Posted on 09/20/2006 10:14:32 AM PDT by Buggman
The answer to both your questions can be found here (or in the rest of the article):
III. We shall now attempt to show the ground on which the Sabbath "from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath." This proof is chiefly historical, and divides itself into two branches, the inspired and the uninspired. The first proceeds upon two plain principles. One is, that example may be as valid and instructive a guide to duty as precept. Or, to state it in another form, the precedent set by Christ and his apostles may be as binding as their command. The other is, that whatever necessarily follows from Scripture "by good and necessary consequence" is as really authorized by it as "what is expressly set down."Our first argument shows that every probability is in favor of the Sunday's being now God's day, in advance of particular testimony. We prove under the first main head that a Sabbath institution is universal and perpetual -- that the command to keep it holy belongs to that law from which one jot or one tittle cannot pass till heaven and earth pass. But the apostle Paul (in Col. 2:16, 17) clearly tells us that the seventh day is no longer the Sabbath. It has been changed. To what other day has it been changed? The law is not totally repealed; it cannot be. What day has taken the place of the seventh? None is so likely to be the substitute as the Lord's day; this must be the day.
The main direct argument is found in the fact that Christ and his apostles did, from the very day of the resurrection, hallow the first day of the week as a religious day. To see the full force of this fact we must view it in the light of the first argument. We remember that the disciples, like all men of all ages, are bound by the Decalogue to keep holy God's Sabbath. We see them remit the observance of the seventh day as no longer binding, and we see them observing the first. Must we not conclude that these inspired men regarded the authority of God as now attaching to this Lord's day?
We shall find, then, that the disciples commenced the observance of the first day on the very day of Christ's resurrection, and thenceforward continued it. John 20:19 tells us that the "same day, being the first day of the week," the disciples were assembled at evening with closed doors, and Christ came and stood in the midst. Can we doubt that they met for worship? In the twenty-sixth verse we learn, "And after eight days again the disciples were within, and Thomas with them" (who had been absent before). "Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." None will doubt that this was also a meeting for worship, and the language implies that it was their second meeting. Now, it is admitted by all that the Jews, in counting time, always included in their count the days with which the period began and ended. The best known instances of this rule is seen in the rising of Christ. He was to be "three days in the heart of the earth," but the three days were made out only by counting the day of his death and the day of his rising, although the latter event happened early in the morning of that day. By this mode of counting, the eighth day, or full week from the disciples' first meeting, brings us again to the first day of the week. Thus we learn that twice at least between the resurrection and Pentecost the first day was kept as the Lord's day.
But the decisive instance is that of Pentecost itself. The reader will see, by consulting Lev. 23:15, 16, or Dent. 15:9, that this day was fixed in the following manner: On the morrow after that Sabbath -- seventh day -- which was included within the passover week, a sheaf of the earliest ripe corn was cut, brought fresh into the sanctuary, and presented as a thank-offering unto God. Thus the day of this ceremony must always be the first day of the week, corresponding to our Lord's day. From this day they were to count seven weeks complete, and the fiftieth clay was to be Pentecost day, or the beginning of their "feast of ingathering." Remembering, now, that the Israelites always included in their reckoning the day from which and the day to which they counted, we see that the fiftieth day brings us again to the first day of the week. We are told expressly that Christ rose on the first clay of the week.
We thus learn the important fact that the day selected by God for setting up the gospel dispensation and for the great pentecostal outpouring was the Lord's day -- a significant and splendid testimony to the sacred honor it was intended to have in the Christian ages.
This epoch was indeed the creation of a new world in the spiritual sense. The work was equal in glory and everlasting moment to that first creation which caused "the morning stars to sing together and all the sons of God to shout for joy." Well might God substitute the first day for the seventh when the first day had now become the sign of two separate events, the rising of Christ and the founding of the new dispensation, either of which is as momentous and blessed to us as the world's foundation.
