Why we are not supposed to keep the Sabbath

[Leaf473]

I guess the answer would be “something else.” A person wants to dedicate their life to God, so they search the Bible to see what God commanded. Keeping those commandments demonstrates their desire to please God.

Hi Jerry N., nice to meet you

The way I see it, we want to keep the principles in all of God's word

But we don't always physically do the things that are talked about

When it comes to the Sabbath, the principle can be kept by treating every day as holy

Bible Gateway passage: Romans 14:5 - Easy-to-Read Version

Some people might believe that one day is more important than another. And others might believe that every day is the same. Everyone should be sure about their beliefs in their own mind.

www.biblegateway.com

 

[guevaraj]

This is not an answer to my question. My question is - if there is no literal creation week, (if Genesis 1 is not literal), would your position and reasoning for the Sabbath keeping change?

Brother, if God does not tell us that what He says means something else, then it is not up to us to say that He does not mean exactly what He says.

God is not a man, so he does not lie. (Numbers 23:19 NLT)​

1. The Sabbath was a part of the Mosaic Law and of the Mosaic Law only.

False, the Sabbath is God's rest on the seventh day of creation week made "holy" before sin.

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. (Exodus 20:8-11 NLT)​

2. The Law was only for Jews, since Moses till Christ.

False, God Plan through Abraham was to bless everyone, not just the Jews as He tells us in the following passage.

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3 NLT)​

3. Even the book of Genesis was a theological part of the Mosaic Law and is not literal (namely in its creation account).

False, God tells the truth and it is not up to us to say that He means something other than what He says.

Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.” (John 18:37 NLT)​

United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge

 

[guevaraj]

we don't always physically do the things that are talked about

Brother, getting the Sabbath right is God's given evidence that He has been with us from the beginning in having established the International Date Line (IDL) and that, despite having used many prophets to give us His word, He is in control of His word because He has consistently told us what a day of the week is, when all those human prophets He used were wrong in their own understanding of the weekdays, proving that what they wrote was by inspiration correct when their own thinking was wrong about the days of the week.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT)​

We are told that without this evidence from God obtained when we keep the true Sabbath “day” to help our faith, we will “fall.”

God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God. For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’” even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.” But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.” So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.” Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall. (Hebrews 4:1-11 NLT)​

United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge

 

[Soyeong]

Premises:
1. The Sabbath was a part of the Mosaic Law and of the Mosaic Law only.

Sin is what is contrary to God's character, such as with righteousness being in accordance with God's character while unrighteousness is contrary to God's character, and sin is the transgression of the Mosaic Law because it was given to teach us how to be a doer of God's character. The way to be a doer of God's character is straightforwardly based on God's character, not on a particular covenant, though God's covenants have included instructions for how to be a doer of His character are part of their stipulations, and God's character is eternal, therefore any instructions that God has ever given for how to be a doer of His character are eternally valid. For example, God's righteousness is eternal (Psalms 119:142), therefore all of His righteous laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160). So while the command to keep the Sabbath holy was included as part of the Mosaic Law, the significance of the Mosaic Law is what it teaches us about God's eternal character. Anyone who wants to know God through being a doer of His character should obey the Mosaic Law.

2. The Law was only for Jews, since Moses till Christ.

Jesus did not come with the message to stop repenting because the Mosaic Law has ended now that he has come, but rather he came in Matthew 4:15-23 with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus did not come to curse us by causing us to be free to do what the Mosaic Law reveals to be wickedness, but rather spreading the Gospel of the Kingdom is in accordance him being sent in fulfillment of the promise to curse us by turning us from our wickedness (Acts 3:25-26). Jesus is God's word made flesh, so he is not the abolishment of God's word, but rather he the embodiment of the Mosaic Law expressed through setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to it.

The way to believe in God is by being in His image through being a doer of His character traits. For example, by being a doer of good works in obedience to the Mosaic Law we are testifying about God's goodness, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), and by testifying about God's goodness we are expressing the belief that God is good, or in other words, we are believing in Him, and the same is true for other aspects of God's character. The way to believe that God is just is by being a doer of justice, the way to believe that God is holy is by being a doer of His instructions for how to be holy as He is holy and so forth. This is why the Bible frequently connects our faith in God with our obedience to Him, such as in Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept faith in Jesus.

It is contradictory for someone to consider themselves to be a believer in the God of Israel while not wanting to be a doer of His character in obedience to the Mosaic Law in accordance with the example that Christ set for us to follow. The position that the Mosaic Law is only for Jews is the position that Gentiles have no need of the Gospel of the Kingdom that Gentiles have no need to repent from doing what God has revealed to be sin, that Gentiles have no need of salvation from sin, that Gentiles have no need of grace, that Gentiles have no need of Jesus to have given himself to redeem us from all lawlessness, and that Gentiles have no need of the New Covenant.

