian calendar. Israel apparently never observed a seventh day in an unbroken series before this time.

Look at the 23rd chapter of Leviticus as an illustration. They had to begin counting one series on the 14th day of the first month, so that every year the beginning day was different. This meant that the Sabbath series were constantly being changed, the intervening days being taken up by special festivals. And the new Sabbath series always counted from the particular festival just observed.

Most important of all, the 16th day of the month Abib was always a day of labor. It was the beginning of the harvest, as we read in Deuteronomy 16:19. Inevitably, with a year that cannot be divided by seven, either under a solar or a lunar calendar, this day of labor fell on a seventh day of a series. And all Israel would break the law by laboring.

But if we understand that several days were observed as a festival and that then a new series of seven would begin on what we would call a Thursday or a Tuesday, and continue sometimes for seven weeks, sometimes longer, the whole matter becomes simple.

God was not at all interested in the seventh day as an inflexible, recurring seventh. And the sacred character of the Sabbath did not belong to the seventh day of a permanent series, but rather to its relative place in many shifting series of sevens, whose counting began from constantly changing starting points.

Let us flee with horror from any legalism that would bind us to the observance of days. And when we are thus free, the Lord will possess our Mondays and our Tuesdays, our Wednesdays and our Thursdays, our Fridays and our Saturdays, our Sundays and all our days and weeks, and months, and years, because He has bought us and possesses our hearts in simple grace.

Oh, praise God for deliverance from the bondage of keeping days. And may He restore to us the glory of lives that are overflowing fountains, never knowing a time when the living water is not surging forth.

In our next study, the Lord willing, we shall show the fallacy of trying to make Sunday into a day of legalistic observance. And our God and Father, we pray Thee that the Holy Spirit shall take these truths to our hearts. We know that when a man can be delivered from law, he is in a happy condition. And that henceforth, he has given his life over to Jesus Christ, that Christ may possess our hearts through faith and rule us completely so that our way of life is not the keeping of a series of laws and rules, but the yielding to Christ that He may be Lord of all. Speak to each heart, we pray Thee. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): Let us seek freedom in Christ from every form of bondage and surrender all the days and years of our lives to Him in joyful submission and obedience. We hope you've benefited from today's message, The History of the Sabbath. To listen to additional teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org.

An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Today's message is entitled The History of the Sabbath or simply ask for message number R14-4. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Discovering Prayer.

You know that prayer is vital to your relationship with God, and yet your prayer life may be weak, inconsistent, and ineffectual. This free booklet will show you that prayer is not a bland, routine spiritual exercise. It is the path of spiritual power and intimacy with God that can transform every area of your life. Do you want a prayer life that will revolutionize your daily walk with Christ? Ask for your complimentary copy of Discovering Prayer when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by. We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

We also produce the radio broadcast The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a complete list of stations carrying our programs, visit our website at alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org.

Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening, join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

Choir: [Singing]