| Author | Message | ||
| Insearch Registered user Username: Insearch Post Number: 21 Registered: 7-2009 |
I'm pretty new to all this, but I'm still not sure about the 7th day not being special. It's in Genesis where "God blessed the 7th day and hallowed it" that seems to stick out in my head. I've shared some of the old/new covenant ideas with my son, 17 years old. Last night he said, "I think the Sabbath is still supposed to be special, but not like with all the rules. It's a time to be with family and stuff." Myself, I just can't get past the Genesis text. | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 938 Registered: 7-2007 |
In Genesis 2:2,3 God rested the seventh day and blessed it. It doesn't say that God blessed the 14th and the 21st. It also doesn't say that God picked up His work on the eight. Hebrews 3 & 4 tells us to enter God's rest, but it says that Israel didn't enter it, though they were certainly keeping the Sabbath DAY. They were keeping the Sabbath day, but not entering the Sabbath REST. The first time the command to keep the Sabbath DAY, was when Israel was given the manna, just weeks before Sinai Exodus 16:23-29. That's why the commandment said "remember." It, along with the rest of the law, was given only to Israel, not to their forefathers (Deuteronomy 5:3) and not to the Gentiles (Romans 2:14). Jesus' death brought in a new covenant and made the old one obsolete (Hebrews 8:13 and Hebrews 9:15-17). The Sabbath - all the Sabbaths - were a shadow of Christ. Colossians 2:16,17 names all three categories - yearly/seasonal, monthly, and weekly. Dianne | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 393 Registered: 3-2009 |
Did God blessing the 7th day makes it special? If we read the entire chapter of Gen 1, we find that God also blessed: (1) the creatures of the sea, and the bids, vv. 21-22. (2)human beings, vv.27-28. (3)the 7th day, ch. 2:3. It seems to me that the author of Genesis is taking samples of what God blessed. From the animals he mentions the water creatures and the birds, does that make them better than the land creatures which he does not mention that God blessed? From the humans, well there were only one kind so he mentions them. From the days, he mentions the 7th. Could it be that God blessed all animals, and all days, and all creation, but the writer only mentions a few things as samples? Or do we have to conclude that the fish and birds are more important than the land animals, and that the 7th day is more important than the other days? How about the fish and birds being more important than the sun? Could we live without fish and birds? Could we live without the sun? But the narrative does not say that God blessed the sun while it says that God blessed the fish and birds. Hec | ||
| Honestwitness Registered user Username: Honestwitness Post Number: 898 Registered: 7-2005  |
I know how you feel, Insearch. The Genesis text is important, but all the other texts about the sabbath need to be taken into consideration, also, including those in both the Old and New Testaments. Something that helps me is a teaching by R.C.Sproul. He said not every text in the Bible is meant to be 'prescriptive' for New Conenant Christians, and some passages are meant to be 'didactic' while others are not. Prescriptive means giving us a prescribed behavior or belief. Didactic means something to be used to set forth doctrine. One of my favorite examples of this is the passage in Ecclesiastes that says, "The dead know not anything." Adventists use this passage as if it were didactic, claiming it teaches this is the condition of all people who have died. However, this passage, to me, is more poetic, instead of didactic. It describes the effect a dead person can have on the living, not necessarily the condition of the dead person. There are other Bible passages that describe the condition of dead people as if they are aware of some things in their conscious minds. Therefore, I do not consider the Ecclesiastes passage as being didactic. In the same way, there are passages concerning the sabbath that some people consider to be didactic and prescriptive, but others do not. Some of the folks in my Presbyterian church consider the OT texts to be both didactic and prescriptive concerning sabbath observance, except they transfer the solemnity of Saturday to Sunday. Of course, as former Adventists, you and I are well aware of the lifestyle challenges in applying the OT sabbath passages as if they were didactic and prescriptive. I believe you would agree with me that Adventists have pretty much proven that, in today's world, the sabbath cannot be kept, as prescribed in the OT. Therefore, as much as we might feel the Genesis passage is special, we are left with having to view it in light of the NT passages on the sabbath. | ||
