| Author | Message | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 3415 Registered: 7-2007 |
This is for any Adventists who still think that the law started in Eden or before: Here Moses is speaking: "The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today." Deuteronomy 5:2-3 And then to clear up what this covenant is, notice Deuteronomy 4:13: "And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stone." And if you read your Bibles well, then you've noticed that the Sabbath was given when the manna was given just a few weeks before Sinai. (Exodus 16) Here's another verse that says when it was given: "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary." Galatians 3:16-19 430 years is also mentioned in Exodus: "The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years." Exodus 12:40 To go on a bit further, that covenant became obsolete when the new covenant was brought in: "In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." Hebrews 8:13 And why was there a change in the law? It's because Jesus is our High Priest now! "For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well." Hebrews 7:12 (Message edited by Asurprise on June 12, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 91 Registered: 4-2014 |
Adventists also love overlooking both the Adamic and Noahide covenants which both preceded Sinai, and continued to be the laws that controlled Gentiles living in the Lands of the Children of Israel. The Oral Torah, which actually was enforced by the Jewish Courts, spells out those laws in great detail, as well as the enforcement provisions. When EGW was writing "Patriarchs and Prophets," she plagiarized extensively from Edersheim's History of the Old Testament. The following is what she, in my opinion, deliberately withheld from Adventists in order to make her Sabbath arguments stronger: "And, as Luther rightly argues, "If God concedes to man the power over life and death, assuredly this carries with it authority over that which is less than life, such as goods, family, wife, children, servants, and land." Thus the words spoken by the Lord to Noah contain the warrant and authority of those who are appointed rulers and judges over us. In later times the Jews have been wont to speak of what they called the seven Noachic commandments, which, according to them, were binding upon all Gentile proselytes. These were a prohibition (1) of idolatry, (2) of blasphemy, (3) of murder, (4) of incest, (5) of robbery and theft, (6) of eating blood and strangled animals, and (7) an injunction of obedience to magistrates. (Comp. also Acts 15:20). http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/edersheim-old-testament/volume-1/chapter-7.html In reading P & P, one is struck by her description of the "Law" that both Adam and Noah were bound by. It is apparent that EGW excluded an even cursory overview of the law and covenants that both Adam and Noah were under. | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1471 Registered: 2-2011  |
Resjudicata~ Thank-you for this study link~ I have it bookmarked~ ~mj~ | ||
| Carracio Registered user Username: Carracio Post Number: 33 Registered: 3-2014 |
Was the Sabbath given in Eden? No in Sinai! Nehemiah 9: 11 And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters. 12 Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. 13 Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: 14 AND MADEST KNOWN UNTO THEM THY HOLY SABBATH, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant: 15 And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them. 16 But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 92 Registered: 4-2014 |
Carracio, As I have spelled out above, both Adam and Noah made very specific covenants and both covenants had very specific laws that were enforced in courts of law. The existence and vitality of these laws and court systems were willfully withheld from Adventists, since Ellen White wanted the Sabbath to be a creation ordinance. So she pulled a literary stunt to hide these laws. Neither the Adamic or Noahide covenants had a Sabbath requirement. They are very specific and have lots of specific caselaw that interpreted them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahidism#The_Ten_Commandments http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php?title=Noahide http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beliefs/Issues/Jews_and_Non-Jews/Legal_Issues/Noahide_Laws.shtml But since they lack that all-important Sabbath requirement, they are never mentioned in EGW's vast literary work. You get to the modern-day Sabbath requirement only through the madness of EGW's "Halo around the Fourth Commandment" hallucination. Furthermore, White also withheld the existence of a strongly-enforced Death Penalty against Gentiles that attempted to keep the Sabbath. From the beginning of the Sinai Covenant, Judaism vigorously protected its exclusive covenant by applying very harsh penalties against Gentiles who tried to avail themselves of the Sabbath. Gentiles could received all of the legal advantages of being a Jew simply by declaring themselves a Noahide in front of three respectable Jewish leaders. They qualified for the very same "afterlife" that an observant Jew would get if they followed they 7 Noahide Mitzvot. (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 93 Registered: 4-2014 |
"Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring." Not many people look at the obvious implication of Abraham having a Sabbath requirement. Abraham had TWO sons, both of which equally inherited his covenant: Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac was the ancestor of Judaism, whereas Ishmael was the father of Arabs and Muslims. Abraham was BOTH a Jew and a Muslim, if he was either! Yet Muslims are uncharacteristically generous about Jews having the exclusive Sabbath sign, which Muslims concede is a special distinction directly from God! Has there ever been ANYTHING that Muslims have graciously conceded to a competitive religion, besides the Sabbath? Muslims have a history of "converting" churches and synagogues into Mosques, or outright building their Mosques on top of the ruins of Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist temples. They vigorously expropriate customs and ideas from other religions, and then declare themselves to be the originator of those ideas. And the sons of Ishmael certainly strongly enforce the clear circumcision requirement of the Abrahamic covenant. But strangely, Muslims have NEVER had an interest in the Sabbath, which would be strange indeed if the Abrahamic covenant contained the Sabbath as a condition! Would the sons of Ishmael graciously concede the extraordinary honor of an exclusive day hallowed by God to the despised and vilified Sons of Isaac? NOT! Over a billion Muslims - Sons of Ishmael - in the world today and not one single peep of expropriating the Sabbath, which they rightfully SHOULD if it were a condition of the Abrahamic Covenant. Strange indeed! (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 94 Registered: 4-2014 |
And not only have Muslims shockingly and with uncharacteristic generosity renounced any claim to the exclusive Holy day allegedly given to Abraham "and his offspring." But their Friday day of worship itself is a custom that developed to accommodate the Jews of Medina! The Jews of Medina went to the market on Fridays - the eve of the Sabbath - to do their shopping ahead of time for the Sabbath. And since Muslims were already assembled in order to conduct business with the large Jewish population of Medina, they adopted the Friday worship custom! http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/MW/friday.htm So lets recap this dubious nonsense about the Abrahamic Covenant containing a Sabbath requirement: Both Isaac and Ishmael were equal heirs of the Abrahamic covenant. The covenant explicitly required circumcision, which both Jews and Muslims practice to this day. Allegedly, some Sabbatarians say the Sabbath Day was an important creation ordinance and was a special sign of God's relationship to man. Others argue it was part of the Abrahamic covenent. Yet Muslims - the sons of Ishmael who was an equal heir of the Abrahamic covenant with his half-brother Isaac - have never kept the Sabbath and have renounced any claim to the holiest of God's holy days. And in fact, they adopted their OWN day of worship in response to the mere marketing needs of the Jews of Medina. Never in history have Muslims been so accommodating in generously rejecting what some argue was an explicit condition of their most important covenant. While at the same time, have vigorously practiced circumcision, which everybody agrees was THE explicit condition of the Abrahamic Covenant. If the Sabbath was a condition of the Abrahamic Covenant and the Muslims had even an inkling that this important inheritance had been wrongfully withheld from them, or if the Muslims simply thought keeping God's Holiest Day was a good idea....I can guarantee you one thing: Muslims would be hijacking airliners and flying them into skyscrapers in order to get the Sabbath back. (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 3040 Registered: 5-2007  |
Resjudicata, I agree with the main point you are making in your last post, however, I question a couple details: 1. Certainly both Isaac and Ishmael were blessed because of the promise God originally made with Abraham however it was not “equal”. For instance, all the nations of the world would be blessed only through the line of Isaac. Also, the land of Canaan was promised exclusively to Isaac’s line. 2. Arabs, generally speaking, include the descendants of Ishmael along with Lot’s descendants. On-the-other-hand, ‘Muslim’ is a religion not a ‘race’. In fact, most Muslims are not Arab. For example, just because someone is a Christian we wouldn’t be at liberty to call them an ‘American’. Fearless Phil | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 95 Registered: 4-2014 |
Here is a link that disputes that the promise was not "equal" between Isaac and Ishmael, especially since Ishmael was circumcised before Isaac was born: http://www.guidetosalvation.com/Website/did_gods%20covenant%20with%20abraham%20include%20ishmael.htm And Muhammad was a direct descendant of Ishmael: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael#Descendants Isaac was given a newer, better covenant I would agree. But Ishmael and Isaac shared equally the Abrahamic Covenant. (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 96 Registered: 4-2014 |
