The Sabbath Day, Should You Keep or not Keep?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Raffi

Forgive my delay. I do not deal with online matters during the Sabbath, and so I didn't get to read Mike's input until Sunday evening. I worked today. And so, I will re-read Mike's responses, plus the new posts I see you have added since Sunday night. And after my own reflection, and maybe some prayer (I'm sure I'll need it), I'll try to post my own responses.

Hope everyone enjoyed the eclipse.

Peace.

Take your time. It took me a while to get to all your notes. I think I still have another one to respond to. Blessings!

[Raffi]

Forgive me, Mike. I have not yet figured out how to highlight your quote and insert it into my post. But I will do my best to follow your line of reason point-for-point. I hope that doing it that way doesn't annoy you too much.

So, to begin with, I want to say that in making my statement about Holiness and Sanctification, I was actually banking on the assumption that you DID believe in Sanctification. Because, that one believes in the possibility of Sanctification brings up an important point, which I will get to.

I do not believe you are one that believes that an ended-Law gives one license to sin. I just don't know how you can determine what is and isn't "sin" without a standard . . . without a "law". I mean, how can we say that The Spirit leads us to live a holy life when the very standard of what is Holiness has been declared null-and-void? That part makes no sense. Where there is sin there MUST be a law being broken.

What's more, I don't believe "we MAKE ourselves obey". That would be the definition of what I meant by "mechanical". I mean, how I see it is that we receive The Spirit, and THEN we just obey. It is The Spirit in us that leads us into obedience. It is not mere flesh effort. Well, the flesh COOPERATES, but it is The Spirit that does the work . . . not us. (BTW, I have a teaching on the meaning of THE SABBATH REST based on Hebrews 4:9 that builds on this concept.) And as far as having a "rulebook of commands", well, that goes without saying. It's called THE BIBLE. The Bible is our rulebook of commands.
For example, I think of:
1 Thes. 5:22
1 Pet. 2:11
Rom. 16:17
1 Cor. 15:34
Tit. 2:2-6
Rom. 6:12
Heb. 10:25
Rom. 13:13
Eph. 4:25,31
Col. 3:8,9
1 Cor. 11:6
Eph. 5:3-4
Rom. 13:12
1 Cor. 10:8
Eph. 5:22
Col. 3:18
and on . . . and on . . . etc.

Surely you agree that as Believers, even as CHRISTIAN Believers, we are enjoined by our Creator to read His Word, take mind of what It tells us, and DO it. The definition of obedience. And what of that DOING? Is it then "legalism"? Of course not. Obedience is not legalism. But the question I get the most is, Yeah, but WHICH law are you reading . . . The Law of Moses or The Law of Christ?

For some people, obedience only counts as "righteousness" if it is obedience to NEW Testament Commandments. If it is to some "Old" Testament Commandments, suddenly it is "legalism". For me, there is no difference between Old Testament Law and New Testament Law. Same Lawgiver . . . same Law. Messiah did not give us a "new" Commandment, but the same as was from the beginning (1 John 2:7).

You say you believe in Holiness. That you believe that a holy life is a life of living apart from sin. That is the exact same position I have. But you accuse me of basing my concept of what sin is and what holiness is on a "rulebook of commands". And you don't?
Of course you do. The difference between your rulebook and mine is that mine has 39 more titled sections in It.

The same Spirit that leads you to read the New Testament, to take to mind It's Commandments, and to live out the Principles and Precepts that you read is the exact same Spirit that leads me to also read The Torah, to take to mind It's Commandments, and to live out It's Principles and Precepts. And the same "faith" that brings you to the conviction of the truthfulness of New Testament Truth, is the same "faith" that brings me to the conviction of the truthfulness of WHOLE BIBLE Truth. And the same "Grace" that enables you to DO the righteous deeds of the New Testament is the same "Grace" that enables us poor, deluded Law-keeping Apostolics to keep the FULLNESS of His entire Word.

