April 2004 archive

Apr 11 2004

Matt 5 – will the law never pass away?

Russian Jewelled Icon of Christ Pantocrator

Matt 5:17-19 is actually a key verse for refuting the Adventist position. Jesus says that not one jot or tittle will pass from the law UNTIL all is fulfilled. This implies that a point WILL come when ALL IS fulfilled. Let’s look at texts like Heb 7:12, 2 Cor 3:6-14; Heb 7:12; John 19:28-3, and Acts 15 (where a law given directly by God to Abraham, and called a perpetual law for ALL Abraham’s generations, is abolished by a council of the Church.) Here we get told directly that the law HAS changed (those are the words straight from Hebrews,) so we HAVE to wonder what Jesus meant. He said the heavens and the earth would be replaced with a NEW heaven and a NEW earth in that text, and only THEN could the law change, and here we see the law has changed ALREADY … so what he said MUST have come to pass … so, did we just miss the end of the world, or not?

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Apr 11 2004

Adventist dishonesty in the way they present the Catholic faith

Recently (the week or so prior to Easter 2004) someone on alt.religion.christian.adventist and alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic posted several messages about Adventism, claiming it was a cult, and listing some of its doctrines. Several Adventists responded with shock, aghast at the way someone could misrepresent their faith in this way.

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Apr 11 2004

Isaiah 66 – Sabbath keeping in heaven?

Adventists will tell you that this passage, particularly verse 23, shows that in the Kingdom of God, we will be keeping the Sabbath. That is a typical Sabbatarian twisting of that text. The text says that people worshipped FROM one Sabbath TO the next. It does NOT say that people worshipped ON one sabbath AND the next. If you understood Hebrew and/or English grammar, you would realise that this refers to continuous worship on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and again the next Saturday … from the one given point in time until the next given point in time. This verse is talking about perpetual worship, not worship on Saturdays only. And why is the Sabbath used as a delineation of the unit of perpetual worship ? Well, the book was written by Isaiah, a Sabbath keeper writing to Sabbath keepers. It is only natural that he would use imagery that they would understand. But it is dishonest to interpret this text as claiming that the Sabbath will be kept in the Kingdom of God, because that is NOT what the text says at all. Go back and read it for yourself.

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Apr 11 2004

Gen 2:2–3 – Did Adam keep the Sabbath?

Sabbatarians often use this text to show the importance of the Sabbath, and even that Adam kept the Sabbath. But the words “Adam knew about the Sabbath” are not in the text. The text does NOT say that Adam rested. It says that GOD rested.

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Apr 11 2004

Acts 18 – do Christians keep the Sabbath in Acts?

Yes, 72 Sabbaths spent preaching to unbelievers in a service organised by unbelievers. That was not a Christian worship service. In fact, every single such Sabbath gathering mentioned in Acts is of the same type – a NON-Christian service that some Christians were also attending to witness to those who had not yet accepted Christ. If your local Adventist pastor spent 72 Sundays preaching to Sunday-keepers in a Sunday-keeping church hall, would he be keeping Sunday? No … by the same logic, these texts are not evidence of Sabbath observance by Paul or other Christians.

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Apr 11 2004

Acts 17 – do Christians keep the Sabbath in Acts?

Adventists state that it was Paul’s manner to witness in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and from that they conclude that he worshipped there too at the same time. The text does not use the word “worship” and the word “manner” does not imply worship either.

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Apr 11 2004

Acts 16 – do Christians keep the Sabbath in Acts?

Acts 16:13 is different to the other references to the Sabbath in Acts, but nothing in this text suggests this was a Christian worship service. Yes, it was the Sabbath, but that is simply the day of the week on which it occurred. Just like at times other days of the week are named, there is NOTHING in this text that implies that this was a Sabbath service. Christians can and do worship on ANY day of the week – this was nothing special.

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Apr 11 2004

Acts 20:7 – a service on the first day of the week?

Acts 20:7 refers to a Christian worship service that was held on the first day of the week. According to the text, the service began AFTER the sunset which signaled the start of the first day, so it wasn’t even a continuation of a service that began the day before. A look at the grammar of the text in a reliable English translation, and better still, the original Greek, will prove wrong the claims by some Sabbatarian groups that this was a Sabbath service that extended into the next day – the text is explicit that the Christians only gathered for the service AFTER the first day had already begun.

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Apr 11 2004

Hebrews 4 – what is the Christian Sabbath?

