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From: bnapl@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: the Lord's Day vs. the Sabbath in the Reformed tradition
Message-ID: <1895@burdvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 23:02:37 EST
Article-I.D.: burdvax.1895
Posted: Mon Jan 14 23:02:37 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Jan-85 04:24:22 EST
References: 
Reply-To: bnapl@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht)
Distribution: net
Organization: Burroughs Corp. - SDG/Devon
Lines: 43
Summary: 

In article  hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) writes:
>...
>In case anyone else out there is a Presbyterian, you might like to know
>that the current Book of Order takes a position somewhere between Calvin's
>and that of the Westminster Confession.  It carefully uses the term
>"Lord's Day", rather than Sabbath.  But it does say that God has appointed
>one day in seven to be holy to the Lord.  This clearly connects the
>Lord's Day to the Commandment, and to the understanding of Sunday as
>the Sabbath.

This flavor of Presbyterian (PCA) has a Book of Church Order which
says "God commanded his Old Testament people to keep holy the
last day of the week, but he sanctified the first day as the
Sabbath by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead."
48-3.  Since Presbyterians come in all
shapes and sizes it may be well for us to identify ourselves with the
particular denomination with which we are associated.  

Calvin's error seems to be in his understanding of
the Sabbath as simply a part of the ceremonial law.  As I pointed out in
an earlier posting, the Sabbath was given to us as part of the moral
law and was clearly a creation ordinance, binding on all men (Gen.
2:2,3).  Calvin steers an interesting course in his
discussion of the Sabbath.  On the one hand he says that the Sabbath
has been abrogated; on the other he says that just as the Jew was
obliged to worship on a particular day and to give to their employees a
day of rest from worldly cares so too is the Christian under the same
obligation (Institutes VIII 32).

Those of us who hold to a covenant view of scripture see a close
relationship between Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the
New Testament.  God has made one covenant with men for the
redemption of the world through Jesus Christ and has revealed this
covenant in several different ways in scripture.  Covenant
theology teaches that the church of the OT and the church of the NT are
one and the same through the shed blood of Jesus.  We admit that 
the types in the OT pointing to Christ have been fulfilled, however
the Sabbath rest for God's people is a present reality and a future
promise.

-- 
Tom Albrecht 		Burroughs Corp.
			...{presby|psuvax1|sdcrdcf}!burdvax!bnapl