What About The Sabbath

The Reason For My Faith ^ | 3/3/24 | Chuck Ness

[OneVike]

Throughout His ministry, Jesus never once broke the fourth commandment which required that all Jews observe the Sabbath. He was after all Jew. However, He did give us a clue that a change to the Sabbath was coming. To make my point, you must first understand that the original manuscripts of the Scriptures were not divided into verses and chapters.

The Old Testament manuscripts were written by scribes for the religious leaders to study. The New Testament manuscripts were letters originally written to be dispersed amongst the believers to read. They were like the letters you receive today. Just a document written in sentences and paragraphs with no verse or chapter numbers.

So you really had to know the transcripts well in order find any information you needed. Finally in the mid 16th century a Frenchman named, Robert Estienne (better known as Robertus Stephanus), would divide the Scriptures into chapters and verses. So today we can find passages by memorizing chapters and verses.

Now I must say, that while I do believe every Word of the Bible is the inspired Word of God, I do not believe that Stephanus's choices of where he decided to split some sentences up into different verses or chapters were inspired. I say so, because there are many instances in the Scriptures where a reader can be distracted or even misled as to what the passage is conveying.

Case in point is chapters 11 and 12 of Matthew's Gospel. I personally believe that he made a mistake by ending Matthew chapter 11 at verse 30. It's my belief that chapter 11 should have had 8 more verses for a total of 38. Thus it would end after the following statement by Jesus,

“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
(Matthew 12:8)

The following information is quite valuable in the apologetical debate on why so many are mistaken in their belief that Christians should observe Saturday as the Sabbath. Continuing on Jesus' statement in Matthew 12:8, I take you back to the end of Matthew chapter 11. Jesus had just finished telling the crowd that no one born of a woman is greater than John the Baptist, when He started telling everyone to come to Him for rest.

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30)

By speaking about the concept of rest, the audience He is speaking to would automatically think of the Sabbath rest which God gave them. They were first told about this gift when Moses presented the Ten Commandments God handed to Him for the people to follow. As Moses read the tablets, he said,

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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. 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."
(Exodus 20:8-11)

By the time Jesus started His ministry, the Israelites had been observing the Sabbath for almost 1480 years. They understood that it was a day of rest, even for the animals. A day they were to be free from the labors of life that kept them from communing with God. So, when Jesus starts talking about rest at the end of chapter 11, he continues his thought process on through to verse 8 of chapter 12. So when He calls them to come to Him for rest, and then claims He is the Lord of the Sabbath, it goes without saying that this is all one thought process and thus chapter 11 should have ended at verse 38, with chapter 12 actually beginning at verse 9 where Matthew wrote,

Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue.
(Matthew 12:9)

The next 20 verses do continue the matter of a rest, but not until Jesus moved to another site. Thus it then makes sense to split the chapter after Jesus made His statement about Him being the Lord of the Sabbath, and after he had arrived at a different location.

This is important, because when Jesus died on the cross, He fulfilled all the requirements of the Law, including the one that calls for us to obey the Sabbath, since as He stated, He is our Sabbath. Just as we are not bound by going through a High Priest by offering a sacrifice, we too do not need to follow the Jewish Law. We can reach God through Christ, on any day at anytime we so desire. Without going through the commandments of the law which Christ abolished.

After 1480 years, the Jews showed they could not follow the Law, and with Christ fulfilling it and the ceremonial ones, we are free from it. So with Jesus, being the Lord of the Sabbath, we are free to chose any day, and anytime to gather for communion and celebration of Him with no more legalistic requirements to follow the old obsolete law.

Any Christian following any portion of the Law, is doing what Paul preached against when he chastised the Judaizers who tried to put the Christians back into bondage to the Law. This is one of the things he wrote to the Colossians about when he said,

Let no one judge you in food or in drink,
or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths
(Colossians 2:16)

Paul also wrote that, if you observe any part of the Old Law, then you must follow it all. Does anyone truly want to be bound by the full weight of a law that God's own people could never follow? The answer is a resounding NO. Praise God, because we are free to worship HIM anywhere, on any day, at anytime by going through the One who fulfilled and abolished the law. Thus setting us free from a Law we could never dream of keeping.