The Mishnah Torah makes clear that Isaac had a separate covenant that added obligations that were not applicable to Abraham: 9.3 These commandments were universally applicable - until Abraham. With Abraham, circumcision was also commanded and he prayed Shacharis (the Morning Prayer). Isaac separated out a tithe and added another prayer in the afternoon and, with Jacob, the prohibition against eating the sciatic nerve was added, as was the Maariv (Evening) Prayer. In Egypt, Amram was commanded with other precepts and, with Moses our Teacher, the Torah was completed. http://halakhah.com/rst/kingsandwars.pdf Further, the Bible makes it clear in Genesis 26 that Isaac's covenant was different than Abraham's: Genesis 26 English Standard Version (ESV) God's Promise to Isaac 26 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. 2 And the Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. 4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Furthermore, God told Abraham that Isaac and Ishmael would have their own separate covenants that were each different than the Abrahamic Covenant: Genesis 17 Contemporary English Version (CEV) God’s Promise to Abraham 19 But God answered: No! You and Sarah will have a son. His name will be Isaac,[c] and I will make an everlasting promise to him and his descendants. 20 I have heard what you asked me to do for Ishmael, and so I will also bless him with many descendants. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I will make his family a great nation. 21 But your son Isaac will be born about this time next year, and the promise I am making to you and your family will be for him and his descendants forever. (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 97 Registered: 4-2014 |
The Babylonian Talmud has this analysis: "For Ishmael and Isaac differed in two significant respects: Ishmael came into the world by natural means, while Isaac’s birth was a supernatural event. Ishmael was circumcised at the age of thirteen, the age of daat (awareness), whereas Isaac entered into the covenant of circumcision as an eight day-old infant—an age at which a person is not even aware of what is taking place, much less of its significance. In other words, Ishmael represents a rational relationship with G‑d, one that is based upon a person’s nature and understanding. Isaac represents a supranatural, supra-rational bond." http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1012030/jewish/The-Contrast-Between-Isaac-and-Ishmael.htm But both Ishmael and Issac had the condition of the Abrahamic covenant: Circumcision. Remarkably, ALL of the ancient texts: The Christian Old Testament; The Mishnah Torah; The Babylonian Talmud; and the Quran are in unanimous agreement: Abraham's, Isaac's, and Ishmael's covenants did not include a Sabbath obligation. Yet all three of the covenants featured one glaring condition: circumcision. (Message edited by Resjudicata on June 13, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 98 Registered: 4-2014 |
As a side note and a slight diversion from the Sabbath question, the Quran has a fascinating analysis of Islam's relationship with Abraham. For Muslims, Abraham was a prophet, the "messenger of God" whose continued a bloodline that is unbroken from Adam to Muhammad, to whom Allah gave revelations,[Quran 4:163], who "raised the foundations of the House" (i.e., the Kaaba)[Quran 2:127] with his first son, Isma'il, a symbol of which is every mosque. Ibrahim (Abraham) is the first in a genealogy for Muhammad. Islam is emphatic that Abraham is "one of the first Muslims" (Surah 3)—the first monotheist in a world where monotheism was lost, and the community of those faithful to God, thus being referred to as "Our Father Abraham", as well as Ibrahim al-Hanif or "Abraham the Monotheist". It is very clear that if Abraham had a covenant with a Sabbath obligation, Islam would be the first to pounce on it. Again though, what is incredible is that ALL of the ancient texts are in shocking agreement: The Abrahamic covenant did not include the Sabbath. The Bible is silent on the Sabbath issue. The Mishnah Torah and Babylonian Talmud are adamant that the Sabbath was NOT part of the Abrahamic Covenant, nor does the covenant given to Isaac spell out the Sabbath in the Bible, Mishnah Torah or the Babylonian Talmud. Both the Mishnah Torah and the Babylonian Talmud spell out the awful penalty of death for Gentiles who attempt to keep the Sabbath. And the Quran does not associate the Sabbath with Abraham and in fact, the Quran is adamant the Sabbath belongs to the Jews. A strange agreement between competing faiths. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 99 Registered: 4-2014 |
Just one more sidenote: Paul in Galatians established for Christians that their FAITH defines them, NOT their adherence to the Law. He analogizes the Christian covenant to the Abrahamic covenant which Paul is adamant came before the Sinai covenant. Therefore Christians and Abraham share a key condition of their covenant: Faith, not the Law. "The comparison drawn in verse 6 between the experience of Abraham and that of the Galatians requires the conclusion of verse 7: Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The common family trait of faith is the decisive factor. Anyone characterized by that trait is definitely identified as a member of the family." http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Gal/Identifying-Children-Abraham So to add onto my previous lists of ancient texts that demonstrate the Sabbath was not part of the Abrahamic Covenant, Paul steers the Christian New Testament in the direction of pure Faith, by arguing that was the distinguishing characteristic of Abraham, pre-circumcision, pre-covenant. It seems ALL of the ancient texts are in just incredible agreement: The Christian New Testament, the Mishnah Torah and the Babylonian Talmud, the Quran and the Old Testament.....when correctly read in conjunction with each other stand for rare unanimity: Abraham did not keep the Sabbath. |
