One of the most famous scenes in American cinematic history unfurls near the end of Casablanca, when the police inspector declares to Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) that he's "shocked shocked!" to learn that there's gambling in Rick's nightclub. A moment later another man walks in and hands the inspector money, saying, "Your winnings, sir."
Of course, one doesn't need Hollywood fantasy to find such hypocrisy. Jesus constantly struggled with religious leaders who, while outwardly proclaiming fealty to the law, lived in violation of it. The question of religious hypocrisy is so common that it's a cliché It's one kind of "hypocrisy"-to be a Christian struggling, and failing, to live up to the standard he or she professes. But there's another kind, more outrageous and blatant, the kind that Jesus railed against, the kind expressed now by those who--though pushing for the Ten Commandments on government property--live in blatant violation of its most fundamental precept.
The Law in Court
Last year the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Ten Commandment case. Though for decades the reigning jurisprudence has been, basically, that because the Ten Commandments "was undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative citation can blind us to that fact" (Stone v. Graham, 1980), the placing of it in public property (in this case a public school) violated the establishment clause. Now, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to look at the issue again-and who knows? Maybe America's moral malaise will finally be reversed once God's law is back on schoolroom walls and on public monuments?
Yet the hypocrisy of those pushing for this is blatant, because the vast majority of them live in violation of what is, in many ways, the most fundamental commandment of all-the Sabbath one: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11).
It's the most fundamental because it gives the reason for keeping all the others: the Lord is our Creator, the one who made us, the one to whom we owe our existence. That's why we don't have any other gods (first commandment), or worship idols (second), or take His name in vain (third)-because He alone is the one who, by virtue of having made us, deserves our fealty. And because He's the Creator, and a moral God, He's given us a moral code to live by, as opposed to the amoral nihilism of a purely naturalistic worldview. Hence, we honor our parents (fifth), do not kill (sixth), do not commit adultery (seventh), do not steal (eighth), do not lie (ninth), and do not covet the possessions or spouses of others (tenth).
Even more so, the New Testament links His role as Creator to His role as Redeemer. Jesus not only created us (Hebrews 1:2; Colossians l 1:16); He redeemed us (Titus 2:14; Galatians 4:5; Revelation 5:9). "Put theologically, the authority and efficacy of Christ as Redeemer are intimately linked to his 'authorship' and agency as Creator" (Dennis Danielson, The Book of the Cosmos [Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2000], p.10).
The apostle John expressed it very clearly: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men … He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.… But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1:1-12).
Thus, the whole moral code of the Christian faith, along with the role of Jesus as Redeemer, is all tied to Him as Creator. So important is that role that the Lord gave the world a once-a-week, in-your-face reminder of who He is and why we must obey Him. It's called the fourth commandment-the one that those demanding the
public display of the ten don't keep. To push on others what one oneself doesn't obey…? If that's not
hypocrisy, what is?
The Change of the Sabbath!
Of course, a litany of responses exist to this charge of hypocrisy, each worthy of answer.
"The death of Jesus abolished the law," some say. "We no longer have to keep the Ten Commandments." Besides the obvious problems with that position from a moral point of view (Christians can now steal, lie, use the Lord's name in vain, etc.?)-it undercuts the whole Ten Commandment debate. Why push for the public display of a law that's been abolished?
Some assert that Jesus, when here, changed the Sabbath day to Sunday Numerous problems exist with that position-one of them being that the Gospels never record Jesus even mentioning the first day of the week. So how could He have advocated changing the Sabbath to it?
But don't His Sabbath healings prove the change of the Sabbath to Sunday? (To maintain that because Jesus healed on Sabbath, we now have to keep Sunday instead is an interesting train of thought, to say the least.) However, a look at each example of His Sabbath healing shows that Jesus, far from abolishing the Sabbath, was showing people how to properly keep it. For instance, after healing a man with a withered hand, Jesus-knowing the response that act would create among the leaders-said, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?" (Mark 3:4). Does that sound as if He were abolishing it, or showing how it should be kept? After being accused another time of breaking the Sabbath, Jesus said: "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath" (Mark 2:27, 28). Strange words for someone seeking to abolish the seventh-day Sabbath and replace it with another one.
Even if Jesus did change the Sabbath to Sunday, then why are those who believe this promoting a law that advocates keeping a day that Jesus Himself had changed?
Finally, the most sophisticated argument isn't that Sunday somehow replaces the seventh day as a day of rest, but that Sunday "is a new day of worship that was chosen to commemorate the unique, salvation-historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ" (D. A. Carson, ed., From Sabbath to Lord's Day [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan,1982], back cover). The gist of the argument is that under the New Covenant, Christians have their rest fulfilled in Jesus, and thus are under no obligation to keep the fourth commandment-as they are, the other nine. Because of the "newness of the eschatological situation brought about by God's action in Christ" (Carson, p. 401), the weekly Sabbath rest on the seventh day, as depicted in the fourth commandment, is no longer binding, having been subsumed under the New Covenant concept of grace.
Though, again, one can argue cogently against this position, it still leads to the same question. If this were true, as many believe (including no doubt a good portion of those pushing for the public display of the Ten Commandments), why promote a law containing a fundamental precept that has long been nullified? Why, instead of pushing for the Ten Commandments, don't they advocate the public posting of the other nine, with the fourth replaced by a commandment advocating the "newness of the eschatological situation brought about by God's action in Christ"?
From Sabbath to Lord's Day
Historical evidence shows that the church's gradual abolishing of the fourth commandment, i.e., the keeping of the seventh day (which in the biblical week begins with sunset on Friday night), began in the early decades of the second century as an increasingly Gentile church sought to distance itself from the Jews, whose revolts against Roman rule made them exceedingly unpopular in the empire. Thus, the change came, not from any biblical injunction, but from historical events. A book published by an organization promoting Sunday worship admitted that "we can point to no direct command that we cease observing the seventh day and begin using the first" (James P. Wesberry, The Lord's Day [Nashville, Tenn.,: Broadman Press, 1986], p. 100). It's a point that the Roman Catholic Church would agree upon, since it credits itself with implementing the change. Though in the present ecumenical environment Rome has shifted its rhetoric on the origins of Sunday worship, in earlier days Rome was tauntingly open about its role in replacing the seventh day of the fourth commandment with Sunday: "The Catholic Church for over a thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday. . . . The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church, as Spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world" (The Catholic Mirror, pp. 29-31, No. 125, quoted in Seventh-Day Adventist Bible Student's Source Book [Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1962], pp. 885, 886).
Whether believing that the law was abolished, or that Jesus changed the Sabbath to Sunday, or that Rome changed the day, or that the seventh-day Sabbath was replaced by "the new day of worship . . . chosen to commemorate the unique, salvation-historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ," those promoting the public display of the Ten Commandments are promoting a law that they themselves don't really believe needs to be kept, at least not all of it. Sundaykeeping, no matter how strict, is not obedience to the fourth commandment. Again, to be consistent, why not post commandments 1-3 and 5-10, and then something reflecting their understanding of Sunday worship (surely Rome would be glad to write it for them)?
If the High Court overturns precedent and allows the public display of the Ten Commandments, then every time the law is posted, the fourth commandment will stand as a government-sponsored condemnation of those who, while demanding it be displayed, are living in open violation of its most basic precept.
Obviously, little has changed since Jesus' day.
"Your winnings, sir."
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Clifford Goldstein is a Seventh-day Adventist journalist with a longtime interest in church-state issues. He writes from Sykesville, Maryland.
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