Saturday or Sunday Church?

[SabbathBlessings]

The Spirit is not in conflict with the laws that we are to keep today. But that simply takes us back to the starting point.

The passages that you cite in post #228 about talk about the apostles doing things like going to the synagogue. That's not necessarily keeping the Sabbath imo.

We would expect to find the apostles, especially Paul, in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Paul always tried to present Jesus within the context of Judaism, since Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. And he went to the Jews first, then to the Greeks. It's my understanding that he would keep going to a synagogue until they kicked him out.

I'm not aware of a passage that actually states something like
The apostles kept the Sabbath.

I guess look at the scriptures differently and try not to disprove God's Word because there is no scripture saying that the apostles who kept the Sabbath by going to the temple, prayer on Sabbath, reading God's Word on Sabbath, preaching God's Word on Sabbath to Jew, Gentles and whole cities would immediately start committing sin after doing these things to show reverence on God’s holy Sabbath day. You should probably start with the scripture that says the apostles broke the Sabbath until then I believe they kept the commandments as Jesus told them to and as they teached others..

 

[Soyeong]

The whole premise in general.

There can be any number of reasons that someone could have for obeying God's law, so someone could be in favor of obeying it for corrects purpose while being against obeying it for incorrect purposes, and speaking against obeying it for an incorrect purpose does not imply that they are against obeying it for a correct purpose. For example, while Paul denied in Romans 4:4-5, that we can earn our justification as a wage, he also said in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the law will be justified, so clearly there are correct purposes for which our justification requires us to choose to be doers of the law, but earning our justification as a wage is not one of them.

So here are some other verses that speak against requiring our works for justification/salvation/eternal life: Romans 3:28, Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:5, Galatians 2:21, Galatians 3:21

While here are some other verses that require our works: Romans 2:6-7, Ephesians 2:10, Titus 2:11-14, Galatians 3:26-29, James 2:17-24, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 19:17, and Luke 10:25-28

So the mistake it to take a verse against earning our justification by our works as a wage as meaning that our justification therefore has nothing to do with doing good works.

So either there are correct or incorrect purposes for someone becoming circumcised, and Paul only spoke against the incorrect purposes, or according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value when he had him circumcised after the Jerusalem Council (Acts 16:3), and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. I made the case that the group in Acts 15:1 were wanting to require circumcision in order to become saved, which is an incorrect purpose that God did not command it for, and ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect purpose should not be mistaken as ruling against requiring circumcision for the correct purposes for which God commanded it. There was a group from Judea in Acts 15:1 and a group of believers from among the Pharisees in Acts 15:5 who had different ideas about the purpose of circumcision and the Jerusalem Council ruled against the first group in favor of the second group. Is this clear?

 

[Leaf473]

Generally judgements refers to justice or righteousness, so that would be a good translation of mishpatim while statutes is translated from chukim.

That's interesting, because there is at least one poster I'm talking to on a different thread who believes that the judgments are the things that passed away from the law.

 

[Leaf473]

David said repeatedly throughout the Psalms that he loved God's law and delighted in obeying it, so does it make sense to interpret people were in complete agreement with the Psalms to view it as a heavy burden that no one could bear?



I don't see a good reason to think that the Apostles has every appearance of continuing to obey what God has commanded in accordance with the example that Christ set for us to follow, but that they were super secretly actually rebelling against God.

Possibly Peter experienced the law as a burden. It would be one thing to keep the law as king of a powerful sovereign Nation.

Quite another to keep it in a Roman colony that apparently had a much higher degree of class disparity than in David's time. imo.

I believe you are assuming that God has commanded that people would keep the Sabbath in the New Covenant by attending church or synagogue. But that's the very thing in question, I believe.

 

[Soyeong]

That's interesting, because there is at least one poster I'm talking to on a different thread who believes that the judgments are the things that passed away from the law.

The world will clearly be judged in Revelation, so judgements have not passed from it. Furthermore, it is still important to have a system of courts where justice is done. Perhaps they are speaking about Romans 8:1 where there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ, however, this is because Christ gave himself to pay the penalty for our sin, so there is still the same judgement of sin, but he has paid in our place, which should make us want to go and sin no more. All of God's righteous laws (mishpatim) are eternal (Psalm 119:160).

 

[Leaf473]

Even when the law was first given to Moses, there was a single person who was required to keep every single law, and not even Jesus kept the laws in regard to having a period or to giving birth. Some laws were only for the King, the High Priest, priests, judges, men, women, children, widows, those who are married, those who have servants, those who have animals, those who have crops, those who have tzaraat, those who are living in the land, and those who are strangers living among them, while others were given for everyone. So figuring out how the law applies to us today is a matter of carefully study, prayer, and the leading us the Spirit, though if we believe that God's law was given for our own good in order to bless us, if we love God, and if we have faith in him to rightly guide us, then we will have the attitude of looking for reasons for have the delight of getting to obey His law rather than the attitude of looking for excuses to avoid obeying it. We can only obey what is possible for us to obey and it would be unjust for God to hold us responsible for not obeying laws that we can't currently obey.