The Holy Ghost does not lead us to follow a "righteousness" that exists in some nebulous, undefined cloud. No. The Holy Ghost leads us to follow the "Righteousness" that He has revealed and that no man can alter. The very Righteous Way that is settled forever in Heaven, and which He has established to endure forever here, and which He will enforce as The Eternal Law over EVERY Nation in the World-To-Come.

I remember some years back . . . I was very young to the Faith back then . . . of hearing some fringe Pentecostals who taught that The Spirit will lead us into all Truth, based on John 16:13. That since we now have the Fullness of The Spirit, and since The Spirit will guide us into all Truth, we no longer need the written Bible anymore. They reasoned that NOW, The Holy Ghost has written a NEW Law upon our hearts, and so the written Word is now irrelevant.

Now that is a preposterous idea, would't you agree? In the same way, when you or someone else tells me that you no longer need God's Holy, Righteous Standard in order to live a holy life, it sounds exactly the same as those poor folks who thought they didn't need ANY written Word.
Now, I refuse to believe, Mike, that THAT is the position you would argue for.

The written Word does not disagree with The Spirit. Nor does The Spirit contradict The Written Word. Neither does the "New" Testament disagree with the "Old" Testament. It is ONE revelation of Truth through-and-through.

What is more, I agree with you that we do not tell the world that we are saved merely by our external "show". Clothing may NOT be the first manner by which we tell the world we are saved. No, clothing is not the initial statement of what Holiness is. I agree. The first evidences of Holiness are our love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control. In short, a holy character. But our clothing choices are ALSO an expression of our Holiness, even if it is secondary to a holy character. And, by the way, so is our devotional life, and that includes such things as daily prayer, fasting, and Sabbath-keeping.

And if, as you say, Holiness is belonging to The Lord (yes, QADOSH means that), and living a righteous life without sin (again, yes), you and I agree fully. But yet I am still at a loss for where you find your standard of righteousness if NOT from God's rulebook (Word).

For me, "sin" (het) IS transgression of His Written Word. For me, that includes The Gospels . . . The Writings . . . The Prophets . . . AND The Torah. As I believe has always been His Will. Walking after the flesh necessarily MEANS transgressing His Laws. That IS the textbook definition of "committing sin". I mean, is there some other Bible definition of "sin"?

If we have to "make ourselves" obey His Law, that is evidence that our heart is not circumcised and we do not have true love for Him (Jn. 14:5; 1st John 5:3).

For me, as for you, the Spirit inspires and empowers obedience. The Spirit inspires and empowers us to DO AS IF BY NATURE the righteous things to do. But for me that is ACCORDING TO HIS WORD."Newness of the Spirit" does not negate The Word, it wrights It on our hearts so that we are ABLE then to do as He has commanded. The Creator changes us from within so that we both WANT and are ABLE to obey what was before merely letters to parchment. Now they have become letters of FIRE written on our hearts.

When Paul spoke of not being able to walk after the Commandments of God because of the weakness of his flesh, he was talking about his life PRIOR to having come into Faith. When he was walking in the FLESH, he tried and he tried. And the more he tried the more he failed.

In Romans 7:18, Paul realizes the reason why he kept failing. Because back then, he kept trusting in his FLESH to do it. But in the flesh there is no power to enable pure obedience ("dwelleth no good thing"). He may have WANTED to fulfill righteousness, but the power to perform it was NOT in the strength of his body. We may WANT to live holy, but the power to live Holy is NOT in the strength of our bodies, it is in the Holy Ghost, who enables us to will AND to DO according to His Good Pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

Paul wanted to do good, but in himself he did not have the power to be consistent. He needed the Holy Ghost of Promise. We must come to God and believe we are "dead to sin" and now we are made alive in The Spirit unto the NEWNESS of life that is ABLE now to perform His Good Pleasure. We are quickened from the "deadness" that is sin and made alive into the freedom that is Righteousness and Holiness.


So, because as it now seems that Romans 6 and 7 are being brought up, I guess I will attempt to exegete these chapters as well, as I understand it. It basically says the same thing as Galatians 3 and 4.

