Keeping the Saturday Sabbath.

Also, unless anyone can show that God started creation on a Sunday, then the Saturday Sabbath is simply tradition.


by genesis chapter 1-2 we see that the sabbath day is a specific day that occurs every seven days. but conceivably we've messed up our counting somewhere down the line - so perhaps we don't really know that saturday is the right day.

but we DO know we've got the right day, since jesus did not correct the jews during his earthly ministry, right? during that period in history the jewish 'sabbath' corresponded to the roman 'saturday' and i'm fairly certain we've kept a good count since then.

[ November 01, 2002, 10:20 PM: Message edited by: am ha'aretz ]

 

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you because I seem to separate Law from legalism. The Law or Torah does not always mean legalism and the opposite is true also. Keeping the Law is not about man-made rules.

Rom. 10:4
For the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah, who offers righteousness to everyone who trusts.

Gal 3 and 5 speaks about legalism not that the commandments are not longer valid. Legalisms are extras that were added to the law.

If the law is not longer for us in the NT why does this verse tell us it is good? Rom 7:12 - So the Law is holy; that is, the commmandment is holy, just and good. There are many other verses that say the same thing.

 

Those provisions were not man-made rules. They were a part of the Law you claim we have to keep. The OT had one Law. It contains more than 600 provisions so you can see that the ten commandments were only a small part of that Law. You cannot simply pick and choose what you want to keep.

Novel but unsupported in the context.

Incorrect in the context. The key idea is Galatians is legalism to be sure. But the context is that legalism was not man-made provisions but rather a return to the Jewish Law. Paul says that we are not longer under Law. He did not say we are no longer under the man made additions to the Law. He said if you keep one part of it, you are under obligation to keep it all.

Because it was good. That is not at issue. The Law was the perfect revelation of God to his people Israel. There was nothing wrong with the Law in any way. The problem was man's inability to keep the Law. The Law was a schoolmaster or a guardian to keep us until Christ came (Gal 3).

The Law exists as an indivisible whole. There are no biblical distinctions in the Law. You keep it all if you keep it at all.

 

Pastor Larry:

I perceive you to be an angry man the way you lash out at folks. The statement you made concerning the things Paul said being confusing - - makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever. Provided you are an active pastor and God leads you to preach a sermon on love someday, listen to it, okay?

Angry or no, God loves you and so do I.

 

So you stone your children when they talk back to you? You don't wear clothes made of mixed material? You stone adulterers? ... Or do you not follow the Law??

Furthermore, you didn't deal with the text. The meaning of Rom 10:4 does not hinge on the meaning of telos. Gal 3 and 5 certainly are not answered by your attempt.

The vast majority of things debated in teh NT are not "things which Paul said" per se but rather things which cause confusion for some. I suggest that we let the text say what it does. The Law is not for the NT Christian. That is the uniform testimony of Scripture.</font>[/QUOTE]Pastor Larry, if you will please read Exodus 21:1, among other similar passages, you will read that the laws after the Ten basic Commandments were for the nation of Israel at that time. They were for a theocracy and were dependent upon the legal system of the land to carry them out. The Ten Commandments may be kept personally, which is different.

 

Heb. 5:8-9
Even though he was the Son, he learned obedience through his sufferings. and after he had been brought to the goal, he became the source of eternal deliverance to all who obey him.

How do we obey him? By keeping his commands

What are his commands? Love your neighbor, love God....a summation of the 10 commandments.

 

More than a summation, I think. Those two commands are what all the others, no matter where, by God are based on. Those two are the foundation.

 

Agreed!

 

I have to agree with Pastor Larry on that point.

The Bible is God's infallible Word - you can not simply pick one part to keep and ignore another.

But it is not true that the 10 commandments were not distinctly identifiable as a unique part of God's Word. They were stored IN the ark while the (Heb 9:4 Deut 10:2), rest of the inspired writings given By God through Moses were kept "beside the ark" (Deut 31:24-26).

