george@electro.com (George Reimer) (05/18/91)
I know I took a while to reply, but t'was a good study. ------------------------ In article <May.13.04.18.59.1991.14857@athos.rutgers.edu> hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr) writes: >The Old Testament Sabbath, though part of the Ten Commandemnts is part >of the Law. Although God kept the first Sabbath, he did not command >it before the Law, as he commanded things to Noah (which are reflected Actually He did. Prior to the Ten Commandments being given, the Israelites were required to keep the Sabbath. Read the relavent scriptures on manna. > >Paul writes in Collosions how that the curse of the law was removed >with the handwriting of the old ordinances being nailed to the cross. The curse of the law was not the Law itself but rather it was the death penalty demanded by the law . Read more about this further on. >But, of course, people are free to keep the Sabbath as they so choose. God always gave us this choice. Remember Deuteronomy? God implores us to choose His way. > >facet of the law of Moses? You seem to fail to realize that this is *God's Law* given to Moses. ------------------------ >george@electro.com (George Reimer) writes: >> To be saved you must endure to the end in the >> lifestyle which Christ set for us as an example. >> That lifestyle includes keeping the Sabbath . > >Then whither faith ? (or rather WITHER faith) >You won't find that attitude in the Bible - >"saved by faith & kept by works..." is what you seem to be saying. >I couldn't agree with you less... How can you reconcile such an >attitude to the assertion that we are saved by faith ALONE ??? Matthew 10:22, "He who endures to the end will be saved." ... and you are quite right, it is by the faith of Christ that we will be able to endure. There is nothing else by which we may aquire the strength to accomplish this feat. Take note also of what Paul says in Romans 3:24-25, " [ we are ] justified freely by His grace ... [ of ] the sins that were previously committed." The question is this. If grace pays the penalty of your past sins as Paul says it does, then what are you doing to avoid having the death penalty placed against you again? ( wages of sin is death ) Do you not go to Christ, our High Priest, and ask for forgiveness via His payment on the cross? What would happen if you didn't? Can you take this grace for granted? I know what my answers are. Let James convince you if anyone will : "But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" > >> Not whenever either, but rather, according to God's word, >> on the seventh day of the week. There is absolutely >> no Biblical support for keeping it on any other day. > >There is plenty of Biblical support - try reading the Bible >without 'illumination' from extra-scriptural sources - >eg. Col 2:16 (and there-abouts) ALL of Rom 14 and use a concordance >to find parallel verses. > >Jim. My illumination comes from God through the Holy Spirit. Listen to what God says as to how it was that He inspired His Word to be written: ( Isaiah 28:10-13 ) "For precept must be upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little, but to those that would not hear it was that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and caught. He is saying that you must learn His truth and carefully put it together a piece at a time, making sure it fits in truth with the rest of God's word. If you don't, and you try to make scripture say what *you* want it to then you will be caught like in a snare. This is exactly what is happening to those who wish to take scriptures like Paul's letter to the Colossians and use it for their own purposes. To put it another way, if what you say is true and God gave us freedom to change the day of the Sabbath, then you MUST be able to take the Scriptures and place them 'line upon line'; bringing out all Biblical teachings on the Sabbath, both Old and New, and fit them together in such a way that they will not contradict each other but rather will support each other. Why? because: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God..." ( 2 Tim. 3:16 ) You simply cannot support Sunday Sabbath keeping using Scripture. Even the Catholic Church acknowledges this position. Read the following quotations from Catholic literature. A quote from the Official Catholic Book, "Faith of our Fathers" by Cardinal Gibbons: "You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." A quote from the Catholic Doctrinal Catechism: "Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? Answer: All modern religionists agree with her... she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change forwhich there is no scriptural authority. Question: When Protestants do profane work upon Saturday... do they follow the Scripture as their only rule of faith? Answer: On the contrary, they have only the authority of tradition [ meaning the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church ] for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of God's commandments, which He has never clearly abrogated, 'Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.'" Claims that the Bible allows for Sunday Sabbath worship is 'truth' built like a "house of cards". Colossians seems to be one of the more commonly misunderstood passages of scripture. I believe that this is due mainly to the reader's failure to