Your proposal is that "THEN He did NOT bless and make Holy the 7th day" - you argue that "THEN" man did not know why he had a 7 day week, you argue that "THEN" God did not "MAKE" the 7th-day holy "FOR mankind" rather it was "MADE to kept a secret from mankind".
When Christ says in Mark 2 "The Sabbath was MADE for mankind" your argument must answer "Oh no it was NOT"
When we "see" that in 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”. your argument must conclude "Oh no He did not!"
Indeed. So it was "NOT MADE for mankind" at Creation - when it was BLESSED and Set apart as a holy day and when mankind was given the 7 day week according to the pattern of Creation week...??
and your argument responds -
"Oh no He did not! Not until 2000 years later at Sinai. The mere fact of the Gen 2:3 act of Blessing it and making it holy did not establish either the MAKING of the day for mankind nor did the secret God was keeping get out for 2000 years".
In Summary --
Gen 2:3 God says He THEN made the day a Holy day and blessed it. You say "Oh no He did not".
Mark 2:27 Christ said the day was already "MADE for mankind" and you argue - "OH no it was not. It had not yet been given to all mankind in any way shape or form AND when MADE it was MADE for the Hebrews ONLY".
You have so many "Oh no God that is not true" spots to insert - that it makes me wonder why this does not raise a red flag in your thinking.
Now this is getting tiring. I wish you would stop putting words in my mouth and forcing your own interpretation (twisting) of what I have said, or what you think it must mean or lead to.
I am not denying any of those statements in the Bible. What I am disputing is the meaning you read into them, (eternal command even though there is no actual command in the text), so let's deal with this difference, and cut out the acccusations. The fact that you must resort to this (straw man) to prove your case is evidence of weakness in your overall position.
Exodus 20:8-11 God says the Gen 1-2:3 facts "alone" establish the binding nature of the day. You say "No they don't - God would need more than that".
And I forgot to add to this quote:
Further - we can know that whenever God makes something Holy - it is sanctified, set apart and it is man that is obligated by it - not God.
But as if that was not enough - Christ said it was "MADE for mankind".
The way you speak of this "binding" (even when it is not said, once again, you would think man was made for the sabbath. Precisely what Jesus was trying to teach the Jews, was that God's intent was not "binding" man with some burden (while man's heart was still unchanged), and that the OT ways of doing things were not permanent because God was preparing for the final reality. This was once again setting the stage for the New Covenant principle, even though it was still "binding" pre-Cross when He spoke.
But when it comes to the missing "Thou shalt not kill" for Cain - You suddenly need no such divine statement as we find in Gen 2:3 establishing the 7-day week and the 7th-day as "Holy" that God "THEN blessed".
Indeed you say that Cain merely "thinking it up" allows the law of murder to exist and it becomes "known" and a sin to violate - simply because without conversing with God as Adam did - Cain could "make up" the law about murder and establish the fact that violating it was sin.
Read again what I said. Murder was a universal law that was in man's
conscience. This was put there by God, so the law is just as much from Him as anything written. So to say Cain must have therefore "made it up" is another straw man fallacy.
There is no example of God "sanctifying" anything "so that HE would be obligated to honor it". In every case where God makes something Holy, and sanctifies - it is for man to recognize and honor. He is not "obligating Himself".
Christ - the Creator - makes it clear that when HE made the Sabbath "HE made it for MANKIND".
You have to keep arguing "Well He made it - sanctified it, blessed it - but NOT for mankind... rather it was just sitting there."
How can you really be satisified with your approach.
God said in Exodus 20 that the Gen 2:3 act of "resting" was sufficient to demonstrate how to keep it.
God said in Exodus 20 that the Gen 2:3 fact alone establishes it as "binding".
God argues "Keep it holy... FOR IN Six days the Lord....THEREFORE He blessed it and sanctified it".
HE stops there ... with that Gen 2:3 fact in the Exodus 20 statement. HE claims that this Gen 2:3 fact "alone" is sufficient.
But once again, though God may have instructed them to rest based on Creation, this does not mean that God could not one day change that instruction, and reorient it's meaning. (i.e. instead of honoring a day, we honor the Lord of Creation Himself who came and died for us and rose again to be our "rest", now and for eternity in the Kingdom).
What He does not do is give the example of "Ignoring Sabbath" as the "strengthening" of His own 7th-day memorial of HIS creative act in making mankind.
Your claim was that the NT saints were not reading the Bible. They were ignoring scripture and waiting for their own Bible to spring up after 60 years or so.
And here you are putting those intepretations on my statements again. They were not "ignoring" what was the true intent of the Sabbath, and they did read the Bible, but still, they did not follow everything that was commanded in it (i.e. the OT). Much of it was fulfilled, as you acknowledge, so the issue is whether the Sabbath was also fulfilled, not whether they ignored the Bible. So these accusations are unnecessary.
The Lev 23 annual Sabbaths were in the ceremonial law - not in the moral law of the 10 commandments. They were ceremonies pointing to the Messiah - complete with sacrifices predicting the work of the Messiah to Come. The Holy Seventh day of rest has no sacrifices in Exodus 20:8-11 or in Gen 2:3. God said that to observe it - worship and rest were required and so He orders its keeping even in the New Earth for "all mankind".
