Christianity and Sabbath and Law

[Pavel Mosko]

I'm looking to do more posting on this board, and I found this point in the terms of service for the board very interesting.

• Although the Law of God is pleasing to a believer it is not a necessary requirement for salvation. (Psalms 119:174; Galatians 3:10, Galatians 5:18)

This I find interesting because this is my position as well. But I can think of certain prominent groups who believe we are saved through the 10 commandments. They believe we are in fact judged by them in a very literal way especially concerning the Sabbath. And this is much different than general Christianity where we are saved by being "in Christ". And our sanctification itself is a kind of external evidence from that, fruit if you will, and we will want to have lives that basically reflect the 10 commandments at least "According to the Spirit of the Law". My basic position is actually expressed well in this article that I recently discovered and will probably quote from later in this thread.

Now the following article was written largely from a Protestant perspective, I also got a much deeper perspective on the early Church from a historic perspective of Early Church history, Theology and Liturgy that comes from my background in Eastern and Oriental Christianity, and will probably cite that too.

The Origins of Sunday Worship in the Early Church - GCI Archive

Visit gci.org and browse Grace Communion International's extensive library of articles on God, the Bible, faith, and the Christian Life.

archive.gci.org

 

[Pavel Mosko]

The Jewish Roots of Christian Liturgy links

The Temple Roots of the Liturgy

www.marquette.edu

First-century Christian synagogue liturgy - S I L O U A N

Liturgica.com | Liturgics | Early Christian Liturgics | The Jewish Components of Christian Worship

Liturgica.com presents an experience and a comprehensive understanding of the development of liturgical worship and music in the Judeo-Christian traditions. Liturgical music and books can be purchased from the Liturgica Web Store. Books and religious music are available in a wide variety of...

www.liturgica.com

 

[FenderTL5]

The key distinction, is found in Matthew 5:17, Christ states that he has not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them.
So what does this fulfillment mean?
An easy illustration/example that most faith groups understand is in the sacrifices. No longer are there regular sacrifices of bulls and goats but Christ's once for all on the Cross.

However, all of the Law is fulfilled in Christ, not merely the sacrificial aspect.
Every commandment of the Law is done, taught, and continues to live in the life of the Church. All of these commandments, and each one in particular, continues to be relevant and applicable, in a state fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Everything must be viewed through the lens of Christ.

 

[Leaf473]

I'm looking to do more posting on this board, and I found this point in the terms of service for the board very interesting.

• Although the Law of God is pleasing to a believer it is not a necessary requirement for salvation. (Psalms 119:174; Galatians 3:10, Galatians 5:18)

This I find interesting because this is my position as well. But I can think of certain prominent groups who believe we are saved through the 10 commandments. They believe we are in fact judged by them in a very literal way especially concerning the Sabbath. And this is much different than general Christianity where we are saved by being "in Christ". And our sanctification itself is a kind of external evidence from that, fruit if you will, and we will want to have lives that basically reflect the 10 commandments at least "According to the Spirit of the Law". My basic position is actually expressed well in this article that I recently discovered and will probably quote from later in this thread.

Now the following article was written largely from a Protestant perspective, I also got a much deeper perspective on the early Church from a historic perspective of Early Church history, Theology and Liturgy that comes from my background in Eastern and Oriental Christianity, and will probably cite that too.

The Origins of Sunday Worship in the Early Church - GCI Archive

Visit gci.org and browse Grace Communion International's extensive library of articles on God, the Bible, faith, and the Christian Life.

archive.gci.org

It's kind of a conundrum imo.

Law based salvation is not allowed here.

Theoretically everyone here agrees that we don't have to do any works of the law in order to
obtain
salvation.

But some do say that we have to do certain works of the law in order to
maintain
salvation.

At least I think that's what I'm hearing.

Bible Gateway passage: Hebrews 10:26 - New American Standard Bible

Christ or Judgment - For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

www.biblegateway.com

 

[Pavel Mosko]

The key distinction, is found in Matthew 5:17, Christ states that he has not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them.
So what does this fulfillment mean?
An easy illustration/example that most faith groups understand is in the sacrifices. No longer are there regular sacrifices of bulls and goats but Christ's once for all on the Cross.