comprehend the context of the passage. I mean if you want to know what Paul is trying to say here, you have to know to whom he's speaking and why. Instead of trying to show that it gives license to avoid obeying God's Sabbath commandment, why not read Colossians again, keeping in mind the following points. You might just find that Paul had something quite different to say. i) This epistle was written to a group of Jewish Christians who had fallen prey to early Gnostic teachings. The Gnostics were persons who claimed to know all about God. This epistle has been alternatively titled "the Colossian Heresy". They were teaching an alternative way to God, through the worship of angels, because they thought that Christ hadn't completed them enough to approach God the Father. This is why Paul had to tell them in 2:10 that in Christ, they were complete. ii) The words translated 'handwriting of requirements' in the NKJ literally means record or certificate of debt ( check the marginal reference ). Paul is not referring to God's law here. In fact, the word law doesn't even appear in Colossians. Paul is talking about the *record of our sins* being nailed to the cross, not the *law*. Read it again and see if it doesn't make more sense! It is our sins that have been done away with. iii) Finally, verses 16 and 17 of chapter two. You might have understood by now that what Paul was discussing was false teachings in the Colossian Church and NOT the removal of God's law. More specifically, Paul is not discussing the abolishion of Sabbath laws, but on the contrary, he is *embedding* them even deeper through Christ. "Therefore let no man judge you in eating or drinking, or regarding feast day or a new moon or sabbaths, ( which are a shadow of things to come ) but the body of Christ." NOTICE! - let no man judge you but rather let the body of Christ do it! Paul is not giving you license to carry on as you please. He is instead giving instruction as to who it is that should judge you in keeping them. NOTICE! - these things *ARE* a shadow of things to come, not *WERE* The feasts and sabbaths etc. are refered to by Paul in the present tense, not the past. They weren't done away with. The snare is not punishment. God 'releases' us when we have the right attitude, one of humble submission to His word. ( don't get this wrong, He gave us a Spirit of Power and with it, we are to boldly approach His throne ) But remember, it is the fear of God that is the beginning of understanding. A fear not of trembling, but one of honour and respect and love. "If you love Me, keep my commandments" ------------------------ > >From: tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) > >george@electro.com (George Reimer) writes: >> To be saved you must .... >> >So then, is it your suggestion that in order to be saved we must >celebrate the Sabbath starting in the evening on Friday and continuing >through the evening on Saturday. (God will accept no other way of >celebrating the Sabbath. Paul was absolutely wrong, [or we have >misinterpreted him terribly.]) > Paul has been terribly misinterpreted. Answer me this. God created the Sabbath. It was specified to be the the seventh day of a seven day weekly cycle. God declared that this period of time was *holy*. We honor God by keeping those things holy which God has made holy. By what authority do you or any other man declare _unholy_ that which God has made holy?! And if you haven't and it still is holy, and you willingly profane it, how can you enter the Kingdom? >Scripture... >Reason... >Tradition... >Experience... Your arguments seem to be based upon the following premise, reason + tradition + experience >= scripture Instead it should be: scripture > reason + tradition + experience Direct scriptural authority simply overrides anything the other three may provide. I suspect that John W. would agree. ------------------------ >From watcgl!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!sliew Thu May 2 05:32:11 1991 >1. "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I >did not come to destroy but to FULFILL (emphasis mine)" Matt. 5:17 (vs 18) "for assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, on jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." You need the second part to understand what Christ is saying. the words translated "fufill" come from two different Greek words. The first one means to 'bring to full magnification'. Christ came to expand upon the meaning of God's Law. The second 'fulfilled' means 'until all has taken place'. There are events that are still outstanding. >2. "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the >righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means >enter the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:20 Christ was simply advocating adherence to the spirit of the law, not just the letter. If you do this, then you are no longer bound by the letter, but rather, in God-like fashion, by will. ( ie. God cannot lie because He wills not to ) Should your will fail, then the letter will still be there. ( but so will opportunity for repentence and further forgiveness ) >... He has fulfilled the ritualistic requirements > of the OT once and for all (Hebrews).... You might think I'm arguing semantics, but it is wrong to say that this is what scripture says. Hebrew 7:27 actually reads: Unlike previous high priests who