if the YECists are literalists then why aren't they Sabbatarians?

rmwilliamsll · Jun 25, 2005

The issue came up over at http://www.christianforums.com/t173...te-on-bible-being-final-authority.html&page=4
and it is worthy of it's own thread.

Here is the argument.
YECists take Gen1 in the obvious, common sense, man in the pew sense. In particular, if God says day, it means a 24 hour day.

well, God says in Gen 2 that the sabbath is forever and is the 7th day.

but YECists aren't Seventh day adventists or seventh day baptists, nor Sunday sabbatarians, what gives?
literal when it suits them and not literal when necessary.

glance at the thread and see if it makes sense.

...

rmwilliamsll · Jun 25, 2005

it appears that people may not know what Sabbatarianism is.
i tried to gather a few information links:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/TheLordsDay/MatthewMcMahonSabbath.htm
http://www.apuritansmind.com/TheLordsDay/TheLordsDay.htm
http://www.reformed.com/pub/sabbath2.htm
http://www.reformedpresbytery.org/books/sabbath/sabbath.htm

i am not SDA or a 7th day Sabbath keeper so i'll leave it to someone with more background to post those links.

but the issue remains the same.
how can YECists be so literal in their interpretation of the first 6 days of the creation week and so not-literal in their interpretation of the 7th day? unless the crucial issue is a cultural matrix, a theology that is the real source of the hermeneutical principles, and literal is just a convenient and wrong label.....

...

Sojourner<>< · Jun 25, 2005

rmwilliamsll said:
it appears that people may not know what Sabbatarianism is.
i tried to gather a few information links:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/TheLordsDay/MatthewMcMahonSabbath.htm
http://www.apuritansmind.com/TheLordsDay/TheLordsDay.htm
http://www.reformed.com/pub/sabbath2.htm
http://www.reformedpresbytery.org/books/sabbath/sabbath.htm

i am not SDA or a 7th day Sabbath keeper so i'll leave it to someone with more background to post those links.

but the issue remains the same.
how can YECists be so literal in their interpretation of the first 6 days of the creation week and so not-literal in their interpretation of the 7th day? unless the crucial issue is a cultural matrix, a theology that is the real source of the hermeneutical principles, and literal is just a convenient and wrong label.....

...

Being a YEC'ist, I interpret the seventh day to be just as literal as the preceding six days. God blessed the seventh day, made it holy and He rested, but He did not command Adam to do the same. It's not until the ten commandments that we find any mention of our requirements to do so.

Since I am not justified under the law, but am under grace, I am not required to follow Jewish law. Why else would Paul write that all things are lawful but not all things edify the spirit?

Why would Peter say: "Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are" (Acts 15:10-11)

And James in Acts 15:19-21: "Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorailty, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath."

And Paul: "You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." 2Cor3:2,3. "... but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." 2Cor3:5,6.

Actually, I do try to observe the Sabbath, which makes me a bit of an oddity in my church. I do it for spiritual reasons, not for justification. I just don't consider myself bound under law to do so because of my literal interpretation of the writings of the Apostles.

Critias · Jun 25, 2005

rmwilliamsll said:
it appears that people may not know what Sabbatarianism is.

i am not SDA or a 7th day Sabbath keeper so i'll leave it to someone with more background to post those links.

but the issue remains the same.
how can YECists be so literal in their interpretation of the first 6 days of the creation week and so not-literal in their interpretation of the 7th day? unless the crucial issue is a cultural matrix, a theology that is the real source of the hermeneutical principles, and literal is just a convenient and wrong label.....

...

I have read your posts in the link provided in the OP. My first impression of your thoughts is that you don't understand hermeneutics. I am sure you have read up on it, as it seems you are an avid reader, but reading about it doesn't make one understand it.

The issue that gives me this impression is the fact that you call yec's interpretation a literalists hermeneutic. There is no such thing. Hermeneutics is much like communication because, well it is communication. It is understanding what is being communcated. So, there is no "literalists hermeneutic" in the theological sense. There is only author, reader and text hermeneutic. Those are the approaches one uses when trying to understand or interpret what is being said.

If you don't follow that, then you won't understand how one can interpret a single passage as literal and then a passage or two later as figurative. Figures of speech are often used to relate to literal circumstances and or people and things. Thus can be the case where one can take a passage literally and then the next figuratively.

So it is unfair to claim that because one person takes a passage literally that they cannot take another passage figuratively.

Now, as far as the Sabbath is concerned, the Sabbath was instituted at the Ten Commandments, by God. The Ten Commandments is called the Law of Moses, even though God created the Law, Moses told the people the Law.

