| Author | Message | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 51 Registered: 3-2014  |
“Does God require us to observe the Sabbath and other holy days of the Old Testament? The Sabbath was a sign pointing to Jesus, who is our rest. Since Jesus has come as our Savior and Lord, God no longer requires us to observe the Sabbath day and other holy days of the Old Testament. Does God require the church to worship together on any specific days? God requires Christians to worship together. He has not specified any particular day. The church worships together especially on Sunday because Christ rose from the dead on Sunday.” – Martin Luther, “Small Catechism” p.66-67 The Continental Protestants had a view of the Sabbath very close to my own, and probably many others here. I was not taught these facts as an Adventist. I examine a few quotes here: http://youarecompleteinhim.com/2014/08/08/sabbath-protestant-reformation/ | ||
| Terryohare Registered user Username: Terryohare Post Number: 13 Registered: 2-2012  |
Augsburg Confession 1530: Lutherans correctly confess that the Sabbath is a ceremonial law, echoing the theology of Augustine pronounced a millennium before. But by 1563, when the Heidelberg Catechism was published, the Reformers confused matters by stating that the Sabbath was both ceremonial and moral. That early lack of clarity and precision contributed to the confusion that exists today. This is not to bash the early Reformers, for they did a mighty and necessary work dealing with weightier matters. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 250 Registered: 4-2014 |
I can't tell whether any of the Reformers had an adequate understanding of the Jewish "Apartheid" legal system during the Old Testament times. Given that the Judges were originally appointed by God (or Moses, or Aaron), you would think people would pay some attention to their opinions. Plainly, the 613 Mitzvot of the Mosaic Law was applied to Jews; while the 7 Noahide Mitzvot were the law applied to the Resident Gentiles. The Noahide laws were the "moral" laws that were given to Noah and all Gentiles ("The 7 Nations"), and were affirmed as the rules for living for the Gentile Christians at Antioch (Acts 15). The Jewish Courts used the opinions from each set of laws to interpret the laws of the other set, so as a practical matter, all that wasn't applied to the Gentiles was the Sabbath. Which they were absolutely banned from observing anyway, on pain of death. Adventists are sometime confused by the actions taken by First Century Rabbis, which came up last night during my very short debate with John Osborn on Spectrum. He announced that the Rabbis quit citing the Ten Commandments in their liturgy because "they were the moral law that covers everyone." The actual reason they took this action was because the Ten Commandments are inseparable from the body of 613 Mitzvot. To separate them out gives them undue prestige and causes people to neglect the rest of the 613. Admittedly, the Noahides lack the "snap and Crackle" of the Ten Commandments, and it would have required the Reformers to educate themselves on the Jewish Apartheid Legal system, so they didn't. The confusions continues. | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 53 Registered: 3-2014 |
Mr. Res: John Osborne is still around? He was really big in the early 90s, and I haven't heard anything about him since. Did you make any progress with him in your discussion? | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 54 Registered: 3-2014 |
Terry: Thanks for the note. The separation between the Augsburg Confession and Heidelberg Catechism still largely exists between the "Evangelical" and "Reformed" camps of Protestantism. The H.C. is one of the "three forms of unity" used by the Reformed (Calvinist) churches, along with the Canons of Dort and the Belgic Confession. Unfortunately, sometimes each camp takes their beliefs too far; i.e. some "Evangelicals" who believe that because they are not under the law, they can live like the Devil and still be saved. And some in the Reformed camp that are extremely rigid and legalistic. Another document which touches on this issue is the Westminster Confession, which is used by the Presbyterian Church and Reformed Anglicans (perhaps all Anglicans?) It also holds that Sabbath observance is required of Christians (quoted from "Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath-day"): VII. As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath. VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their wordly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy. | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 55 Registered: 3-2014 |
Contrast the statement from the Westminster Confession with the quote from Martin Luther at the top of this page. (Message edited by leifl on August 11, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 251 Registered: 4-2014 |
"John Osborne is still around? He was really big in the early 90s, and I haven't heard anything about him since. Did you make any progress with him in your discussion?" I patiently steered him into a debate, and then he ran off after just half an hour. Who is he? Background? | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 252 Registered: 4-2014 |
He ran off and never reappeared, after I caught him with that outright misrepresentation of Judaism's take on the Ten Commandments. Internet debate is fun. Especially if you are familiar with the Talmuds and the Mishnah, since those two sources repeatedly refute each and every single Adventist belief about the Sabbath and the legal situation of Gentiles. | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 56 Registered: 3-2014 |
It has been a long time, however, I seem to remember that he was a media personality in the traditional-independent-SDA-conspiracy movement back then. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 253 Registered: 4-2014 |