| Bobalou Registered user Username: Bobalou Post Number: 63 Registered: 2-2005 |
SDAs like to point us to Genesis for the beginning of Sabbath keeping. It is their way of telling us that before there was an Israelite the Gentile world knew and at some point kept the day. The Genesis account doesn't say that Adam and Eve observed the Seventh-day, it only tells us that God rested from his work and blessed that one day. It doesn't say that any successive seventh day was observed. No command was ever given to any of God's people until He had Moses tell the Israelites about the manna. Deut 5 tells us: 3 It was not with our fathers that the LORD made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. 5 (At that time I stood between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:.......... I take that statement to mean that the Old Covenant was not known to man before Sinai. Certainly God did talk to man and give instruction before this. Noah had instruction before he started the ark and when he finally rested on dry land again. God covenanted with Abraham and so on, but never is the Sabbath ever mentioned. If it was so important, as Mrs. White claims, wouldn't you think it would have been mentioned or there would be some information about it from some nation since the flood until Sinai? | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 2922 Registered: 10-2004  |
Insearch, Notice that Genesis 2:2-3 and Exodus 20:11 have similar wording. (Also, the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 were actually given before Genesis was written!) This shows that Genesis 2 is an anachronism. Moses' writings contain many anachronisms. One very clear example is in Exodus 16:32-34:
Well, obviously this didn't happen right away, as the Testimony (the stone tablets) hadn't even been given yet. In the same way, God's blessing and sanctifying of the "seventh day" (Gen. 2) did not happen right away at creation, but instead it happened in Exodus 16, when the Sabbath was first given/commanded. Notice that Genesis 2 does not say when God "blessed the seventh day and sanctified it" but only why ("because in it He rested"). And that word for "rested" literally just means "ceased." He "ceased" what? He "ceased" creating the world. That's it. He didn't "rest." And He did not start creating again on "Sunday," or "Monday," or any other day after that. He simply "ceased" creating, because it was finished--the work was done. His "rest" was perpetual, because the work was finished (just like we now have eternal Sabbath rest in Christ because His work for our salvation is finished!). So He simply "ceased" (permanently!)--it was not a "Sabbath" (which word is not used at all in Genesis, and which word means "intermission" according to Strong's concordance), or a "weekly rest." Notice also that there is no command in Genesis to keep the sabbath. So why don't we simply take a look at what the Bible explicitly tells us about when the Sabbath was first given? The following passages make it clear that the Sabbath was first given (and to Israel only) after Israel left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and came into the wilderness:
Also, since the Sabbath was a sign between God and Israel only and it was to "sanctify" them ("set them apart") from the Gentiles (also see Exodus 31:12-18), then the Gentiles could not have been allowed to keep the Sabbath or else it could not be a sign between God and Israel to separate them from the Gentiles! Jeremy (Message edited by Jeremy on August 01, 2009) | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 10189 Registered: 12-2003  |
Moreover, the seventh day in the Genesis account is the only day not bounded by, "…and the evening and the morning were the ____day." In other words, the seventh day was different. On the seventh day, God ceased His work, as Jeremy explained. He was done. He rested. There was no "beginning and ending" for that seventh day; no morning and evening marking its boundaries. He did not take up His work again on the first day (or the eighth day). Even more interesting, that seventh day was Adam and Eve's second day. Nowhere did God command them to rest. They were created on the sixth day (the last day of creation; Adventists will tell you Sabbath was the last day of creation, but the sixth day was. God CEASED on the seventh day), and they began their lives by being ushered into the finished work of God. God was at rest; they were at rest. They were in full relationship with God. Nothing separated them. When God finished creation, his "finishing" was on the same order as Jesus' "finishing" on the cross. Jesus finished His unique, once-for-all atonement for sin, and