How Do You Honor the Sabbath?

[Douglas Summers]

Constantine Made Sunday a Civil Rest Day

When Emperor Constantine I—a pagan sun-worshipper—came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made the first Sunday-keeping law. His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7, A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)
The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 2 [Edinburgh, 1876] 316).

Thanks Lewis for the clarification on The Lords Day.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Constantine Made Sunday a Civil Rest Day

When Emperor Constantine I—a pagan sun-worshipper—came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made the first Sunday-keeping law. His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7, A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)
The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 2 [Edinburgh, 1876] 316).

As we can see, the early church is who taught everyone that simply keeping the law was automatically equal to trying to be justified by the law. Law keeping only equals trying to be justified by the law when that's the actual reason you are doing it.

How narrow and short sighted of them to think that law keeping can only be an effort to justify oneself by the law, and worse, to lead generations and generations and generations of the church into that lie to the point it's virtually impossible for the church to see it differently.

Good post.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

What Scripture tells us Yeshua "intended something different other than Saturday worship"? There is no command from him telling us the 7th day (Saturday) Sabbath is abolished or changed to Sunday.

I agree that there is no record of God changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. What I do see is Sunday (eighth day) worship at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles(?). Haven't studied it out to see if it's a forerunner of Sunday worship of the resurrection, but the point is, eighth day worship is not an entirely new concept in worship. What the early church did wrong is outlaw Saturday worship as if God wanted it that way because it's supposedly impossible to observe a Sabbath rest apart from trying to be justified by it.

 

[Lewis]

Jethro wrote
What the early church did wrong is outlaw Saturday worship

Bingo

 

[Lewis]

Jethro wrote
What the early church did wrong is outlaw Saturday worship

Bingo

 

[Jethro Bodine]

How can you say that you do not commit murder unless you are ignoring him and the law of condemnation?

I'm not saying that.
It's because I DON'T ignore the law of condemnation that I can be clean of murder. But you and smaller seem to think just being honest about having murdered and letting it dwell in you is sufficient.

But I am not in denial of the fact that according to the law I am a murderer, and in my flesh I am full of murder. For my own conscience sake, I have accepted this fact.

Good. Now that you know you're a murderer in your flesh, get clean of it:

"let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (2 Corinthians 7:1 NASB)

Don't just take some weird comfort in simply being honest about what's going on inside of you and accept it. That kind of 'faith' won't save you. Faith leading to repentance through the power of the Holy Spirit is what justifies. The faith that does not love is not the faith that justifies apart from works.

"6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything (in regard to justification--see context), but faith working through love (that is what means something in regard to justification)." (Galatians 5:6 NASB bold, underline, and parenthesis mine)

See? The faith that justifies all by itself, apart from works, is the faith that leads you to repentance, not the faith that simply acknowledges the guilt of sin.

For my conscience sake, as it pertains to the law, I keep the law of do no murder by understanding that a murderer resides in my flesh

No, I'm pretty sure you keep the law 'do not murder' when you do not murder by the power of the Holy Spirit within you. There is no virtue in recognizing the sin within you apart from repenting of that sin by the power of God's Holy Spirit.....even if that means you do that over and over and over and over again.

But anyway, let's not lose focus here. smaller is suggesting that it is somehow evil to have laws with condemnations attached and that's why the Sabbath law is wrong for the church. I showed him if that is true then the writers of the New Testament were wrong for putting lengthy passages of laws with condemnations attached onto the church to follow.

 

[jocor]

The Sabbath of the O.T. is in fact A SHADOW. It has nothing, exactly NOTHING to do with ritualism or practice.

Yes, it is a shadow and a shadow cannot be abolished until the reality comes. The Millennium will fulfill the shadow (6,000 years of work on earth, 1,000 year rest). When that ends, the Sabbath MIGHT end.