I was just observing the previous times without a tent/temple were short and described. The time we are living in now is orders of magnitude longer and has no end in sight.

If you just want to use the law for wisdom and take delight in it in that sense, cool!

The way that you had dealt with the opening of Deuteronomy 23, arriving at the conclusion that the Lord's assembly was a special executive council for the nation, led me to believe that you were sometimes looking for ways around the law.

I know that Ruth married Boaz and is in the genealogy of Jesus. Is there something that actually says she was welcomed into the congregation of Israel?

 

[BNR32FAN]

We observe it through communion. Christ fulfilled all blood sacrifices, He is the Passover for all generations..

Where is this mentioned in the scriptures?

 

[SabbathBlessings]

Where is this mentioned in the scriptures?

Col 2:14-17, Hebrews 10, 1 Cor 5:7

Do you keep the Passover and sacrifice lambs?

 

[Leaf473]

I guess look at the scriptures differently and try not to disprove God's Word because there is no scripture saying that the apostles who kept the Sabbath by going to the temple, prayer on Sabbath, reading God's Word on Sabbath, preaching God's Word on Sabbath to Jew, Gentles and whole cities would immediately start committing sin after doing these things to show reverence on God’s holy Sabbath day. You should probably start with the scripture that says the apostles broke the Sabbath until then I believe they kept the commandments as Jesus told them to and as they teached others..

I'm not trying to disprove God's word. I am interested in rightly dividing (as in understanding) it.

I agree that the New Testament (after the cross) mentions things that the apostles did which could be construed as Sabbath keeping.

But they also did those things on other days, in another places.

 

[Leaf473]

The world will clearly be judged in Revelation, so judgements have not passed from it. Furthermore, it is still important to have a system of courts where justice is done. Perhaps they are speaking about Romans 8:1 where there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ, however, this is because Christ gave himself to pay the penalty for our sin, so there is still the same judgement of sin, but he has paid in our place, which should make us want to go and sin no more. All of God's righteous laws (mishpatim) are eternal (Psalm 119:160).

Well... Trying to take the concept of judgment from Revelation and say that therefore the judgments from the law must still be around is quite a stretch imo.

The person in question was presenting a common theology that we are to keep the ten commandments, plus some others from the law of Moses. But not all of them.

The question immediately comes up, how do you separate? They were saying that commandments and statutes remain, judgments and ordinances ended. I was hoping you might have some definitive information on how the law falls into those different categories. But my overall impression is that they aren't distinct groups. It's like our English expression Rules and Regulations.

I assume you believe that all of God's laws are eternal period, yes?

 

[Leaf473]

Regarding how we celebrate the Passover today,

If something which had been said was going to be throughout all generations can then in the New Testament be changed to the Lord's Supper, without doing the other pieces unique to the Passover,
then cool!

That's basically the way I interpret all of the law of Moses.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

I'm not trying to disprove God's word. I am interested in rightly dividing (as in understanding) it.

I agree that the New Testament (after the cross) mentions things that the apostles did which could be construed as Sabbath keeping.

But they also did those things on other days, in another places.

There is no indication that the apostles broke the Sabbath and what is revealed from scripture they did things that were about the Lord on the Sabbath just like we are told in scripture Isaiah 58:13 so it seems unreasonable to assume anything else. The Sabbath in the NT is referred to as the same respect as in the Old Testament- On the Sabbath day…. Why because nothing changed it is still the commandment of God Luke 23:56

There are 8 references to the first day in the NT and nothing saying that the seventh day is no longer the Lord’s holy day and now we are to worship Him on the first day. I am happy to go through each scripture reference if you would like and we can compare it to what it says about the Sabbath.

 

[Soyeong]

We were created to know God, God has given instructions for how to know Him, and people who want to argue against following those instructions are missing the point of their existence.

 

[Carl Emerson]

We were created to know God, God has given instructions for how to know Him, and people who want to argue against following those instructions are missing the point of their existence.

Those who make the Gospel of faith into a legalism are missing the point of their existence.

 

[Soyeong]

Those who make the Gospel of faith into a legalism are missing the point of their existence.

If God is legalistic for giving His law to His people, Jesus is legalistic for spent his ministry teaching his followers how to obey it by word and by example, and the Apostles were legalistic for spreading the Gospel calling for people to repent and obey it, then we should all be legalistic, but that's not what legalism refers to. The Bible speaks at least as much against lawlessness as it does against legalism, so both are errors.

 

[Carl Emerson]

God is not legalistic but Satan is...

 

[Soyeong]

God is not legalistic but Satan is...

Satan does not have the role of leading us to obey God's law.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Then why did Jesus call the Jewish worshipers zealous for the Law, the Synagogue of Satan ???

 

[Carl Emerson]

@Soyeong

Do you believe keeping the Law is central to the Gospel???

 

[Carl Emerson]

I note that 1 Cor 15 is the most comprehensive account of Paul's gospel and the Law has no mention at all.