Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

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

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: It would be absolutely sinful for any Christian to pass judgment upon a man who wishes to observe one day or another. Unfortunately, however, some who observe the seventh day have gone beyond everything written in the Word of God and criticize and judge those who keep the first day or who do not keep the seventh day.

Thus they usurp the office of the Holy Spirit, who has reserved all rights to instruct and guide his own. We are not even permitted to think that he should guide everyone or anyone the way he guides us. This criticism of non-Sabbatarians by those who observe the seventh day has gone so far that the keeping of Sunday has been called the mark of the beast and the sign of the Antichrist. This is not only folly; it's spiritual sin.

Until such sin is repented of and forsaken, there can be no end of strife among Christians on this point. Therefore, let us understand that God has his purposes in telling us that love is the fulfillment of the law. He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

Guest (Choir): (Singing) God's Word is for God's sake, to teach, rebuke, correct, and train. Equipped by Him, we then pursue the work God has for us to do. God's Word is all a Christian needs to grow in grace and do good deeds.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth 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'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled The Sabbath in the New Testament.

Many believers are strict Sabbatarians, and they believe that Christians must observe one day a week in the manner of the Jewish Sabbath day in the Old Testament. Other believers say that the death of Jesus Christ did away with the written code of the law and that Christians today are not obligated to observe the Sabbath in any way.

What does the New Testament tell us about the Sabbath and how was it observed in the early church? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 14 and verse 5. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with the message The Sabbath in the New Testament.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. How we rejoice in the great salvation which thou hast provided for us in Christ. Thou art the God of all grace, and thou hast revealed thyself in thy love for lost mankind by coming in Christ Jesus, the Word made flesh to die for us.

We ask thee in this hour to speak to our hearts. Man cannot reach the need that is in the heart of man, but thy voice can go beyond our ears and echo in all of the hidden caverns of the soul. Do thy work in us, we pray thee, in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In Romans 14:5 we read: One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let everyone be convinced in his own mind. Having studied how the Sabbath was observed in the Old Testament and having seen how Christ warred against the abominable thing that the Pharisees made it, let us see how the Sabbath was treated in the Acts of the Apostles and by the early church as revealed in the epistles.

In the book of the Acts, the word Sabbath is found nine times, but in no instance is it spoken of as a day observed by the early Christians. In the first chapter, the word is used to indicate the distance between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey. The word is found four times in the 13th chapter in connection with Paul's visit to Antioch, his entrance into the synagogue, his preaching to the Jews who were there, his reminder that Christ was mentioned in the prophets which Israel had been hearing every Sabbath, and the request with its fulfillment that he preached the following Sabbath in the synagogues.

In later chapters, there are similar references to Paul's custom of going into the synagogue of every town he visited and preaching Christ there on the Sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath. Paul did not observe the Sabbath. He used the synagogue as a fishing stream, since many of the Lord's people gathered there. The same work was being done for them there as had been done in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and in the subsequent days of harvest, while God was fulfilling the order which he had declared: that the gospel was to go to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.

It was quite natural for Paul to make the synagogue his first point of contact in any community. For there he would be sure of an interested audience, and there he would meet Gentiles who were already inclined toward the faith which was being preached from the Old Testament, even before Paul arrived with the good news of salvation through Christ, the promised Messiah and Savior.

When we turn to the epistles, we find complete refutation of the idea that the Old Testament Sabbaths are to be continued in the Christian age. First, let us remind ourselves that nowhere in the New Testament is there the slightest hint that any Christian ever kept a Sabbath day of any kind. No doubt some returned to this day after they were saved simply because they did not yet have the written word to guide them. They returned, we know, to circumcision and were severely rebuked for it.

The human heart is strongly addicted to doing what comes naturally, and we can be sure that the legalistic spirit was manifested in the observance of old lifelong customs, but such observance was not required by God. And indeed, those who did return to the law were guilty of falling from grace. The notion that we fall from grace by falling into sin is not in the Bible. When one falls from grace, he falls into law. To observe a Sabbath of any kind is legalism in the highest degree.

In the epistle to the Colossians, the Holy Spirit warns sharply against entanglement with the law, and especially with the Sabbath. The Christian is a new creature in Christ Jesus. He has been transferred out of death and into life, out of law and into grace. Anyone who teaches conformity to the law, God says, is deluding the hearers with beguiling speech. This he says in Colossians 2:4.

And later in that chapter, to these young believers, he writes: See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

After setting forth the union of the believer with Christ, the Holy Spirit proceeds to show our separation from the law. The believer is not to practice religious circumcision because God has given us a spiritual circumcision of the heart. And we are no longer governed by the life of the flesh. Further, we have been identified by the Holy Spirit in his work in us, so that we have become a part of the death of Christ and are seen as having died, as having been buried, and as having been raised from the dead through faith in the working of God.