Paul reasons that because of Christ's death at the Cross, we are no longer under the Law, we are under Grace. In Acts, it can be seen that Christians gathered together to partake in communion and worship God, on Sunday. The Apostles, who were also Jews, kept the Sabbath as well because of their customs.

Christ has freed us from the Law that cannot save and has given us Grace that will save us by His Blood.

Finally, the approach to reading the Bible is to read it to understand what the author wanted to tell the reader. It should never be "what do you think the passage means," but rather it should be "what is the Bible saying."

Critias · Jun 25, 2005

Also, if you want to ask why Christians aren't following the Sabbath, why don't you just question those Gentiles who did not and are not being circumcized.

Critias · Jun 25, 2005

The point to the Sabbath is to focus on God. It should not be a 1 day activity, but a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, lifelong focus.

rmwilliamsll · Jun 25, 2005

just to correct a few factual errors:

Now, as far as the Sabbath is concerned, the Sabbath was instituted at the Ten Commandments, by God. The Ten Commandments is called the Law of Moses, even though God created the Law, Moses told the people the Law.

the Sabbath is a creation mandate.
for example:

1. The Sabbath as creation ordinance

There are a number of reasons why the sabbath pattern of six days of labor and one day of rest must be considered universal and perpetually binding upon mankind. The first is that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance. Creation ordinances are ethical norms which are based upon the work of God in creation. They depict the constitution of things as they were intended to be from the Creators hand. They cover and regulate the whole gamut of life: bearing children, superintending the earth as a responsible steward before and under God, responsibly ruling the creatures of all creation, finding fulfillment and satisfaction in work, labor, resting on the Sabbath, and enjoying marriage as a gift from above. [3] That creation ordinances have a universal ethical obligation inherent in them is clear from Jesus teaching on divorce (Mt. 19:4 ff.), and the reason given in the fourth commandment in Exodus for obeying the Sabbath: For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (20:11).

from: http://www.reformed.com/pub/sabbath2.htm
this essay is essential reading on the topic.

The issue that gives me this impression is the fact that you call yec's interpretation a literalists hermeneutic. There is no such thing. Hermeneutics is much like communication because, well it is communication. It is understanding what is being communcated. So, there is no "literalists hermeneutic" in the theological sense. There is only author, reader and text hermeneutic. Those are the approaches one uses when trying to understand or interpret what is being said.

i choose to understand what others are saying about words and ideas before i attempt to redefine them. hermeneutics is the process of 'extracting' meaning from a text.

Louis Berkhof, defined hermeneutics as the "science that teaches the principles, laws and methods of interpretation" Hermeneutics is a science, but as the Oxford English Dictionary reminds us, hermeneutics is both a science and an art. It is science because it does involve a body of accumulated learning but it is also involves art, i.e., the practiced, skilled and even intuitive application of principles. If it did not, theologians and ministers would have much less work to do.

A Reformed hermeneutic requires the skilled application of a set of principles which accounts for the following:

* The original setting (author and audience);

* The original language (vocabulary), grammar and style;

* The original intention of the human and divine authors;

* The narrower (immediate) and broader (canonical) context of a passage.

from: http://public.csusm.edu/public/guests/rsclark/wars.html
what is being called the reformed hermeneutic is also called the historical-grammatical technique.

and literal as opposed to figurative or allegorical is a legitimate distinction in the field of Biblical hermeneutics. lots of the discussion in this forum revolve around this idea.

If you don't follow that, then you won't understand how one can interpret a single passage as literal and then a passage or two later as figurative. Figures of speech are often used to relate to literal circumstances and or people and things. Thus can be the case where one can take a passage literally and then the next figuratively.

So it is unfair to claim that because one person takes a passage literally that they cannot take another passage figuratively.

but

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.
Gen 2:2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Gen 2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

the problem is that the 6day creation is the same passage as the establishment of the Sabbath. taking the 6 days as literal 24 hr days and the 7th day commandment to keep the Sabbath as something radically different is just plain bad exegesis.

....

Critias · Jun 25, 2005

Point in Genesis 2:2-3 where it states that God specifically is creating the Sabbath for mankind to observe. Is this where the Law was established or was the Law established within the Ten Commandments that refer back to what the Lord God did?

The Lord God sanctified and blessed the day, the day of rest. He did not institute it as the day that must be observed by all mankind at this time. He later did so, using the Ten Commandments.

As far as hermeneutics, literal, figurative, allegorical, etc all have to do with a type of writing, not a type of understanding within hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is looking at a given piece of communication and deciding on how to understand what has been given. There are three ways to do this, from the author, reader or text. From these beginning points we then move on to the understanding of what type of writing it is.

I didn't read all of the link for Cal State San Marcos, I actually attended this school, but from the look of the four *'s you gave, it seems the Reformed Hermeneutics you are talking about would fall under an Author form of Hermeneutics. What that means is that one is looking to the text to see what the author is trying to convey to his/her audience.

