Must New Testament Christians Keep The Traditional Sabbath? No.
Isaiah prophesied (in Isaiah 28) that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost
would be the REST wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest.
"This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing," Isaiah 28:12.
Can I prove that this prophecy does truly apply to the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, the evidence of which is speaking in other tongues?
Yes!
In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul taught a great lesson about the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues.
In verse 18, he said, "I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all."
In verse 21, he links speaking in tongues with the Old Testament prophecy by quoting from Isaiah 28, saying, "With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people."
By connecting the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with Isaiah 28, Paul is also connecting it with the promised REST, into which, every believer must enter.
You see, the original purpose of Sabbath was all about REST.
Everyone who receives the gift of the Holy Spirit, speaking in unknown tongues, enters into God’s rest. There is no record that the Early Church in the Book of Acts preached or practiced the observation of the Sabbath by Old Testament guidelines.
People who today teach that you must observe the Sabbath DO NOT observe it correctly.
If they really observed the Sabbath, BY OLD TESTAMENT STANDARDS, they would have to keep all the rules that the Jews did.
I do not know of ANY Christian group anywhere that accurately observes the Sabbath, including the Seventh Day Adventists. If you do not observe the Sabbath according to ALL the Old Testament rules, then you are breaking it.
James 2:10 says, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."
According to Exodus 31, “every one that profaneth it shall surely be put to death.”
That would require you to be put to death for anything as minor as tying your shoe laces (work)
or starting your car (igniting a fire) or traveling more than a “Sabbath’s Day Journey” (less than one mile).
That plainly tells us that if we do not keep the Sabbath perfectly, we are guilty of breaking Sabbath - by Old Testament standards.
But there is a BIGGER issue here. We are not required to keep the Old Testament Sabbath in the New Testament.
We are required to keep the Sabbath by NEW TESTAMENT standards, and that is by receiving the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.
I have been in Israel on numerous Sabbath days, and can tell you that I have never known any Christian group to observe such stringent guidelines for the Sabbath as Orthodox Jews. The Christian observance of Sabbath does not fulfill Old Testament guidelines.
Jesus did not keep Sabbath. The Apostles did not keep Sabbath.
The
Talmud is the primary reference book of all observant Jews. It is the accumulation of all the primary teachings of Israel's Rabbis for many centuries. For the most part, it is the written version of their oral traditions, and most Jews consider the Talmud to have supremacy over the Bible itself. In the Talmud, Jesus Christ is called Otho Isch - "That man," i.e. the one who is known to all.
In the Talmudic tract (a small topical section),
Abhodah Zarah, 6a, it says: "He is called a Christian who follows the false teachings of that man [Jesus Christ], who taught them to celebrate the feast on the first day of the Sabbath, that is,
to worship on the first day after the Sabbath."
So the TALMUD informs us that Jesus Himself taught SUNDAY worship.
There is no New Testament requirement for me to keep the Old Testament Sabbath. So I am not going to keep the Old Testament Sabbath.
To begin with, it is futile to attempt to satisfy that requirement without extremely stringent guidelines.
God does NOT require Christians to keep the Old Testament Sabbath.
“The LAW made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw nigh unto God,” Hebrews 7:19.
Keeping the Old Testament Sabbath made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope - the Baptism of the Holy Ghost - did!
In Matthew 12, Jesus' disciples were seen plucking corn on the Sabbath day. “When the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day,” Matthew 12:2.
After healing the sick on the Sabbath, Jesus was condemned by the scribes and Pharisees. “And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace,” Mark 3:4.
When Jesus healed the woman with the spirit of infirmity in Luke 13, “the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day,
and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work:
in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.
The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite,
doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?" Luke 13:14-15.
At the pool of Bethesda, Jesus healed a man who had suffered with an infirmity for thirty-eight years. "Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed. He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk," John 5:8-11.
"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or
in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of
the sabbath days:
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
...Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world,
why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" Colossians 2:16-20.
Jesus defied false traditions about Sabbath. Jesus defied heresies. Dr. Ken Trivette found 1521 things that Jews forbid on Sabbath. "For example: you could not rescue a drowning person on the Sabbath. Untying knots that needed only one hand was permissible, but if two hands were required, it was forbidden. ...If a man was bitten by a flea on the Sabbath, he had to allow the flea to keep on biting. If he tried to stop the flea from biting or killed it, he was guilty of hunting on the Sabbath."
In John 9:16, the Pharisees said, "This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day." The same charge is made today of those of us who do not observe traditional Sabbath teachings - "This man is not of God!" Nevertheless, Jesus was not only OF God, He WAS and IS God.
THIS ITEM COMES FROM MY “Lessons from the Book Of Exodus”:
Fourth Commandment - Sabbath
What a brilliant idea! One day off every week! God thought of it first. Rest! Every person needs rest. This is the only one of the Ten Commandments not taught in the New Testament, because God gives believers rest every day when the Comforter comes, in the form of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. (Isaiah 28:11-12.)
Exodus 20:8-11 - "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work."
THIS COMES FROM MY “Lessons from the Book of Isaiah”:
Stammering Lips And Another Tongue
Paul referred to Isaiah's prophecy when he taught the Corinthians, "With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord." Since the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, speaking in unknown tongues, fulfills Isaiah's prophecy.
Isaiah 28:11 - "For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear."
Why should anybody want to practice ONLY ONE DAY OF REST per week, when you can receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, as the Early Church did on the Day of Pentecost, according to Act 2, and have REST SEVEN DAYS A WEEK!
What day of the week should you worship on? EVERY DAY!
Should the church have services on Saturday or Sunday?
Consider this. The Early Church was first comprised of converted Jews. All their unconverted Jewish families continued to observe Saturday Sabbath (the LAST DAY - SEVENTH DAY of the week.) Therefore, the CHURCH worshipped on the FIRST DAY of the week - SUNDAY! It was not for LEGAL purposes, but for PRACTICAL purposes.
They would not be able to invite their Jewish family members to their Christian worship on the Seventh Day. The practicing Jews would not do that. So the Church met on SUNDAY. Furthermore, IF YOU CONDUCT WORSHIP SERVICE ON YOUR SO-CALLED "SABBATH," you are not keeping Sabbath! It is a self-contradiction.
It is NOT a sin to have Church on Sunday. There is NO LAW requiring you to have Church on Saturday.
The more you love Jesus Christ, the more you will want to go to Church, whether it is on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
"And upon
the first day of the week, [SUNDAY] when the disciples came together to break bread,
Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight," Acts 20:7.
Let NO MAN judge you with respect to Sabbath days (Colossians 2:16).
Continue to The Baptism Of The Holy Ghost