In Deuteronomy 5 we are told that God "Spoke these words, wrote them on two tablets of stone and Added No More". 5:22.

Only the 10 commandments were on those tablets Ex 34:28. Deut 10:4

Pastor Larry is right about another concept as well - the issue with Sabbath is not about ignoring the 4th commandment but then keeping the other Nine. Rather the real issue boils down to THE Ten Commandments themselves. Do you toss them all out? Do you toss out the Old Testament? How much to you chuck out the window after the cross and what are the reasons used for doing so. That is the real crux of the matter.

Was God really promoting a Gospel of Law and Works for 4,000 years - that was later "replaced" by another Gospel of "grace" for the past 2000? Did God really institute a "Two-Gospel" system - or has it be ONE Gospel (Gal 1:6-9) in both the OT and NT times?

Having said that - I would admit that my beliefs regarding the 4th commandment are a direct result of teachings from Seventh-day Baptists in their work to restore the truth of scripture regarding this topic.

In Christ

Bob

 

seventh-day baptists sounds so much better than saturday baptists, lol

 

Colossians chapter two deals with abuses of God's Word - that are abuses in any age not just the New Testament.

Some try to make this into a "change from OT to NT" as if it was ever "right" to

"Judge others" (Matt 7 Christ denies that this was right even Before the Cross or any change in dispensations).

It was never right to have a form of Godliness but lack its power.

It was ALWAYs valid to

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.


In every age -

it was right to

16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day
17 things which are a mere SHADOW of what is TO COME;

And Paul was saying this as one who not only kept the 10 commandments but ALSO all the things of the law of Moses - Acts 21:20-26, 23:4-9, 24:14-18, 25:8,10-11, 26:20-23, 28:17

In fact he was not even offending in areas of "customs" let alone "laws of God"

Acts 28
17 After three days Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, "Brethren, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

----------------------------------

But getting back to Colossians 2 - in every age it was lawful - and wise to avoid deception and as Paul says

The idea is presented on this thread that these practices were "ok" in the OT but ended at the cross as no longer proper. But the context shows that Paul was condeming abuses that would have been condemned in any age.

Other texts (such as Hebrews 10) do show changes that took place in God's perfect purpose regarding His own laws (as the shadows - predictive laws - were fulfilled) but Colossians 2 deals instead - with abuses - not the transition between pre-cross and post-cross laws.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The Sabbath days listed in Lev 23 include both the annual feast days and the 7th day Sabbath. The feast days were "predictive" of future events (shadows of what was to come).

The Seventh-day Sabbath of Exodus 20 (the only Sabbath listed in the 10 commandments - and the only Sabbath law kept "inside" the ark, the only Sabbath law spoken directly by God to the people at Sinai, and the only Sabbath day "made a holy day" in Gen 2:3 at creation week) it was commemorative of creation week alone.

It is a command to -
"Worship Him who made the heavens and the earth and the seas and the springs of waters".

Actually God not only states that it is the Seventh-day He tells Israel WHICH day is the 7th day of the week.

I appreciate the work that the Seventh-day Baptists have done in restoring the knowledge of this fact as it is in scripture for Christians today.

----------------------------------

The Sabbath is said by God to be the "seventh day" - the Romans later named that "Saturday". If we did not know which day was the seventh-day we would also not know which day was "the first day" - the day on which Christ rose from the dead.

It is no accident that the Jews and Christians both agree that Saturday is the seventh-dayof the 4th commandment and that Sunday is the first day of the week - the day on which Christ is said to have been raised and is the reason why Christians keep Sunday today.

The "trust" is that even if the Jews - "the sovereignly chosen nation" led by God - had been led to forget which day was the seventh-day - then Christ Himself (as God) could have (would have) restored His own law rather than observe the days of man's tradition.

IN fact in MArk 7:1-9 Christ states that He would not allow mans tradition to override the commandments of God.

In Christ,

Bob

 

This is very true - the Royal Law - the Law of Love - is given in Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18 telling us to Love God with all of our heart and our neighbor as ourself. This was known to the Jews prior to the Cross and they agree with Christ's summary statement that all of God's Word is based on these two Mosaic laws.

