Sabbath Obligation?

Blik · Aug 11, 2020

I hadn't thought of churches choosing to celebrate Sabbath on Sunday in terms of blame. We are to freely allow people (people make up the organized church) freedom to make their own choices. Blaming is for God to do, not people.

If you study the seven churches told of in Revelation, God is blaming them each of something wrong. In each of the churches some of the members are praised for following scripture rather than the church. They stay a member of that church and don't blame, simply keep their beliefs in scripture. They show us the way.

garee · Aug 11, 2020

Blik said:

Your dissecting all posts for exact wording instead of what the poster means helps with clear thinking, but it also gets awfully old.

It is true, an individual honoring the Sabbath is up to the individual but part of that celebration of the Sabbath, if that individual had a choice, would be attending church service that honors that Sabbath. People who choose this way as following scripture are denied that choice if they stay true to most churches.

Yes most churches.

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

We have to remember that the Sabbath was established way before the Mosaic Law. Correct?

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

And then was reiterated in Exodus 16:20, and then Established as Law in the Ten Commandments. Written in stone, not on paper as the other laws kept by the Israelites. So it was definitely separate from everything else including the Ten Commandments.

Dino246 · Aug 11, 2020

Blik said:

Here is the relevant portion of your previous post:

"Christians have to accept using this day as the Sabbath because the church Christ loves tells us my way or the highway"

How is that not blaming?

Blik said:

Since you don't like it when I pick holes in your posts, I will just say this: I would encourage you to read those letters much more carefully.

Dino246 · Aug 11, 2020

JustifiedMan said:

And it was fulfilled in Christ. Christians are not subject to the laws pertaining to Sabbath observance.

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

Dino246 said:

Does that include the Moral Law or the Ceremonial or even the Civil? what is the Extent of Christ fulfillment of it?

Scribe · Aug 11, 2020

I have not been convinced yet, that The Lord's Day only mentioned in Revelation 1 was intended to mean Sunday. Joseph A Seiss has written an excellent argument for it being a reference to The Day of the Lord. Joseph A. Seiss wrote one of the best verse by verse commentaries on the book of Revelation in the 1800s and it is a pretrib, premil, interpretation. Regardless of your views his is a scholarly presentation and worthy of reading. Below is his interpretation on the Lord's Day.

"...With this also agrees the statement of John as to the circumstances under which he came to the knowledge of the things which he narrates. He says he “was in Spirit in the Lord’s day,” in which he beheld what he afterwards wrote. What is meant by this Lord’s day? Some answer, Sunday — the first day of the week; but I am not satisfied with this explanation. Sunday belongs indeed to the Lord, but the Scriptures nowhere call it “the Lord’s day.” None of the Christian writings, for 100 years after Christ, ever call it “the Lord’s day.” But there is a “Day of the Lord” largely treated of by prophets, apostles, and fathers, the meaning of which is abundantly clear and settled. It is that day in which, Isaiah says, men shall hide in the rocks for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty; — the day which Joel describes as the day of destruction from the Almighty, when the Lord shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake; — the day to which the closing chapter of Malachi refers as the day that shall burn as an oven, and in which the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings; — the day which Paul proclaimed from Mars’ Hill as that in which God will judge the world, concerning which he so earnestly exhorted the Thessalonians, and which was not to come until after a great apostasy from the faith, and the ripening of the wicked for destruction; — the day in the which, Peter says, the heavens shall be changed, the elements melt, the earth burn, and all present orders of things give way to new heavens and a new earth; — even “the day for which all other days were made.” And in that day I understand John to say, he in some sense was. In the mysteries of prophetic rapport, which the Scriptures describe as “in Spirit,” and which Paul declared inexplicable, he was caught out of himself, and out of his proper place and time, and stationed amid the stupendous scenes of the great day of God, and made to see the actors in them, and to look upon them transpiring before his eyes, that he might write what he saw, and give it to the Churches. This is what I understand by his being “in Spirit in the Lord’s day.”f1 I can see no essential difference between hJ Kuriakh hJmera — the Lord’s day, and hJ hJmera Kuriou — the day of the Lord. They are simply the two forms for signifying the same relations of the same things.f2 And if John was thus mystically down among the scenes of the last day, and has written only what he says he has written, that is “things that he saw;” it cannot be otherwise but that in dealing with the contents of this book we are dealing with what relates pre-eminently to the great Apocalypse and Epiphany of our Lord, when he cometh to judge the world in righteousness. And when we come to consider the actual contents of this book, we find them harmonizing exactly with this understanding of its title. It takes as its chief and unmistakable themes what other portions of the Scriptures assign to the great day of the Lord. It is nothing but Apocalypse from beginning to end. First we have the Apocalypse of Christ in his relation to the earthly Churches, and his judgment of them; then the Apocalypse of his relation to the glorified Church, and the marshalling of them for his forthcoming to judge the world; then the Apocalypse of his relation to the scenes of the judgment, as they are manifested on earth under the opening of the seals, the prophesying of the witnesses, and the fall of Babylon; then the Apocalypse of his actual manifestation to the world in the battle of the great day of God Almighty, the establishment of his kingdom, and the investiture of the saints in their future sovereignties; and finally the Apocalypse of his relation to the final act of judgment, the destruction of death and the grave, and the introduction of the final estate of a perfected Redemption. What, indeed, is all this, but just what was foretold by all the prophets, by Christ himself, and by all his apostles, as pertaining to THE DAY OF THE LORD? Verily, this book is but the rehearsal, in another and ampler manner, of what all the Scriptures tell us about the last day and the eternal judgment. It is pre-eminently The Apocalypse and Epiphany of Jesus Christ."