Critias · Jun 25, 2005

rmwilliamsll said:
the problem is that the 6day creation is the same passage as the establishment of the Sabbath. taking the 6 days as literal 24 hr days and the 7th day commandment to keep the Sabbath as something radically different is just plain bad exegesis.

So then do you agree that Paul was wrong about his stance on circumcision? After all, it too is part of the Law.

herev · Jun 26, 2005

good points, rmwilliamsII, which seem to have been missed by others.
God bless

rmwilliamsll · Jun 26, 2005

I don't want to be diverted from the main point of this issue, because the more i think about it, the more persuasive it becomes.

YECists are not holding to a strict 7 24 hr day creation week because they are convinced by the text, but rather because they belong to a socio-political movement-fundamentalism, that through its' influence in their churches has persuaded they that this is the case.

There is no way to argue that the Sabbath is not a creation mandate, yet there is no evidence that the replies to this OP even understand what Sabbatarianism is. That was my first wakeup call on the issue. I've been a member of conservative reformed churches all my adult life and as a result really don't know what other Christians believe, i just kind of think that they know pretty much the same things that i do. But years on the boards have shown me that this is simply not true.

Sabbatarianism is not 7th day keeping a la SDA, it is keeping the Christian Sabbath in the manner of the Jewish Sabbath, as a strict day of rest, no work, no fast food joints, no afternoon bowling (no he didn't), no church youth groups meeting for fun and games on Sunday evening.

7th day keeping is not strictly a distinct issue, almost all defenses i've seen of Sabbatarianism start out with an explanation of why the day changed.

Gen 1:1-Gen2:2 (or Gen2:3 depending if taldoth's begin or end a section) is a single passage. Whether you want to refer to it as the first creation account or the preamble to the treaty of the Great King or anything in between, it is a single entity.

Yet the strictness of the literal 6 day creation does not "rub off" on the majority of YEcists to logically entail or to force them into a Sabbatarian position (not necessarily a 7th day one however). Yet as a surprise i see that people here don't even know of the issue. Why? Because it is not the logic of the passage, nor the strength of a literal hermeneutic that is driven the YECists. It is a separate socio-political movement which has it own logic and its own set of reasons to exist. It is fundamentally a reaction to a philosophic claim that man is nothing more than an animal. The issue isn't death before the fall, the issue isn't a complex understanding of Genesis like the framework interpretation. The issue is straightforward, YECist don't believe that mankind is continuous with the animal kingdom. That Adam descended from an apelike creature. The problem is that "nothing but" is not a scientific claim but a philosophic claim. Adam can be derived from an apelike creature and still be a little lower than the angels because God breathed into him the spirit, but science can't tell you about this event, all it can do is see Adam's genes as continuous with fruit flies and bananas, nothing special, that is science.

If the argument of YECism was being driven by the logic of Genesis, then everyone who reads this would know what Sabbatarianism is, and would argue in their churches about its boundaries. They would know that it is a creation mandate, prelapsarian, like the family but not post lapsarian like the creation mandate of the state. But most people have never even heard these terms let alone understand them because their churches do not explain or preach them. The Sabbath is a creation mandate and therefore is required of ALL mankind not just Jews and Christians, and this has been the teachings of Protestants consistently since it became a big deal in the Puritan churches. (i will obviously not direct my remarks to Orthodox or RC Christians because of that, but they are seldom YECists)

this is a little long, sorry, but the more i think about it, the better an example it gets. thanks to the person who reminded me of it in the other thread.

the issue is how YECists can take the creation week as a scientific and historical 6 24 hr period and not be aware of the crucial element which is the importance of the Sabbath, to keep it holy and to do no work on it. and the answer is that they are not being driven by the logic of the passage as they claim. A YECist ought to be a Sabbatarian and might be pushed to a SDA position.
.....

Sojourner<>< · Jun 26, 2005

Well then all you need to do is debate origins with a Jewish fundamentalist, and *poof* there goes your argument.

statrei · Jun 26, 2005

Sojourner<>< said:
Being a YEC'ist, I interpret the seventh day to be just as literal as the preceding six days. God blessed the seventh day, made it holy and He rested, but He did not command Adam to do the same. It's not until the ten commandments that we find any mention of our requirements to do so.

Since I am not justified under the law, but am under grace, I am not required to follow Jewish law. Why else would Paul write that all things are lawful but not all things edify the spirit?

