SDA's and the Sabbath

Gerhard,

I dont view the Sabbath in the old Testament or the New as being legalistic. I dont view ANY of the Ten Commandments as ever being legalistic.

Jesus said, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" John 14:9

The very reason Jesus came was to reveal the Father to us. When you see what Jesus did you know the Father.

The way that Jesus kept the Sabbath was the way that God had originally meant for it to be kept. God never intended people to see someone dying on Sabbath and not stop to help them because it was "too much work".

It was the Pharisees who false interpreted the Sabbath in that way.

Sunday or Saturday Sabbath have absolutely nothing to do with the Resurrection. The Resurrection is meant to be commemorated by the rite of Baptism. Baptism has to do with allowing ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to Christ.

And being that Baptism has to do with being DEAD TO SIN and alive to Christ... how can refraining from sin ever be considered as being "Legalistic"? Sin is and has ever been "transgression of the Law" 1Jn:3:4: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." And there isnt some sort of "New Testament" different sort of refraining from transgression of the Law. You either break the Law or you don't.


Romans 6:
1: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2: God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3: Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5: For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.


The Sabbath has nothing whatever to do with the Resurrection, as I said.. Baptism commemorates that and has to do with STOPPING SINNING. STOPPING BREAKING THE LAW.

So for you to say that the Resurrection has to do with somehow getting rid of "legalism" of the Law and instead to do with grace or with Christ is a very distorted view of Scripture, in my humble Seventh Day Adventist opinion.

Claudia

 

Gerhard,

Here is some more for you to think about:

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Jesus a question, saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:36-40

The reason that Jesus said, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" is because the first 4 commandments define love to God (Thou shalt have no other gods before me, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, etc.) and the last 6 define love to thy neighbor (Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal). This same idea is repeated by the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans:

"...he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended (summarized) in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. " Romans 13:8,9:

So you see then that love to God and neighbor is merely a SUMMARY of or is briefly comprehended in the Ten Commandment Law. And not only that but both Jesus and Paul were merely reiterating what had already been declared in old Testament times! Watch this:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Deuteronomy 6:4,5.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Leviticus 19:18.

Sound familiar? Jesus was merely quoting directly out of the old testament when He said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

God's claims have always been the same. Jesus did not really give us a "new" commandment to keep, He was bringing to light the foundation principles of love which have always underlined the ten commandments of old. This is why John said the following words:

"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. I John 2:3-7.

The principles of His government are the same. For all proceed from Him "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17.

 

Good point Claudia.

Christ the Creator's Holy Day of Gen 2:3 was made holy long BEFORE there was sin in the world. It was not given to mankind to remind Adam of death or to remind Adam of the coming death of God the Son. Nor was it given to Adam to remind him of the need for resurrection after one pays for the sins of the world.

Nothing could be more obvious - and yet the most simple and obvious facts of scripture are often challenged by those who claim to believe it.


As for GE's bogus myth that God gave Adam a "legalistic and jewish" BAD Sabbath -- that too is totally false. God gave NOTHING bad to Adam and Adam was not "a mean ol' Jew" as GE likes to imagine when he contemplates God the giver of life - the creator - the maker of every good and perfect gift - gave mankind the Sabbath "Made FOR mankind".

In Christ,

Bob

 

Try actually quoting the Bible to make a point GE - why is this concept so difficult for you?

In Christ,

Bob

I was not going to make the case that these are lost on you - without your help. Thanks for providing it.

Your argument seems to be "time after time" of the form "Why pay attention to what the Bible is saying in Gen 1-2:3 and Exodus 20:8-11 when I can simply make stuff up".

So now - back to D.LMoody's quote for a little sanity on the other side of the SDA position.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=876936&postcount=20


In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob,

That's really interesting, what you said about the Sabbath being made before there was any sin in the world so it couldnt have anything to do with sin and the Resurreciton and all of that.

I hadnt thought of it in that way before now.


...and I like your good Sabbath/bad Sabbath comment too. I have had a hard time trying to understand exactly what GE is getting at in regards to the Resurrection and the Sabbath but I think maybe I am beginning to understand it better now..

I am a little slow sometimes in understanding things


Claudia

 

I have to admit - GE spins a long while with a tiny bit of scripture that says nothing like his free-texting -- so it is not always apparent how his arguments are anything but a string of unsupported ideas.

 

Quoting CladiaT,
"The way that Jesus kept the Sabbath was the way that God had originally meant for it to be kept."

GE:
If you could discern in just these words of yours what I mean is 'legalistic', we would understand each other. You - obviously not consciously - make "the way that God had originally meant for it to be kept" ...BY US,,, the Sabbath's original purpose (God's purpose with it). You kake of the Sabbath a matter of works, and that, our works. But God meant the Sabbath for HIS works whereby humans can never come near! Note the absense of man in the creation saga of the Sabbath-institution. Note man's absense in the resurrection-saga of the Sabbath.
Read my new post, 'Sabbath Scriptures Unknown', where you will see how God's ultimate purpose was His Self-satisfaction, and how He availed it through Jesus Christ from the dead. Man is present with God through Jesus Christ on the Lord's Day; and if not through Him, and in Him, and by Him, man is driven out of God's presence, and the garden of His Presence is garded by the angel with a flaming torch, like it was in Eden.

