The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum The Sabbath

K,

Yep, interesting article but the reviewer never challenged Gaffin's quotes nor conclusion. He simply accepted what Gaffin wrote at face value which is a fatal mistake especially on a subject that is so hotly debated.

I have had contact with the editor of The Confessional Presbyterian magazine asking for permission to publish Stuart Lauer's article mentioned above. Hopefully, the author will grant permission to allow his article to be put on The Highway. The big difference between Lauer's article and the one you linked to is that Lauer scrutinizes Gaffin's quotes as well as others who seek to find a difference between Calvin's sabbatarian view and those of the later Calvinists. He painstakingly goes back to Calvin's writings and shows what Gaffin and others are claiming Calvin believed simply can't hold water.

This approach of questioning what the Church has understood in regard to the teachings of Calvin isn't anything new. Kendall attacked the Reformed church's doctrine of Limited Atonement asserting that John Calvin held to a universal atonement and thus Limited Atonement is a later doctrine which is not truly "reformed". Paul Helms responded in his book, Calvin and the Calvinists to show that Kendall had misconstrued what Calvin believed by taking him out of context, leaving out critical sections of Calvin's writings, etc., and showing indisputably that Calvin clearly believed and taught Limited Atonement. Of course, despite the overwhelming evidence, there are those who continue to charge that Limited Atonement was not taught by the magisterial Reformers and thus it is not truly "reformed". I believe that this is what we are seeing now but on the matter of the Sabbath. There is a latent rejection of the Fourth Commandment which many are going out of their way to convince the Church that it is no longer binding upon believer's today.

What needs to be remembered, at least is:

1. The Scriptures are to be the sole and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.
2. The Sabbath is a creation ordinance that existed long before Sinai and thus it is binding upon all men everywhere.
3. The Fourth Commandment is immovably wedged between 9 moral commandments and cannot be extricated from them and relegated to the ceremonial law.
4. There is NT evidence that the Sabbath was kept by Jesus Christ and defended both in its perpetuity but also in how it should be rightly practiced contra the Pharisaical addenda which were oppressive, never mind heretical and not according to the purpose for which God instituted the Sabbath Day.
5. Lastly, "Beloved, believe not every spirit (teaching), but try the spirits (teachings) whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."