he cried, "It is finished." On the seventh day, God finished His unique, once-for-all creation of humanity and this planet. When He rested, it was the same sort of thing that Jesus did. He might just as well have said, "It is finished!" Hebrews 4 ties all this together when the author points out David even wrote that God set another day, calling it TODAY, and today, if anyone hears His voice, enter His rest today. The seventh-day Sabbath, as pointed out above, was given to Israel as a sign of God's covenant; it was never intrinsically "holy" in an eternal sense. What made it "holy", or set apart, was the fact that on that day, God completed His work which put Him and His creation in perfect communion. And that perfect communion didn't end on the first, or second, or third days... It was unending until sin entered. That, I believe, is why the Genesis account doesn't have an evening and morning attached to it. The rest was unending. Moreover, the Sabbath was never a "test" as we were taught it was. It was a "sign". A "sign" points to something; it points to the reality foretold by the sign. When Israel rested, they were not being "tested". They were acting out a visible sign of God's faithfulness. Come rain or shine, come lentil harvest or lambing season, the Israelites stayed in their tents one in seven. No matter how urgent the elements, NO ONE went out to work. Around them, the pagans worked HARD to appease their gods and to achieve a big harvest. Their wealth and yearly sustenance depended on it. But God promised Israel that if they would observe His sign of His covenant with them, He Himself would prosper and flourish them. They would be more prosperous and successful than any of their pagan neighbors. And here's the key: neither they nor the pagans would ever be able to say the Israelites were successful because of their own hard work. The credit could only go to God. That was what the Sabbath was about. It was a sign of God's finished work on behalf of Israel. If they would rest, He would bless them--and He worked for their benefit. That Sabbath of Israel is the shadow of God's work on for us done in Christ Jesus. We enter His finished work TODAY--only now it's eternal instead of a shadow as was Israel's physical Sabbath. Colleen | ||
| Handmaiden Registered user Username: Handmaiden Post Number: 76 Registered: 7-2008 |
God, who is not bouund by "time" is STILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL resting from the work of creation on the ORIGINAL 7th day. The ORIGINAL 7th day HAS no evening and no morning to END it and start a new day so it continues to this day. It truly is an ETERNAL day of REST....from the work of creation. Man was NOT created to work. WORK is part of the CURSE. Being placed in Paradise on their FIRST DAY was a FREE GIFT. They did NOT have to EARN it. Man was created to have FELLOWSHIP with God in the REST of GOD from the very FIRST DAY WITH GOD. Tell that to your sda family and friends. The sabbath NEVER was changed from the 7th day to the FIRST DAY!!!! It has always been the FIRST DAY from the begining.  God's 7th day and man's 1st day are the SAME DAY Man was created to enter into God's REST from the very begining....from man's verrrry FIRST day. Man created on the 6th day did just that; they entered INTO God's REST on their FIRST day, which was the day AFTER the SIX days of creation. How long they lived in FELLOWSHIP with God in the REST of God is unknown. NOT UNTIL THE FALL of man into SIN going his OWN way instead of God's way in disobedience to the COMMANDMENT - NOT to eat of the tree of knowledge did man LOSE the REST of God, when the FELLOWSHIP with God was broken because of SIN. MAN WAS CREATED TO BE IN PARADISE WITH GOD IN THE BEGINING The whole account of Scripture is PARADISE LOST by Adam's sin in the garden; basically saying "NOT Your will but MINE be done" and PARADISE RESTORED FELLOWSHIP with God in His REST REGAINED by the second Adam - the Lord Jesus Christ, in another garden saying "NOT my will but THINE be done". Beloved, TODAY is still God's 7th day of Rest. Christians TODAY worship God EVERYDAY (every day is TODAY) but honor Him on the First Day because we have entered again into that FIRST DAY of REST and FELLOWSHIP/RELATIONSHIP with God because of another day that is offered TODAY, the day of SALVATON because of another FINISHED WORK...the FINISHED WORK of JESUS on the cross. IT IS FINISHED!!!!!! REJOICE IN THE GOD OF OUR SALVATION. TODAY, if you have an ear to hear, YOU CAN ENTER INTO THAT REST...of SALVATON from the CURSE of WORKING to measure up to the law. WON'T YOU ENTER GOD'S REST TODAY ???? TODAY WON'T YOU LAY ALLLLLLLLL OF YOUR BURDENS DOWN AT THE FEET OF JESUS??? ENTER INTO HIS REST SIT AT HIS FEET AND LEARN OF HIM handmaiden | ||
