Introduction

Looking back over another year causes us to think about history and our place in it. Last week we stressed that a critical perspective for us is to think about and firmly focus God's great goal of history, which is His own glory. Recall the children's catechism in this regard: who made you and all things? God made all things and me. Why did God make you and all things? For His own glory. He made all things and me for Himself for His glory into the unending ages to come (Rom. 11:36).

A good question in this connection is the practical question: how do I glorify God? For one answer to this question I direct you to the sermon I preached on "Fulfilling Our Chief End" (given 1-7-2001, see the sermon index of our Web page). In that sermon I stress that we glorify God by prayer, the law, love, and confession. I recommend it for further "how to's" on glorifying God.

Today, I want to direct your attention to the law and to a specific law as we combine the great goal of history with wisdom in the process of history. By the process I refer to the weekly nature of history. I refer to the weekly 6-1 pattern.

We are wise and build our lives on a solid rock when we set our lives in accord with the pattern given to us by our covenant Lord. My title for this morning is "The Covenantal Six and One." I have two major points: the 6-1 as covenant obligation and the 6-1 in covenant fulfillment.

1A. The 6-1 as covenant obligation (definition then biblical support)

1B. Definition (to define, describe, and comment)

We should define what is meant by the six and one pattern. It is very easy to state but it gets complicated due to the range of relevant passages in both OT and NT (sheer scope plus antithetic texts) and due to our narrowness of heart in living under God as our covenant Lord.

Simply stated, the six and one pattern is the obligation we have to structure our lives on this earth in the pattern of six days of work and one day of rest.

We are obligated to sanctify a particular day on the calendar. It is the day that God calls His own. The sanctified day sets the cycle in motion. Keeping that day holy is not optional. It is for the people of God as a whole, for the whole day, and within the context of the whole law.

From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week ever since, to continue to the end of the world, with is the Christian Sabbath (A59).

Another way of saying this is to speak in terms of the wineskin analogy. There is still a wineskin (housing, structure, law, and the 4^th commandment) but it must be a new wineskin because promise has given way to fulfillment in Christ. Therefore, the law that housed and structured OT Sabbath keeping in the age of promise continues to abide in the age of fulfillment. But it necessarily abides in a new form because the new wine in Christ will cause old wineskins to burst. So the seventh day memorial continues in the new fulfillment form of the first day. There is a change from a Jewish to a Christian Sabbath.

Here we acknowledge that Christ is the Lord of our time as Owner of all time. We look to Him to set our days in order. He commands the 6-1 so we seek to fulfill a 6-1 for His sake. It means that every day belongs to the Lord and we best acknowledge that fact and submit to it when we obey the Lord by organizing our lives under the 6-1 umbrella He has ordained for us. The 6-1 means that the basic and usual pattern is that we do our work on the six days and that we rest on the one day He has appointed. He sets the pattern not us and not our autonomous desires and goals.

The six days are Monday to Saturday and the one day is Sunday. It is wise (godly), God-glorifying, and for our benefit that we view time in this way and seek to so live out our days. The 6-1 includes work as the fundamental focus of the six days in which work is our worship and where we work is the temple of the Lord. It also includes worship as the primary focus of the one day (Sunday) in which worship is our work. We are to rest in the work of worship from our work as worship. Thus there is no sacred/secular distinction here. Every day belongs to the Lord, is sacred, and comes under God's commandment and order.

We are deceived and deceiving ourselves if we think that we need Sunday as a catch up day for whatever is left over from our six days of work. We need what God knows we need. We need what God commands for our good and His glory. The 6-1 is for our good.

Granted in this definition, Sunday may properly include works of necessity, piety, and mercy. These are good and proper exceptions to the rule. Being exceptional does not make them less godly or less noble. But having these exceptions accents the normative. We must seek to order our lives in the pattern of working six days and resting one day incorporating works of necessity, piety, and mercy into the day according to our gifts, callings, and circumstances under God's good providence. Thus Sunday for me is a day of intense and concentrated works of piety. It takes work to bring the preparation for preaching to fulfillment on Sunday morning. There are times when our employment may necessitate Sunday labor. And we are glad to work with a neighbor fixing a flat tire on Sunday. Such works of piety, necessity, and mercy are good and proper and are fulfilled by each one of us in heart attitude and outward action as the Lord directs our lives by His providence.

The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy (A60).

There is a liberty of conscience in the application of the 6-1. Our consciences are bound to God's word and that is where preaching must direct us.

