The Lord's Day Main Page

The Lord's Day
Understanding why we should worship the Lord on Sunday and not Saturday as the Sabbath Day.

A Brief Note:

Since the inception of popularizing carnal Christianity, the desire to throw away the commands of God is ever increasing. This is called Antinomianism. It is the attempt towards creating an easy Christianity at the expense of the truth. To serve a Master who commands little, or less, relieves the disciple of many pains and ills, and especially the denying of oneself for the greater good. In the act of discarding the law of God one commandment at a time, it is never surprising that the more difficult commandments to understand are those which are discarded first. Such is the case with the third commandment concerning the Lord's Name, and fourth commandment concerning the Sabbath. I am not referring to the shadows of the ceremonial and judicial law of God, but of the moral law or the Decalogue commonly known as the 10 commandments. God desires to have His mind picked. He desires His people to traverse the deep recesses of the Bible in order to pick apart the truths housed within. Simply because some commandments are more difficult to understand does in no way means that they are expendable.

Before one can truly study the Sabbath, or as it is known by most orthodox Christians in the New Testament as the Lord's Day, the moral Law of God must be understood. John Newton said "Ignorance of the nature and design of the law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes." This in many respects is a truism. A through study of the nature and design of the moral law is of utmost value and necessity before one even begins to divulge themselves into an explanation of the commandments themselves. The Christian must understand what it means to "meditate on Thy law day and night" or how "the law" is his delight. What encapsulates the phrase "the law" and how does the law differ in the Old Testament than the New Testament? (If at all?) What is Christ's view, or Paul's view, of the law? Yes, a through study of the law is necessary before the commandments which make up the law of God are traversed.

I am currently working on my own study of a lengthy paper/book concerning the law of God, and the 4th commandment. However, at this time, I have furnished the links to the right with many good articles on the subject.

If a serious study is to be done of the Sabbath, the Biblical passages should be exegetically studied (which should take the researcher considerable time) and then the following books should be read:

Sin, The Law and the Glory of the Gospel, by Joseph Bellamy
The Lord's Day, by Joseph Pipa
The Ten Commandments, by Thomas Watson
Theses Sabbaticae, by Thomas Shepherd
A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel, by John Calqhoun
Call the Sabbath a Delight, by Walter Chantry
Celebrating the Sabbath, by Bruce Ray
The Lord's Day, by Daniel Wilson
The Grace of Law, by Ernest Kevan
The Law of God, by William Plumer
The Worship of the English Puritans, by Horton Davies
The Worship of the American Puritans, by Horton Davies
Calvin and the Sabbath, by Richard Gaffin
Hebrews, Volume 2, The Name, Original, Nature, Use, and Continuance of a Day of Sacred Rest, [Pages 265-460], By John Owen
Discussions, Volume 1, [Pages 496-550], by R. L. Dabney
Systematic Theology, by [Pages 351-357; 366-397], by R. L. Dabney
The Works of Jonathan Edwards Volume 2, 3 Sermons on the Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath, [Pages 93-103] by Jonathan Edwards
The Marrow of Theology, [Pages 112, 283-284, 291-295, 298] by William Ames
The Collected Writings of John Murray, Volume 1 [Pages 205-225] and Volume 3, [Pages 34-35; 43, 49, 72-73, 75-76, 101, 108], by John Murray
Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Volume 2, [Pages 1-37; 77-100] by Francis Turretin
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Volume 2, [Book 2.8.29ff], by John Calvin
Systematic Theology Volume 3, [Pages 257-275; 321-340], by Charles Hodge
The Works of Richard Baxter, Volume 3, [879-926], by Richard Baxter
The Works of Ezekiel Hopkins, Volume 3 [Pages 236-267; 364-387], by Ezekiel Hopkins
Paul, An Outline of His Theology, [Pages 99-100; 106-107; 130-158; by Herman Ridderbos
The Sabbath Defended, James Milligan