3. Even the book of Genesis was a theological part of the Mosaic Law and is not literal (namely in its creation account).

Please clarify the relevance of this point.

If these premises are all true, we are not supposed to keep the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is holy to God and what is holy to God should not be profaned by man, so we would still be obligated to keep the Sabbath holy even if God had never commanded anyone to do that. In 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to do that, which includes keeping His Sabbaths holy (Leviticus 19:2-3), so the only way that we shouldn't obey God's instructions for how to be holy as He is holy would be if God we to cease to be holy.

 

[trophy33]

Brother, if God does not tell us that what He says means something else, then it is not up to us to say that He does not mean exactly what He says.

God is not a man, so he does not lie. (Numbers 23:19 NLT)​

Non-literal does not equal lie. Many of you have a surprising problem to distinguish between such basic things. Also, you did not answer my question, again.

 

[trophy33]

Sin is what is contrary to God's character, such as with righteousness being in accordance with God's character while unrighteousness is contrary to God's character, and sin is the transgression of the Mosaic Law because it was given to teach us how to be a doer of God's character...

This does not refute the point "The Sabbath was a part of the Mosaic Law and of the Mosaic Law only." You just said you have a different opinion (in many more words).

 

[trophy33]

Please clarify the relevance of this point.

If the creation week in Genesis is not literal, i.e. the world was not literally created in 6 days and God did not literally rested on the 7th, then its just a symbolic, cultural prelude to the Mosaic Law covenant and nothing universal for the rest of the world.

 

[trophy33]

I will try to get it more systematic, again.

If I am not mistaken nobody of the proponents of the Sabbath keeping answered whether they see the premises and conclusion as logically coherent. And only one kind of answered whether the literal reading of the creation story is needed for the current and universal keeping of the Sabbath.

So, lets try again:

1. Do you agree that the premises and conclusion are logically coherent and if the premises are true, the conclusion is true? Without agreeing about this we cannot move further. If you do not agree, then the OP needs fixing or clarification.

2. Only after we have agreed about the logical coherency of the premises and conclusions, you can focus on one premise of your choice and give a short, few sentences logical refutation. Be precise and reason properly (do not create straw men). If you want to use a biblical verse, use one or two, do not make your answer a preaching. Make it a formal, logical refutation.

Without this clarity and simplicity, this thread will turn to usual verse flooding, opinions and preaching being thrown from one side to another, without any order, and we will get nowhere as always.

 

[trophy33]

Jesus did not come with the message to stop repenting because the Mosaic Law has ended now that he has come, but rather he came in Matthew 4:15-23 with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus did not come to curse us by causing us to be free to do what the Mosaic Law reveals to be wickedness, but rather spreading the Gospel of the Kingdom is in accordance him being sent in fulfillment of the promise to curse us by turning us from our wickedness (Acts 3:25-26). Jesus is God's word made flesh, so he is not the abolishment of God's word, but rather he the embodiment of the Mosaic Law expressed through setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to it.

The way to believe in God is by being in His image through being a doer of His character traits. For example, by being a doer of good works in obedience to the Mosaic Law we are testifying about God's goodness, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), and by testifying about God's goodness we are expressing the belief that God is good, or in other words, we are believing in Him, and the same is true for other aspects of God's character. The way to believe that God is just is by being a doer of justice, the way to believe that God is holy is by being a doer of His instructions for how to be holy as He is holy and so forth. This is why the Bible frequently connects our faith in God with our obedience to Him, such as in Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept faith in Jesus.

It is contradictory for someone to consider themselves to be a believer in the God of Israel while not wanting to be a doer of His character in obedience to the Mosaic Law in accordance with the example that Christ set for us to follow. The position that the Mosaic Law is only for Jews is the position that Gentiles have no need of the Gospel of the Kingdom that Gentiles have no need to repent from doing what God has revealed to be sin, that Gentiles have no need of salvation from sin, that Gentiles have no need of grace, that Gentiles have no need of Jesus to have given himself to redeem us from all lawlessness, and that Gentiles have no need of the New Covenant.

Try to summarize your refutation into one or two sentences. Example:

"The Law of Moses was not given only to Jews, because xyz. I prove it with this verse [verse xyz] or with this reasoning [one or two sentence reasoning]."

Without this clarity and simplicity, this thread will turn to usual verse flooding and preaching throwing from one side to another, without any order.

 

[Jerry N.]

