Call The Sabbath A Delight

First, as a former Seventh-day Adventist I want to state clearly that my coming to believe Sabbath is not required of Christ-followers in the New Covenant has NOTHING to do with not wanting to keep the day. (That is an assumption I hear often.) I loved the Sabbath and believed it was one of the most precious gifts of my life.

The assumption that Jesus nailed only the “moral” law to the cross and not the entire law, including the decalogue (called the “words of the covenant” in Deuteronomy) is nowhere supported in Scripture. This belief comes from church tradition dating back to the third or fourth century—but not back to apostolic times.

Galatians clearly teaches that the law was a tutor to lead us to Christ; now that faith has come, we no longer need it (Gal. 3). Colossians 2 equally clearly discusses the fact that the law was nailed to the cross in the Person of Jesus. Romans 3-8 shows that the law is not part of our righteousness or salvation.

The transfiguration foreshadowed what happened after Jesus’ resurrection—the inauguration of the New Covenant. Jesus, Moses (who represented The Law to the Jews) and Elijah (who represented The Prophets) were transfigured with Jesus. Then a cloud covered the three, and Peter, James, and John who were gazing in awe fell to the ground. A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son; listen to Him!”

Then Jesus told the disciples to arise, and when they looked up, the Law and the Prophets were gone, and Jesus alone stood before them. Ringing in their ears was the echo of the voice of God commanding them to listen to Jesus. On their way down the mtn, Jesus told them not to tell anyone what they had seen and heard until AFTER His resurrection. (see Mattehw 17—this story is also in Mark and Luke.)

Until Jesus died, spilled his blood of the eternal covenant, and rose from the dead, forever breaking the power of death, the Old Covenant was in place. The law and the prophets still had to be observed by Israelites. When Jesus rose from death, however, He fulfilled the Old Covenant. From then on the law and the prophets which testified of Him were obsolete. He would now be the believer’s rule of faith and practice.

The indwelling Holy Spirit would write God’s law (which Jesus showed in Matthew 5-7 was MUCH bigger than the 10 Commandments) on human hearts. Hebrews 4 clarifies that there is a Sabbath rest TODAY for believers—a rest which Israel never entered in spite of centuries of Sabbath-keeping.

Today Sabbath rest is found in Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made clear that the real intent of the law was much deeper than moral behavior. True law-keeping/righteousness requires absolute perfection in motive and thought. He was outlining not new standards of behavior; He was showing what life in the Spirit would look like. Only a person born again and brought to spiritual life by God Himself indwelling him could hope to live according to the impossible standards Jesus set.

Similarly, the Sabbath, like the rest of the law (see Luke 24:44) was fulfilled in Jesus. Just as He raised the standard on all the other Old Testament laws, so he raised the bar on the Sabbath. We are to enter Christ’s rest (Hebrews 4); we are to observe Sabbath every single day. Now we move through every activity conscious of Jesus, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, keeping a song in our hearts, always praising the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5: 19-20).

Our lives are not to be divided between sacred and secular; we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), all we do is to, for, and from Jesus. Taking a day to rest is fine, but it is not required.

When Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 13 that one greater than the temple was here, He was claiming to house in Himself the atonement, the sacrifices, the law, the presence of God. “The law is in me; the Sabbath is In ME,” he might as well have said.

As has been pointed out, if the decalogue is for new covenant Christians, then Christendom has no choice but to observe the seventh day in the way the OT commanded—including stoning of those who break the day by leaving their tents, lighting a fire, etc.

The Decalogue, however, was always for the purpose of revealing sin, not of stopping sin. Jesus broke the power of sin and death, and the Holy Spirit in us—the seal of God—give us the resurrection power of Christ, and He makes us new. He makes us moral; He changes our hearts at the deepest level.

Now we live by God Himself and not by an external law! Praise Jesus!

Colleen

The bottom line in this discussion is the New Covenant. Covenant theology as typically taught in the Reformed tradition still clings to the idea that there is one overriding covenant between God and humanity, and the Mosaic covenant was just one representation of that covenant.

Romans and Galatians, however, painstakingly explain that the covenant God made with Abraham still stands, while the Mosaic covenant was temporary and intended to bring an awareness of sin back into humanity.

God’s covenant with Abraham was unconditional. He Himself ratified the covenant by moving among the sacrificial animals in the form of a smoking pot and flaming furnace (Father and Son) while Abraham slept. None of his faulty promises contributed to God’s covenant with him.

The Mosaic covenant was conditional. The entire Sinai covenant was made between God and Israel with Israel’s faulty promises constituing one half of the agreement: “All that you have said, we will do.” Their promises had no hope of fulfillment. They were faulty. This, in fact, was the point of the New Covenant. There’s NOTHING a human can do or intend or promise that in any way will be righteous or perfect or strong enough to keep the covenant with God. It was doomed to failure—and that was what God intended. The Mosaic covenant was designed to INCREASE sin, not to decrease it (Romans 7:8-12), and to drive Israel to trust His sovereign promises to save them by His singular power.

The New Covenant was put into effect in the fullness of time when Jesus died, rose, and ascended to sit at the Father’s right hand. Prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34, the New Covenant supereded and replaced the Mosaic Covenant. Jesus and the Father again kept God’s eternal covenant with mankind. By dying and rising from death, Jesus fulfilled humanity’s obligations under the law—including death for disobedience and perfect righteousness for eternal life—and with promises which are better than ours, he and the Father keep the covenant. We who accept Jesus’ sacrifice are in Christ, and in Him His fulfillment of the law and His righteousness completely cover us.

Hebrews 8:7: “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.” Again in Hebrews 8:13: “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” (Remember, Hebrews was written to Jewish believers before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.)

