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. (Ex. 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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