Joel Beeke on Today’s Sabbath Observance – Or Lack Thereof

In his book, Puritan Reformed Spirituality: A Practical Theological Study from our Puritan and Reformed Heritage (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2006), Joel Beeke writes about “The Didactic Use of the Law” and provides a case study in the Fourth Commandment.  He begins by explaining the worldwide observance of a high view of the Sabbath after the clear articulation of the Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 21), yet has this to say regarding how and why today’s scene is much different than centuries before.

Today’s scene presents a vastly altered aspect.  The forces of secularization and the rise of the leisure culture, obsessed with pursuing recreations of all kinds, have extinguished concern for Sabbath observance in the general population.  Even more tragic is the steady erosion of conviction on the part of Christians.  The great damage was done by modernism’s attack on the authority of Scripture, thus undermining and overthrowing all biblical norms for living.  However, Fundamentalism must also bear its share of the blame.  Under the influence of Dispensationalism, a growing antinomianism developed in the most conservative circles of American Christians.  The Old Testament in general, and the moral law in particular, came to be regarded as monuments of a bygone era.  The result has been wholesale destruction of conviction regarding the Sabbath, even among Presbyterians who subscribe to the Westminster Standards–notwithstanding the jarring inconsistency involved! (112).

Indeed, today’s scene is much different.  Although honoring the Lord’s Day and relevance of the Fourth Commandment is unpopular in our leisure culture, Beeke summarizes the doctrine of the Sabbath in a very clear and convincing way.

The Sabbath stands as an institution as one as creation itself.  It belongs to the order of things as they were at the beginning, before man’s fall into sin.  It is as universal as any other creation ordinance, holding the promise of blessing for all mankind.  The promise of redemption and its fulfillment only add to the significance of the Sabbath as a day to be observed by the redeemed of the Lord.  The Sabbath is a sign of the promise of redemption, both in its fulfillment now, and also the consummation which is yet to be.  It is God’s day, a holy day–a day for Christians to keep holy (115).

I agree.