The True Sabbath

[12volt_man]

To the two guys fighting above me...

I wasn't aware that we were fighting. For my part, I thought I was being pretty respectful.

 

[12volt_man]

You Christians crack me up sometimes. Here a nice article is presented how the family of Christ is constantly at war with itself but that there should be unity in Christ instead of conflict........Than in the same breath, the post ends by feeding fuel to the fire that keeps the war going and conflict between Christians alive. Sheesh!!!

.

There is nothing wrong with PatientlyWaiting and I disagreeing over the Sabbath. It's a non-essential of the faith and what Paul called a "disputable matter". Christians on both sides of the issue have the liberty in Christ to disagree.

I fully respect her liberty in Christ to disagree. What I object to is the way in which she went about presenting her argument.

 

[butterfoot]

Technically there is no one on this earth that can honestly say which of the seven days is the Sabbath. Were any of you there when everything was created? Only the Lord knows which day is the actual Sabbath. We can speculate on what the bible says is the sabbath but there have been changes to the calendar since the days the bible was written.

The most important thing is that we all believe in the Lord Almighty and that his only son Died for us.

 

[Koey]

I used to be a Saturday sabbatarian for 30 years, until someone said that there is no place in the entire NT where the sabbath is commanded. I studied Galatians 3-4 and Romans 14 at length. Wow!

The only place in the entire NT where a rest is commanded is where Jesus says to his students, Come to me all you who are weary and heavily laden and I will give you rest.

Even Hebrews 4 does not say that there remains "the" 7th day sabbath but that there remains "a" keeping of "a" sabbath to the people of God. Reading the rest of that chapter makes me realize that 7th day keeping Jews who entered the promised land did NOT enter that sabbath rest.

If Jesus gives me that rest, it is not in a day. It is rest in Jesus now and in eternity.

Saturday Galatianism and Sunday Galatianism are both unbiblical mistakes. Some claim that Rome changed the day to Sunday without biblical authority. What Saturday sabbatarians miss is that neither day is commanded in the NT for the church.

Neither Jesus NOR the Apostles mention anywhere in the NT that Saturday or Sunday keeping is mandated for the church. I no longer ADD commands that Jesus was silent about. Paul said we are free to keep a day of our choosing. Either day of the week is just fine, but certainly not commanded.

 

[GypsyBella]

I used to be a Saturday sabbatarian for 30 years, until someone said that there is no place in the entire NT where the sabbath is commanded. I studied Galatians 3-4 and Romans 14 at length. Wow!

Galatians and Romans is referring to people who RELY on the Law for their salvation. NOWHERE does it say that the Law should be ignored.

Hebrews 3: 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Hebrews 4: 1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.
3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

"So I declare on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.'"

And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work." 5 And again in the passage above he says, "They shall never enter my rest."

What about 1John 5:3? "This is love for God: to obey his commands" Why would God go through all the drama of carving out His commandments with his own finger, only to later discredit them by saying, "Oh, you don't have to do that anymore. Those commandments weren't for your good or anything. I just felt like making them up..."

Jesus never took away from the commandments... even the fourth one. He only added to them- John 13:34

 

[legion33]

Personally I rest on Saturday the Sabbath and travel to church and worship on Sunday.I think driving to or walking to church on the Sabbath Saturday would be breaking the Sabbath Law.

 

[Koey]

Galatians and Romans is referring to people who RELY on the Law for their salvation. NOWHERE does it say that the Law should be ignored....

So pull down your pants then so I can check and see if you are circumcised. I want to make sure you are not ignoring the law. Oh, you say you are circumcised of heart? Interesting way to obey the law. Maybe that's what the sabbath is about for Christians too.

 

[2+2=5]

May I interject brief verse I came across this evening?
I would just like to hear everyone’s thoughts on it.. Forgive me if it has no bearing on the discussion

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

Thanks for any comments!

 

[Koey]

It is not agreed on when that prophecy in Mat 24:20 was fulfilled, because there are a number of theories, even tho most preachers seem to only preach their favorite and not give credence to the others. However, it is agreed that this was written to Jewish Christians. There is no command to keep the sabbath in that verse. To assume so is an argument from silence. In short, there is no command from either Jesus OR his disciples for Christians to keep the sabbath. To create such a command from a Scripture like this which contains no such command, is treading on dangerous ground.