Hebrews 7 goes into great detail to explain how Jesus’ priestly ministry is completely different from the Levitical priesthood. He was appointed not by descent but by an oath of God. “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarnatee of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22).

Jesus was not from the proper tribe for priests; he was from Judah, not Levi. This fact completely shattered the Mosaic law. Hebrews 7:12: “For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.”

The New Covenant fulfills God’s unilateral promise to Abraham. It also replaces the Sinai covenant completely by giving us Jesus—his incarnation, death, resurrection, and glorification—as our rule of faith and practice. The rest symbolized by the fourth commandment is now reality in Jesus.

The fourth commandment was never about bodies needing rest. It was always about trusting God. God said in essence to Israel, “The pagans around you work ceaselessly to please their gods and to merit prosperity. I will bless you and propser you far beyond your neighbors if you trust Me. You will remember that I am the One who provides all you have by sitting in your tents one day in seven. It doesn’t matter whether it’s lambing season or lentil harvest, you will sit in your tents. It doesn’t matter whether or not a thunderstorm threatens your wheat crop, you will sit in your tents. And I will prosper you beyond all accounting—and no one, not the Canaanites around you nor you yourselves will be able to credit YOU with your success. You and they will know your success if from Me, the Lord Your God.”

That trust for everything symbolized God’s complete provision for us in the person of Jesus. When He came, that symbolic day of rest was replaced with the Real Thing—Jesus Himself!

I have nothing but deep respect for the reformers and for their resurrection, so to speak of the the true gospel. I also believe, however, that they did not quite uncover the radical completion of the New Covenant. While many of them really came close, in reality the function of the decalogue somewhat escaped them. I believe that historically people have been afraid to say the decalogue no longer applies because it sounds too scary. If the decalogue is not replaced by Jesus, however, then the fourth commandment MUST be observed, and not by transference to Sunday. The Bible never changed Sabbath to Sunday. If the decalogue is still a standard of behavior for us, Christians should be observing the seventh day as a holy day the way the OT taught Israel to observe it.

In Jesus, however, morality becomes a way of life—and resting in Christ becomes much more all-consuming and impacting of every moment of living than the seventh-day Sabbath ever was. Jesus is greater than—the Creator of—the Sabbath. It’s always been only about Him. Now we have Him and no longer need to honor the shadow of promise.

In reality, however, the Holy Spirit holds us to a much more exacting standard than does the law. We can trust Him to keep and to to renew us.

The law still functions as the “proof”, along with the prophets, of who Jesus is. Without the law, we would have no good way to identify Jesus as the true Messiah. He is the only One who has actually fulfilled every shadow of the Mosaic law—including the Sabbath.

Praise Jesus!

Colleen

Ken, I just saw your comment above. I agree with you about the need for physical rest. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 to come to Him, and He would give us rest. Taking time to sit with Him and to set aside bysness to rest in His presence is definitely part of a Christ-followers life. Jesus Himself often went away alone to pray.

Yet a Christ-followers rest is not prescribed. Just as we learn to trust God to give us the work He created in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10) instead of pursuing things we think would be good ideas, we learn also to take the time to sit at His feet and to let the worries and demands of life go for a time.

I have no problem with people spending one in seven in a completely different way. It’s just that human physical needs were not the point, I believe, of the Sabbath command. The point is learning to rest in Jesus. I have found, to my complete amazement, that although I am busier than I have ever been and have more demands on my time and my emotions than ever before, God is holding me in internal peace in ways I never used to experience when I “took” one in seven. He is lessening the inner anxiety that used to be a constant background “noise” in my life. And yes, He does provide ways and times for physical and mental “rest”. It just doesn’t look like what I used to think Sabbath rest looked like!

By all means, we must rest physically. Sabbath, however, is about a rest that goes deeper and is more empowering than physical rest. I can’t explain it in mere words; I just know I have a most amazing experience of Jesus becoming my rest that renews me emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically in ways taking a day off never did.

The day is good, but true Sabbath rest transforms the most grueling days—even “sabbaths”!

Colleen

Stephen, the problem with equating the Decalogue with God’s eternal “moral law” is two-fold. First, Scripture nowhere supports this definition. To Jews, both then and now, the “law” is the entire Torah. The 10 Commandments are not separated out as God’s eternal moral law. In fact, they are called the words of the covenant (meaning the Sinai covenant) in the Torah, and Galatians 3 clearly shows that the law was given 430 years after Abraham until the Seed (Jesus) would come.

In addition, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus clearly expanded the law. He not only expanded many of the 10 Commandments, He expanded other laws not listed in the 10. He made it very clear that true morality goes to the hearts and motives of people and is never measured by behavior. Righteousness is not evaluated by our good deeds.

Second, the law God wrote on the tables of stone with His finger is not The Eternal Law. God didn’t write those commandments until millennia after Creation. Further, those tables of stone are nowhere to be found today. (Imagine what an icon they would have been had God allowed them to be accessible!) As Paul explains in Galatians, those tables of stone, the heart of God’s covenant with Israel—the conditional Mosaic Covenant—were temporary. They represented the covenant that God established with israel and that lasted until the Seed came.

The Decalogue was only an elementary outline of general good behavior. As I mentioned earlier, the Sermon on the Mount revealed far more of God’s Law than the Decalogue did. In fact, the entire New Testament reveals a far more comprehnsive morality than the law ever did. The NT demands that we live by the Spirit—that we give up our control and our striving and submit to God’s personal and detailed discipline and direction.

It is such a straw-man argument to assume that people are straying into antinomianism by saying the 10 Commandments are not our rule of practice in the New Testament. A true Christ-follower takes morality and living by the Spirit very seriously.