We are given a measure of faith from God as a gift

In the same way that repentance is granted by God (Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25), faith is also a supernatural gift of God. Ephesians 2:8–9 affirms this: “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Hello

Eating more veggies is an excellent idea but you could keep meat on occasion eating a small portion, there are amino acids in meat that are not always found in vegetables of they are in low quantity, as for the cholesterol, a normal adult lever produces 2100 mg of it each day.

what increases cholesterol is sugars, lack of exercise and bad oils, the good oils are the ones extracted cold press not heated or transformed. Butter is far better than margarine, these are made of hydrogenated oils and are bad for you. the uses of oils and animal fat should be kept at a reasonable quantity not going overboard. Overall you are on the right track. What you propose is excellent.

Blessings
P.S, if you follow 1 tim 4:3 you will lead a boring life, get married if you want and be happy, everywhere in the bible the isrealites ate meat. it is permitted to do so and The God Who made us provides us with the dentition to eat meat.

First off: what determines "success" for you? Was the one thief on the cross successful? Where the parents of the thief successful in raising a thief that will be with Christ in Paradice?
Without the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit will we continue to sin all the more?
I have worked with young men in the intercity and in prison plus kids from really nice neighborhoods, there are advantages and disadvantages for both groups.
What I see: is all mature adults have not the exact same opportunity, but equal opportunities to fulfill their earthly objective.

Hi Jerry N., nice to meet you

The way I see it, we want to keep the principles in all of God's word

But we don't always physically do the things that are talked about

When it comes to the Sabbath, the principle can be kept by treating every day as holy

Dear Leaf473,

Thank you for the kind welcome. It is nice to meet you too.

Personally, My wife and I are Messianic Christians. Our home is on a small mountain in rural Southeastern Poland. We keep the Sabbath and several other laws of the Torah and have done so for about 30 years. We don’t have a congregation of similar faith anywhere in the area, so it is especially important for us to have one day per week to set aside for God to help us keep Him in the center of our lives. Otherwise, we would just work every day and tend to drift toward the problems of life. Surely every day should be holy, but the Sabbath has been a blessing for us.

 

[guevaraj]

if there is no literal creation week, (if Genesis 1 is not literal), would your position and reasoning for the Sabbath keeping change?

Brother, the answer to your question is no! We do not need the Genesis creation account to correct the erroneous Jewish human tradition of the Sabbath. Without the Genesis account of creation week, we can still understand why the Jewish Sabbath tradition is a misinterpretation of God's rest on the seventh day of creation through the story of manna, as expressed in this video.

United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge

 

[Leaf473]

Brother, getting the Sabbath right is God's given evidence that

He has been with us from the beginning...

Hello guevaraj my brother

Who is the "us" that you are saying God has been with from the beginning?

Bible Gateway passage: Hebrews 13:5 - Easy-to-Read Version

Keep your lives free from the love of money. And be satisfied with what you have. God has said, “I will never leave you; I will never run away from you.”

www.biblegateway.com

...in having established the International Date Line (IDL) and that, despite having used many prophets to give us His word, He is in control of His word because He has consistently told us what a day of the week is, when all those human prophets He used were wrong in their own understanding of the weekdays, proving that what they wrote was by inspiration correct when their own thinking was wrong about the days of the week.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT)​

We are told that without this evidence from God obtained when we keep the true Sabbath “day” to help our faith, we will “fall.”

God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God. For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’” even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.” But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.” So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.” Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall. (Hebrews 4:1-11 NLT)​

United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge

 

[Leaf473]

Dear Leaf473,

Thank you for the kind welcome. It is nice to meet you too.

Personally, My wife and I are Messianic Christians. Our home is on a small mountain in rural Southeastern Poland. We keep the Sabbath and several other laws of the Torah and have done so for about 30 years. We don’t have a congregation of similar faith anywhere in the area, so it is especially important for us to have one day per week to set aside for God to help us keep Him in the center of our lives. Otherwise, we would just work every day and tend to drift toward the problems of life. Surely every day should be holy, but the Sabbath has been a blessing for us.

Well, if observing the seventh day keeps you from drifting into the problems of life, then by all means keep it

But I think you can agree that other Christians are able to keep God in the center by focusing on his ways every day of the week

Bible Gateway passage: Colossians 3:17 - Easy-to-Read Version

Everything you say and everything you do should be done for Jesus your Lord. And in all you do, give thanks to God the Father through Jesus.

www.biblegateway.com

Are there no other Christians in your area that you can fellowship with? If not, how about starting an in-home Bible study?

Peace be with you!

 

[Leaf473]

Brother, the answer to your question is no! We do not need the Genesis creation account to correct the erroneous Jewish human tradition of the Sabbath. Without the Genesis account of creation week, we can still understand why the Jewish Sabbath tradition is a misinterpretation of God's rest on the seventh day of creation....

