The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is the day esteemed.
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Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of May 15, 2010
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. (Rom 14:1–12)
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One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike—when Paul writes about the person weak in faith, weak in belief, he doesn’t write about the unbeliever, or the idolater who calls himself a brother for Paul clearly says that disciples are to judge those inside the Church (1 Cor 5:12) and purge out the idolater. Paul does not contradict himself, telling converts at Rome not to judge the Church, but telling saints at Corinth to judge the Church. Rather, the Christian who remains an idolater or who is greedy or who is a drunkard or a swindler is to be purged from the Church. Those saints who are strong in faith are to do what Paul did (v. 3), and that is to pronounce judgment on those who willfully transgress the law, those who practice sexual immorality or who are greedy, or who are idolaters, revilers, drunkards, swindlers (vv. 9–11), on unbelievers who say they are Christians but are wolves seeking to devour the saints.
If the day one esteems better than other days is the Sabbath, then to not esteem this day isn’t a small matter or a matter of being weak in the faith but is a matter of unbelief, of not having faith … in English, the concepts of “belief” and of “faith” have been separated by widespread scientific inquiry so that “faith” becomes accepting as true what cannot be proved via an argument whereas “belief” is to accept what can be proved true. But a movie such as the original Matrix challenges whether what is accepted as “true” is really true; i.e., whether the reality seen and experienced is “real.” Computer graphics are able to make a person “see” what isn’t true, and to at least momentarily accept a fiction as the truth.
In Paul’s 1st-Century world, the Greek word pistis represented “belief” and stemmed from pitheo, a verb used for the concept of “convincing by an argument.” The Greek word pisteuō, from pistis, is translated into English as “faith,” and has the usual assignment of meaning of “believing” or “trusting” in an argument that convinces. So for Paul, “belief” and “faith” are interchangeable: to believe “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scripture” (1 Cor 15:3) is to have faith in Christ having died for our sins according to Scripture. Thus, to have faith in God is to believe God. Where there is no belief, there is no faith; for the person has not been convinced by an argument that what God has said is true.
The writer of Hebrews says, “For if Joshua [Jesus] had given them [Israel in the wilderness] rest, He [God] would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest [Sabbatismos; i.e., the keeping of the “little” Sabbath] for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His” (4:8–10).
When the children of Israel followed Joshua across the Jordan and entered into the Promised Land, God’s rest (from Ps 95:10–11), the “rest into which they entered was only a shadow and type of God’s rest, with the expression God’s rest being a euphemism for entering into God’s presence in heaven. Thus, there was need to speak of another day later on when Israel would be glorified and truly able to enter into heaven, with this day represented spiritually by the Sabbath. Hence, there remains a keeping of the weekly Sabbath—the little Sabbath [Sabbatismos] because it is also the shadow and type of entering heaven—for the people of God. To not keep the Sabbath is to, in type, not enter heaven.
Therefore, the “why” for using Sabbatismos, the diminutive form of the Sabbath, is in the analogy between Israel, the nation numbered in the census of the second year of the Exodus, being prevented from entering into the Promised Land of Canaan because of unbelief and Christian disciples being prevented from entering heaven and coming before God if they do not enter “while the promise of entering His rest still stands” (Heb 4:1). So there is no misunderstanding, the analogy being made has the physical Promised Land of Canaan being spiritually represented here on earth by the Sabbath, with both Canaan and the Sabbath being representations of heaven as God’s rest. Since flesh and blood cannot enter heaven (1 Cor 15:50), the disciple’s physical body cannot come before God or bodily enter into God’s rest except through keeping the weekly Sabbath, the little Sabbath that is the type and shadow of heaven. So then, there remains keeping the Sabbath for the people of God, for whoever mentally appears before God also rests from his works as God did from His on the seventh day.