If the Decalogue were God’s Eternal Law, then it would be on a level with Almighty God—eternal and undending. Quite on the contrary, God created the Decalogue hundreds of years after He created the world. He summarized civil behavior to bring people into an awareness of their own sinfulness.

Romans 5 shows that even though people from the time of Adam to the time of Moses did not sin by breaking a command—only Adam was guilty of that sin until the law was given—still they were sinful because they were In Adam. But God did not hold them guilty of sins for which they were unaware. They were NOT innocent; they were doomed and sinners by nature. Still, they were not guilty of breaking the law.

God’s Eternal Law is Himself. He is, in Himself, eternal Justice, Mercy, Grace, Wrath, Love, Life, LIght..all His attributes are eternally, intrinsically Him. The Decalogue was an elementary and simplified primer given to truly fallen mankind to begin to teach them that they were guilty of intrinsic sin. God gave them the law so they would become aware of their sin and of their inability to do His will.

Now we have Jesus Himself—eternal God, the Living, Eternal Law—acting as our Law. Because we are awakened in Him and reconnected to Him through Jesus’ blood, we have access to the Father by one Spirit. We don’t need a temporary, abridged version of the eternal law of God to convict us of sin or to show us how to live.

True, the decalogue is still useful for pointing out sin to people who haven’t met Jesus. But once we are in Him, we are to live by the Spirit (Romans 8).

The only reason I can imagine that people desire to “hang onto the declague” is the fourth commandment. The NT is far more detailed than the 10 Commandments in terms of God’s expectations for us when we are in Him. The fourth commandment is the sticky point.

Unless we understand the asonishing revelation of Hebrews, Galatians, Colossians, Romans, Ephesians, etc., we don’t really see that Jesus actually fulfilled all the OT law. He fulfilled the promise of the Sabath shadow. In Him we find our eternal rest.

None of this negates a “day off” to rest, meditate, etc. But Romans 14 clarifies that such a day is NOT mandated. Jesus Himself transforms the way we live. We are completely new creatures in Christ. We are spiritually alive instead of spiritually dead.

We’re not throwing out morality. We are, rather, embracing the Eternal, Living Law of Morality instead of the stone condensed version that was intended for the specific purpose of educating Israel of their sinfulness. It was never intended to bring them into righteosness. It was always intended to hold them in check and to cause them to be driven to God and His promises. The law was always impossible to keep.

Now the Living Law keeps us, and He is faithful to complete what He begins in us (Phil 1:6). We respond to His sovereign grace by offering our bodies as living sacrifices to Him for His purposes (Romans 12:1).

Colleen

Linda, one comment re: Isaiah 66: it clearly says that people will gather to worhsip not only from Sabbath to Sabbath but from New Moon to New Moon. These prophecies must be read in light of Jesus’ fulfillment of the ceremonial days of Israel.

Revelation 21 and 22 both state unequivocally that there is no need of the sun or the moon in the New Jesrusalem because the Lamb Himself will be their light. There “is no night there”. Without night, there are no days.

Furthermore, eternity is not undending time. Eternity has no time. There will be no passing days in heaven. There will be no eternal observation of the seventh-day Sabbath or of New Moons.

Those celebrations were always shadows of Christ Himself. When we understand that Jesus Is the reality of those shadows, Isaiah 66 makes sense. We will all gather to worship and praise Jesus Himself endlessly for eternity. In Him those powerful shadows have substance. We will not gather to worship Him for one-seventh of eternity. Our entire eternal future will consist of our worship and honoring of Him.

Colleen

Passer-by, “Sabbath in Crisis”, now updated and reprinted as “Sabbath in Christ” by Dale Ratzlaff has been the most helpful book for me besides just plain Bible study.

Having been a Seventh-day Adventist, I had certain (mis)understandings of what Scripture said and meant, so I had to specifically study certain questions that the average Reformed believer probably wouldn’t have. Linda’s Adventist point of view reveals many of the unique Adventist explanations for keeping the seventh day.

Ratzlaff’s book is available online at www.LIfeAssuranceMinistries.org. It is a thorough study of the Old and the New Covenants.

The Bible itself is so clear about the New Covenant when one approaches it with prayer for God to reveal truth without our invisible blinders on.

Colleen

Colossians 2:16-17—the yearly, monthly, and weekly Sabbaths were shadows of the reality which is found in Christ.

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because the Sabbath was a shadow of Him. If I’m stumbling through a desert and find myself in the shade of a tall building, I experience immediate relief from the killing heat. I can sit in that shade and experience rest and relief from the certain death I was facing.

Yet if I sit long enough, I realize I’m still too hot to be safe. Even thought the shadow is degrees cooler than the sun, I’m still dehydrating, and I still have no access to bread and water.

If I get up and enter that building in whose shade I’m sitting, however, I’ll find air conditioning, food, water, and a place to rest and recover from my death march across the desesrt.

The Sabbath was that kind of shadow of the perfect and complete rest we find in Jesus. Although we can leave the shadow and embrace Jesus, becoming one with Him and experiencing the water and bread of life, many of us have spent years trying to both be in Him and in the shadow.

We can’t do both. As long as we’re in the shadow, we’re trying to find that promised blessing without giving up everything—including the shadow—in favor of the Real Thing. When we’re in Christ and trusting Him completely to be all we need for moralilty and holiness and salvation, the shadow is obsolete.

Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He Is the Sabbath Rest toward which the Sabbath pointed. Jesus embodies Sabbath rest.

When God finished creating the world and rested on the seventh day, that day had no evening and morning symbolizing a beginning and end as did the other days. His rest was without boundaries, and Adam and Eve were ushered into it through no effort of their own. When God finished creating, He might well have said, “It Is Finished.”

