This is the third of the Sabbaton
series. I didn’t intend for there to be even this many, but here we are.
The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, which can be found at www.carm.org, has a couple pages devoted to
defending Sabbath-breaking; or more specifically, worship on Sunday as opposed
to the Sabbath. The ministry’s pages entitled Should we
keep the Sabbath or not? and Why do we worship on Sunday
instead of Saturday? will be addressed here.
Some of the points raised are addressed in other pages on this site and so will
not be addressed in this article. So, let’s get started.
First
of all, of the 10 commandments listed in Exodus 20:1-17, only 9 of them were
reinstituted by in the New Testament: (six in Matt. 19:18, murder, adultery,
stealing, false witness, honor parents, and worshiping
God; Rom. 13:9, coveting. Worshiping God properly covers the first three
commandments) The one that was not reaffirmed was the
one about the Sabbath. Instead, Jesus said that He is the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt.
12:8).
Why do we worship on Sunday
instead of Saturday?
I must admit, this is good
rhetoric; or at least it appears so until we look at the New Testament passage
in question.
Matthew 19:16 – Now a man came up to Jesus and
asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Matthew 19:17 – “Why
do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the
commandments.”
Matthew 19:18
– “Which ones?” the
man inquired. Jesus replied, “ ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not
steal, do not give false testimony,
Matthew 19:19 – honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Okay; let’s list the
commandments our Lord gave here, along with where they can be found in the Old
Testament.
1. Do not murder
2. Do not commit adultery
3. Do not steal
4. Do not give false
testimony
5. Honour your father and
mother
6. Love your neighbour as
yourself
Do you see the last one? Look
at verse 19 again:
Matthew
19:19 – honor your father and mother,’
and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’
Maybe I am mistaken,
but this does not sound like “worshipping God” to me. Perhaps CARM
mixed this commandment up with the First Great Commandment, which is to love
God with all our heart:
So, from the onset, CARM has it wrong in its
apologetics. The concept that they seem to have about “reinstitution”
is interesting. Is that what the New Testament is for? I don’t believe
so. Perhaps we should consider that the apostolic epistles were different than
the way the Law was given to ancient
The concept of reinstitution is not founded
in Scripture. If you can find it, please let me know and I will recant. The New
Testament epistles were not written for that purpose; they were written for admonition
and correction, not reinstitution. Perhaps CARM should ask themselves
this question: in the decades in which the none of the New Testament letters was
not in existence, was it lawful to do all that CARM now says is wrong? Were Christians
permitted to steal? To cheat on their spouses? Why
not? The laws had not been reinstituted yet, right?
Obviously, this doctrine, this principle, is not logical.
And is not Bible-based.
CARM, in Should we keep the Sabbath or not?, lists Exodus
20:8, Exodus 23:12, Exodus 31:15, Deuteronomy 5:12 and Leviticus 26:2 as their
Sabbath-related Old Testament instructions. I know I mentioned this one in the
other two Sabbaton articles, but I simply can’t
resist adding another to their list, which will bring a new dimension to Sabbath
observance:
Leviticus 23:3 – “ 'There are six
days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of
sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a
Sabbath to the LORD.
Perhaps the omission or
ignorance of this instruction from the Father is the reason CARM seems to imply
that Sabbath-keeping is unrelated to worship of God (as they said worshipping
God incorporates the first three commandments, not four). But the fact
is, taking a rest from out work on the seventh day is
an act of worship. It is acknowledgement of God as Creator who paused from His
creating work on the seventh day (Exodus 20:11). But it is also an act of
public praise by coming together for worship of this Creator in sacred
assembly.
It has been said that the
Sabbath is the “hinge” of the Ten Commandments. While certainly not
the most important of the commandments, this is something unique about the
Sabbath. The first three Commandments deal with how man should relate to God; the
last six relate to how man should deal with other human beings. But, the Sabbath
is about both God and man; an act of praise towards the Father and an act of fellowship.
So, this commandment acts, I believe, as the transition between the two groups.
It was the custom of the Jews to come together on
the Sabbath, which is Saturday, cease work, and worship God.
Should we keep the Sabbath or not?
True; but it was and is more than just a custom; it is a command,
something Protestant Christianity seems to be ignorant of for some reason.
In other words, God established the Sabbath as a
rest for His people, not because He needed a break, but because we are mortal
and need a time of rest, of focus on God. In this, our spirits and bodies are
both renewed.
Should we keep the Sabbath or not?
Couldn’t
agree more.
But with Jesus’ atonement, and
justification by faith (
Should we keep the Sabbath or not?
I’ll be brief here.
First, the Sabbath and other Sacred Times of God are shadows of things
to come, not were (see Colossians
2: Paul’s True Message). Please see What It Means to be Under Grace, and Take off Your Sandals: A
Look At The Sabbath for more complete responses to the other concepts.