Really, no stronger argument can be made that Christians are to keep the Sabbath than the writer of Hebrews makes in chapters 3 & 4 together; for the nation of Israel in the wilderness refused to enter into Canaan when the promise of entering stood, but rebelled against God and sought to stone Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb (Num 14:10) and would have killed them if the glory of the Lord had not suddenly appeared at the tent of meeting. Then after being condemned to death in the wilderness for national unbelief, the people “repented,” saying to the Lord, “‘Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned’” (v. 40). But Israel could not enter into God’s rest (from Ps 95:10–11) on the following day (vv. 41–45).
Christians as the people of God cannot enter into God’s rest, into His presence, on the following day, one day after the Sabbath: the one (day after) the Sabbath, from John 20:1 and from Acts 20:7.
It is understandable why John would use the Greek form of the Hebrew expression for the first day of the week on the day that Jesus was resurrected from death, but John didn’t write his gospel until nearly sixty years later … John was still using the Greek form of the Hebrew designation of week days by numbering the day by the day being so many days before or so many after the Sabbath. If John’s readers were not keeping the Sabbath when John wrote his gospel, then John writing, ho mia ho sabbaton, makes no sense; for Greeks called the day of the week by its number. Monday was called [see printable file for the Greek rendering of this term], or “Second”; Tuesday was [see printable file for the Greek rendering of this term], or “Third”; Wednesday was [see printable file for the Greek rendering of this term], or “Fourth”: Thursday was [see printable file for the Greek rendering of this term], of “Fifth.” Thus, Sunday would be [see printable file for the Greek rendering of this term], or “First.” Or Sunday would have been heméra helíou, “the day of the Sun.” It wasn’t until the 2nd-Century CE that Greek began to use Kyriake, the Lord’s Day, for Sunday. Hence, for John to continue the Hebraic practice of counting from the Sabbath, and including the Sabbath in naming of the day, stands as strong evidence that John and his readers were keeping the Sabbath.
Luke also used the Greek translation of the Hebraic naming expression in Acts 20:7 roughly a quarter century after Calvary when writing to [Theophilus, or Lover of God], and obviously a Greek if not a specific individual. So neither John nor Luke used the Greek practice of calling the first of the week, First; nor did either call the first day of the week the day of the Sun [heméra helíou]. Rather, both Luke writing somewhere around 60 CE and John writing about 90 CE translated the Hebrew naming expression of one [after] the Sabbath into Greek when referring to the first day of the week. And neither John nor Luke would use the Sabbath as a reference for Christians if Christians were not still observing the Sabbath in the second half of the 1st-Century. Yes, faithful disciples were still keeping the Sabbath as the writer of Hebrews said that they should do.
Today, almost two millennia after Calvary, the majority of Christians are as the people of Israel were in the wilderness of Paran when they repented and attempted to enter into God’s rest on the following day (Num 14:40). They find that they cannot enter: God is not with them, and the people of the land are too strong for them to overcome. Rather, they are overcome by the people of the land; hence, they too shop at Wal-Mart both on the Sabbath and one day after the Sabbath. They leave Church and without changing clothes, they get from Wal-Mart’s grocery section what could have been purchased on another day—they have truly been overcome by the world. But when they repent yet again, they will not be able to enter into Sabbath observance because they didn’t enter when the promise of entering God’s rest stood. They will have come under a strong delusion that keeps them from entering, with this delusion spiritually serving as Israel’s many trips around the mountain during the Exodus served to kill off a generation of the people of God.
After the Second Passover, American Christians who attempt to return to America’s founding fathers will be condemned to death for their unbelief of God.