When Jesus died, He opened for us the possibility of being again in the unbroken rest of the finished work of God. “It Is Finished,” He said of His atoning sacrifice.

The Israelite’s Sabbath pointed back to God’s finished work and rest at the end of creation, and it pointed forward to Christ’s finished work and the restoration of our entering His rest as did Adam and Eve before they sinned.

No, the significance of Sabbath is not a day—a created thing. The reailty of Sabbath has always been God’s finished work—and in Jesus we can enter that rest of God.

Colleen

Milan, I understand your point of view. I worship with many Christ-followers who see the law as you described it: as a guide to moral living.

I do not contend that Christians will not live according to the principles in the Decalogue. Of course they will!

My concern is that saying the Law given at Sinai is part of the New Testament rule of faith and practice necessarily means that we miss the most powerful of all the shadows: the real essence of the Sabbath.

Hebrews, Galatians, Romans—they all explain how the law has been superceded in every way by Christ. We can let go of the Decalogue without fear because when we are born of the Spirit, we will live by the Law of God—because He Is LIving In Us.

I was struck by your term, “the Christian Sabbath”. That phrase has no Biblical precedent. There is clearly an Israelite Sabbath, but nowhere does the NT teach Sabbath-keeping to the new Christian churches. Acts 15, in fact, explains that the church in Jerusalem, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, saw fit to give the Gentiles only four rules for living (beyond accepting Jesus, of course). Those four were eat no blood, eat no strangled animals, eat no meat offered to idols (although Paul in 1 Cor says the idols mean nothing to him, and he could eat that “consecrated” meat without sin), and no sexual immorality.

This conversation was in the context of whether or not to require circumcision—the ritual that would then require that they keep the whole law. The decision was that no Jewish laws would be required of the Gentiles.

Nowhere is there any command or explanation for sacred days or “days off” or worship days. While there are exhortations to meet together, those exhortations do not remotely suggest which day those meetings would happen on. Tradition tells us many early believers met together on Sunday in honor of the resurrection. Others (especially those of Jewish extraction) continued to meet on Saturday. It was optional and discretionary.

To use the law as a guide for Christian living, however, is to impose onto Christians something that no apostle and not even Jesus ever taught as part of living in the New covenantÆSabbath-keeping.

Hebrews, again, is meticulously clear that everything—even the seventh-day Sabbath—was fulfilled in Christ and transformed into continuous rest in Him.

If, however, we are going to use the Law as a guide to Christian living, then we must keep the seventh day. That requirement was profoundly important. No substitute would do. There was NO command or apostolic teaching to change the day of worship.

In the absence of a change, we have to understand that the Jewish Sabbath never became the “Christian Sabbath”. Now we have Jesus Himself.

Days are optional—days are created things. Jesus, however, and our command to live by the Spirit are not optional.

Colleen

Doug, I agree that the Sabbath is wonderful for you. I LOVED the Sabbath as an Adventist. The Sabbath, though, was never as intimate and personal as the presence of Jesus that I have experienced since I decided to risk giving up everything and entrusting myself entirely to Jesus. I had no idea how much my holding onto the shadow kept me from living in the reality of Him.

Andrew, seeing the 10 Commandments as being obsolete now that Christ has come does not equal antinomianism. I am not looking for permission to sin. Besides, the Mosaic law doesn’t begin to cover the sins to which we are drawn as fallen humans.

Ephesians 4-5 (as only one example) is clear that all immorality, impurity, greed, obscenity, foolish talk, coarse joking, lying, stealing indulged anger, bitterness, rage, brawling, slander, malice, foolishness, drunkenness, debauchery, etc. are completely unacceptable in the life of a Christ-follower. And just in case this list isn’t comprehensive enough, 5:8-13 gives general guidlines: we WERE darkness, but now we’re children of light. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but expose them.

If the numerous and repetitive lists in the New Testament of unacceptable behavior don’t seem to be enough to guide moral behavior, perhaps Romans 2:12-15 sheds light. In this passage Paul shows that the Gentiles, who traditionally did not have the law and therefore did not possess any special revelation from God as did Israel, still sometimes by nature did the things required by the law.

“They are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, sinced they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”

This “law-keeping” by the pre-cross Gentiles who had no special revelation was possible because God’s eternal morality was imprinted on their consciences. Those who lived by this conviction were not among those described in Romans 1 who suppressed the truth of God with their own wickedness.

If pagan Gentiles with no knowledge of God and no special revelation available to them were able to live morally by the moral requirements of the law being written on their consciences (an act of God to be sure!), then why would regenerate, born-of-the-Spirit Christ-followers who have the special revelation of Scripture and of Jesus Himself need the Decalogue in order to know how to live? We now have much more than mere conscience; we have God Himself living in us! He does not need the Decalogue in order to instruct us!

Garrett, I do not have a blog, but I do post on the forum at www.FormerAdventist.com. Check it out!

Colleen

Chad, I’ve enjoyed your analysis of the Mosaic law and what it IS and ISN’T. Great insights and examples. I loved the clarity of your comment, “that the 10 Commandments are not the unchanging moral law of God.” That is exactly what I have meant but haven’t stated so clearly.

The “10 Words” cannot summarize God’s moral law. If they could, they would necessarily be eternal instead of given, as Paul points out in Galatians 3, 430 years after Abraham until the Seed would come. They are a derivation of God’s eternal law, to be sure—but not THE eternal moral law. Only God Himself can contain—can BE—the eternal moral law.

BTW, I am not opposed to people observing a day as holy unto the Lord. I am opposed to the suggestion that such observance is required in the New Covenant.

