Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work....(Exodus 20:8-10)

Unlike the other commandments against murder, adultery and theft, which are sustained by the civil laws of society, Sabbath observance is not compulsory for us as it originally was for the Jews. Traditionally, Sunday has been set apart in the Christian world as a day of worship rather than a working day. However, civil statutes and regulations, often called "blue laws," instituted to protect the sanctity of the Sabbath, have been abolished for the most part. Public worship of the Lord is now, perhaps more than ever, in competition with a great variety of other activities, both occupational and recreational. The plain fact is, many people regard Sunday as just another day off, feeling little or no obligation to attend church services or to reflect on spiritual things.

The Heavenly Doctrine for the New Church teaches that the worship of the Lord should be by free choice rather than by compulsion (see Heaven and Hell 603). "Worship from freedom is pleasing to the Lord," we are told, "but not worship from compulsion..." (Arcana Coelestia 9588). We believe this refers to adults who are capable of making a free and rational choice, not to children. Yet all, adults as well as children, should heed the Lord's commandment. We cannot be compelled to worship against our will, but we can compel ourselves. True freedom is born of self-compulsion (see Arcana Coelestia 1947). And the Lord has said: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

Yet, as with all the commandments of the Decalogue, there is so much more for us to learn about what is meant by keeping the Sabbath than its formal observance in public worship. What are the deeper implications of the third commandment?

We know that strict observance of the Sabbath had been carried to extremes in the Lord's time on earth. Interpreters of the Law had added a proliferation of customs to its original intent. The legitimate forms of observance had been surrounded by man-made additions - to the extent that the mercy and purpose of the Lord's laws were obscured. The Lord came to open their meaning. His acts on the Sabbath, seemingly contrary to Scripture, actually were in accord with its spiritual intent and revealed His eternal laws.

The meaning of the law of the Sabbath is simply this: that the Lord alone can save us by His teaching and His healing. This is the "work" of the Sabbath and He alone can do it. That is why we are taught that on this day we should do no work.

When the Lord came as the Son of Man into the world, He said He was "Lord also of the Sabbath" (Luke 6:5).

He could work the works of God on that day, teaching and healing. And what more appropriate day could there be for His Divine work of saving souls? So He said, "it is lawful to do good on the sabbath days" (Matthew 12:12).

We are taught that when the Lord came into the world, "that day became a day of instruction in Divine things...and of meditation on such things as relate to salvation and eternal life, as also a day of love toward the neighbor" (True Christian Religion 301).

The particular rituals of the Jewish law were annulled, but the Lord in no way abolished the commandment that the Sabbath was to be remembered and kept holy (see Arcana Coelestia 9394).

Our need for this now is just as great as it was for the Children of Israel. And now we can know why. We keep the Sabbath holy when, at any time, in any situation, we act from the Lord's will instead of from our own. In essence, what is taught about the Sabbath has no relation to a day or to any time, but to a state of mind. To remember the Sabbath day is to acknowledge the goodness of the Lord, to recognize that the Lord alone is the source of all that is good and to trust that He is the way, the truth, and the life.

You see, the origin of all evil was to confirm in ourselves the appearance of self-life, the false appearance that life is our own. The remedy for evil must be the opposite: to acknowledge that life is not our own but the Lord's gift to us. This is the inner message of the Sabbath day and the reason to keep it holy.

The true Sabbath is a spiritual state of peace. It is found in those fleeting but comforting moments when our confidence in the Lord is affirmed. For "peace has in it confidence in the Lord," we are told, "that He directs all things, and provides all things, and that He leads to a good end." And, wonderful to say, "When a person is in this faith, he is in peace, for he then fears nothing, and no anxiety about things to come disquiets him" (Arcana Coelestia 8455). It is noteworthy that self-confidence is what takes away this state of peace. Although there is an inner meaning to the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, it is important, while in this world, to remember the Sabbath in external as well as internal worship. The reasons for this are first, "by external worship internal things are excited," second, "by means of external worship external things are kept in holiness, so that internal things can flow in," third, "a person is thus imbued with knowledges and is prepared for receiving celestial things," and fourth, the person "is also gifted with states of holiness, although he is unaware of this, which...are preserved...by the Lord for the use of eternal life" (Arcana Coelestia 1618).

The Heavenly Doctrine for the New Church teaches that there are certain external "signs of charity" that express our internal charity. These include attending services of worship, partaking of the Holy Supper, praying privately as well as joining in public prayer, holding conversation about spiritual things with others, and reading the Word along with other books of instruction and piety. Further signs include thought and meditation concerning spiritual things, self-examination, aversion of the mind from impious and obscene language, and the discipline of our natural affections (see Charity 174-175). All of these external signs support internal worship.

The worship of the Lord and the external observance of the Sabbath day should be a regular part of our life. We should respond in the spirit of the psalmist when invited to participate in the worship of the Lord: Can we say, as he did, "I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord'"? (Psalm 122:1

"I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy..." (Psalm 5:7).

"Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" (Psalm 29:2).

