After Adam’s sin, the commission to subdue and rule, first commanded before the fall (Gen. 1:26-28), would be expanded to include renewed humanity’s reign over unregenerate human forces against it. Hence, the language of ‘possessing the gate of their enemies,’ (Gen. 22:17) is included, which elsewhere is stated as ‘subduing the land.’ Thus we see a connection between the cultural mandate (rule and have dominion) and the Great Commission. The methodology of the Great Commission is the means by which the cultural Mandate is fulfilled. When the nations are made disciples and taught to observe all things that Jesus taught the gates of God’s former enemies are thus possessed and the dominion that Adam forfeited in the garden is taken up again under the one who has all dominion and authority and who rules all things for the sake of the Church.

The result of all this is that the whole planet is turned into God’s Sanctuary temple garden (Eden) and God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. This is hinted at in Ephesians 6 where the promise of long life in the land the Lord thy God is giving no longer refers to the promised Sanctuary temple garden promise land of the OT but refers instead to the whole earth which is now God’s promised Sanctuary temple garden.

Sabbath keeping among Reformed people has been a important component of being Reformed. The Puritan Matthew Henry wrote “The stream of all religion runs either deep or shallow, according as the banks of the sabbath are kept up or neglected.”

Introduction of Sabbath into World History was revolutionary.

It is true that the Scriptures give us God resting in Genesis but there is no explicit record of a Sabbath rest being entered into by God’s people prior to their deliverance from Egypt. Any idea of a regular weekly rest finds its roots in Biblical revelation wherever it is found. The origin of the Sabbath is specifically cited as Mosaic by Nehemiah 9:14)

14 “So You made known to them Your holy sabbath,
And laid down for them commandments, statutes and law,
Through Your servant Moses. (See also Ez. 20:10-26)

Remember, Israel was a slave people who would have been tasked to work 24-7 for their masters. Once they are delivered and given victory the strict abiding prohibition to work on the Sabbath would have been a continual reminder, woven into the rhythm of their existence, of the salvation and liberty that was wrought for them by God.

**Sabbath Communicated God’s Providence and God’s Deliverance of Israel From Unending Labor

Unlike all the other peoples of the Earth, Israel alone was dedicated, as a religious principle, to this regular rhythmic rest that proclaimed God’s providence and their liberty from unending labor.

Isaiah 56:2 / Ex. 31:13-17 teaches that the keeping of Sabbath signified loyalty to the Lord and His covenant.

This was so important to their identity and existence that violation of the Sabbath rest was treason to Israel. To violate the Sabbath was to deny God’s providence. Such a violation was punishable by death.

(Numbers 15:32-36, [concerning the Sabbath — Ex. 20:8-11, 23:12, 31:13-17, 34:21, 35:2-3, Dt. 5:12-15, Lev. 19:3, 30, 26:2)

We must keep in mind that the whole thrust of the Sabbath was both to communicate God’s providence and Israel’s deliverance from unremitting slave work. The Sabbath was Liberty. This fact is what makes old objections about how having to keep Sabbath was an infringement upon a people’s liberty. The whole idea is that the Sabbath idea communicated the idea of Liberty. Jesus brought this front and center again when He reminded His listeners that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath allowed for works of mercy and necessity.

When Israel failed to keep Sabbath this failure was a part of their failure to forsake the idolatry they had adopted in Egypt (Ez. 20:5-11) and resulted in their return to captivity. By their constant Idolatry and refusal to honor God’s Sabbath they were communicating their continual Spiritual enslavement and so God returned them to a physical captivity to Babylon to match their spiritual captivity.

** Sabbath Communicated God’s Transcendence & Discontinuity W/ Man

Definition Transcendence — 1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Being above and independent of the material universe.

God, being Transcendent, is separate from and beyond His creation and so He gives His people a day that is separate from the rest of the week.

Thus, true worship involves a separation from the natural processes of living one finds during the rest of the week. The fact that God gives regular rest and worship that is distinct communicates His discontinuity as Creator from man the creature.