I realize that the passion many of us former Adventists feel about walking away from required Sabbath observance may seem like a knee-jerk response to people looking on. In reality, however, because the Sabbath had such a spiritual “claim” on us—believing as we did that it was the “seal of God” or, at the least, the “sign of the seal” and thus coming dangerously close to blaspheming the role of the Holy Spirit—the idea of NOT observing the seventh day evoked deep fear of apostasy.

Much like Paul’s writing to the Corinthians about not eating meat offered to idols so as not to offend the consciences of the weak who would associate such eating with pagan rituals [while Paul himself said he could eat such meat because the idols meant nothing to him], so we have had to deliberately “abandon” the seventh-day Sabbath as an act of trust and of placing our complete faith in Jesus alone. It was terrifying to break, deliberately, that day. It meant we were no longer hedging our bets. Either Jesus was enough—or we were lost.

Jesus IS enough. His confirmation of His presence is not possible to explain to someone who hasn’t had to give up such an “idol” which had such “biblical” and salvational overtones.

What this experience has taught me is that the OT Sabbath was, truly a shadow. It is certainly not wrong for someone to observe a day. Clearly, however, the NT doesn’t command such observance, and there isn’t necessarily special blessing or sanctification to be found in such observance. Of course, some people might experience God’s special blessing if they dedicate a day to Him. But God does not require honoring a day. He requires that we honor Jesus.

One last puzzlement: I still do not understand how Christians satisfy themselves that the OT command to keep Sabbath, explicitly described to be the seventh day, can be understood to be “changed” to the first day in the NT. I understand the church tradition behind this observance, but I do not see how the fourth commandment—or Genesis 2—can be construed as Biblical support or proof for considering the first day to be Sabbath.

I would have more respect for Sunday observance being acknowledged to be based on church tradition than I have for the attempts to justify it based on the fourth commandment or on the creation account.

Just my particular view on the subject…

Colleen

Great insights above! Chad, thank you again.

Tim, as far as the importance of the seventh day goes, the Jews certainly saw the specific day as important. God didn’t give them the option of keeping any day but the seventh as a memorial of His rest at the end of Creation week. I understand how the significance of the day could have become blurred over the passing centuries, but if one really studies the OT, the Sabbath was not a mandate to keep any one of seven. It was to keep ONLY the seventh as the sign of the covenant.

If the law is still binding today as a rule of faith and practice, one really must keep the seventh day because that clear mandate was never changed. Fulfilled—yes; changed, no.

Also, regarding upholding the law: Even as Christ-followers, we need the law as our evidence of Jesus’ identity. Without its guaranteed permanence, we would have no clear evidence that Jesus was the One who fulfilled it. Anyone could have claimed to be the Messiah; with the law as our template, however, we can see that Jesus fulfilled every symbol, ceremony, and shadow of it. Only He is worthy to claim the identity of Messiah, Son of God, Savior, Redeemer, high priest, Lamb of God, Immanuel, our Substitute.

He is everything.

Colleen

Boyfrienddan, Romans 5:12-14 is explicitly clear how people before Sinai were judged sinful:

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—for before the law was given sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.”

The 10 Commandments were not the basis of sin before the law was given. Adam’s sin was the basis of mankind’s sin (see also 1 Corinthians 15:21-22). Before the time of Moses, Paul is saying, Adam was the only one who broke a direct command of God: do not eat of the fruit. That disobedience resulted in his sin—and ours. We are sinners because of Adam, and before Sinai, mankind were sinners because Adam sinned, and in Adam we all died.

It’s true that sin is the trangsression of the law; we insult God, however, if we equate His eternal law with the 10 Commandments. He Himself is the Law. All Law resides in and originates in God. God’s law is much more than the decalogue. Indeed, God’s law included His command to Adam and Eve not to eat of the forbidden fruit. His law also included the implicit request that they trust Him even when the reason for his stated command didn’t make sense.

No, the decalogue was not necessary for mankind to be sinful. The Decalogue/Sinai law was added 430 years after Abraham until the Seed would come (Gal. 3: 15-25). It was added “so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more…” (Romans 5:20).

When humanity finally had the law to explain what sin looked like, sin actually increased. It did not decrease. It’s like putting a “do not spit” sign next to a sidewalk. Before the sign was there, you probably never thought of spitting. Once the sign is there, spitting becomes a focus, and temptation is born. THAT was the purpose of the law: making mankind AWARE of what was sinful and driving him into temptation and sin so that he would discover his depravity and desire rescue.

The law was for the purpose of holding us prisoners, “locked up until faith should be revealed. The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law” (Gal. 3:23-24).

No, the written law was not in view between Adam and Moses. Sin reigned, but humanity had so supressed the knowledge of God by their wickedness (Romans 1:18-20) that they had become largely unconscious that they were sinful sinners. God gave the law to bring them back to consciousness—and to the desperation that would drive them to humble themselves before God and to awaken a desire for their Savior.

God’s Law does not equal the Decalogue. God’s Law is embodied in God Himself. To call the decalogue His eternal law is to insult Him. He is our Law and Lawgiver.

Colleen

Boyfrienddan, I know all of the arguments you present above intimately. I learned all of them in Adventism. And all of them are created and sustained in order to preserve the doctrine of seventh-day Sabbath-keeping. Even more deeply, this doctrine MUST be defended because of the “counsel” of Ellen White and her unique teachings about the alleged great controversy, the prophesied national and international Sunday law, and the teaching (now often avoided by never abandoned) that “keeping Sunday” is the mark of the beast.

At the core, the arguments you present are not for the purpose of exalting Christ and His finished work. Adventism does not truly teach Christ’s “finished” work. In fact, it clearly teaches (officially) that one cannot know whether or not he is saved eternally. He can only know from moment to moment whether or not he is likely saved; he cannot know the future for sure. These are unbiblical teachings.

