The Sabbath was not Changed

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

The Saturday Sabbath ended at the cross as did the whole Old Covenant APPLICATION of the Sabbath PRINCIPLE.

How?

<At the cross> like my blind old Dachshuendchen stops against an unexpected object placed in her way?

No; thus nothing ended—nothing of “The Sabbath-OF-THE-LORD-GOD”, what of <<the Saturday Sabbath>> that never existed except in the strange minds of Sabbath-Law applicants.

There’s no Law to apply to see The Living WORD-LAW-OF-GOD JESUS CHRIST made an end of ON, the cross. THAT was the ONLY <<Old Covenant APPLICATION of the Sabbath PRINCIPLE>> seen ‘LIVE’ as were it seen ‘LIVE’ on TV screen.

But I cannot see behind the ‘LIVE’-visible; sorry. I see Jesus Christ crucified and his life being obliterated as were it all the leaven from the land of The Living.

Yes, often I am forced to <apply> allegory instead of Law. Because Law cannot go beyond Law; it must stop exist BEFORE the cross. Only the Living God is seen ON the cross. What goes on the cross goes on it IN HIM. What goes into the grave goes into it IN HIM. IN HIM death and grave are conquered and IN HIM is raised from it THAT WHICH IS OF THE LORD. What is “co-raised in and together with Christ” must have been “co-buried-in-death in and together with Christ.” If the Sabbath was not “co-buried-in-death in and together with Christ”, the Sabbath could not and was not “co-raised in and together with Christ”.

Is Sunday seen, “co-buried-in-death in and together with Christ”?
That’s the question you should ask and answer before you try any argument that Sunday is the Lord’s Day! Sunday or the First Day of the week was never, and was never foretold, to die and be taken into oblivion in and together with Jesus Christ; so it can NEVER take the Sabbath’s place that was killed and was taken out of the way and was made to nothing in Christ and together with Him on the cross.

That leaves you with whichever application of the Law you depend most on for your Sunday sacredness, not even on the side-line; it leaves you out of the picture completely. Not the worst allegory even can serve the good of Sunday worship.

 

[DHK]

Yes, often I am forced to <apply> allegory instead of Law.

This is why your theology so often falls apart.
By your own admission it is "a forced allegory."
Do you know who first came up with the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible?
It was the heretic, Origen. Even the RCC admitted that he was a heretic. He was considered the father of Arianism.
Yet you interpret the Bible the same way he did, the inventor of this method of interpretation. And then, the one who popularized this method--allegorization--is none other than Augustine--one of the founders of the RCC. No wonder the RCC can get away with so many man-made doctrines. One can believe anything they want to when they are able to allegorize the Bible.

But when you take things literally, it is hard to believe that these things are taking place now:

Isaiah 11:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Does the wolf dwell with the lamb at the present time?
Does the sucking child play on the hole of the asp?

This doesn't happen now, as you well know. But when Christ comes and lifts the curse from this sin-sickened world, then these things will be possible. Perfect harmony will return to this earth. For there will be no more curse.
We do not live in the Millennial Kingdom now.
Christ must come first. The Bible does speak of a thousand year reign when these things will happen, on this earth, not a new earth.

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

This is why your theology so often falls apart.
By your own admission it is "a forced allegory."
Do you know who first came up with the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible?
It was the heretic, Origen. Even the RCC admitted that he was a heretic. He was considered the father of Arianism.
Yet you interpret the Bible the same way he did, the inventor of this method of interpretation. And then, the one who popularized this method--allegorization--is none other than Augustine--one of the founders of the RCC. No wonder the RCC can get away with so many man-made doctrines. One can believe anything they want to when they are able to allegorize the Bible.

But when you take things literally, it is hard to believe that these things are taking place now:
[/SIZE]
Isaiah 11:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Does the wolf dwell with the lamb at the present time?
Does the sucking child play on the hole of the asp?

This doesn't happen now, as you well know. But when Christ comes and lifts the curse from this sin-sickened world, then these things will be possible. Perfect harmony will return to this earth. For there will be no more curse.
We do not live in the Millennial Kingdom now.
Christ must come first. The Bible does speak of a thousand year reign when these things will happen, on this earth, not a new earth.

