To have a firm foundation for keeping the Sabbath in a profitable manner, you must be convinced from the Scriptures that the Sabbath is the sacred day of God. Then you are able to wake up on the first day of the week and say to yourself, “My God has set apart one day in seven for Himself since the beginning of time. Christ declared that He is Lord of the Sabbath. I am Christ’s disciple, and because I love Him I will keep His commandments. Today is the Lord’s Day, and I will keep it holy.”

Isaiah 58:13 says, “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable” (emphasis added). You will not be able to wholeheartedly pursue a profitable Sabbath day until you are convinced that the Lord’s Day is truly set apart by God as sacred time devoted to Him. You must be able to say with absolute conviction, “This is God’s holy day.” If your conscience is gripped with a sense that God commands us to honor the Lord’s Day, then you will do what it takes to honor it. And, if you love the Lord, you will do it with pleasure because it is His will.
The Sabbath was instituted by God as His holy day.1 In the fourth commandment God says, “The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God” (Ex. 20:10). These words remind us that God commanded us to observe the weekly Sabbath and that He claims the day as His own. As God said through Isaiah, it is “my holy day.” Not to devote the day to the purposes and activities commanded for its sanctification robs God of that which belongs to Him.
The Sabbath is a creation ordinance. Genesis 2:1–3 recounts how on the seventh day of the creation week, God rested from all His work as Creator. God, who does not need to rest, rested as an example for the man and woman He had created in His image. They were to follow His example, resting from their work as He did from His; thus it is a divine institution which God crowned with His blessing, setting it apart for all of time. A common error is to assume that the Sabbath originated with the giving of the law at Sinai. Such a view ignores the fact that Exodus 20 does not introduce the Sabbath as something new but rather acknowledges something ancient and historic that is to be remembered and observed by God’s people: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8).
What, specifically, is to be remembered in the pattern of six days of work punctuated by a day of holy rest? “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” (Ex. 20:11). Every Sabbath we remember that we are not in this world by chance; we are not products of evolution. Every Sabbath God declares to us, “Remember that you are accountable to Me. Remember that you are under My authority as your Creator.” Jesus Christ owned the Sabbath. The first three evangelists record that He said, “The Son of man is Lord of the sabbath” (Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5).
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Synod, the last two years especially, feels like war. The differing visions for the CRC’s future and the underlying theologies behind the opposing visions collide each year at synod. The conflict does not feel like a friendly game of basketball between family members. The conflict feels like a desperate fight for the soul of the church. The viewpoints are so different that despite the verboten descriptors, there will be winners and losers. The losers will find themselves in a CRC so intolerable that they will have to leave. At synod, the gloves come off because the future of the church is at stake.