In fact - it may also be said - that Christ Kept and fulfilled the prescriptive requirements of these two commandments perfectly - just as He did all the others.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The Seventh-day Sabbath of Exodus 20 (the only Sabbath listed in the 10 commandments - and the only Sabbath law kept "inside" the ark, the only Sabbath law spoken directly by God to the people at Sinai, and the only Sabbath day "made a holy day" in Gen 2:3 at creation week) it was commemorative of creation week alone.

hey bob!

it's also commemorative of the exodus from egypt, as you can see from the version in deuteronomy.

Deu 5:12 Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.
Deu 5:13 Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work:
Deu 5:14 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.
Deu 5:15 And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and [that] the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.

 

I appreciate your love Jim. I am in fact, among the happiest people you will ever meet and I try to be among the most loving people you. I am an active pastor, preach on love regularly, and practice it in my life. I am not sure what made you think I was unloving. Unfortunately in this board, tone and inflection are not easily communicated. When I make a post, it is usually directly to the point I want to make. I see no reason to beat around the bush and take up bandwidth. I am a big fan of "Get to the point already." Sorry that you misunderstood.

As for what I said about Paul's comments, I am not sure what doesn't make sense to you. My point was that most of what Paul said was very clear. There is only a problem when people do not let it say what it says. For instance, when Paul said that we are no longer under the Law, I believe he meant that. He did not say we are no longer under the man made additions to the Law; he said we are no longer under the Law. I do not see why some try to put people back under the Law. To me, I see no confusion in it. I am sorry that didn't make sense to you.

[ November 02, 2002, 09:20 PM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

I am in agreement with you, at least as for what this statement says. You said it all when you said that it was for the nation of Israel at that time. That is what I have argued from the beginning. The problem is when people try to make it mandatory for those outside the nation of Israel. That is what Paul forbade. The 10 commandments may indeed be kept personally. That is not the issue. 9 of the 10 are clear commandments for the NT church. Only the 4th commandment is not repeated in the NT and indeed it is expressly refuted in Rom 14 and Col 2 as well as by the practice of the NT church that met on the fourth day.

Exodus 19, prior to the 10 commandments and setting the scene for the 10 commandments expressly indicates that this covenant (the Mosaic covenant) was for the nation of Israel, those who were led out of Egypt by God.

 

You are correct - in Exodus 20 God Himself speaks to man from the Mountain.

In Deuteronomy 5 (40 years later) Moses "summarizes" and in addition to speaking of the command that God had "already given" 40 years prior at Mt Sinai - Moses himself adds that the chosen people - the Royal Priesthood, the Holy nation has an "added reason" for keeping the 7th day Holy the "Holy day" of Gen 2:3.

OF course we know there was no "7th-day freedom event" in Egypt - but Moses is simply saying that The Hebrews above all others have added incentive to "obey" given their own history.

What Moses "adds" in Deuteronomy 5 - 40 years after God Himself spoke and wrote the commandments on stone, did not "Change the tablets" nor did it contradict the event 40 years prior at Sinai. It was given as an added point calling for obedience to the 7th-day creation-week Holy day.

"Made for Mankind" when it was "made" according to Christ in Mark 2:27.

In Christ,

Bob

[ November 02, 2002, 11:01 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

Actually Paul argues that the 10 commandments as a Unit still apply to the NT saints in Ephesians 6:1-2


"Honor your father and your mother which is the FIRST commandment with a Promise".Eph 6:2

A statement that is true only if you accept the 10 commandments as a distinct unit of law - and in no other way.

IN Romans 7 Paul declares that it is the 10 commandments that define sin - even in the NT or the NT saint.

In James 2 we find that this unit is what James says will judge the saints.

The unit is referenced repeatedly in the NT BOTH in the PRE-Cross scenarios AND in the post Cross scenarios that we find in the NT.

And the NT explicity makes the Sabbath argument in Rev 14 where it calls for worship to God specifically using the Sabbath commandment language of His creatorship.