Therein that DHK declares,

<<This is why your theology so often falls apart.
By your own admission it is "a forced allegory."
Do you know who first came up with the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible?
It was the heretic, Origen. Even the RCC admitted that he was a heretic. He was considered the father of Arianism.
Yet you interpret the Bible the same way he did, the inventor of this method of interpretation. And then, the one who popularized this method--allegorization--is none other than Augustine--one of the founders of the RCC. No wonder the RCC can get away with so many man-made doctrines. One can believe anything they want to when they are able to allegorize the Bible. >>

...therefore it seems for basis of his theology, he chooses for the Law.

Ah well; 'It's everybody's choice' as they say.

On the other hand ... therein that DHK declares,

<<But when you take things literally, it is hard to believe that these things are taking place now:
[/SIZE]
Isaiah 11:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Does the wolf dwell with the lamb at the present time?
Does the sucking child play on the hole of the asp?

This doesn't happen now, as you well know. But when Christ comes and lifts the curse from this sin-sickened world, then these things will be possible. Perfect harmony will return to this earth. For there will be no more curse.
We do not live in the Millennial Kingdom now.
Christ must come first. The Bible does speak of a thousand year reign when these things will happen, on this earth, not a new earth.>>


... therefore it seems for basis of his theology, DHK prefers allegory!

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

.............the one who popularized this method--allegorization--is none other than Augustine--one of the founders of the RCC. No wonder the RCC can get away with so many man-made doctrines. One can believe anything they want to when they are able to allegorize the Bible.
[/SIZE]

Augustine was a 'Calvinist' if you know what I mean. And I mean it. I'm a Calvinist too though I differ with Calvin on less important issues. So I'm a good Calvinist and a no-good RCC, just like the saintly Augustine was. It is incomprehensible for me that you should remember Augustine for his use of allegory and not for his Calvinistic stand against the pope and his church. In any case he is world-wide adored for his masterful SCRIPTURAL use of the linguistic and semantic tool called allegory. Many people dislike Beethoven because they cannot stomach classical music. There I use allegory again! Sorry ...

Never mind.

To close, Augustine did not stay a RC!

Why don't you tell that?

Perhaps because he joined a Sabbatharian sect?

Now bring it all together:

Why do people have a dislike in Free Grace? Because they are taught what villains the great teachers of Free Grace were.

By the way, 'Biblical allegory' is good.
How does one know if allegory is Biblical and when, evil?

When allegory lifts Christ Jesus out from the pages of Holy Writ, it is good and lawful; maybe required.

When with illustration and proof "from the Scriptures" allegory lifts man above or equal with God—'LIKE God'—, it is bad, unlawful and evil; and never necessary.

Please show me if I sank to that level.

Allegory is like a good gun in a bad guy's hands ... There I go with my <allegorization> again! Can't help it; got so accustomed to it.

 

[DHK]

Augustine was a 'Calvinist' if you know what I mean. And I mean it. I'm a Calvinist too though I differ with Calvin on less important issues. So I'm a good Calvinist and a no-good RCC, just like the saintly Augustine was. It is incomprehensible for me that you should remember Augustine for his use of allegory and not for his Calvinistic stand against the pope and his church. In any case he is world-wide adored for his masterful SCRIPTURAL use of the linguistic and semantic tool called allegory. Many people dislike Beethoven because they cannot stomach classical music. There I use allegory again! Sorry ...

Never mind.

To close, Augustine did not stay a RC!

Why don't you tell that?

Perhaps because he joined a Sabbatharian sect?

Now bring it all together:

Why do people have a dislike in Free Grace? Because they are taught what villains the great teachers of Free Grace were.

By the way, 'Biblical allegory' is good.
How does one know if allegory is Biblical and when, evil?

When allegory lifts Christ Jesus out from the pages of Holy Writ, it is good and lawful; maybe required.

When with illustration and proof "from the Scriptures" allegory lifts man above or equal with God—'LIKE God'—, it is bad, unlawful and evil; and never necessary.

Please show me if I sank to that level.

Allegory is like a good gun in a bad guy's hands ... There I go with my <allegorization> again! Can't help it; got so accustomed to it

Origen lived in the fourth century, and Augustine well after that. If Origen was the first one to come up with the allegorical method, then what did the Apostles use, and what did their followers use, and the other earlier ECF use? It wasn't the allegorical method of interpretation was it?

 

[BobRyan]

The Saturday Sabbath ended at the cross as did the whole Old Covenant APPLICATION of the Sabbath PRINCIPLE.

