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Empathy and the Clowns (Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #3)

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INTRODUCTION

Many Christian parents are aware of the fact that the outside world is hostile to our faith, and as a consequence is hostile to the approach we must take in bringing our children up in that faith. We are usually aware of the fact of the hostility, but we are frequently unaware of the root of that hostility. What it is that is necessitating such a radical clash? Why is it that everything seems to have come unstuck?

THE TEXT

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children” (Ephesians 5:1, NKJV). 

“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13–14). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

One of the central ways that children learn is through imitation. This is natural and is built into the very fabric of the created order. Because God has adopted us as His children, we have been brought into the family and household of God (John 1:13; Eph. 2:19). In our first text (Eph. 5:1), we are told to imitate God as His dearly beloved children. Now we know that, in the very nature of the case, we can never duplicate what God is and does. But we are nevertheless commanded to imitate it. Our imitation of Him should naturally carry over into how we care for our own children. He has children, and we should imitate Him in how He treats them. 

Our second text provides us with one point where such imitation will be most fruitful (Ps. 103:13-14). A good father pities his children, and God is just like this also. He too pities His children, showing tender care to those who fear Him. He knows and understands our frame. He is fully aware of our frailty. He remembers that we are but dust. And in just the same way, good and godly parents are sympathetically aware of their children’s frame. Godly parents have sympathy. 

SYMPATHY & EMPATHY

So I used the word sympathy just now, and we must begin distinguishing it from the therapeutic uses of empathy. The word sympathy is of ancient use, and it means to “feel together with.” We have a sympathetic high priest in the Lord Jesus, for example. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling [sympatheo] of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). And we as Christians are commanded to be sympathetic: “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion [sympathes] one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous” (1 Peter 3:8). 

But the word empathy is of relatively recent coinage, and it is used in two ways. One is the man-in-the-street approach, which simply uses empathy as a synonym for sympathy. That’s okay, no bones were broken, and we shouldn’t freak out about it. 

However the other use of empathy is the use that is currently destroying Western Civilization, and is filled with toxic hatred of all that is good. As you are bringing your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, this is the central threat that your children will face. This is what you must protect them from. It is the central danger.

This is empathy as it is being employed by the therapeutic professionals, and their use has worked its way into our laws, our customs, our HR departments, the media, and our courts. Empathy demands that we feel with others without making any judgments about them or their behavior whatever. Their feelings are to be considered paramount, and no questions asked. And if you do not provide this unconditional empathy, on demand, it must be because you are a hater. 

Here is how we may distinguish the two concepts. If a man is drowning in the river, and as he floats by, you throw him a rope, while remaining firmly on the bank yourself, that’s sympathy. If a man is drowning in the river, and as he floats by, you take a header in alongside him so that you might drown together with him, that’s empathy. The difference lies in this—with sympathy, there is an objective solution outside of, and independent of, the person’s feelings. With empathy, those feelings are the only reality that may be considered.  

WHAT THE TRUE DANGER IS

For the sake of clarity, let us call this sort of toxic empathy untethered empathy. But this raises a question. The pathos, the feeling that the person has, is untethered from what? The answer comes at us forcefully, and with the hard and bitter logic of the outer darkness. Feelings, in this understanding, are untethered from absolutely everything else.

This therapeutic heresy, which has insisted on this radical emotional autonomy, has resulted in absolutely incoherent phrases like “my truth.” The demand to untether this way has been a demand, in effect, to “make reality optional.” And it was not long after that when the focus of that coercion shifted and became “make such denials of reality mandatory.” This is the foundation that the pronoun madness rests upon. This is the cornerstone of all the transgender confusion. Take this disordered empathy away, and clown world disappears. Remove the fuel and the fire goes out.  

GRACIOUS TETHERING

What clown world in its lusts is seeking to detach us from—the fixed nature of absolutes—we as believers must be doggedly intent on embracing. “I cling to Your testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame!” (Psalm 119:31). The key word there is cling. All the things the worldlings are jettisoning, we must tether ourselves to. And what is that? Perhaps the word tether is too weak. How about weld?