were required first to make sacrifice for their own sins and then make another sacrifice for the people's sins, Christ needed to make only one single sacrifice once for all sins. By His great act Christ supplied the ultimate sacrifice, and brought an end to sacrifice and offering. This was just as prophecied in Daniel 9:27. ( Note that Christ also was prophesied to do this in the middle of the week, which He did, contrary to popular belief, being crucified at about 5pm on a Wednesday. ) The point is that a sacrifice was still made. Sacrifice wasn't done away with, but rather the penalty was paid in full and thus "full-filled". You also seem to imply that somehow the Sabbath Law was part of this ritualistic requirments package and therefore, also done away with. This is not correct. The Sabbath law existed even prior to Moses being given the Ten Commandments. The law of sacrifice however, was a law that was added because of the transgressions of the *already existing laws*. ( Galations ) You made various references to 'the rest' and used Hebrews as reference. I found those comments inconsistent with the scriptures. Rather than point by point , refer this outline of the major points in Hebrews 3-4. i) God rested on the 7th day from His creation. ( 4:4 ) ii) there is a promise of entering God's rest. ( 4:1 ) iii)entering Canaan was a type, a foreshadowing of entering God's rest. ( 3:7-11 ) iv) the true rest has yet to be entered . ( 4:7-8 ) v) therefore, because sabbath keeping pictures the true rest, there remains a keeping of the Sabbath for the people of God ( 4:9 ) Note: the word rest in 4:9 is a translated from a different word than the others in this chapter. In 4:9 it is 'sabbatismos', which means a keeping of God's sabbath. This is different from Matthew 11:28 where Christ says 'I will give you rest'. The Greek word here is 'annapow', which means refreshment. Having this insight should help understand the intent that the scriptures are talking about two different things. And finally, while we're in Hebrews, examine chapter 3:7-11. It is a reference to Ezekiel 20:12-16. God is quoted as saying that those who are in rebellion will not enter His rest. Guess what specific kind of rebellion it was? Well wouldn't ya' know it, it was the breaking of the Sabbath command! -- ___________________________________________ |---|---|line--upon--line---|---|---|---|---| watmath!watcgl!electro!george |---|--building the foundations-|---|---|---|---| george@electro.com [I always find it odd to see Protestants cite this Catholic explanation of Sunday worship. It's pretty clear that the context of these arguments was an attempt to find examples to support the authority of tradition. It was hardly an unbiased treatment of the development of Sunday worship. Do you really regard the Catholic sources you quote as definitive sources of Scriptural interpretation? --clh]
hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr) (05/19/91)
In your last message, you wrote that in Collosions 2:16-17, Paul was saying that by saying that no man should judge us in our eating meat, or drinking, or in respect of a holy day, or the new moon, or of the sabbath days, Paul was actually saying that these things were binding on us! Frankly I am appalled. I am glad that you recognize that the word sabbath refers to every sabbath including the one that occurs most often (which is indeed the most obvious meaning of the word.) Look at this verse. paul is not instructing us to keep the cerimonial injunctions of the Torah. Look at the first part of the verse. If he was commaning us to keep these ordinances, he would not have said that it was okay for us to eat any kind of meat. Gentiles ate pork. Of course, there were some who did not eat meat at all. But if this is refering only to the law, then it is logical to assume that Paul is saying it is okay to eat pork. If this is the case, then Paul is not instructing us to keep parts of the law, but to choose whether or not we want to. "or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon," Do we (Gentile Christians specifically now) have to keep all the Jewish holy days and new moons now? Certainly not. Why don't we all go out and make sure every man is circumcised if we are going to say that all these holidays are binding on Gentiles. The council at Jerusalem decided not to put on the Gentiles a yoke that they could not even bear. And also notice that he Sabbath was not in the instructions to the Gentiles. Either Paul is telling us to keep all these things, or he is telling us we can and do not have to. Now let us look at the Sabbath. the Sabbath is included in this list. If what you said was true, then Paul wants us all to keep Yom Kipper, the New Moons, etc, and the Sabbath. that is not what Paul was saying. Paul fought the Judaisers because they wanted to turn the TGentiles into Jewish prostelytes. I don't think that Paul would write to the Gentiles that they had to keep these laws. Nor do I think that Christians should turn Jews into Gentiles. Go ahead and keep the New Moon. It is only a shadow. But there is nothing wrong with shadows. What do you think about Romans 14. Look at verses 5 and 6 specifically. I esteem every day alike in my own mind. It is good for you to be persuaded in your own mind. I do not base my beliefs on the subject on tradition. I base it on Scripture. Link Hudson