The Wednesday Word: The Wonderful Number 7

There is something magnificent about the number seven in Scripture.

It is the number of completeness, perfection and rest.

Consider these sevens:

There were 7 days of creation.

There are 7 days of the week.

It was the 7th animal that was sacrificed at Noah’s sacrifice.

Joshua marched around Jericho 7 times.

7 priests with 7 trumpets also marched around Jericho.

On the 7th day, they trooped around the walls 7 times.

Naaman washed 7 times in the Jordan.

Elijah prayed 7 times.

Every 7th day was a Sabbath.

Every 7th year was a Sabbath year.

Every 7 times 7 years was a year of Jubilee.

Three of the feasts of Israel lasted 7 days.

Between the first and second feasts, there were 7 days.

There were 7 days of the feast of Passover.

Jesus is the seven-fold “I AM.”

There are 7 petitions in the Lord’s Prayer.

7 loaves were multiplied into 7 basketfuls.

Jesus performed 7 miracles on the Sabbath.

The term “First and the Last” is used 7 times.

There are 7 seals in the Book of Revelation.

There were 7 churches,

7 candlesticks,

7 stars,

7 spirits before the throne of God.

Before His crucifixion, Christ passed through 7 trials.

There were 7 accusations against Him.

There were 7 questions from Pilate to Christ, and there were 7 sayings from the cross.

In the book of Hebrews, seven titles refer to Christ.

1) He is the Heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2),

2) The Captain of our salvation (2:10),

3) The Apostle (3:1),

4) The ‘Author of salvation (5:9),

5) The Forerunner (6:20),

6) The High Priest (10:21)

7) The Author and finisher of our faith (12:2).

What a seven-fold declaration of His perfection.

Then in Revelation 5:6 “…, lo, in the midst of the throne …stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.”

Again, note the number 7. Observe how the Lamb had seven horns. The horn was a symbol of authority and strength and being that there are seven horns, we are being pointed to the perfect power and omnipotence of the Lord Jesus. Christ is omnipotent and is, therefore, God! Only He who is omnipotent can exert supremacy.

The seven eyes present a picture of the Lamb’s perfect Omniscience. This language corresponds directly with Zechariah 3:9 and 4:10, where we encounter God’s omniscience displayed by the seven eyes. God knows everything; He is Omniscient! Let’s face it; if He didn’t know everything, He wouldn’t be much of a God! He would be a very limited sort of a fellow and certainly no one to whom we could bring our deepest concerns and questions. If indeed God does not know all things I, for one, would be in a panic for who then could shepherd me?

Spurgeon tells the story of how a great Grecian artist was fashioning an image for a temple and was diligently carving the back part of the goddess. Someone said to him, “You need not finish that part of the statue because it is to be built into the wall.”

He replied, “The gods can see in the wall.”

The artist had the wrong God but the right idea of omniscience. The Lord Christ sees everything; He’s Omniscient.

The Seven Spirits sent forth are a declaration of Christ’s Omnipresence!

As you know, Omnipresence is one of the mighty attributes of God (Isaiah 66:1). Although God is not referred to directly in scripture as being Omnipresent, we know that His omnipresence is related to His omnipotence and omniscience. All three of these attributes work in concert. The fact that He is everywhere (omnipresent) means He knows everything (omniscience) and that He is everywhere (omnipresent) establishes that there is nowhere from which His power is excluded (omnipotence).

We are saved by He who is perfect.

And that’s the Gospel Truth!

Miles Mckee

www.milesmckee.com

Sabbath Rest and Human Embodiment

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include: Sabbath Rest and Faith, Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 2), Early Puritan Sabbatarians, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

The previous post in this series on sabbath rest contained some of my thoughts regarding the necessity of faith and its relationship to rest. In this post I want to continue to think through some other personal implications of weekly sabbath rest being biblically prescribed. Specifically, I want to begin to answer the question “What does sabbath rest have to do with our human embodiment (or, theologically speaking, our anthropology)?” These are just the beginning ramblings of some ideas I am still working through, so I hope you will comment below with your thoughts.

