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THE FORGOTTEN DAY by DESMOND FORD THE FORGOTTEN DAY By DESMOND FORD Copyright 1981 by DESMOND FORD PUBLICATIONS 7955 Bullard Drive, NEWCASTLE Ca. 95658 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America DEDICATION This book is dedicated to Noel Mason, a true yoke-fellow and preacher of the gospel, who often disagrees with me and who is frequently right. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For some things of worth in this manuscript that I would have missed, I owe a debt to my friend, Noel Mason. With his usual courtesy, but none the less with obvious concern, he has time and again intimated that I must not skimp this task. He is in no way responsible for the blemishes of the finished work, but he is to be thanked for drawing invaluable materials to my attention. As ever, I am indebted to my long-suffering wife Gill. An author and a home-spun theologian in her own right, she has yet been content to forego creativity and perform the hack work of preparing this manuscript for photo-printing. This is the fifth lengthy book she has typed for me, and with no housework in return from her debtor. She has tolerated a continuing whirlwind of books and papers and an absent-minded, all absorbed consort, whoever thinks that home is a place for unremitting toil. I know no other woman who would stand it. Occasionally her typing style may seem to strangely falter or change. All such blemishes are her husband's fault. His temperament is so perverse that he ever demands of today's work that it be finished yesterday, if not sooner. Because of this, when the real master (mistress) of the work has had her back turned, and left the typewriter unguarded, he has typed some of the pages. The results are here and there perceivable, and the blame is his alone. PREFACE The following papers on the Sabbath, prepared at different times over the last twenty years, are not written in the style of my Daniel commentary, or university thesis, The Abomination of Desolation in Biblical Eschatology. They are prepared for the wayfaring man on a topic of practical duty--should one, or should one not, be concerned with the fourth commandment? This is no esoteric matter requiring the jargon of professionals, but an issue of such importance that God has made the weight of evidence plain enough for all who really wish to know what is truth, regardless of the extent of their formal education. I trust that none will mistake simplicity for superficiality. Every Bible passage on the Sabbath has been closely studied by the author for many years. The original languages and the chief commentators have been consulted, as well as practically every work of note on the Sabbath (in English), for the last century and a half. May I point out that none should be discouraged because this vital question is surrounded by controversy. Such is the hallmark of a significant issue. The existence of God, the divinity of Christ, the truthfulness of Scripture, justification by faith, and a thousand other key topics of vast importance, are all clothed in debate and have been so for millenniums. Nevertheless, God's promise is sure. "If a man chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own (John 7:17)." In a sense, every such topic is a test, because those who wish to believe otherwise can always find excuses for so doing. Christ Himself, Who, to outward appearance, was just another Jew, was such a test. Only those hungering for God found Him in His Son. It is even so today. Nothing in this little book should be understood as teaching that Sabbath-keeping earns the favor of God. It is true that we are saved by the works of perfect law-keeping, but they are Christ's works, not ours. They were accomplished in the first century of our era. Only our Substitute and Surety kept the Sabbath perfectly, and He did so for the whole human race. Those who believe in the Saviour's atonement on the Cross have that perfect Sabbath-keeping imputed to them, and all other obedience required by the eternal law of God. Our imperfect attempts at obedience are a response to the undeserved mercy of the great Judge. "Theology is grace, and ethics is gratitude." As regards salvation, the Sabbath is not primary. But neither is it unnecessary for those who learn of it. Too often, the form of Sabbath observance has been made to eclipse the substance of rest in Christ. This is tragic, but unnecessary. The reality to which the fourth commandment points no more dispenses with that commandment than the reality of feeding on Christ's merits dispenses with the Lord's Supper. It is no part of the purpose of this little work to drive a wedge between believers in Christ. Only those who can disagree without being disagreeable should claim the name Christian. The intention of the writer is rather to draw the attention of many of God's children to the fact that they have not claimed all of their inheritance. The Sabbath is a "luxury," according to Isa. 58:13 (original), a gift "for" all men, says Christ in Mk. 2: 27. Only those who observe it as a festival of rejoicing in view of God's gracious works of creation and redemption discover with glad surprise its hidden wealth. Eden once a week, fifty-two Spring days in the year, nerve the spirit for the conflict and service of Christian living. One can say of this day what David said of Goliath's sword: "There is none like it." And like that sword, when in the hand of a true believer, it may be used to fell every giant met on the way to the Celestial city. On the topic of the eschatological Sabbath-test, the reader may also wish to read my forthcoming commentary on Revelation, called Crisis. But may I take the liberty of insisting that the importance of this issue belongs not primarily to the future but to the now, as with all privileges of duty? The gambler who promises to give up his gambling tomorrow will never give it up. Deciding, loving, sharing, serving -- all belong to the existential moment, the only part of time we ever possess. And it is even so with worship. Because of the Fall we are all eccentric -- i.e. off center, and God is our center. Worship comes from worth-ship, and means the appropriate acknowledgment of true worth. But we have been so "crazed" by sin that worship never seems of vital importance. We relegate it to the minor duties of life, all unaware that according to our attitude to worship all else proceeds. William James was undeniably right when he wrote: All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath, love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish. Can things whose end is always dust and disappointment be the real goods which our souls require? .... We need a life not correlated with death… a kind of good that will not perish, a good in fact that flies beyond the goods of nature. (VRE, 136-137). "Sometimes a light surprises…" sang one of the poets. Let us once catch a glimpse of the truth that we were made for God, that He is our chief good, that He either matters tremendously or not at all, that He is all-important or not important at all, that to be fully dependent upon Him is to be independent of all else, to once sense this is to realize the supremacy of worship. Then the fourth commandment receives a new luminescence. We perceive that if worship is the acknowledgment that only God can fit the throne of our hearts then there is nothing in life to be given precedence over our adoration of Him, and a regular appointed time for worship must have been provided by our Maker. It is because men are so blind regarding God that the importance of the fourth Word in the Decalogue has not been recognized. Once grant with William James that all other "goods" are dependent upon Him and useless apart from Him -- then sanity returns, and we shall only ask concerning time -- life's staple what has God decreed concerning its ordering? Gen. 1:1-2:3 & Ex. 20:8-11 tell us. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface The Forgotten Day Three Secrets of Happy Living God's All-Embracing Sign and Its Particular Relevance for the Twentieth Century Ethics, Chaos, and Cosmos Should I, or Shouldn't I? How Can I Choose? How Relevant are the Ten Commandments Today? The Edenic Origin of the Sabbath God's Bulwark Against Apostasy From Eden to Eden The Sabbath and Colossians 2:16 Is the Seventh-Day Sabbath a Moral Test Today? The Decalogue and the Law of Israel The Sabbath and the Gospel A Shorthand Summary of the Sabbath Question Sabbath or Sunday? Questions and Answers Appendix I Christ and the Sabbath Appendix II Romans 14:5, 6 Appendix III Galatians 4:9, 10 Appendix IV Colossians 2:13-23 Appendix V The Everlasting Ten Appendix VI The Historical Evidence for Christian Sabbath-keeping in the Early Centuries Select Bibliography THE FORGOTTEN DAY It is the one thing that cannot be evaded by either James the genius or Max the moron. Rich man, poor man, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker-all must face it continually.
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