Kevin I agree that baptism does not literally kill and resurrect the believer but this is water baptism that is a public celebration of the reality of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism in Romans 6 comes from what John the Baptist was talking about at the baptism of Jesus. There the Holy Spirit descended. John explained that he baptised with water but added about Jesus, “this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” This is the baptism in which our old self was crucified and we rise to walk in newness of life. Nothing short of the power of the crucified and risen Christ, working through the Holy Spirit on and in human hearts, can accomplish this new birth of our spiritual nature.
Likewise, the Lord’s supper is a celebration of the new covenant in Christ’s blood in which we remember the Lord’s death till He comes. In the early Christian Gentile churches the resurrection day was widely chosen to celebrate this supper.
The Sabbath under the new covenant is described as a shadow compared to the rest we have in Christ. It’s like the whole of the old covenant that was but a shadow, not the reality. To enter God’s rest is not to rest one day in seven. To enter God’s rest is to rest in Christ every moment of every day. God lives in us and in Him we rest. It’s not about what we do. It’s about what Christ has done and then how this impacts our daily living.
This does not negate the “custom” of a day for corporate worship and rest from work.
Thank you for this. Bob, we were just thinking of you last night. And, amazingly last night, we pulled up a sermon you preached “Good news, Bad News.” We were blessed. Greetings. Carmen Lau
Acts 13:44 is an excellent view of Paul leading an entire city of Gentiles to a Sabbath, not on the 1st day of the week, Evangelism service. It shows the respect he has the this day.
Yet, I think Paul missed a great opportune to teach proper Sabbath observance to the members of the Romans congregation. If he had clearly taught Creation Sabbath, I believe most Protestants would be Sabbath keepers. I wonder why Paul was so ambivalent on Sabbath day worship? He just left it up the individual to decide if they wanted to worship on the Sabbath or not. To Paul, God does not care which day a believer wants to keep holy or eat clean or unclean food.
“5 In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. 6 Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. 7 Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God.” Rom 14
Wish I could use a better reference than a Wikipedia article on the Hebrew calendars history. Regardless of the system used, however, there seems to be general agreement
“a seven-day weekly cycle… runs concurrently with but independently of the monthly and annual cycles.”
In addition,
In (Talmudic) Hebrew, the word Shabbat (שַׁבָּת) can also mean “week”,[10] so that in ritual liturgy a phrase like “Yom Reviʻi bəShabbat” means “the fourth day in the week”.[11]
The independent week vs the lunar weeks does not seem to have any historical basis prior to Jewish culture being influenced by the Roman week. Even the Roman 8-day weekly cycle was originally a lunar synced cycle as well.
Try and find any reference to a non-lunar weekly cycle from before 700 BC. Nothing exists.
Many Jewish sources now try to claim that a 7-day cycle did exist, and indeed most religious organizations will try to claim the same, but the evidence for this is completely missing, while historical evidence for weeks being based on the crescent moon are abundant. There is no lack of evidence for the latter.
The current Jewish calendar of a free running week, but with the historical lunisolar months, evolved over quite some period of time, with Hillel the Elder being given significant credit. As a result the special feast days now have more complications because some of them while specified as relative to the new moon, are also specified as relative to Sabbath, so the Jews now have specifications for shifting them around to either be on or avoid being on a Sabbath. But none of that is found in the OT where the days of the Feasts are first specified. That in itself is a broad hint that when the feasts were specified there was no conflict between two weekly cycles that were not in sync. Under the Babylonian system, the 15th day of a month would always have a fixed relationship to the 7-day weekly cycle. So the feast days of Lev never mention any conflict. But by 350 AD, they had a problem so set about codifying how to solve it. At that point they had a fixed 7-day cycle thanks to the Romans, but thanks to the OT they still had a lunar cult. How to make both play nice??
Frank:
This passage speaks not about Jesus being subject to the Old Covenant rituals or dispensation but rather it relates to Jesus’ humanity “under the condemnation of the law” - See Romans and Galatians.
After Hillel II authorized changing the Sabbath observance Encyclopedia Biblica (MacMillan Co. 1899):
“This intimate connection between the week and the month was soon dissolved. It is certain that the week soon followed a development of its own, and it became the custom - without paying any regard to the days of the month (i.e.: the lunar month)…so the New Moon no longer coincided with he first day of the week.” - p.5290
“The introduction of the custom of celebrating the Sabbath every 7th day, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE DAY TO THE MOON’S PHASES, led to a complete separation from the ancient view of the SABBATH.” - p. 4179
Because Paul identified these practices with the Sinai covenant, which in Galatians he says whose time has passed. He says this through multiple metaphors and in multiple ways.
He also identified these as covenant badges that marked off Jews from unclean, pagan Gentiles. However, with the inception of God’s new creation, a fellowship of Jews as Jews and Gentiles as Gentiles, sharing a common faith in Christ, these were to no longer be made as requirements to be imposed on Gentiles for full belonging. They were not to be used to judge one another, nor to determine distinctions and to divide the body of Christ. They are part of the wall of covenant identity and separation that Paul said came down in Christ… especially when seen in light of the fact of Gentiles believing on/joining up with Jesus, and receiving the same Spirit, totally apart from the law.