However, all of the Law is fulfilled in Christ, not merely the sacrificial aspect.
Every commandment of the Law is done, taught, and continues to live in the life of the Church. All of these commandments, and each one in particular, continues to be relevant and applicable, in a state fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Everything must be viewed through the lens of Christ.

Nice!

Back in the early 90s as a nondenominational Protestant Charismatic I learned a useful paradigm model thing from an unlikely source, aka Trinity Broadcasting Network a network that lots of questionable stuff on it. But that hour, I happened to be watching Rick Godwin, former Southern Baptist pastor now in the same general faith genre as myself except for the fact I was attending a local Episcopal Church at the time.


Cross Filter Paradigm
Anyway, Rick Godwin one day explained this model that I refer to as "The Cross Filter paradigm" because I don't know of any official name for it. But he explained stuff from the Old Testament as being like something like light or water that passing through the Cross, and that everything in the Old Testament is specifically in effect unless it is specifically dealt with "by the Cross" and this includes of the words of people like saint Paul and the other apostles and disciples who wrote the New Testament. Basically, this like a kind of rule of physics like the Conservation of Momentum where you should assume that something is in effect unless you can think of a scripture passage that says otherwise.

Anyway I found this concept very interesting and useful for explaining things, and even in debating. I remember many years ago, arguing with a Southern Baptist and describing this Paradigm, and saying "We Orthodox not only believe that, but we believe that more than you do!" (They assume lots of stuff in the Old Testament in the way of liturgy, sacrament, creeds are obsolete, while we are more likely to believe that it continues on in at least a paradigm way).

 

[Pavel Mosko]

It's kind of a conundrum imo.

Law based salvation is not allowed here.

Theoretically everyone here agrees that we don't have to do any works of the law in order to
obtain
salvation.

But some do say that we have to do certain works of the law in order to
maintain
salvation.

At least I think that's what I'm hearing.

Bible Gateway passage: Hebrews 10:26 - New American Standard Bible

Christ or Judgment - For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

www.biblegateway.com

Yeah I get that based on listening to some Apologetics against certain law happy groups.

Technically speaking I'm a synergist like an Arminian, but compared to some groups, who seem to be unoffical Pelagian (you are saved from your works). I am having to speak out like a classical Reformation Era Protestant. preaching the Sola Fide.

A lot of Eastern Perspective on "being in Christ" has a lot to do with something called "Theosis" that incidentally is explained very well by this Lutheran theologian pastor who wrote a book on Cristofication.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

This article also ends up dealing with a lot of problems in the faith vs works area of things from my perspective (Eastern Christian).

Dialogue on Free Will & Determinism

orthodoxinfo.com

 

[Soyeong]

I'm looking to do more posting on this board, and I found this point in the terms of service for the board very interesting.

• Although the Law of God is pleasing to a believer it is not a necessary requirement for salvation. (Psalms 119:174; Galatians 3:10, Galatians 5:18)

This I find interesting because this is my position as well. But I can think of certain prominent groups who believe we are saved through the 10 commandments. They believe we are in fact judged by them in a very literal way especially concerning the Sabbath. And this is much different than general Christianity where we are saved by being "in Christ". And our sanctification itself is a kind of external evidence from that, fruit if you will, and we will want to have lives that basically reflect the 10 commandments at least "According to the Spirit of the Law". My basic position is actually expressed well in this article that I recently discovered and will probably quote from later in this thread.

Now the following article was written largely from a Protestant perspective, I also got a much deeper perspective on the early Church from a historic perspective of Early Church history, Theology and Liturgy that comes from my background in Eastern and Oriental Christianity, and will probably cite that too.