But we read in Acts 1:14, and 2:1, that this seventh Lord's day was also employed by the apostles and disciples as a day for religious worship; and it was while they were thus engaged that they received the divine sanction in their blessed baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. Then the first public proclamation of the gospel under the new dispensation began, and the model was set up for the consecration of the new Christian Sabbath -- not by the burning of additional lambs -- by public preaching, the two sacraments of baptism and the supper, and the oblation of their worldly substance to God. At this all-important stage every step, every act, of the divine providence recorded by inspiration in the Acts was formative and fundamental. Hence we must believe that this event was meant by God as a forcible precedent, establishing the Lord's day as our Christian Sabbath.
Let the reader carefully weigh this question: Have we any other kind of warrant for the framework of the church? All Christians, for instance, believe that the deacon's office in the church is of perpetual divine appointment. Even Rome has it, though perverted. What is the basis of that belief? The precedent set in the sixth chapter of Acts. The apostles there say, It is not good "for us to leave the word of God and serve tables," etc. They do not say even as much about the universal perpetuity of this office as Paul says to Titus (ch. 1:15) about the elder's office: "Ordain elders in every city." But all sensible men see that the principle stated and the example set are enough, and that the Holy Spirit obviously taught the inspired historians to relate this formative act of the new dispensation as a model for all churches. The warrant for making the Lord's day the Sabbath is of the same kind.
It is most evident, from the New Testament history, that the apostles and the churches they planted uniformly hallowed the Lord's day. The instances are not numerous, but they are distinct.
The next clear instance is in Acts 20:7. The apostle Paul was now returning from his famous mission to Macedonia and Achaia in full prospect of captivity at Jerusalem. He stops at the favorite little church of Troas, on the Asiatic coast, a little south of the Hellespont, to spend a week with his converts there. "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight." Here we have a double evidence of our point. First, Paul preached to the disciples on this day, while he had been, as the sixth verse shows, a whole week at Troas, including the Jewish Sabbath. Why did he wait a whole week? Why did not the meeting, with the sermon and sacrament, take place on the Jewish Sabbath? We learn from verse sixteen that Paul had very little time to spare, because he had to make the whole journey from Philippi to Jerusalem, with all his wayside visits, within the six weeks between the end of the paschal and beginning of the pentecostal feast. He was obviously waiting for the church's sacred day in order to join them in their public worship, just as a missionary would wait now under similar circumstances. But, second. The words, "When the disciples came together to break bread," show that the first day of the week was the one on which they met to celebrate the Lord's supper. So it appears that this church at Troas, planted and trained by Paul, kept the first day of the week for public worship and the sacrament, and the inspired man puts himself to some inconvenience to comply with their usage. It has indeed been objected that he selected this day, not because it was the Lord's day, but because he could not wait any longer. This is exploded by the fact that he had already waited six days, including the Jewish Sabbath; he was evidently waiting for this day because it was the Lord's day.