..through the story of manna, as expressed in this video.

Were all humans told to stay where they are on the 7th Day, or just the Israelites in the wilderness?

Bible Gateway passage: Exodus 16:29 - Easy-to-Read Version

Look, the LORD has made the Sabbath a day of rest for you. So on Friday he will give you enough food for two days. Then, on the Sabbath, each of you should sit down and relax. Stay where you are.”

www.biblegateway.com

United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge

 

[Jerry N.]

I made a mistake above. I haven’t figured out how to insert quotes. I meant to only insert the quote from Leaf473. If anybody can explain the process, it would be helpful.

 

[Icyspark]

My third premise is not "the creation account is a lie". My third premise is "the creation account is not literal". Please, refrain from creating straw men.

I think the third premise is supported from many sides (natural sciences, cultural/historical sciences, textual criticism, internal literary devices used in the text itself...).

Hi trophy33,

To be fair, your supplied premises did not reveal anything on which they were based. So my "straw men" were developed based on your vacuum of information.

What I'm noticing about your responses to my rebuttal as well as that of others is that you are continuing in this vacuum. You neglect to acknowledge what the Bible clearly says and instead focus on the nebulous and obscure.

Is your belief in the Sabbath keeping dependent on the universe to be literally created in 6 literal days and God literally resting on the 7th day?

No, although this is the reason behind why Jesus says the Sabbath was instituted (i.e., "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."). Btw, this is not the language of hyperbole, symbolism, or parable. This is a statement of fact. There would be no reason to appeal to a made up event as the basis for a once a week remembrance of something that never happened. That's absurd.

For a more thorough response as to why I observe the Sabbath see the thread, "Ten Reasons I'm a Sabbatarian."

What do you think Peter meant when he said:

2 Peter 3:5​

But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.​

Could this text be written in reference to people like yourself who "deliberately forget" that God created the heavens and the earth by His "word"? Do you also "deliberately forget" that by the word of Jesus people were healed; demons were cast out; a storm was silenced; the dead were raised; etc.? Is the God you believe in the all powerful God of the Bible who can speak creation into existence with a word? Or is your god a limited god; a finite god; a god created in the image of man? Is your god impotent, or omnipotent?

I pray this helps.

But for the grace of God go I,cyspark

 

[Jerry N.]

Dear Leaf,
I fully agree that "that other Christians are able to keep God in the center by focusing on his ways every day of the week."
Before we moved to this part of Poland, we had fellowship with other Protestants, including Bible studies. Many Roman Catholics may well be our brothers and sisters in Christ, but they are not interested in studying with non-Catholics. Unfortunately, there are no Protestants nearby here.

 

[Leaf473]

I made a mistake above. I haven’t figured out how to insert quotes. I meant to only insert the quote from Leaf473. If anybody can explain the process, it would be helpful.

Hi Jerry

I'll be glad to give you lots of details! Let's move to a different thread

I'll send you another reply in a minute from a place where we can do all kinds of experiments

 

[trophy33]

Brother, the answer to your question is no! We do not need the Genesis creation account to correct the erroneous Jewish human tradition of the Sabbath. Without the Genesis account of creation week, we can still understand why the Jewish Sabbath tradition is a misinterpretation of God's rest on the seventh day of creation through the story of manna, as expressed in this video.

United in our hope for the soon return of Jesus, Jorge

So you still need to believe in the literal 7 day creation week? Meaning, if it was in the Genesis account, you would get it from somewhere else?

Let me rephrase the question then - If the world was not created in 6 literal days and if God did not rest on the 7th day from his work, literally, will your case for the literal 7th day keeping still stand?

 

[trophy33]

Hi trophy33,

To be fair, your supplied premises did not reveal anything on which they were based. So my "straw men" were developed based on your vacuum of information.

What I'm noticing about your responses to my rebuttal as well as that of others is that you are continuing in this vacuum. You neglect to acknowledge what the Bible clearly says and instead focus on the nebulous and obscure.

It seems you are unfamiliar with formal arguments. First, we must agree about the logical coherency of the premises and conclusion. Only after that we can try to refute the premises or the conclusion. Imagine talking for a week about one of the premises and then just saying "you know what, I do not accept the conclusion even if this premise cannot be refuted".

Also, saying "lie" instead of "not literal", while representing one of the premises is not caused by any "vacuum of information". Its a clear and obvious substantial change to the premise.

If you are unsure what is meant by the used words (the Mosaic Law, Sabbath, not literal, Genesis...) you can ask for more clarification, but do not change them.