Circumcision & the Sabbath?

LarryP2 said:

Any argument that Christians must keep any part of the Mosaic Law is just dishonest about the structure and implementation of the Old Testament law, and indicates a severe ignorance about its applications. There are 613 Commandments, all of which are equally important, and all of them must be kept. Or none of them. There is NO distinction in the Mosaic Law between "ritualistic" and "moral" law. Sabbattarian Christians make that self-serving distinction purely out of convenience. They have picked a few of the 613 Commandments at random, based on the ones that happen to tickle their fancy. That is dishonest to the intent of the Law.

If you were to approach an rabbinical expert on the Mosaic Law, and announce self-righteously that you are "keeping the Ten Commandments," they would look on you as though you are mentally deranged. Under Mosaic Law, there is no such a thing as the "Ten Commandments." What we know as the "Decalogue" is subsumed into the overall structure of the 613 Commandments. Judaism does not regard the ten commandments as anything special in relationship to the other 603 Commandments.

Out of the mandatory 613 Mosaic laws, Sabbattarians pick and choose a tiny handful that happily coincide with their overall goals of preening self-righteousness over other Christians. They flatter themselves all too easily. If you understand the way the Mosaic law works, all they have merely done is make themselves looks foolish. The Apostles repeatedly denounced such behavior as "Judaizing." The Apostles were experts on the Mosaic Law. Sabbattarians are not.

For Christians, Colossians 2:16-17 means what it says.

For Christians, the AD 50 Council of Jerusalem emphatically means what it says: Gentile Christians shall not be bound by the Mosaic law.

Any argument that the Sabbath is a memorial of Creation indicates an profound ignorance of the original Hebrew that both Genesis and Exodus were written in. The writer of the book of Genesis took great pains to make it clear that the Sabbath did not begin at the 7th day of Creation. Hebrew scholars have made that point absolutely clear. The Sabbath commandment was not given to the Children of Israel until at least a month after their delivery from Egyptian slavery. Meanwhile, they would have unintentionally broken the Sabbath at least four times during their crossing of the Sinai. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anyone kept the Sabbath prior to Sinai. NONE!

Christians began worshiping on Sunday no later than 1 week after the Resurrection. Christ then Ascended on a Sunday. The Day of Pentecost, the Church's Birthday was on a Sunday. It would have been BIZARRE if the early Christians had continued to keep the Sabbath, given the impact those three events clearly would have had on them. Why were all the early Christians in one place on a Sunday when the Day of Pentecost took place? Because they had started doing so in honor of the Resurrection. By the Day of Pentecost, it was an entrenched Christian custom already.

The argument for keeping just one commandment out of the 613 of the Mosaic Law simply denigrates the obvious meaning of the crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension and the Day of Pentecost. It is a theory of "Partial Atonement." It is an argument that one must keep the Mosaic Law, because Christ's sacrifice is not enough.

If you want to keep the Sabbath and have some integrity, you need to go through the full-scale conversion process to Judaism that is required. It is extremely highly-unlikely any Sabbattarian Christian would do that. For an unconverted Gentile to keep the Sabbath is such a serious offense, it requires the imposition of the Death Penalty. Christians who keep the Sabbath are as bizarre as if they suddenly developed a yen to sacrifice some animals in their backyard temple.

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random person said:

Do they go hand-in-hand? If one fails to keep one or the other they are a breaker of the Law... and yet Paul says:

Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

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random person said:

Do they go hand-in-hand? If one fails to keep one or the other they are a breaker of the Law... and yet Paul says:

Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

Either there are good or bad reasons for someone to become circumcised or Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US (Galatians 5:2) and Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy (Acts 16:3). We should be careful not to take something that was only against becoming circumcised for the wrong reasons as being against obeying what God has commanded, especially because the Jerusalem Council did not have the authority to countermand God or to tell Gentiles not to obey any of His commands.

In Acts 15:1, they were wanting to require all Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the purpose for which God commanded circumcision. So the problem was that circumcision was being used for a man-made purpose that went above and beyond the purpose that God had commanded it for, which means that the Jerusalem Council upheld the Mosaic Law by correctly ruling against that requirement. A ruling against requiring something that God never commanded should not be mistaken as being a ruling in rebellion against obeying what God has commanded.

A Gentile who consented to becoming circumcised was becoming a Jewish proselyte and was agreeing to live as a Jew according to all of their mountains of oral laws, traditions, rulings, and fences, and doing all of those works of the law in order to become saved, and this is what the Jerusalem Council was ruling against, not ruling in rebellion against obeying God's Law.