In the second Sinai covenant, the Lord says,
Observe what I command you this day. … Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. (Ex 34:11–15)
King Solomon, to whom God gave peace (whose name was Peace), did just what the Lord prohibited Israel from doing, and by his many foreign wives, he delivered Israel into death after his father David had returned Israel to the Lord. Likewise, incorporating Greek converts—which was right and a good thing—into the early Church sowed the seeds for delivering the Church into the hand of Death; for converted pagan philosophers who were still very much novices in the faith began to teach as if they were mature: using Paul’s epistles, twisting them, taking a few words from here and a few words from there, they morphed Christ into Plato and Christendom into yet another Greek cult, one that had true staying power; for Calvary provided the solution to Greek philosophy’s dilemma of how a person could know for certain that he or she was “good” enough to go to heaven after death. By cloaking oneself in Christ’s righteousness; by Christ taking onto Himself the sins of the person; by Christ’s blood covering and blotting out the sins of the person, every person suddenly became “good enough” to enter heaven.
Do you see the morphing from a disciple being cloaked in Christ’s righteousness (i.e., the garment of Christ) to Christ’s blood blotting out the sins of the person—the Adversary and his ministers are subtle; the deception is subtle? But the disciple cloaked in Christ Jesus’ righteousness is as a child wearing his or her parents’ clothes, the child playing “grown-up.” The sins of the disciple are covered, but these sins are not erased: if they were erased, there would be no need to reveal judgments when Jesus returns (see 1 Cor 4:5). Every sin committed by the former son of disobedience when still a son of disobedience has been erased: these sins were covered by the death of the old inner self, crucified with Christ and buried in baptism. Paul writes, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Rom 6:1–3). The record of disciples’ debt that stood against every disciple with its legal demands was nailed to the cross, but this record was of the transgressions of the old selves, all sons of disobedience. Hence, every son of God (inner new self born of spirit through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God — pneuma Theon) was born under no condemnation, but has been set free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:1–2).
But being set free from the law of sin and death is not freedom to continue to sin, but freedom to keep the law that is now written in the minds of disciples … if the disciple’s inner desire is not to keep the law, then this person has simply not been born of God regardless of whether he or she claims to be a Christian. In a mystery that Paul didn’t understand (Rom 7:15), prior to the Second Passover when all of Israel will be liberated from indwelling sin and death, sin continues to dwell in the fleshly members of disciples even though the law of God is written in the mind and heart. It is the disciple’s desire to keep the law, but the flesh is weak: too often the disciple is defeated by the flesh although no such defeat should occur. But as John writes, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he [Christ Jesus] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9).
Jesus forgives us when we confess our sins while striving to walk upright before Him because we have not yet been liberated from indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover. However, following liberation; following being filled with, and empowered by the spirit of God, the disciple who commits sin commits blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for with liberation there was no longer any sin dwelling within the disciple, nor room for sin to dwell within the disciple without “splashing” out some of the spirit that filled the disciple at liberation.
Following the Second Passover, the Christian who attempts to enter into God’s rest on the following day will be condemned to the lake of fire for the Christian’s unbelief, not for simply keeping Sunday as the Sabbath. The day really doesn’t matter—it is whether the person believes God that matters. And the Christian who truly believes God will Remember the Sabbath.
Christians must enter into God’s rest while the promise of entering stands—and following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, the promise of entering will stand for 220 days.
So when Paul writes, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord” (Rom 14:5–6), Paul doesn’t write about entering or not entering into God’s rest for his assumption is that both the weak and the strong in faith will enter and thus keep the Sabbath. But a birthday is a day that could be esteemed by one disciple and not esteemed by another. Likewise, 4th of July is a day that could be esteemed by the weak in faith, disciples who do not yet understand that all governments in this era derive their authority to govern from the Adversary to whom God has delivered humankind … “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom 13:1), but by consigning all of humankind to disobedience so that He could have mercy on all (Rom 11:32), God delivered all of humankind to the Adversary to be the Adversary’s bondservants. Hence, all governments of men in this era derive their power to rule from the Adversary. To say otherwise is to twist Paul’s words into a hangman’s noose.
