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The Sabbath real and ‘ritual’, or mental mirage?

From a ‘Bible Discussions’ thread,

‘God hates a physical Sabbath’

Follows on ‘Sunday Worship Services Trademark’

Eleven:

Can you or GE show me anywhere in this scripture where God uses the phrase “of the week”??
God said we are to rest on the 7th day. THAT'S ALL!!!!!!!!! STOP!
Nothing more!
He does not use the phrase “7th day of the week.” .....
Is it Saturday, or is it Sunday. Actually it's neither!

GE:

I don’t stuff anyone’s ears with cotton plugs; I pour molten lead into those vacuous skulls through them.

“On the Sabbath Day the day proper which mid-afternoon is before the First Day of the week .....”, Mt28:1.

Until anyone can show me Scripture that says, starting you will work 6 days and then honour ANY DAY YOU LIKE OR MAKE THE LAW YOURSELF: ‘Always on Sundays IN DEFIANCE OF THE SEVENTH DAY SABBATH OF THE LORD (your) GOD’, I will stick with what the WHOLE BIBLE, including Paul and the Gospels, taught. And shall keep on daring Eleven to quote Paul for saying anything against the rest of the whole Bible.
And I shall stick to it for as long as you will stick to your error and unscriptural prattle and spiritual ritualism of keeping God’s Sabbath in your mind where it never manifests but in error regularly every Sunday of the week.
Then show Paul as making clear, Eleven, we revert back to Judaism when we keep the (only, Seventh Day) Sabbath, and I’ll show you who “reverted to your former beggarly first-principle-no-gods-of-the-world, observing days”, Sundays, every week! – Galatians 4:10.
The sabbath isn't about ritual – Eleven claims –, but he every Sunday meets in congregation with God’s People? And does so because he – despite his protestations to the contrary – claims Sundays’ worshipping “is about what God created for us - salvation, thru the blood of Jesus”. But it’s not ‘ritual’? ‘Not ritual’ while he very well realises ‘ritual’ is the exact reason why the Scriptures say that “Jesus had given them rest .... so that therefore there remains valid for them their keeping THE SABBATH DAY”?
As long as ‘ritual’ is on Sundays, it’s true spiritual worship! When “Sabbaths .... The Seventh Day”, it’slegalistic, ritualistic religiosity.

Eleven:

Actually GE, there is no problem with the saturday sabbath.
If that is the day you observe sabbath, how wonderful for you.
There are those who observe sabbath on other days.
The problem arises when you get on here and claim, unless it's done YOUR way, everyone else is going to hell, or will in some way have to face the wrath of God. That is not true!
I would love to see you answer a few questions without getting irrate all the time.
1) Do you observe saturday sabbath as it is practiced in Judaism?
Yes or no.
2) Are you saying that we must rest on saturday because God rested on saturday?
3) By the way, you broke all ten commandments yesterday, are you aware of that?

GE:
I gladly oblige, dear Eleven.
1) Do you observe saturday sabbath as it is practiced in Judaism?
Definitely no!
2) Are you saying that we must rest on saturday because God rested on saturday?
No!
3) By the way, you broke all ten commandments yesterday, are you aware of that?
Not only yesterday but every moment of my existence, yes, dear Eleven.
You see, you just CANNOT understand, I in my 'belief-life' do not know a 'Saturday'; nor can you understand man's 'observance' or 'observing' or 'observation' (such as Sundays) is a different thing altogether than God's Sabbath Day.

YES, “Sabbaths .... The Seventh Day” is Law, is ritual and is ceremony, andthat is WHY, we, CHRISTIANS, are ‘still to honor the sabbath and keep it holy’ – exactly what Hebrews 4:9 says: EVERY WEEK, QUOTE: “A KEEPING (‘ritual’) OF THE SABBATH DAY” : “sabbati-smos — sabbat-I-S-M — a keeping— ‘ritual’remains valid for the People of God for their keeping / observance / ‘ritual’ / ceremony / festivity”.
AND WHY, “not out of obligation”?— THE FREE, JOYFUL OBLIGATION OF BEING CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS coming together in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, “of sheer love for the Lord”? Alleluia! — Just like it was the case in Colossians 2, where Paul consoled, comforted, encouraged and ‘commanded’ the Christian “Body of Christ’s Own”, “Do not you let yourselves be condemned by anyone (of the adverse pagan WORLD) with regard to .... SABBATHS’ FEAST”.

No! because it’s “the Seventh Day of the week”, says Eleven!
Someone said, well that's the way Jesus did it; He went to Church on Sabbaths. And I say I too believe it, whereas you, Eleven, openly deny your own acknowledgement and think we (or only I – all the same) are too stupid to notice your unabashed contradictingof yourself.
And yeah, the FACT Jesus was accused of breaking the sabbath “the way man defined it back then”, CONFIRMS Christ was keeping the Sabbath Day the way God always intended it to be kept, to the SABBATH’S PROPHETIC MEANING ABOUT JESUS CHRIST— exactly the way there is no reference to the Sabbath in the New Testament where Christ Jesus stands not central. Look them up in the concordance.
The Sabbath concerned Christ in the New Testament, not the Jews who IN VAIN are still waiting for the Messiah, which certainly is why THEIR Sabbath-keeping is WORTH NOTHING, because it is without Christ and actually therefore, to them promises a certain damnation.
Jesus had to weepwhen He attended the assemblies of those who through unbelief in HIM, trespassed the Sabbath of the LORD. By UNBELIEF is the Sabbath of the LORD God trespassed and trampled underfoot and dishonoured, forgotten and despised.

