Hebrews 8:11
And they shall not teach everyone his fellowcitizen
And everyone his brother saying 'Know the Lord,'
For all will know me,
From the least to the greatest.

1 John 2:27
As for you, the anointing which you recieved from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you, but as His anointing teaches you about all tbings, and is true and is not s lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

Mathew 23:8
But do not be called Rabbi (or teacher), for One is your Teacher and you are all brothers.
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Brothers the above verses testify that the Holy Spirit has a teaching ministry in the New Covenant. The Holy Spirit dwells within each believer and if the believer has access to a New Testament then the Spirit will instruct them. This is the promise of Jesus to His disciples in John 14:26 and 16:13-15.

Thus the idea our Pygmy friend recieving a New Testament and reading it without instruction or comment from men will cone to the conclusion that one is not obligated under the New Covenant to keep a day as unto the Lord. But our Pygmy friend will ser that all days are alike as unto Christ and Jesus is our Sabbath Rest every day.

A friend of mine once remarked we do well to have our theology forged in the fires of persecution. For those persecuted brethren who have nothing more than the Holy Spirit and a New Testament do not see themselves enjoined to keep a Sabbath but rather joined to Him who is their Sabbath rest. Interesting this is what is taught in Hebrews 4 as this book was written in the context of persecution.

If we stay in the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus and His word we do well. The confusion arises in the minds of believers when men start teaching the shadow of the Old Covenant as binding New Testament truth.

Indeed I wonder what would happen if all we had were the New Testament and His Spirit to teach us? Would we not know more of Him who is the Truth to set us free.

Bearmaster.

Bearmaster, I think you have highlighted the fundamental difference between us (Paul see my answer to your post toward the bottom of this lengthy post - thanks):

///Indeed I wonder what would happen if all we had were the New Testament and His Spirit to teach us?///

First, we haven't got just the New Testament, and we were never meant to have just the New Testament. Think how outraged you would be if some pastor got up at a conference and cut out the book of Psalms because mostly written by an adulterer - and yet, you seem to want to operate without any of the Old Testament. Please correct me if I misunderstand you. If I were to have worded the question you posed I would have worded it like this, "I wonder what would happen if all we had were the Bible and His Spirit to teach us?"

Second, the other problem (as I see it) with what you have said here is that we are clearly told in Scripture that God has appointed some to preach and teach. It is an indictment according to Proverbs that the simple ones love their simplicity. Hebrews 6 says, "Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity,"

I would love to see a thread discussing how it is that we can know the truth. How many of us here at sermonindex are divided on various issues but convinced we are led by the Spirit? We are not all right...

I look back at the puritan age when men were spiritual giants, when most divines (as they were called) gave hours and hours to prayer each day and knew their Bibles (almost like the back of their hand!) and they were united on this question of the Sunday Sabbath. That doesn't make them right, but their opinion holds a great deal more sway over me then the recently converted pygmy (no offense meant in his direction!)

soldout2him, I have appreciated your posts, but I believe you have misunderstood me. I do not believe Saturday is the Sabbath anymore. Rather I hold to the Christian Sabbath or Lord's Day. So, I hold to what Ravenhill said in that quote.

Also, I think a-servant has quoted some valuable texts that should be weighed in this discussion.

Paul, you said

///Brother, why then doesn't Paul make this most crucial distinction in any of his epistles? I read abundantly of guidelines pertaining to the commemoration of the Lord's Supper, of the exercising of gifts, of the treatment of widows, of the qualifications of leadership, of the taking up of collections, but nowhere of a specific God-mandated "day" of observance under the New Covenant. Did the Greek Christians keep the Sabbath by default and hence there was no need for Paul to instruct them of it in his letters? How would they even know of the Sabbath, being former pagans?///

Paul, I think a lot of the differences between those of us posting on this thread and perhaps over on the other thread dealing with the difference between the new covenant and old covenant is a difference in hermeneutic (or how we even approach the Bible to begin interpreting it). Bearmaster's most recent post about the pygmy and the New Testament illustrates this. Jesus once said of marriage "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." I would say the same of the Old and New Testaments. Under the influence of Darby in the 1800's and then Scofield and Chafer and Dallas seminary dispensationalism has spread and influenced the hermeneutic of many who don't know what dispensationalism is (and who might not want to be put in that camp... I'm not meaning to accuse you of being dispensational).

The dispensational hermeneutic has not been the predominant one in church history, but it has become predominant in the last 100 years (please forgive me if you know all this already!). This approach treats the New Testament as something entirely new and different and expects all its ethics to be derived from the New Testament rather than the Old.

The other approach (which is the one I take) is to see a newness about the new covenant that sees it as building on the old. It is a new administration of the same covenant of grace... but it is the same covenant of grace, the same law and the same mediator. This I realize is a discussion for another thread.

Back to your question: as Martyn Lloyd-Jones explained in his sermons on Romans, the question of days has to be understood in context. Today there is a debate about the Sabbath so we immediately think 'Sabbath', but in those days there was no such debate. There was the question of whether or not Saturday should also be kept (in addition to the Lord's Day) and whether new moons and extra sabbath days and weeks should be kept holy, but there was no question about the matter of the Lord's Day... and historians seem to be agreed that the Sunday was set apart from the very beginning as a special day for worship.