God is the immutable one. God is a rock and His works are perfect (Dt. 32:4). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Second, His Word reflects the constancy of His character. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8). And third, the objective world reflects the character of God as well. “You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever” (Psalm 104:5). God created nature such that it has a nature. 

And this is why your child’s feelings must be taught to obey God, to obey His Word, and to obey His world. This is why we must obey our chromosomes. This is why we must disobey the pronoun madness.

If you are distraught in the course of bringing up children in this bedlam, and you have come to see empathy as a ravening monster, which it is, take heart. Your rescuer, your savior, your deliverer from this monster is sympathy. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with [sympathy for] our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Always remember you have Christ.

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Biblical Child Discipline in an Age of Therapeutic Goo #2

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INTRODUCTION

In order to work through a series of messages on parenting, it is necessary to pay some attention to the parents. The parents are the ones doing the work, and the quality of the participle (parenting) is going to be dependent on the quality of the source. If the parent is foolish, so will the parenting be. If the parent is dictatorial, so will the parenting be. If the parent is wise, so will the parenting be. So rather than turning immediately to the interactions between parent and child, it is necessary to look first at the relationship between parent and God. 

THE TEXT

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:1–3). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Every Christian, regardless of their station, needs to present their bodies (and whatever their bodies do) as a living sacrifice to God. Your bed is an altar, your car is an altar, your chair at the dinner table is an altar, and from that place, all day long, you present your body and whatever your body is doing as a sacrifice to God (v. 1). This would include speaking to your children, and disciplining them. What you do here needs to be acceptable to God, and a reasonable act of worship. We are created as conforming creatures, and so it is not a matter of whether we will conform to a pattern, but rather which pattern we will conform to. Paul says here that it is not to be the pattern assigned by the world (v. 2), but rather that we be transformed through the renewal of the mind, conforming to the entire goodness of the will of God (v. 2). And then we come to the place where we see how it all plays out. It plays out in what we think of ourselves. Do not think of yourself more highly than you should (v. 3), but rather to think of yourselves in a God-given and sensible (sophroneo) way (v. 3).

THREE KINDS OF PARENTS

Parents are assigned the rule of their children. Children are instructed, for example, to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1). They are told that they must honor their parents (Eph. 6:2). They are told that their responsibilities to their parents do change over time, but some sort of responsibility is always there (Mark 7:10-11). We can see if we put all this together that parents are assigned the rule of their children as they grow. This being the case, we can divide parents into the three broad categories of rulers that we find in Scripture. 

A ruler can be foolish and indulgent (Prov. 25:5). A ruler can be foolish and dictatorial (Ecc. 4:13). And a ruler can be wise and prudent (Prov. 20:26). Bringing this down into the micro-kingdom of the home, parents can be indulgent, parents can be tyrannical, and parents can be authoritative. In the nature of the case, the wise parents will be humble, and therefore not that sure about how wise they are being. The dictatorial parent thinks he is simply being firm, and the indulgent parent thinks she is simply being kind. But no one should think of themselves more highly than they should. 

And remember our propensity to guard against the sin we are least likely to fall into. The indulgent parent is all on his guard against tyranny, and the tyrannical father is being very careful to not be too soft. Remember this observation from Screwtape: “The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”

WHY NOT ASK?

At this point it is easy to throw up your hands in mock despair, and lament the fact that this is so hard to figure out. But perhaps the problem is not that it is too hard to figure out, but rather that we are too hard to want to figure it out. Lewis again:

“It is no good passing this over with some vague, general · admission such as ‘Of course, I know I have my faults.’ It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you . . . But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t ‘take it’ . . . And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, ‘I admit I lost my temper last night’; but the others know that you’re always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person” (The Trouble With X). 