To be sure the faith must be applied in daily life but the source of our faith can not be found in daily life. God is Transcendent.

What might we say then?

True religion, true faith in the God of the Bible involves

1.) A Sabbath that communicates a ceasing from our thinking that we are the cause of our own progress by means of the dint of our work or by natural cause and effect processes and requires that we look to God as a person who, in His providence, provides for His people. Now, this is not to say that the Sabbath teaches laziness. It most certainly does not for the resting of one in seven necessitates the working of 6 in seven. But the Sabbath teaches us that God’s providence ultimately accounts for blessing.

Man’s destiny is not a work of man or the result of natural processes or the working out of some kind of historical cause and effect operating in a closed universe History. Man’s destiny is the consequence of God’s ordination and fore-ordination. When we regularly rest, per God’s command, we communicate that we believe in a personal extra-mundane God who cares and saves His people by His work.

2.) From our confidence in God, as communicated in our resting and worshiping we then live the rest of our lives in terms of God’s revelation. God’s providence gives us rest but it also affords for us how we are to live and move and have our being for our daily living.

So, when we deny the idea of a weekly rest it is at the same time a denial of God and of His Providence. When we deny God’s regular weekly rest we are communicating, knowingly or unknowingly, a rejection of God’s transcendence and consequently we take that idea of the transcendence of God and we place in the created order. (We immanentize it.) Transcendence never goes away but is lodged somewhere else. In the times we live in, in the culture in which we live, that which typically gets the Transcendence of God that has been surrendered, in part by our refusal to honor His Transcendence by honoring the Sabbath is the State. The State becomes Transcendent and is given the prerogatives of God. And like the Pharaoh’s of old the State’s ultimate goal is to give no rest.

The Welfare state is merely the segue unto to the slave state

George Orwell’s Animal Farm — Boxer the Horse — “I will work harder.”

Again we say then that the Sabbath is a reminder of God’s sovereignty, of His role as creator, redeemer, sustainer, and judge. We can rest because God rules.

As an aside we should mention that this Lord’s Day resting that compels us to remember that God rules should deliver us from thinking that man in any sense rules or governs the affairs of History. It is true that conspiracies exist dedicated to rule over the affairs of men, whether those conspiracies are local or global. Elite men do have their plans of social engineering the masses. But the keeping of the Sabbath has us preaching to ourselves that we have no need to fear those conspiracies because we belong to the God who sits and heaven and laughs at those who conspire against His Sovereign providential rule. In the end even the conspiracies of men serve the purposes of our Sovereign God. An insightful glimpse into the meaning of the Sabbath can tell us all that.

*** Just as Israel Rested In God’s Victory Over Egypt, So we Rest in Christ’s Victory Over The Kingdom Of Darkness

We must understand that we can rest because the victory has been accomplished. And when we then arise to work the other 6 days we work not to accomplish an uncertain victory but only to manifest the Victory that has already been accomplished for us in Christ.

The Sabbaths of the OT, and the “rest” given in the promised land, were only foreshadowings of the victory and rest to be given in Christ.

Hebrews 4 is the definitive passage regarding Jesus as our Sabbath rest. The writer to the Hebrews exhorts his readers to “enter in” to the Sabbath rest provided by Christ. After three chapters of telling them that Jesus is superior to the angels and that He is our Apostle and High Priest, he pleads with them to not harden their hearts against Him, as their fathers hardened their hearts against Jehovah in the wilderness. Because of their unbelief, God denied that generation access to the holy land, saying, “They shall not enter into My rest” (Hebrews 3:11). In the same way, the writer to the Hebrews begs them—and us—not to make the same mistake by rejecting God’s Sabbath rest in Jesus Christ. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:9-11).

When considering Christ as our perfect Sabbath rest it is interesting to consider the word “Liturgy.” Liturgy originally literally meant “public work.” The Christian Liturgy, the Christian public work, is the perfect law keeping, propitiatory death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ and then man’s faith and obedience in light of that. This is captured in the very Liturgy we practice here on the Sabbath.

