7th Day Sabbath not for New Testament believers

[mfblume]

Hebrews Chapters 3 through 4 uses the combined picture of entrance into Canaan and 7th day Sabbath rest a shadows of the greater rest no one had entered after people did enter sabbath day and Canaan rests. David noted that no one entered this THIRD and greater rest. Hebrews 4 picks up on that and says this greater rest is in Christ's rest.

Christ created a NEW creation and rested. The work Christ endured covered a three day period on the cross, as opposed to 6 in the first creation. It is interesting that Israel was to make a THREE DAY journey from Sinai to enter Canaan's REST in Numbers 10.

Numbers 10:33 And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them.

Canaan was called a REST.

Israel doubted they could enter that rest, and angered God who then told them they'd wander in the wilderness until they died, so the children beneath 20 years of age at the time of their unbelief would go in and rest without them, except for Joshua and Caleb who believed.

It took one day to arrive at Taberah. There they stayed for a month, but actual journeying to get there was a day.

Then they Journeyed to Hazeroth for one day's worth of travel. There they stayed a week.

Then a third day of actual travelling took them to the wilderness of Paran where they stayed over a month or so, from where they also sent spies to spy out the REST of Canaan land.


Hebrews 4 says this unbelief due to the fear of the giant and walls caused them to not enter the rest and warns us to likewise not fear lest we not enter this greater rest.

And the writer pulls sabbath day into the picture by saying God finished his work on and rested the seventh day, and people would not enter. This combines the seventh day with Canaan, and shows us a picture of entering CHRIST'S rest which occurred after HE WORKED three days on the cross and SAT DOWN TO REST, where Hebrews 10 says is the right hand throne. He sat down indicating his work was FINISHED, as God finished his work on and rested the seventh day in Genesis 2.

Sabbath day is in honour of OLD creation. Christ's rest is in honour of NEW CREATION.

When we disbelieve and don't enter OUR rest of the new covenant, it is due to a refusal to accept the fact that Christ finished his work in supplying a perfect sacrifice that purged our sins. We do not go to Christ's throne where He rested to find help in the time of need when we do not fully believe Christ finished the work. We think WE have work to do to complete ourselves, when Christ already did. This is all noted in Hebrews 4.

ANd this is picked up again in Chapter 10 where we're told that 1,500 years of sacrifices under law could not purge the conscience of the offerers. But Christ offered ONE sacrifice on ONE DAY, and then endured two more days when He resurrected. He then ascended into heaven's true holiest and SAT DOWN, while priests of old covenant never sat down since their sacrifices never completed the job of purging sins. So, we MUST ENTER this holiest which is the REST where Christ sat down and rested, knowing our sins were remitted, and no more offering for sins is needed!

So, Hebrews 10 pulls a third picture into the RESTS of Sabbath day and Canaan. ATONEMENT of Christ.

The whole point of the entire book of Hebrews is to show a better covenant, a better sabbath and a better most holy place made by a better sacrifice!

So, to adhere to seventh day is to not realize the better sabbath and better creation has come through Christ!! This greater sabbath is not a mere 24 hour day from a worldly period of time which accounts for law being a schoolmaster comprised of the elements (as in elementary school) of the world (as in physical days comprised of hours).

[Steven Avery]

mfblume, can you state in a short paragraph your position on the decalogue as a whole and the creation 7th-day sabbath word within the decalogue. Thanks.

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Please keep it simple. e.g. abrogated, spiritualized, transferred, dispensational. Try not to go far afield. Any relevance for today?

Be sure to comment on the 10 as a group, and the sabbath individually.

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Thanks!

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Again you use this argument after I fully responded to it MANY times.

Sabbath is not destroyed. IT IS FULFILLED with the GREATER sabbath of rest that Christ entered into after he did the work of NEW creation on the cross, that we must also enter according to Hebrews 4.

You occasionally ("MANY times"?) refer to the Sabbath as ritual, and have expressed the idea that as Christians we have moved beyond ritual. Thus, my statement, showing that the line of reasoning that goes "Sabbath keeping is ritual, but we're above all that" is erroneous and result in conclusions only the most hardcore antinomian pietists would accept. Thus, not only is that line of reasoning about ritual false, it also reduces to an absurdity. "That which proves too much, proves nothing."