1947. 'Because Jehovah has hearkened to your affliction' means since it was submitting itself. This is clear from what has been stated above in 1937 about 'humiliating oneself and flinging oneself down' as meaning submitting oneself beneath the controlling power of the internal man, which submission was discussed there and was shown to consist in self-compulsion. It was also shown that in self-compulsion there is freedom, that is, what is willing and spontaneous, and that this distinguishes self-compulsion from being compelled. It was also shown that without this freedom, or willingness and spontaneity, a person cannot possibly be reformed and receive any heavenly proprium; also that though the contrary seems to be the case, there is more freedom in times of temptation than there is outside of them. Indeed at such times freedom increases as assaults are made by evils and falsities and it is consolidated by the Lord in order that a heavenly proprium may be given to the person. For that reason also the Lord is closer in times of temptation. It was shown as well that the Lord in no way compels anybody. No one who is compelled to think that which is true and to do that which is good is reformed, but instead thinks all the more what is false and wills all the more what is evil. This is so with all compulsion, as may also become clear from all the experience and lessons of life, which when learned prove two things - first, that human consciences will not allow themselves to be coerced, and second, that we strive after the forbidden.

[2] Furthermore everyone who is not free desires to become so, for this is his life. From this it is evident that nothing is in any way pleasing to the Lord that is not done in freedom, that is, spontaneously or willingly. For when anyone worships the Lord under circumstances in which he is not free he worships Him with nothing of himself. In his case that which moves the external is the external, that is, it is moved under compulsion - the internal being non-existent, or else incompatible, and even contradictory. When a person is being regenerated he compels himself from the freedom the Lord imparts to him, and humbles, and indeed afflicts, his rational, so that it may submit itself, and in consequence he receives a heavenly proprium. This proprium is then gradually perfected by the Lord and it becomes more and more free, so that as a result it becomes the affection for good and for truth deriving from that good, and possesses delight. And in that affection and delight there is happiness such as the angels experience. This freedom is what the Lord Himself is referring to in John.

The truth makes you free. If the Son makes you free, you are truly free. John 8:32, 36. ¹

[3] What this freedom is, is totally unknown to those who do not have conscience, for they identify freedom with feelings of being at liberty and without restraint to think and utter what is false, and to will and do what is evil, and not to control and humble, still less to afflict, those feelings. Yet this is the complete reverse of freedom, as the Lord again teaches in the same place,

Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. John 8:34.

People acquire this slave-like freedom from the hellish spirits who reside with them and who inject it into them. When the life of those hellish spirits takes possession of them so do the loves and desires of those same spirits; for an unclean and utterly disgusting delight blows upon them, and being carried away so to speak in a stream they imagine themselves to be in freedom; but it is hellish freedom. The difference between this hellish freedom and heavenly freedom is that the former spells death and drags them down into hell, while the latter, that is, heavenly freedom, promises life and lifts them up to heaven.

[4] That all true internal worship springs from freedom, not from compulsion, and that unless it springs from freedom it is not internal worship, is clear from the Word, from the sacrifices - free-will, votive, and peace or eucharistic - which were called offerings and oblations, mentioned in Numbers 15:3 and following verses; Deuteronomy 12:6; 16:10-11; 23:23; and elsewhere. In David,

With a free-will offering I will sacrifice to You; I will confess Your name, O Jehovah, for it is good. Psalms 54:6.

From the thruma, ² or the collection which the people were to contribute towards the Tabernacle and sacred vestments, referred to in Moses,

Speak to the children of Israel and let them receive for Me a collection; from every man whose heart makes him willing you shall receive My collection. Exodus 25:2.

And elsewhere in Moses,

Everyone who is willing in heart shall bring it, Jehovah's collection. Exodus 35:5.

[5] The humbling of the rational man, or affliction of it - as stated, from freedom - was also represented by the affliction souls underwent during festivals, referred to in Moses,

It shall be a statute to you for ever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls. Leviticus 16:29.

And elsewhere in Moses,

On the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall afflict your souls. Every soul who does not afflict himself on that very day shall be cut off from his peoples. Leviticus 23:27, 29.

It is for this reason that unleavened bread in which no fermentation has taken place is called the bread of affliction in Deuteronomy 16:2-3. Affliction is referred to in David in the following way,

O Jehovah, who will sojourn in Your tent? Who will dwell on Your holy mountain? He who walks blameless and performs righteousness, who swears to the affliction of himself and changes not. Psalms 15:1-2, 4.

[6] That 'affliction' is the taming and subduing of evils and falsities rising up from the external man into the rational man may become clear from what has been stated. Thus it is not any reduction of oneself to poverty and misery - not a renunciation of bodily enjoyments - that is meant by affliction. No taming and subduing of evil can result from doing that; indeed it may give rise to an additional evil, namely the desire to receive merit for such a renunciation; and what is more, man's freedom suffers, in which alone, as its ground, the good and truth of faith is able to be sown. Affliction also means temptation; see what has been said already in 1846.

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