Resting From Labor: The Fourth Commandment's Prohibition of Work

by Rev. Steven R. Key

Audio of speech (0.9 MB)| Audio of discussion (22 MB)

Note: Audio files have been reduced in quality to reduce download time. The discussion audio has some 'hiss' due to the processing required to pick up audience contributions. Contact us if you would like higher quality audio.

Rev. Steven Key is currently serving as pastor of Hull Protestant Reformed Church in Hull, Iowa.

---

There has been a major change in recent years concerning people’s view of the Sabbath. In years past, the Christian Sabbath, or Sunday, was observed as a special day not only by the church, but by people of the community. When I was a child, living in the Grand Rapids area, it was unheard of that someone would mow his lawn on Sunday. And while perhaps at that time the Grand Rapids area was more religious than many other cities, in our own neighborhood there were many who either did not go to church or were not members of Reformed churches. Even unchurched people would not be seen on Sunday working with a hammer on a building project outside. Businesses were closed on Sunday. The day was known as a quiet day, a day set aside for church attendance by most; while those who did not attend church were courteous enough not to disrupt the quiet of the Christian community. Yes, Sunday was an open day for pleasure. The unchurched certainly viewed the day as their own. They went to the park or the beach, or played ball. And they were joined after the morning church service by some church people who did not have such a strict view of the Lord’s Day as did the Reformed community. But stores were closed; and although professional sports leagues played — and were duly noted by the Reformed community as those who desecrated the Sabbath — the organized sports leagues for children and the colleges would not think of scheduled games on Sunday.

How different things are today! Not only is Sunday viewed as a family day or a day of earthly pleasures, but for many Sunday is just another work day. That is a matter that has come to press upon the lives of our church members more and more in the past several years as the old blue laws keeping businesses closed on Sunday have fallen by the wayside. It is now a rare community where retail businesses are not opened on Sunday. Work has become commonplace in just about every sector of the business world. How many of our young people have not been turned down for jobs because they will not work on Sunday? It is an issue that presses upon us and calls us to take a stand in such a way that was not required of us in years and ages past. While temptations to pleasure have always pressed upon the church, it was much less a temptation to work on the Lord’s Day when most businesses were closed, and when operating a online business from the home was unknown. The blue laws are forever lost. Quiet Sundays in our communities will never be restored. For that reason we do well to pause and consider the fourth commandment’s prohibition of work.

Although we might profitably call attention to the positive calling of the fourth commandment, namely, “six days shalt thou labor,” the scope of this sectional is to focus on the prohibition of work for the Sabbath day. “But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

Not to be overlooked is the fact that Deuteronomy chapter 5 adds something with respect to the fourth commandment. Whereas Exodus 20 gives a reason for keeping the Lord’s Day, namely, His example on the seventh day, Deuteronomy 5:15 adds a purpose, i.e., to recall God’s mighty work of grace in our redemption. Deuteronomy 5:15 reads this way, “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.”

There have been objections raised over the years concerning the Heidelberg Catechism’s exposition of the fourth commandment as we read it in Lord’s Day 38. After all, when you read that Lord’s Day you find very little outward semblance to the expression of the fourth commandment. The Catechism does not explicitly forbid Sunday labor, much less place it on the foreground. The Catechism does not mention any forbidden activities, except that “I cease from my evil works,” and that “all the days of my life.” We read nothing about plowing the fields on Sunday or buying and selling on Sunday, let alone whether or not we may fix our dinner on the grill on Sunday, go to a restaurant on Sunday, or how much work may be done in the kitchen on Sunday. So that it would seem, on the surface of things, that the Heidelberg Catechism doesn’t even address the prohibition of work on the Lord’s Day.

There is a reason, however, why the instructors in our Heidelberg Catechism did not give us a list of forbidden activities. The fourth commandment is not merely that which deals with the external, but is deeply spiritual. As among the Pharisees, so it would have been with us, if the Catechism had compiled a list of precepts in its exposition. The self-righteous person would have been driven to the heights of pride, while missing completely the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath. We are all at heart legalists, who would like a body of legislation in order that we might seek loopholes in the law, and find our righteousness in the adherence to the letter of the law. We must keep the focus upon Christ also in our consideration of the practical implications of the fourth commandment. For that reason the Catechism takes its approach and leads us directly to the underlying principles of the fourth commandment.