Mike, I hope I haven't written anything that disrespects you, and if I have I did not do it on purpose. I did not necessarily intend to involve myself in a debate, as that I am worthy of that, but merely intended to lend my support to a vital subject. But I want to say, I do appreciate you pushing me on the subject as that it has allowed me to back again a restudy some of the foundational elements of doctrine in general. I am not intending to approach this conversation with an arrogant or stubborn spirit, but I so far remain convinced that the Sabbath IS an expected aspect of the Apostolic Believer's faith and practice, along with Baptism (Tebilah) and the Memorial Meal, which I connect to the Passover Seder, and other agreed-upon "New" Testament practices. I intend to stay up late studying and writing on this subject, so expect more to come of my responses.

Peace

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Raffi

I remember some years back . . . I was very young to the Faith back then . . . of hearing some fringe Pentecostals who taught that The Spirit will lead us into all Truth, based on John 16:13. That since we now have the Fullness of The Spirit, and since The Spirit will guide us into all Truth, we no longer need the written Bible anymore. They reasoned that NOW, The Holy Ghost has written a NEW Law upon our hearts, and so the written Word is now irrelevant.

The Spirit will guide us into all truth. And according to Christ, God's Word is truth. Thus, the Spirit guides us into all the Word.

And, Jesus is the Word made flesh. So a Spirit led life, guided into all of God's Word, will manifest as being like Him, walking as He walked - as a man who lives by every Word of God.

BTW, great post.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Raffi

Mike, I hope I haven't written anything that disrespects you, and if I have I did not do it on purpose.

No, you haven't and I hope you understand that of my responses to you as well, intending no disrespect toward you.

[Raffi]

Some further thoughts.

I agree with Mike that the problem with The Law wasn't so much merely the absence of "faith", as that "faith" by far is itself an "Old" Testament concept, and LONG before it became a "New" Testament concept. Saying the problem is the mere "absence of faith" is a little bit over-simplistic. The problem with The Law was that The Law could NOT make some body be righteous.

The Torah Law is like a mirror (Jms. 1:23-25). How so?
A mirror is a devise the purpose of which is merely to show us what we otherwise cannot see. I mean, think of a mirror like this. We wake up in the morning. We feel disheveled and rough. We know we feel groggy, but we cannot see how we actually look. So, we make our way to the washroom and turn on the light. We look into the mirror and see that our hair is all kinds of messed up. For men who shave, they may find that their face is all a stubble. They look atrocious. The mirror has revealed to them what they could not see about themselves before. The mirror was a tool for seeing what was wrong and what needed to be fixed. But, you cannot reach up and take the mirror down off of the wall and use the mirror to comb your hair. You cannot use the mirror to shave the stubble off of your face (well, some real smart fellow might break the mirror and use the shards to shave, but you get my point.) The mirror was never intended to fix you.

The same with The Torah. It can reveal what is wrong in us, but It cannot fix us. It was as powerless to deliver us from sin as the mirror is powerless to straighten out our messy bed-head. It was never the intent of The Torah to deliver us from sin, only to define sin and righteousness.

Jeremiah 31:32 says that Israel broke the Covenant, but the Verse does not tell us why or how they broke It. Only that they broke It. But we know they broke It because they were consistently disobedient to His Law. The Law could instruct in righteousness, but It could NOT impart righteousness. The reason The "New" Covenant is a "better" Covenant is because NOW the Holy Ghost enables the obedience that The Written Law by Itself is not able to impart. Ancient Israel couldn't "continue" in the Covenant merely because the Holy Ghost had not been poured out. (BTW, I have a teaching on this that is interesting that shows that YHWH wanted to pour Himself out to ancient Israel as the Holy Ghost back at Sinai and almost did, but because of their "fear" He halted Himself, waiting until a Remnant would claim the Promise. That Remnant was the Apostolic faithful.)

So, by the Holy Ghost God has written His Law on our hearts. But The Law in our hearts does not negate the Law in stone or parchment. To the contrary, it now ENFORCES It.
So, I agree . . . the ONLY fault that lay with God's Law was that merely as letters on parchment, It could not empower righteousness. It had to go from stone and parchment to the spirit ("heart"). And that is exactly what happened on Pentecost. Halleluyah!