So what might we say in terms of Application?

1.) The Sabbath forces us to ask ourselves if we really believe in the God of the Bible.

Doctrines like God’s Transcendence or the importance to embrace the truth of how God as Creator is distinct from the creature sometimes seem rather abstract but when we consider the Sabbath we begin to realize how important these doctrines are. The Sabbath teaches us about the Character of God. It is not primarily about what we can or can not do on this day. It is primarily about the Character of God.

2.) As the Sabbath points to Christ we must ask ourselves if we are resting in Christ for our all. Is our rest and work a manifestation of our gratitude for a full and free delivery or are we insecure in our deliverance and so work in order to put God in our debt? The good news of the Sabbath is that God has delivered us from our guilt ridden inspired works.

3.) Do we see both our work and our rest in terms of God’s victory? Our work, whatever it is, is not primarily about us but about God manifesting His already accomplished Victory through the work and rest He has called us to. The Sabbath reminds us of the set-apartness of the Christian’s life vis-a-vis the pagan.

Passages,

Exodus 19:4, 20:22-26, 34:17, Lev. 26:1-2, Dt. 4:15-24, 11:16-17, 27:15

We note here that this prohibition does not forbid art work in general.

Priest’s garments — Pomegranates (Ex. 28:33-34, 39:24)
Mercy seat — Two Cherubim of Gold (Ex. 25:18-22)
Sanctuary as whole richly ornamented

These types of things in the OT could be used in the context of worship. The prohibition in the 2nd commandment concerns itself w/ forbidding turning any created thing into a talisman that would serve as a conduit between God and His people.

To create such a talisman was to violate the Creator vs. Creature distinction.

This ban on images makes God non-manipulable.

Jeroboam — I Kings 12:25f

Without Images God can not be controlled to the controller’s desired end.

So, idolatry generally speaking is forbidden in the 1st word but in the 2nd word we have prohibition concerning how the cultic worship is to be shaped. The Second word informs us we can only approach God on God’s terms, there are to be no Talismans between God and man — no mediation between God and man — except that which is ordained by God.

Nadab and Abihu — Lev. 10:1f

In terms of the prohibition we must keep in mind that whenever man believes that can establish His own approach to God in worship it is not long until he believes that he can his own autonomous law word in every other area of life.

This is why some have contended that until we get worship right, and begin to worship God upon His terms, we will never get anything else right in other jurisdictional spheres. And this has some merit. If man is homo adorans — man the worshiper — then man a man who worship God by His own will and lusts will live all of his life according to his own will and lusts.

So, this commandment reminds us that the lawful approach to God is entirely of God’s ordination. This in turn reminds us of Christ since the whole OT economy is one reminder after another of how God graciously came near His people and how Worship was entirely God centered.

I John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

The role of the law has been debated vigorously throughout Church history. As far back as the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) there has been tension and conflict regarding the place of the law. That tension and conflict continues today.

In the passages above we find Paul making the law the minister of death. The apostle teaches elsewhere that the law is a minister of death and brings on us the wrath of God. Paul teaches that the law was given to increase sin, and that it lives in order to kill us. King David though can say of the Law that it is “sweeter than the honeycomb, and more desirable than gold” and John says that God’s commandments are not burdensome.

How do we reconcile these different statements regarding God’s law?

We must realize that St. Paul, King David, and St. John are looking at the law from different standpoints. St. Paul looks at the law as it comes to the man in Adam, speaking of the law as it condemns who we are as we lie in Adam. St. John and David look at the law as it is considered as who we are in Christ. As we struggle against the old Adamic nature we understand that the Law stands against us and convicts us and is impossible to satisfy. As we put off that old man and put on the new man created in Christ Jesus we understand that the law is to us a gracious guide to life that we esteem and desire and do not find burdensome.

The problem is that even in Christ we remain both men. Yes, we are in Christ and have died to sin and have been resurrected with Christ so that we delight in God’s commands and do not find them burdensome, and yet we continue to contend against the previous self and so we need to have God’s law come to us to remind us of our need for Christ.