Sabbath Rest and Physical Embodiment

The sabbath pattern also takes into account the embodied nature of our existence. By that I mean that physical rest is a human necessity because of the physical aspect of our being, and that weekly sabbath observance creates space for the regular and proper maintenance of human physical bodies.[1]

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Sabbath Rest and Faith

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include: Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 2), Early Puritan Sabbatarians, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

Sabbath Rest and Faith

This post seeks to demonstrate that weekly sabbath plays a very important role in the spiritual life of believers. Specifically seeking to answer the question “What is the relationship between sabbath rest and faith?”, this post will have brief descriptions of the lessons that weekly rest teaches believers, including: God is the source of all blessings; God has instituted a system of rest, not anxiety; Labor is good, but God is ultimate; and man is utterly dependent upon God for everything.

Resting Requires Faith

Resting takes faith. For people to truly rest, they must recognize their own inadequacies and inabilities. To take one day a week off from our normal work is to proclaim with our lives that we are ultimately insufficient. Resting demonstrates to the….

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3)

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include: Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 2), Early Puritan Sabbatarians, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

As has been previously shown, English Puritan Nicholas Bownd grounded his sabbatarianism in the creation account, held the Sabbath to be universally and perpetually binding, included both a moral and a ceremonial component, and was immensely practical in his corporate proscriptions for sanctifying the Sabbath. His sabbatarianism was very similar to both Bullinger and Bucer. It is to these specific similarities that we will now look.

Bownd and Bullinger

Bownd shows much affinity and familiarity with the work of Bullinger. While he does not quote Bullinger’s Decades, he does quote Bullinger six times from the latter’s commentaries on Jeremiah, Romans, and Revelation.[1] Indeed, Bownd explicitly, “endorses Bullinger’s idea that the Sabbath originated at creation, that the Lord’s Day originated at the time of the apostles, that the whole time should be…..

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Early Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 2)

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include: Early Puritan Sabbatarians, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

In this post I will continue to examine the sabbatarian thought of Nicholas Bownd, one of the earliest English Puritans to be published on the subject. Specifically, I will show that Bownd believed the sabbath command to be perpetual and moral in nature.

Sabbath Command is Perpetual

Similar to the universal nature of the Sabbath, Bownd also argued for the perpetual nature of the command. Citing “Master [William] Perkins’s,” commentary on Galations 4:10, Bownd writes that these words “‘Six days shalt thou labor, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,’ are moral and contain a perpetual truth.” Bownd then describes how the heathens search in vain for the proper means, object, and times of worship. Instead, “herein doth the glory of the church and the people of God consist, that the Lord by his word has given them the truth, and has not left them to their own…

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Free Ebook- Why I Believe in the Sabbath

By Erroll Hulse

This 42-page study of what the early and later Reformers and the English Puritans believed is designed to show that the Sabbath is part of creation as well as a moral issue.

I believe the English Puritans were correct in their understanding of the Christian Sabbath. There are two commandments which do not begin with a negative such as, You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery. One begins with the word Remember and that other begins with the word Honour. The latter, the fifth, has a promise added to it…..

On biblical grounds I believe it is essential to hold the threefold division of the law. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 chapter 19 states it all so well that it is hardly needful for me to repeat it here. However I will state that it is the moral law that we have transgressed. It is that same moral law that our Lord kept perfectly. It is the moral law which defines sin and which caused him to die on the Cross in our place (2 Cor 5:21). The ceremonial law was constructed exactly according to the specification given to Moses by our Lord. So we cannot miss its details and at the same time cannot miss the fact that it is a precise specific entity. Jesus has fulfilled all the typology of that ceremonial law and now we no longer have to observe it. No more sacrifices because he is our sacrifice (Heb 10:14). Civil law is specific too and will always be with us, which is why we have a police force and law courts, lawyers, barristers and magistrates….