What is in view here is the entire work of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in redeeming our lives from the bondage of the flesh and sin. This passage is parallel to the first part of the sixth chapter of Romans, which we have treated in detail. In Colossians, the death of Christ is described in magnificent terms in relation to what it actually did for us. We had been spiritually dead. God has made us alive together with Christ.

In that joint resurrection, where God sees us as being all that Christ is, we are told that our trespasses are forgiven. Following this, it's stated that God blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. The RSV translates it: having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands. Sabbatarians insist that this refers only to the ordinances of the Old Testament, that it does not refer to the Ten Commandments.

But this is specifically repudiated in the second letter to the Corinthians, where the Holy Spirit contrasts what the RSV calls the dispensation of death, carved in letters of stone, with the dispensation of the Spirit. Search the Old Testament. What was carved in letters on stone? Only the Ten Commandments. This part of the law is called the dispensation of condemnation, and it's this part of the law of which God says: What once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all because of the splendor that surpasses it.

And specifically, that part of the law that was carved in letters on stone is said to have faded away. That which is permanent is the life of grace in Christ. Now in the light of this, it seems to me that anyone who attempts to divide the law into two parts and say that the ordinances have been abolished, but that the Ten Commandments have not been deprived of their splendor, is not being fair with the Word of God. All the legal demands of the Old Testament are compared to a bond which has been canceled.

God presents himself as coming to the cross of Christ, as nailing the provisions of the Old Testament to that cross. I have dear friends whom I count as brethren in Christ who observe Saturday. I must at this point say that I believe that they are described by God in these words: To this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds. Now this can happen even in men who have turned to Christ for salvation.

There must be a constant turning to Christ for teaching, and when one enters into the fullness of grace, he sees that the law has been abolished. And yet the context of our passage in Romans forces us to acknowledge that these Sabbatarians may well be our brothers in Christ. God has received him, we read in Romans 14:3, and we must receive him also. He is in Christ as we are in Christ. We present our doctrinal position, but we do not judge him for holding a contrary position. Christian love must preclude this so long as observance of the day is not made a condition of salvation. In that case, however, we must war against the doctrine because it contradicts the finished work of Christ.

After presenting our position in Christ, the Holy Spirit continues in the Colossians passage: Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. All these things from which the believer is expressly freed were a definite part of the law.

When Solomon purposed to build a temple for the name of the Lord, he said: Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him, and for the continual offering of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening on the Sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the Lord our God as ordained forever for Israel. These very things which were demanded of Israel are not required of the people of God in the New Testament.

Now the Sabbatarians have evolved a way to circumvent this direct statement of the Lord. Just as they have invented the two-law theory, which God has shown to be folly by the inclusion of the law which was carved in letters on stone, they have invented the two-types-of-Sabbath theory to get around this text in Colossians. There was, they say, the ordinary seventh-day Sabbath, and they contend that this is still in effect. Then there was the ceremonial Sabbath, various Sabbaths, the Passover and so on, and they contend that this verse applies only to the latter group.

Their argument is that the Greek word is in the plural in this case and therefore refers to the high Sabbaths. This is rendered worthless by the fact that they themselves affirm that the same form refers to the weekly Sabbath in every other instance in which it appears in the New Testament. Now when we consider that this word is found 59 times in the New Testament and the Sabbatarians have interpreted it 58 times as we do, we are not ready to believe them when the 59th time is against their concept of the Sabbath and they erect an outlandish interpretation to account for this devastating use of the word, especially when every grammatical authority flatly contradicts them.

In the epistle to the Galatians, there is another strong passage in which the Holy Spirit warns sharply against any legalism, including Sabbath keeping. Paul tells of the shock that he received when he learned of their departure from simple grace to another gospel, which is not another, but there be some who would trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. He sets forth the clear truth of salvation through grace alone, and then in anguish asks them: But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.

We might be tempted to think that he was speaking in disgust, but I believe that hurt love possessed him. But love can speak with scorn when necessary, for these people had to be shamed in order to understand how great was their sin in going back to the weak and beggarly elements of formalistic religion. Now this language would have been much more comprehensible to the Jews of that day than to the Gentile of ours. Even the Sabbatarians of our time cannot feel what these people felt when they were reprimanded for observing days, months, seasons, and years.

From their old Levitical liturgy, they recognized that Paul was speaking to them straight from the 28th chapter of the book of Numbers. There, God flatly commanded offerings in due season: morning offerings, evening offerings, offerings on the Sabbath day, offerings on the beginning of each month, and so on. Now the Holy Spirit in Galatians is showing that all of these things have been done away with.

