Keeping the Sabbath

Jan001

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I was asked this question and thought it would be more appropriate to answer here. . .



No, I do not work on the Sabbath. I personally don't look at the Sabbath as to what we can't do (although I used to in times past). I look at it as holy time (communion) with our Savior on His holy day. Exodus 20:10, Isaiah 58:13 This is what God wants, we work six days Exodus 20:9 and rest in His Word on the seventh day. For me personally I do this through going to Church (holy convocation Leviticus 23:3 and the example Jesus left Luke 4:16-22). I spend time in bible study, prayer, in nature and making the day about God. God's promises blessings when we keep this commandment- I find it to be really true! Isaiah 58:13-14

My friend @Freth posted this a while back which has some really good information

Scriptures tells us what the purpose of the Sabbath is.

Exodus 20:8-11
  • The Sabbath is called a day of rest.
  • We are told to remember the Sabbath.
  • We are told to keep the Sabbath holy.
  • Why? (verse 11) "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." (A reference to creation.)
Exodus 31:16-17
  • The Sabbath is to be kept.
  • The Sabbath is to be observed throughout our generations.
  • The Sabbath is called a sign between us and God.
  • The Sabbath is a perpetual covenant.
  • The Sabbath is a day of rest and refreshment.
  • Why? (verse 17) "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed." (A reference to creation.)
Isaiah 58:13-14
  • The Sabbath is called a holy day.
  • We are given a promise of rich blessings:
    • If we turn our foot away from doing our own pleasure, or our own ways.
    • If we do not speak our own words.
    • If we keep it holy.
    • If we call the Sabbath a delight.
    • If we call the Sabbath the holy of the Lord, honorable, and honor Him.
    • If we delight ourselves in the Lord.
  • Why? (Verse 14) "For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (A reference to creation.)
Revelation 14:6-7
  • The first angel's message is a call to worship:
    • The gospel goes to the world.
    • Fear God.
    • Give him Glory.
    • Worship Him.
  • Why? (verse 7) "For the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (A reference to creation.)

Conclusions:

If the Sabbath is...
  • A holy day.
  • A day of rest.
  • A day to remember.
  • A perpetual covenant.
  • To be observed throughout our generations.
...then the Sabbath is a day of worship. Case in point: Exodus 23:3 calls the Sabbath a holy convocation.

---

Regarding the argument that the Sabbath is specifically for Israel:

If...
...then we are Israel.

---

If God consistently points back to creation in association with the Sabbath, then the Sabbath is a memorial of creation itself. God instituted the Sabbath at creation so that...
  • We would not forget that we are created beings.
  • We would have a day set aside to commune with God.
  • We would have a day of rest, to recharge, and to re-center ourselves with God after a long work week.
  • We would have a schedule where we could look forward to it and call it a delight.
  • We would have a clear set day of worship.
God doesn't ask for seven days of worship, He asks for one.

There is a lot more that could be written on the subject, but I think this gives a clear understanding of what the purpose of the Sabbath is.
The 7th day Sabbath was commanded for the ethnic Israelites/Jews. We Christians are spiritual Israel, which includes both ethnic Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians with no distinctions between them under the New Covenant.

Regarding Romans 11:11-24, both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians are branches of the same olive tree. The root of the olive tree is God/Jesus. The branches of the olive tree represent the people of God which includes both ethnic Jews and non-Jews. Gentiles do not ever become ethnic Jews. It was the ethnic Israelites/Jews who were commanded by God to keep the 7th day Sabbath. Exodus 31:13

The Christian Gentiles were never commanded to keep the 7th day Sabbath. They were commanded by Jesus to keep the Lord's Day which commemorates Jesus' victory over death. Luke 6:4-5, Revelation 1:10

Acts 20:7 On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. Luke 22:19-20

1 Corinthians 16:2
On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come.

The Old Covenant is but a shadow of the New Covenant. The New Covenant has new laws.

Paul warns the Colossian non-Jewish Christians to pay no attention to the Judaizer Christians who keep insisting that the non-Jew converts to Christianity be circumcised and that they keep the sabbaths and feasts of the Jews. Paul was plagued by the Judaizers who were continually attempting to undermine his preaching. Galatians 5:1-15

Colossians 2:11-17
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. 16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Ephesians 2:11-16
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.

