Is the Sabbath Commandment proof that the TCs are not for Christians?
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LoveGodsWord
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God's ISRAEL in the NEW COVENANT is all those who BELIEVE and FOLLOW God's WORD. Gentiles are now grafted in to God's ISRAEL (Romans 11:16-27). If you are not a part of God's ISRAEL you have no part in the NEW COVENANT *HEBREWS 8:10-12.
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LoveGodsWord
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Hey Steve, keep reading...
[16], The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presses into it.
[17], And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one pronunciation mark of the law to fail.
[18], Whoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery: and whoever marries her that is put away from her husband commits adultery.
Yep seems Jesus is still teaching God's LAW after John according to you.
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Luke calls it the "Kingdom of God", Matthew 11:12 calls it "the kingdom of the heavens".
That aside, verse 19 is the start of one of the greatest covenantle parables in the NT, the story of the Rich-man and Lazarus
Luke 16: [Matthew 11:12]
14 Now the Pharisees, being lovers of money, were listening to all these things, and they were ridiculing Him. 15 And He said to them, “You are those justifying themselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is exalted among men is an abomination before God.
16 The Law and the prophets were until John. From that time the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone forces his way into it.
19 And there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, making good cheer in splendor every day.
20 And a certain beggar named Lazarus, being full of sores, was laid at his gate
21and desiring to be fed from that falling from the table of the rich man; but even the dogs, coming, were licking his sores.
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/rich-man-and-lazarus-true-story-or-parable.7306890/
Matthew 3:9
"And no ye should be thinking to say in yourselves 'a Father we are having Abraham'.
For I am saying unto ye, that is able the God out of these stones to raise-up offspring to the Abraham. [Luke 3:8/16:24]
Luke 16:24
And he sounding said: "Father Abraham! be thou merciful to-me! and send Lazarus!, that he should be dipping the tip of the finger of him of water, and should be cooling down the tongue of me,--that I am being pained in this Flame"
http://www.herealittletherealittle.net/index.cfm?page_name=Lazarus
The fact that the rich man has five brothers is a vital clue to his true symbolic identity.
Judah, the progenitor of the Jews, was the son of Jacob through Leah (Gen. 29:35). He had five full-blooded brothers: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, and Zebulun (Gen. 35:23).
While the significance of this seemingly pointless detail has been neglected by scholars throughout the centuries, you can be certain that it did not escape the notice of the Pharisees and scribes to which Yeshua was speaking. They thoroughly knew their history and were extremely proud of their heritage.
Yeshua wanted those self-righteous Pharisees to know exactly who he was referring to with this parable.
This detail cements the identity of the rich man as the House of Judah, the Jews!
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Dan the deacon
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Serving Zion
Seek First His Kingdom & Righteousness
You have got the wrong idea on this point, because Jesus didn't set aside the Sabbath .. instead He took issue with the faulty reasoning of the lawyers who had turned it into a day of abstinence - even to abstain from the good things that would glorify the day!
Jesus would be profaning the Sabbath if He was to do away with it. Rather, to keep the Sabbath day holy, He says it is lawful to do good on that day. If He was to decline to heal a person who asked Him to heal, then it would in fact profane the Sabbath by breaking the commandment "love your neighbour as yourself", and the neighbour would have felt bitter toward God.
The whole purpose of Sabbath keeping is so that the whole of society can rest and give glory to God. They do not need to have anxiety or resentment of any kind, they don't need to rush.. none of the annoyances that come up during the normal working day as a result of having to get things done on time.
But if you are strolling on the Sabbath and you see someone who is unable to walk, you're feeling like it's a good time to do something that pleases God (Luke 5:17c, Proverbs 27:11), then why not? .. it is not to transgress the Sabbath, but to fulfil it! .. same if you see a nice piece of fruit on a tree, then is it not better to pick the fruit and thank God for such a wonderful day, complimenting the tree's keeper, than to resent Him for not being allowed to make the most of His creation because someone might accuse you of doing labour?
.. can you see how awry they have gone in their interpretation of the law? The letter they have written as an interpretation of the law has killed the spirit of it. On the other hand, if someone was working to harvest fruit on the Sabbath, they might resent that they are unable to eat the fruit from the tree because their job is to sell the fruit for a profit.
This is how they were destroyed Luke 19:41"they won’t leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” .. Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being My kohen. Since you forgot the Torah of your God, just so I will forget your children."
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Thanks for your post.
You were the one that posted, "There appears to be two classes of Christian: one that believes they are under the law, and another that believes they are above the law."
In a sense I agree, one chooses to be on one side of this issue or the other. The law is a singular thing. From my perspective, the choice is between the law and grace, but that is not acceptable to those who want to be under the law. They want both.
The Apostle Paul goes on at length about this issue. In this scripture he provides a timeline for being under the law. There was a time before this faith, there was a time this faith was revealed, and there is now. We have been set free.
Galatians 3:23-25
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Apostle continues in this vein, but introduces our sonship and relationship to Abraham (faith), rather than Moses (the law).
Galatians 3:26-29
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then he carries the sonship one step further, talking about us as heirs, both underaged and come of age.
Galatians 4:1-7
What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
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Serving Zion
Seek First His Kingdom & Righteousness
Thanks Steven, could you show the main scriptures that use the expression "grace" as juxtaposed to law? .. there are different ways the word grace can be used, as in a gracious mercy or a graceful demeanour. I think it is important to make sure we are looking at the same scriptures the same way.