The Sabbatarians of our day admit that the offerings have all been done away with. They admit that the observance of the first of the month has been done away with. They admit that the offerings on the Sabbath have been done away with. But in spite of all that is taught in the New Testament about the death of Christ abolishing the forms and ceremonies of the Old Testament, they still cling to the seventh-day Sabbath. Why, oh why? They will answer at once: Oh, it's because the Sabbath is in the Ten Commandments.

Well, we have shown that the part of the law that was carved with letters on stone has been done away with along with all the rest of the commandments and ordinances. Let us look now at the Ten Commandments. It should go without saying that when we adopt the position of grace as opposed to law, we are not teaching lawlessness. With as much shock as that which Paul underwent, we cry: God forbid to the foolish question of the Antinomians. What then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

What is the significance of the announcement that the part of the law that was carved with letters on stone has become a dispensation of condemnation and that it now has no splendor at all? The answer is that nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament, but that the fourth commandment concerning the Sabbath is specifically repudiated. The nine commandments—1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10—are presented as ethical statements showing us the path of the life of the believer. They are not presented as laws which can cause the death of the man who has been born again.

Once we have been saved by Christ, we possess eternal life and cannot lose it. The believer is in the position of someone who has had the great misfortune to kill a pedestrian with an automobile. He's tried, but not for murder that could send him to the electric chair. He's tried for manslaughter, but the penalty is never the forfeiture of his life. So it is with the Christian's relationship to all manner of sin, the Nine Commandments and the thousand other whisperings of the Holy Spirit which show us God's desires for our lives.

The difference between the Sabbath commandment and the other nine can be seen by our text in Romans. If we attempted to apply to any of the other commandments the language used here for the observance of a day, it would not make sense. Could we read: One man esteems some private property as better than other property, another man esteems all property alike? But a thief cannot be fully persuaded in his own mind that property that is not his own may be taken by him. But a man may have his own attitude of conscience toward the observance of days.

Or compare it with marriage and adultery. Would it be possible for a verse to read: One man esteems one woman as better than another, while another man esteems all women alike? Let everyone be convinced in his own mind. Oh, it's legitimate for us to reduce our text to this absurdity. For it teaches us that the observance of days has no moral or spiritual character attached to it. Before going on in our next study to see what the Bible has to teach about the observance of the first day, let us survey all that we have seen in the context of Romans 14.

We're taught here that a Sabbatarian has the right to observe the seventh day if he so wishes. That is if he believes that this is what God wants him to do. We who observe the first day or who esteem all days alike must never pass judgment upon any fellow Christian regarding such scruples. It would be absolutely sinful for any Christian to pass judgment upon a man who wishes to observe one day or another. We can present the truth as we see it in the Word of God, but we must respect the liberty of all believers to follow their conscience if that conscience is informed by the Word of God and illuminated by the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, however, some who observe the seventh day have gone beyond everything written in the Word of God and criticize and judge those who keep the first day or who do not keep the seventh day. Thus they usurp the office of the Holy Spirit who has reserved all rights to instruct and guide his own. We are not even permitted to think that he should guide everyone or anyone the way he guides us. This criticism of non-Sabbatarians by those who observe the seventh day has gone so far that the keeping of Sunday has been called the mark of the beast and the sign of the Antichrist. This is not only folly; it's spiritual sin.

Until such sin is repented of and forsaken, there can be no end of strife among Christians on this point. Therefore, let us understand that God has his purposes in telling us that love is the fulfillment of the law. He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. And our God and Father, we thank thee that thou hast redeemed us from the law and that thou hast given us full liberty in Jesus Christ. Liberty that makes us desire to turn our hearts back to thee and to love thee, and to observe every moment of life as sacred to thee. Help us to realize that whatever the Christian does, he is to do it as unto thee.

And while we enjoy the day of the resurrection, the first day of the week, nevertheless help us to realize that whether it be Tuesday or Thursday or any other day in the week, every moment must be lived for thee. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Guest (Male): The issue of Sabbath observance has been a hotly debated point of contention and controversy in the church. Let every believer be fully convinced in his or her own mind, as we seek to fulfill the law of love toward each other. We hope you have benefited from today's message, The Sabbath in the New Testament.

To listen to more 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 again is entitled The Sabbath in the New Testament, or simply request message number R14-6. 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.

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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, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

Guest (Choir): (Singing) The Bible has commanded work to do God's saving work on earth. It draws our souls from death to life and rescues us from needless strife. Amazing gift, of worth so high. The life imparting Word of God.