Living righteously without sinning IS fulfilling The Law, for there is no other standard of righteousness but His Law.

Peace.

[Raffi]

But it is a maxim of logic that if The Law was EVER correct in indicating what was sin, then It would be by reason STILL correct in indicating what is sin today. Unless, the nature of sin changed, or God changed His Mind about what He considers to be sin. But if He hasn't changed His Mind regarding sin, we are still in need of a standard . . . a "Law".

Do you believe that God changed His Mind about sin?

And on the same token, if The Law defined sin, It also defined what is RIGHTEOUSNESS (Deut. 6:25). But if The Law is removed, by what is the standard for righteousness today? Someone said, It is Christ.

You mean the "Christ" of The Gospels? The Christ that himself kept The Law of Moses perfectly? That Christ is our example? Our standard of Righteousness? The "Christ" who kept The Sabbath?

What is more, if God has not changed His Mind about sin, then we are all in guilty standing. That is, we are guilty so long as there is a Law Standard to measure us. If you remove that Law Standard, what then is the measure of either sin OR righteousness? And if there is no more measure of sin, then NONE of us is guilty because there is no measure and nothing next to which we stand condemned. And then God would be without cause to judge us, or He would be accused of being unjust in sentencing us.

There HAS to be a ready Standard, and that Standard HAS to be consistent. And again, if someone says Christ, I am compelled to point again back to the Christ we are introduced to in The Gospels. And that Christ consistently pointed his disciples to The Law of God (Jn. 17:17; Mat. 19:17; Mat. 22:37-39, etc.).

If The Law is removed, Romans 8:1-4 would make no sense, because without The Law of Righteousness there can be no law of sin from which we are set free. And the very freedom to which we are purchased would make no sense because if there is no measure of sin or righteousness, what are we set free FROM, and what are we free to do?
I reason that there is an Eternal Law, and by Messiah we have been set free from the tendency to break that Law that we might live finally in righteousness, having now obtained the freedom and power to keep that Law.
And how?
By the Power of His Spirit He has put in us (Jer. 31:33; Ez. 36:27).

Truly, I hate even arguing this point because it just feels like an exercise in circular reasoning. However, the starting premise is true, and I have always felt like a person arguing for an ended Law is making an argument for moral relativism, and subjectivism.

[Raffi]

Mike said at one point concerning to purpose for God's giving The Law to ancient Israel:

"To prove that man can only become righteous through faith by grace and not obedience of doing commandments", with the implication that after said "proof" be made, the commandments are dutifully cancelled and ended.

That The Law was given by God merely as a lesson to prepare Humankind for Grace. I have never really liked that theory, even when I used to believe in it, because it makes God look like a dummy to me. We are asked to believe that God instituted a way of Salvation, that He KNEW wouldn't work, required men to follow it, knowing that they couldn't, and watched Humans fumble it up for some nearly 1500 years.
And to what end?
So that eventually, after a mere millennium and a half, Humankind would finally be ready to understand and accept GRACE.

But the problem is that the plan didn't succeed so easily. After only about 1500 years, Messiah came, but despite all the schooling and preparation, only a very small fraction would get it? The majority would STILL fail to understand Grace.

That really, when you boil it down, God wasted 1500 or so years on a plan for a Law, the only purpose of which is to somehow "prove" to humans that they need God's Grace anyway.

And to clarify my point, Mike adds:

"After Israel tried law and failed miserably, they should have accepted Christ's gift at the drop of a hat. But they were blinded with another more overall purpose in blindness in effect."

So after all of that and 1500 years, the plan to open humanity's eyes was STILL unsuccessful. 1500 years of a useless Law ended in still more blindness with The Law just getting shelved as a failed program.

I mean, Isn't The Creator smarter than that kind of plan?

To this day, I don't know ANY sinner who after having been presented with THIS kind of explanation for The Gospel, suddenly awakens with a eureka moment to the staunch awareness of the understanding this model is supposed to impart.

