Those that worship on the seventh day Sabbath don't do so because it's considered just another flavour of ice cream. We do it because we believe it to be the explicit instruction of God. If you were openly practicing adultery and claimed it was your right to do so and gave a couple of verses to prove it, I would speak up and tell you that it is error and will cause your ruin. Believe it or not, I, and every other Adventist I know, proclaim these things out of love... otherwise, why would we bother? Not saying the message always gets conveyed that way but just as I might be gruff and harsh in yelling to you to get out of your house because it is on fire, doesn't mean I am not trying to help you.
I understand this. As many of us have stated before, there are some problems with the idea of Saturday Sabbath worship
1. The Saturday Sabbath worship belongs to a specific people - the Jews.
Exo 31:16 Wherefore the
children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations,
for a perpetual covenant.
2. It is part of the Old Covenant
Exo 31:16 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations,
for a perpetual covenant.
Lev 24:8
Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually,
being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.
Isa 56:6
Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it,
and taketh hold of my covenant;
Note that to keep the Sabbath is to "take hold of the covenant" But if that covenant no longer exists, then the Sabbath as taking hold of that covenant is also gone.
3. The Old Covenant is passed away and is no longer.
Heb 8: 13 In that he saith, A new
covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old
is ready to vanish away.
4. The Sabbath and the covenant that goes with it are a shadow of the reality which is to come, which is the rest we have in Christ.
5. The history of the Church from the very beginning was to worship on the First Day, or Sunday, as well as on the Saturday Sabbath. IN the NT, we see Paul going into the Temple to observe Jewish feast days, but later, as the Church grew and there came a severe division between Judaism and Christianity, this ended. The first believers were Jewish and they went to Israel and proclaimed the Good News of the Messiah's arrival. But the Jews wanted nothing to do with this, hence the separation from Jewish rituals into a distinctly Christian observance.
6. The idea that someone would read the Bible and "discover" something that hadn't been known for 1800 years, yet was all-important for very salvation, is a tremendous insult, not only to Christ's saving work and His promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide us in to truth, but to those men who established the orthodoxy of the Christian faith. You are willing to accept that God exists in Trinity, which came from the same men who also kept the Sunday Sabbath. If they were wrong on the Sabbath, how could you trust them for anything else? In every religion which has been established outside the apostolic Church, there exists the idea that somehow the men of the first four centuries of Christianity were not divinely inspired, and that they were in reality, kind of dummies who didn't really know the truth. Very insulting to men who died rather than compromise the truth, and in the case of anyone who established a new religion and new doctrines, such as Martin Luther or John Calvin, very filled with pride and arrogance.
7. Do I also understand (you correct me if I am wrong) that most SDA's have strict dietary observations which dovetail with that taught to Judaism? If so, then it is further evidence of keeping the Old Covenant and not moving into the New Covenant.
Every feast of the Jews in the Old Covenant was replaced by a new feast in the New Covenant. For instance, Passover was transformed into the Eucharist. Circumcision, the ritual of covenant-making to enter the covenant community, was changed to baptism. And in like manner, we are still to have a day of rest - but it has been changed from Saturday to Sunday in order to honor that which saves us - the glorious Resurrection of Christ the King. Without the Resurrection, we are still in our sins and lost.
I find it odd, therefore, that the SDAs eschew the very day upon which Christ arose and achieved salvation for all mankind.
But in all honesty I don't know the answer. I've run in to 'dichotomists' here and 'trichotomists' from different 'what I would consider' orthodox denominations. I just continue to rely on scriptures supporting 'tri' better than 'di', as far as I'm concerned anyway; but I know everyone doesn't agree.
