Not mandatory??? It WAS so mandatory that God had a man put to death for picking up sticks. We are not privy as to the man's motive; all we know is that God made an issue out of the man's action and it had to have been a profound lesson for all of the Israelites. Is58:13-14 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Sabbath is not mandatory or pre-requisite for Gentile salvation. i.e. it is by faith per Abraham not by works/rituals or signs. The latter is Judaizing as Gentiles are not Jews. The audience is Israel-specific, not Gentile. "Speak to
the Children of Israel" (Lev 18:2 etc).
“Wherefore
the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.” (Ex 31:16)
Violations within Israel during the Exodus was blatant lawlessness in their context/exclusivity. They were judged by God, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the nation as a whole, and it was just. They had more than enough witnesses, surpassing a jury of 12. The nation had every evidence and presence of God, they had no excuse.
Yet during that very same timeline
the penalty of the law was
in-applicable to my ancestors who most certainly would have worked everyday of the week like many cultures. Yet they were not judged/executed. Why? Because the law was delivered
at Sinai to Israel, not China or elsewhere. The Gentiles/pagans/heathens sin out of ignorance, without the law, lacking knowledge of God, everything. They 'sin in innocence' per se. The same is happening in the vast majority if not all Gentile churches.
Torah and the law will always be eternal, however, Judaistic elements unique to the Children of Israel are inapplicable to Gentiles as we arrived
after the Holy Spirit in Acts. We are not the people of the Exodus, therefore Gentiles are not bound "under the letter of the law" (Rom 7:6, 2 Cor 3:6) in the same way Israel has no excuse. Our excuse is valid, by God's design.
"Written not with ink, but with
the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but
of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but
the spirit giveth life." (2 Cor 3:3-6)
Sabbath is
optional as it is by choice, to be a "delight" less a mandatory chore, per Isaiah:
"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, and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words." (Isa. 58:13)
The Lord said, "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (Jn 14:6) Salvation then cannot be "by sabbath". Thus non-mandatory. That is not to say one should violate sabbath deliberately, but as faith in Christ is from the heart, a total belief, and not nominal, so too should sabbath be practiced, by faith which is ultimately a personal decision. A person can be 'present at sabbath' yet his heart and deeds are completely at odds with God in every respect. Hence it is "the heart" that God wants, less token sabbath ritualism.
I discuss sabbath here as with believers, and in Gentile terms as an 'unveiled' concept. Whereas for Israel it was/is legalistic, rigid, and inflexible per your post's emphasis. Like a cane to a naughty child, they cannot possibly understand any other way. "Under tutors and governors
until the time appointed of the father." (Gal 4:2)
Scripture says, "But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read,
the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." (1 Cor 3:14-16)-- Again, salvation is not by sabbath or legal observance, as it must be from the heart, by faith, by conviction of the Holy Spirit.
Additionally, sabbath is "not mandatory" due to superstition like
mystical sabbath-keeping or
Kabbalah. Belief in 'lucky days' etc that undermines the purpose of sabbath.
Quote: "Over a period of several centuries, the classical Kabbalists developed a rich body of myth and ritual which articulated a new vision of the Sabbath. Several outstanding examples of this are the
re-imaging of the Sabbath as a mystical marriage ceremony, a day on which the divine lovers re-unite; the Sabbath as a cosmic Axis, around which Time is organized and through whose channels the week is ennobled and blessed; and the Sabbath as a festival of spiritual restoration, whereby the Jew is graced with an additional
pneuma,
the Sabbath-soul, enabling him to participate more fully in the mysteries of..." (Elliot Ginsburg,
The Sabbath in the Classical Kabbalah on JSTOR)
Augustine notes this also: "For the Jews also observe as slaves the days, the months, the years and the seasons when they give themselves to
the carnal observance of the Sabbath, of the New Moon, of the month of the new fruits and also of each seventh year, which they call "Sabbath of Saturdays ». Realities all that, as a shadow of what was to come, when Christ arrived, they remained
superstitions when they fulfilled them,
as if they contributed salvation, those who do not know what to refer to. ...
The reader then chooses which of the opinions he accepts, provided he understands that the superstitious observance of the times means such a great danger to the soul." (Augustine on Galatians 4)
'Grace' is dependent on the law. It is not without the law or above the law. "Till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Mt 5:18) -- The antinomian or moral argument that is often made against the law come by believers who had been perhaps 'guilt tripped' into converting to Christ, under threat of hellfire etc. Their faith is based on penalty and exemption from penalty, hence, anxiety surrounding "judgement". That is rootless faith and ofc misunderstands the function/purpose of sabbath.
Matthew Henry draws that distinction:
"That was indeed
a dispensation of grace, and yet it was comparatively a dispensation of darkness; for as the heir, in his minority, is under tutors and governors till the time appointed of his father, by whom he is educated and instructed in those things which at present he knows little of the meaning of, though afterwards they are likely to be of great use to him; so it was with the Old-Testament church-the Mosaic economy, which they were under, was
what they could not fully understand the meaning of; for, as the apostle says (2 Co. 3:13), They could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.
But to the church, when grown up to maturity, in gospel days, it becomes of great use. And as that was a dispensation of darkness, so of bondage too; for they were in bondage under the elements of the world, being tied to a great number of burdensome rites and observances, by which, as by a kind of first rudiments, they were taught and instructed, and whereby they were kept in a state of subjection, like a child under tutors and governors." (Matthew Henry on Galatians 4)
The law is
not voided "by Christ" or "realised in Christ". That would be oxymoronic, counter-intuitive. -- As the law is God's eternal standard it can never change, it doesn't change. The only change that happens is by his dispensation, which is grace or his will that unfolds throughout the ages.
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea,
we establish the law." (Rom 3:31)
I am pro-sabbath. I encourage it but would never enforce it. It is both preliminary and high theology. It is non-essential for salvation so it can be sidelined but as it is of God it cannot be deleted.
"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be
fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." (Rom 14:5-6)
Blessings to all