I am also a Premillinnialists, and at the end of the Seventh thousandth year will see the end of any JEWISH application of the sabbath with the end of this present earth that the JEWISH application identifies with. This JEWISH application will have NO MORE CREATION to commemorate as it will all "pass away" and so will any JEWISH application of the Sabbath to it. An eternal and EIGHTH day will commence with a new heaven and a new earth and that is an eternal EIGHTH DAY Sabbath.

In addition to your simply "making stuff up" in that paragraph above - you are also apparently suffering under the delusion that the Bible "was given by inspiration of Jew" instead of God.

You make the 7 day Creation of earth and mankind - nothing more than "JEWISH" as if Adam were created by Abraham as a JEW.

Your bible bending in that case - is beyond belief.

Hopefully you knew that.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Eliyahu]

Sabbath was not changed in the Bible , but was changed after the Bible was complete.

Lord's day of Re 1:10 was Sabbath as Jesus was Lord of Sabbath, Sabbath was Jehovah's day.
1 Cor 16:2 the first day of the week was the day on which the believers had to save the money At Home.
Many translation omit (e auto) but Darby correctly reflected it.

Acts 20:7 was the saturday evening which was the first day of the week by Jewish calender. Next day (Sunday) Paul took a journey

Women kept the Sabbath just before His resurrection, then suddenly changed the Sabbath without notice?
Do we proclaim His resurrection until He comes, or His Death?
Read 1 Cor 11:26.

 

[DHK]

Women kept the Sabbath just before His resurrection, then suddenly changed the Sabbath without notice?
Do we proclaim His resurrection until He comes, or His Death?
Read 1 Cor 11:26.

Sometimes we have the Lord's Supper during the mid-week service (Wednesday).
The resurrection is proclaimed every time we meet, and every time the gospel is shared.
The early church met daily and proclaimed the resurrection every day. No one day was more important than another.

 

[Eliyahu]

Sometimes we have the Lord's Supper during the mid-week service (Wednesday).
The resurrection is proclaimed every time we meet, and every time the gospel is shared.
The early church met daily and proclaimed the resurrection every day. No one day was more important than another.

You are absolutely correct, especially when we read Acts 2:46.

Jews used to have Habdala in the evening of Sabbath and in the Habdala they had Lord's Supper as well.
Habdala was a kind of house warming party for the members of congregation which was mentioned in Jude 12.
Therefore Acts 20:7 cannot be the proof of Sunday wordhip.
Sunday worship gained the power only after Constantine, Pope Sylvester, Laodicean Council.

 

[BobRyan]

Sabbath was not changed in the Bible , but was changed after the Bible was complete.

You are right that the change was attempted not by Bible writers but by those who came after them. Thus there can be no evidence of that in the Bible.

Rev 1:10 is a good example of a text that makes no mention at all of week-day-1.

1 Cor 16:2 mentions week-day-1 but says nothing about it being a day of worship -- or the Lord's Day.

Acts 20:7 may well have been Saturday evening which was the first day of the week by Jewish calender. Next day (Sunday) Paul took a journey. And the problem is that Paul's travel on Sunday was a distinct example of not keeping it as a holy day - of rest and worship.

Women kept the Sabbath just before His resurrection, then suddenly changed the Sabbath without notice?

Do we proclaim His resurrection until He comes, or His Death?
Read 1 Cor 11:26.

There is the rub. Paul says it is a declaration about the death of Christ.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Thinkingstuff]

I've been away for a while and I was looking over these "Sabbath" debates from one Youtube video with a supposed Bishop (not sure he's even Catholic or someone dressed up as one or a Crack pot Bishop which I admit Catholics have their Crack pot bishops like Baptist have their crack pot preachers) and I had to laugh. The fact is the Sabbath is from Friday evening to Saturday evening. Always has been. The question is why and when did Christians start worshiping on Sunday which is the first day of the week. I've seen some nonsense written about it but what is the truth? Well, I'll tell you. It happened very early in the Christian Church probably during the time of the Apostles we have a witness to this practice from Ignatius of Antioch

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death--whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master--how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. For were He to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be. Therefore, having become His disciples, let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity. For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, is not of God. Lay aside, therefore, the evil, the old, the sour leaven, and be ye changed into the new leaven, which is Jesus Christ. Be ye salted in Him, lest any one among you should be corrupted, since by your savour ye shall be convicted. It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believeth might be gathered together to God.

