I don't have any hostility with respect to you or this subject, but you offer one final argument which I don't believe should go unanswered for any who may read this thread in the future. Your argument is that Jesus and the apostles kept the Sabbath Law throughout the New Covenant. I have answered this before, and will answer it again.
1) Jesus, during his earthly ministry, upheld the total number of requirements under the Law of Moses because this was before the cross, and when the Law of Moses was still in effect. Jesus keeping the Sabbath at this time, therefore, has zero bearing on this issue.
2) The Apostles kept the Sabbath after the cross because they were Jews, and naturally followed the tradition they had been raised with and the tradition prevalent among the Jewish People. It was a cultural tradition as much as it had been law under the Old Covenant. Keeping Sabbath observance is not the same thing as keeping Sabbath Law.
3) Paul taught that it was acceptable to observe the cultural traditions of people among whom evangelists and ministers of the Gospel have to work. They are cultural traditions and not endorsements of any law associated with those traditions. Paul made it clear that Christians are not under any law to observe religious days. They simply attempted to "fit in" with various cultures in order to not let peripheral matters become a stumbling block or impediment to the Gospel ministry among those peoples.
Let me be clear that I have Scriptures to back this up because repeatedly I've been told, falsely, that I do not use Scriptures to back up my claims. The main passage of Scripture I've been asked to focus on was Matt 5, where Jesus clarified that the *entire Law* was required at that time with all of the requirements, and not just some--not just the 10 Commandments or Sabbath Law, but all 613 or so requirements specified under the Law. And this would certainly include the 10 Commandments and Sabbath Law because they were all given to Israel at Horeb at the same time. Here are some of the appropriate passages in closing out my arguments here...
Mal 4.4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel."
Deut 4.10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” 11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. 14 And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.
5.1 Moses summoned all Israel and said:
Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 It was not with our ancestors that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The Lord spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. 5 (At that time I stood between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:
6 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
7 “You shall have no other gods before me....
30 “Go, tell them to return to their tents. 31 But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess....”
32 So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. 33 Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.
Here, the day Israel approached Horeb, or Mt. Sinai, the Old Covenant was linked as covenant, represented by the 10 Commandments, to the entire sets of laws, as the agreement between God and Israel. The fact the 10 Commandments are separated as a subset of the entire Law is no different than distinguishing food laws or laws of feasts from the entire set of laws. They are all part of the same Covenant, the Old Covenant given to Israel at Horeb. The 10 Commandments merely represented, symbolically, the entire Covenant as a kind of moral summary of the Law at that time. (Matt 19.16-22)
That Jesus was under the Old Covenant at the time he gave the Sermon on the Mt. is clear from the following...
Matt 5.17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
Please note two things here...
1) Jesus had come to confirm the Law as still in place during his earthly ministry.
2) Jesus had come to bring the observance of the Law to the point of being fulfilled *in himself.*
We later read in Matthew that fulfilling this Law entailed Jesus going to the cross, where the veil was rent, indicating that the requirements of the Law were no longer necessary to achieve access to God. Christ had become the sole means of access to God.
Matt 27.51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Heb 9.8 The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning.
Paul accepted the cultural practice of things that were not law for Christians but were law for those in Judaism...
1 Cor 9.20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
