It is time for my annual introspection and reflection on my law-keeping and whether my actions cause others to sin. No, I’m not preparing for Ash Wednesday and Lent, although that would be a good guess since that is important to me as well. I’m considering my regular reflection on the Westminster Confession of Faith, Section 21-8:
8. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs before-hand, 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 time, in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.
No, somehow this passage comes to mind every year about this time as I consider the spectacle of “Superbowl Sunday.” In the past I have rationalized it: I’m sort of resting, we are not under the law any more, I did go to worship in the morning and to the evening service afterward, it is really only one Sunday a year that I watch American Football, and I watch it with others from my Bible study group. But in the end, I have still vowed to “sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will be instructed and led by those confessions as I lead the people of God.” So, I should not be distracted from God on the Sabbath by some silly football game.
Well now, thanks to the PUP report, I can declare a departure from the Westminster Confession. I can refer to Paul’s words “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1-2) so that, at least for this one Sabbath day, we don’t have to worry about our “recreations.”
Well, satire aside, I still remain conflicted over this particular day. I know that some churches use this as an outreach event. And I know that I am probably one of the few, if only, elder in my church that would worry about this. And other Sunday afternoons I get work done around the house so that could be a violation too. But it is impossible to deny that this section in the Westminster Standards derives from one of the “big ten,” “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.”
But the bottom line with any of this is Jesus’s words that “The Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) The Law and the Confessions are there to guide us for we are indeed free from the legalism of them. They guide us towards a deeper relationship with God. And as we do approach Lent, I am reminded that there is a bunch of other stuff in my life that does more to separate me from God than sitting down with friends one Sunday afternoon a year and watching a media circus that might have a football game attached.
The “Big Ten” as you call them are specifically about the 7th day, not the 1st day of the week that you refer to as Sabbath. Observe the Scriptural Sabbath according to Yahweh’s commandment and in the way HE the LORD of the Scriptural Sabbath leads and enjoy the Superbowl. Go Giants!
Hi Banner Kidd and thanks for the comment.
On the one hand I was playing a bit “fast and loose” in this post on purpose since I was mostly trying to use satire. You are absolutely correct that the Fourth Commandment, in its original context, refers to the seventh day of the week while I, like most Christians, observe the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week. In a sense, that gets us off the hook from the Fourth Commandment.
However, as a Reformed Christian I look for guidance to the Westminster Standards, and as I quoted, the Westminster Confession which is part of the Standards. (If the Westminster Standards are not a part of your World View than my whole discussion here is irrelevant.) The authors of that document did refer to the first day as the Sabbath and do go on to say we should abstain from “worldly employments and recreations.” If we agree to be “instructed and led” by that historical standard, what does it say about what we can, and can not, do on any given Sunday and does watching, and maybe more importantly planning our Sunday around, the big game run counter to the intent of the Standards and Scripture.
I do not embrace the Westminster standards. They were just men. I do not embrace being “instructed and led” by that historical standard. There is one standard and that is Torah. Col 2 says the the commandments and doctrine of men are of no effect over the indulgences of the flesh. But the commandments of Yahweh are! In keeping them by faith, as HE works grace in us we are blessed. In rebellion to them we are lost and will die apart from HIM and not able to have access to the Tree of Life – Rev 22. Reconsider, please. With all due respect, if the Westminster men rejected Torah or dismissed Scripture in any way they are guilty of subtracting from the Word and that is a lawless and blaspheming act and is in total opposition to Yahweh and Yeshua HIS Son, who agree with the Ruach, Yah the Holy Spirit, who is to write HIS Law – Torah on our hearts and cause us to walk in HIS statutes and keep HIS commandments. That is the New Covenant of Grace given to all men who would come since the beginning (Genesis). Yeshua did not start a new religion! He is the fulfillment and purpose of the only one there is – the Way. The covenantal terms are spelled out in Torah. The New Covenant is the ability to walk in the tenets contained in Torah. The fourth commandment is still Shabbat, the seventh day. The LORD’s Day is Shabbat. Those Scripture references are so far out of context and twisted to say that Shabbat is now Sunday. It is a lie from the pit of hell. Satan is still saying what he said to Eve, “Has God really said…?”
Yes HE did and HE said if you eat of the knowledge of good and evil you will die. It has kept man from the Tree of Life since the beginning, but according to Rev 22 the way back is through the commanmdments and a rejection of the lie – the beginning of which was Gen 3.
Please check the Scripture and rely on “it is written” like those in the Text did, and not on what men say. Most missed HIM at HIS first coming for the same reason – the doctrine of men veiled the Truth and they could not recognize Messiah before their face. But the veil is lifted, according to 2 Cor 3, when one turns to Yahweh for who HE is in Scripture, not who man says that HE is. HE is still asking, “Who do you say that I am?”