Ignatius wrote this around 100 AD and was Bishop of Antioch and knew the Apostles himself. I think he explains pretty clear why Christians Chose Sunday for worship. And this happened hundreds of years before Constantine and the Church councils of the 4th century which many wrongly ascribe as the birth of the Catholic Church. and certainly almost two millennia before the council of Trent. And definitely just about two millennia before Pastor Miller, Ellen White, and Bates came up with their ideas of things. In fact. due to the date of Ignatius writings its pretty clear it happened during the time of the Apostles. At the very latest during the days of the Last Apostle. Just saying.

 

[Eliyahu]

I've been away for a while and I was looking over these "Sabbath" debates from one Youtube video with a supposed Bishop (not sure he's even Catholic or someone dressed up as one or a Crack pot Bishop which I admit Catholics have their Crack pot bishops like Baptist have their crack pot preachers) and I had to laugh. The fact is the Sabbath is from Friday evening to Saturday evening. Always has been. The question is why and when did Christians start worshiping on Sunday which is the first day of the week. I've seen some nonsense written about it but what is the truth? Well, I'll tell you. It happened very early in the Christian Church probably during the time of the Apostles we have a witness to this practice from Ignatius of Antioch Ignatius wrote this around 100 AD and was Bishop of Antioch and knew the Apostles himself. I think he explains pretty clear why Christians Chose Sunday for worship. And this happened hundreds of years before Constantine and the Church councils of the 4th century which many wrongly ascribe as the birth of the Catholic Church. and certainly almost two millennia before the council of Trent. And definitely just about two millennia before Pastor Miller, Ellen White, and Bates came up with their ideas of things. In fact. due to the date of Ignatius writings its pretty clear it happened during the time of the Apostles. At the very latest during the days of the Last Apostle. Just saying.

Remember the Sabbathkeepers are not only SDA, but there are over a thousand groups of Christians, some of the major Sabbathkeepers are:

Church of God
Messianic Jews
Seventh day Baptists
SDA

There were millions, millions of Christians gathering on Sabbaths before Ellen White was born.
As for Ignatius, Eusebius and Jerome testified there were 7 epistles written by him, but in15-17 century there started to be 15 epistles.
Basically the portion of the epistle related to Sabbath was interpolated.
Such fabrication might have been done by RCC as they contain Mary Worship also.
As for Justin Martyr, he was a kind of the excommunicated from Eastern assemblies at that time. He also admitted that the most of the churches in the Eastern part of Rome gathered on Sabbaths, kept the Holy Days, ate Unleavened Bread, which he didn’t want to.

Ignatius Misquoted
The epistles of Ignatius, so often quoted in behalf of first-day observance, next claim our attention. Concerning Ignatius and his epistles Neander writes:--
“Ignatius, bishop of the church at Antioch, is said, in the reign of Trajan, to have been conveyed as a prisoner to Rome, where he was expecting to be thrown to the wild beasts. On the way, he is said to have written seven epistles.” 35
Eusebius and Jerome enumerate seven Ignatian epistles, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this number was swelled to fifteen, among them two letters to the apostle John and one to the Virgin Mary. Although these epistles “swarm with offences against history and chronology,” yet the Catholics at first accepted them all as genuine. Calvin condemned the whole lot as “abominable trash“ 36
The later Catholics surrendered at least eight as utterly untenable. But of the remaining seven, a shorter Greek recension was discovered in a Latin version by Archbishop Usher, 1644, and in Greek by Isaak Vossius, from a Medicean Codex in 1646. Henceforth the longer recension, which had thus far been about the only one known, was generally set aside even by Catholic scholars, as interpolated. But when in 1839 and 1843 a Syriac version was found, containing only the epistles to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans, and even these in a much reduced form, a number of scholars insisted that, if any, they only were genuine.
As to the character of their contents, the Magdeburg centuriators protested that “there were such terrible things intermingled with the text as to horrify the reader.” 37 Mosheim remarks as follows:--

“A regard for truth requires it to be acknowledged that so considerable a degree of obscurity hangs over the question respecting the authenticity of not only a part, but the whole, of the epistles ascribed to Ignatius, as to render it altogether a case of much intricacy and doubt.” 38
Neander says of the shorter edition:--