Why not ask? First, ask God to reveal where you actually are on this map. Are you indulgent? Are you harsh? Are you kind and wise? “Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24). And then, having humbled yourself this way, ask one further thing from God. Ask Him to speak to through your family and friends. Then go to them and tell them to please be straight with you. If they are critical, you promise not to get angry or to go weird on them. “Would you describe me as an indulgent parent, a harsh parent, or a wise and kind parent?” Do not do this with one person and then go put their opinion in the bank. Ask 5 to 10 people, and see if you start to notice a pattern. 

LOVE IS

As you evaluate the “parenting” that is going on in your home, do not attempt to tinker with the fruit. All the attention should be given to the tree.

“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17–18). 

And if the examination brings you to a point of humiliation and regret, take it as God’s kindness to you. “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: And let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head” (Psalm 141:5). Do not despair, and do not drop your name into that glorious passage in 1 Cor. 13, in order to overwhelm yourself with a sense of your sinfulness. No . . . put Christ’s name in there, and use that passage to look to Him. 

“Christ suffereth long, and is kind; Christ envieth not; Christ vaunteth not Himself, is not puffed up, doth not behave Himself unseemly, seeketh not His own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7). 

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Reformational Family (What is “Reformed” Anyway? #5) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

We live in a world that says you can be anything you want, anything at all – the more bizarre and perverse the better, just don’t be an ordinary, faithful man who marries an ordinary faithful woman, and have a pile of happy, ordinary kids and love and serve the Lord together. Anything but that. And the mischievous Tom Sawyer inside you should grin and say, “Well, now I’m going to normal even harder.”

A significant part of the Protestant Reformation was a recovering of the Bible’s teaching concerning the goodness and power of marriage, children, and family. Celibacy had come to be seen as the “higher calling,” and the duties and responsibilities of family as therefore lower and menial. The devil has always sought to lure people away from the glory of marriage and family precisely because when God’s blessing is upon it, it is such potent goodness. 

The Text: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him…” (Gen. 2:18-25)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In a striking contrast to all the “good” that God has made/seen before, God says it is “not good” for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). This is not merely a statement about bachelors, it is also a statement about the goodness of family and community. The process of naming the animals was educational: Adam was naming their attributes and learning about how God made the world, concluding in part that other creatures had mates, which he lacked (Gen. 2:19-20). So God put Adam in a coma, removed a rib, and constructed the woman from the rib and brought her to Adam (Gen. 2:21-22). Using a Hebrew superlative, Adam spoke the first recorded poem, calling her the best version of his flesh and bones (Gen. 2:23). He also names the woman “eeshah” which is related to the word for “fire,” suggesting glory, and he simultaneously renames himself “eesh,” a glorified-man. For this reason, a man leaves his father and mother and becomes one flesh with his wife, and this union has no shame (Gen. 2:24-25). 

NUCLEAR MARRIAGE

It is perilously easy to take some ordinary things for granted. But one of the ways God tries to get our attention is through death penalties. Modern Christians are sometimes tempted to be embarrassed of the death penalties in Scripture for rebellious sons, adultery, or homosexuality, but even Jesus cited the death penalty for a certain high-handed dishonor of parents (Mk. 7). If you met the CEO of a nuclear power plant, and he told you they just “wing it,” you would be understandably concerned. If your neighbors announced one day that they bought some uranium and plutonium off the internet and they were going to be doing some experiments in their basement, you would be very concerned. And it should not give you any pause, when they ask why you care so much about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. 

We are living in the nuclear fallout of the sexual revolution. Skyrocketing crime, mass incarceration, substance abuse, suicide, sexual abuse, and 65 million dead babies and counting is our Chernobyl. It is not whether there will be death penalties. The only question is who will be executed. We have not actually repudiated capital punishment; we have simply reassigned it to the most innocent. While the death penalty is only mandatory for murder, other crimes do approach that harm to the image of God and therefore allow for death as a possible maximum sentence. And many of those crimes center on the destruction of marriage and family because that is where people are being made: immortal souls, images of God, that will live forever. 