So when I come to Colossians in the 20th or 21st century with the cultural 'baggage' I have, I might be looking for Paul to say something about the Sabbath. But in those days Christianity was still considered an offshoot of judaism - they were still sorting out questions of consuming blood and circumcision because the people opened Paul's letters ASSUMING the Old! Today and because of dispensationalism people open up Paul's letters without assuming (and sometimes without even knowing the Old). I didn't even know there were other sabbaths until I began studying this question.

So I open up my NT assuming the Old and let the New tell me if (and where!) there are changes. I come to Colossians with the knowledge that there are new moons and extra sabbaths assuming that God's commandments are not to be abrogated (unless specifically told) and I find Paul saying the reason (!) we are not to be judged on new moons and sabbaths is because they are shadows and immediately I know what he is talking about. He's talking about the new moons and extra sabbaths because they were instituted under Moses in age of ceremonies and shadows, whereas the Sabbath itself was instituted before Moses, before Abraham, and before the fall - and so it cannot be a shadow! Hope that makes sense and I do apologize for the length of this post.

Romans 7:1 the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives.

What we overlook: We died. As seen in Rom ch 5 & 6. The law has no dominion over a believer. He has been reconciled. He follows the teachings of Jesus. We can't put new wine in old skins. We have a new life now.


As far as the Sabbath, a careful reading of EX: Ch 20 does not say attend church on that day. I do read in the laws of the festivals that 3 times a year shall all the males appear before the Lord.

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James R Barnes

Thanks Roger for joining the conversation. Keep in mind Paul also says, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."

He also said, "But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully."

That last verse is exactly why Paul sometimes seems to denigrate the law and other times seems to extol it. He will (in one passage) say that it has no dominion and then he will say (in another) that we do not make it void but actually establish it. The issue is how we use the law: lawfully or unlawfully.

When the law is treated as a means of justification it is used unlawfully and becomes a dreadful burden that no one can bear. However, when the law is used as a rule of life by the person who has been born again it becomes something in which it is possible to take great delight. Notice David in the Psalms.

The miracle of regeneration changes a man's attitude to the law - it doesn't remove the law. If you think about it, it is precisely the carnal nature of the unregenerate that when confronted by the holy standards of God's word and the character of a holy God they resist both the standard and God. They - as Reidhead put it - "love their sin and want to stay in it." See Romans 3.

When the Church today says that the Christian is no longer under the law (meaning there is no law) we play right into their hands. The carnal man can get behind that! There is a Christianity suited wonderfully for him! But the gospel doesn't do that. It confronts men in their sin with the message of the glory of Jesus Christ and offers them deliverance from sin; and what is deliverance from sin but deliverance into a life of holiness; and what is holiness but conformity to God's character as reflected in His law?

The miracle of regeneration is that it takes that mind, will, and heart of a man/woman who is dead set against (!) the law and makes that same person so different, so new, that he/she wants to do it. We are not under the law as a means to justification or as a way of salvation. And praise God, we can say with the John, the law isn't grievous anymore because we have been changed. And this is precisely what the gospel does.

Roger your concerns are shared by a number of others who have posted on this thread and it reveals I think precisely where some of us are differing.

I raised the subject of the 4th commandment, but I am realizing that we first need to have a discussion about the law.

Stephen, you state that the law of the Sabbath is part of God's moral law. I can see that you would say this because it is one of the '10 commandments'. I'm trying to understand how it is 'moral' when we see how Jesus Himself spoke about it as I previously posted. Maybe you can explain why you think it is a moral obligation.

No one I know would say that the other 9 commandments are ones we can ignore and that these should something we naturally want to do and keep. However the Sabbath commandment seems to be so different to the others to us.

One other point you made I want to question is that you say that the Sabbath pre-dates the law of Moses and goes back to creation. That being so it is called the seventh day (Saturday), but you now say it is the Sunday (1st day) which is a contradiction with your fist point.

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Dave

Hebrews 1:1-2
God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets and many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world.

Hebrews 8:6
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, buy as much as He is the mediator of a bettrr covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

Hebrews 7:12
For where the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.
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Saints a reading of the book of Hebrews shows we are under a New Covenant of which Jesus is the mediator. The New Covenant is not built upon the Okd Covenant. Nor is the New Covenant a continuation of the Okd Covenant. Not is there one super covenant of grace as our Presbyterian friends would argue.

Indeed Hebrews 8:13 would argue that the New Covenant is separate and new. The New Covenant has made the Old Covenant obsolete. The Old Covenant will disappear. The law will disappear.

We are under a New Covenant adminstered and mediated by Jesus Christ. His sacrificial death on the cross established the New Covenant. His Spirit governs the New Covenant. Jesus. and not Moses is our teacher. Because of this. Believers in Jesus need only the New Testament to guide them by His Spirit.

Bearmaster.

Bearmaster ,

Jesus said in Matt 5:17 -18 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
“For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."

In Hebrews 8:13 it says "In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away."