Our theologies run into trouble when we fail to speak the truth about each side of the equation. When we fail emphasize to believers that God’s commands are not burdensome we take away motivation from God’s people to walk in God’s revelation. When we fail to emphasize to believers that God’s law never justified anybody we create the possibility of self-righteousness. Thus we must speak in both ways. We must continue to use the law as a means whereby we see that our only hope is found in Christ and His righteousness and we must continue to use the law as a means whereby we reveal or love to God.

We must remember that the law is said to be not burdensome by St. John as far as we are filled with the Spirit and so endued with heavenly power. For the believer, however much who we are in Adam may resist, it is the case that there is no real enjoyment except in following God.

22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine(A) and knew what his youngest son had done to him,

According to one understanding, we see here the first mention of homosexuality. Here Ham “saw [or uncovered] the nakedness of his Father,” and was then cursed by his Father when “Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him.” To uncover nakedness is a Hebrew idiom meaning to have “sexual relations (see Leviticus chapters 18-20). In Call of the Torah, Rabbi Elie Munk cites Hebrew scholars who also interpret Ham’s violation as “an act of pederasty” (p. 220). Thus Ham becomes “Canaan,” for whom the land of Canaan is named.

One school of Jewish tradition holds that the “last straw” of human wickedness which precipitated God’s action of bringing flood upon the earth, was the advent of “homosexual marriage (ibid.), implying that Ham had been corrupted by homosexual sin in the pre-flood society, and carried the vice like a virus into the new world. Significantly, it was Ham’s near descendants who founded and populated the Canaanite cites of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Redeeming the Rainbow
Dr. Scott Lively

In the pages of Scripture we see a connection between God’s creative and redemptive work and the establishing of meaning. The drama of God’s divine work in the Old Testament moves through the creation of the world, the redemption out of Egypt, and the conquest of Canaan. Each of these three acts wrests meaning from meaninglessness: the world emerges from nothing, Israel from the grave of Egypt, and the promised land from the desert. In the New Testament the drama moves through the resurrection in the Gospels, and the need of the Gospel for the nations in Acts. Each of these acts likewise wrest meaning from meaninglessness: the seeming meaninglessness of the Cross is given meaning by the resurrection, and the nations find meaning only as they submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

All these acts thus interpret one another as works of divine power where the coming of salvation means the dissolution of meaninglessness. We see here that the progress of redemption is closely tied up with the progress of meaning. In these historical stages the realm of meaning grows.

What is true in the progress of redemption is true for the individual who is caught up in God’s redemption. The individual outside of Christ is without form and void — he finds no basis for meaning — but when the Spirit of God hovers over the individual in order to recreate by way of regeneration the individual, by way of salvation, is for the first time given meaningful meaning.

It is then, not only the soul that is saved in salvation, but also the mind, for in salvation the mind can find objective meaning and be delivered from the subjectivism that is so characteristic of those who are without God and without hope.

“I AM from above … I AM He” (John 8:23-24) — words very harmonious to the “I AM who I AM” of Exodus 3:14. “I that speak unto thee AM he” (John 4:26) — words similar to how God identifies Himself to Moses. “I AM the bread of life” (John 6:35) — the God given manna without which man dies of spiritual famine. “I AM the Light of the World” (John 8:12, cf. 9:5, 12:35, 46) — words that point to Christ as the I AM who is the divine pillar of fire supplying guidance and illumination to the Gentiles (Is. 49:6) for their exodus. “I AM the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25, cf. 5:26, 17:2) — words that echo the work of the I AM of the Old Covenant promising to bring resurrected life to a valley of dry bones. “I AM the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6, cf. John 5:26, 17:2) — words that every God fearing Hebrew would have ascribed as coming from Yahweh-Elohim. “I AM the Good Shepherd” (John 10:7, 11) — words that Yahweh-Elohim ascribed to Himself in Ezekiel 34:11f. “I AM the true vine” (John 15:1, cf. 15:5) — in contradistinction to the false son of God that faithless Israel was supposed to be but never was.

