The Sabbath Day, Should You Keep or not Keep?

[peter83]

Originally Posted by Aquila

I contend that we don't even have to focus our energy on keeping the Ten Commandments.

Matthew 22:37-40 (ESV)
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”


Romans 13:8-10 (ESV)
8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Galatians 5:14 (ESV)
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

James 2:8 (ESV)
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

1 John 3:23 (ESV)
23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

1 John 4:8 (ESV)
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:21 (ESV)
21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

2 John 1:5-6 (ESV)
5 And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. 6 And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

God has now written His Law upon our hearts via the Law of Christ, the Law of Love. The Royal Law. It is quite simple to share, but it is perhaps the hardest to actually live by. Here are the commandments of the Law of Christ:

1.) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
2.) "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

In short, we're called to love God with our entire being, with all that we are. And we are to demonstrate our love for God by loving others as ourselves. There are no required hijabs, dietary laws, festivals, Sabbath days, etc. We are to live a Spirit filled life wherby we live by a Spirit led love in all things. That's it. Just love. Love fulfills the spirit and intent of the entire Law in one fell swoop. Love takes one infinitely higher than the Ten Commandments, or even the entire Law of Moses, ever could. In fact, for the Christian, the Law is too low a standard. Love is all you need.

Love God.
Love others.

The rest is commentary.

Amen

[Aquila]

If God is love... then it is when we are the most loving towards others that we are most like Him. This is the true essence of holiness.

[Aquila]

Think about it, most of us can live the Ten Commandments in our sleep. And the Law of Moses has such archaic laws, only the most radical legalist could twist them enough to apply them today. And every law keeper (legalist) has a different set of laws. Some include the Sabbath, others do not. So, which legalist's list of laws are we to obey? We become lost on the rolling seas of subjective human interpretation with all manner of strange human mandates.

But Grace calls us to simply, love. Love God and love others. This law is infinitely higher than the Ten Commandments. Infinitely higher than even the rest of the Law of Moses.

For example, is eating chicken noodle soup a sin according to the OT Law? Nope. However, if it offends your vegan brother or sister, it can very well be a sin under the Law of Love.

Love demands infinitely more in an infinite number of circumstances not even mentioned in the OT. And so, the Law of Love becomes the highest calling of the believer.

[Aquila]

The Ten Commandments requires a single day of love, devotion, and worship every week. However, love demands that we set aside time every day for devotion and worship, revering every day as the day that the LORD has made. Setting apart every single day as holy unto the LORD, resting from our own works of righteousness that we might walk in Christ's righteousness. And so the Law of Love goes above and beyond the 4th commandment of the Ten Commandments. To abandon this law of grace, we would be returning to the shadows of the OT Law:

Galatians 4:9-11 English Standard Version (ESV)
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

Colossians 2:16-17 English Standard Version (ESV)
16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

To do return to the Law is to fall from grace and return to a Christian/Jewish hybrid of a religion...

Galatians 5:4 (ESV)
You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

We should realize that if we were made righteous by keeping the Law, then Christ certainly provides nothing for us, and Christ died for no reason.

Galatians 2:21 (ESV)
21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

[Aquila]

So, are we to keep the Sabbath? Yes! We are to keep the Sabbath every day by resting from our own works of righteousness, in Christ Jesus. And so, HE who is Lord of the Sabbath becomes our Sabbath. The 7th Day Sabbath was merely a shadow. It is Christ who is the substance.

[mfblume]

People have taken what was the then-proposed MEANS to love and pure faith and made it the destination. Law was comprised of Sabbaths, etc. And law was only a means to get man to love God through doing things like keeping sabbaths. But that did not work. So, a NEW means to that end arrived. GRACE!

Read the sequence of thought:

1 Timothy 1:5 KJV Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

Romans 8:3 KJV For what the law could not do (1 Tim 1:5), in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

1 Timothy 1:14 KJV And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by mfblume

People have taken what was the then-proposed MEANS to love and pure faith and made it the destination. Law was comprised of Sabbaths, etc. And law was only a means to get man to love God through doing things like keeping sabbaths. But that did not work. So, a NEW means to that end arrived. GRACE!

Read the sequence of thought:

1 Timothy 1:5 KJV Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

Romans 8:3 KJV For what the law could not do (1 Tim 1:5), in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

1 Timothy 1:14 KJV And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

People have taken what was the then-proposed MEANS to love and pure faith and made it the destination. Law was comprised of Sabbaths, etc. And law was only a means to get man to love God through doing things like keeping sabbaths. But that did not work. So, a NEW means to that end arrived. GRACE!

Read the sequence of thought:

1 Timothy 1:5 KJV Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

Romans 8:3 KJV For what the law could not do (1 Tim 1:5), in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

1 Timothy 1:14 KJV And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

The law was not a means to get man to love God. The commandments of God are the Divinely revealed standard of what is right and wrong, good and bad. But the law COVENANT could not produce people who followed right and eschewed wrong, did good and avoided bad. It could not do that because of the weakness of our flesh (the problem is us, not God's law).

So God sent Christ who condemned sin in the flesh and died on a cross and rose again, to accomplish what the law could not do - produce righteousness in people's hearts and lives. It does this through the sanctifying Spirit regenerating and indwelling us. The result is that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk in the Spirit of Christ.

Romans 4:13-15

13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

Romans 8:2-4

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

1 John 5:3

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Esaias

The law was not a means to get man to love God. The commandments of God are the Divinely revealed standard of what is right and wrong, good and bad. But the law COVENANT could not produce people who followed right and eschewed wrong, did good and avoided bad. It could not do that because of the weakness of our flesh (the problem is us, not God's law).

So God sent Christ who condemned sin in the flesh and died on a cross and rose again, to accomplish what the law could not do - produce righteousness in people's hearts and lives. It does this through the sanctifying Spirit regenerating and indwelling us. The result is that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk in the Spirit of Christ.

Romans 4:13-15

13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another

Romans 8:2-4

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

1 John 5:3

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Amen. But how are we to keep the commandments? As Israel did? Nope. As entirely new creatures. Through love, a law written upon the heart.

Romans 13:8-10
8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” AND ANY OTHER COMMANDMENT, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Grace is governed by the law of love.

[Steven Avery]

Originally Posted by A.W. Bowman

After prayerfully considering the evidence of man's tampering with the Law of God, one might like to consider a more biblically based approach, as observed by most Messianic Jews Shabbat (Sabbath)

Ellen's website does not seem to be up, she may have let it lapse, I'll try to ask her.

You should be able to get to it at archive.org:

Light of Mashiach
https://web.archive.org/web/20150423...shiach.org:80/

However, I would not say this represents most Messianic Jews. Ellen is interesting on a number of points.

Originally Posted by A.W. Bowman

While the seventh day was always observed as the Jewish Shabbat, Saturday did not become the observed Jewish Sabbath Day until the middle of the 4th century. But, that is another subject.

This sounds like one of the recent internet-stoked myths, like the lunar sabbath nonsense.

Steven