Anyone who watched the final day of Synod 2023 in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) would have been stunned. The log jam of recommendations still to reach the floor led to the decision to postpone the remaining business to 2024. Highly important but contentious topics remained until the following year.
The differing factions within the CRC are increasingly visible at synod. “Conservative” and “liberal” descriptors are so politically charged that matters of Christ’s church become conflated with current political interests. A better term for the conservative faction is confessionalist. Exemplified by “The Abide Project,” these stress confessional identity and hold orthodox views on marriage and sexuality. The liberals would better be called revisionists. “All One Body” would fit into this group. They are more open to revising traditional church stances and new movements of what the Holy Spirit might be doing. They are either in favor of full LGBTQ inclusion or are open to the idea. Then there are moderates who often feel caught in the middle. Their organization is the CRCNA agencies and offices. They tend to be loyal to the CRC brand and averse to ecclesiastical conflict.
Synod 2022
The most contentious matters of Synod 2023 concerned matters from last year. Synod 2022 was a significant blow to the affirming (revisionist?) movement within the CRC. Synod had overwhelmingly voted to “affirm that ‘unchastity’ in Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 108 encompasses adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex, all of which violate the seventh commandment. In so doing, synod declares this affirmation ‘an interpretation of [a] confession’ (Acts of Synod 1975, p. 603). Therefore, this interpretation has confessional status.”
Synod 2022 also was firm with Neland Ave CRC in Grand Rapids. In 2020, this congregation ordained a deacon living in a same-sex marriage. Synod overwhelmingly voted to “instruct Neland Ave to immediately rescind its decision to ordain a deacon in a same-sex marriage, thus nullifying this deacon’s term.” Further, synod instructed Neland Ave “to uphold our shared denominational covenants” and tasked the Executive Director to appoint a committee in loco to follow up with Neland Ave and Classis Grand Rapids East, which had refused to intervene. Neland Ave decided to appeal the decision to Synod 2023. Classis Grand Rapids East used the appeal as reason to still not intervene.
Better Together?
Once Synod 2022 drew a hard line on sexuality, the CRC head office became flooded with calls about current officebearers who disagreed with the decision, which led to the release of a FAQ.In February of 2023, a new group emerged, calling themselves “Better Together: A Third Way.” Characterizing the revisionist-confessional debate as another branch of the broader culture wars erupting in the CRC, Better Together wants the CRC to have a “mission-focused, baptismally-based identity that allows for disagreement on ethical issues that do not determine our salvation, such as same-sex marriage…” This is “for the purpose of unity and mission together.” Essentially, the Third Way is unity at all costs. For one side this would be the cost of safe spaces for LGBTQ people. For the other side this would be the cost of having teachers in the CRC using the grace of God as license for immorality.Only days after Better Together appeared, the CRC’s LGBTQ lobby group announced that 11 congregations have made public statements in support of full LGBTQ inclusion.Overtures began to pile up. Many of them asked to reverse the decisions of the prior synod. Particular focus was on reversing the declaration that synod’s definition of “unchastity” has “confessional status.” Some called for responses to Neland Ave and the other 10 congregations with affirming statements. Others asked for leeway for Neland Ave and other affirming congregations as well as officebearers who disagree with Synod 2022’s decision.
Synod 2023
When Synod 2023 finally commenced, the initial days progressed as synods often go.Synod 2023 decided (again) to refuse an overture to adopt Belhar Confession as a full confession. The final speaker before the vote was Christian Sebastia, a pastor originally from Venezuela who condemned the Belhar’s “liberation theology” that would open the door to “blood-red socialism.”Synod decided to make an official statement against assisted suicide. Even speakers from historically revisionist classes spoke against assisted suicide and the need for a statement. A task force will be appointed to draft a report on assisted suicide based on prior synodical statements valuing human life.A proposed “Code of Conduct for Ministry Leaders” with vague language about “harm” was thoroughly revised so that any open-ended language could not be used to limit the teaching of Scripture. After all, God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Synod explicitly clarified that this Code is “subservient to Scripture and our Confessions.” Moreover, the Code is “encouraged” (not required) of councils to use for church staff.
All One Body demonstrators daily lined the walkways to and from the dining hall singing “Jesus Loves Me” and “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love” as delegates walked by. The group neared 130 on Wednesday, many holding signs such as, “Avoid Loveless Orthodoxy / Accept God is Love,” “Say ‘All Are Welcome’ … and MEAN IT!”While All One Body whites (is there a better descriptor?) demonstrated outside, inside was a different story. “Several Korean and Latino delegates expressed their positions on human sexuality,” observed Latino Commissioned Pastor Moises Pacheco. “And it seemed to be totally ignored by the delegates speaking in favor of the affirming side even while they continued to claim a desire to advocate for those on the margins. Oddly enough, those on the margins that they were advocating for seemed to be their own friends and family. I’m not sure I have ever felt so ignored.
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Every Sunday can (and should) have Easter expectancy. Every Sunday is about the person and work of Jesus. If there is a significant gap between Easter Sunday and all the rest of the Sundays, then we’re doing something very wrong.

We would often go to my grandparent’s for Easter. It was a special occasion. There were Easter eggs, Easter baskets, and a run through the front yard on Easter morning for little candy-filled plastic eggs. My grandmother made rosemary-encrusted roasted lamb for lunch after church. We all dressed up and caravanned the two miles to the local Episcopal church in that small Virginia town. The church had an Easter tradition that involved placing a cross in the front of the sanctuary, a cross made of rough, aged wooden boards, about four feet tall, loosely wrapped with chicken wire. It stayed that way throughout the Sunday service. At the end of the service, the children would come forward bringing the cut flowers—mostly daffodils of yellow and white—that they brought from home, cut from flower beds in their yards.1 They’d affix them to the cross through the slots in the chicken wire. When the bustle of children up front died down, the cross looked like it had sprouted dozens and dozens of spring flowers. I was young and unconverted, but it was something that I looked forward to every year.2
It would be years until I was born again and understood the significance of that image—of a rough cross, new life, and resurrection. It would be a few more years until I was ordained, and a few more years after that until I was pastoring the church I had planted, understanding the weight that a pastor bears getting ready for that most important of Sundays—Easter Sunday. Did I choose the right hymns and psalms (in the right versions)? Was my sermon clear enough to grip the seasoned saints in my congregation that had heard more Easter sermons in their life than I would likely ever preach? Was my sermon pointed enough to call the non-Christians, who would likely be in attendance, to repentance and faith? Was our nursery staffed enough for the influx of visitors? The expectancy was thick, almost like God offered the opportunity to work mightily on this one day, unlike what he was up to the other fifty-one.
Easter Sunday has always been a big deal, from my earliest unconverted memories to my recent pastor labors. I cherish those memories and my current family traditions.3 But I now know that all that expectancy was misplaced.
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