servant_2000 said:
The law was for Israel. Period. The moral principles in the law are: loving God and treating humanity with respect are timeless. Those principles were here before the law was given on Sinai. As far as that third angel in Revelation is concerned, his call to worship God, the creator of heaven and earth, is an eternal call. Adventists twist things when you say its reference to God as Creator confirms the Sabbath. The Sabbath WAS NOT GIVEN TO MAN at creation despite Adventists' claims to the contrary.
I guess there was no sin. for sin is the transgression of the law. Didn't Satan put himself as a god before God? Didn't Cain kill? Didn't Abraham bear false witness? What did the inhabitants of S&G and the anti-deluvians do to warrant complete destruction? Your arguments are weak as God's laws were always existing.
The 10 commandments were merely a concrete (pardon the pun) reminder of what the Israelites who were in Egyptian bondage for generations had forgotten. In other words, they forgot the character of God and who He is of which the 10 commandments are a tangible reminder.
servant_2000 said:
The creation account says God rested on the Sabbath and hallowed it. There was absolutely no command to mankind to rest. They had no need to be commanded to rest because they were spiritually alive, united with God with living spirits. Interestingly, the seventh day was the only creation day about which it did not say, "and the evening and the morning were the _____th day." On the seventh day God rested, and that day was not stated to have an ending. God's work was done, and man was in an eternal state of rest--until they sinned.
The Sabbath's purpose and function is the reason for its very existence. Who was the Sabbath for? Do you think God needed a rest? God 'set it apart'. That's what sanctified means. Christ said that the 'Sabbath was made for man'. Is the Sabbath a needless vacuum within itself? It exists for no other reason but that it exists? The fact that the Sabbath was given to man shows that it has a function.
If you understood the Hebrew, you would see that the seventh is proceeded by the word 'yom' or 'day', like the other six days of creation. When this grammatical structure is used, it means a 24 literal day. You cannot take the 24 week of which we follow (and of which we get straight from creation) and decide to make the one day out of the six 'metaphorical' or 'eternal' when the rest are taken literally.
servant_2000 said:
When they sinned, they literally died spiritually. They were spiritually separated from God, not just hypothetically because they knew in their minds they sinned, but they were spiritually dead. That spiritual death is their legacy to us. It's not genetic, it's spiritual, and without a belief in the spirit as a real part of man that knows God that's separate from the breath, this concept is just that--a concept. It's not REAL. Adventists do not have a good way to explain spiritual death because they do not believe mankind has a spirit. They call sin genetic.
When mankind sinned, he was separated from God. He began to die both physically and spiritually. What does this have to do with the Sabbath?
servant_2000 said:
Enter Moses. With his entrance into history, we have the story of Israel's formation. He gave them the Sabbath to remind them of his original intention that they be alive and connected to him, and also to point forward to the Messiah who would restore that connection. Prior to Sinai, there was no law and no concrete awareness of sin. People still were under the curse of sin; death still reigned before Moses. (see Romans 5:12-14)
The Sabbath was a sign to show who God was, embedded in His moral law. The sacrificial system was what truly pointed to the Messiah. You are making the Sabbath as part of a salvation process. In so doing, you are ignoring the initial purpose of the Sabbath and its physical function.
servant_2000 said:
The law came to make people aware that they were sinners and to point them to Christ. (Galatians 3:23-25) When Christ came, He fulfilled the law. He was the reality of which the law was merely a shadow. (Colossians 2:16-17)
No, you cannot apply Colossians 2 to this concept. The 'shadows' were the ascetic rules and rituals that took away the forgiveness of Christ. The law's function as a sanctifying process didn't change even in Paul's day. In other words, the moral law still functioned as pointing people toward the Savior. "I would not know sin were it not for the law'. 'The law is holy, just and good'. Paul upholds the law when used for conviction of sin. He condemns it when used as justification. This is where you and the rest of the 'law abrogators' fail to see how Paul viewed the law in its function.
servant_2000 said:
Jesus replaces the law in the lives of the believer. A true believer is regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus bore the law's judgment of death for us, He earned the right to restore us to life. The Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers puts us back into connection with God. We again enter God's rest when we are born again, just as Adam and Eve were in His unending Sabbath after creation and before sin.
Jesus didn't 'replace' the law but made it more meaningful in Himself. The law is internalized but it still exists. It is no more better for us to kill or worship false gods then it was for the Israelites. The Sabbath is part of that reasoning as it exists alongside the rest. If I love God with all my heart and soul, I will observe His day (set apart and blessed and sanctified without man's example) just I would not bow down to other gods.
servant_2000 said:
To honor the day is to honor a symbol of Jesus. The law still exists as a pointer to unbelievers that they need a Savior. It still exists to give us the proof we need that Jesus is who he says He is. But Jesus has replaced the law. His Spirit holds us accountable to more rigid standards than the law did. (see Matthew 5-7) Honoring Jesus instead of the law means we have come to life spiritually. We are connected to God eternally. We have replaced the shadow with the reality.
Again, this doesn't mean that it is okay to break those laws. Rather they are even more important. Jesus did the same thing with the Sabbath. He didn't abolish it or make it less important by either His words or His actions. This is still ignored by most of the Pauline supporters on this forum. Instead (like the other commandments) Jesus took it from the letter of the law and made it more spiritual (Who cares about not healing according to the letter. Jesus says that is lawful to do good on the Sabbath).
Again, the reality doesn't negate the purpose and function of the Sabbath. Rather, the Sabbath has both a present, future and Messianic application. This was understood in the OT as well without the need to 'abolish' the Sabbath.
Despite Heidi's continual insistance to the contrary, Hebrews 4 makes this application.
: , that's because there are none!