The Origins of Sunday Worship in the Early Church - GCI Archive

Visit gci.org and browse Grace Communion International's extensive library of articles on God, the Bible, faith, and the Christian Life.

archive.gci.org

There is a huge difference between saying that our justification requires us to obey God's law in order to earn it as a wage and saying that our justification requires us to obey God's law because while there are many verses like Romans 4:1-5 that deny the former, there are also many verses like Romans 2:13 that support the latter, so clearly there must be reasons for why our justification requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a wage.

Christ is God's word made flesh, so he embodied it by setting a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to it, which means that the way to be in Christ is by us also embodying God's word through following his example, which is why 1 John 2:6 says that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked. So salvation by being in Christ is the same as salvation by obeying God's word and it is contradictory for you to treat salvation by being in Christ as an alternative to salvation by obeying God's word.

 

[Soyeong]

The key distinction, is found in Matthew 5:17, Christ states that he has not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them.
So what does this fulfillment mean?
An easy illustration/example that most faith groups understand is in the sacrifices. No longer are there regular sacrifices of bulls and goats but Christ's once for all on the Cross.

However, all of the Law is fulfilled in Christ, not merely the sacrificial aspect.
Every commandment of the Law is done, taught, and continues to live in the life of the Church. All of these commandments, and each one in particular, continues to be relevant and applicable, in a state fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Everything must be viewed through the lens of Christ.

NAS Greek Lexicon: pleroo
"to fulfil, i.e. to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment"

In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus contrasted fulfilling the law with abolishing it, so fulfilling the law should not be interpreted as meaning essentially meaning the same thing as abolishing it, such as abolishing animal sacrifices, especially when Jesus also warned against relaxing the least part of the law or teaching others to do that. Rather, Jesus fulfilled the law six times throughout the rest of Matthew 5 by teaching how to correctly obey it as it should be as it was originally intended.

In Acts 18:18, Paul took a vow involving shaving his head and the only vow that involves doing that prescribed by the Bible is a Nazarite vow, which involves making animal sacrifices (Numbers 6). Likewise, in Acts 21:20-24, Paul planned to pay for the animal sacrifices of others who are untaken as similar vow in order to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against obeying God's law and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. In Hebrews 8:4, is speaking about priests who were continuing to make offerings in accordance with the law, so they did not cease with the death or resurrection of Jesus, but only ceased because of the destruction of the temple. If all of Israel has accepted Jesus as the Messiah, then the 2nd temple would not have been destroyed and theref would still be offerings made today in accordance with the law.

 

[Soyeong]

Cross Filter Paradigm
Anyway, Rick Godwin one day explained this model that I refer to as "The Cross Filter paradigm" because I don't know of any official name for it. But he explained stuff from the Old Testament as being like something like light or water that passing through the Cross, and that everything in the Old Testament is specifically in effect unless it is specifically dealt with "by the Cross" and this includes of the words of people like saint Paul and the other apostles and disciples who wrote the New Testament. Basically, this like a kind of rule of physics like the Conservation of Momentum where you should assume that something is in effect unless you can think of a scripture passage that says otherwise.

Anyway I found this concept very interesting and useful for explaining things, and even in debating. I remember many years ago, arguing with a Southern Baptist and describing this Paradigm, and saying "We Orthodox not only believe that, but we believe that more than you do!" (They assume lots of stuff in the Old Testament in the way of liturgy, sacrament, creeds are obsolete, while we are more likely to believe that it continues on in at least a paradigm way).

In Titus 2:14, it describes that Jesus dealt with on the cross by saying that he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so doing good works in obedience to God's law is the way to believe that our lawlessness was dealt with by the cross, so there was nothing taught by the OT that was dealt by the cross. In Acts 17:11, the Bereans were praised because they diligently tested everything that Paul said against OT Scriptures to see if what he said was true, so according to that precedent, disagreement with anything taught by the OT is the standard by which we should reject what Paul said.

 

[daq]

In Acts 18:18, Paul took a vow involving shaving his head and the only vow that involves doing that prescribed by the Bible is a Nazarite vow, which involves making animal sacrifices (Numbers 6). Likewise, in Acts 21:20-24, Paul planned to pay for the animal sacrifices of others who are untaken as similar vow in order to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against obeying God's law and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it.