More than this in Ephesians 6 Paul argues for all the commandments saying that the 5th commmandment "is the FIRST commandment with a promise". So He clearly admits to the scriptures 10 commandment unit.
Really, only the flast 6 commandments were "moral law", governing our relationship to other. the first four governed our relationship to God. The Sabbath fell into the first category, but was more ceremonial in nature. No, not the more elaborate ceremonies of sacrifice and feast day, but still, a physical "observance" like the others. Unlike the others, which in the letter were universal and necessary (God could not allow us to be breaking any of those and still have a civil society, or due reverence to Him) whose spiritual principles therefore included the literal law, the Sabbath is as you point out, a memorial of Creation. But now this Creation is fallen and passing away, and God is making a new creation through His Son, the Messiah. This now became the focus, so the Commandment is fulfilled in trusting in Christ, and also as you said, meeting together. But the NT clearly avoids mandating a specific day. In fact, at times, they met every day.
On the contrary - the NT authors do not argue for a cut-and-paste approach to the Word of God - the scriptures - the text they were all reading.
Apparently they did, as they did not keep the sacrifices, circumcision, etc.
Even more - the Acts 15 injunction about eating meat with blood in it - is clearly a Levitical law.
No, as I said before, this was a universal Noahide Law, which God did always expect all of man to keep.
In fact - we see in Acts 22 the "extreme" case of the NT saints observing an OT religious practice of taking a vow - and Paul is in complete agreement with the practice even participating in it.
Glancing right now, I don't see that in ch.22. But I'm sure this is just Paul and the others before the Sanhedrin following their practice because that was the customary way when standing before them. This is no way is made into some commandment binding on all Christians. In fact, Jesus sets the priniciple against it.
In Romans 14 an entire set of religious days and practices is "affirmed" with the only glaring "missing" element is "NO religious practice" -- which is the one you argue for.
Once again, we disagree as to the meaning of this. You create the straw man of "no observance" and say "see it is not there", but if he is telling us that some hold a day or days above others (not specifying which), and some do not, and both practices are valid, then this disproves your whole case.
#1. Baptism is not taught in the OT
Who said it was? Precisely what I am saying, the NT practice does not follow the OT on ceremonial matters. Some things were changed, some things added.
On the contrary - the NT authors "frequently" refer back to the Scriptures. They have "no principle" stating that "a scripture not repeated is a scripture abolished".
If such were the case - then after the writing of Rev or John - we could "abolish" all of the NT not repeated in that last book.
There is simply no such principle in all of scripture.
Rev. is still the same Testamant as the other books, so of course it would not change anything.
And tell me, then, what other law do we follow because it is written only in the OT, and not reiterated in the NT? You could mention the dietar laws, but they most don't believe those are in effect either, (and most SDA's feel that was not enough, and that really all meat should be banned anyway). There's tithing, but many do not feel that carries over literally. the NT mentions giving, and people read a literal 10th, but once again, the principle is magnified, and we should try to give as much as we can (and not just money), not just measure out a 10th, and there, we've kept our obligation.
Wrong. Even Sabbath in the OT is not "repeated every century or in every book".
As you yourself note - the Sabbath commandment before the cross - is not repeated EVEN in the NT Gospels - but failure to continuously repeat it did not "abolish it" before the cross even by your loose definitions.
Actually, it is mentioned there, but you, in comparing "century to century" or "book to book" fail to realize that different books within a Testament and different centuries is not the same as different covenants, so this argument means nothing.
You have never shown how "God made the Sabbath for mankind" ALREADY by the time of Christ in Mark 2:27. You just keep ignoring it.
Show how it what? (incomplete sentance). Once again, Christ was setting the principle that it was not meant to be some binding restriction. You're trying to force it like it is.
The Law of Love was known to Christ AND even to the Jews as they quoted it to Him..
Deut 6:5 Love God with all your heart
Lev 19:18 Love your neighbor as yourself.
But it's still called "new", so this shows that there is a new focus. In the OT, the principle of love was buried beneath laws, ceremonies and observances, but this did not save anyone. This is what God was teaching through the OT.
Christ was not in the business of saying "ignores these laws because they are already written down in scripture" as you may suppose.
And in the above example - you admit that the "context" for Christ's reference "Love Me KEEP My commandments" was in the pre-Cross context and could not possibly mean "break my commandments but do so in a nice way". It was a pre-cross context and the commandments were in full force even by your own system of reason.
In each of the "magnified law" cases that Christ presents in His OWN illustration of Matt 5 - in no case do we see "break this law but do so in a nice way" as the "new magnification" of that law.
Same as answer to first quote-- recasting what I said as lawbreaking. If Christ's magnification of the spirit of the Law means that the letter of it is no longer a "restriction" "binding" on everyone, because Christ was Lord of the Sabbath, and it is all centered on Him and His New Creation, not the dying old creation, and that He gives us rest, then no one is breaking the Law.
[ December 11, 2003, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]