I found two of them. I think the one you are thinking of is spelled "Osborne." That guy WAS a media personality, but went to prison for something, and now he is back out again. The "Osborn" I am talking to is a graduate student at Andrews. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 254 Registered: 4-2014 |
One last rant..... So God (Or Moses) appointed Judges over the Children of Israel, to enforce and interpret the Torah law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_judges Including female ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah So I propose the following statements, to be used in support of the Adventist notion that the Sabbath is a continuing requirement for Christians: 1). That we ignore the written rulings of the learned and legally-trained Jewish Judges (appointed by God or Moses), which ruled that Gentiles can NOT keep the Sabbath and if they tried, they were to be put to death. Given that they were legal experts and studied the Torah their entire lives, they should be ignored and we should just substitute our gut feeling to interpret the Old Testament laws. 2). Similarly, we should denounce the rulings they made regarding Sabbath Observance, and belittle them as "man made traditions" and "interpretations of Man." This is most helpful in declaring that the Pharisees must have been psychotically-delusional when the condemned Jesus as a persistent Sabbath Breaker. No matter what, the Sabbath has to be preserved from the foggy and ambiguous language of Colossians 2:13-18. It cannot possibly mean what it says. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14892 Registered: 12-2003  |
The book of Galatians would have put to rest the confusion about Sabbath as a "moral command". In fact, it did put that notion to rest for Martin Luther. I am so thankful for the work the Reformers did; at the same time, I just wonder how they could have studied justification by faith so thoroughly and missed the stunning "newness" of the new covenant. Neither Romans nor Galatians allows one to retain the law as playing a role for Christians. And Hebrews, too, puts Sabbath-observance to rest. I realize the Reformers were not seventh-day Sabbatarians, but many were Sabbatarians nonetheless. In his detailed teaching through Galatians, Gary Inrig made this comment about the law as he covered the first 5 verses of the first chapter: "The law belongs to this present evil age." He went on to explain that when we believe in Jesus and are transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (as it says in Col 1:13), we are rescued/delivered from the power of this evil age, and the law no longer applies to us. I think people are often afraid to take seriously the complete ending of the law's application to the born again. It is a death sentence. That was its core message. When we pass from death to life, the death sentence no longer applies to us. People are afraid to trust that the Holy Spirit is more powerful than the law of sin and death; they want to retain the boundaries of the law and bring believers into its strictures. But we are no longer under the law! Praise God! Colleen | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 57 Registered: 3-2014 |
Colleen, Those thoughts are powerful. I'm with you. I'm debating online with a relative of my wife. He's given the pat SDA answers, I'm trying to put something short together, but the whole approach is wrong. I'd have to write a book, and that looks like I'm covering my lack of certainty with a lot of words. The whole concept of covenant is not even in their perspective. I've got to start there. | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 58 Registered: 3-2014 |
But it's not a quick answer. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14897 Registered: 12-2003 |
Agreed, but it's the paradigm they need. If you want an easy-to-read online study of the covenants, Chris Lee has written an awesome one here: http://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/studies/covenants/index.html Colleen | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 1065 Registered: 8-2008 |
I read somewhere (don't have the source), that Jewish rabbis in the first century taught that for an uncircumcised gentile to keep Sabbath was punishable by death. I think the reasoning is that, by keeping Sabbath, the gentile is laying claim to covenant promises/rewards that do not belong to him, and is therefore engaging in both theft and bearing false witness. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 259 Registered: 4-2014 |
Bskillet That's not just first century. It dates clear back to the Mishnah Torah, which is the oral version, given to Moses at the same time as the Written Torah. Without circumcision and full conversion to Judaism, Gentiles were ineligible to observe the Sabbath. Jewish courts consistently held that the 7 Noahide Laws (Mitzvot) were the law of the Gentiles. The Jewish Courts dating back to Moses had interpreted both the Mosaic Law and the Noahide Laws as creating an apartheid legal system. One law applied only to the Jews, the other only to resident Gentiles. No Gentile in their right mind would submit to Judaism and all that was involved, since Judaism held that Noahic Gentiles could achieve the same "afterlife" as an observant Jew that practiced all 613 Mitzvot of the Torah. | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 60 Registered: 3-2014 |
Mr. Res, I wish it was easier to find these Jewish documents and sort through them. It's not. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 265 Registered: 4-2014 |