Finally in the way of definition, let me accent the covenant aspect. The 6-1 pattern is a matter of covenant keeping. This has two basic dimensions. On one hand it is a covenant that God has given; it is a promise. I will say more about this under biblical support but for now we need to take note of the fact that the 6-1 structure of our temporal existence is a promise. It is a promise of God. On the other hand it is a duty we have to God. His promise brings with it obligation. Thus, it is a structure of life that involves a covenant relationship with God: in it He covenants with us and we covenant with Him. It is this aspect of the covenant that I want to stress as we look at the biblical support.

2B. Biblical Support of the 6-1 as a covenant obligation

It is a perpetual covenant obligation for man as the image of God.

1) Look with me at Genesis 1:1-2:3. From the very beginning of history, God set this pattern in place for man His image bearer, male and female. It is as binding for all time as is marriage. It is a creation ordinance. It is an obligation that pertains to man as man or as male and female. Just as monogamous marriage (one husband with one wife in a covenant of companionship for life) has always been man's duty to his Creator, likewise, working in a cycle of six days and resting on the seventh of each cycle has always been man's duty to his Creator.

God has made covenant in the 6-1 pattern. Here we are given a six and one cycle in which each week moves toward a goal of rest. The rest is with God in His rest. God rested on the seventh day of the first cycle of earth history. Resting in this way He inaugurated His providential rule over history as Sabbath King (cf. Isa. 66:1-2, it is a king that sits on the throne of the heavens with His feet propped up on the earth ruling all He created).

He honored the day (Gen. 2:2). Therefore, we ought to honor it as well. By His creative action, He gave us a pattern to follow as a philosophy of history in miniature (wisdom for life in history) by what He did in the first week of history. Man is directed to work like God worked and then to rest like God. But it is not an isolated rest on man's part. Instead, it is rest with God because God's rest continues. When we make our way through the six days and finally come to the day of rest, He is there already. So each week man is to enter into rest with God in His rest. Each week man is to enter the rest of worship of his Creator and Sovereign/Sabbath King.

But this obligation to enter into rest with God in His rest (a great privilege/obligation) carries with it a promise regarding history in its weekly unfolding. Consider how the promise emerges in this context. Adam and Eve were placed in history with a future to be reached by covenant obedience. They were subject to death if they disobeyed and thus were promised eternal life in the way of covenant keeping (cf. eating of the tree of life, Gen. 3:22).

Therefore, the rest that is promised at the end of each week (rest with the Lord) stretches across all the 6-1's of history showing us that the end of history as a whole is rest with God in His rest. Consider the unfolding of work to rest, work to rest that shows that history is a process of work that leads to rest. So the end of all the work of all of history is rest, eternal rest.

This is eternal life, eternal rest with God as Sabbath King. Thus, covenant obedience to the 6-1 pattern is part and parcel of a covenant relationship in which God promises rest at the end of history. Obedience has the remarkable context of promise; it is clothed with promise!

2) The writer of the book of Hebrews explicitly cites these implications. Speaking of God's rest that was promised the Israelites in Joshua's day (Heb. 3:17-18; 4:8) and David's day (Heb. 4:3, 7), the writer indicates that the promise that still stands is rooted in Genesis 2:2 (Heb. 4:1, 3b-4). Thus we know that a Sabbath observance remains for the people of God (Heb. 4:9).

Does this refer to daily faith rest, weekly Sabbath rest, or to final rest in glory? We have to answer that the writer refers to all three. Here is why. a) First, believers enter promised rest (4:3). This is a faith rest like entering or not entering the Promised Land (4:6). b) Second, even the rest that Joshua entered by faith was not the rest promised it was not final rest; there is another day (4:8). Thus there is a future accent in Hebrews 4:9, the future promised in the seventh day sign (4:1, 3-4). c) Third, all is cemented together by a principle of typology. Since the anti-type of eternal Sabbath rest is still out in front of us, then the weekly Sabbath type continues as a promise of ultimate rest. The seventh day has been pointing to eternal rest since creation week. Eternal rest is not yet. So the seventh day sign continues to point ahead. It is a covenant.

Thus, we have rest in Christ daily by faith. We enter weekly Sabbath rest by faith. And we enter eternal rest by faith. Thus a Sabbath keeping/covenant obligation remains for the people of God by faith in living each day of the week. A Sabbath keeping continues in a special way by faith on the seventh day in six and one pattern. And in the consummation we shall enter into eternal Sabbath rest (cf. the promise-fulfillment argument for Christian Sabbath worship in "God's Rest and Ours," 2-18-2001).

