Indeed. How can religion follow Jesus when it adds multiple commandments that He never gave to his disciples?
2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day
shall not come, except there come a
falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
In Rev 13:3-4 Jesus describes the extent of this falling away ['apostasy'] of religion, indeed of the whole world following Satan as this false saviour of the then [now?] much-troubled world, the 'antichristos', one in place of Christ.
Thus religion cannot follow Jesus , it is incapable of doing so ... Jesus describes those he takes at his return,at the death of the 'antichrist' in Rev 7:3-8 , there are but 144,000 [confirmed as literal by Enoch - see Jude 1:14 , there are only tens of thousands of saints to bridge the gap between Jesus' two comings ... that amounts to about a coupe of thousand who can follow Jesus alive at any one time [and they scattered worldwide by the task Jesus set them of finding the lost House of Israel , who ceased to be a people and were scattered long before the Jews [House of Judah]... this shows that any group larger than say 2000 and not composed wholly of saints knowing all truth of God [John 16:13] simply cannot be following Jesus and will worship the antichrist , according to Jesus' witness in scripture... that rules out almost all modern religion even before one starts going through doctrine in detail [which eliminates the rest of religion of sinners led by sinners rather quickly too - ]
So you are right, religion cannot follow Jesus, and basically he said so ... because they cannot stop sinning [and most know it] ... religion has an essential role following the antichrist, but it is only the saints which can follow Jesus , those who stop sinning [2 Timothy 2:19] , who stop disobeying Jesus' command to love [else he would not be their Lord ... whatever sinners say , sin is not love and it is disobedience to Jesus , so even if a sinner cries out 'Jesus is my Lord' ,his sin shows that Jesus is not his Lord]
Pray tell us where Jesus specifically commanded his disciples to observe the Sabbath.
Jesus summarised the commandments of God to the saints as :-
Matt 22:37 ...Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Sinners have no idea how to do the first [because God must be worshiped in spirit and they do not have spirit baptism] and fare not too well at the second ... since Jesus knew this ,he only instructed those who would be saints , no point in instructing hose who would remain sinners until death since he knew they could never keep in this life his commands to the FEW saints of this world. [significantly he did say countess many would keep them in the next life though, despite dying sinners in this life - Rev 7:9-10 , the 'broad' way to Jesus for the many , not just the few of Matt 7:14!]
Thus we find that all those that Jesus commanded in this life are of the tribes of Israel [Rev 7:3-8] ,sealed by the holy spirit to know all truth [John 16:13] to be ABLE to defeat all Satan's wiles and so stop sinning .
as you likely know, all the other commandments of the old covenant are repeated in the NT , so the question reduces to - Why should those whose 'fathers' broke the old covenant [Heb 8:8-9] , the only ones given grace in the new covenant [Heb 8:8-13, Jer 31:31-34] keep the sabbath , when they have unconditonal forgiveness anyway ?
The answer is that God set up a sign between Israel and Himself, a perpetual covenant in keeping His sabbaths [because holy sabbaths are actually memorial days celebrating the past and future events of God's plan... few in modern religion understand that, but the saints do, and Satan thinks it important enough that all holy days have been substituted out of Christianity,not one Hebrew holy day of scripture is celebrated in most of Christainity .. the plan is lost to christian sinners , they keep pagan days labeled 'christian' instead of the holy days set by God to show His plan for the future of mankind.
The OT records that holy days are memorials for ever , they are not alterable , they did not disappear just because Israel broke its old covenant [partly to keep them]
In particular the weekly sabbath is a sign between Israel and God for ever that shows they are His people and He is their God :-
Exodus 31:13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.
Ezekiel 20:12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.
...
Ezekiel 20:20 And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.
Thus Jesus [as a Jew] and his disciples [mostly Jews at first] kept sabbath to please God and show that they are the people of God and He their God even though they were no longer under sentence of being stoned to death for not keeping sabbath [as in the old covenant], they had farmore to lose than life by not keeping sabbath.