The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
(Galatians 5:17:18)

Thus if you are not under the law, you are not under any obligations to any of the ceremonial requirements either. Nor are you bound by the Jewish Sabbath as I pointed out above from Paul's letter to the Colossians. Anyone who feels obligated to an abolished symbolism of the Old Law is keeping themselves from truly enjoying all the freedom God offers us through His Son's death and Resurrection.

I now offer two more pieces of evidence. One comes from the mouth of our LORD Jesus Himself, when the rich young ruler asked, "what must i do to have eternal life?" Jesus replied to him;

You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
(Matthew 19:18-19)

The second one comes from Paul's letter to the Jewish Christians in Rome, we learn, not from what he wrote, but rather what he did not write when he listed the commandments we should obey. Mind you, Paul was once a Pharisee of Pharisees, a man who persecuted Jewish converts to Christianity for violating the commandments. So, let us look at what Paul left out when he wrote about the commandments we are to obey in his letter to the Romans.

Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," "YOU SHALL NOT MURDER," "YOU SHALL NOT STEAL," "YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS," "YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
(Romans 13:8-11)

It should be enough to read what Jesus said on this matter, but we also see Paul then teach that which our LORD HIMSELF said. So I ask you, what is NOT included in this list of commandments from Jesus and then Paul about which commandments we should obey to have eternal life? It is the Sabbath. If Paul himself is not obeying the Sabbath, than why would any born again Christian want to follow a regulation from a law that is obsolete? Obsolete, because Jesus fulfilled the letter of the law and became our Sabbath rest.

So many fail to understand that as a Jew, Jesus had to fulfill both the legal laws and ceremonial laws in order to abolish them, because all the high priests and all the blood they spilled never satisfied the law completely so it was never fulfilled. Yet the nano second he died, the curtain separating the inner and outer room was torn by GOD from top to bottom. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Law. Thus the new dispensation began that set us free from the law written on stone and the ceremonial regulations. Today we are justified, "Just As If We Have Not Sinned." We are cleansed by HIS blood and freed by the atoning work on the Cross.

Thank GOD we are free, free at last. Free from observing anything the old law said we had to do. Thus our Sabbath in now in Jesus, Who allows us to come straight through HIM as our mediator to GOD. Jesus is our traveling Tabernacle who resides in us, and thus our Sabbath it eternal. Eternal in that everyday is a Sabbath for us, and at any moment we can worship HIM, because we now worship HIM in Spirit and in Truth.

Yet there is more, because when we read what the author of Hebrews wrote, which most scholars agree was an epistle specifically written to the Jewish believers who were still struggling with the confines of the Mosaic law.

In that He say,  "A NEW COVENANT, He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. 
(Hebrews 8:13)

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
(Hebrews 4:9-11)

Finally, I share with you what was in the letter from the first council ever held by the elders of the church when the question arose about whether or not Gentile believers should be circumcised. In the letter they pointed out what they should follow, and keeping the Sabbath was NOT among the things they were instructed to follow. Anyone who claims the Sabbath must be kept by Christians, I would suggest you take it up with Peter and James who oversaw the council meeting on what rules the Gentile believers should follow.

Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. They wrote this letter by them: The apostles, the elders, and the brethren, To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, "You must be circumcised and keep the law"—to whom we gave no such commandment— it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.
(Acts 15:27-29)

Praise God we are free from the bondage of a system that not only whitewashed our sin until a new animal was slain for it's blood to be spilled and sprinkled upon the mercy seat inside the inner room behind a curtain, but also held us hostage to worshipping together only on the sabbath. Once that curtain in the inner room was torn from top to bottom by GOD HIMSELF, we were set free to now enter into the presence of our LORD through our LORD, and commune with our LORD at any time on any day. Thank you JESUS!

[delchiante]

Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. No later than the 2nd century, the Romans named Saturday diēs Sāturnī (”Saturn’s Day”) for...

Yeah, the Creator of the universe takes His cues from Daniel’s 4th Beast of Rome for when His Sabbath is..
It’s on something called ‘Saturns Day’..