3) Jesus is now our Sabbath King

As Son of Man, He is Lord of the Sabbath (Mk. 2:28). This perpetual obligation to Jehovah God to set aside a day that distinctively belongs to Him as Sabbath King is now a continuing covenant obligation to the Lord Jesus. God's day is now Jesus' day. The Lord's Holy Day of the old covenant (Isa. 58:13) is now the Lord's Day of the new covenant (Rev. 1:10). He is Lord of the Sabbath and as Lord of the Sabbath He has defined its true spirit and depth for the church (Matt. 12:1-13, etc.) and He has changed the day from the Saturday to Sunday.

To highlight in brief, consider the answer to this question: What about the fact that nowhere does Jesus or the apostles say: "we now have the Sabbath on Sunday"? Here is a short answer: it is like the truth of the trinity. Nowhere does Jesus or the apostles say, "we now have the truth of the trinity that God is three persons but one essence." How was the doctrine of the trinity revealed? It was revealed by redemptive deed or action: the Father sent the Son who was God with us, and the Son sent God the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Likewise, the new day of worship was given to the church by Jesus as His day; He did this by rising from the dead on the first day of the week and distinctively revealing Himself to the church in stages on that day. This is highlighted when the Gospel writers stress the day of the resurrection (cf. Jn. 20:1, 19). We discover that the day of the resurrection is vitally important. It is stressed that the early church gathered for worship on that day gradually leaving Saturday worship behind as they moved forward in Sunday worship (they did both for a time). It simply emerges by the action of Christ. A new owner modifies the 6-1 pattern that abides throughout history.

Furthermore, consider the fact that Jesus, as incarnate Son of Man, did not exercise Sabbath Lordship over the 6-1 pattern for only the days of His humiliation. In a profound sense He became covenant Lord of the Sabbath by the resurrection (Acts 2:32, 36). He therefore now rules over the seventh day of the 6-1 pattern on Sunday, which was His inaugural day of Sabbath Lordship over the accomplished work of redemption (parallel with God's accomplished work of creation).

Thus far we have defined and given biblical support for the point that the 6-1 involves covenant obligation. It is covenant and it involves obligation. Let's turn now to covenant fulfillment.

2A. The 6-1 in Covenant fulfillment (encouraged and applied)

1B. Covenant fulfillment encouraged in our work and our rest

1) We are encouraged to work

Whether we work for money or not, we have work to do in the six days. We are encouraged to this work by the sacredness that derives from God's example. We are encouraged in our work, in the work of work. Work is given a dignity.

Thus we are encouraged in our work and in the days of life unfolding before our very eyes (sometimes too quickly it seems, so much to do so little time). We are given hope in our work for we know that we labor not in vain and that one day our labor on earth will come to rest, to eternal Sabbath rest with our living Lord Jesus. Each weekly Sabbath rest anticipates that final rest at the end of history. The good aroma I get from beer, wine, and coffee does not follow through for me in reality. This is like a foretaste but it disappoints. But God will not disappoint us. His promise is sure. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the covenant will not disappoint us. He will keep His word. What we taste of now each Christian Sabbath Rest is a foretaste of heavenly joy and rejoicing in the celebration of prodigals brought home from the far country to glory. So we are encouraged to look ahead with great hope and to taste now of the heavenly good yet to come.

We are encouraged to work six days because in this way we glorify God as His redeemed image bearers. In this way we are like Him, we reflect His image, and we thus glorify our Father in heaven.

In summary, work is therefore put into perspective. To work is to be like God, to be godly. Work has a sacredness and dignity. It is under girded with hope and it is a very direct means of glorifying God. Covenant obedience and fulfillment is encouraged across the six days of our workweek by the six and one pattern.

2) We are encouraged to rest

What a marvelous goal to have at the end of each week: to rest with God on the Lord's Day. I speak of weekly Sabbath fulfillment in joy and anticipation, in joyful anticipation in the presence of the Lord (with Him in His rest).