Rev 14:7... worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.''

When God spoke directly to the chosen people - He places the entire emphasis on the Genesis 2:3 creation event for mankind - alone.

Exodus 20
11 "" For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.


The "worship God your creator" theme that we find in the 4th commandment - remains in the NT - even into the last book.

In Christ,

Bob

[ November 02, 2002, 11:12 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

No, he argues that one of the ten had a timeless principle of respecting authority. To do as you say he did would have been to contradict his own writings in Gal 3 and 5. The Law exists has a whole. The 10 commandments go right along with the rest of them. As I say, 9 of the 10 are clearly repeated in the NT as commandments that exist apart from the Law. 1 of the 10 is not repeated and indeed is expressly refuted in Col 2 and Rom 14 as well as by the practice of the early church. If what you are saying is true, then Paul encouraged the violation of his own commandment when he allowed and encouraged the church to meet on the first day of the week.

 

Paul instructs NT saints based on the authorotative ongoing integrity of God's own ten spoken commandments and PAul argues in favor of the 10 commandment the "unit" principle when stating that the 5th commandment is the FIRST in the unit "with a promise". Which in fact, is true.

Notice The use Paul makes.


Ephesians 6
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise),
3 SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH.


Paul quotes it as having authority - as though his readers would recognize it and follow it, as though they knew what order it cam in the unit of 10 as Spoken by God Himself.

Instead of Paul showing that God's Word needed HIS suupport as in "hey - we have decided to keep one of God's ten commandments. So just so you know - We hereby endorsed God's 5th commandment" he chooses the "form" of having the 10 commandments support HIM.

The problem is that the 5th commandment is clearly binding as we see in Paul's statement of Eph 6- JUSt as we see Him reference the 10 commandments as "Defining" sin for the NT saints - in Romans 7.

IF the Galations 3 use - or the Galations 5 use "Could" be construed to mean that the 10 commmandments are abolished for NT saints - then even ONE of the ten being "authorotative" is "a problem" - since we rework Galations 3 to mean that THE 10 commandments are abolished.

As you pointed out

Pastor Larry
The 10 commandments go right along with the rest of them.


However Paul rejects your interpretation explicitly in Romans 3 "Do we then make void the law of God through faith? God Forbid! In fact we Establish the Law of God" - Rom 3:31

I would agree that at some point in history the tradition of the church went contrary to that commandment of God - just as the one true Hebrew Nation Church of Mark 7:1-11 had done before the cross.

As for Colossians - 2 - I already pointed out that the abuses specifically identified in Colossians 2 were "invalid practices" even before the cross. As it turns out - sin was sin - both before and after the cross.

Romans 14 - however does nothing to "refute" the 7th day Sabbath of creation week. IN fact, it takes the opposite approach equating the "strong in faith" with the one who observes all the annual feast days instead of choosing one and ignoring the rest.

Certainly not an argument I would want to make in favor of the feast days - but Paul seems content to make it.

Paul never "commanded" the church to "meet" on the first day of the week. Did He "allow it"? I would hope so - just as they were "allowed" to meet "everyday" in Acts 2, and also Sabbath after Sabbath in Acts 13.

What is conspicuously missing is a First-day after first-day meeting sequence in the NT as we see for Sabbath. IN fact we have more Sabbath meetings recorded in the NT than we have for any other day of the week - and that even includes focusing just on the scriptures describing events "after" the cross. It is hard to miss.

I myself attend church on both the first day and the 7th. But I do not keep the first day as "Sabbath" since God did not "sanctify it and make it a holy day" as He explicitly said of His own Creation-week memorial the 7th day Sabbath in Gen 2:3. I do not believe that it is "wrong" to attend church on either day.

My point is simply to observe what God's word says about God's own spoken 10 commandments, how they define sin "even " in the NT and the fact that God Himself makes the 7th day Sabbath a Holy day "for mankind" when he "made it". He did not make "mankind for the Sabbath" as the Jews argued.

In Christ,

Bob