So we have to keep these two things and understand them. Extremes on either side are wrong. It is wrong to say we only need the New Testament.

Why is the old obsolete (as it says in Hebrews). It is not because it was at fault, but we (mankind) are at fault in that we cannot keep it. See the point earlier in Hebrews 8:7-8

"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second".

"Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— "

It says 'finding fault with THEM, not finding fault with the law.

So yes, we now serve God under the New Covenant of the Spirit, but we do NOT forsake the law, Christ fulfils it in us as we walk by the Spirit. If we walk by the flesh we are lawbreakers.

The law was made for the lawbreakers. Those who keep the law, don't need a law (1 Tim 1:9), BUT they do keep the law because it is written on their hearts.

_________________
Dave

Heydave, I have appreciated very much the tone of your posts. Thanks!

You said, ///No one I know would say that the other 9 commandments are ones we can ignore and that these should something we naturally want to do and keep.///

Exactly! Though I do think that the Church ought to stop
and re-think the second commandment. I read something in the gospel fellowships handbook about visualizing at the communion table, and unless I misunderstand the author that sounds like a breach of the 2nd commandment - will save that for another thread perhaps.

The point you make is important and it feels uncomfortable even saying there are just 9 commandments...

Though I understand most who disagree with me would say that we obey the Sabbath now every day rather than on just one day, which sounds more spiritual, but their 7 days are just like my 6 days - they are given to worship, work and sometimes play - whereas I have a day on top of that that is special and on which work and play are cleared out of the schedule, so I can devote all of it to my chief joy, which ought to be enjoying God (ed: I feel like a child boasting in a new toy. Forgive me please if this comes across as proud - but I do feel so blessed to have 6 days like so many others in the church but a special day on top of that)

I would argue that the Sabbath command is a part of the moral law based on a number of things:

First, it was given before the fall (so before there was need of shadows! So Colossians cannot apply). We can discuss the day as a secondary point, but the first thing to establish is that the commandment which requires us to give a day particularly to God, which requires us to set it aside from common use (as we do the Lord's Supper) is perpetual.

Second, it is included in the list of 10 commandments inscribed by the finger of God on the stone tablets and put in the ark... whereas other feast days and sabbaths were not - just as rules about stoning children and rules about ritual cleansing were not (and which also weren't required until after the fall)

Third, it is a major theme among the prophets who seemed at times to talk as if the ceremonial law didn't matter. They would tell the people how God hated their feasts, etc; but then, while rebuking the people for their idolatry also frequently rebuked them for breaking the Sabbath, which was often linked to the first commandment. And if you think about it they do go hand in hand. What keeps most people from giving an entire day specially to worship? It is usually an idol - something they would rather be doing than worshipping. Say football for example.

Fourth, the New Testament texts which some have understood as repealing the Sabbath are dealing with the ceremonial days.

Fifth, Jesus took great care to correct the Pharisaical treatment of the day precisely because the commandment is important and perpetual. Have you ever noticed how in John 20 Jesus specifically visited the disciples on the first day of the week and then again on the first day of the week.... they didn't see him in between... interesting isn't it that the Lord's Day is named after the one who claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath?!

Sixth, you asked about the text in which Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. I have a written a booklet (though it is not yet - if it ever will be - published) in which I write,

///What does it say about the North American Church that she hears Jesus saying “the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2.27)” and assumes He must have been freeing us from worship? He offers a gift. He says, in effect, “I have something wonderful for you - even designed for you” and the very people who bear His name determine from those same words that He cannot mean for us to have a Sabbath – otherwise, we reason, it wouldn’t be for us. A quick survey of history convinces me that the Church has drifted very far from her moorings, and the reason is almost certainly the idolatry now on display Sunday after Sunday.///

Hope this helps somewhat. Let me know.

Bearmaster, I will get back to you in a bit. Thanks for your thoughts on this too.

Edit: For those of you have read some of this thread I would encourage you to dig further into the question of the Sunday Sabbath - recognize that almost all the deceased speakers who's sermons you are listening to at SI held to the Sunday Sabbath, and that list includes Leonard Ravenhill. Check out the following reads, http://www.christianbook.com/lords-are-you-spending-this-sunday/joey-pipa/9781857922011/pd/22018?product_redirect=1&Ntt=22018&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP.
And, http://www.christianbook.com/worship-assessing-christian-life-light-sabbath/ryan-mcgraw/9781601781550/pd/781550?product_redirect=1&Ntt=781550&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP.
And on Robert Murray M'Cheyne, http://www.bookdepository.com/Robert-Murray-MCheyne-Andrew-Bonar/9780851510842.

I find this topic wearisome...I am not so sure but what this topic creates greater division among SI posters then anything else.

What I find disturbing is that Believers throughout the ages believed it essential for them to observe the LORD's day as first observed by Adam and Eve, and later by the early church, but today will discount its worthiness.

Does the testimony of the saints in the past not have something to teach us? The modern church considers it a non-essential and where are they at spiritually? They focus on self, self improvement and is that not what 'Sabbath-breaking'* is all about? Living for self?

Hate to get involved in doctrinal discussions but the this topic grieves me.

ginnyrose


*Or, Lord's day

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Sandra Miller