 

 

 
Contents:

Sanctifying the Lord’s Day: Reformed and Puritan Attitudes …………… 5

The Reformers and the Sanctification of the Sabbath. …………………… 9

The Puritans and the Sanctification of the Sabbath …………………….. 15

Conclusions …………………………………………………………………………… 24

The moral nature of the fourth commandment ……………………………. 28

The Fourth Commandment in its application to believers and unbelievers …………………………………………………………………………….. 30

The Creation Sabbath recalled, restated and confirmed by the Fourth
Commandment ………………………………………………………………………. 32

The Sabbath as Covenant ……………………………………………………….. 33

The discontinuity of Jewish ceremonial Sabbaths ……………………….. 33

The change of the day from the seventh to the eighth, or first, day of the week ………………………………………………………………………………… 34

A humanized Sabbath …………………………………………………………….. 37

The Sabbath keeping which remains and the sabbaths of heaven … 38

The importance of actual Sabbath observance …………………………… 39

Biblical Theology — putting the progressive Sabbath revelations together …………………………………………………………………………………. 40

 

 
Download the ebook here.

 

 

Erroll Hulse, a South African by birth, was born in 1931. He is of a Reformed Baptist persuasion, one of the co-founders of the Banner of Truth Trust and a fine author of many good articles.

Early Puritan Sabbatarianism

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include: Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi, Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

In this post I will examine the Sabbatarian thought of one of the earliest English Puritans to write on the subject: Nicholas Bownd.

Nicholas Bownd

Nicholas Bownd (d. 1613) was an early Puritan pastor and three-time graduate of Cambridge (B.A. in 1572; M.A. in 1575; and D.D. in 1594).[1] He pastored a church in Norton, Suffolk, and later was made the rector of St. Andrews, in Norwich. Bownd was the step-son of the great early Puritan, Richard Greenham. [2] We will examine Bownd’s work The Doctrine of the Sabbath…..

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Martin Bucer’s De Regno Christi

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include:Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians (Part 3), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

In this post I will continue to look at the evidence for sabbatarian theology in the thought of pre-Puritan theologians. Martin Bucer, like Henry Bullinger, had a strong view of the Christian Sabbath. Specifically, in this post Bucer’s De Regno Christi will be examined.

De Regno Christi

Bucer’s De Regno Christi, or The Kingdom of Christ, is a “detailed charter to guide the King in implementing Bucer’s vision of a republica Christiana in England.”[1] Bucer’s chapter titled “Setting Aside Certain Times For The Worship Of God” makes very clear his connection between the Old….

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? (Part 3)- Martin Bucer

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include: Pre-Puritan Sabbatarins? (Part 2), Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

Martin Bucer

Martin Bucer (1491–1551) was a Strasbourg-based Reformer whose teachings had major influence on early English Puritan thought. At the request of Thomas Cramner, Bucer arrived in England in April 1549, thereafter to assume the post of Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.[1] From that post Bucer influenced many English Protestants until his death in 1551; indeed, Collinson claims that Bucer’s thoughts on the Sabbath were “seminal.”[2] Indeed, it is to the sabbatarian thought of this internationally influential reformer that we will now turn.

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.

Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 2)

by Jon English Lee

*This post is the latest in a series looking at the Sabbath. Previous posts include:Pre-Puritan Sabbatarians? Henry Bullinger on the Sabbath (Part 1), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church (Part 3), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2), Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 1), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (Part 2), Ecclesiological Implications of the Sabbath (part 1), Sabbath Typology and Eschatological Rest, Paul and the Sabbath, Jesus and the Sabbath, The Sabbath and the Decalogue in the OT, a look at God’s Rest as Prescriptive, an examination of the Sabbath as a Creation Ordinance.

In the previous post I introduced Henry Bullinger’s sabbath theology in order to demonstrate that the puritans were not novel in their understanding of the doctrine of the sabbath. Below is a further look into Bullinger’s view of the day of rest:

The Sabbath is Universal. Related to the notion of a creation based Sabbath, Bullinger believed that it is good for everyone to observe the Sabbath, not just believers. Commenting on Jesus’ statement that the Sabbath was made for man, Bullinger writes……

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.