The New Bible Dictionary says regarding the term,
‘The Lord’s Day’ in Revelation 1:10: "This is the
first extant occurrence in Christian literature of heµ kyriakeµ heµmera. The
adjectival construction suggests that it was a formal designation of the
church’s worship day. As such it certainly appears early in the 2nd
century (Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians,
1. 67).
In many churches today, the term “The Lord’s Day” is used to
designate Sunday, the same as it was in the second century.
Why do we worship on Sunday
instead of Saturday?
What people thought “early in the 2nd century”
does not prove what John meant when he was writing. The term “Lord’s
day” is not used by John elsewhere and not defined by him. But the fact
that people later used it as a reference to Sunday proves nothing; it can’t
be proven it was a reference to the first day of the week. Only one day of the
week is designated as the Lord’s, declared so by God Himself:
Isaiah 58:13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and
from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and
the LORD’s holy day honorable, and
if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or
speaking idle words,
Isaiah 58:14 then you will find your joy in the
LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on
the inheritance of your father Jacob.” The mouth of the LORD has
spoken.
Whatever suggestion the adjectival construction
makes, there is another possibility. As John’s epistle is a
prophetic book, maybe it is referring to the “Day of the Lord”:
Isaiah 13:6 – Wail, for the day of the
LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
Joel 2:1 – Blow the trumpet in
Malachi 4:5 – “See,
I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the
LORD comes.
What if John was speaking figuratively? The whole
book of Revelation is one of magnificent visions; what if John meant that he
was in the Day of the Lord spoken of by the prophets ahead of him? What if he
meant that, in vision, he had been taken to that wonderful time? Is it not
possible?
So, here you have two possibilities of what the
term “Lord’s day” means; and both of them can be found within
the Scriptures. There term as used by John really cannot be used for or against Sabbath-keeping as a mandate for Christians; but
neither can it be used as a defense of Sunday-keeping.
If anything, we have the freedom (
Why do we worship on Sunday
instead of Saturday?
To respond to the reference to Romans 14:1-12, I
will ask this question: Can CARM prove that it
is the Sabbath referred to in Romans 14:5-6?
Romans 14:5 – One man considers one day more sacred than
another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully
convinced in his own mind.
Romans 14:6 – He who
regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He
who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains,
does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.
The fact is, the words “Sabbath” and “week”
cannot be found in this passage. If you’re looking through your “Sabbath-rescission”
glasses, you will see what you want to see in Paul’s epistle. The chapter
is about food, not days of worship. The “days” are just
mentioned in passing and so must be seen in relation to the main concept. Is it
not possible Paul was referring to days for fasting? It fits much better than
trying to squeeze a Sabbath reference in there.
We are not under obligation to keep the Law and
this goes for the Sabbath as well.
Why do we worship on Sunday
instead of Saturday?
I wonder if CARM realizes what they are saying
here. There are persons who see right through this reasoning and come to the
only logical conclusion. “You can sin all you want; it’s
okay, we don’t need to keep the Law.” Interesting how the mind
works; how we can compartmentalize what God did not intend to be done so. Isn’t
the command to love God with all our hearts part of the Law?
Matthew 22:36
– “Teacher, which is the
greatest commandment in the Law?”
Matthew 22:37 – Jesus
replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
Leviticus 19:18 “ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against
one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
This commandment is found in the Law. I don’t
know about you, but it seems pretty clear that by obeying the Great
Commandment, you keep the Law. As Paul himself write:
Romans 3:31 – Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all!
Rather, we uphold the law.
Which of God’s commandments would you deliberately
break? Because we are told here that we can deliberately ignore God’s
instructions, defame what is sacred. What a privilege it is to a Christian if that
what it means to be under grace. CARM admits that the rest God instituted on
that first Sabbath day is for the benefit of mankind, yet they sweep it under
the rug as part of the Law which man the Christian is not bound to keep.
God wants that rest for me; He gives it to me and
sanctified the seventh day for that purpose. Obeying His commandments is an act
of love (1 John 5:3). I love Him. And I don’t know about you or CARM, but
my faith in Him upholds His sacred Law. And so, I celebrate His Sabbath
and what it means to me.
It’s His will.
See
also Sabbaton: ‘The Sabbath of the New Covenant’
Reviewed for a review of Pastor John Meyer’s tract on the Sabbath;
and also Sabbaton II: ‘Freedom from Sabbath-keeping’
for the Living Waters article found in their Evidence Bible.
Note:
All Bible quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New
International Version (NIV). Bolded text in Bible quotations
or from CARM’s articles are my emphasis.
© Copyright 2007 Keneil
Thomas
·
Anthony Coore’s Should
Christians Keep the Sabbath Day?
·
Take off Your
Sandals: A Look at the Sabbath
·
Shabbat: Work
on the Sabbath
·
Colossians
2: Paul’s True Message
·
What It Means
to be Under Grace
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