Sabbath and Sunday in early Christian Theology (under construction)

[Pavel Mosko]

Christians who come from one of the ancient Churches will recognize the two sacred days of the week that have been set apart for rest and for worship, namely that of Saturday / the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday, the Lord's Day. These days have been set apart for Christians for almost two millennia and are the basis of the thing that we know of today as "the weekend".


Unlike the topic of this thread (The Law) Christians do not honor the Sabbath because of the Law but rather for Sacramental reasons that I will explain in my next post.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

Christians who come from one of the ancient Churches will recognize the two sacred days of the week that have been set apart for rest and for worship, namely that of Saturday / the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday, the Lord's Day. These days have been set apart for Christians for almost two millennia and are the basis of the thing that we know of today as "the weekend".


Unlike the topic of this thread (The Law) Christians do not honor the Sabbath because of the Law but rather for Sacramental reasons that I will explain in my next post.

Could you please quote scripture where the first day is holy or set apart for rest according to God or a day of worship? I can find scripture where God said that about the seventh day Sabbath in clear, easy to understand scripture, Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Hebrews 4:4, Lev 23:3, Isaiah 58:13 Isaiah 66:23 but no one has ever been able to provide from scripture where God says that about any other day except for His holy seventh day Sabbath, people only quote from outside God's Holy Word- which is something we are warned about if contradictory to God's Word Isaiah 8:20 God said all other days are working days Exodus 20:9 except for the seventh day which is the only day God set aside to be holy for God and man, the day of rest and worship. We would need to refer to man for Sunday to be sacred because that text is missing from God's Word. Jesus warned us about following man over the commandments of God. Matthew 15:3-9

 

[BobRyan]

Christians who come from one of the ancient Churches will recognize the two sacred days of the week that have been set apart for rest and for worship, namely that of Saturday / the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday, the Lord's Day. These days have been set apart for Christians for almost two millennia and are the basis of the thing that we know of today as "the weekend".


Unlike the topic of this thread (The Law) Christians do not honor the Sabbath because of the Law but rather for Sacramental reasons that I will explain in my next post.

And what about the Word of God? Does it matter in the case of this topic in your POV?

1 Cor 7:19 "what matters is keeping the commandments of God"
Rom 3:31 "Do we then make void the Law of God by our faith? on the contrary - we establish the LAW"
1 John 5:3 "This IS the LOVE of God - that we KEEP His Commandments"
Eph 6:2 "the first commandment with a promise is - 'honor your father and mother'"
For all eternity after the cross in the New Earth "from Sabbath to Sabbath shall ALL MANKIND come before Me to WORSHIP" Is 66:23
"the saints KEEP the Commandments of God AND their faith in Jesus" Rev 14:12
Paul engaged in Gospel preaching "Every Sabbath" Acts 18:4 to both gentiles and Jews.''

NT Saints are called specifcally to "Worship God - as Creator of heaven and earth the seas and the springs of Water" Rev 14:7
"for in six days the Lord created the heavens , the earth and all that is in them - and rested the seventh day. And because of that - He blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" Ex 20:11

James 2:9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the Law as violators. 10 For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all. 11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a violator of the Law.

In the NT "SIN is transgression of the LAW" 1 John 3:4

================

Every reference to Sabbath worship services in the NT - is a reference to the Bible Sabbath - the 7th day of the week.

By contrast that is not one text in the NT calling week-day-1 the Lord's Day or calling for worship on every week day 1.

 

[BobRyan]

When someone asks "why do you say taking God's name in vain is wrong? Is it because you are a legalist? Is it because you think the Word of God matters in the case of God's Ten Commandments?" --

what then is your response?

Is it - in line with John? 1 John 5:3 "This IS the LOVE of God - that we KEEP His Commandments"

 

[SabbathBlessings]

Sure, it matters but from the point of view of the Gospel.

The fact that you Seventh Day Adventist are so hung up on this is because you preach and believe in a different Gospel and that is a problem based on 2 Corinthians 11:4. You see everything through such concepts as "The Investigative Judgement" and "the Great Controversy", and those things are actually alien to the received Faith ( 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 1 Corinthians 11:16).


Christians believe in a Final Judgement, but not like you do! I think it is important to point this out because this is what lies behind much of the neurosis of Seventh Day Adventist antics on the board around Saturday and Sunday!

Is this your way of saying you don't have scripture to back your original claim?

Please show through scripture where God said the first day is sacred or the day of rest or worship. It should be easy something like this:

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 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.

Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 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.

Lev 23:3 3 ‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.

Hebrews 4:4 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”

Isaiah 58:13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,

Isaiah 66:23 And from one Sabbath to another,
All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the Lord.

There is only one gospel, and it is an everlasting gospel and God's saints keep God's commandments- God's version, not mans. Revelation 14

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

Rules for interpretation of Scripture: The NT interprets the OT. Never the reversal.