The Bible does not mandate Saturday observance for Christians. Even the Reformed theologians and Christians who post here agree that Saturday sacredness per se is not a Biblical command for the Christian, although they do argue for the continuance of the law in the capacity of a guide to moral behavior.

Your arguments, dan, ultimately lead to confusion and to something Paul called “another gospel”. They do not withstand the test of inductive Biblical scrutiny.

Colleen

I don’t believe the purpose of this blog is to discuss Adventist theology. That being said, I’ll repeat what I previously wrote about God’s law: It is God Himself. All law—moral, physical, biological, etc.— resides in and comes from Him. We limit Him and His will if we limit our acceptance of His law to the 10 Commandments.

“Scripture contains no command for Christians to keep Saturday.” You asked if I meant the NT? Of course; the OT contains no commands addressed to Christians. They did not yet exist. Christianity could only come to be as a consequence of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and His gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell His believers.

Reading the Bible with prayer to understand it without the filter of any extra-Biblical authority yields a much different book than one “gets” when one reads it in light of a pre-determined doctrine in which one is invested.

I completely understand how the Bible looks to you, Dan—because I saw it the same way for many years. Only, however, when we turn to Christ and away from Moses is the veil removed (2 Cor. 3).

Extra-Biblical prophets and messengers have no place in a Christ-followers experience. No matter how we try to distance ourselves, we can’t escape their influence unless we consciously accept the Holy Spirit in place of our “messenger-shaped” understandings.

Jesus is enough.

Colleen

That’s because, Johnny, the Bible doesn’t say it’s a memorial of creation. The Bible points out that the Sabbath pointed back to God’s REST at the end of creation. Sabbath never represented “work”—God’s or humans’. It represented God ceasing from His work.

Exodus 20 says God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. THEREFORE (as a consequence of his resting) He blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. It was about His ceasing, finishing His work—not about his working.

What Jesus did at the end of creation and at the cross had similar effects in the lives of humans. Both “ceasings” ushered mankind into the presence of God with no work or contribution on their part. Jesus provided the means of our being one with Him.

Colleen

Man Alive, very interesting exegesis on Galatians. Further, I do admire your courage in saying you have slight problems with the Westminster Confession and that it is not canonical. It is often politically and personally risky to disagree openly with church authority or tradition, whether it’s “apostolic” or a creed or a modern-day messenger. These things shape us deeply from our mother’s milk, so to speak.

Just one possibility on verse 3:20: the reference to a “mediator” is an outgrowth of verse 19 where it says the law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. I understand this to mean Moses was the mediator. The emphasis here is that the covenant was between God and Israel, and Moses mediated the agreement by delivering the covenant terms from God Himself.

In verse 20, the focus returns to the New Covenant and uses the idea of “mediator” as a transition. Whereas a mediator was necessary to facilitate the agreement between God and Israel, no mediator is necessary to facilitate the covenant between the Father and the Son as our Substitute. The One God in the Persons of the Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit, too) are/is the Party in the New Covenant. No mediator is necessary—because God keeps the covenant in Himself. He is faithful to His promises—and He is One.

The fact that there is no mediator in the New Covenant which was established on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection instead of on the basis of the law speaks to the fact that it is a better covenant because it is complete in God Himself. (See Hebrews 7:12; 18-22; 8:6-7.)

Johnny C, I’m not sure I understand your point about the last chapter of the Bible. I do see there that there will be no need for sun or moon because Jesus Himself is the light, and there will be no night. This reality means that there will be no days—there will be no “seventh day” in the new earth. Jesus Himself, however, will be our object of continuous worship and “observance” for eternity.

He is so much greater that I had once understood. He is literally our all-in-all. Praise Him!

Colleen

Johnny, the problem as I see it is that you are INTERPRETING Scripture instead of OBSERVING it and asking yourself, rigorously, what it meant to those who first received it. Only after you answer that question can you ask the next question: in what other contexts does the writer use the word(s) in question?

Then, in what contexts does the subject or word occur in the rest of the testament? In the other testament? Only after meticulously studying a subject IN CONTEXT can one then ask what the subject means to himself—and the meaning cannot be greatly different from its original meaning.

When the Bible says there will be no night there—it is subjective interpretation to say that the passage refers “only to the New Jerusalem” and not to the rest of the world. That meaning is never suggested in the passages in Revelation, nor is it suggested in the passage in Jeremiah quoted above by Chad.

Reading Scripture has some things in common with analyzing literature: one cannot deduce conclusions which the text will not support. The fact that you can construct an argument to support your idea does not make it so. The text itself must support your conclusions. Anything else is faulty and is a misuse of the text.

The Bible does NOT say there are other worlds which have days and nights. You cannot conclude that based on the Bible. Your own reasoning is not adequate to make that case.

Now, I realize that you do not consider yourself Adventist—although I’m quite sure you have Adventism in your background—but Ellen White does refer to other inhabited planets. She even says she saw Enoch on Jupiter in one of her visions. Sorry, Johnny, but I do see your arguments taking on the shape of the subliminal influence of Ellen White. I know how long it took me to figure out how many of my cosmic assumptions were not based in logic or reality or Scripture but were the result of my early training based on Elllen’s revelations.

You really must stick with what the Bible says—speculation is not appropriate for establishing doctrine or belief.

Colleen

Yes, Johnny, Ellen White did say that Jesus would come back through the nebula in Orion. I grew up gazing at Orion’s belt and imagining Jesus coming—and wondering what glories of heaven that nebula hid from my eyes!

No, that understanding is no more reliable than is her vision of Enoch on Jupiter.