 

[GypsyBella]

So pull down your pants then so I can check and see if you are circumcised. I want to make sure you are not ignoring the law. Oh, you say you are circumcised of heart? Interesting way to obey the law. Maybe that's what the sabbath is about for Christians too.

Ok ok... this is my lack of being clear. The LAW is not REQUIRED for salvation. However, keeping the commandments is expected. Faith saves us, as we all know, but the NT tells us to keep the commandments.

Circumcised of heart? I've never heard of this... do people really use that statement?

 

[Koey]

Ok ok... this is my lack of being clear. The LAW is not REQUIRED for salvation. However, keeping the commandments is expected. Faith saves us, as we all know, but the NT tells us to keep the commandments.

Circumcised of heart? I've never heard of this... do people really use that statement?

1. The NT tells us to keep the commandments. People ASSUME that means the 10, but that's not what it says. Commandments is unqualified. There is no adjective. We could assume that means all of them, not just the 10. In the OT there are well over 600 commandments, and circumcision is one of them (Gen 21:4).

2. Circumcision of the heart? Yes, read the following:

• Deuteronomy 10:16 "Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer."
• Deuteronomy 30:6 "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live."
• Romans 2:29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

3. Now if the commandment of circumcision is no longer applicable in the flesh (1 Cor 7:9), yet we are to keep the commandments, perhaps keeping some of them in the heart is all that is required. Perhaps, because there is no directive from either Jesus or the disciples to keep the sabbath, we can also keep that in our hearts or in the spirit too. Perhaps that elevates the law to a higher, spiritual level of obedience rather than a low-level, carnal, fleshly observance.

4. Certainly to make a requirement that Jesus did not is arrogance beyond measure. That is the problem with all the churches. They add their own lists of do's and don'ts on top of Jesus' simple Great Commandments, making us worse than the Pharisees.

 

[GypsyBella]

Hi Koey, yes I'm familiar with these verses now, thanks!

It seems that the 10 Commandments are the ground rules that God set in the beginning... I mean seriously... why would God go through all the drama of writing them with His finger in stone, only to later say "Oh well, they're not ALL relevant today... only the ones that are BAD sins..."

Notice that the fourth commandment says "Remember the Sabbath Day"... how can you "remember" something that didn't exist previously? The rest of the Mosaic law was Jewish custom that no human could keep, which is why we need grace. Those were the things that were nailed to the cross. The Commandments, however, were not "the law". They are the Commandments of God. Bottom line. They have been since the beginning and will be until the end. Do you think that God just randomly decided who He thought was righteous before he gave the Commandments to Moses? I doubt it. The Commandments were the Commandments before they were written in stone on the mountain.

So beyond that, I guess it's a matter of deciding what the Sabbath is.

 

[sparklz]

How do you know our calendar is correct? Perhaps Sunday is really Saturday, if you could count all the way back to the day on which God is said to have finished creation.

Taken From: http://www.sabbathtruth.com/sabbath_questions.asp
The calendar has not been changed so as to confuse the days of the week. We can be positive that our seventh day is the same day Jesus observed when He was here. Pope Gregory XIII did make a calendar change in 1582, but it did not interfere with the weekly cycle. Our present Gregorian calendar was named after him when he made that small change in 1582.

What did Pope Gregory do to the calendar? Before 1582 the Julian calendar had been in effect, instituted by Julius Ceasar about 46 B.C. and named after him. But the Julian calendar had calculated the length of the year as 365 1/4 days, and the year is actually eleven minutes less than 365 1/4 days. Those eleven minutes accumulated, and by 1582 the numbering of the calendar was ten days out of harmony with the solar system. Gregory simply dropped those ten days out of the numbering of the calendar. It was Thursday, October 4, 1582, and the next day, Friday, should have been October 5. But Gregory made it October 15 instead, dropping exactly ten days to bring the calendar back into harmony with the heavenly bodies.