What is the core of your Sabbath concepts? Does it amount to any human activity or inactivity? Then it is legalistic; Is it about what God did not do on the Sabbath, instead of what He "wrought" on the Sabbath through omnipotente, ordained, preference of the day? Then it is legalistic.

 

As long as the Sabbath is deprived of God's eternal purpose with it, which is, to finish all His works by raising Christ from the dead on it and in it, we give to to the Sabbath as its highest honour, our own human availing - which is legalism, in whatever pious robe we may wrap it.

 

Quote:
"Baptism commemorates that" .... "the resurrection".

Now baptism "with Him" and "in Him" does "commemorate the resurrection". But does not restrict it to a once in a life-time water-baptism; but perpetualtes Jesus' resurrection from the dead through all our life through that spiritual baptism in the death and resurrection OF HIS! -as Romans 6 unequivocally makes fast.
Here again is the perfect example of legalism: where the very heart of Christian and redeeming faith - God's act of the exceeding greatness of His power - is tied to one single human act.

 

GE:
... and BobRyan's comments draw the contrast all the clearer.

 

Quote:
"... like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father..."

I ask you - in all sincerity ClaudieT - what is the Father's glory here referred to? It is magnificently described in Ephesians 1:19f.
Then I ask you again, WHEN did the Father exercise (energeoh - the word used there) this glory of His? When and where but on the Day He finished all His works on? Was it the Sabbath Day? Was it the Day "God thus concerning did speak"? Was it the First Day? Then would the First Day have been the Christian Sabbath? Surely it would! But then the whole FULFILMENT of the WORD of God would be belied! IT HAD TO BE God's "Holy Day" - the day "SET APART FOR THE PURPOSE" - what 'to sanctify', means!

 

Quoting BobRyan, giant protagonist of his own distorted Seventh-Day Adventism,
"As for GE's bogus myth that God gave Adam a "legalistic and jewish" BAD Sabbath ".

GE:
A true Seventh Day Adventist would never be so false as you can be, BobRyan!

 

Quoting CT,
"I dont view the Sabbath in the old Testament or the New as being legalistic."

GE:
Yes; it is the Law; it, cannot be 'legalistic'; it is us, who are legalistic by pitting it against Jesus Christ and grace, by loosing sight of its original and only purpose ever: to "bring us to Christ". And since we have been brought to Christ, it is Christ which is our Law. By the same OT Law the Jew today still keeps the Sabbath - he fails to receive the Law's only benefit; his lot is hopeless. Now the Christian who refuses to see God's eternal purpose being fulfilled in Jesus Christ in every respect claiming for Himself all the honour that previously belonged to the Law, what kind of Christian is he? A Judaist I think; and a Judaist is a legalist. To keep the Sabbath because the law says so means one hasn't come one yard ahead of the most pathetic legalist Jew.

 

When you make a counter-factual argument of the form "the original and only purpose ever of the Sabbath was grace" unmerrited favor -- then you might as well expect to see "Actual scripture" about What GOD said the "original and only purpose" of the Sabbath was - as a counter to your mythology.

Gen 2 -
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed[/b], and all their hosts.
2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.[/quote]

 

Originally Posted by BobRyan
I have to admit - GE spins a long while with a tiny bit of scripture that says nothing like his free-texting -- so it is not always apparent how his arguments are anything but a string of unsupported ideas.



GE - you are making this wayyy tooo easy for me.


So now - back to D.LMoody's quote for a little sanity on the other side of the SDA position.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost...6&postcount=20

In Christ,

Bob

 

The Old Testament purpose of the Law was to show the surrounding Nations God's true character of Love:

"Behold," said Moses, "I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" Deut. 4:5-8.

And now let us go forward to the writings of the New Testament, that we might discover the role that the children of God are to play in today's modern world. Have God's purposes changed? Let's listen to Jesus...

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matt. 5:13-16.

 

In that God "sanctified the Seventh Day", He "made the Sabbath", "for man" - that is for the sake of man, that is, for the sake of man's SALVATION! God, therefore, in sanctifying the Sabbath Day, sanctified it unto Jesus Christ; sanctified it unto Jesus Christ being raised from the dead upon it.

In that God "blessed the Seventh Day", He blessed it unto Jesus Christ in whom all the blessings and all the promises of God are yea and amen. God has NO blessing to offer, but through and in Jesus Christ; and God has NO blessing to offer, had Jesus Christ not been raised from the dead. Therefore, God in blessing the Seventh Day, blessed it unto the resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ upon it. Or the Word, God's "thus speaking concerning the Seventh Day", is empty rhetoric. But man shall live by every word God speaks - in Christ we are raised to live again. This "Word", "God thus spoke concerning the Seventh Day" was Christ - Christ the Resurrected.