We are encouraged to worship the Lord Jesus in this way. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. That is a profound fact. The Lord's first day (Sunday) is God's seventh day because Jesus is "Lord of the Sabbath." Thus we pray to our Savior when we sing, "Lord of the Sabbath hear us pray in this thy house on this thy day." Charles Wesley caught this point with remarkable clarity when he identified the resurrection Sunday as owned by the Lord Jesus

      Come, let us join with one accord; In hymns around the throne     

This is the day our rising Lord; Hath made and called his own

Then he speaks of the Lord's Day, the day that Jesus "made and called his own," as the seventh day that God blessed and that remains as a type of eternal Sabbath rest yet ahead of us to enjoy in heaven:

This is the day that God hath blessed; The brightest of the sev'n

Type of that everlasting rest; The saints enjoy in heav'n

The only way we can understand that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath and that He exercises that Lordship on Sunday (His day, the Lord's Day) is to also understand that He changed the day by being raised on Sunday, the first day of the week.

The title, Christian Sabbath, is a good title for this new day because the day is the Lord's, the Lord Jesus is the Sabbath king (Mk. 2:28), and Christians live under the authority of King Jesus. He tells us which day is His and it is our Christian covenant responsibility to conform to His precepts.

To honor the Lord of Sabbath we must remember the new Sabbath day and keep it holy. In this way we honor Him. To delight in this day is to delight in the work of the Savior from which He rested when He said: "It is finished." The Lord's day Sabbath allows us time needed to settle our thoughts and move away from the cares of the week. The Lord's day allows us to rest from our work in a special way-to rest with the Lord in His rest and to thus be refreshed spiritually in a distinct God-designed way. Our life is to be governed by this structure. God tells us this is for our good.

2B. Covenant fulfillment applied

Let me give a simple practical exhortation that I think will go a long way in the direction of covenant fulfillment on our part. This is a practical "how to" that needs to be taken seriously but applied in your own life context with a good conscience before the Lord. It has to be adjusted to your family setting, gifts, calling, etc. I refer to a dimension of private worship on the Lord's Day (cf. the Confession on public and private acts of worship, chap. 21 sec. 7-8).

We might call this a family Sabbath goal that is carried forth with some serious determination. In a word, determine to make better use of the day on a regular basis in a covenantal 6-1. This may be aided by taking the sermon home to have roast pastor and to make miles out of the sermon. Rip that roast apart for all its worth!

Determine to not leave the Sunday dinner table without discussing the sermon of the morning. It is a good place to focus initially in home worship on the Lord's Day. To have a copy of the sermon handy and to perhaps read a paragraph or a sentence for some direction for mutual interaction. Then go back to the Scriptures asking questions. Use the sermon as a focal point for discussion either by contrast and critique, or as a springboard to other things. This is a way to appropriate the pastoral diet on the word, to fulfill "conscionable hearing of the word…with reverence" (WCF).

Determine to go there and beyond if possible to related biblical teaching and to your lives for application.

Determine to pray together around the table oriented to the word of the day (today the prayer may be, "Lord help us to improve our Sabbath keeping"). This has to be gingerly cultivated; at the least Mom and Dad, husband and wife should each pray out loud to share in one another's communion with the Lord. Don't be strangers in this regard. Neglect will estrange. Inconsistency or hypocrisy also freezes fellowship in prayer. This is sanctifying for it is difficult to lead the family in prayer right after cursing about this and that on the way home from church.

If you cannot do this with a spouse, then determine to apply this principle however you can. Perhaps you can visit with a Christian friend and discuss the message or visit with a relative to go over these things. At the least reflect on the sermon and pray in your own private devotions.

It might be of value to you if we can organize a Sunday afternoon Bible study. I have discussed this with some of you and will do so further. The plan is to meet from 4-5 on Sunday afternoon for about 8 weeks to discuss readings in 1 Corinthians 13 with the help of Jonathan Edwards on Charity and Its Fruits. I believe that this will help me improve my use of the day; it will afford me some restful reflection with the saints without the normal works of piety that I do on the Lord's Day. I like the idea of closing the prime time of the day with the Lord and with His people (the "whole day" can be taken as a reference to the prime time of the day by analogy with how we put in a full day's work in our employment).

Thus, determine to improve the day, to improve your Sabbath observance remembering the whole Sabbath Day, remembering that the day does not belong to you as the other days or as a catch up day for other things. Remembering the Sabbath Day means don't leave church and forget what day it is. Call it what it is. Call it the honorable day that is honored by the Lord Jesus belonging to Him as the fruit of His saving work. Call it delight day (Isa. 58;13-14; Ps. 118:24). Call it the Lord's Day that is to be set aside in honor to our loving Savior.

May the Lord enable you to understand and apply the covenantal six and one that you may be wise and live daily, yes, weekly, to the honor of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord of the new covenant.