To lose those principles is to lose the practical application of the fourth commandment. On the other hand, to understand and embrace those principles will result in a walk that remembers the Sabbath day and keeps it holy.

The fundamental principle governing the fourth commandment is that already at creation God gave us the Sabbath day to enter into the rest which is found in the fellowship of His own covenant life. To rest is to rejoice in a work that is finished. When God rested on the seventh day from His creation, He rested in the enjoyment of that aspect of His work. Creation was finished. But God’s work must continue as He leads His creation on to glory. Not for Himself, therefore, but for man God created this special day, as Jesus taught us in Mark 2. God Himself lives a life of perfect rest. He rejoices with infinite joy over the covenant fellowship of love within His own divine Being. That covenant life of God, eternally active and eternally complete, is the rest, the Sabbath, of the Lord our God. That is the rest into which we must enter.

Adam’s first full day on this earth was the day in which he experienced the rest and enjoyment of God’s covenant fellowship. In that day he ceased from his earthly labors — which before the fall were enjoyable labors in the service of His Friend-Sovereign God — and he enjoyed a full day of God’s fellowship. But that original day of rest created for man was not the final day. Adam fell out of that rest by violating God’s covenant, following after the lie of the devil, and falling into the unrest of sin and death.

God’s purpose was a greater day of rest for man. That day would be established by God in the way of realizing His everlasting covenant with man in Christ, the glorious tabernacle of God with men, the work of redemption and salvation. So He spoke of another day, a higher Sabbath. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God,” we read in Hebrews 4:9. So even through the Old Testament the Lord gave His people a picture of that rest to keep always before them. Canaan was the Sabbath land, the land of rest. With not only the weekly Sabbath, but also the special Sabbath days and the Sabbath year and the year of jubilee, God’s people celebrated their deliverance by God out of the land of unrest, into the Sabbath rest. But it was clear even then that the Lord had not given them the heavenly rest. The land of Canaan, the temple, the altar and the sacrifices, all pointed to the better things yet to come.

When in the fulness of time Christ came, the rest of God began to enter its fulfillment. For when the Word became flesh to dwell among us, the true tabernacle of God was with men. When the Son of God in our flesh entered into death and hell, bearing our sins, God was in Him, reconciling us unto Himself, laboring to take us into His rest. And when our Lord and Savior arose again from the dead on the first day of the week, He entered into the rest of His finished work. In His resurrection glory He now proclaims the call, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Because we have not yet entered fully into that rest of God, God gives us a taste of what our rest will be in perfection. The perfect fellowship of God’s covenant life must be our experience and enjoyment in the rest which God gives us on the Sabbath day. Because the daily cares and anxieties of life have a tendency to drag us down, so that we do not set out minds on the things above and on the heavenly Sabbath, our Lord has provided for us one day set apart from the other six. So He says to us, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” This day is to be, as it were, a vacuum in our daily routine, a day emptied for us — not that we might fill it with lazy inactivity, or earthly pleasure activities, or other work that takes our minds off God as much as any other day. But it is a day emptied for us that we might fill it with heavenly things, occupying ourselves as much as possible with the things of the kingdom of God.

When we understand that, then we will rejoice in the Lord’s fellowship, in the enjoyment of His covenant life and love. And filling the day with heavenly things, there will not be time for forsaking the fellowship of the saints and the house of God, nor to take up other mundane activities and labors. I have often told our young people: “When you apply for a job and they want you to work on Sunday, or when your employer suddenly decides to expand hours and asks you to take a turn working on Sunday, you simply have to tell them, I can’t.” It is not merely, I will not; but I cannot. It isn’t possible. And when they ask, “What do you mean,” you can respond, “I’m already involved in other work on the Lord’s Day, work that I cannot give up for anything else; for it is heavenly work, it keeps me busy the whole day, and the benefits that I enjoy from that work cannot be matched by anything else. I labor on the Lord’s Day in the fellowship of my Redeemer.” And how true that is, when we are properly observing the Lord’s Day. What greater labor is there, requiring such intense activity and concentration, than that of worship in God’s house? It is hard work, demanding activity, to worship God in spirit and truth on the Lord’s Day. And then there are all the other activities associated with our place in God’s church that demand our attention, especially on Sunday.