First I am a Seventh-day Adventist, though a unique one. I agree with you that the Sabbath was not commanded of man in Eden. But I question your conclusion that the Ten Commandments are Jewish law. That would mean that the other nine are also no applicable to you. I would hope I can trust you around my property.

statrei · Jun 26, 2005

Even though I don't agree with the Sabbath prong of the OP, I agree that the YECists don't really follow the text. They can't explain why water was not created on any of the six days of creatiion for starters. Secondly, they fail to note a lilterary trick that Moses played. Later in Genesis he provided the account of his first encounter with the Creator at which point he enquired of His name. The name he received was "I am." Why then does Moses not say "In the beginning I am created the heavens and the earth?" Those questions need to be addressed in order to truly understand Genesis 1.

Sojourner<>< · Jun 26, 2005

statrei said:
First I am a Seventh-day Adventist, though a unique one. I agree with you that the Sabbath was not commanded of man in Eden. But I question your conclusion that the Ten Commandments are Jewish law. That would mean that the other nine are also no applicable to you. I would hope I can trust you around my property.

It's a good thing I don't know where you live.

J/K

As the apostle Paul, I strive to keep a clear conscience before God. My conscience would not permit me to do anything that is too bad since I am saved and I have the Spirit of God living inside of me.

Just wait until we don't have anymore worldly laws to worry about anymore. Then the gloves are off buddy.

J/k again.

Sojourner<>< · Jun 26, 2005

statrei said:
Even though I don't agree with the Sabbath prong of the OP, I agree that the YECists don't really follow the text. They can't explain why water was not created on any of the six days of creatiion for starters.

Genesis would be an awfully large book if it were to include every detail of the sequence of the creation of all things. This is effectively encapsulated within verse 1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.". Using this we can safely assume that all things contained within "the heaven" were created by God.

statrei said:
Secondly, they fail to note a lilterary trick that Moses played. Later in Genesis he provided the account of his first encounter with the Creator at which point he enquired of His name. The name he received was "I am." Why then does Moses not say "In the beginning I am created the heavens and the earth?" Those questions need to be addressed in order to truly understand Genesis 1.

I wish I understood the mystery of the name of God, but I doubt that I ever will. I don't think of Moses playing literary tricks though. I think of him as a prophet of God that may have seen more of Him then anyone in history, except perhaps Adam, Enoch and Elijah. I guess we just have to trust that God really did tell Moses that His name is "I Am". Besides, since God has been named as Elohim, Jehovah, Joshua, Emmanuel and probably a few others, wouldn't that make all these instances literary tricks? Sorry but my faith doesn't allow for that.

rmwilliamsll · Jun 26, 2005

i'm going to research the issue a little bit this week, as my writing schedule allows, found these references useful today.

http://www.wcg.org/lit/law/sabbath/sun-sab1.htm
http://www.pressiechurch.org/Theol_2/calvin__and__the__sabbath.htm
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/apologetics/AP0103W3.htm
http://www.pressiechurch.org/Theol_2/calvin__and__the__sabbath.htm

TheBear · Jun 26, 2005

rmwilliamsll said:
The issue came up over at http://www.christianforums.com/t1736757-is-there-a-distinction-yec-te-on-bible-being-final-authority.html&page=4
and it is worthy of it's own thread.

Here is the argument.
YECists take Gen1 in the obvious, common sense, man in the pew sense. In particular, if God says day, it means a 24 hour day.

well, God says in Gen 2 that the sabbath is forever and is the 7th day.

but YECists aren't Seventh day adventists or seventh day baptists, nor Sunday sabbatarians, what gives?
literal when it suits them and not literal when necessary.

glance at the thread and see if it makes sense.

...

In addition to what Sojourner and Critias mentioned, (Look at us! We're all 3 in agreement on this doctrinal issue! ), let me add a few more remarks.

If you remember, Jesus and the Apostles did all kinds of stuff on the Sabbath. Invariably, when the Pharisees tried to accuse them of sinning, Jesus basically told them they had it all backwards. He told them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2)

Then you have other scripture that says we should not judge another just because he esteems one day over the rest, or esteems every day alike. (Romans 14)

Christ's sacrafice on the cross is our Sabbath today.

And just like the Sabbath, salvation was made for man, not man for salvation.

Sojourner<>< · Jun 26, 2005

TheBear said:
Look at us! We're all 3 in agreement on this doctrinal issue!

Hallelujah! My prayers have been answered

statrei · Jun 26, 2005

Sojourner<>< said:
Genesis would be an awfully large book if it were to include every detail of the sequence of the creation of all things. This is effectively encapsulated within verse 1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.". Using this we can safely assume that all things contained within "the heaven" was created by God.

You can't believe that argument. Water is mentioned except that it existed BEFORE the first day of creation began. I suggest that you read Gen. 1 again. Familiarity may have blurred the account.

if the YECists are literalists then why aren't they Sabbatarians?

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