Were the days of the week confused? No. Friday still followed Thursday, and Saturday still followed Friday. The same seventh day remained, and the weekly cycle was not disturbed in the least. When we keep the seventh day on Saturday, we are observing the same day Jesus kept, and He did it every week according to Luke 4:16.

 

[Koey]

... why would God go through all the drama of writing them with His finger in stone, only to later say "Oh well, they're not ALL relevant today...

The ten commandments are the summary of the old covenant (Ex 34:28; Dt 4:13). They foreshadowed the better covenant, and were like a schoolmaster until Christ. They were not a waste of time or of God's efforts. But, as a covenant, they are no longer obligatory in the letter (Heb 8:13). As principles they ARE relevant for today, but they are not sufficient for righteousness. For instance, adultery is not the only sexual sin. One could say, in the letter of the law they don't disobey that command, but one could be a porn addict, a homosexual, engaged in bestiality, or a host of other sexual sins and claim not to be an adulterer in the letter.

The letter of the ten commandments is very inadequate, because they do NOT contain the spirit of the law. As for the sabbath, the spirit of that law is not in a fleshly rest in a physical day, but as the NT clearly points out, there is no commanded rest in a day of the week for the church, but in Christ and His Kingdom (Mat 11:28; Heb 4). Nowhere does the NT make such a command as a day of the week, Saturday OR Sunday.

Voluntary observance of any day for any purpose is clearly allowed in the NT (Rom 14:5). However, mandating any day, Saturday or Sunday, is a form of Galatianism (Gal 3:24-25; 4:9-10). Such mandatory observance of days, is relying on weak and beggarly elements. The covenant from Sinai (the ten commandments) gives birth to slavery (Gal 2:24), so we are admonished to cast out the bondwoman 30).

I choose to follow Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." I am set free from from the law, because the law cannot save. Salvation is in Jesus and I rest (or sabbath) in that promise.

 

[GypsyBella]

The ten commandments are the summary of the old covenant (Ex 34:28; Dt 4:13). They foreshadowed the better covenant, and were like a schoolmaster until Christ. They were not a waste of time or of God's efforts. But, as a covenant, they are no longer obligatory in the letter (Heb 8:13). As principles they ARE relevant for today, but they are not sufficient for righteousness. For instance, adultery is not the only sexual sin. One could say, in the letter of the law they don't disobey that command, but one could be a porn addict, a homosexual, engaged in bestiality, or a host of other sexual sins and claim not to be an adulterer in the letter.

The letter of the ten commandments is very inadequate, because they do NOT contain the spirit of the law. As for the sabbath, the spirit of that law is not in a fleshly rest in a physical day, but as the NT clearly points out, there is no commanded rest in a day of the week for the church, but in Christ and His Kingdom (Mat 11:28; Heb 4). Nowhere does the NT make such a command as a day of the week, Saturday OR Sunday.

Voluntary observance of any day for any purpose is clearly allowed in the NT (Rom 14:5). However, mandating any day, Saturday or Sunday, is a form of Galatianism (Gal 3:24-25; 4:9-10). Such mandatory observance of days, is relying on weak and beggarly elements. The covenant from Sinai (the ten commandments) gives birth to slavery (Gal 2:24), so we are admonished to cast out the bondwoman 30).

I choose to follow Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." I am set free from from the law, because the law cannot save. Salvation is in Jesus and I rest (or sabbath) in that promise.

Thank you for further proving my point. Christ came to fulfill the law... NOT CHANGE IT. He came to give us a better covenant. Terrific! I love Him for that and I thank Him every day, because I am incapable of perfection on my own! However, no where does the Bible tell me that the Commandments are no longer relevant! They were the Commandments of God even before the Jews were a people! Again, "If you love Me, keep My commandments". I do not hold other gods before Him because I love Him. I do not bear false witness because I love Him. I do not covet because I love Him. I remember the Sabbath because I love Him. Keeping these commandments is not slavery to me... I do it because I love Him! He instituted the Sabbath in the beginning just like He did marriage (the "analogy" of Christ and the church). Your analogy would work well for gay marriage arguments. "Well if we can't use the day God designated as Sabbath in the beginning, then I guess we can't designate how people get married either...".

If we followed ONLY the Commandments, that would be dead and in vain... but when you add Jesus to that mixture, it is complete.