Nothing else in the commandments is like that,

Like what, exactly?

and spelled out that way as sabbath is in Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4 teaches this. There is no teaching anywhere in the bible that lists a commandment like sabbath and shows it is a shadow like Hebrews 4 and Colossians 2 showed about sabbath.

The weekly Sabbath is mentioned two times in chapter 4: in verses 4 and 10; possibly a third time depending on how one views verse 9. The weekly Sabbath is NOT the subject of chapter 4. The "rest" spoken of as the subject of the chapter, in verses 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11 are NOT about the weekly seventh day Sabbath rest, but about a rest that God has which is available to God's people. (Verse 10 contains an allusion to both types of rest, and again verse 9 is disputable as to which rest is in view, depending on one's understanding of the verse as previously mentioned.)

There is a rest God has, which He makes available to His people. Israel under Joshua did not enter that rest. They did keep the weekly Sabbath, however. So we know the rest which is the subject of the chapter isn't THAT (weekly Sabbath) rest, but something else. They couldn't enter it because of the hardness of their unbelieving hearts. Paul references Psalm 95 repeatedly in this connection, and shows there was and still is a rest for the people of God. And, important to note, this is NOT the weekly Sabbath rest.

Paul brings in the weekly Sabbath in verse 4 to prove a point he made in verse 3, that there is a rest for the people of God, entered into by those who believe, that God in the Psalm said the unbelieving (like those in the wilderness) will not and cannot enter into that rest. ALTHOUGH GOD'S WORKS WERE FINISHED FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, as the Scripture says "And God rested from all His works." Paul is pointing out the Divine rest he is talking about is NOT the weekly Sabbath rest, it is something none of unbelieving Israel was able to enter into, it IS something the believers enter into.

Paul is NOT teaching "the weekly Sabbath is a type and shadow of the believer's rest in God by faith." Rather, he is pointing out the believer's rest in God by faith is NOT the weekly Sabbath rest, that the weekly Sabbath rest is NOT the only "rest" God desires His people to enter into. It is, in fact, "another day", specifically "TODAY, if you will hear His voice, and not harden your heart."

Verse 10 points out that when a man enters his rest, he ceases from his labours, like God ceased from the works of Creation on the seventh day. The point is that those who believe cease from their labours, that is, their works, when they enter into Covenant with God by faith in Christ. They cease from dead works (sin, transgressing God's commandments), they cease from trying to be justified (declared righteous) by the works of the law (the old covenant with its various sacrifices for sin, which cannot truly purify the heart).

Paul is not in any way saying those who become believers cease to obey the commandments of God, nor is he saying the weekly Sabbath is a dispensible shadow of the believer's rest in Christ.

What is the rest? What is Paul's entire point? It is summarized in verses 13-16, especially verse 16 which is a summation of the whole argument: we are to come to the mercy seat (throne of grace) and find mercy and help by virtue of our high priest Jesus Christ, rather than the Levitical system of sin offerings and Aaronic priests which Israel of old had, but which did not enable them to enter in to the Divine rest.

But people still write as though this was never stated in rebuttal.

Errors being repeated require repeated corrections. It is interesting that in all this discussion, where Paul is supposedly teaching what YOU teach, he never actually says what you say, nor concludes what you conclude. He never says "the seventh day Sabbath is a shadow of our rest in God, it is a shadow of Jesus, it is a shadow of His physical body, it is a shadow of the church" (which, exactly, is it, anyway?). He never bothers to take this most splendid and opportune time to simply say "Therefore stop resting on the seventh day of the week." Funny, that.

[Esaias]

Regarding "it is fulfilled", the argument is thus:

The Fourth Commandment tells us to enact a ritual that typifies a higher spiritual reality. That reality was fulfilled in Christ, and so by being in Christ, we obey the " true meaning" of the Fourth Commandment, and are freed from obligation to re-enact the typifying ritual."

This argument contains an unspoken premise, namely, "If the higher spiritual reality of a typical action is achieved, the typical action is dispensed with."

But this is not true.

The Lord's Supper is a recurring, ritual action that typifies or represents higher spiritual realities: not only the historical death of Jesus, but the making of the New Covenant, the (new) Atonement accomplished, the (new) Passover offered and eaten, the uniting of believers into the mystical Body of Christ, the spiritual unity of believers with one another, and the spiritual unity of the believers with Christ, etc. These spiritual realities have taken place, the believer partakes of those higher realities by faith, through union with Christ.