The one who observes the [esteemed] day, observes it in honor of the Lord—if Israel could not enter into God’s rest on the following day (Num 14:40–45), and if animal sacrifices, added ordinances, came about because of Israel not entering into God’s rest while the promise of entering stood [see Num 15:1–16] by being condemned to death in the wilderness without the covering of sacrifices, and if the writer of Hebrews reminds saints that there remains the keeping of the Sabbath for the people of God, then for Christians following the Second Passover there will be no sacrifice to cover their transgressions until they enter into Sabbath observance where their “transgression” of the Sabbath commandment will be covered by their obedience to God. Thus, it is not possible to truly observe the day after the Sabbath as the Sabbath in honor of the Lord; for unbelief is not honorable. Unbelief is unbelief, a lack of faith. Thus, attempting to enter into God’s rest on the following day will cause the Christian to be greeted by the angels of God as the repentant people of Israel were greeted by the Amalekites and the Canaanites (Num 14:45). These Christians will be as the man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day was (Num 15:32), but instead of being stoned to death (the stones representing the broken tablets of stone on which God wrote the commandments with His finger), these Christians will perish in fire that comes from God as the invisible bright fire of indwelling eternal life came from God.
For the nation of Israel that left Egypt, life came (Rom 5:14) when the commandments were given, with the commandments making sin alive (see Rom 7:8–9) so that sin could be defeated by obedience to God. But for Christians, life comes through receipt of the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion, the divine breath of God [pneuma Theon]. And once made alive and the heart cleansed by faith (Acts 15:9), the disciple supplements his or her faith with virtue, and supplements virtue with knowledge (2 Pet 1:5) … “virtue” is not passive, but is actively doing the will of God, and “knowledge” tells the disciple what the will of God is. So before the Christian has walked far as he or she imitates Paul as Paul imitated Christ Jesus—
Paul expresses the concept that those who say they are of Christ ought to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6) when Paul writes:
· “I urge you, then, be imitators of me” (1 Cor 4:16);
· “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1);
· “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1);
· “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Phil 3:17);
· “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thess 1:6);
· “For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea” (1 Thess 2:14);
· “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:7–8);
· “‘Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I [Paul] committed any offense’” (Acts 25:8).
No Christian can walk as Jesus walked or imitate Paul as he imitated Jesus and attempt to bodily enter into God’s presence on the first day of the week—and that is what Sabbath observance represents, bodily entering into God’s rest. Thus, the person who attends Christian worship services on Sunday does not walk as Jesus walked, but seeks darkness rather than light regardless of what this person thinks his or her relationship with Jesus is.
Does the Christian who attempts to enter into God’s rest on the following day observe the day in honor of the Lord? Yes, the person does. But the Lord of this person is NOT Christ Jesus.
John says that sin is lawless (1 John 3:4); Paul says that whatever is not of faith is sin (Rom 14:23). For lawlessness is unbelief, and unbelief is a lack of faith; thus both Paul and John concur that to walk as Jesus walked, the Christian disciple will commit no offense against the law or against the temple [now the Body of Christ] or against Caesar, the human ruler of this world, with the disciple obeying God rather than Caesar when there is a conflict between the two.
But John continues beyond his statement that sin is lawlessness when he writes,
You know that he [Jesus] appeared to take away sins, and in him [Jesus] there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil. (1 John 3:5–10)
Simply put, the Christian who makes a practice of sinning is a child of the devil regardless of what this Christian believes about him or herself … inevitably this Christian will say that he or she is comfortable with his or her relationship with Christ, but the person has no relationship with Christ, the point John makes. The person’s relationship is with the devil, who appears as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14), and this person will fight and kill genuine disciples in the name of Christ, sincerely believing that the person does the will of God (John 16:2), but our Christian will kill genuine disciples because he or she has “‘not known the Father nor’” Christ Jesus (v. 3).