The next clear instance is in 1Cor. 16:1, 2: "Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. 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." We here learn two things: that the weekly oblation of almsgiving was fixed for the Lord's day, and that this rule was enacted not only for the church at Corinth, but for all the churches of Galatia. It seems a very clear inference that the apostle afterward made the rule uniform in other churches as he organized them. Again, we find the objectors arguing that, admitting what we claim, we have not proved that there was any regular public worship on the Lord's day, because it is said, "Lay by you in store;" that is, at home. But the answers are two: The words, "Lay by him," etc., are, literally, "place to himself," or "segregate" -- "treasuring according as the Lord hath prospered him." It is a misunderstanding of the apostle's meaning to take the word "treasuring" as putting a piece of money on Sunday morning in a separate box or purse at home. Most frequently, as we know from history, it was not money, but bread, meat, fruit, clothing, a part of anything with which providence had blessed them; and the undoubted usage in the earliest age after the apostles was to carry this oblation with them to church every Lord's day morning and give it to the deacons, who put it into a common stock for charitable uses. The words "treasuring it" refer, says Calvin, to a wholly different idea -- to that which our Saviour expresses (Matt. 6:20): "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven;" to that idea which the charitable Christian expressed on his tombstone: "What I kept, I lost; what I gave away, I have." It is the Lord's treasury which the apostle here has in view -- the Lord's "store." So that the natural meaning of the precept is fairly presented in this paraphrase: "Let every one every Sunday morning set apart according as the Lord hath prospered him, what he intends to carry to church with him to put into the Lord's store." But, second. Even if we contradict the unanimous voice of history, testifying that the weekly oblation took place at the church-meeting and went at once into the deacon's hands, the truth remains that this oblation was an act of worship. (See Phil. 4:18; 2Cor. 9:12, 13.) This weekly oblation was, then, a weekly act of worship, and it was appointed by inspired authority to be done on the Lord's day. That makes this day a sacred day of worship; we care not whether this oblation was public or private, so far as the argument is concerned.3
The other instance of apostolic consecration of the first day is perhaps the most instructive of all. In Rev. 1:10, John, when about to describe how he came to have this revelation, says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." The venerable apostle was "in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus." We know from history exactly what this means. The pagan magistrates had banished him to this rocky, desolate islet in the Ægean Sea as a punishment for preaching the gospel and testifying that Jesus is our risen Saviour. He was there alone, separated from all his brethren. But he "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." What does this mean? It means that he was doing what godly people now call "keeping Sunday." He was engaging in spiritual exercises. He was holding communion with the Holy Spirit. Here, then, is our first point: that although in solitude, cut off alike from Christian meetings and ordinary week-day occupations, by his banishment, the inspired apostle was "keeping Sunday." It is the strongest possible example. Our second point is, that God blessed him in his Sabbath-keeping with the greatest spiritual blessing which perhaps he had enjoyed since he sat at the feet of Jesus. His Saviour came down from glory to "keep Sunday" with him. Our third and. strongest point is, that the inspired man here calls the day "the Lord's day." There is no doubt but that the "Lord" named is the glorified Redeemer, whom he declares in his epistle to be "the true God and eternal life." There is but one consistent and scriptural sense to place on this name of the day. It is the day that belongs especially to the Lord. But as all our days belong in one sense to him, the only meaning is that the first day of the week is now set apart and hallowed to Christ. In Isa. 58:13 the Sabbath is called by God "my holy day;" in 56:4, "my Sabbath." That was God's day; it belonged to God. This is Christ's day, and in the same sense belongs to Christ. It is consecrated to his worship as was the Sabbath; it is virtually "the Christian Sabbath."
R. L. Dabney, The Christian Sabbath
This is, of course, one of the reasons by the Christian church celebrates the Lord's Supper, a distinctively new covenant and universal sacrament, and not the judaically-based old covenant Passover. Uncircumcised gentiles were not allowed to come to the Passover meal by law.
My quarrel is when people start talking about these Jewish holy days being normative for Christians. That is simply unacceptable. Consider: "Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon, or Sabbath days – these are only the shadow of the things to come, but the reality is Christ!" - Col. 2:16-17 [NET]
That cuts both ways, actually: Note that it is not I who judge TC for not observing "a feast," but he who judges me for having the temerity to do what God has commanded and never countermanded. It is therefore TC who is (again) in violation of God's command, not I.
But as for the "norms," having Feastdays to give special recognition to certain events in the history of God's redemptive plan is and always has been part of the normative Christian (and Jewish) life. There is a reason why every culture has its own holidays (holy days)--it's hardwired into us. God Himself recognized this need for "days off" in which events of the past or future are commemorated and refreshed in our minds, which is why He gave Israel seven particularly holy days to begin with.
TC is just coming across as an arrogant legalist of a very peculiar stripe: He (to judge by his posts) looks down on everyone who does not practice or understand Christianity according to his personal preferences. One could easily believe that having built for himself so barren and dead a religion, he is simply envious of those of us who enjoy ourselves and take pleasure in keeping God's commands, even the wierd ones.