 

[jocor]

I agree that there is no record of God changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. What I do see is Sunday (eighth day) worship at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles(?). Haven't studied it out to see if it's a forerunner of Sunday worship of the resurrection, but the point is, eighth day worship is not an entirely new concept in worship. What the early church did wrong is outlaw Saturday worship as if God wanted it that way because it's supposedly impossible to observe a Sabbath rest apart from trying to be justified by it.

I think you are reading that into the text. Yes, the 7th day millennial rest will end and then the "eighth day" will begin, but what that eighth day will be/look like is not stated. We are to "worship" Yahweh seven days a week now and forever, but we are to rest from our labors on one. Perhaps, after all sin and death is destroyed at the end of the Millennium, man will not need a Sabbath rest, but if that is true, he won't need a Sunday/8th day rest either.

 

[smaller]

A law keeper sees his sin when he looks into the mirror of the Law. He then goes to Yeshua to have the sin cleansed. Those that abolish the Law and want nothing to do with it have thrown away the mirror and cannot go to Yeshua for cleansing because they don't see their sin.

No one comes away from any engagement with God in Christ sinless in the flesh. But it's a common mentality.

Eventually some come away honest from the engagements with legalism.

 

[smaller]

Yes, it is a shadow and a shadow cannot be abolished until the reality comes. The Millennium will fulfill the shadow (6,000 years of work on earth, 1,000 year rest). When that ends, the Sabbath MIGHT end.

The "rest" that the Sabbath speaks of points directly to the spiritual matters of the Promise of the Gospel.

All men "labor" under sin indwelling our flesh and evil present withIN us. This is why the flesh is *and remains* contrary to and against the Spirit, and can NOT be legal. Gal. 5:17. This condition beds the ground for Gods Mercy in Christ.

In Christ we are promised release/change from evil, sin and death.

Believers might recognize that the law does prompt every manner of internal resistance from these conditions of sin that dwells in the flesh and evil present withIN us that we currently travel with in our flesh.

The LAW stands against sin dwelling in the flesh and evil present with us. NOT for it.

 

[smaller]

But anyway, let's not lose focus here. smaller is suggesting that it is somehow evil to have laws with condemnations attached

I honestly don't know where you come up with your "thoughts" about observations I've made. Seriously, I've NEVER made any adverse claims about the LAWS, the Word of God, ever. I accept every jot and tittle as fully applicable to every believer AND that every jot and tittle is simultaneously against sin dwelling IN the flesh, evil present withIN us.

There is no way possible, standing UNDER the Law is going to make sin dwelling in the flesh, evil present within us LEGAL. That's NOT the lessons of the LAW.

The law is made precisely to condemn what we have in our flesh and the LAWS via any performances do not eradicate the reality of what is IN the flesh.

But you SEE my friend, sin dwelling in the flesh and evil present with us is SO entirely deceptive that it will claim otherwise and seek to justify and hide itself every time. In that process these workings turn believers into lying hypocrisy.

Paul took an exact opposite approach to LAW, welcoming the CONDEMNATION it brought to his own flesh.

The inherent PRIDE in the flesh can not go in this direction. It will go the opposite direction.

and that's why the Sabbath law is wrong for the church. I showed him if that is true then the writers of the New Testament were wrong for putting lengthy passages of laws with condemnations attached onto the church to follow.

I have never spoken against the condemnations, but welcome them.

The condemnations are fully meant for the church members to TAKE to their own flesh. But again, the flesh is SO utterly deceived it has DEFLECTED that condemnation away from itself and heaped it upon others instead.

The flesh, sin indwelling it, evil present, WON'T get the picture, and can't. Believers who think these things are legal, obedient and under Grace are actually deceived and blinded by these workings in their own flesh.

 

[smaller]

Gal. 2
16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
18 For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

IF we, flesh men, with sin dwelling in our flesh, with evil present, go back to the law with the LIES that these things in the flesh are now capable of being legally obedient, we have in fact been deceived AGAIN by these things in our own flesh.

So, are these facts of scripture upheld on the Sabbath? On any day?