“Even the briefer revision, which is the one most entitled to confidence, has been very much interpolated.” 39
Schaff makes the following explicit statement concerning the contents and genuineness of the Ignatian epistles:--
“In the ‘catholic church’--an expression introduced by him--that is, the Episcopal orthodox organization of his day, the author sees, as it were, the continuation of the mystery of the incarnation, on the reality of which he laid great emphasis against the Docetists; and in every bishop, a visible representative of Christ, and a personal center of ecclesiastical unity, which he presses home upon his readers with the greatest solicitude and almost passionate zeal,” “. Here lies the chief importance of these epistles; and the cause of their high repute with catholics and prelatists, and their unpopularity with anti-episcopalians, and modern critics of the more radical school. .”
“It is remarkable that the idea of the Episcopal hierarchy…should be first clearly and boldly brought out, not by the contemporary Roman bishop Clement, but by a bishop of the Eastern Church; though it was transplanted by him to the soil of Rome. And there sealed with his martyr blood. Equally noticeable is the circumstance that these oldest, documents of the hierarchy soon became so interpolated, curtailed, and mutilated by pious fraud that it is today almost impossible to discover with certainty the genuine Ignatius of history under the hyper- and pseudo- Ignatius of tradition.”40
Doubtful as the seven Ignatian epistles, even in their shorter version, may seem, for they stand side by side on the same manuscripts with decidedly spurious epistles, yet as one of them is often adduced in favor of Sunday, we will consider it. The passage often used occurs in the epistle to the Magnesians, chapters 8 and 9: To guard against the charge of a wrong rendering, we quote the text as it is given in the noted Bampton lectures by J.A. Hessey:--
“Be not deceived with heterodox opinions, nor old, unprofitable fables. For if we still live according to Judaism, we confess that we have not received grace. For even the most holy prophets lived according to Jesus Christ…..

http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/historyofsabbath/hos_thirteen.html

Justin Martyr

http://www.cogwriter.com/news/church-history/justin-martyr-important-saint-or-important-apostate/

 

[Thinkingstuff]

Remember the Sabbathkeepers are not only SDA, but there are over a thousand groups of Christians, some of the major Sabbathkeepers are:

Church of God
Messianic Jews
Seventh day Baptists
SDA

There were millions, millions of Christians gathering on Sabbaths before Ellen White was born.

Oh, I understand that there are other groups of Christians who hold to Sabbath day observations. However these groups you mention are rather new and certainly not in existence before the Millerite movement which gave birth to the SDA and the Jehovah Witnesses. Interesting note that the same movement which gives us the SDA also gives us the Jehovah Witnesses. However, whereas I may consider SDA Christian I would not the Jehovah Witness. You mention "Church of God". You must be clear what you mean by Church of God. I also spent time at the Pentecostal Church of God University in Cleveland Tennessee. And I assure you they worship on Sunday. I've know people From the Anderson Indiana Church of God and they worship on Sunday. And I know the churches of that name in Pennsylvania which came out of the Methodist Church and they too worship on Sunday. Which Church of God do you mean? Be Specific. There is a Church of God 7th day church I've heard about but these guys hold to the British-Israel theory or Anglo-Israel-ism which I don't give much credence to at all. As for the Messianic Jews I've spent time with them as well and I can tell you there is a strong movement to one law. Many are modern day Judaizers. Not all thankfully but they have a relatively modern history as well. They actually started in the 1970's, However, they are a development that comes from London society for Christianity among the Jews that later grew into the Hebrew Christian Alliance of Great Britain. However these for runners wouldn't be considered really a "'church" or denomination rather than bible societies translating the new testament into Yiddish and Hebrew. However, they lead to the rise of Messianic Judaism in the 1970's. Interestingly enough they are the result of Non Jewish Christians protestants converting Jews. Though, like I said. There is a growing segment of one law theorist in the MJ who are trying to get gentile practitioners to follow Mosaic covenant rules. I don't know any 7th day Baptist save for our South African friend here on Baptist Board. And am not really familiar with them. But it doesn't surprise me as DHK has mention there as many types of Baptist as one can imagine.

Now to get to your accusation about my quotation which I find ludicrous. Let me explain why. Here is your first insinuation.