The “Christian” who esteems Sunday over the Sabbath is really not a Christian at all, but is the seed of the Adversary; therefore what Paul writes about esteeming one day over another or every day alike does not pertain to the Sabbath but is a matter like whether to eat meat purchased in the shambles when the disciple doesn’t know how the animal was killed or whether the meat came from a pagan sacrifice. The disciple who would be holy as God is holy (1 Pet 1:14–16; Lev 11:44–47) will not eat meat that is “common” to all of humanity, but by faith will make a distinction between meats as God made a distinction. Remember, Paul writes, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1). If a person seeks to imitate God, the person will make the same distinction between common [unclean] and clean meats as God made, with the disciple strong in faith not asking how the clean animal was killed for an idol is nothing but a pagan’s attempt to fix the form and image of God as a thing that has been made.
The person weak in faith will eat only vegetables for this person is concerned about transgressing the law of God in a small point; for the Lord is a jealous God (again Ex 34:14).
Jesus said, “‘Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? … What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person’” (Mark 7:18–23).
In saying that it wasn’t what entered the mouth and went into the stomach that defiled a person, Jesus made a distinction between the inner self and the tent of flesh that will never enter heaven (1 Cor 15:50); thus, it isn’t the pork chop eaten so as not to cause offense that defiles a person, but the disciple coveting a pork chop that defiles. Hogs were not given to Israel as food. For an Israelite, circumcised in the flesh or circumcised of heart, to covet what is not given to Israel as food, the Israelite seeks to be like other men, the common stock of humankind; for there is no distinction between the Israelite who covets what has not been given to Israel as food and the Israelite man who covets a woman of the nations as a wife, or the Israelite who covets another man’s wife.
Although hogs were given to “common” men as food when Noah left the Ark (Gen 9:3), when the Lord selected Israel as a nation special to Him (Ex 19:5–6), Israel ceased being of common ancestry and ceased to eat as common men [and women] eat. Israel became the selected human cultivar of the Lord, selected in Abraham’s generation and bred for two generations by promise (Gen 17:15, 19; & Gen 25:21) before the Lord delivered the fourth generation into the hand of Pharaoh for testing in a manner analogous to how a fruiting cultivar is selected, bred, and submitted to others for testing to see if the fruit of the cultivar is worthy of continued propagation.
It is coveting commonness that defiles the disciple, a circumcised-of-heart Israelite, regardless of how this commonality is manifested. It is not weakness in faith that defiles; it is unbelief that defiles. For if this unbelief appears as pride, it is sin. If it appears as deceit, it is sin. If it appears as adultery, it is sin, obviously, but if it appears as unacted-upon lust [i.e., looking with lust but not touching] it is still sin for the disciple doesn’t believe God about being special—the disciple wants to still run with his or her former friends, all sons of disobedience.
Once a person is drawn from this world by the Father, the person ceases to be of “common” human stock but becomes special.
It isn’t the weak in faith that wants to return to commonality, for the weak in faith fears contamination by the world and wants to separate themselves from the world in communes, or in fundamentalist sects where every action of the weak is subject to the dictates of a spiritual father such as Herbert W. Armstrong was for many disciples until his death in January 1986. It is the strong who have little or no fear of cross-contamination; who have no fear of worldly contamination; who are secure in their knowledge of the truth. Thus, the strong—each one keeping the commandments of God by faith—are to bear the weak, not eating or drinking what would otherwise be permissible so as not to cause offense in the weak. It is the strong who will buy meat in the shambles and not worry about whether it was properly bled before being butchered; for the beef roast that comes from an animal that was killed before it bled-out is unclean to the Orthodox Israelite whereas for the Christian strong it faith, the roast would be received with thanksgiving. However, no believer would receive a pork roast with thanksgiving. It is the unbeliever that would bless a pork roast. The believer knows better than to mock God by asking Him to bless what He has not given to Israel as food.
The lawless will continue to use Paul’s epistles as hemp rope, twisted tight around their necks so that they cannot breathe, with Romans chapter 14 as an easy passage to twist tight. But believers—disciples both strong and weak in faith—will not twist Paul’s epistles, believing Paul when he writes, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom 6:16).
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."