Arguing about the law (subtext “The Sabbath”) is truly pointless, as Paul points out in Titus 3:9. The truth about the New Covenant is really very clear throughout the NT—if one is willing to know the truth and submits him/herself to the Holy Spirit’s teaching. Read Hebrews, Galatians, Romans, for starters. 2 Corinthians 3 says it so clearly: a veil covers the hearts of those who read Moses.

Whenever a person turns to Christ, however, the veil is removed. One must be willing to walk away from Moses as any sort of continuing authority in one’s life when one is born again—just as the Transfiguration demonstrated. One must be willing stake EVERYTHING on Jesus, not hedging his bets. When one is willing to know and do whatever God’s will is, that veil disappears, and the truth of Jesus’ fulfillment of everything in the OT is so clear.

I’ve often wondered how I didn’t see these things for so long. But really, I know how I missed them: I was trying to hold onto Jesus at the same time I was trying to hold onto the law. That situation is spiritual bigamy, to quote a marvelous term I heard last weekend. We can’t be married to two spouses at once; we can’t be “married” both to the shadow and to the reality. We can only belong to one.

Colleen

Johnny, it is a straw-man argument to try to make a “New Law” to be “no law”.

The law of Christ is clearly written throughout the pages of the New Testament. No one here is advocating lawlessness—and no one here is advocating a “feel good” approach to morality. The NT is extremely clear about the level of morality a Christ-follower is to embrace. Further, the NT is extremely clear that no one can possibly achieve this level of morality with the indwelling Holy Spirit and learning to submit to Him (read Romans 8, for example).

Truth and reality are found in Scripture, and it comes alive by the Holy Spirit working in us as we submit our lives to every verse.

Colleen

Johnny and Dan, you really can’t establish spiritual truth by philosophical argument. What we THINK things mean is irrelevant. We can’t dismiss the words of Scripture (or explain them away) because we think they don’t fit the picture we have of “truth”.

As John Piper says in his book “Brothers, We Are Not Professionals”, the difficult passages in the Bible are there for us to take to the Lord Jesus, asking Him to teach us Himself and to reveal His truth to us. If we are not willing to submit our intellects and our penchant for textual “analysis” to God for His teaching through His Spirit, we will end up in error and deception.

As for Paul (and yes, I take the very words of Scripture seriously—it is not my prerogative to explain them away or to alter their meanings), here are his words:

“I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me by the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to MAKE PLAIN TO EVERYONE [emphasis mine] the administration of this mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things.”

Paul, the apostle sovereignly selected by God, the very one who was taken into the “third heaven” fourteen years before the book of 2 Corinthians was written (and years before any of his episltes was written), the one who saw eternity and was not permitted to tell what he saw (see 2 Cor 12)—this is the one whom God selected to explain the working of the new covenant. He actually saw and was taught by God the things he wrote.

How dare we sit here in 2006 and, from our cursory readings of the New Testament, decide that Paul may not have spoken with God’s authority?

If we can’t take Paul’s words as the completely reliable, authoritative words of Scripture, we have no reason to take any of the Old Testament or of the Gospels as authoritative, either. Either all is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16), or none of it is reliable.

We must be very careful how we approach the word of God. We stand in danger of saying our own understanding is superior to the revelation by the Holy Spirit given to the holy men of God who wrote as they were inspired by Him. Such an attitude comes awfully close to blaspheming the work of the Holy Spirit.

Colleen

Tim, nice to “meet” you. Thank you for this blog.

I had an email conversation two or three years ago that put a required Sabbath in a whole new light. The person communicating with me was a Bible translator with Wycliffe. He was working on producing a written version of the Bible for an isolated, primitive tribe on an island that I can’t remember right now.

Here’s what he told me. This particular tribe (primitive, as I mentioned!) had no developed numeric system. They did not use any form of currency, and they did not formally count or quantify. They had representations for “one” and “two”, but beyond the number two, they had no numbers. Similarly, they did not have any concept of a week.

If the Sabbath were important for everyone, this translator told me, this tribe would have to be taught to count before they could be taught the gospel. Jesus, however, was something he could translate into even the most primitive language and culture.

The gospel must be entirely applicable in any culture. The concept of a sacred day does not translate into all cultures.

God’s expectations for His people cannot be different from one culture to another.

Colleen

“A relationship with a saving God” is exactly what God desired for the Assyrians as well as for the Jews. His expectations did not differ; He sent Jonah, an Israelite, to Ninevah because He wanted the Assyrians to have faith in His promises—just as He desired Israel to have faith in His promises.

God’s expectations for people do not change from culture to culture. He desires for all people to respond to Him with faith in His Name and to forsake all other loyalties that claim their hearts in deference to Him. These requirements can be understood in any culture.

IOW, people do not need to be able to count to seven in order to have a saving relationship with the Redeemer.

Colleen

Dan, I suggest that you spend some time studying Galatians, then the book of Hebrews, and then Romans. The New Covenant is truly NEW, and now that we have the revelation of the Lord Jesus, our only continuing obligation is to honor Him.

There is much that doesn’t make sense when you try to understand the Bible with an Adventist background. You have been taught a certain way to understand the Bible, and when the Bible seems to contradict what you understand other passages to be saying, the temptation is to play with vocabulary to “explain” the disjunction, or to ignore the contradicting passages. The cognitive dissonance can be very confusing and unsettling.

There is a way to KNOW what is true. One must be willing to know—one must go before God and confess to having questions and confusion and commit to knowing Truth regardless of the cost. Knowing the Lord Jesus must be more important than cherishing what one has been taught.

Then you simply ask God to teach you the truth as you read the Bible. Ask Him to help you read it without any “preset” understandings or interpretations. I had to ask God to help me read the Bible without any subconsious Ellen White filters on my mind.