All the 10 commandments are reiterated in the NT except SABBATH day keeping. Therefore, I am not bound to Sabbath Day keeping. Sabbath day keeping is seen as apart of the ceremonial law rather than moral law.

Simple enough for me.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

Rules for interpretation of Scripture: The NT interprets the OT. Never the reversal.

All the 10 commandments are reiterated in the NT except SABBATH day keeping. Therefore, I am not bound to Sabbath Day keeping. Sabbath day keeping is seen as apart of the ceremonial law rather than moral law.

Simple enough for me.

Interesting, my bible says something different.

The Sabbath is mentioned over 50 times in the NT. Jesus kept the Sabbath Luke 4:16, John 15:10 as did the apostles Acts 18:4, Acts 13:42, Acts 13:44 and advocated we should too 1 Cor 7:19, 1 John 5:3, James 2:10-12, so that's good enough for me.

There is no such scripture that says the seventh day Sabbath is ceremonial. It is part of God's Ten Commandments that He personally wrote with His own finger Exodus 31:18 and placed in our hearts and minds in the NC. Hebrews 8:10

All of God's commandments are righteous Psalms 119:172 which makes them morally right-doing. All of God's commandments are Truth Psalms 119:151. Those who keep not His commandments there is no Truth 1 John 2:3-5 and our works cannot save us, but the works of God Exodus 32:16 are morally righteous and Truth. Obeying God leads us to righteousness, sinning (breaking God's law) leads us down another path. Romans 6:16 but its a choice we all have to make.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

The Sabbath is mentioned over 50 times in the NT. Jesus kept the Sabbath as di the apostles and advocated we do too, so that's good enough for me.

The "sabbath" is mentioned DESCRIPTIVELY in the NT, never PRESCRIPTIVELY....meaning that Christains are never COMMANDED to observe the Sabbath.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

The "sabbath" is mentioned DESCRIPTIVELY in the NT, never PRESCRIPTIVELY....meaning that Christains are never COMMANDED to observe the Sabbath.

God said "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy" Exodus 20:8-11. He never said "thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy" in either Old or New Testament but it is still a commandment of God Deut 4:22, Exodus 34:28 Exodus 20:6

It's like a parent who tells their child- remember to be home at 9am and the child remembers and obeys because of love and respect. Thats what God wants from His children that we obey Him through love and respect. How many times did God remind us not to profane His Sabbath - those who it was first preached profaned it and did not enter into the promise land Ezekiel 20:13, Ezekiel 20:21 and we are warned not to follow the same path of disobedience Hebrews 4:6 Hebrews 4:11 so its not wise to think we can follow this same path of disobedience and expect a different result when scripture is given to us to be the light to our path Psalms 119:105, so we can't say Lord Lord- we did not know when He returns because all scripture is given for our own good.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

I am sure we will go round and round on this one with no resolution. So my last statement will be: We look to the NT to determine what commands from the OT are to be observed in the NT. The NT repeats all of the moral law commandments God gave Moses EXCEPT sabbath day keeping. If a person such as a SDA wants to observe the Sabbath, let him. But I am not bound to it, because there is no NT Teaching on this, the same as me observing the Feast of Tabernacles, as the apostles did.

 

[Soyeong]

Christians who come from one of the ancient Churches will recognize the two sacred days of the week that have been set apart for rest and for worship, namely that of Saturday / the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday, the Lord's Day. These days have been set apart for Christians for almost two millennia and are the basis of the thing that we know of today as "the weekend".


Unlike the topic of this thread (The Law) Christians do not honor the Sabbath because of the Law but rather for Sacramental reasons that I will explain in my next post.

In Mark 7:6-9, Jesus criticized the Pharisees as hypocrites for setting aside the commands of God in order to establish their own traditions, so there is nothing wrong with Christians establishing their own tradition of worshiping God on Sunday in addition to obeying God's command to keep the 7th day holy, but people should not hypocritically set aside God's command to keep the 7th day holy in order to establish their own tradition of worshiping on Sunday. It is impossible to worship God by setting aside His instructions for how to worship Him. Jesus rose on the Feast of Firstfruits as the firstfuits from the dead, so there is already a day that is rich with relevant symbolism that is in accordance with what God has commanded that people can use to honor the resurrection, so there is absolutely no need to set aside any of God's commands in order to do that.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

I am sure we will go round and round on this one with no resolution. So my last statement will be: We look to the NT to determine what commands from the OT are to be observed in the NT. The NT repeats all of the moral law commandments God gave Moses EXCEPT sabbath day keeping. If a person such as a SDA wants to observe the Sabbath, let him. But I am not bound to it, because there is no NT Teaching on this, the same as me observing the Feast of Tabernacles, as the apostles did.