How many ways does Jesus the Messiah have to proclaim His Deity and consubstantiality w/ the Father?

1 Samuel 22

1David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him.

2And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.

I believe it is safe to say that what we have before us here is a picture of Christ in his humiliation and his Church in the Wilderness. David is being persecuted by a King that God has already determined to set aside in favor of David, a man who, like the coming Christ, was a man after God’s own heart. So, this true King, living in humiliation, holes up in a cave that literally means “refuge,” and the refugees of Saul’s false Kingdom — those in distress, those discontented (Lit. — Bitter of soul) those in debt rally around this little Church in the Wilderness and around this type of Christ in his humiliation.

In the Cave of Adullam they not only find a refuge, but they find a stronghold as well (vs. 4). This is a place of rest, protection, and safety with the true King in their midst.

Now, knowing the rest of the story we know that David finally comes into what God has promised him, but at this time that future promise fulfilled is still future. David is outcast and he is surrounded with an outcast Church.

That the Church is often filled with outcasts and goes through times of eclipse is not a theme we find here alone.

In the book of Hebrews the writer to Hebrews can look back retrospectively at the Church and write of it during some of its epochs

36And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:

37They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

38(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

The true Church has not always been a organism that has been embraced by the world, nor even by the visible Church. Many have been the times in history when the worst persecutors of the true Church was the visible Church.

There are times then in History when the Church revisits the place of refuge in order to escape from the deadly intent of those who would do her harm.

And the idea that that church is staffed often by outcasts is not only a Old Testament theme. In I Corinthians the Apostle Paul can say of the Church,

26For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

27But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

28And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

29That no flesh should glory in his presence.

30But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

31That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

I believe we are living during a time when the Church must once again become a Cave of Adullam where those counted outcasts by the elite gatekeepers of our culture and often our Church can find a stronghold. In such times, we should not expect to find a great number of Caves. If there were a great number of caves we would not be in the situation where finding one was such a unique blessing.

It is my prayer that God would be pleased to make Charlotte CRC just such a cave of Adullam. A place where those distressed by the current spirit of the age can come and find rest for their souls. A place where those discontented by the strange Christs offered up by much of the Church today can be fed the Christ of Scripture. A place where those in the debt of sin can be reminded that God has paid the ransom and provided full redemption for them — body and soul. It may be the case that those who would come to this refuge has to drive many miles to do so, but should they make the trip — a trip that has to be made because there are no other caves around — let it be a trip that ended in balm for their souls and the word of life for their encouragement.

This may be a time for Adullam in our gathering but we must be reminded that we are in a different part of God’s story then David was. We are in the part of the story where God has already triumphed in Christ. As such we must not and can not be satisfied with a refugee status. If God has provided this place as a refuge and a stronghold He has provided it so we can scatter out from here back to Howell, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Battle Creek, as well as Charlotte and other points in order to be the elite military teams trained to overturn the current corrupt Church to be a Church that once again heralds David’s greater victorious Brother.

The cave is not to be permanent, as if every generation of Christians are to be cave dwellers. Christ is now in His exaltation and we are to be a Church militant that goes from victory unto victory in extending the crown rights of King Jesus — The Great High Priest who has provided a full redemption for us — into every domain.

We need to keep in mind Samuel Stone’s great lyrics

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

We may be in a night of weeping but because Christ is victorious there shall be rejuvenation in history and the Church shall once again have a morn of song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA6vRC1xW_c&feature=player_embedded

“Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed Judas is the image of the Jewish people; their understanding of the Scriptures is carnal; they bear guilt for the death of the Saviour, for through their fathers they have killed the Christ. The Jews held him; the Jews insulted him, the Jews bound him, they crowned him with thorns, dishonored him by spitting upon him, they scourged him, they heaped abuses upon him, they hung him upon a tree, they pierced him with a lance.”

~Augustine of Hippo

Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts (2 Corinthians 3:13-16); so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord.

Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Traditional Good Friday Prayer