| Honestwitness Registered user Username: Honestwitness Post Number: 900 Registered: 7-2005 |
Well done, handmaiden! And well done, Colleen! Well done, all of you!! Whoooiiieeeee! This forum satisfies my soul!!! Hallelujah! | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 482 Registered: 8-2008 |
Insearch, first and foremost: When studying Scripture, we have to move from stuff that is more plain and straightforward, to stuff that is more complicated. Paul explicitely states in Col 2:16, 17 that Sabbath was a shadow that pointed to Jesus, and that as such it is not the basis for judgment of a Christian. He explicitly states in Romans 14 that Christians are free to observe special days, and Christians are free to treat very single day the same. Paul says explicitely in Gal. 4 that saying a person is required by God to keep special days and times and so forth, puts the Christian back into the slavery he was set free from. I have found it best to get thoroughly grounded on what Paul is saying in those passages before moving on to the Gen. 2 issue. Now, the problem with saying Sabbath was instituted at creation is that it is not compatible with the New Testament treatment of the passages in question. For the Christian, proper exegesis requires that we use the New Testament to interpret the Old, not the other way around. Adventists use the Old to interpret the New, or simply ignore the New altogether. The New is foundational, because when Jesus came He fully and completely revealed God and salvation to us, while the Old was a shadow pointing forward to that revelation in Jesus. So, keeping that in mind: Hebrews 4 deals explicitly with the passage in Genesis 2. I performed an exegesis of Hebrews 4 on another thread. I am going to repost some of the thoughts relevant to Genesis 2, with a few extra thoughts: The meaning of Hebrews 3 and 4, when you take off the SDA glasses, is quite clear. Unlike when he designated the seventh day, God designated a different day, "today." Hebrews 4 uses that twice. ("again, He specifies a certain day--today..." and "For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken later about another day.") So he cannot be talking about the seventh day of each week. In context, "another day" cannot mean "the seventh day" mentioned in verse 4. Regarding Genesis 2, Hebrews 4 says God's rest on the literal seventh day of creation continued on form thenceforth unabated ("'So I swore in My anger, they will not enter My rest.' And yet His works have been finished since the foundation of the world.") If His works were finished, He didn't start working again. The rest of God on the seventh day after creating the earth continued from thenceforth to the present. That rest was always available to those who had faith, every day of the week ("the promise remains of entering His rest" and "it remains for some to enter it"). Thus, it impossible to argue the weekly Sabbath was instituted at creation, because Hebrews 4 says God's rest on the seventh day after creation was continuous every day thereafter. That was why it was available for the Israelites, led by Joshua, to enter into it. So there could be no real seven-day Sabbatarian rest cycle. Scholars, even Rabbis, will tell you that the absence of the "evening and morning was seventh day" in Genesis was meant to indicate the conditions of that day continuing every day thereafter. Thus, there could not be a weekly required toil and rest cycle for Adam and Eve either. Also, Hebrews 4 makes clear than Genesis 2 is saying the day God honored was the specific seventh day of the creation cycle, not the 14th, 21st, 28th, etc. Rather, "today" has been designated for man to enter God's rest that started on the 7th day after creation. If "today" is the "another day" that is designated instead of the literal seventh day after creation, then we can't surmise that every seventh day in Eden was a special rest day. Rather, every single day in Eden had to have been a day of rest. God honored the 7th day because it was the beginning of the man's rest in God's grace, which was to continue every day thereafter. Again, that is why "the evening and the morning" part was missing. The author is quite literally saying the rest in grace that Adam and Eve knew in Eden was restored at the Cross. The availability of that rest is designated, not by the seventh day of creation, but by "another day," which is "today." Thus, Adam and Eve must have known it "today," or every day. Or in other words, to put it simply: God's resting--literally "ceasing"--on the 7th day was meant to provide for man to rest in God's grace on "another day" which is "today," or in my words, "every single day." A continual human seven-day toil and rest