The shaving mentioned therein is only for the Nazir who has been defiled by the dead, when one died suddenly next to him, (as in the blink of an eye), and that is why the seven days of purifications are mentioned in the Acts passage. But this happened to four Nazarim all at the same time in the Acts passage? Yes, it did, they were all on the same prophetic calendar. The Torah is spiritual, (Rom 7:14).

 

[Soyeong]

The shaving mentioned therein is only for the Nazir who has been defiled by the dead, when one died suddenly next to him, (as in the blink of an eye), and that is why the seven days of purifications are mentioned in the Acts passage. But this happened to four Nazarim all at the same time in the Acts passage? Yes, it did, they were all on the same prophetic calendar. The Torah is spiritual, (Rom 7:14).

While they had to shave their head in Numbers 6:9 if somebody suddenly died in they presence, they also had to shave their heads in Numbers 6:18-19 at the completion of their vow.

The Torah is spiritual because it has always been intended to teach us deeper spiritual principles of which the listed laws are just examples, which are aspects of God's nature, such as holiness, righteousness, goodness, justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Romans 7:12, Matthew 23:23). For example, all of God's righteous laws teach us about a spiritual principle of righteousness that leads us to take actions that are examples of that principle that are in accordance with what God's law instructs even in situations that are not specifically mentioned by it. Correctly understanding a spiritual principle will never lead us away from taking actions that are example of that principle.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

In Titus 2:14, it describes that Jesus dealt with on the cross by saying that he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessnes

Yes, I agree.


2 Corinthians 6:14
Verse Concepts
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

1 John 3:4
Verse Concepts
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

This is talking about the Works of the Flesh.

Galatians 5:19-21 King James Version​

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.


This is partially true because many of the works of the flesh true because many scriptures are in reference to false teachers, some of which are touting the Law but not really living by the Spirit of it!

s. In Acts 17:11, the Bereans were praised because they diligently tested everything that Paul said against OT Scriptures to see if what he said was true, so according to that precedent, disagreement with anything taught by the OT is the standard by which we should reject what Paul said.

It is a good passage. I actually like an important point a Roman Catholic Apologist makes when people bring this up in reference to things like Sola Scriptura. If you look at the entire Chapter in context, the nobility of the Bereans comes not from them searching the scriptures but from their noble temperament, unlike the Jews of Thessalonica they were noble by virtue of willing to listen rather than running Paul, Silas and Timothy out of town on a rail.


"The Bereans searched the Torah no less than the Thessalonians, yet they were eager to accept words of God from the mouth of Paul, in addition to what they already held to be Scripture, that is, the Law and the Prophets. Even if one claims that Paul preached the gospel and not a “tradition,” it is clear that the Bereans were accepting new revelation that was not contained in their Scriptures. These Berean Jews accepted oral teaching, the tradition of the apostles, as equal to Scripture, in addition to, and as an “extension” of, the Torah. This is further illustrated by the Christian community’s reception of Paul’s epistles as divinely inspired Scripture (see 2 Peter 3:16; here Peter seems to acknowledges Paul’s writings as equal to the “other Scriptures,” which can be presumed to refer to the Old Testament) [...] By contrast, the Jews of Thessalonica would have condemned Peter’s biblical exegesis at the Council of Jerusalem. They would have scoffed at the Church’s having authority over them—the Torah was all they needed. Those who held to sola scriptura rejected Paul because he claimed to be the voice of “additional revelation.”"

Sola Scriptura and The Noble Bereans

Another primary scriptural ground which Protestants will take their stand on when it comes to promoting Sola Scriptura is the “Noble Berean” argument while citing Acts 17:1-13 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of...

www.upontherockblog.com

 

[Soyeong]

Yes, I agree.


2 Corinthians 6:14
Verse Concepts
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

1 John 3:4
Verse Concepts
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

This is talking about the Works of the Flesh.

Galatians 5:19-21 King James Version​

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.