Blik · Aug 11, 2020

JustifiedMan said:

It was established on the seventh day of creation.

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

Blik said:

Agreed

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

I believe that the Sabbath is binding to the Christian on the basis that: Since the beginning, God rested on the seventh day which would later be made into the 4th of the Ten commandments.

"How many commandments are contained in the Ten Commandments? Does that sound like a foolish question? Then consider the fact that thousands of religious people would give an answer like “94” or “110.” You see, there is a strange belief on the part of many that the great God-written law of the Ten Commandments was actually a part of the ceremonial law of Moses which contained scores of specific regulations. They do not see the decalogue as being distinct and totally unique because of its divine authorship. Neither do they see the clear limitation which the Bible sets for this moral code by calling it the TEN Commandments.

It seems quite obvious that one would effectively do away with the “Ten Commandments” by mingling them with ninety or a hundred others and calling them “ordinances” instead of commandments. Such a radical effort has been made to dilute the force of the only words of the Bible which God wrote with His own hand. Furthermore, the claim has been advanced that since the Ten Commandments were a part of the mosaic law of ordinances that ended at the cross, we are no more obligated to obey the decalogue than we are to offer lambs in sacrifice.

Is there proof positive in the Scriptures that there was no such blending of the ceremonial and moral law into one? Can it be shown that the Ten Commandments were of a permanent, perpetual nature while the ceremonial law of statutes and ordinances came to an end when Jesus died? Indeed there is an abundance of evidence to answer these questions with a resounding yes!

God made known this distinction to His servant Moses, and Moses explained it to the people at Mt. Horeb. “And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it” (Deuteronomy 4:13, 14).

Please notice how Moses clearly separated the Ten Commandments, which “he commanded you,” from the statutes which “he commanded me” to give the people. The big question now is whether those statutes and judgments, which Moses passed on to the people, were designated as a separate and distinct “law.”

God answers that important question in such a way that no doubt can remain. “Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them” (2 Kings 21:8). Here we are assured that the statutes which Moses gave the people were called a “law.” Any child can discern that two different laws are being described. God speaks of the law “I commanded” and also the “law ... Moses commanded.” Unless this truth is understood properly, limitless confusion will result.

Daniel was inspired to make the same careful distinction when he prayed for the desolated sanctuary of his scattered nation. “Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him” (Daniel 9:11).

Once more we see “thy law” and “the law of Moses,” and this time the two are recognized as different in content. There are no curses recorded in the Ten Commandments that God wrote, but the law which Moses wrote contained an abundance of such curses and judgments.

The major point of difference between the law of God and the law of Moses, though, lies in the way they were recorded and preserved. We have already cited Moses’ statement that God “wrote them (the Ten Commandments) upon two tables of stone” (Deuteronomy 4:13). Compare that with Exodus 31:18, “two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.”

No one can confuse this writing with the way the mosaic law was produced. “And Moses wrote this law ... And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee” (Deuteronomy 31:9, 24-26). This book of statutes and judgments which Moses wrote in a book was placed in a pocket on the side of the ark. In contrast, the law written by God on tables of stone was placed inside the ark of the covenant. “And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee” (Exodus 25:16).