REFORMED MARRIAGE

A reformed view of marriage understands the gift of marriage to be a great “good,” not an accommodation to human sin or weakness (Gen. 1-2). Sin certainly adds many difficulties, but marriage, sexual intimacy, and the fruitfulness of children were gifts given before the Fall. A reformed view of marriage also affirms the creational good of the original structure of marriage: the woman was made from the man and for the man, and she is therefore, the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:1-12). Closely related is the sacrificial leadership of the husband and the respectful submission of the wife to her own husband (cf. Eph. 5:22-25). All of this is bound by a covenant, enacted by public vows and sealed with sexual union, recognized by God and blessed by Him (Gen. 1:28, Mal. 2:14). This is why a man must love his wife as his own body. God really does make the two into one covenant body, and therefore what a husband/father does impacts everything. The covenant is a multiplier for good or evil. While each member certainly is responsible before God individually, the head is also responsible for the whole body. 

APPLICATIONS

One of the “doctrines of devils” is “forbidding to marry” (1 Tim. 4:3). And sometimes this happens through a kind of hardening that simply rejects the natural use of men/women (Rom. 1:26-27). Therefore, beware of celibacy movements. Nevertheless, encourage singles in chastity and faithfulness even as they bear this hardship. Related, generally aim for earlier marriage, but don’t overshoot. Just because early 20s is good, doesn’t mean that 17 is better. It is not buying into worldly feminism to want your sons and daughters actually prepared for marriage. 

To the married: do not deprive one another sexually (1 Cor. 7:3). There are relatively few warnings about Satan’s attacks, but regular intimacy is one way to guard against them (1 Cor. 7:5). The marriage bed is honorable and undefiled (Heb. 13:4). The Song of Songs is in the Bible.

Children are reinforcements (Ps. 127). Welcome and celebrate children. But a man with five kids and a wife who has had three miscarriages in a row is not necessarily becoming worldly to decide (humanly speaking) to be done having kids. But this is a private decision. So mind your own business, and husbands love your wives as you consider your resources (Lk. 14:31).

Every covenant brings with it blessings and curses. The central thing that God blesses is faith, but this faith is alive and it obeys. And therefore the instructions to family members are not arbitrary. Husbands love and lead like Christ. Wives respect and obey in the Lord. Parents teach and discipline. Children obey. The stakes are very high, but the blessings are very rich. 

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Christian Conversation (Troy)

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SERMON TEXT

Proverbs 12:18

INTRODUCTION

As human beings there are many things that differentiate us from the animals. First and foremost, we are made in the image of god. Our penchant for creativity and our desire to invent is derived from this. We make things, design things, prototype things, tweak, bend, and reassess. And we end up with something on our work bench or computer screen or cast iron skillet that didn’t exist the day before. We have flesh like the animals, but we also have a soul. We have been given a conscience, and an innate sense of our place in the universe. And I also think that most men are aware that our purpose in this life has something to do with each other. 

PART I – NEGATIVE TENDENCIES IN CONVERSATION

  1. Complaining

Whether you go to school, work in a corporate environment, own your own business, or you’re a stay at home wife, you can always find common ground in a conversation by complaining about something or someone. Relating to one another is fundamental to relationships. We want people to celebrate our successes, empathize with our struggles, and feel sorry for our losses. But we as human beings are inclined to focus on the negative. 

  1. Corrupt Speech

Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths.” I don’t think we as Christians have much difficulty discerning what is wholesome and what is unwholesome in our speech. The difficulty is restraining the tongue in the first place. For most people the latency between saying something stupid and realizing it was stupid is low. How we all wish we had the ability to instantly retract a statement said in haste. In many cases, saying nothing at all would be an improvement. 

  1. Gossip

Proverbs 20:19 says, “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.” The ESV puts it this way, “Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.” Walter Winchell once said, “Gossip is the art of saying nothing, in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.” Again, there is subtlety here. God isn’t placing a cap on the amount of words we can use in a single day. Some people talk more, some people talk less. And talking about a person when they are not there is not inherently sinful either. The content of what we say is the issue. Does the information spread stop with you? Or, are you ground zero?