I will continue to worship and rest on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week just as Jesus commanded. :)
 
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SabbathBlessings

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The 7th day Sabbath was commanded for the ethnic Israelites/Jews. We Christians are spiritual Israel, which includes both ethnic Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians with no distinctions between them under the New Covenant.

Regarding Romans 11:11-24, both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians are branches of the same olive tree. The root of the olive tree is God/Jesus. The branches of the olive tree represent the people of God which includes both ethnic Jews and non-Jews. Gentiles do not ever become ethnic Jews. It was the ethnic Israelites/Jews who were commanded by God to keep the 7th day Sabbath. Exodus 31:13
I agree we are spiritual Israel, but the Ten Commandments, was God's covenant, not the covenant of the Jews. The Ten Commandments included the Sabbath- you throw out the Sabbath you throw our the other 9 commandments James 2:10-12 Mat 5:19-30 and I sure hope you are not suggesting you have freedom to worship other gods, vain God's holy name, covet, murder etc.

Deut 4:13 13 So He (God) declared to you His (God) covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

Jesus clears this up who the Sabbath was made for as He said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath and He would know as he is the Lord and Creator of the Sabbath. Mark 2:27-28 Man came first Gen 1:26, was made on the sixth day in the image of God before any Jew just man, right before the very first Sabbath in the Garden God's perfect plan prior to sin. Genesis 2:1-3 Exo 20:11

The Lord once again tells us the Sabbath is made for everyone Isa 56:6, this is the Lord speaking so your disagreement will have to be taken up with a much higher Authority

Right in the Sabbath commandment it clearly shows its meant for everyone…

Exo 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

The Sabbath points us back to Creator. Exo 20:11 Rev 14:7 There are many gods of this world that many make but when we keep the Sabbath it shows our allegiance is to the one True God, the only God who has the power to Create and the power to Sanctify Eze 20:12 Eze 20:20

The Christian Gentiles were never commanded to keep the 7th day Sabbath. They were commanded by Jesus to keep the Lord's Day
You say this with such authority but yet have not provided one scripture where there is a commandment to keep the first day in scripture. And you have also not provided one scripture that says the Lords Days is the first day. You would first need to find where God in His own Words says that. God identified His chosen day both spoken and written in clear, easy to understand words that He says the Sabbath is My holy day. Does God not have the authority to choose His day over man who choose a day that God deemed a working day Exo 20:9 and exalts that over one of His own commandments Exo 20:10? The same day God hallowed? As we are made in His image to follow Him, not do our own thing.

God wrote and God spoke....
Exo 20: 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Isaiah 58:13
“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

God truly could not have made this more clearer and they are thus saith the Lord attached so your agreement against is not with me. I just advocate we obey and listen to God the way He asks, not the way we want.


which commemorates Jesus' victory over death. Luke 6:4-5, Revelation 1:10
Revelation 1:10 says nothing about the Lords day being day 1- the only way one gets that is to add to God's holy Word- something we are told clearly not to do Pro 30:5-6 especially over the commandments Deu 4:2 that God wrote and God spoke Exo 31:18 Exo 32:16 and no man has authority to alter one word to His holy and eternal law. Mat 5:17-19

No doubt our Lord rose on the first day and kept the Sabbath in rest even in death. But yet not once did He tell anyone before or after His death there would be a change to one of finger written commandments He would have told someone obeying something from silence in lieu of God's spoken and written commandment seems like a bad idea. Jesus faithful followers kept the Sabbath after the cross Luke 23:56 as did the disciples decades after the cross Acts 13:42-44 Acts 18:4 so if any change was made it did not come from Jesus or the disciples, but we were warned the Sabbath would be changed not by God Dan 7:25 and we see history playing out this prophecy perfectly.


It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church.
—Priest Brady, in an address, reported in the Elizabeth, NJ ‘News’ on March 18, 1903

Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which 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 for which there is no Scriptural authority.
—Rev. Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism; New York in 1857, page 174

We can either follow man or follow God. It’s a choice we all will have to make.