This is partially true because many of the works of the flesh true because many scriptures are in reference to false teachers, some of which are touting the Law but not really living by the Spirit of it!

In Galatians 5:19-23, everything listed as works of the flesh that are against the Spirit are also against God's law while all of the fruits of the Spirit are aspects of God's nature that God's law was intended to teach us how to express, so I'd agree that lawlessness is synonymous with works of the flesh, though practicing lawlessness includes practicing transgression to any of God's laws, such as not keeping the Sabbath holy, not just the ones specifically listed in Galatians 5:19-21. An example of touting the law, but not real living by the Spirit of it would be in Matthew 23:23, where Jesus said that tithing was something that they ought to be doing while not neglecting weightier matters of the law of justice, mercy, and faithfulness, which again are aspects of God's nature that God's law was intended to teach us how to express.

It is a good passage. I actually like an important point a Roman Catholic Apologist makes when people bring this up in reference to things like Sola Scriptura. If you look at the entire Chapter in context, the nobility of the Bereans comes not from them searching the scriptures but from their noble temperament, unlike the Jews of Thessalonica they were noble by virtue of willing to listen rather than running Paul, Silas and Timothy out of town on a rail.


"The Bereans searched the Torah no less than the Thessalonians, yet they were eager to accept words of God from the mouth of Paul, in addition to what they already held to be Scripture, that is, the Law and the Prophets. Even if one claims that Paul preached the gospel and not a “tradition,” it is clear that the Bereans were accepting new revelation that was not contained in their Scriptures. These Berean Jews accepted oral teaching, the tradition of the apostles, as equal to Scripture, in addition to, and as an “extension” of, the Torah. This is further illustrated by the Christian community’s reception of Paul’s epistles as divinely inspired Scripture (see 2 Peter 3:16; here Peter seems to acknowledges Paul’s writings as equal to the “other Scriptures,” which can be presumed to refer to the Old Testament) [...] By contrast, the Jews of Thessalonica would have condemned Peter’s biblical exegesis at the Council of Jerusalem. They would have scoffed at the Church’s having authority over them—the Torah was all they needed. Those who held to sola scriptura rejected Paul because he claimed to be the voice of “additional revelation.”"

Sola Scriptura and The Noble Bereans

Another primary scriptural ground which Protestants will take their stand on when it comes to promoting Sola Scriptura is the “Noble Berean” argument while citing Acts 17:1-13 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of...

www.upontherockblog.com

In Acts 17:11, it directly states that the reason why the Bereans were considered to have a more noble character than those in Thessalonica was that they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily every day to see if what Paul said is true. While it is true in Acts 17:2 that Paul reasoned from Scripture with those in Thessalonica, this only further emphasizes that agreement with OT Scripture was the standard by which we should accept the truth of what Paul said, which does not leave room for accepting new revelation from him. In Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet who was not speaking for him was if they taught against obeying the Torah, so if Paul had been doing that, then those who rejected what he said as the word of a false prophet would have been correctly acting in accordance with what God commanded them to do.

It is possible that something was always testified about by the Law and the Prophets and that Paul was teaching that it was now being made manifest such as in Romans 3:21-22, but like Jesus, he was not teaching anything brand new that wasn't in accordance with the Law and the Prophets. The Gospel that Paul taught was the one that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus taught in accordance with the promise (Galatians 3:8, Acts 3:25-26). While the letters of Paul were quickly recognized as Scripture within a relatively short period of time, he frequently quoted or alluded to OT Scripture to support what he was saying and to show that he had not departed from it.

 

[ralliann]

There is a huge difference between saying that our justification requires us to obey God's law in order to earn it as a wage and saying that our justification requires us to obey God's law because while there are many verses like Romans 4:1-5 that deny the former, there are also many verses like Romans 2:13 that support the latter, so clearly there must be reasons for why our justification requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a wage.

Christ is God's word made flesh, so he embodied it by setting a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to it, which means that the way to be in Christ is by us also embodying God's word through following his example, which is why 1 John 2:6 says that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked. So salvation by being in Christ is the same as salvation by obeying God's word and it is contradictory for you to treat salvation by being in Christ as an alternative to salvation by obeying God's word.