Not sure how you can say its not a teaching in the NT- the apostles taught God's Word every Sabbath Acts 18:4 to Jews and Gentiles and taught what matters is keeping the commandments of God. 1 Cor 7:19 to say the Sabbath is not a commandment of God is really going against God's own Word. Exodus 20, Exodus 20:6, Exodus 32:16, Exodus 31:18 Perhaps something to consider praying about. God gave us the Sabbath as a blessing and it will be kept by His people until the very end of time and in heaven. Revelation 14:12, Isaiah 66:23 it's not God who does not want us to keep His commandments. Revelation 12:17 but we are warned the devil deceives the whole world and the Sabbath would be changed Daniel 7:25, but not by God. God said we cannot add or subtract from His commandments Deut 4:2 or His Word Proverbs 30:5-6. God's commandments came in a unit of Ten, not nine and it's not wise to think the one commandment we can forget is the one commandment God said Remember!

 

[Soyeong]

Sure, it matters but from the point of view of the Gospel.

The fact that you Seventh Day Adventist are so hung up on this is because you preach and believe in a different Gospel and that is a problem based on 2 Corinthians 11:4. You see everything through such concepts as "The Investigative Judgement" and "the Great Controversy", and those things are actually alien to the received Faith ( 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 1 Corinthians 11:16).


Christians believe in a Final Judgement, but not like you do! I think it is important to point this out because this is what lies behind much of the neurosis of Seventh Day Adventist antics on the board around Saturday and Sunday!

In Matthew 4:17-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, and God's law is how his audience knew what sin is, which includes the command to keep the 7th day holy, so repenting from breaking the Sabbath is intrinsically part of the Gospel message, Furthermore, Jesus also sent a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to God's law, which again includes obeying God's command to keep the 7th day holy, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6). So it is the people who follow a Jesus who did not teach his followers to keep the 7th day holy by word and by example who are following a different Gospel with a different Jesus and a different spirit.

 

[Soyeong]

Rules for interpretation of Scripture: The NT interprets the OT. Never the reversal.

All the 10 commandments are reiterated in the NT except SABBATH day keeping. Therefore, I am not bound to Sabbath Day keeping. Sabbath day keeping is seen as apart of the ceremonial law rather than moral law.

Simple enough for me.

Im Acts 17:11, the Bereans were praise because they diligently tested everything that he said against OT Scripture to see if what he said was true, so alignment with OT Scripture is the standard by which we should accept the truth of what is said in the NT. Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to God's law, including keeping the 7th day holy, so he would have still taught full obedience to it by example even he had repeated nothing, and as his follower we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22). Furthermore, Jesus also taught how to keep the 7th day holy through his interactions with the Pharisees on topic.

In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant still evolves following God's law. In Acts 15:21, the expectation was that Gentiles would continue to learn about how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogue. In 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy as God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to do that, which straightforwardly includes keeping God's Sabbath holy (Leviticus 19:2-3), so by following those instructions we are acting in accordance with God's eternal holiness and the only way that we should no longer follow those instructions is if God is no longer eternally holy. In 1 Peter 2:9-10, Gentiles are included as part of a holy nation and there is no point in a Gentile wanting to become part of holy nation while wanting nothing to do with following God's instructions for how to live as part of a holy nation.

The Bible never lists which laws are ceremonial or even refers to that as being a category of law. If you ask a group of people to list the laws that they think are ceremonial, then you are going to end up with a wide variety of opinions, so each list is something that each individual personally created that has not been derived from the Bible and it is not good for them to interpret authors of the Bible as referring to something that they just created. Furthermore, to suggest that ceremonial laws are not moral laws is to say that they are moral to disobey, but there are no examples in the Bible of any of God's laws being considered to be moral to disobey. Morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

In the OT there are three kinds of laws: Civil, Ceremonial, and Moral. Only the moral law is applicable in the NT.

 

[BobRyan]

When someone asks "why do you say taking God's name in vain is wrong? Is it because you are a legalist? Is it because you think the Word of God matters in the case of God's Ten Commandments?" --

what then is your response?

Is it - in line with John? 1 John 5:3 "This IS the LOVE of God - that we KEEP His Commandments"

(Which lines up with the NT scripture we already saw in this post - #3)

Sure, it matters but from the point of view of the Gospel.

And the Gospel covenant is the NEW Covenant Jer 31:31-34

'31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.”​

​

That one and only Gospel (Gal 1:6-9) covenant is quoted verbatim (unchanged) in the NT Heb 8:6-12

The fact that you Seventh Day Adventist are so hung up on this is because you preach and believe in a different Gospel

It is because we "pay attention to Bible details" like all the NT texts in #3 that you are currently ignoring.