Think of what we have built our entire theology, eschatology, and ecclesiology upon within Adventism, and see if this aligns with what Paul’s gospel and continual plea for a truly diverse unity is all about.
If I follow this reasoning then the first Sabbath of each month is not the seventh day, even though it is the seventh day of the month it would be the nineth or tenth day since the previous Sabbath.
Lunar months in all cultures have 29 or 30 days in a month. The only cycle of time we have that does not vary is the week - seven days, established at Creation. Today the practice of Sabbath worshippers is to worship on a cyclical seven day cycle, not a cycle restarting on the first day of the month. If this were to be the case, the Ten Commandments would have specified this more clearly.
Lunar month started when the new moon was first reported to the Sanhedrin by at least three witnesses. The following day was the “festival of the new moon” and the first day of a new month - and the day after was a Sabbath. Seven days later was the next Sabbath and so on until the moon disappeared again - and the cycle was repeated.
A continuous seven day cycle could be continued since creation only if there was always someone keeping count by sevens somewhere. That idea is ridiculous since the only way to tell time was by looking at the moon and the sun, which, by the way, is what God intended as reported in Genesis. I’m sure someone lost track of what number day it was. - especially during the exile. The Bible is pretty clear (OT) that the Sabbath ws tied to the new moon, and there is a reminder of that in Isaiah. If you believe that the Sabbath is eternal, so is the festival of the “new moon” (Is. 66).
It is always the 7’th day once you START counting after the first Sabbath. At the end of each month, you have a couple of throw aways, where you are eagerly looking for the new moon. To you that is alien. To all ancient cultures it was normal. To them it would have been very alien to count in a 7-day cycle that ignored the Moon. They had the exact same problem with making the Moon’s cycles fit the year, so they developed a complex method of adjusting for that, again, with great Taboo and much occupation of the Leaders energies. Every year! Same with the start of each Month. Taboo no end…
Its only in these latter and degenerate days that believers have chosen to ignore God’s sanctification of the Moon and all His edicts in regards to it.
If you think a free running 7-day cycle existed in antiquity, try and find any proof of that, from before the Babylonian captivity, cr 700 BC.
Thank you for posting that reference. I don’t recall ever really reading 66:22-23 together before. I’d love to hear an SDA sermon on that one. Perhaps Kevin can give it a shot?
From the time I was in Primary Sabbath School [about 1951] I had heard these verses
read numerous times, church school, academy, college.
Isaiah 66: 22–
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me,
saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.
23. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath
to another, shall all flesh come to worship me, saith the Lord.
24. “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that transgressed against
Me for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an
abhorring unto all flesh.”
I would say it is ALSO from these verses that a VERY GOOD CASE FOR AN EVER BURNING
HELL could be made.
Apparently in the New Earth time will run by the Moon Cycle. No calendars. 28 “day” months.
It doesn’t say how many New Moon “days” the celebrations will last.
Scripture doesn’t say if there will be Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter seasons in the new earth.
When one begins to sleuth and investigate “The Sabbath” in the Scriptures one Finds MORE
QUESTIONS than Answers.
1 Cor. 13:12,13 “12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part , but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
That is why the Sabbath is a symbol, but the full reality is found in Jesus. Even the rest we find in Jesus today is just a shadow of the fullness we will find face to face.
We should use the Sabbath until we fully realize the rest we find in Jesus then we will no longer need the one day in seven because we will have learned and internalize what the symbol is teaching. We would only pick the symbol up again when we need to use it as a teaching tool to help others learn of God’s rest. This is true of all symbols not just the Sabbath.
Conservative Jewish religious teaching regarding the Sabbath
states that one is to take the peace and rest offered by the
Sabbath into the other 6 [six] days of the week.
Kevin – that goes along with the message of your post.
In the 1950s Walter Martin wanted to talk with Adventists but Donald Barnhouse was reluctant because he had met Adventists and had been branded with the mark of the beast. Barnhouse just did’t want any of it he relegated Adventists to cult status and he also claimed a certain hostility toward christians by Adventists .
Walter Martin insisted he could talk to the Adventists and as a result the books QOD and The truth about the Seventh Day Adventists were printed. It was agreed QOD was to be sold in Christian book shops while the book The truth about seventh day Adventists by Walter Martin. be sold in Adventists book shops the later didn’t happen. Walter Martin later claimed after supporting the Adventists the Christian magazine he edited lost sales while the Adventists gained by not being relegated to cult status.
I believe much has been gained in the body of christ in a better understanding of other christian churches but there is still a way to go. The unscriptural doctrine of the mark of the beast should be the first to be relegated to the theological trash bin next the remnant church.
My observations in the Anglican church that they have much respect for Adventists I know a large Anglican family with 5 ministers regularly attend an Adventist retreat and engage with Adventists. When the Desmond Doss film came out a special screening was held for the Anglicans and they also assembled a panel of speakers churchman and military.
It’s clear many christians are very accepting of Adventists