The Sabbath is not disgraced thoughby the fact the worshippers on it are sinners and always will fall short in faith. It is because they are sinners, sinners whose sins are forgiven, that the People of God, the Body of Christ’s Own, worship on God’s Sabbath— because they are CHRISTIANS! The only Sabbath the Bible’s Seventh Day, tells us of God’s grace and His forgiveness of our sins and weaknesses. The “ism” is still on the Sabbath, yes, but God put it there through the authors of the New Testament, specifically in Hebrews 4:9, “sabbatiSMOS apoleipetai” – “a Sabbatism / KEEPING / RITUAL of the Sabbath Day is still valid”. Or, in other words of the same writer, “Do not neglect your assemblies (‘rituals’) as some have the habit to do.”

And do not forget the Gospels were written after the rest of the New Testament; the Church through them emphasised the ‘ritualistic’ character of the Sabbath the ‘Jesus-way’, very much. “According to his custom (‘ritual’) He went to Church on the Sabbath Day.”

But the opponents of the Lord’s Sabbath Day are of the opinion the Sabbath is for sinless people only; no one is able not to transgress against the Sabbath Law, soyou are a hypocrite and legalist if you still observed it. But if it’s Sunday you observe, then of course it’s another story. If it’s the ‘spiritual sabbath’ of Sunday or of no sabbath you observe, you obey the Law of Love. It’s either or: Keep the Sabbath and you cannot keep the Law of Love; keep the Law of Love and you cannot keep the Sabbath. But you can and you do, if it’s Sunday or your spiritual Sabbath in your heart that you keep.

Only God must yet to be taught these wonderful moral lessons in Christian behaviour and freedom. Or if your God doesn’t comply with these Christian characteristics you worship the wrong God.

So just about everybody – his protesting regardless –has put his own ‘ism’ and ‘schism’ on Sunday: I quote for you, Justin Martyr, according to NKJV: “After the Sabbath on the First Day / Sunday”:— Analysed: ‘Sunday-ISM’; or, in Paul’s terminology, “vainglorious veneration of days”, ‘paratehreoh’ (Galatians 4:10). ‘Because, see Lord (–Galatians 5–) we have baptised ourselves in Your Name, so we are sealed in redemption our arrogant “superstitious worshipping” of the deities of our former beggarly conditionand all. We have only added You to our list of deities.The only difference, Lord, between your ‘Sabbath’ and our Sunday is, you commanded yours and we have assumed ours ourselves – because we’re free from the Law.

MarcusEnoch

Try reading Acts chapter 15. You'll find no mention of the observance of the sabbath in the guidelines for new gentile believers.
If you are a jew, observe and celebrate. If you are a gentile, you may enjoy the benefits of the sabbath, but you are not bound to it. Jesus fulfilled the law, He Himself stated that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
Our salvation is not dependent upon our observance of the sabbath. I don't know about you, but I am saved by grace, through my faith in Jesus Christ to perform what He has promised. Eph. 1:13,14 and 2:8,9
Acts 15:1-2 Message1-2 It wasn't long before some Jews showed up from Judea insisting that everyone be circumcised: “If you're not circumcised in the Mosaic fashion, you can't be saved.” Paul and Barnabas were up on their feet at once in fierce protest. The church decided to resolve the matter by sending Paul, Barnabas, and a few others to put it before the apostles and leaders in Jerusalem.
10-11”So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don't we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?”
24-27We heard that some men from our church went to you and said things that confused and upset you. Mind you, they had no authority from us; we didn't send them. We have agreed unanimously to pick representatives and send them to you with our good friends Barnabas and Paul. We picked men we knew you could trust, Judas and Silas—they've looked death in the face time and again for the sake of our Master Jesus Christ. We've sent them to confirm in a face-to-face meeting with you what we've written. 28-29It seemed to the Holy Spirit and to us that you should not be saddled with any crushing burden, but be responsible only for these bare necessities: Be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians (blood, for instance); and guard the morality of sex and marriage. These guidelines are sufficient to keep relations congenial between us.

GE:

Nobby said this is so easy to read. Yes, easy does it read, How true to the real text, of course will be another question.
However, I do not see in even this 'translation', the Sabbath is incriminated. To the contrary, the SAME presupposition of the Sabbath's weekly observance by Christians in their Congregations for the furtherance of the Gospel through the reading of the only Scriptures at that stage in the history of the Church — ‘Moses’, or, ‘The Law’, or, ‘The Scriptures’ — underlies the thrust of this chapter's reading – even through this version of it. But of course, verse 21-22,“Because Moses of old time has in every city them that preach Moses, (the Law or Scriptures) being read in the churches every Sabbath Day”, have been omitted by Marcus Enoch, quite obviously, quite deliberately, for quite obvious reason, to make the text read quite easily for his hidden agenda against the Sabbath Day of God.
God does not hate 'a physical Sabbath Day'; God hates hypocrisy and pretending.