We must get out of our heads the notion that the Sabbath is a day of doing nothing. The Pharisees conceived of the Sabbath as a day of doing nothing. To them there was value in doing nothing on the Sabbath day. And when Jesus’ disciples picked corn on the Sabbath, and He healed on that day, the Pharisees would have judged them worthy of death. We must not be Pharisees. The only value to the old blue laws, perhaps, was that they prevented a certain temptation for the child of God and kept the community a little more quiet on Sunday. But it is impossible to force a man to remember the Sabbath by forbidding him to work. The Sabbath is not idleness. Jesus demonstrated that repeatedly by example. How many times didn’t He heal on the Sabbath day, to the torment of the Pharisees? There is no value in doing nothing on the Sabbath. Rather, we must crowd that day with work! — but with a certain kind of work, that which brings us into intimate communion with our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ.

So what do we find Jesus doing on the Sabbath? Is that corn-picking occasion (Matthew 12:1-4) to be interpreted in such a way as to use Jesus as an example for harvesting the crops on the Lord’s Day? Was Jesus found taking a scenic boat tour along the shores of the sea of Galilee, or laboring alongside the fishermen in their boats? Was He found banging out cabinets in Joseph’s carpenter shop, or perhaps cleaning out the tool shed or working on a malfunctioning plow? Not at all; but from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day He was found in the synagogue worshiping or preaching the Word; and He was busy caring for the distressed saints and destroying the power of the devil. Spiritual labors filled His day. So it must be for us. And that is the approach of the Heidelberg Catechism.

That leaves us with a question that is frequently raised in connection with Sunday labor. What about people such as doctors and nurses, policemen and the like? Are not these necessary labors, to be conducted then also on Sunday? The church has always recognized the permissibility of works of necessity. By Christ’s own example and teaching, works of necessity, are permissible on the Sabbath. But what are works of necessity?

A few years ago in The Grand Rapids Press[1] a member of the Christian Reformed Church had a lawsuit filed on her behalf by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against a well-known Midwest retailer, Meijer Incorporated. Debra Kerkstra had been fired after refusing to work on a Sunday. She had apparently been hired even though she had told management that she did not want to work Sundays. But a year later, a new boss gave her a Sunday shift. When she didn’t report to work as scheduled, she was suspended for three days and eventually fired. The government’s lawsuit against Meijer contended that “companies must try to accommodate the religious practices of workers as a result of a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

But the facts of the case are not so much my interest. What I found of particular interest in the Press article was the account of the reporter’s interview with Dr. Henry De Moor, who was and still is professor of church polity at Calvin Theological Seminary. According to the Press article,

...Henry ‘DeMoor said the church has long recognized Sunday as a day of worship free from “servile works” except those involving charity and necessity.

“There would be considerable sympathy for her among a number of Christian Reformed people,” said DeMoor, an expert in church polity.

“But in view of current society, it’s hard for me to embrace that principle,” he said. “If every Christian insisted we’re not going to work on Sunday, I suspect there wouldn’t be enough people to do the work.

“Ethically, a better position might be to tell church elders they work one Sunday a month. If they say they are conscious of the Fourth Commandment and honor it as much as they can, I’m sure elders would be satisfied,” DeMoor said.

Are all works, then, now to be considered works of necessity? If all businesses are open on Sunday, is accommodation to those practices to be considered necessary?

Again, Scripture is our guide here. The Lord’s disciples picked a few ears of corn so they could eat. Jesus justified that act as a work of necessity (Matthew 12:1-4). He Himself healed on the Sabbath. These were works of mercy. In Matthew 12:5 He spoke of the labors of the priests in the temple, Sabbath labors, and found them blameless. Theirs were works of ministry, a work in the service of God and His people. These categories of Sunday labor are permissible, but these only. But even these works ought necessarily to be kept to a minimum, in order not to keep us from the regular spiritual nourishment necessary for us, that which we obtain in the house of worship under the ministry of the gospel and by the use of the sacraments. That is not only our need, but our desire. So we join the psalmist (Psalm 84:2), “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.”

Footnotes

1. Ed White, The Grand Rapids Press, Monday, December 9, 2002
   - back to article -