Isaiah makes the point for keeping sabbaths into even our future
Isaiah 56:4 For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that
keep my sabbaths, and choose
the things that please me, and take hold of
my covenant;
5 Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an
everlasting name, that shall
not be cut off.
Isaiah here continues describing events in the times after the House of Israel and the House of Judah are re-united under the Messiah [the Christ] ... things in our future , so clearly keeping sabbaths [in fact all memorial sabbaths, not just weekly sabbath] is important now and into the new earth, just as one would expect of reminders to God's plan... there would be no sense in them being lost ... there are other reasons why they are lost to most of christianity.
If you choose to revert to the Old Testament commandments as your proof, please tell us why you utterly fail to keep the Sabbath according to the detailed commandment there.
The old covenant demanded the death penalty for sabbath-breaking under the old covenant , the penalty under the new covenant is to be rejected by Jesus at his return [far worse than death for a saint] :-
Jesus talking of his return:
Matthew 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you:
depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
again , the very foundation of salvation in the name of Christ is to give up all sin [through baptism of the spirit ... it is a gift from God, not of our own selves choosing, but God's choice of the few [Matt 7:14]from the beginning, but the many are saved too just later , once the kingdom is set up and ready for the few to rule and minister to uncountable billions [ Rev 7:9-10]
The few are 'chosen' only because God required to show His power of prophecy , there had to be a name , He chose Israel , named them with His name as His people , they rebelled , so He takes them as His people in the new covenant, those descended from the ones who broke His old covenant , because of Him, not them :-
Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
Hebrews 8:9 Not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers
This little word 'their' gives the lie to almost all christian religion , it proves that the new covenant of grace is only with those whose ancestors broke the old covenant , only with [genetic] Israel, as indeed Jesus confirms in Rev 7:3-8 , naming the saints of this earth by tribe of Israel.
It is a very significant error, deceiving over a billion people in religion about what Jesus came to do and what the gospel is about...
christians do not want to do away with their rest day, what they want todo is pretend that it is holy , but God set His holy day for rest on sabbath , not even a Roman-type day at all [but starting at evening in Jerusalem, not local midnight like Roman days most keep today]
The argument really is for christians between keeping God's word or keeping some other pagan day and not working the six days God set for work... thus christians already do not seek to please God by keeping sabbaths, the only way they could show they love God in obedience to Jesus command if they were saints ... it is clear then that gdo has a different salvation for the many christians who goby the broad way of sinners , it is still a salvation [Rev 7:9-10] but not by the new covenant, but by being freed from sin by death :
Romans 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
It matters not a lot that christian sinners don' t keep sabbath since they are bound to die anyway , what will matter to them is when Jesus returns and they are not taken first because they are still sinners , then they will gnash their teeth at God, but because they have been deceived by listening to sinners, not scripture ... they will still be saved alongside many other sinners , more than the few who take the narrow strait way are saved
The few are first only because the kings and priests of the kingdom need to be there at the start , ready to rule and minister to billions of resurrected sinners freed from sin by death who live righteously under Jesus in the new earth before being judged by their works there... everyone is delivered up from hell free from sin with the opportunity to be saved by works in the righteous new earth at judgment day :
Revelation 20:13 ...
hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man
according to their works.
2 Peter 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a
new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
sabbaths are memorials right to the end of God's plan , the weekly sabbath symbolising final rest in the third heaven [paradise, immortality of the tree of life, the spirit] ... there can be no ceasing of God's memorials until it is all over, they would cease to be memorials if they disappeared before fulfillment... God put them there as signs, only sinners do not need them until the next life [when scripture shows that all will keep sabbaths]
It is totally mistaken to think that God's word canbe ignored in the OT, God's word is ONE truth, OT and NT , else it would not be of God ... if one does not believe that then there is nothing to be said about the future , about salvation, redemption to spirit ...