Seldom, if ever, are THE TRUTHs of these matters honored on any day among believers.

The fulcrum of The Gospel of Christ revolves entirely around the fact that no flesh can be justified.

Do we celebrate THIS on the Sabbath, precisely at evening on Friday through Saturday?

Would it matter, this precision, this rote particular command, to the exact TIME, if we can't perceive the OBVIOUS?

The flesh man will say such things are ABSOLUTE and critically important to our salvation, and they will NEVER see the obvious.

 

[ezrider]

There is no virtue in recognizing the sin within you apart from repenting of that sin by the power of God's Holy Spirit.....even if that means you do that over and over and over and over again.

And thus the gap in understanding. You obvious believe there is no virtue in recognizing sin apart from repentance, and that is your shortcoming, because you refuse to seek any virtue from sin. But the scripture declares that where sin exceedingly abounds, grace does much more abound. Without sin, you can not know grace. And without grace, how shall you know the Glory of God. Is their virtue in sin? Most definitely, but you have to be willing to seek it, and you can not seek for the virtue of it if all you do is reach for a covering to hide from your sins, which is what you end up doing by repenting of it over and over and over again.

Vanity is believing we are able to perfect ourselves in the image of the law through obedience to the law. Many can't find any virtue in sin because they are more interested in the whitewash and the appearance of sin, trying to perfect that which God has deemed as dead. If as the scripture says that the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, then I should hope to find some virtue in his reasoning, but you can't find virtue by hiding your sins under the blood of Christ so you don't have to look upon them.

If you are repenting over and over and over again, then that to me is akin to crucifying Christ anew, because you seek to cover those sins afresh. Seeking a covering for your sins was of the law, but under his Grace I need no covering for my sin. And because Christ has already condemned sin in the flesh, then I no longer require a covering that I might hide from my sins. It is those who continue to hide their sins under a covering who fail to acknowledge the sin that dwells in their flesh: saying to the law, I am no murderer. If the Spirit of Christ dwells within me, and the Spirit of Christ sustains me, then why would I require a covering?


If you had to choose only one would you choose the blood of Christ or the Grace of God? I choose Grace: for his mercy endurath forever....

 

[jocor]

No one comes away from any engagement with God in Christ sinless in the flesh.

Are you saying that when I confess my sins and ask for forgiveness, that I don't become sinless until my next sin? What do you mean by "sinless in the flesh"? Do I become sinless in the Spirit?

 

[smaller]

Are you saying that when I confess my sins and ask for forgiveness, that I don't become sinless until my next sin?

Uh, no.

 

[jocor]

If you had to choose only one would you choose the blood of Christ or the Grace of God? I choose Grace: for his mercy endurath forever....

Surely you jest. Grace comes through faith in Messiah's atoning blood. You cannot separate the two. Without Messiah's shed blood there is no grace unto salvation.

 

[jocor]

Uh, no.

That was not helpful. Please explain what you meant when you said, "No one comes away from any engagement with God in Christ sinless in the flesh."

 

[smaller]

That was not helpful. Please explain what you meant when you said, "No one comes away from any engagement with God in Christ sinless in the flesh."

Romans 7:7-13
Romans 7:17-21
Romans 7:25
Romans 8:3
Romans 11:8
2 Cor. 12:7
Gal. 4:14
Gal. 5:17
1 Tim. 1:15
1 John 1:8
1 John 3:8

among many others, likewise.

 

[jocor]

Romans 7:7-13
Romans 7:17-21
Romans 7:25
Romans 8:3
Romans 11:8
2 Cor. 12:7
Gal. 4:14
Gal. 5:17
1 Tim. 1:15
1 John 1:8
1 John 3:8

among many others, likewise.

I asked you what YOU meant, not what Scripture says. I doubt we interpret these Scriptures the same way. So, is it too difficult to answer my question about what YOU meant?

 

[smaller]

I asked you what YOU meant, not what Scripture says.

Scripture says the law is spiritual and the Spirit is against the flesh.

Do the math.