Hebrews goes through a list of OLD Covenant signs and compares them to the NEW Covenant reality. If Hebrews is to be consistent in its treatment of these Old Covenant signs, the Sabbath must be treated the same was as circumcision, lambicide, and priests. Adventists claim that the Sabbath is different in this case, that it continues for Christians today, based on Heb 4:9.

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Apr 11 2004

Gal 4:10-11 – do we need to keep the Sabbath?

Paul was writing to Gentile Christians who had converted from paganism and adopted a strict Jewish way of life – going from one pointless extreme to another. They were keeping Jewish law strictly, so the days they kept were not pagan holy days. If we read the preceding chapters, we will see that Paul is talking here of the same ritualistic trappings, only this time in Judaism. He mentions circumcision in chapter 2 and he mentions the observance of days in chapter 4. The Gentiles had fallen for the heresy preached by the pro-circumcision party, which included the observance of the Old Covenant holy days – see Gal 2. They had previously been slaves to a similar mentality under their pagan beliefs – obsession with ritualistic observance of days. Paul comments on this in verse 8, and then comments on their newly acquired bondage to elements of Judaism such as he mentions in verse 10 – days, months, seasons, years.

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Apr 11 2004

Rom 14:5-6 – do we need to keep the Sabbath?

The important phrase is “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” If Christians were expected to observe the Sabbath, Paul would be encouraging them to keep the Sabbath, trying to convince them of a certain point of view, not giving them freedom to do what they feel is right. He would not say that both those who ate meat and those who did not eat meat both gave thanks to God, right alongside saying those who keep the day honour God by doing so, and those who don’t also honour God by not doing so, if the Sabbath were indeed as important as Adventists claim it is.

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Apr 11 2004

Col 2:14-17 – does this refer to the 7th day Sabbath?

Paul starts by mentioning that the law is nailed to the cross, and he goes on to mention a few laws as examples. One law that he mentions is the Sabbath. Sabbatarians try to argue that this word does not mean the 7th day Sabbath in this context. That argument is unscriptural and illogical for two main reasons.

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Apr 11 2004

Easter weekend and the Sabbath / first day

Some Adventists try to avoid accepting that Jesus appeared on the Sunday of his resurrection, and the Sunday after that. But Luke 24:29 is pretty explicit that this was STILL Sunday. Look at the wording. In my RSV, it says that “it is TOWARD evening and the day is far spent.” This says that the day is NEARLY over, but still the same day … not yet Monday, sunset has not yet passed. This is a desperate attempt to defuse the evidence by destroying ANY Sunday visits by Jesus. But the Bible again proves the Adventist position wrong.

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Apr 11 2004

John 7 – circumcision on the Sabbath

God also refers to circumcision as a perpetual covenant in Genesis 17:11-13, to incense as one in Exod 30:8, to the Levitical priesthood as one in Exod 29:9. All these so-called perpetual covenants have been done away with at the cross. Just because they are called perpetual covenants does not mean that their purpose will never come to an end. Circumcision was for ALL Abraham’s generations, yet although we are part of that people, circumcision if not necessary for Christians. The same goes for the Sabbath.

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Apr 11 2004

Luke 4 – did Jesus set an example of Sabbath keeping for us?

Any Sabbath observance that Jesus did would have to explained to people who did not keep the Sabbath and who were unfamiliar with it. And therefore, when we see that Jesus’ Sabbath visit to the synagogue was actually explained, we need to ask WHY it needed to be explained. And, if we look at what the Bible and history show about first century Gentile Christians, we see that Luke needed to explain Jesus’ Sabbath customs because the Christian Gentiles were not familiar with the Sabbath at all. So, surprise! The text used to prove that Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, actually helps prove that Christians do NOT need to do that!!!

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Apr 11 2004

Mark 2/Matt 12/Luke 6 – was the Sabbath made for all mankind to keep?

Adventists claim that these passages show that the Sabbath is still in effect, and Christians are obliged to keep it. They claim that Mark 2:27, in saying that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath, proves that the Sabbath was not given to Israel alone, but to all mankind. … By removing the verse from its context, Sabbath keepers turn the meaning around. This is a well-documented logical fallacy, called the false dichotomy. The verse, out of context, is presented as presenting two points (the false dichotomy) – the Sabbath was made for man, or the Sabbath was made for Jews. But in context, the actual dichotomy is between the legalist/Pharisee perspective (the Sabbath was more important than those keeping it) and Jesus’ perspective (the Sabbath was made to serve those keeping it.)

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