As for Ignatius, Eusebius and Jerome testified there were 7 epistles written by him, but in15-17 century there started to be 15 epistles.
Basically the portion of the epistle related to Sabbath was interpolated.
Such fabrication might have been done by RCC as they contain Mary Worship also.

Your argument goes that there is only witness to 7 letters from Ignatius of Antioch by Eusebius and Jerome and that false letters arose during the 1500's making the number of letters to 15. The problem with this assertion is that I quoted from a Letter from one of the seven letters attested to by Both Eusebius and Jerome. Specifically Ignatius letter to the Magnesians. Not any fabricated letter.

As for Justin Martyr, he was a kind of the excommunicated from Eastern assemblies at that time. He also admitted that the most of the churches in the Eastern part of Rome gathered on Sabbaths, kept the Holy Days, ate Unleavened Bread, which he didn’t want to.

Now your argument goes well there were Eastern Christian Churches which worship still on Saturday. Which I don't deny even Ignatius letter which I quoted from reveals this practice. And in a world where people were more Isolated from each other than today its not surprising at the very beginning of Christianity some Churches had different practices. And even to this day Catholics differ somewhat depending on what part of the world they are found despite our ability to move much more freely and communicate more rapidly. We even see today that there are differences of practice between western and eastern churches with regard to Easter. And being that Jews were first converted into Christians Jewish observances should be expected. However, it doesn't affect the argument he puts forth which is quite clear. And it doesn't affect the fact that we see a very early development of the practice of worshiping on Sunday and as I said probably during the time of the Apostles.

Your next argument is long winded and partly built off your initial argument that its based on newer writings ascribed to Ignatius. However, Your quotes and references ignore scholarly reviews since the 1700's as if new discoveries like the dead sea scrolls had not occurred since then giving us a better picture of the writings of the times. First the letter I quoted wasn't quoted from the spurious long recension. Which was argued over during the Reformation. Since those arguments these discoveries have been made a sole surviving Greek text was found which is "almost universally accepted and recognized as authentic" - Andrew Louth Early Christian Writings p.52. In 1845 a Syriac manuscript was discovered and also Armenian and Coptic translations were found. And once again I must remind you that the letter I quoted from is one of the seven attested to and not a spurious letter of a later period. The authenticity of the letter I quoted is generally recognized. I refer you to these specialist Chadwick,H, "The silence of Bishops in Ignatius," Harvard theological review 1950; Corwin, V. "St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch", Hew Haven 1960; Perler, O. "Das vierte Makkabaerbuch , Ignatius von Antiochein und die altesten, Martyrerberitchte", Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 1949; Richardson, C. C. "The Christianity of Ignatius of Antioch". 1935

The Translation I used is from Maxwell Staniforth.

In the end Ignatius provides a solid explanation as why Christian worship on Sunday.

 

[Eliyahu]

Oh, I understand that there are other groups of Christians who hold to Sabbath day observations. However these groups you mention are rather new and certainly not in existence before the Millerite movement which gave birth to the SDA and the Jehovah Witnesses. Interesting note that the same movement which gives us the SDA also gives us the Jehovah Witnesses. However, whereas I may consider SDA Christian I would not the Jehovah Witness. You mention "Church of God". You must be clear what you mean by Church of God. I also spent time at the Pentecostal Church of God University in Cleveland Tennessee.

In the end Ignatius provides a solid explanation as why Christian worship on Sunday.

As I am going to the work I didn’t read thru yours thoroughly, but please allow me to answer as follows:
Before Ellen White, there were so many groups of Believers who kept the worship service on Sabbath ( not the full Sabbath keepers but at least the worship day was Saturday)
They were Albigenes, Waldensians, Anabaptists ( not all of them but some of them). You can be sure to find this fact.
As for Ignatius, even the portion of the epistle testified by Eusebius and Jerome must have been Interpolated.
Please read the following.