These Bible details are soooo obvious and important that Bible scholars in almost every Christian denomination affirm the basic details I have posted so far--

(as every one of my posts points out)

Almost every Christian denomination on Earth affirms the continued *"unit of TEN" (all TEN not just nine out of ten)

[*]The Baptist Confession of Faith section 19
[*]The Westminster Confession of Faith section 19
[*]Voddie Baucham
[*]C.H. Spurgeon
[*]D.L. Moody
[*]Dies Domini by Pope John Paul II
[*]D. James Kennedy
[*]many others as well..

In the OT there are three kinds of laws: Civil, Ceremonial, and Moral. Only the moral law is applicable in the NT.

Which is exactly the point made by those non-SDA sources/groups I referenced above -- and in each one of my posts

Animal sacrifice and offering laws end at the cross as Heb 10:4-12 points out.
Ceremonies end when the Levitical priesthood and animal sacrifice ends as Heb 7 and Heb 10:4-12 indicate.
That leaves the moral law of God that was emphasized so clearly in the post #3

A post so full of NT scripture that it had to be entirely ignored by some.

 

[BobRyan]

I am sure we will go round and round on this one with no resolution. So my last statement will be: We look to the NT to determine what commands from the OT are to be observed in the NT. The NT repeats all of the moral law commandments God gave Moses EXCEPT

Except "do not take God's name in vain" Ex 20:7.

That commandment is not quoted from at all in the NT.

Which is why we have it has our test case example in post #4

By contrast we have direct quotes from the Sabbath commandment in about 3 different places in the NT and we have the NT statements we find in post #3 which some will find "very necessary" to skip past..

Your notion that one of the ten commandments is being deleted by the man made traditions of all Christian denominations other than Adventist (and other Bible Sabbath keeping groups that post here) - is refuted by the fact almost all Christian denominations affirm the TEN (not merely the downsized nine that some are so happy to promote)

Almost every Christian denomination on Earth affirms the continued *"unit of TEN" (all TEN not just nine out of ten)

[*]The Baptist Confession of Faith section 19
[*]The Westminster Confession of Faith section 19
[*]Voddie Baucham
[*]C.H. Spurgeon
[*]D.L. Moody
[*]Dies Domini by Pope John Paul II
[*]D. James Kennedy
[*]many others as well..

You may complain that in promoting the TEN they try to use man-made-tradition to edit one of the ten ... which is fine ... even so they affirm that all ten commandments are in the moral law of God.

 

[BobRyan]

The "sabbath" is mentioned DESCRIPTIVELY in the NT, never PRESCRIPTIVELY....meaning that Christains are never COMMANDED to observe the Sabbath.

"Do not take God's name in vain " is not quoted at all in the NT - prescriptively or descriptively and James 2 says to break one is to break them all.

The fact that Ex 20:7 is never quoted -- is not a sign that it is "deleted" -- as I think even you would agree.

Making up rules for how to delete one of the commandments of God seems a bit short sighted. IT does not survive a review "of the Bible details"

 

[Soyeong]

In the OT there are three kinds of laws: Civil, Ceremonial, and Moral. Only the moral law is applicable in the NT.

That is one of many different ways that someone could choose to categorize God's laws, through it is not derived from the Bible, People are free to categorize God's laws however they want and even if two people agree on using the same categories, they might disagree about which laws best fit into those categories. For example, are laws in regard to marriage purity civil, ceremonial, or moral? Is the law against kidnapping a civil or moral matter? Neither of the answers to those questions can be derived from the Bible.

In order to interpret the Bible as saying that only moral laws are applicable to the NT, which need to establish where the NT authors said that and a list of which laws they considered to be moral, which again problematic because is not something that is found in the NT. Again the problem with using the categories of civil, ceremonial, and moral law, is that it implies that civil and ceremonial law are not moral laws and are therefore moral to disobey, however, there is no example of disobedience to any of God's laws being considered by the Bible to be moral.

If I wanted, I could categorize God's laws based on which part of the body is used to obey/disobey them, such as the law against theft being a hand law, however, the fact that I can categorize God's laws in that manner does not establish that any of the authors of the Bible categorized God's laws in the same manner. So the problem comes when people create their own category, decide which set of laws they think best fit into their category, and then interpret the authors of the Bible as referring to the set of laws that they created. If I were to interpret the NT authors as saying that only hand laws are still applicable without establishing that they even considered that to be a category of law, then I would be making the same error that you are making by saying that only moral laws are applicable in the NT. Again, morality is based on what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws.

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

f I wanted, I could categorize God's laws based on which part of the body is used to obey/disobey them, such as the law against theft being a hand law, however, the fact that I can categorize God's laws in that manner does not establish that any of the authors of the Bible categorized God's laws in the same manner.

No, I don't think you are able to do this. I don't think you have the ability.