 

[maitiu]

I don't really think it matters what day it's on. In our culture, Sunday is the 7th day.. in Jewish, Saturday is. Our weeks have a different turn-around. The point of the Sabbath is to remember it as a Holy Day, and to give us a chance to focus on God and not forget about him - we pretty much do that on Sunday. It's to give *us* a rest, and look to God.. don't we do that on Sundays? We should do it every day really... but it's a reminder I suppose!

Matt

 

[Koey]

...Your analogy would work well for gay marriage arguments. "Well if we can't use the day God designated as Sabbath in the beginning, then I guess we can't designate how people get married either..."...

What a load of bull! Homosexuality is clearly forbidden in the NT. NOWHERE is any day (Saturday OR Sunday) made mandatory in the NT. So is ADDING to instructions Jesus gave the church and is the height of arrogance. Rome is just as wrong if it insists on Sunday as SDA's are for insisting on Saturday. NEITHER day is commanded by Jesus OR the apostles for the church.

 

[GypsyBella]

What a load of bull! Homosexuality is clearly forbidden in the NT. NOWHERE is any day (Saturday OR Sunday) made mandatory in the NT. Do do so is ADDING to instructions Jesus gave the church and is the height of arrogance. Rome is just as wrong if it insists on Sunday as SDA's are for insisting on Saturday. NEITHER day is commanded by Jesus OR the apostles for the church.

You're getting mad, Koey! I don't want to argue with you! We're just stating opinions, right?

I don't care if the NT doesn't say anything about it. The Bible is the Bible, NT or OT. If Christ is perfect, that means He kept the Commandments. If He did, then so will I. I don't think I'm better than you or anyone else. This is my walk with Christ. "...Work out your own salvation with fear and tremble..." If you don't choose this way, or you decide that the Bible doesn't say that, then I think no less of you. If that's the height of arrogance, then so be it.

When you stress the word ADDING, I'm assuming you are referring to Revelation 22:18-19. First of all, those verses are only referring to the prophecy of that book... which is actually very relevant. You are right, nothing should be added or subtracted to the Word of God. The pharisees and teachers of the law added to the the Law... this is what made it impossible to follow. This is why Christ came to "fulfill" the Law, not abolish it. A lot of people today say that God's original commandments are irrelevant today... this is subtracting from His Word. There is obviously a problem with both.

BTW, the only reason my tab says SDA is because that is the denomination of my husband. I am a non-denominational who comes from a baptist and AOG background. Sounds like you have had bad experiences with SDA's... I understand... I've had bad experiences with pentacostals, but I don't judge them all by my personal experience... that would be a stereotype...

Love in Christ,
Gypsy

 

[Peter]

The Didache (90 AD), Ignatius (107) and Justin Martyr (100-165) make it quite clear that coporate worship was indeed practiced on Sunday. The OP wrongly states that this was some invention of Constantine. This is just bad scholarship.

The writings referenced above make a clear distinction between the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. The act of Holy Communion is within the context of Sunday practice.

An excellent booklet on the subject, "Why We Worship On Sunday," was written by Matthew Gallitin, a former Seventh Day Adventist. It is available from Conciliar Press, Ben Lomand (sp), California.

Peace.

Rdr. Peter

 

[SetFreeOne]

Was, is and always will be Saturday. Regardless of what anyone else says. I go to church on Saturday because the church is true to the Holy Word. How has it come that many of our christian churches proclaim Sunday as the day of Sabbath? It is false and does not match with what the bible says. We have one man to thank for the changing of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and he had no God given right to. In the early parts of the fourth century Constantine issued a decree, declaring Sunday a festival all over the Roman Empire. ever since, this has stuck in the minds of millions as the day we should worship on. Saturday is the true day because that is the day God finished his work on creating the universe, which was Saturday, the seventh day.

I have one simple question for you. And I base it off this:

Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
Six days shall you labor and do all of your work, 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 ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your
female servant may rest as well as you.

Ok I guess I have three questions:

1: What are the worship habits of animals?
2: How do you know the "stranger within your gates" worships the same God?
3: What does God Himself mandate that you do on Sabbath?