How do we tackle the argument that the OT seems to believe that the Mosaic covenant is eternal?

Faith & Science Conversation
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so now let me get this straight…in your above statement you are talking about redemption. God needed a rest because the planning for the redemption event was hard work…the trouble is, the original Sabbath was given as a day or worship between mankind and Creator. Im just trying to make sense of why then this requires a change in the day of worship exactly? Are you now saying God had to change his day of rest to Sunday because it was too difficult to keep the day of rest on Saturday. Or perhaps you are going with the false idea this change of day signified some thing big…ie in order to let us know that there is a new covenant?

On the point of the new covenant…there are a couple of problems:

  1. The new covenant was first given to us by the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 56 and again in Jeremiah 31 (Isaiah predates Christ by half a millennia)
  2. The Sabbath was for our benefit…not Gods. God didnt create the institution of the Sabbath because he was puffed out! Apparent tiredness of our Creator has nothing to do with it.
  3. If you read the two covenants, you will notice that the only difference between them is that in the new covenant it is God who makes the promise and not the people. Other than that, the two covenants are the same! We know that the apostle in the new testament tells us that even Abraham was saved by faith… so one cannot make the claim the new covenant is faith and the old one works based…thats simply not biblical.

Finally, your statement above has a huge huge problem…Christ rested in the gave on the Seventh Day Sabbath and rose in the early hours (at dawn) on Sunday. He did not rest on the Sunday!

I am not sure how you suddenly jump fence here?

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I am not hindering you, but something certainly is! :grin:

Where are you inferring that from? Not me. Jesus’ ordeal in Gethsemane, his crucifixion, and the unfathomable pain in the rift in the Godhead were the work.

So the day of the week of the original Sabbath is pretty much irrelevant to when God really rested except as it relates to the sequence around and leading up to Golgotha.

The huge problem is yours. ‘Resting in the grave’ was not rest for Jesus because he was still not back in full fellowship with his Father. Christ really was at rest when that was restored. After he arose. His arising was not ‘not resting’. Do you work on Saturday when you arise? So no fences to jump.

The only fence I can figure is the one that you and your tribe1 have built around yourselves preventing your perception of spiritual and physical reality, although it’s not so much a fence as a dense and impenetrable wall.
 

1 Actually that should be tribes, plural, because you are doubly disadvantaged with both SDA and YECism.

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“That’s appropriate, because in the church of Jesus’ day, Saturday was the Sabbath Day — a day of rest. The first Holy Saturday was a day of rest for Jesus, as having finished His work of saving the world with all that He endured throughout the first Holy Week, He took His Sabbath rest in the tomb.” Jesus' pause in tomb sheds light on believers' deaths - The Daily Reporter - Greenfield Indiana.

Jesus , too, rested on the Sabbath , according to the commandment. He rested in the tomb . Jesus filled the gap in the creation account God’s Sabbath Sleep: How Christ Filled in the Gap in the Creation Story

2-2: Jesus kept the Sabbath even in His death!

the messianic revolution
https://messianic-revolution.com › 2-2-jesus-kept-sabb…
](2-2: Jesus kept the Sabbath even in His death! - WELCOME TO THE MESSIANIC REVOLUTION)

After gathering the items they needed on that Friday, they again rested on the seventh day, Saturday Sabbath.

The real problem here is that almost all denominations who attempt to claim that the new covenant did away with the Seventh Day Sabbath are all over the place with entering into Christ’s rest and the importance of His demonstration of that doctrine by staying in the grave over the Sabbath and rising on the Sunday. Christ did not rise on the Sunday because he wanted to place any importance on the first day of the week, rather it was to illustrate how important the Sabbath really is. God started His creation week in Genesis Chapter 1 on the first day of the week…that is the only relevance to this day in the bible.

Not once anywhere in the Bible will you find any statement sanctifying or hallowing worship on the first day of the week…not once. I for the life of me cannot understand how it is that educated people cannot get the significance of sanctifying and hallowing the Seventh Day Sabbath. Individuals are easily lead astray by leaders who ignore biblical statements about the significance of the Seventh Day Sabbath, instead making up all sorts of excuses as to why we should worship on the first day of the week? What is even more unbelievable is that the Catholic church openly claim that they are responsible for the changing of the day of worship… a denomination that are almost enitrely responsible for the deaths of countless thousands of Christians and the burning of huge piles of Bibles! How can anyone take their doctrine from the theology of an organisation like that?