PART II – POSITIVE INTERSPERSIONS 

  1. Listen and Build Up

We are to say only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. If our tongue has a tendency to be divisive, cutting, disrespectful, or full of lies, then getting it to do the opposite, encourage, complement, assist, inspire, teach. This is going to be an enormous undertaking, that will require discipline, hard work, rigor, restraint and most of all prayer. As much as we would like to saddle a wild horse and ride into the sunset, the reality is, it’s not going to co-operate until we take the time to break the horse.

  1. Season with Salt

Matthew Henry said, “We are to make our conversation savory and palatable to others, so that it may be profitable to them.” We’ve all known the argumentative person who uses browbeating as a conversational cudgel. We know what it’s like to speak to someone who has no patience or is forceful. And if we don’t like it, what makes us think that the unbeliever will be attracted to it? We must be kind and gentle and loving.

  1. Slow to Speak, Quick to Listen

Ecclesiastes 5 says, “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” And from Proverbs 10, “Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.” And from James 1, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Whatever your opinions are about Elon Musk, It cannot be denied that he is a dynamic figure on the world stage. One thing that I’ve noticed about him, is that when he is questioned in an interview, he often will not respond right away. Sometimes the pause is so long that it’s a bit awkward. But the silence communicates a few things. It says, “I’m thinking about your question. I’m thinking about the best way to phrase my answer, I’m thinking about the implications of my answer, and I’m more concerned about giving your question the attention it deserves than I am about not appearing socially awkward.

  1. Address Each Other with Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

I commend to you the practice of memorizing scripture, but I am also quite happy to say the obvious, some verses we should prioritize. I’m not saying don’t memorize Nehemiah, it’s the word of God too, but Paul specifically says, “Address one another with these songs.”

  1. Be Gentle

Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” If you were to ask a Christian, “Who do you love the most?” The answer would be, “My wife, husband, my children, my parents.” And yet, the most vitriolic statements of anger and rage are often reserved for these relationships, the people you love the most.

CONCLUSION

As we draw to a close, I’d like to encourage you in one more aspect of Christian conversation. And that is, to initiate a conversation. There are families that are new to the area. Let’s reach out and make them feel welcome. Some of them have no family nearby. There was a time when we first moved here to Troy, there was no one out here and we went through periods of loneliness. We had no family and didn’t know anyone. If we went through it, maybe somebody else is going through it. If we see a new face on Sunday morning, let’s be sure to greet them. Send texts to your friends. Ask them how they’re doing. Let them know you’re praying for them. Call your mother. Facetime your sister. If you say you’re going to call someone back, do it. If you say you’ll text someone later, keep your word.

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Why We Worship On Sunday (CCD)

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INTRODUCTION

With a handful of exceptions, Christians are overwhelmingly united in their willingness to worship God on the first day of the week. After all, we have been doing this for two thousand years, and we are rarely questioned about it. Why not just go with the flow? The answer to that question is that we should want to be deliberate Christians in everything we offer up to God. We never want to be guilty of the “will worship” that Paul condemns in Col. 2:23. We are constrained to offer to God what He requires of us, and not anything else. So why do we worship on the first day of the week? Why didn’t the Church remain with the seventh-day Sabbath of the Jews?

 THE TEXT

“Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come” (1 Corinthians 16:1–2). 

SUMARY OF THE TEXT

Paul is reminding the Corinthians about his directives for how they are to gather up the collection for the saints in Jerusalem. He is doing with them just as he did with the saints in churches throughout Galatia (v. 1). The Corinthians were to take up their collection in same fashion as did the Galatians. But how was that? The first thing to note is that Paul was authoritatively requiring them to do it in a particular way. On the first day of the week, everyone was to set aside a particular amount, as God had blessed him. This had to have been a collection at church because otherwise the problem that Paul was trying to avoid (“no gatherings when I come”) would not have been avoided at all. But thing about this passage that should interest us is how Paul describes Sunday. Many modern translations simply say “first day of the week,” but this is misleading. The phrase literally is mian sabbatou—“first [day] Sabbath.”