TC has not only violated the command against judging another on the basis of "a feast, a sabbath, or a new moon," he has also repeatedly slandered me and several other posters with the label "Judaizers." Have any of us said that you are not saved or not a Christian if you don't keep the Feastdays? Have any of us said you are a second-class citizen in God's Kingdom if you don't do things the way we do? Have we ever said you have to be circumcised to be saved? No? Then the label does not apply, and TC is either being ignorant or deceptive by continuing to use it.
All I have done is said, "Look, God gave these Feasts for a reason. Here's why. I've personally found them to be a great blessing, and I think every Christian should take the time to celebrate them at least once in their lives." How is that legalistic or Judaizing? I've never broken fellowship with xzins, P-Marlowe, blue-duncan, Corin, you or anyone else on the basis of the Torah's ceremonial commands.
Despite the psychological projection of some here, I've never made keeping the Feasts or any other ceremonial Torah command the basis on which I judge a person's spiritual maturity either; you'll notice that I hold Jude, HarleyD, the Neeners, and others in very high regard though none of you are Messianic. Why? Because I can see in your posts a passionate heart for the Lord and a genuine light of Christ, and the fact that we have honest disagreements about the application of certain passages of Scripture in no way takes away from the fact that we are brothers, of one Body.
It is TC, I want everyone to notice, who breaks fellowship on the basis of honest disagreement. He repeatedly refers to Messianic beliefs as "Judaizing"--which, since Sha'ul called anathema down on the Judaizers, means that he does not regard me or other Messianics as Christian brothers. He calls those who take joy in Christmas and Easter "Romanists," which in his vocabulary is hardly better. He condemns everyone else's traditions, while constantly fleeing to his own traditions in lieu of a Biblical argument.
I'm not the one judging anyone here. Do I think that the Church screwed up by abandoning the Torah? Yes. So what? Protestants think that the Church screwed up by substituting Grace with a new law of works. TC doesn't seem to have a problem acknowledging that the Church got it wrong for fourteen centuries; why should it be a problem that I think that some errors continued without correction even after that? And where I believe I see an error, am I not bound by Christian love and honesty to point it out?
In return, I submit my own views and practices for correction--provided that such correction is on the basis of the Word of God, and not on the basis of, "Well, we've always done it this way. How dare you say we're wrong!" To quote Tertullian, "Tradition without truth is error grown old." If TC wants to make an actual Scriptural argument against the position made in the article, I welcome it. However, simply labelling everything he doesn't agree with as one heresy or another doesn't cut it, nor does making vague assertions that, "Well, the book of Hebrews proves me right" without any exegesis of the book of Hebrews. Nor indeed does simply labelling my beliefs as too rabbinic or Jewish; our Lord, in case he hadn't noticed, was a Jewish Rabbi.
I disagree with that proposition.
The apostles worshipped on the first day of the week. That is not in dispute. The church gathered together in the first day of the week. That is also not in dispute.
So, as Dabney put it, "The first [proof that the sabbath was changed from the last day of the week to the first] proceeds upon two plain principles. One is, that example may be as valid and instructive a guide to duty as precept. Or, to state it in another form, the precedent set by Christ and his apostles may be as binding as their command. The other is, that whatever necessarily follows from Scripture 'by good and necessary consequence' is as really authorized by it as 'what is expressly set down.'"
The apostles and early churches examples as expressly given to us in the infallible Word of God and conveyed is a positive example to us are just as binding as specific commands.
Since there's room for honest disagreement there, and since we are, after all, saved by faith rather than our ability to keep the Torah, I don't make this a test of fellowship, but it's what I believe and teach.
#208 BTTT. Very well said.
That is the lamest argument I have ever seen. Paul states no such thing.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17 KJV)
First of all it says nothing about changing the Sabbath, only that no one is to judge anyone with respect to such things. Secondly he notes that such things as holy days and sabbaths are shadows "of things to come."