.. also on that note, take a look at post #175 again, where there is an unanswered matter from 1 Timothy 1:9-10:
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Post #175 was addressed to Dave L.
Here are some scriptures with "grace" and "the law" that I am referring to. There are several more.
Galatians 2:21
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Galatians 5:4
You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
Romans 6:15
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
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Adam Raffell
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Thanks Saint Steven for the warm welcome!
Surely though Jesus' referring to not abolishing the prophets as well as the law is because they are so interwoven, not only in the sense that the books remain relevant as part of our cannon (which I also agree with by the way). If you abolish the law, you would abolish the prophets too because the promises and the basis of the covenantal relationship between God and Israel is expounded by the prophets. No Law, means no prophets, because there would be no standard of expectation by which to measure the prophets either.
A great example of that would be in Deuteronomy 30, at the climax of Moses summarising all of the instruction he's received from God:
"Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live."
Then in the prophets we have numerous references to these exact things taking place. E.g. Amos conclusion 9:14, and then famously in Jeremiah 31:31ff.
I'm not saying that means Christians ought to follow 'the Law', meaning by that a set of rules derived from the scripture wholesale and uninterpreted. "It says x here, so we must all do x". But I think where we stand to gain is in the exercise of interpreting them, and avoiding making our starting point that because of Jesus none of them really apply to us: this would be to reduce them only to take the form of teaching.
Debating for instance as we are here: should the 10 Commandments apply? I love this question because it leads us to think through our method of interpretation. I see these Commandments resonating without contradiction across the whole cannon, so personally I have a hard time believing that they don't apply to Christians.
But then, that begs a series of important questions: how ought we keep it? In what form?
For example in the case in point, if we don't keep the Sabbath as Christians, surely a serious engagement with the scripture involves asking ourselves: "maybe we should?" If so, then how: Sunday? Sunset Friday until Sunset Saturday as it was originally for the Jewish people? As and when we can fit a time of rest into our busy lives? A bit of all of the above as we seek the presence of God in our lives? Maybe it's heavily circumstantial? Or as Gentile Christians, belonging to Israel in Christ, do we stand external to that in the form of a command: does it now take the form of an invitation?
I read the accusations that Jesus did not keep the Sabbath (Shabbat) quoted in other posts on the lips of his opponents, who monopolised all interpretation of how Shabbat was to be observed. Jesus rejected their interpretation - teaching us that picking and eating ears of corn, healing people, carrying a mat are in fact lawful on Shabbat. That's saying something rather different from suggesting Jesus taught that we need not keep Shabbat at all, in any form.
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Is the Sabbath Commandment proof that the TCs are not for Christians?
if you observe Sabbath, Christ will profit you nothing.
if you observe Sabbath, Christ will profit you nothing.
MoreCoffee said: ↑
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
(Galatians 5:1-4)
The above scripture carries a message that is true; everybody who seeks to be justified by obeying the law has fallen from grace. This applies just as much to the one who seeks to gain God's favour by observing the 7th day as Sabbath in the belief that by so doing he/she shows themselves to be loyal followers of God and among those who "keep the commandments". One cannot be justified by works of the law.
if you observe Sabbath, Christ will profit you nothing.
if you observe Sabbath, Christ will profit you nothing.
MoreCoffee said: ↑
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
(Galatians 5:1-4)
The above scripture carries a message that is true; everybody who seeks to be justified by obeying the law has fallen from grace. This applies just as much to the one who seeks to gain God's favour by observing the 7th day as Sabbath in the belief that by so doing he/she shows themselves to be loyal followers of God and among those who "keep the commandments". One cannot be justified by works of the law.
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Thanks for the detailed response. I appreciate it.
These questions about the law and the Sabbath are interesting. I have been studying and debating these issues for about a decade. Here are a few of the conclusions that I have arrived at.
1) The law was given to the Israelites alone through Moses.
2) That being said, the law is nearly universally known.
3) From that perspective it makes us conscious of sin.
4) But we need to remember point #1, (given to the Israelites alone)
5) The Sabbath is a sign between the Israelites and God alone.
6) The Sabbath was not changed to Sunday by the early church.
7) The law is a singular thing. To observe any of it obligates us to all of it.
This is one of the best descriptions I have found about the history, turning point, and our current relationship to the law.
Galatians 3:23-25
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
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Good post and thanks for those 7 conclusions.
You've been debating the Law/Commandments about as long as I have.
I rarely debate the Sabbath anymore, [Daniel, Olivet Discourse and Revelation interests me a lot more now].
Anywho, perhaps you remember "Frogster" and/or "scratch"? We were called "The 3 Amigos" way back LOL.....
Discussion in 'General Theology' started by RND, Sep 10, 2009.
Why do you think the sabbath is always such a 'hot topic'?
Why do you think the sabbath is always such a 'hot topic'?
Discussion in 'General Theology' started by <scratch> Mar 24, 2011.
Are you under THE law, Grace or both
Are you under THE law, Grace or both
Are you under THE law, Grace or both (2)
Are you under THE law, Grace or both (2)
Are you under THE law, Grace or both (3)
Are you under THE law, Grace or both (3)
As I once stated "there are a plethora of Law threads on CF" ehehe
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