So then, the Lord's Supper is now "fulfilled" and we need not actually DO it? We may dispense with the typical physical action of blessing, breaking and sharing the loaf of bread, and of blessing and sharing the cup? Well, if the argument about "fulfillment" concerning the Sabbath is correct, the answer is YES, and the "spiritual communion" folks have it right.

And, so do the Quakers, in regard to their doing away with water baptism, and for the exact same reasons.

[Esaias]

Paul is not in any way saying those who become believers cease to obey the commandments of God

Hebrews 8:10 brings this out quite clearly:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

The New Covenant is characterized by God writing His laws in the hearts and minds of His people. He does not say, "I will take away the old laws, and give them new laws". He says He will write His laws in their hearts.

The Old Covenant had God's laws written on tables of stone, and in a book. The New Covenant has God's laws written in the mind and heart. This is further brought out in chapter 9:13-14:

13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

The New Covenant results in a purging of the heart and mind. What is purged out? "Dead works." The result? The ability to serve God (obey God). In other words, the New Covenant purges out sin (transgressions, breaking of God's commandments) and replaces it with genuine obedience to the commandments of God. As Paul says in chapter 10 of the same epistle:

5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
15 Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

The old covenant with its sacrifices could never actually take away sins (transgressions). But the New Covenant does, because the offering of Christ sanctifies and perfects the believer, who now has God's laws written in his heart and mind.

So, it is completely contrary to the teaching of the apostle that the New Covenant authorized us to transgress the commandments of God, including the Fourth Commandment, which specifically says to remember the Sabbath DAY to keep IT holy.

[Esaias]

Regarding the "new creation doing away with seventh day Sabbath" argument.

This is an old argument, typified in the Epistle of Barnabas. This argument is, in fact, the basis for Sunday keeping. Jesus did a "new creation" (the traditional argument places it on resurrection Sunday, not the day of His death, by the way) and we are to celebrate this new creation by keeping the first day of the week, instead of the seventh day of the week which is a memorial to the old creation.

Jesus resurrecting on the first of the week is interpreted as "the eighth day" (day after the weekly Sabbath), which becomes emblematic of the resurrection, the new creation, the new and better covenant, etc. See the Epistle of Barnabas for a concise statement of the argument:

Barnabas 15:8
Finally He saith to them; Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot
away with. Ye see what is His meaning ; it is not your present
Sabbaths that are acceptable [unto Me], but the Sabbath which I have
made, in the which, when I have set all things at rest, I will make
the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another
world.
Barnabas 15:9
Wherefore also we keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which
also Jesus rose from the dead, and having been manifested ascended
into the heavens.

This Sunday keeping, tied theologically to "new creation", resurrection, and the "eighth day/first day", gave rise to the ochtoechoi, or "eight modes" in Byzantine church music, and "eight tones" in Western (Gregorian) church music, the number eight being used as a template for modes or scales. These modes are, by the way, the basis of all Western music (folk, country, blues, rock, pop, classical, Baroque, Genevan psalm tunes, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant hymnody, including all the tunes in the UPC hymnbook).

But all this new creation, eighth day philosophy is a gnostic theology, derived from the cult of Sol Invictus (Roman Sun God, known as Mithra, Ra, Baal, etc) and imported into Christendom via the catholic heretics. Along with their Sunday keeping and anti seventh day Sabbath beliefs, they also brought in other pagan solar worship ideas, such as triads and trinities, clericalism, sacramentalism (talismanic ritual magick), and neo-Platonic ideas concerning "higher spiritual realities, or Idealism".

The pagan solar worshippers were obsessed with the number 8, as typified in the 8 holy days of Celtic Druidism, the "Feast in the Eighth Month" instituted by solar Baal worshipping king Jereboam as an alternative to Tabernacles, etc. It is interesting that sun god worshippers have a consistent history of attempting to institute solar days and paradigms as substitutes and replacements for God's appointed times, especially the weekly seventh day Sabbath.

The phrase "new creation" does not appear in the Bible, according to MySword. The phrase "new creature" occurs twice (2 Cor 5:17, and Gal 6:15), and refers to the believer being a new person with a new life.

I have not found any Bible verses which speak of "God doing a New Creation on the cross, or at the resurrection", as in a higher, newer antitype to the original six day Creation. It is a popular belief amongst Christians, but I suspect that is due to the pervasiveness of sun worship and solar religious ideas rampant in Christendom.