If we fail to keep the Sabbath we cannot enter into Christs rest, its that simple. And when we read Revelation 14:12, it outlines the characteristics of saints…

Here are those who:

  1. keep the commandments of God (even google says these are the 10 commandments)
  2. have the testimony of Jesus (Gospel)

the relevance of the above to the O.P is plainly obvious…the mosaic covenant is eternal because the outcome of fulfilling that covenant results in eternal life…this is the entire point of the plan of salvation that God initiated at the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Christ will bear the scars of the cross permanently. The Atonement that He made (the price paid for sin) will be visible everytime we look at his hands!

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  • Who claims that science can “save” anyone, assuming of course that “saved by science” refers to ‘eternal salvation’ not 'temporal salvation? I certainly don’t. I do vouch for the physical benefits of medical personnel, knowledge, and technology.
  • IMO From the Seventh Day Adventist “Doctrine of ‘Soul Sleep’”: a tortuous meandering through the Bible combined with a rejection of anything written by the Church Fathers and not in the Bible. Soul Sleep
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actually that is false. Soul sleep is absolutely in the bible and a significant narrater of the doctrine was from Christ himself before he raised Lazurus from the dead. Note the following…

John11:11 These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”

John 11:12 Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” 13 However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.

14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.

King David wrote…

Psalm 6: 5For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?

Ecclesiastis 9: 5For the living know that they will die;
But the dead know nothing,
And they have no more reward,
For the memory of them is forgotten.
6Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished;
Nevermore will they have a share
In anything done under the sun.

Psalm 115: 17The dead do not praise the Lord,
Nor any who go down into silence.

The Apostle Luke wrote in the book of Acts

Acts 13: 36“For David, after he had served [k]his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and [l]saw corruption;

(and before you start with the “aha…” corruption here means “his body saw decay”)

Christ said in Luke 20: > 27Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 28saying: “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 29Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. 30And the second [g]took her as wife, and he died childless. 31Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven [h]also; and they left no children, and died. 32Last of all the woman died also. 33Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.”

34Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.”

for those who do not believe in soul sleep as is clearly illustrated in the bible, i have this question for you…

If the dead are not really dead…why the need for a resurrection…the saved are already with God are they not?

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Challenge accepted.

From Galatians 4

But now you have come to know God - or rather you have come to be known by God. So how can you turn back again to those weak and worthless principles? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

From John 5:
Because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Judean leaders started persecuting Him. But Jesus said to them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”

And from Romans 14:
One person esteems one day over another while another judges every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes that day does so to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and the one who abstains, abstains to the Lord, and he gives thanks to God.

So it would seem you wish to set aside the good apostle’s advice and you wish to judge others for not esteeming certain days of the week in exactly the same way you do.

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Where is the fulfillment of the challenge in what you have posted? I do not see any evidence of hallowing or sanctification of the first day of the week in either of the two references posted.

Reply to John 5

Christs rest is a means of linking salvation with keeping the Sabbath. God setup the institution of the Sabbath as a special communion between Himself and us. The Sabbath is not for Gods benefit…its for ours. Changing the day of worship to Sunday is to completely misunderstand the purpose of the sabbath in the first place. God isnt interested in us worshiping Christ’s resurrection…that is to worship his death and rise again as an atonement for the sins of mankind…God isnt interested in us worshipping the entry of sin into this world and its punishment…he is trying to restore His creation back to in former glory before sin corrupted it. That is why the Seventh Day Sabbath predates sin and remains a fixture in salvation Why on earth would he want us to worship sin and its consequences…the reminder of Christs atonement is found in the scars on his hands and in his side…these are the eternal reminder of punishment for sin and its atonement…not the Sabbath.

Romans 14 is not relevant to this discussion so i wont bother dealing with that reference other than to say you need to go back earlier in the book of Romans. for example take a look at Chapter 7:and 6 of Romans.

7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were [e]delivered. 18And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness [f]for holiness.

Romans 6: 20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit [g]to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the [h]gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6 is telling us that we are free from sin because we are free from the wages of sin via the Grace of Christ. He died on the cross to free us from the eternal punishment that is the wages of sin…not to do away with Gods law. Gods moral law has always existed. It has nothing to do with doing away with the law (ie Gods moral law the 10 commandments) or changing the day of worship.

Let me ask you:

  1. if Gods law first came into existence at Sinai, what condemned Cain when he killed Abel?
  2. By what was Lucifer guilty of and thrown out of heaven? If there is no law, then Lucifer could not have been condemned to this earth!
  3. for what purpose was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil placed in the garden? Was it not a test? By what standard is such a test applied and judged if there is no existing moral law?
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That’s because there was no “hallowing” of any such day. Quite the opposite. Though if anyone wants to hallow one day more than another - as long as they do so to the Lord (and as long as they don’t think of the other days as “not belonging to the Lord”) then who is anybody else to judge them for that? If you agree with all that, then I misunderstood you and we don’t have any disagreement on that point. I was under the impression that you were judging others for not “hallowing” the same Sabbath day as you might choose.