Next we’ll be told Passover has been replaced with Rome’s Friday as the first importance of the gospel..

Oh wait.
It has changed to Rome’s version..

Friday, Saturn day, sunday has replaced Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits..

Wait till antichrist Judaism realizes Passover is always the 6th work day..

Christianity can’t teach them because they are Romans at heart, following the Pope religiously..

[BipolarBob]

Don't conflate the ceremonial laws and ordinances with the Ten Commandments. The "Jewish laws" were issued to keep Israelite's separate from the other nations and was a large part of their national identity. However their purpose was to point to the coming Messiah. Now He had come and fulfilled His purpose. They were no longer needed.

We always need the Ten Commandments. God wrote them on stone to signify permanence. The ark in Heaven (Rev. 11:19) has a copy. It was instituted at Creation and will be observed throughout eternity.

[Big Red Badger]

It’s well documented that if you embrace
‘The Law’ you are responsible for All the Law which is 613 items as it is Written.
Christ released us from the Law and gave us a New Commandment to Love GOD and your neighbor as Your self,illustrated in the Sermon on the Mount.

[AppyPappy]

Show me the word “Saturday”

[BipolarBob]

The seventh day is the Sabbath which is what we call Saturday.

[BipolarBob]

Christ released us from the Law and gave us a New Commandment to Love GOD and your neighbor as Your self,illustrated in the Sermon on the Mount.

The Ten Commandments are based on this love. IF you love your neighbor you will not steal from, lie to, murder .etc . . . IF you love God you will have no other gods before Him, keep His Sabbath Day holy, . . etc. If ye love Him, keep His Commandments. If you don't do what the world tells you is good.

[BipolarBob]

It’s well documented that if you embrace ‘The Law’ you are responsible for All the Law which is 613 items as it is Written.

No, it's well documented that the Mosaic ceremonial laws and ordinances are ended. Why propagate lies? Lies about the Bible and Bible believing Christians? If there is no law, there is no sin. Do you think you become sinless by denouncing the law? God will not be mocked.

[AppyPappy]

Saturday is never mentioned in the Bible. You assume Saturday is the seventh day because the Jews celebrated on Saturday. The 7 day week we use now was a Roman invention. Saturday was named for the god Saturn.

[Big Red Badger]

Suppose you’ll be in line for animal sacrifice when the third Temple is Opened for Business?
.

[DouglasKC]

You cannot know what laws, or statutes He speaks of, because the best we can do is look at Job, because the book of Job is older than Genesis. Thus we get an idea, but none that leads us to what you claim. Otherwise you want to put things in a place it does not exist.

Of course we can know what laws Abraham kept. It's clear: Gen_26:5  because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws."

Whose laws? Hammarubis? No. Babylonian laws? No. Man's law? No. GOD'S LAW are the laws he kept and God has laws about adultery. It's unbelievable that people would make the argument that Abrahams righteousness came from obeying man made laws. The notion that God's laws did not exist before he revealed them is also not biblically correct.

Psa 119:160  The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever. 

Psa 119:152  Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever. 

God's laws have existed forever. They are built into the reality we know. The ONLY reason people want to deny them is that then they would actually have to obey God on unpopular commandments that go against society and culture. That's why today so many so called "Christians" embrace homosexual marriage and other blasphemies. It's because they believe that God has no laws about it.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

But look at what JAMES told Paul what to do on his last trip to Jerusalem.

Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: 21And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. 22What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. 23Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; 24Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges(Pay ort heir sacrifices) with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. 25As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication. 26Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.

Paul Seized in the Temple

27And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, 28Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. 29(For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) 30And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut.

[DouglasKC]

Saturday is never mentioned in the Bible. You assume Saturday is the seventh day because the Jews celebrated on Saturday. The 7 day week we use now was a Roman invention. Saturday was named for the god Saturn.

Actually biblical days start at sunset and end at the next sunset. So the bibical sabbath is sunset friday to sunset Saturday.