The discovery of true Bible teaching and the true identity and work of Jesus and the will of God may take months or even years to fully fall into place. But this you can KNOW: God is completely faithful, and when a person truly desires to know what is real, what is True, and truly wants to honor God, He will reveal Himself and teach you with His Spirit directly as you study the Bible.

We have a singular loyalty as Christ-followers: Jesus Himself. Our obedience is to Him, to the Law of the Spirit He puts in our spirits when we trust Him and are born from above. He does not share our alliegiance; a “sacred day” plays no part in our achieving or maintaining salvation. Jesus alone is all we need; He is our eternal security.

Jesus is enough!

With prayers for you,
Colleen

And, according to Romans 14, no one is to judge you for any day you keep holy. That is between you and God, and were you to abandon that day for reasons apart from faith, that would, for you, be sin.

I realize that this blog is not primarily for or about Adventists. Because of the fact that I had to work through the position of the law in the New Covenant at such a detailed level, however, because of my Adventist background, I repsectfully disagree with the particular view of Reformed theology about the third use of the law. If the law is, indeed, a continuing authority for Christ-followers, the Adventists absolutely have the best argument. One cannot continue to embrace the Decalogue at any level as an authority for Christians and ignore the fourth commandment. To say that the day has been transferred or changed is really not Biblical. It can be argued from the standpoint of tradition, but not from a position of “transference”.

I can embrace a traditional day of public worship—Sunday—but I cannot embrace it as a “sacred” day. That suggeseted “transference” is not in the Bible.

What IS Biblical, though, is that Jesus fulfilled the entire law. Jesus Himself said He had to fulfill all that had been written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44). Again, there is no Biblical example or mandate for separating the law into moral, civil, and ceremonial parts. Always, in both the Old and the New Testaments, the Law is referred to as a unit—all 613 laws of the Torah are included, even the 10 Commandments. It is a church tradition introduced around the 3rd or 4th century that “divided” the law into components. Such division is not found anywhere in Scripture.

My issue is not with the Sabbath per se. My concern is that we correctly understand the role of the law and the absolute adequacy of Jesus’ ilfe and death as the fulfilment of the ENTIRE law. Jesus hinted at His fulfillment and supercedence of the law on several occasions during His life. His chat with the Pharisees in Matthew 12, for example, cleary stated that He Himself was greater than the temple—the seat of Jewish life, culture, and law. By declaring Himself greater than that icon, He was saying that everything the temple “held” was in Him—and more: in Him was the perfect sacrifice and offering to God; in Him was the bread of life; in Him was the law; in Him was the Sabbath rest foreshadowed in the fourth commandment—in Him was all the perfect obedience all Israel–all humanity had not been able to accomplish.

Further, on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Moses (representing the Law to Israel) and Elijah (representing the prophets) appeared with Jesus, Peter, James and John fell to the ground. Peter wanted to honor all three of them, but the voice of God said, “This is my Son; listen to Him”—and when Jesus told them to arise, the Law and the Prophets had disappeared, and He alone stood before them. Then, to emphasize what had really happened, Jesus warned them on the way down the mountain not to tell anyone what they had seen and heard until after his resurrection. IOW, they had to live under the authority of the Law and the Prophets until Jesus completed the atoning sacrifice that ushered in the New Covenant. Until His death and resurrection, Israel had to live under the authority of the law.

The fear in saying the 10 Commandments was abolished is the fear of antinomianism. Such a fear, however, is groundless. When a person accepts Jesus’ death and resurrection as atonement for his sins and as the guarantee of his own future, the Holy Spirit brings his spirit to life (I challenge you to do a careful study of the NT on the word “spirit”—use a good Bible dictionary along with your inductive Bible study), and He indwells the believer. This new birth replaces the Law. The Law was temporary, given 430 years after Abraham until the Seed (see Galatians 3). God Himself, the personification of all morality, now indwells the believer. We have no need of the Decalogue.

Just to be sure that we remember how a Christ-follower is to live, however, God has given us Scripture—and the NT explains how the shadows in the OT were fulfilled in Christ. Now, the entire text of the NT serve as instruction for God’s people, and the OT demonstrates how God has been revealing His will through successive ages since Creation.

Dan, I do not have resentment for the Adventist church. In fact, just last night as I was pondering “stuff” before going to sleep, I lay in bed and thanked God for having allowed me to grow up Adventist. I would never have come to such an amazing understanding of His personal work in my life, the astonishing reality of Jesus and His completed work of salvation, His total fulfillment of the law, and the inexpressible freedom of being submitted to Him every momrent (a paradox, right?!) if I had not had to struggle with the subtle ways Adventism veiled Biblical truth.

Quite frankly, without the subtle, pre-conscious and powerful overlay of Ellen White’s interpretations in the background, the Bible is a completely different book. It just does not teach what we thought it did about the human spirit, our condition in death, God’s justice, His mercy—really, just about everything has been slightly “twisted”.

Just FYI, 2 Timothy 1:10 explains why the OT wasn’t as detailed and clear as the NT about what happens after death. This reality couldn’t have been revealed before Jesus came and “destroyed death”. Jesus “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” We can’t use the OT without the full revelation of the NT explaining and isnterpreting the OT to form doctrine for Christians.

No, I do not resent Adventism at all. I believe it is a false religion, and I believe it still embraces a false prophet—but I thank God He brought me down this “road”, including my complete immersion to and loyalty to Adventism, because the reality of Jesus’ sufficiency and fulfillment of all the OT shadows is amazing. Knowing Jesus without the cognitive dissonance of having to make the OT shadows “fit” inside the new wineskin of the New Covenant is nothing short of a miracle.

I praise Him!

Colleen