WHAT IS THE WORD FOR WEEK?

In Greek, the usual word for week is hebdomas. The common rendering of mian sabbatou as “first day of the week” appears to be taking “sabbath” as a synecdoche, taking the part for the whole—as in, “many hands make light work.” But this seems strained to me, especially considering the fact that the gospel writers appear to be using the phrase to point to something really significant about the importance of the resurrection.

Here are some literal renderings [Kayser]: “Now after the Sabbath, as the first [day] Sabbath began to dawn” (Matt. 28:1). “Now when the Sabbath was past . . .  very early in the morning, on the first [day] Sabbath, they came to the tomb” (Mark 16:1-2, 9). “Now on the first [day] Sabbath, at early dawn, they came to the tomb” (Luke 24:1). “Now on the first [day] Sabbath Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early” (John 20:1).

We worship God the Father in the authority of the resurrected Son in the power of His Spirit, and we do this on the first day of the week. And yet, a very common greeting that we use is happy Sabbath, and we call our preparatory meals Sabbath meals. This is no extension from our theology. The New Testament repeatedly calls the first day of the week a Sabbath. It is God’s way of marking how He made all things new in the resurrection of Christ (Rev. 1:10; 21:5). Sunday really is a Sabbath. 

 AND SO CHRIST RESTED

Read through Hebrews 4 very carefully. We should take care not to fail to enter God’s rest in the way the Israelites in the wilderness failed to enter it. Faith is the way to enter (Heb. 4:1-3). God’s works were finished at the foundation of the world, and then He rested. But then, centuries after that, He said that faithless ones would never enter His rest, in just the same way that faithless Israelites had not entered His rest (vv. 3-5). This means that coming into His rest is still an open invitation—“it remains for some to enter.” So God in His mercy has again appointed a certain day, calling it Today. Do not harden your hearts as His voice comes to you Today (vv. 6-7). If Joshua had accomplished this through the invasion of Canaan, God would never have spoken of another day after that (v. 8). And this is why . . .

“There remaineth therefore a rest (sabbatismos) to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9–10).

Who is being referred to here with the pronouns of v. 10? It cannot be referring to some discouraged Pharisee, finally giving up on his vain works, and then entering into a holy rest. That is nothing at all like God creating the world and then resting—and that is the explicit comparison that is made. So what is like that? Just as God created the world in six days and then rested, so also Christ recreated heaven and earth in three days and nights, and then He entered His rest. And that is why Christians still have a sabbath-rest, which is on our first-day Sabbath. 

Let us therefore labor to enter into that resurrection-rest (v. 11). Let us not fail to enter into resurrection-Sunday rest the way the Jews fell short in the wilderness. Why is that? The eighth day, the first day of the week, the first day Sabbath, is the glorious Today. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.   

FROM THE BEGINNING

The Epistle of Barnabas (c. 100 AD) says this: “You see how he says, ‘The present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but the Sabbath which I have made in which, when I have rested from all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another world.’ Wherefore we Christians keep the eighth day for joy, on which also Jesus arose from the dead.”

In the first giving of the Ten Commandments, the reason for sabbath observance was the creation of the world in six days and rest on the seventh (Ex. 20:11). In the second giving of the Ten Commandments, the reason given has been changed. It was now because of the Exodus from Egypt (Dt. 5:15). In the third giving of the Ten Commandments, we are reminded that the resurrection of Christ changed absolutely everything (Rom. 13:9-10; 14:9). This is because Christ is all. Christ is our creation-rest. Christ is our Exodus-rest. Christ is our resurrection-rest. And this means that Christ is the foundation stone for every successive first-day Sabbath. 

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