At this point we can note several distinctions in the two laws. They had different authors, were written on different material, were placed in different locations and had totally different content."
By Joe Crews
https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/book/e/27/t/feast-days-and-sabbaths

Dino246 · Aug 11, 2020

JustifiedMan said:

Can you tell me which passage in Scripture identifies which law in which category? Can you show any passages that even identify those three categories?

No.

Let that sink in, and then rethink your question.

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

Chapter 19 - Of the Law of God.
Section 1.) God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it; and endued him with power and ability to keep it.(1)
(1) Ge 1:26,27; Ge 2:17; Ro 2:14,15; Ro 10:5,12,19; Gal 3:10,12; Ecc 7:29; Job 28:28.
------------------------------------
Section 2.) This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables;(1) the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.(2)
(1) Jas 1:25; Jas 2:8,10,11,12; Ro 13:8,9; Dt 5:32; Dt 10:4; Ex 24:1. (2) Mt 22:37-40.
------------------------------------
Section 3.) Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances; partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits;(1) and partly of divers instructions of moral duties.(2) All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the new testament.(3)
(1) Heb 9; Heb 10:1; Gal 4:1,2,3; Col 2:17. (2) 1Co 5:7; 2Co 6:17; Jude 23. (3) Col 2:14,16,17; Da 9:27; Eph 2:15,16.
------------------------------------
Section 4.) To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.(1)
(1) Ex 21; Ex 22:1-29; Ge 49:10; 1Pe 2:13,14; Mt 5:17,38,39; 1Co 9:8-10.
------------------------------------
Section 5.) The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof;(1) and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God, the Creator, who gave it.(2) Neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.(3)
(1) Ro 13:8,9; Eph 6:2; 1Jn 2:3,4,7,8. (2) Jas 2:10,11. (3) Mt 5:17,18,19; Jas 2:8; Ro 3:31.
------------------------------------
Section 6.) Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned;(1) yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly;(2) discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives;(3) so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin;(4) together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience.(5) It is likewise of use to regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin;(6) and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law.(7) The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof,(8) although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works

9) so as a man's doing good, and refraining from evil because the law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law, and not under grace.(10)
(1) Ro 6:14; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:13; Gal 4:4,5; Ac 13:39; Ro 8:1. (2) Ro 7:12,22,25; Ps 119:4,5,6; 1Co 7:19; Gal 5:14,16,18-23. (3) Ro 7:7; Ro 3:20. (4) Jas 1:23,24,25; Ro 7:9,14,24. (5) Gal 3:24; Ro 7:24,25; Ro 8:3,4. (6) Jas 2:11; Ps 119:101,104,128. (7) Ezr 9:13,14; Ps 89:30-34. (8) Lev 26:1-14; 2Co 6:16; Eph 6:2,3; Ps 37:11; Mt 5:5; Ps 19:11. (9) Gal 2:16; Lk 17:10. (10) Ro 6:12,14; 1Pe 3:8-12; Ps 34:12-16; Heb 12:28,29.

Westminster COF

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

Francis Turretin, one of Calvin’s successors at Geneva in the middle years of the seventeenth century, has written: The law given by Moses is usually distinguished into three species: moral (treating of morals or of perpetual duties towards God and our neighbour); ceremonial (of the ceremonies or rites about the sacred things to be observed under the Old Testament); and civil (constituting the civil government of the Israelite people).2