This is the time period that has been kept for thousands of years. It's the time period that Jesus observed. It's the time period that the first Christians observed. Jesus never disputed when the Sabbath was. And since then there has never been a change in the progression of days. A popular meme proves that people have always known:

[DouglasKC]

[OneVike]

What does that prove????

Other than Catholics, and Muslims follow Saturday.

By the way, most Christians around the world in third world countries think the Sabbath means Sunday, nor Saturday.

[metmom]

But He will. Perhaps considering that with a bit more humility and penitence....

You could, too, and lose the snarky, holier-than-thou attitude.

And yes, Jesus DID have to follow all the Laws. If He hadn't, He sinned and could not have broken the power of the Law and conquered death.

[DouglasKC]

What does that prove???? Other than Catholics, and Muslims follow Saturday. By the way, most Christians around the world in third world countries think the Sabbath means Sunday, nor Saturday.

It proves historically that the Sabbath hasn't been forgotten or moved...

By the way, most Christians around the world in third world countries think the Sabbath means Sunday, nor Saturday.

Except of course by deceivers who want people to think that God's laws are no longer in effect and that man has the right to change them.

[metmom]

God RESTED on the seventh day. Legalists like you have conflated that with *Must worship on Sunday or go to hell*.

The Sabbath is about resting from work. Yes, that does make it a convenient day to worship, BUT it does NOT mean that worship MUST BE DONE on the sabbath or you go to hell.

[metmom]

Waiting for a reply to my questions in post 154.

I notice that you have failed to address them even though you have answered other posts. Why is that?

[OneVike]

Seems they need time to consult their leaders on how to properly obfuscate and twist Scripture so they are not in danger of doing as Paul said, violating all other ceremonial laws as they practice the Mosaic law of honoring the Sabbath. They just cannot trust Paul when he tells us that those who are slavishly bound to Old Testament laws, should be forewarned that failing to keep the letter of the law might be hazardous to their salvation.

After all, according to the Mosaic law, anyone who does any work on the Sabbath “must be put to death” (Exodus 35:2). As Paul explained, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).

He goes on to tell us, the Sabbath was “a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:17). In the end, religious rites must inevitably bow to redemptive realities.

Let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Colossians 2:16–17 NKJV

We learn in Genesis 2:2-3, and Exodus 20:11, that the Sabbath was a celebration of God’s completed work in creation, Yet in Genesis we are never told to practice observing the Sabbath. Then after the Exodus while in the desert, the Sabbath expanded to a celebration of God’s deliverance from oppression in Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15).

Now with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the Sabbath’s emphasis shifted once again. It is now a celebration of the rest we have through Christ who delivers us from sin and the grave (Hebrews 4:1–11). Got that, In Christ, not in the world locked into a law that was but a Tudor to the graduation we get from Christ. In Christ we are free to worship any day any time. No longer are we locked into the confines of a law even the Israelites could never keep.

For the emerging Christian church, the most dangerous snare was a failure to recognize that Jesus was the substance that fulfilled the symbol of the Sabbath. Jesus is our rest as He tells us in Matthew 11:28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Since you lack at reading comprehension I would like to know your thoughts on what Jesus told the crowd who wanted a Burger King instead of a Salvational King,

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." "(John 6:54-58)

What next, will you also claim those who truly wish to follow Jesus should also actually eat his flesh and drink HIS blood? After all, you deny that the writer of Hebrews Paul is right when speaking of types and shadows. You claim that Abraham practiced observing the Sabbath, even though there is no Scriptural proof other than he followed the laws.

Yet, now you refuse to see very cleary the inference of the Sabbath and other laws being mentioned by the writer of Hebrews, (by the way, I am a firm, believer that Paul wrote hebrews) Well, this is the same things Jesus speaks of when speaking of himself being the bread sent from heaven. Just as earlier in Matthew he calling us to rest in Him, because He is the Sabbath rest we yearn for.

[OneVike]

It proves historically that the Sabbath hasn't been forgotten or moved…

No it does not, it just proves that a lie can get half way around the World before truth has a chance to get its shoes on.

Your cherry picking of Scriptures, creation of false facts, and obfuscating the truth of Scriptures only shows your ignorance and inability to properly understand Scripture.