They are not noted to be shadows of things that are past, but of things that are to come. So you can't argue from that verse that the sabbath has changed. Your author makes a giant leap of logic to come to that conclusion and then states that Paul "clearly tells us" that what he is saying there is that the Sabbath day has been changed to another day, notably Sunday? That is a crock. That is, to be quite frank, dishonest scholarship.
Personally I have not been called to worship on Saturday, but that doesn't mean I am right or that Buggman is wrong. Buggman has been called to worship on Saturday. I honor that calling. It's not my calling, but who knows if someday it might be. In the interim I'm not going to judge him and I know that he has not ever judged me in my keeping of Sunday. What Paul is "clearly" saying there is that it is nothing but a shadow of things to come. Since the feast days and holy days and sabbaths look forward to the return of Christ, we ought not to condemn anyone for their celebration of those days or of their refusal to celebrate those days. It is but a shadow. But some people manage to trip over shadows.
I suspect that Romans 14:4-6 may shed some light on the subject...assuming we are agreed that Paul can address the topic with some authority.
I've come late and uninvited to the discussion, and I don't mean to offend, so please be patient with me.
Let me just ask a simple question.
Will you state categorically for the record that all the unique practices you personally espouse that are based on ceremonial laws originally given to Israel in the land with the sacrifices, priesthood, and temple intact (such as your depleted Rosh Hashanah) are adiaphora and are neither pleasing to the Lord if you do them nor displeasing to the Lord is you do not do them?
I you can do that as I have said before I have no problem with that position.
But that is not how I have understood your wealth of comments on this subject. E.g.,
I remember last year, a young man came to our Rosh Hashanah service and afterwards remarked, "You could really feel the Spirit move in there." "Well," I said, "that's what happens when you meet God on His schedule, instead of trying to make Him meet you on yours."
Are folks who do not practice messianic Rosh Hashanah not meeting God on His schedule? Is that not arrogant legalism? Or merely opinion?
TC is just coming across as an arrogant legalist of a very peculiar stripe:
I'm sorry that is the way I come across to you, because it is precisely how you come across to me. I guess it's all a matter of what set us off personally.
lol I'll have to remember to ping you and your kippers to the Yom Kippur thread.
No.
Now, will you state categorically for the record that you have absolutely zero Biblical support for worshipping on Sunday?
In my defense, herring have scales and are therefore kosher. =]
What are you suggesting?
1) The matter is not knowable with any certainty. God intentionally left this a jump ball.
2) The matter is knowable but you are not certain at this time.
3) The matter is an issue of personal taste or preference.
4) God moves different people in different directions on this matter, that perhaps truth is relative.
5) ???
lol Good to know.
You would think so, wouldn't you?
People can get really upset sometimes if you don't agree with them about every little thing. I can be that way myself, but it's a trait I try to quash.
Logically, it puts one on the horns of a conundrum. How can I exercise my right to disagree with you if I don't recognize your right to disagree with me?
Well, at least I have been reading you correctly all along. I didn't think your comments were so subtle that I might have missed something.
You are stating that I'm displeasing God because I intentionally with Scriptual support would not entertain the notion of celebrating an ersatz Rosh Hashanah as a form of biblical worship. Not just me but everyone who does not share your views on the new covenant application of the ceremonial law of Moses.
I think this is usually the point where we end these discussions, so I'll say adieu.
Nope.
That you ought not to judge other Christians by which days they keep holy as long as they keep them holy unto the Lord. What difference does it make to you if Buggman worships on Saturday? There is no prohibition against it, and if you read the Bible as a whole, there is clearly a commandment to do it.
You seem content to keep Sunday as your Sabbath. Good for you. So do I.
In direct response to your question:
4) God moves different people in different directions on this matter, that perhaps truth is relative let each man be fully persuaded in his own mind. (Rom 14:5)
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