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

Which Laws Apply?
by R.C. Sproul
To this day, the question of the role of the law of God in the Christian life provokes much debate and discussion. This is one of those points where we can learn much from our forebears, and John Calvin’s classic treatment of the law in his Institutes of the Christian Religion is particularly helpful. Calvin’s instruction comes down to us in what he calls the threefold use of the law with respect to its relevance to the new covenant.
The law, in its first use, reveals the character of God, and that’s valuable to any believer at any time. But as the law reveals the character of God, it provides a mirror to reflect to us our unholiness against the ultimate standard of righteousness. In that regard, the law serves as a schoolmaster to drive us to Christ. And one of the reasons that the Reformers and the Westminster divines thought that the law remained valuable to the Christian was because the law constantly drives us to the gospel. This also was one of the uses of the law that Martin Luther most strongly emphasized.
Second, the law functions as a restraint against sin. Now, on the one hand, the Reformers understood what Paul says in Romans 7 that in a sense the law prompts people to sin—the more of the law unregenerate people see, the more inclined they are to want to break it. Yet despite that tendency of the law, there still is a general salutary benefit for the world to have the restraints upon us that the law gives. Its warnings and threats restrain people from being as bad as they could be, and so civil order is preserved.
Third, and most important from Calvin’s perspective, is that the law reveals to us what is pleasing to God. Technically speaking, Christians are not under the old covenant and its stipulations. Yet, at the same time, we are called to imitate Christ and to live as people who seek to please the living God (Eph. 5:10; Col. 1:9–12). So, although in one sense I’m not covenantally obligated to the law or under the curse of the law, I put that out the front door and I go around the back door and I say, “Oh Lord, I want to live a life that is pleasing to You, and like the Old Testament psalmist, I can say, ‘Oh how I love Thy law.’” I can meditate on the law day and night because it reveals to me what is pleasing to God.
Let me give you a personal example. Several years ago, I was speaking in Rye, N.Y., at a conference on the holiness of God. After one of the sessions, the sponsors of the conference invited me to someone’s house afterward for prayer and refreshments. When I arrived at the house, there were about twenty-five people in the parlor praying to their dead relatives. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I said, “Wait a minute. What is this? We’re not allowed to do this. Don’t you know that God prohibits this, and that it’s an abomination in His sight and it pollutes the whole land and provokes His judgment?” And what was their immediate response? “That’s the Old Testament.” I said, “Yes, but what has changed to make a practice that God regarded as a capital offense during one economy of redemptive history now something He delights in?” And they didn’t have a whole lot to say because from the New Testament it is evident that God is as against idolatry now as He was then.
Of course, as we read Scripture, we see that there are some parts of the law that no longer apply to new covenant believers, at least not in the same way that they did to old covenant believers. We make a distinction between moral laws, civil laws, and ceremonial laws such as the dietary laws and physical circumcision. That’s helpful because there’s a certain sense in which practicing some of the laws from the Old Testament as Christians would actually be blasphemy. Paul stresses in Galatians, for example, that if we were to require circumcision, we would be sinning. Now, the distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial laws is helpful, but for the old covenant Jew, it was somewhat artificial. That’s because it was a matter of the utmost moral consequences whether they kept the ceremonial laws. It was a moral issue for Daniel and his friends not to eat as the Babylonians did (Dan. 1). But the distinction between the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws means that there’s a bedrock body of righteous laws that God gives to His covenant people that have abiding significance and relevance before and after the coming of Christ.
During the period of Reformed scholasticism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Reformed theologians said that God legislates to Israel and to the new covenant church on two distinct bases: on the basis of divine natural law and on the basis of divine purpose. In this case, the theologians did not mean the lex naturalis, the law that is revealed in nature and in the conscience. By “natural law,” they meant those laws that are rooted and grounded in God’s own character. For God to abrogate these laws would be to do violence to His own person. For example, if God in the old covenant said, “You shall have no other gods before Me,” but now He says, “It’s OK for you to have other gods and to be involved in idolatry,” God would be doing violence to His own holy character. Statutes legislated on the basis of this natural law will be enforced at all times.
On the other hand, there is legislation made on the basis of the divine purpose in redemption, such as the dietary laws, that when their purpose is fulfilled, God can abrogate without doing violence to His own character. I think that’s a helpful distinction. It doesn’t answer every question, but it helps us discern which laws continue so that we can know what is pleasing to God.

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

Here is my basis

Dino246 · Aug 11, 2020

JustifiedMan said:

The comments of men are not Scripture. There is no Scripture dividing the Law into categories.

Paul and James confirm that the Law is a unit (Galatians 3:10; James 2:10).

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

well which laws were done away with?

JustifiedMan · Aug 11, 2020

all of them? or the ones concerning sacrificial atonement?

Scribe · Aug 11, 2020

The original poster made an excellent point with a reference to Acts 15. For 2000 years many words have been spoken in an attempt to subvert souls to keep laws but none of them will ever change the Holy Ghost decision that went forth on that day...

22Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren: 23And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: 24Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment: 25It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth. 28For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Hebrews 4
1Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
3For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
7Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
8For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Colossians 2
14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: 11In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

16Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

Ask a sabbath keeper how he keeps the sabbath and you will not get two of them to give you the same answer.

Sabbath Obligation?

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