In 1 Corinthians 7:19, Paul said that circumcision has no value, that what matters is obeying God's commands, however, he also said in Romans 3:1-2 that circumcision has much value in every way, so the issue is that the value of circumcision is entirely derived from whether we obey God's Law (Romans 2:25). In Romans 2:26, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to God's Law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 10:12-16).

The Bible often uses the same terms to describe the character of God as it does to describe the character of God's Law, so the Law was given to teach us about who He is, how to walk in His ways, how to express His character traits in accordance with His nature, and how to grow in a relationship with Him. By expressing God's character traits through our actions in obedience to His Law, such as holiness, righteousness, and goodness, we are acting as a light to the nations by testifying about who God is (Isaiah 2:2-3, Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 5:13-16. In Deuteronomy 4:5-8, the intended reaction of the nations seeing Israel's obedience to God's Law was to marvel and how great and wise He is, so again their obedience was about testifying to who God is and the Law was intended to be used as a tool to evangelize the nations and to bless the nations by teaching them to repent from their wickedness and how to walk in God's ways, to the Jew first and then to the Gentile (Acts 3:26).

So when Gentiles see Jews walking in the ways of the God of Israel and expressing His character traits in obedience to His Law, it is something that Gentiles should want to become part of. In Genesis 17:12, God commanded Abraham's entire household to become circumcised, including any foreigners who were bought with money, so it should desirable for Gentiles to want to become sons of the faith of Abraham and to want to physically identify with the God of Abraham. In Exodus 12:48, Gentiles were required to become circumcised in order to eat of the Passover lamb, so again this should be desirable for Gentiles. In Psalms 19:7-11, it expresses the correct view of God's Law, which we should shared by all who consider the Psalms to be Scripture, in which he said God's Law was more to be desired than fine gold and sweeter than honey. David repeatedly said throughout the Psalms that he loved God's Law and delighted in obeying it, and Paul also delighted in obeying it (Romans 7:22), so yes, there are correct reasons why a Gentile should desire to become circumcised, though Gentiles should still be careful to avoid becoming circumcised for the wrong reasons.

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random person said:

Do they go hand-in-hand? If one fails to keep one or the other they are a breaker of the Law... and yet Paul says:

Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

Click to expand...

The death of Adam and Eve was spiritual, not physical

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eleos1954 said:

So Adam was already experiencing spiritual separation as he tried to hide with Eve from the presence of God and as he tried to clothe himself with leaves, which would wither. God then pronounces that Adam would die physically when He says, “To dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). And some nine hundred or so years later, Adam dies physically (we do not know how long it was between the Creation of Adam and the Fall).

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OGM said:

Can't imagine remembering 612!

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LarryP2 said:

Any argument that Christians must keep any part of the Mosaic Law is just dishonest about the structure and implementation of the Old Testament law, and indicates a severe ignorance about its applications. There are 613 Commandments, all of which are equally important, and all of them must be kept. Or none of them. There is NO distinction in the Mosaic Law between "ritualistic" and "moral" law. Sabbattarian Christians make that self-serving distinction purely out of convenience. They have picked a few of the 613 Commandments at random, based on the ones that happen to tickle their fancy. That is dishonest to the intent of the Law.

Any argument that the Sabbath is a memorial of Creation indicates an profound ignorance of the original Hebrew that both Genesis and Exodus were written in. The writer of the book of Genesis took great pains to make it clear that the Sabbath did not begin at the 7th day of Creation. Hebrew scholars have made that point absolutely clear. The Sabbath commandment was not given to the Children of Israel until at least a month after their delivery from Egyptian slavery. Meanwhile, they would have unintentionally broken the Sabbath at least four times during their crossing of the Sinai. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anyone kept the Sabbath prior to Sinai. NONE!

Christians began worshiping on Sunday no later than 1 week after the Resurrection. Christ then Ascended on a Sunday. The Day of Pentecost, the Church's Birthday was on a Sunday. It would have been BIZARRE if the early Christians had continued to keep the Sabbath, given the impact those three events clearly would have had on them. Why were all the early Christians in one place on a Sunday when the Day of Pentecost took place? Because they had started doing so in honor of the Resurrection. By the Day of Pentecost, it was an entrenched Christian custom already.

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parousia70 said:

Of course, Adam could have died physically even if he never disobeyed God and "fell".
The existence of the tree of Life in the garden before he fall, Which Adam was told he could "freely eat" of (or not) proves that physical immortality was not an inherent characteristic of Humanity before the fall.
Spiritual Immortality was, but not physical immortality.
Partaking of the tree of life was NECESSARY for Adam to maintain permanent physical life, even before the fall.

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Mercy74 said:

The tree of life is a spiritual tree.

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