[Esaias]

Me: Paul said they are shadows of things to come. Did those things come? What were those things, and when did they come?

Blume: Yes they came.

The thing that sabbath day was a shadow of was Christ's rest after the work of NEW CREATION when he sat down on the right hand throne after the work of the cross and atonement

Christ sat down upon the right hand of God BEFORE Paul wrote that the new moons etc are a shadow of things to come. Therefore, you do err.

Whatever the "things" are that the new moons etc are a shadow of, they were things "to come" when Paul wrote what he wrote. He said they ARE shadows of coming things, ARE, present tense. So whatever they were shadows of, it hadn't yet come when Paul wrote Colossians. Since Jesus came, died, resurrected, ascended, and sat down on the right hand of power, it is plainly clear THAT cannot be the "things to come", since THAT already came.

And therefore they are NOT a shadow of Christ's prior or current work, rest, ascension, enthronement, etc.

The rest of your entire argumentation concerning Colossians fails on that simple point.

[Esaias]

More on "new creation vs seventh day Sabbath":

Campbellite website bible.ca (Canadians, eh?) says this:

The first day of the week (Sunday)
The weekly memorial of the new creation and our deliverance from sin.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Cor 5:17)"

...


Notice that Athanasius, in about 345 AD actually stated that that the Sabbath was a memorial of the first creation and that Sunday was a memorial of the new creation in Christ:
345 AD Athanasius "The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord's day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord's day as being the memorial of the new creation" (On Sabbath and Circumcision 3).

...

In honor of our new creation and new redemption, Christians honor the day that made it all possible - the first day of the week:

...

The resurrection of Christ was on the first day of the week. This is the foundation of the Christian religion.

...

This is why the day of the Sun, or Sunday, is the day the early Christians consistently referred to as the "Lord's Day" (Revelation 2:10) in all their writings in the first, second, third, and later centuries.
The seventh day of the week belongs to the "ministration of death, written and engraven in stones" (2 Corinthians 3:7). This is the only full day our Lord was dead. Instead of remembering this day given under the Old Law, let us remember and rejoice on the first day of the week, the day our Lord rose from the dead and made true salvation possible. http://www.bible.ca/7-sunday-weekly-...w-creation.htm

What is interesting, is the Bible does speak of a "new heavens and new earth". This would certainly qualify as a "new creation" in the cosmic sense as an antitype to the original six day Creation. But even more interesting is God said His Sabbath and new moons would feature prominently in that new creation!


Isaiah 66


22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.
23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.

Notice too the "all flesh", indicating the universality of Sabbath keeping in the new heavens and new earth.

[Esaias]

When not arguing that the Sabbath is a shadow of Jesus' work on the cross, or His exaltation and enthronement, or of the church, or of a new cosmic Creation, antisabbatarians will sometimes bring in the "Sabbath is a shadow of the Holy Ghost, which is the rest signified by the Sabbath. So we enter the Sabbath rest by receiving the Holy Ghost."


From the other thread "Why Don't Muslims Keep Sabbath?" :

Isaiah was rebuking Israel for unbelief, and Paul kept the same context (unbelievers would conclude Christians are crazy if there's a bunch of tongues and no interpretation). Isaiah was speaking of chastising Israel through foreign oppression, the foreign tongues wasn't the rest nor was the Holy Ghost the rest. The rest was the Way appointed by God (see Jeremiah 6:16) which is exactly in line with what Jesus said about His doctrine and lordship (Matt 11:29). Paul did not say the Holy Ghost is the rest, he was saying (unknown) tongues (alone) will not bring people to obedience, which is exactly what Isaiah was saying.

Quote: Blume
Jesus came to give rest .

Matt 11:..29....Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Finding rest is dependent upon submitting to Jesus' yoke, which means His teachings/commandments (John 15:10). There is no rest for those who do not obey His commandments. And His commandments include "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy", because it was Christ who led Israel and Christ is the incarnate Word of God.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Esaias

When not arguing that the Sabbath is a shadow of Jesus' work on the cross, or His exaltation and enthronement, or of the church, or of a new cosmic Creation, antisabbatarians will sometimes bring in the "Sabbath is a shadow of the Holy Ghost, which is the rest signified by the Sabbath. So we enter the Sabbath rest by receiving the Holy Ghost."

Which raises the question, "Why don't antisabbatarians seem to know exactly what the Sabbath is supposed to represent?"