As for the rest of what you wrote - I don’t see the relevance of any of it toward that question.

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  • Actually, it’s true. I just don’t expect to persuade you it is true in this world. The doctrine of “Soul Sleep” is the source of an irreconcilable difference between you and me; and no amount of words by either one of us is going to change the other person’s mind, period.
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We can talk about it in Abraham’s Bosom :slight_smile: (not to throw another spanner in the works!). Haha.

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As usual not a single counter reference to all the texts i provided that directly support soul sleep…just your claim “no its false”!
Next time how about actually reading the texts and refuting them if they are wrong.

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  • Well, there ya’ go! If we can talk about stuff in Abraham’s Bosom, “soul sleep” is bogus. And if we don’t, the resurrection hasn’t happened yet.
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Genesis 2
BSB 3Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.

NIV 3Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

ERV 3And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it: because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made

So its either set apart or made holy. Either way i think the doctrine is on solid ground. The bible is very good at explaining itself if only we let it.

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  • Thanks for confirming that the difference between us is “irreconcilable”. The unresolved mystery is: How long is it going to take you to figure that out?
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Screenshot 2023-08-22 at 04-51-30 Christ and the Sabbath
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Screenshot 2023-08-22 at 04-56-05 Christ and the Sabbath
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Screenshot 2023-08-22 at 04-57-48 Christ and the Sabbath
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  • And there you have it, “So, every time we turn away from the true Sabbath, we turn our backs upon the law of God, and our faces toward the false gods.” Every Sunday-worshiping Christian is an idolater.
  • Feel better?
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Well - okay then! So you DO believe a certain day was hallowed. Feel free to disagree with Paul and the gospel writers … I was just going off what they gave as instructions for how Christians are to get along in the world and with each other now.

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Wow. Talk about pharisaical legalism and heterodoxy! (And I’m a NT sabbatarian!) Oh, and heresy concerning soteriology, violating anything in the New Testament about grace and grace alone, not by works (Sabbath-keeping as part of salvation is a legalistic works-based non-starter for a true Christian understanding) lest anyone should boast. And @adamjedgar sure does boast about his theological prowess, but totally belies it right there!

I’m curious, Adam, why you have redacted this or cut it out of your Bible, and if it is indeed still readable, why have you so completely erased it from your mind?:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9

You need a refresher on this as well:
  Romans 7 NIV - Released From the Law, Bound to Christ - Bible Gateway
 

I’m pretty convinced by now that is not likely to happen for most anything Christian and scriptural unless something humbles you – it may take a hard providence or a Severe Mercy.

Yep, as I suggested above, that’s pretty likely to be true unless something ‘smacks you upside the head’, as some might say.

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This is simple too:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:8

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God was still working on Saturday. It was on Sunday that He arose and gave us true rest.

There is no new covenant in Isaiah 56! Foreigners joining Israel is discussed, but no new covenant.

Except they’re not: the one required obedience to over six hundred instructions, the other does not – in fact the Holy Spirit reduced the list of instructions to four items (and the Sabbath isn’t one of them).

Exactly – there is no rest in death! Job describes it as “gloom and darkness”, which is hardly conducive to rest, and suggests that the spirits there are in pain

And you believe them?

Worship on the Lord’s Day was happening before the canon was complete – John uses the term in Revelation in a way that tells us that everyone knew what it meant, and Luke in Acts refers to it as the day that Christians gathered.

Paul thought so, or he wouldn’t have said that to depart this life was to be with the Lord. Jesus thought so, too, or He wouldn’t have referred to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as “living”. Then there’s the matter of Moses and Elijah showing up and talking with Jesus on that mountaintop.

The resurrection is when we get our bodies back.

So Jesus and the Father were working on the Sabbath.

Quite the contrary: the Sabbath was a shadow of the reality which/Who is Christ.
Besides which, the early church didn’t “change” it, they added the Lord’s Day as the day of worship, which the Sabbath had never been – Old Testament worship was at the Temple, every day.
Lord’s Day worship honors the reality, not the shadow, by worshipping on the one day of the week when He Who is greater than the Sabbath rested from His work.

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That’s backwards: the Sabbath is the shadow, Christ is the reality.

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