IGNATIUS’S SPURIOUS EPISTLES STILL MORE INTERPOLATED
Justin Edwards demonstrates how the second link of this chain has been forged. After assuming that when John the revelatory spoke of the Lord’s day, all Christians knew that it was the day of the resurrection, on which they were to meet, he continues:
Hence Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, A.D. 101 only about half a dozen years after the death of the apostle, speaks of the Lord’s day familiarly and without explanation, as if everybody understood it. And he gives this title to the first day of the week exactly after the manner of the apostle himself. ‘Let us (Christians) no more Sabbatize,’ he says, --that is, keep the seventh day, as the Jews did--’but let us keep the Lord’s day,’ ‘Let everyone that loves Christ keep holy the Lord’s Day, the queen of days, the resurrection day, the highest of all days.’” 30
As usual, Justin Edwards saves himself the trouble of giving the reference. Had he done so, his deception would have been evident, viz., that the above statements which, seemingly, fit together so nicely, are fabricated in this manner: First, he suppresses the phrase in the shorter version of the epistle to the Magnesians, “living according to the Lord’s life;” secondly, he substitutes for it, from the enlarged and still worse interpolated version manufactured probably in the fourth century, the term, “celebrate the Lord’s day;” and, finally to strengthen it, he joins the rest of the statement from the enlarged version to his own interpolated shorter version.
Dr. Edwards, we are sorry to say, is not the only one who has done this kind of work. A number of writers are guilty of this sort of deception, and among them must be included Archbishop Wake, in his translation of the Fathers, which is thus ably reviewed by Cox:--

“There is, however, in the original no word or phrase which corresponds to the phrase ‘the Lord’s day,’ or to the word ‘ keeping:’ the literal translation is, ‘No longer observing Sabbaths, but living according to the Lord’s life, [Greek phrase] in which also our life is sprung up’. Indeed, the archbishop admits, in a note, that this translation would be correct; while his own is by many thought inconsistent, not only with the expressions in the original, but with the whole scope of the passage. (See Domville, I, 241-251; and Powell in Kitto’s Cyclop,II, 270, first edition.)
“To such an extent have the epistles of Ignatius been corrupted by interpolation (see Chevallier, Introd. 43-54). That even those considered genuine (among which is the one above quoted) were suspected by Lardner and Beausobre to have been tampered with (Domville, vol. I, 241), and have recently been pronounced by Mr. Cureton (with whom Lipsius agrees) to have been copiously interpolated for the same dogmatically purposes which prompted to the forgery of four of the seven, and by the same forging hand. (Cureton’s Corpus Ignatianum, London, 1849; and Lipsius in Jour, of the Historico-Theological Society of Germany for 1856). But not to insist upon this, it is more important to mention that a passage still frequently quoted in popular treatises from one of the epistles as genuine, has for two centuries past been rejected by every scholar as spurious. The words are:
Let us therefore no longer observe Sabbaths after the manner of the Jews: and rejoice in days of idleness; for "he that does not work, let him not eat." For say the [holy] oracles, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread." But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every lover of Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days [of the week].
[See Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesia’s] 31
It is sad enough that writings of such men as Ignatius, and others of the post apostolic period, have been thus shamefully interpolated for “dogmatically purposes,” -- in this instance manifestly to smuggle in Sunday as the Lord’s day. But is it not still more wicked to interpolate, and to misquote their compositions, with the avowed purpose of making null and void the direct commands of the divine Word of God? That there was not only one instance of this, and that interpolation has been frequently perpetrated, Cox plainly shows, giving instances such as that of the above-mentioned Bishop Wilson, and others. How long this has been going on, and how early it was reproved, is seen fro the correspondence between Dr. Priestley and E. Evanson, near the end of the eighteenth century. Dr. Priestley had, in his Theological Repository, published at Birmingham in 1786 and 1788, given this very quotation from Ignatius, as “keeping the Lord’s day”. In consequence of this, Mr. Evanson wrote to him as follows:

But pray, good sir, by what rules of construction do you translate [the Greek phrase] as ‘keeping’. The only meaning of those two Greek words that I am acquainted with is ‘living according to’. And if the word [Greek word] be allowed to be part of the original sentence, the phrase ‘living according to the Lord’s life,’ viz., the spiritual life he now lives in heaven, is perfectly intelligible, and much of the same kind with what we meet with in several places of the canonical epistles, particularly in that to the Colossians, chapter 3. But if the phrase ‘living according to the Lord’s day’ has any meaning at all, it is entirely beyond my comprehension.” 32
Much more might be said to show up the improper use of the writings of Ignatius; but the reader will readily concede that enough has been brought forward to show that this second link in the chain to connect the Lord’s day of John with the Sunday Lord’s day of tradition, will not hold.
http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/historyofsabbath/hos_fourteen.html

 

[DHK]

After 30 pages this thread needs to close.