Here is a problem I see here. Christ (as God in flesh) was working the works of God. When anyone attempts to "exempt" Jesus from having defiled the Sabbath, by Rabbinic rules, is subjecting his works, to being the works of a mere man. It was God's works being done, not man's works.

 

[Soyeong]

Here is a problem I see here. Christ (as God in flesh) was working the works of God. When anyone attempts to "exempt" Jesus from having defiled the Sabbath, by Rabbinic rules, is subjecting his works, to being the works of a mere man. It was God's works being done, not man's works.

There are a number of God's laws that appear to conflict with each other, such as when God commanded priests to rest on the Sabbath and also commanded priests to make offerings on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10), however, it was not the case that they were forced to sin by breaking one of the two commands no matter what they chose to do, but that the lesser command was never intended to be understood as preventing the greater command from being obeyed, so this was baked into the system that God commanded. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 12:5-7 that priests who did their duties on the Sabbath were held innocent, why David and his men were held innocent, and why Jesus defended his disciples as being innocent.

In Deuteronomy 17:8-13, God's word gives authority to priests and judges to make rulings about how to correctly keep His law, which the people were obligated to obey. In Matthew 23:2-4, Jesus recognized that the Pharisees had this authority by saying that they sit in the seat of Moses and instructing us to do whatever they said, but warned against their hypocrisy. If Jesus had wanted to debate matters of halakhah, then he could have quoted Rabbi Yehuda to defend his disciples:

Shabbat 128a And one may pick them with his hand and eat, as long as he does not pick them with a vessel. And one may crush and remove the seeds with his hand and eat them, as long as he does not crush a lot with a vessel; this is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. And the Rabbis say: One may crush them only with the ends of his fingers, in an atypical manner, as long as he does not crush a lot with his hand in the manner that he does during the week.

 

[ralliann]

There are a number of God's laws that appear to conflict with each other, such as when God commanded priests to rest on the Sabbath

When did God do that?

and also commanded priests to make offerings on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10),

After the Levites were separated from the people to do the works of God in the tabernacle. A distinct inheritance of "priesthood"

however, it was not the case that they were forced to sin by breaking one of the two commands no matter what they chose to do, but that the lesser command was never intended to be understood as preventing the greater command from being obeyed, so this was baked into the system that God commanded. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 12:5-7 that priests who did their duties on the Sabbath were held innocent, why David and his men were held innocent, and why Jesus defended his disciples as being inncent

In Deuteronomy 17:8-13, God's word gives authority to priests and judges to make rulings about how to correctly keep His law, which the people were obligated to obey. In Matthew 23:2-4, Jesus recognized that the Pharisees had this authority by saying that they sit in the seat of Moses and instructing us to do whatever they said, but warned against their hypocrisy. If Jesus had wanted to debate matters of halakhah, then he could have quoted Rabbi Yehuda to defend his disciples:

Shabbat 128a And one may pick them with his hand and eat, as long as he does not pick them with a vessel. And one may crush and remove the seeds with his hand and eat them, as long as he does not crush a lot with a vessel; this is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. And the Rabbis say: One may crush them only with the ends of his fingers, in an atypical manner, as long as he does not crush a lot with his hand in the manner that he does during the week.

Working the works of God, is not sin on anyday. It is God's works, be that in the tabernacle, or in Christ Jesus. The people, sinful man, are works for men to do. Which neither the ministration of the priesthood was subject to, as it was doing the works of God. Nor Christ himself. Do you believe Christ's works were the works of God, and not a mere man?

 

[Gary K]

I would point out what Paul has to say outside of what has been quoted here.

Co 1:28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1Co 1:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
1Co 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
1Co 1:31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Sanctification comes from Jesus. He is the all-in-one source of righteousness, both imputed and imparted. Which is both our justification and the ability to obey God.

John said:

Joh 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

An angel also told Joseph the following:

Mat 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.