I do not post here or anywhere with the aim to convince, what convert, anybody to my views. I am posting here as anywhere else to maintain honest dealing with Scriptures as God's written Word to his Church. The 'Sabbath / Sunday issue' SERVES this purpose, only; it is not the subject or object of importance in the first place. Not, as far as I am concerned, although the Sabbath receives the centre-position in this issue from the nature of it being

1) “The Seventh Day Sabbath of the LORD God” of the Christian, and

2) of it being so attacked, assailed, and disdained by the Church of the LORD of the Sabbath Day, the Christian Body of saints.
Verse 23, “And they wrote letters by them after this manner ....” no doubt to be read in the churches before the Assemblies where every Sabbath Day of the week the Law “of old time”, was preached by “them” of those Churches, as follows: “The apostles and elders and brethren (in Jerusalem), send greetings unto the BRETHREN(not hostile Judaists) which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia”— in those churches where every Sabbath the Law or Scriptures or ‘Moses’, was read and “preached”, that is, “proclaimed”. These “churches” were the “In-the-Coming-Together” – ‘synagohgais’ of the Christians in those very places where the cause for the Jerusalem council – Acts 15 – first cropped up (that one must be circumcised in the flesh in order to be saved), 15:1. The Sabbath for no moment was the issue! In fact, that the issue cropped up means the Sabbath was everywhere kept by everybody the same without issue.
“In Antioch”, “Iconium”, where, “in the synagogue of the Jews”, “a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks, believed”, 14:1.
“Listra and Derbe”, where “Barnabas and Paul”, in perfect Jewish fashion “rent their clothes” to warn the people against transgression of ‘MOSES’, First, Second and Third Commandments; in perfect CHRISTIAN fashion warned the people by quoting directly from MOSES’ FOURTH Commandment against SABBATH transgression! Verses 6 to 18. (The awesome ‘scope’ of the Sabbath Commandment!)
Churches like in “Pamphylia in Pisidia”, where Paulon the Great Day of Atonement preached his great Pentecostal Sermon and the SABBATH witnessed the Judaistic Jews leave the Christian Assemblies of Spiritual Israel for good. Acts 13.
Churches even as near to Jerusalem as Phenice and Samaria, 13:3.
These and the like were the ‘Synagogues’ the Decisions of the Council were sent to, to be read every Sabbath where Moses was preached every Sabbath! But the Sabbath played no role; can be cleanly left out from one’s use of Acts 15 and the resolutions of the first Christian Council of Churches in order to prop up one’s Sunday house of cards.....

Eleven:

Actually GE, there is no problem with the saturday sabbath.
If that is the day you observe sabbath, how wonderful for you.
There are those who observe sabbath on other days.
The problem arises when you get on here and claim, unless it's done YOUR way, everyone else is going to hell, or will in some way have to face the wrath of God. That is not true!
GE:
There is ‘no problem with the saturday sabbath’, for you, Eleven. And it matters not that it might be or might not be a problem for me, GE. And I think God does not care either.
So, fortunately that is not the day I observe sabbath, although on the calendar the Sabbath Day of God coincides with it, or it, coincides with the day that in calendar time cannot be mistaken by anybody conscious of the created reality of and in space and time and through God's own revelation to the writers of Holy Writ made known to all mankind through the Son of God Jesus Christ, as the Seventh Day Sabbath of the LORD GOD Almighty and Eternal.
There are those who observe sabbath on other days to the customs of heathendom and old pagan idolatry.

The problem arises when you get on here and claim, unless it's done 'MY way' which is no way at all, everyone else is going to heaven in any case, whether they will in some way have to face the wrath of God or not.

So where you got your categorical conclusion, “That is not true!”, from, only you will know, dear Eleven.

Eleven:

Do you observe saturday sabbath as it is practiced in Judaism?

GE:

Definitely no! Why do you ask me this again?

Eleven:

Fine. Me neither. Then why do you keep saying, Christians are called to revert back to Judiasm? I don't understand that.

2) Are you saying that we must rest on saturday because God rested on saturday?

GE:

I did not say “Christians are called to revert back to Judiasm”, unnecessary to say. But you saying I did shows you do not or seem not to be able to distinguish, three kinds of Sabbaths – no, four – in the Scriptures:
1) The Old Testament Sabbath: “Seventh Day Sabbath of the LORD your God”, but, Old Testament nevertheless.
2) The New Testament Sabbath this very same Seventh and Sabbath Day: “God thus concerning spake: And God indeed the Seventh Day FINISHED / RESTED from ALL HIS WORKS .... in these last days .... through the Son”, in having raised Him from the dead “In the Sabbath's fullness of day mid-afternoon towards the First Day of the week.”
3) The Seventh Day Sabbath Day of men's works the Law being their disciplinarian even by Christians so kept.
4) The 'Jewish Sabbath' of Judaism like the Saducees and Pharisees used to zealously 'keep'.