One needs not even speak of the truth God on the Seventh Day Sabbath "finished", or, "rested", or "revived", these words being so much clearer than the words already considered, that that these words can only refer to Jesus Christ, and to Him in resurrection from the dead.

Now the reason why the Seventh Day Adventists all oppose me in thus singing the praises of Jesus Christ through God's Holy Day unto the very purpose of His own Self-satisfaction, and not join me in this glorious task, privilege and duty, is their conception of the Law's place in Christian Faith, plainly. It breaks my heart. How will a Seventh Day Adventist ever convince a Sunday-keeper of God's true Day of Worship, while denying that day the very basis upon which a Sunday-keeper keeps the Sunday, namely Jesus' resurrection from the dead?

 

ahg, my good works, mine own righteousness - like filthy rags they are. Only a man of unclean lips will know what it is to be touched by the coal of fire from God; I have no idea what it is to be so good I shall be noticed by men. I only know in God's sight I am unworthy in His presence, were my presence before Him not contained in Christ. Christ saves sinners thank God, or I wouldn't stand a chance. I may speak of God's holy Day exactly because of my own unholiness.

 

Now lets watch D.L Moody talk about what HE views as showing Honor to Christ the Creator's own Holy Day --

http://www.fbinstitute.com/moody/The_TenCommandments_Text.html

Fundamental Baptist Institute

http://www.fbinstitute.com/


presents

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS​

BY THE​

DWIGHT L. MOODY​

The Ten Commandments:​

​

Exodus 20:2-17 ​

The Fourth Commandment​

Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy[/b]. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: [b]for in six days the LORD made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.[/b]​

THERE HAS BEEN an [b]awful letting-down in this country regarding the Sabbath during the last twenty-five years, and many a man has been shorn of spiritual power, like Samson, because he is not straight on this question. Can you say that you observe the Sabbath properly? You may be a professed Christian: are you obeying this commandment? Or do you neglect the house of God on the Sabbath day[/b], and spend your time drinking and carousing in places of vice and crime, showing contempt for God and His law? Are you ready to step into the scales? Where were you last Sabbath? How did you spend it?

[b]I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding today as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, [b]He did nothing to set it aside[/b]; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place.
"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27)
It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was- in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment begins with the word remember, showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?

I believe that the Sabbath question today is a vital one for the whole country. It is the burning question of the present time. If you give up the Sabbath the church goes; if you give up the church the home goes; and if the home goes the nation goes. That is the direction in which we are traveling.

The church of God is losing its power on account of so many people giving up the Sabbath, and using it to promote selfishness.

.

HOW TBSERVE THE SABBATH​

"Sabbath" means "rest," and the meaning of the word gives a hint as to the true way to observe the day. God rested after creation, and ordained the Sabbath as a rest for man. He blessed it and hallowed it. Remember the rest-day to keep it holy.[/b]
[/quote]
…

[b]Mr. Gladstone recently told a friend that the secret of his long life is that amid all the pressure of public cares he never forgot the Sabbath, with its rest for the body and the soul.
·
When I was a boy, the Sabbath lasted from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday,
…
Make the Sabbath a day of religious activity. First of all, of course, is attendance at public worship. "There is a discrepancy," says John McNeill, "between our creed about the Sabbath day and our actual conduct. In many families, at ten o'clock on the Sabbath, attendance at church is still an open question. There is no open question on Monday morning- 'John, will you go to work today.'"

…
Someone has said that without the Sabbath, the Church of Christ could not, as a visible organization, exist on earth.
…
Parents, if you want your children to grow up and honor you, have them honor the Sabbath day.

.​

SABBATH DESECRATION​

Men seem to think they have a right to change the holy day into a holiday. The young have more temptations to break the Sabbath than we had forty years ago.[/b]

.​

PUNISHMENT OR BLESSING?​

No nation has ever prospered that has trampled the Sabbath in the dust. Show me a nation that has done this and I will show you a nation that has got in it the seeds of ruin and decay. I believe that Sabbath desecration will carry a nation down quicker than anything else. Adam brought marriage and the Sabbath with him out of Eden, and neither can be disregarded without suffering. When the children of Israel went into the Promised Land, God told them to let their land rest every seven years, and He would give them as much in six years as in seven. For four hundred and ninety years they disregarded that law. But mark you, Nebuchadnezzar came and took them off into Babylon, and kept them seventy years in captivity, and the land had its seventy sabbaths of rest. Seven times seventy is four hundred and ninety. So they did not gain much by breaking this law. You can give God His day, or He will take it.

On the other hand, honoring the fourth commandment brings blessing:
"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 58:13-14)
…

? Hasn't the time come to call a halt if men want power with God? Let men call you narrow and bigoted, but be man enough to stand by God's law, and you will have power and blessing. That is the kind of Christianity we want just now in this country. [/b]Any man can go with the crowd, but we want men who will go against the current.

Sabbath-breaker, are you ready to step into the scales?

​

 

It does not say in the Bible that the resurrection of Christ has anything to do with the Sabbath, you are just making things up out of your imagination, which is no thing on which you ought to base your doctrine.

Claudia