The Basis for the Fourth Commandment – A Kingdom Catechism

The Basis for the Fourth Commandment

A Kingdom Catechism

The Lord’s Day is grounded in the works and salvation of God.

Q 74: What is the basis for the fourth commandment?

A 74: The basis for the fourth commandment is God’s having rested on the seventh day, and His having redeemed His people from slavery in sin. (Exod. 2:8; Deut. 5:12)

Two reasons are given for the Sabbath. First, God gave it so that we might enter into His rest and reflect on all His works, as He Himself did on the first Sabbath. In Jesus Christ we know the rest of God completely, and we are able to understand the magnitude, variety, power, and wisdom of all His various works. The Sabbath has been set aside for us to be renewed in that rest and in all the works of God.

Further, the Sabbath reminds us of our redemption, of the rest we have achieved by grace in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is thus a day for reflecting on the broad scope of the Lord’s saving grace and the vast implications of having been translated into His Kingdom of light, a subject we can never exhaust in thinking about with gratitude and praise, though every day of our lives were a Sabbath Day.

Thus the Sabbath provides a crucial season of reflection, re-orientation, and renewal in the Lord, His works, and, especially, His saving mercy toward us in Jesus Christ.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.