Leifl, The short response to your statement is the Jewish Law is not designed to be accessible. Holy Moly, you enter into the world of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds and you have entered the world of "Alice in Wonderland." The Talmuds are not even put in our westernized linear form of literature. By now, it is obvious from your statement that you are beginning to appreciate this reality. They are not conviently packaged in our "chapter" and "verse" format. One Rabbi remarked that the words of the Torah are like cylindrical crystals, just one sentence can have many hundreds of recognized meanings, with hundreds of dissenting opinions. Depending upon what direction the crystal is held to the light, it can create subtly different nuances in meaning. Westerners, for example, read the Old and New Testament as essentially God gradually revealing himself in history, culminating in Jesus Christ. Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is "the word of God," and the "Law of God," and Paul carefully distinguished between the Jewish conception of those phrases and what Jesus Christ taught us. Reading Jesus Christ and Paul together has taught me unequivically that the Law is absolutely dead insofar as Christians are concerned. No clearer example of this exists than Jesus's willful Sabbath Breaking. I look at Christ's Sabbath Breaking as demonstrating the Law is like an egg shell that incubated him, and was "broke open" so that we can consume Him. The emphasis is on the Law's temporary nature and function. Christians should have no more interest in the Law than they would in discarded egg shells. I am primarily interested in studying the Jewish Law as a background to understanding just how radically and insanely wrong Seventh Day Adventism really is. Adventists pride themselves on keeping the Commandments and being the first Christians that understood the holiness and permanency of God's Law. They have done no such thing. Their view of the law is extraordinarily superficial and and embarassingly naive and most of all, in clear contradiction to the clear intent of the New Testament. They are neither fish nor fowl. They have succeeded at the impossible: They understand neither the Law or the Gospel. They actually have NO respect for the Law and the brilliant scholars that have studied it and preserved it for thousands of year. They insult the law with their arrogance and ignorance. I am not a Torah or Talmud scholar and should not be approached as such. My background has merely been enormously helpful in my initial stabs at comprehending the Torah, the Mishnah and the Talmud. You earn a doctorate in law and THEN you start learning the law. it is that dense, convoluted and unapproachable, which is why lawyers inevitably become specialists. The only thing that has allowed me to being even CLOSE to being able to understand some of the Torah and Talmud was my background in Death Penalty Law. I attended four different very intense Jesuit-sponsored Death Penalty Colleges, at Notre Dame, Georgestown, Gonzaga and Claremont. And also, the nightmarish living hell of the National Criminal Defense College. Those post-doc institutes are on an almost ethereal, otherwordly planet as far as difficulty, vicious intensity and complexity. Death Penalty Law is not even considered to be criminal defense now. It is its own area of law. It is that convoluted and complex. And that has helped just a little tiny bit in my poor grasping at a minimal understanding of the Mishnah, the Talmuds and the Torah. The Babylonian Talmud is 20 times more convoluted, dense and unapproachable than Death Penalty Law! I quickly recognized that I am not fit to lick the mud off the boots of the Ramdam (Maimonedes, a brilliant Torah scholar best known for his "Guide to the Perplexed.") If I had any respect whatsoever for these brilliant texts, I would admit that I shouldn't even be allowed to be in the same room as the Torah. I shouldn't even be allowed to touch a copy of the Old Testament. But if I were to advise you where to start in your study, it would definitely be with the Ramdam's two-volume summary of the Mishnah Torah. Much of that is on the internet, and I included some internet cites to some of the most accessible parts of the Mishnah in my "Letter to half in/half out Adventist" thread. But as for me and the way I try to live my life now, it is the pure and simple Gospel. In light of the insane complexity and density of the Mishnah and Bablonian Talmud, the Gospel is literally a Gift. Ruthlessly grab it with all you have. Drink the blood and eat the body of Christ with commitment and passion. Grab onto the New Covenant with everything you have. Its the Gift. It's Life itself. | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 61 Registered: 3-2014 |
I actually broke into it last night. Mishnah Torah, book of kings 10 and Talmud Sanhedrin 58 and 59, I believe. I was up till 2am trying to make sense of those passages. When the Lord revealed to me the gospel, that I was justified because of Christ's work alone, without my own works or deeds, that god justifies the ungodly, that righteousness is accounted/imputed to us for our standing with God, solely on the merits of Christ, I was undone. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 267 Registered: 4-2014 |
The "Law of Kings and Wars" is my favorite part of the Mishnah Torah. The Talmud Sanhedrin is much more dense and convoluted, but you DO eventually get to a point. If you are looking at the internet version of the Talmud, one thing that I would recommend would be to Google "Talmud" and go to "Images." You will see pages out of the Talmud itself, unlike what you are seeing with the Talmud Sanhedrin 58 and 59. The actual Talmud, the way it is arranged in book form, is FAR superior to the Bible's "chapter" and "verse" format, in my opinion. If you look closely at the pictures, you should be able to see some dissenting opinions clustered around the outside edge of the page. That will help you (maybe) to understand the drift of the internet versions better. I get entranced reading from the Talmud books that I have here at home. They are a spectacular body of work just oozing with human brilliance. You expressed the whole thing beautifully, Leifl. We are all "undone" by the simplicity and power of the Gospel. |
