Sabbath Keeping and The Gospel

The Liturgist said:

I pray for everyone - including you. You should know I love you very much, @Studyman

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The Liturgist said:

On this point, I would note to you and to @BNR32FAN and @tall73 that regarding God resting - we really should interpret that as a prophecy of Christ reposing in the tomb on Holy Saturday, and also as God not making any changes in the world for one day after the initial creation of man - in the case of God in His divine nature, He is, it should be noted ,eternal and immutable, meaning He does not change, and does not experience time, for He created time, time is a property of this world and this life, which God exists outside of (and which hopefully we will as well in the life of the World to Come, in eternal life, since experiencing linear time for all eternity I believe would be torture, indeed on discussing the prospects of it with my bishop he remarked that my fear of linear time unending sounded very much like a description of Hell. Rather inheriting eternal life through theosis means escaping from the constraints imposed by the created attribute of this world known as time.

God Himself is clearly described in the Bible as unchanging, impassable and immutable, except in His incarnation as Christ Jesus, so language about Him for example changing his mind and so on should be interpreted in a non-anthropomorphological concept, for Scripture also makes it clear that God is, in his unoriginate divine essence, inscrutable and beyond comprehension. In Orthodoxy we specifically believe that God can be known only through His energies, such as uncreated grace, and in His incarnation as Jesus Christ, in which our humanity was united with His divinity without change, confusion, separation or division (the important principle of communicatio idiomatum, historically stressed among Protestants by the Lutherans and among ancient Christians most heavily emphasized by the likes of pre-Chalcedonian theologians such as St. Athanasius and St. Cyril of Alexandria, and the Cappadocians and St. John Chrysostom, Oriental Orthodox theologians such as St. Severus of Antioch and St. Philoxenus of Mabbug and the Syriac Orthodox hymnographer and “flute of the spirit”* St. Jacob of Sarugh, and Eastern Orthodox theologians such as St. John of Damascus).


* This is a reference to St. Ephraim the Syrian as Harp of the Spirit. The Nestorians of the time proposed Mar Narsai as ”flute of the Spirit”, but Mar Narsai is deeply uncomfortable for an Orthodox Christian, although some of his hymns remain in use in the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, some of his hymns were extremely ugly examples of Nestorianism at his worse, for example, he composed a him in which, contrary to the principle of communicatio idiomatum idiomatum, he specifically attributed individual acts of Christ to his divinity or to his humanity, in a dichotomistic way which contradicted the idea of the Incarnation and of Christ as Emanuel - God with Us.

By the way my fellow Orthodox friend @prodromos and my Lutheran friend @ViaCrucis have written eloquently about communicatio idiomatum. I feel it is an important principle which is also extremely relevant to this thread.

In addition, I believe we must not overlook the prophetic element of 1 Genesis - while I do not deny it refers to the creation of the universe, I believe it very clearly refers to the passion and resurrection of Christ and the light of the World to Come. Consider that the process of the creation of man began on the sixth day, not with “Let there be” as in a single action completed immediately, but rather uniquely, “Let us create man in our image”, implying a process, one which, the same day of the week many years later Christ remade us in His image on the Cross, before proclaiming “it is finished” - after Pontius Pilate upon seeing Christ having been suffered declared “Ecce homo” - behold the Man. Then, on the Seventh Day, Christ our God - who created all things (John 1:1-18) and cannot be contained, reposed in the tomb, just as He had been via a great mystery contained in the womb of our Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary. And on the first day, the day of creation, Christ rose from the dead, 49 days later, the Holy Spirit descended, and this also alludes to the mystical eigth day of creation - the light of the World to Come. Let there be light! And the structural similarity between John 1 and Genesis 1 I believe underscores the prophetic aspects of Genesis chapter 1.

Regarding Christ as the completion of man, and salvation as the process of becoming human, through Theosis, that is to say, putting on Christ in Baptism just as Christ our God put on our humanity, as attested by Galatians 3:27, which we Orthodox sing on the feast of the Baptism of our Lord - Theophany (january 6th) - “Whoever has been baptized in Christ has put on Christ! to which we add an ”Alleliuia”, the former dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary and current successor of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, at Oxford, Fr. John Behr, has spoken of this subject extensively. I particularly enjoyed his lecture “The Shocking Truth of Orthodoxy,” if memory serves he also wrote a book on Patrisitics on this theme entitled Becoming Human, which unfortunately I have not had the time to read but is high on my reading list.

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BNR32FAN said:

Yeah nothing significant about the first day of creation or the day Jesus was resurrected huh?

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Studyman said:

I'm pretty sure when the Word of GOD Created His Feasts, He knew when He would be murdered, and raised from the dead, as I believe He knows the end from the beginning: I believe this in spite of the traditions and high days created by the religions of this world God placed me in. But it is my belief, you are free to believe as you wish.

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BNR32FAN said:

I don’t have a big problem with anyone else doing it but I try not to make connections between things like this unless it’s specifically mentioned in scripture.

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Studyman said:

Not "Despite Christ being the Substance", but to remember of the prophesies and events that are yet to be fulfilled, "BECAUSE" they are all about Christ. Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, Last Great Day", they are not just worthless Jewish traditions as is promoted by "Many", who call Jesus Lord, Lord. They are shadows of things to come, that are of the very Body of Christ, not just worthless traditions. This is why Paul teaches the body of Christ, Jew and Gentile, not to let men judge in their respect, honor and obedience to God.

As opposed to the high days created by the religions of this world, which are "Shadows" of absolutely nothing yet to come.

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Studyman said:

I'm pretty sure when the Word of GOD Created His Feasts, He knew when He would be murdered, and raised from the dead, as I believe He knows the end from the beginning: I believe this in spite of the traditions and high days created by the religions of this world God placed me in. But it is my belief, you are free to believe as you wish.

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BNR32FAN said:

Indeed He does know the end from the beginning which might be why He didn’t think it was necessary to make a commandment concerning it since appointed times aren’t a requirement under the New Covenant and He knew we would observe it anyway.

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