cycle was not what God was establishing in Eden. He was inviting man to live in His grace every single day. This is where the weak SDA concept of grace is so flawed. They think grace is merely the forgiveness of sins. It is not. It is God's unfathomable favor to man that comes before man ever had a chance to merit that favor. Because of His grace, God freely chose to create man in order that man might live in His complete Fatherly love and provision for eternity. Humanity was made to live in grace. Grace does not need sin in order to exist. Grace pre-cedes sin. God provided for Adam and Eve's every need, and lived in a love relationship with them, long before they ever sinned. That was grace. Grace was not an after-thought. As others on this thread have stated, Genesis 2 does not say Adam and Eve rested. The reason is that they hadn't worked. They had no work to cease from, and the term for "rest" used in Genesis 2 indicates a ceasing from labor. If Adam and Eve had "ceased" themselves, then they would not have been living in God's ceasing, but in their own. That would have put them in God's place, made them to be the ones who provided good things for themselves during the creation week. It would have actually negated the very meaning of resting in God's "My Rest," which is resting in His grace, in His provision of our every need. God's "My Rest" was available to them, and is available every day to us, specifically {because} it isn't primarily our rest, but God's. Grace means God freely provides all good things to us out of the goodness He has in Himself. Since He ceased on the 7th day from His labors, He could then give the rest of grace to us from His "My Rest," much like someone who works to become a billionaire can retire early and then share his wealth with his friends and family so they too could retire. If you follow Genesis 1-3 very closely, you will find that Adam and Eve chose to live by their own efforts when they sinned, but they were created to live out of God's "My Rest" that began on the 7th day and continued thereafter. If Adam and Eve, before the fall, lived by labors that they needed to rest from every 7th day, then man was not made to live by God's grace, but must live by his own efforts. Because God provided for all of their material needs (which is explicitly stated at the end of Gen. 1), man didn't need to rest every seven days: He had no toil to rest from. Man chose toil. He chose to live by his own power, not by God's grace. Just as the Sabbath reminded Israel of the hard slave labor they were freed from, it also reminded them of the continuous every-day rest in God's grace that man chose to give up in the garden. | ||
| Indy4now Registered user Username: Indy4now Post Number: 683 Registered: 2-2008  |
All of these posts are awesome (I need to copy them and save them). I really don't have anything to add, I just find this interesting: Heb. 4:4 says, "For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: "AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS"; The author never refers to the seventh day of creation as a "Sabbath". He calls it the "seventh" day. I also think it's interesting that he didn't write that "somewhere concerning the seventh day of the 10 commandments" either. I think that Brent brought up a very important point that as Christians, we use the New Testament to interpret the Old. The Old Testament is the "shadow", the tool that God used to show Jews and Gentiles what Christ accomplished for us at the cross. We don't live by the shadow, we live in the reality. Everything in God's Word is about what Christ did for us on the cross... Christ is the reality. Heb. 4 defines that reality of the shadow that the seventh day represented. The reality is that we have rest from our works for salvation. If you don't have rest, study what Christ did for you at the cross, understand what His blood has accomplished for you... this is the TRUE REST that God has provided to you through His Son. You cannot have this TRUE REST by resting one day a week... because the day doesn't provide you rest... God does. (Don't make the "day" more important than what Christ has done for you at the cross.) God provided the Israelites with rests (weekly, monthly and yearly) to give them a glimpse of the true rest that they would find in Jesus. We have Jesus Who gives us TRUE REST. ~vivian p.s. When I fully understood what Christ's sacrifice meant to me (because, as an Adventist, the cross event took a back row seat compared to the Sabbath that was up on stage  ), I have had this rest in my soul that there is no amount of any Sabbath keeping could bring to me. I can't find rest in a day... my assurance in the work that Christ did for me on the cross gives me rest. |