Acts 20:7 On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. Luke 22:19-20
Where is the commandment in this verse to keep the first day holy? It says they broke bread , meaning they had a meal, which is what the apostles did daily, that does not make all days holy. You need a thus saith the Lord to deem a daily holy or common.

Acts 2:46
So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
1 Corinthians 16:2
On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come.
Again, where is the command to keep the first day holy?

"Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." Instead of proving that Sunday was kept as the new Sabbath, this text actually proves the opposite. Paul instructs the Corinthians to set funds aside at home on the first day so that no offerings need to be taken during worship on the Sabbath.
The Old Covenant is but a shadow of the New Covenant. The New Covenant has new laws.

Paul warns the Colossian non-Jewish Christians to pay no attention to the Judaizer Christians who keep insisting that the non-Jew converts to Christianity be circumcised and that they keep the sabbaths and feasts of the Jews. Paul was plagued by the Judaizers who were continually attempting to undermine his preaching. Galatians 5:1-15
Galatians is mainly about circumcision and that is the law being referred to in Galatians, nothing about the Sabbath. Paul makes clear what matters

1 Cor 7:19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters.

The Sabbath is a commandment of God spoken and written personally by God
Colossians 2:11-17
In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. 16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Col 2:14 gives context to this passage and Co 2:17 shows what it points to...Hebrews 10:1-10

Col 2:14 gives the context Blotting 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;

The ordinances were handwritten by Moses 2 Chronicles 33:8 The Ten Commandments were finger written by God Exo 32:16 Exo 31:18 the Ten Commandments are not grievous 1 John 5:3 but perfect Psa 19:7 the law of Moses which contained the ordinances was set outside the covenant as a witness against (contrary) Deuteronomy 31:26 so the context if carefully examined is clear it has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments but the ordinances relating to the sacrificial system as Christ became our Sacrificial Lamb.1 Cor 5:7 Hebrews 10:1-10 that is what ended at the cross the Ten Commandments God's eternal law is kept by God's faithful until the very end of time Rev 14:12 Rev 22:14-15 and what defines sin Romans 7:7 and what we will be judged by James 2:10-12 Mat 5:19-30 hence why it is under God's mercy seat in heaven Rev 11:19

There is more than one Sabbath in scripture, the weekly Sabbath is not a shadow of anything as it points back to Creation "Remember" and came before the fall of man. The annual sabbath(s) in ordinances that were handwritten by Moses that had to do with food and sacrifices all pointed forward to Christ as He became our Passover and Sacrificial Lamb 1 Cor 5:7 Hebrews 1:1-10 so instead of bringing animal sacrifices for sins we can go directly to Jesus when we confess and repent which means a turn in direction. Sin is still the same as the Old Covenant- the transgression of God's law 1 John 3:4 the Ten Commandments Romans 7:7

God blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy, only God can reverse His blessing Num 23:20 and there is no thus saith the Lord that He reversed His holy Sabbath commandment.

Ephesians 2:11-16
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.
It's the ordinances that were abolished, not the commandments which does not reconcile with the teachings of Jesus Mat 19:17-19, Ma 5:19-30, Mat 15:3-9 Mark 7:7-8

15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,

The ordinances that had to do with animal sacrifices, circumcision not God;s eternal commandments that the earthy Temple was patterned after Heb 8:1-5 where lies God’s eternal Ten Commandments that He wrote and He spoke Exo 31:18 Exo 32:16 and no man has the authority to change one word. Deut 4:2 and what we will all be judged by James 2:10-12 Mat 5:19-30 Ecc 12:13-14
I will continue to worship and rest on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week just as Jesus commanded. :)
We have free will, but Jesus warns us when we keep our traditions which is what Sunday keeping is over the commandments of God which is what the Sabbath is Exo 20:8-11 once worships in vain Mark 7:7-8 Mat 15:3-9 so seems like a bad idea, we are called to have the same faith of Jesus Rev 14:12 who kept all of the commandments John 15:10 including Sabbath keeping Luke 4:16 and He is our example to follow 1 John 2:6
 
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