In my experience, it has always been the simple model that works. God has a present-tense moral standard (a Law) that we have broken and continue to break (actual sin), which alienates and separates us from Him. And we are in need of forgiveness, cleansing, and restoration. Messiah came, and died to pay the penalty of our very real "sin" (transgression of His Law), and if we accept that by faith, and REPENT, he will forgive, cleanse us, and restore us to rightstanding, empowering us to now obey His Standard (Law).

That is the message that people relate to. Giving people this . . . what seems to me to be Scofieldian theology . . . about some highly complicated dispensational scheme of failed, ended past Salvation programs whose only real intent is somehow to open their eyes to the fact that no one can ever be good enough to God, so quit trying and just accept His Merciful Pardon on passive assent . . . that only confuses people. I mean, does God really work like that? Come on, man.

Doesn't our All-Wise Creator have a more practical, easier-to-understand Program of Salvation?

I believe in one, single, simple, unified Redemptive Plan that has been consistently, unchangingly the same from the beginning. Salvation is by God's Grace through Real Saving Faith -- Trusting Conviction that is manifested by a faith response of obedience in the name of the Covenant-Head (YHWH in the "Old" Testament, and Yeshua in the "New" Testament). Baptism in His Name is the initial symbol of that unchanging Plan, and faithful Sabbath-keeping is the ongoing SIGN (Ex. 31:13,17; Ez. 20:12).

But The Law (Torah) was NEVER a means of Salvation. Not in Abraham's time, not in Moses' time, not in our time.

[Raffi]

By writing His Law in our hearts, we are empowered to love Him and obey Him. That does not mean LOVING fleshly ordinances, at least for the sake of the ordinance. No, we love The Revealer of a Way, and because of that we love what He loves and hate what He hates, and we love to please Him with our service and obedience, and we obey Him not in the keeping of FLESHLY ordinances, but in the keeping of REVEALED Ordinances that HE made.

Yes, we keep the "Spirit of The Law", in Spirit. But we believe that to be complete that necessarily issues forth in external responses of loving obedience. For us, keeping His Law in Spirit does not preclude also keeping It in Letter. We just understand that we don't keep The Law in Letter ONLY. Our obedience is borne out of our loving devotion and obsession for HIM. We offer our obedience as our daily worship. But it is always borne out of Spirit, and issues forth in action, just like tongues-speaking, and proper Water Baptism, and Communion, and Tithing, etc. And like dancing in the Spirit, and shoutin', and clapping.

What begins as Spirit must have a corresponding physical response in the physical world. The Prophet Joel gave the principle . . . "I will pour out My SPIRIT upon all FLESH."

Obedience is no longer something FORCED by flesh effort. It is Spirit-borne obedience. I believe that is the TRUE meaning of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36.

Keeping the Sabbath and the Feasts is not a burden. It is not a bondage. It is a joyous, celebrative FREEDOM within which we rejoice. The Law was not meant to be a bondage. He loves His Law, and so should His People.

We did not learn that Humans cannot save themselves by works, because of our failure at keeping The Law. We learned it because that is what The Word teaches us.

[Raffi]

Okay, so you see, for me it is about walking a life of obedience, not after the flesh, but in the Spirit. But obedience is necessarily spelled out for us by His Law. In the New Covenant, we STILL must fulfill the required obedience, but we NOW are able to do so in Spirit, that is BY THE SPIRIT. This in no way negates The Law, only raises It to a higher place in His Dispensation of Economy, thus accomplishing Isaiah 42:21.

Peace.

[Raffi]

Okay, all.

I have written enough for now. I hope it helps you to see that not ALL of us poor Law-keepers believe that we are trying to get up our salvation through fleshy efforts and ordinances, but that we have an altogether DIFFERENT reason for why we keep the precious Laws of our Father and Savior.

I will now begin to read over more of Mike's posts, and study. I will hope that by tomorrow or the next day to post my responses, and to post up my own exegesis of Romans 6 and 7.

Good night, and peace in Messiah.