A few points on the Sabbath

I was trying to post this on Daniel Newman's blog but couldn't get the comments thingy to work for some reason, so I thought I'd give up and put it here instead. I'm afraid I've not read every word of the discussion at Christ and Covenant and some of this is plagarised from Garry but for what its worth:

I certainly imagine Abraham celebrating the Sabbath. Presumably God told Adam about it as they chatted in the Garden.

Exodus 16 implies the Sabbath is already known.

Maybe the WCF will help us out on the switch to Sunday:

VII. As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him:[34] which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week,[35] which, in Scripture, is called the Lord's Day,[36] and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.[37]

VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their wordly employments and recreations,[38] but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.[39]

Those in striking distance of Oak Hill may be interested in James Packman’s BA Short Dissertation: An Evaluation of the Arguments Used in Mainstream Puritanism that the Change of Day from the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day was Theologically Warranted and Biblically Demanded (2004).

Could we not take Col 2:16 and similar NT references to be to the Jewish Sabbath (Sat.), as Owen does?

Owen warns against a novel rejection of the consensus of the Church on the Christian Sabbath: “persons truly fearing the Lord ought to be very careful and jealous over their understanding, before they embrace an opinion and practice which will shut them out from all visible communion with the generality of the saints of God in this world.” (Works, Volume 18; (?) 33; 434)

On Hebrews 4:

The verb used for rest is katapauo. The noun is also used, katapausis.

But then in verse 9 the writer, when he says that a rest remains, uses a new word which he does not use elsewhere, sabbatismos. Interestingly, Aland in the brief dictionary gives this as 'a Sabbath day's rest'. It is a term coined from the verb sabbatizo in the LXX, and the Aland translation rightly picks up on how it is used in the LXX.

Gramcord gives 4 uses:

Ex 16:30, for rest on the seventh day

Lev 23:32 for day of atonement as a sabbath day.

26:34, 35 sabbath rest/years for land.

Hence each OT use indicates an actual observance of a period of rest by people/land.

Lane says that the only non-Christian use is in Plutarch and refers to Sabbath observance, as do the 4 patristic uses.

So, the argument runs, there is here a pointed use of a term distinct from the term used for eschatological rest in the chapter, a term describing actual periods of resting while on this earth. The use of apoleipo for 'remains' may also be interesting - in the NT it seems to mean something remaining where it has been. Hence the Sabbath rest remains as it has been, implying a continuation of a previously existing thing. If that thing is earthly observance, then...

Dr Williams has some recommended reading on this (which I've not looked at):

Jonathan Edwards, Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath

On the eschatological argument (that our rest is wholly future in Christ) see Richard Gaffin, 'Westminster and the Sabbath' in The WC into the 21st C ed. Lingon Duncan III (Mentor, 2003) and on Heb 4, 'A Sabbath Still Awaits the People of God' in Pressing Towards the Mark ed., Dennison & Gamble (Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986)