Message to Me

You can not change my mind on God’s Law, and also the new covenant God writes His Law in our hearts and minds, and I will do my best to live up to what He has done, and the scriptures that confirm the new covenant. "However, God's laws defining righteousness are not symbolic or temporary. The Psalms depict them as "wonderful" and "perfect," destined to last "forever"(Ps 19:7; 119-129, 160)." "Paul describes God's law as "holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good." (Rom 7:12, NIV) He taught that the problem that the New Covenant solves is the unspiritual responses of man, not some supposed defect in God's spiritual laws." "Jesus said, "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law untill all is accomplished." (Matt 5:17-18,NRSV). The change from the 7th day to the 1st day came from the emporer Constantine, a Roman, and you know who Romans are, the Catholic church. There isn't any scripture in the new testiment changing worship/day of rest from the 7th day to the 1st. Man says it changed because Christ died and rose on the 3rd day. Well, Fri, approximate time of death, 12 noon to 3, and he was laid in the stone crypt before the Sabbath began. Tell me, what would 3 days in the crypt come out to be, certainly not the 1st day. And all the names of our days are based on the sun, moon, and other gods.

Reply
Keith Sharp

Yes, the New Covenant is written on the hearts and minds of all who are in covenant relationship with God in this age (Hebrews 8:10-11). And, when he brought in this covenant, He made the old “obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13).

I have never taught or believed that God’s laws defining righteousness are symbolic. But the Old Covenant, including the Sabbath, was a shadow, and the New Covenant is the real (Colossians 2:16-17).

The terms “forever” and “everlasting” are often used in the sense of “age lasting.” God gave the sign of circumcision to Abraham as an everlasting token of His covenant with His seed (Genesis 17:10-14). But the ordinance of fleshly circumcision is abolished in Christ, and any who bind it or any other parts of the Law of Moses have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:1-4). Jonah went down into the depth of the sea “forever” (Jonah 2:6). “Forever” for Jonah was three days (Jonah 1:17).

Indeed, the law was “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12). The fault of the law was that it made no provision for our faults (Hebrews 8:6-7). Animal sacrifices cannot remove our sins (Hebrews 10:4). Only the sacrifice of Christ can do that (Hebrews 9:13-14).

Not the smallest part of the law was to pass away until all of it was fulfilled (Matthew 5:18). The purpose of the Old Covenant Law was fulfilled in Christ, and it was taken away as a law (Galatians 3:19-25). If a spokesman for a labor union on strike declared, “Till heaven and earth pass away, we will not go back to work till all our demands are met,” would he be saying the workers would never return to their jobs? Of course not. When their demands were met, they would go back to work. Christ fulfilled the Law, and it was taken away as law.

The Roman Emperor Constantine decreed Sunday to be the day of rest in A.D. 321, almost 300 years before Pope Boniface III was proclaimed the first universal bishop, thus beginning the Roman Catholic Church with the Pope as its universal (catholic) head (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church. 3:380). Of course this change in days of rest was 200 years too late for divine authority. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, but the Sabbath is done away in Christ (Exodus 20:8-10; Colossians 2:13-17).

In counting days, Jews characteristically counted any part of a day as a day. Esther told Mordecai that she and her maidens would fast three days (Esther 4:16). But on the third day she partook of a banquet (Esther 5:1-5). Jesus was crucified on Friday (Mark 15:42-43; Luke 23:46-54; John 19:14,30,42) and was raised early on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2, 9; Luke 24:1,13,21,46). He was in the grave three days as counted by Jews (Matthew 12:40).

Yes, all seven days of the week, including the Sabbath, have pagan names in English. Saturday is “Saturn’s Day.” So if you keep the Sabbath are you are worshiping Saturn?

Second Message to Me

Since I first attended services at the church of Christ, I have always had the question about Christ nailing God’s Law to the cross. I never really researched this, but several months ago, I again doubted what was being taught.

I researched and found many scriptures that made this teaching wrong. It all starts with Math 5:17-48 with Jesus teaching about the Law, and how he came to make it more fully understood. "God's moral and ceremonial laws were given to help people love God with all their hearts and minds. Throughout Israel's history, however, these laws were often misquoted and misapplied. By Jesus' time, religious leaders had turned the laws into a confusing mass of rules. When Jesus talked about a new way to understand God's Law, he was actually trying to bring people back to it's original purpose. He did not speak against the Law itself, but against the abuses and excesses to which it had been subjected." (John 1:17) (1Tim1:8 But we know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully.) (1Tim:1:9-10 Knowing this, that the Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly sinners. Paul in Rom3:31 "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea we establish the law, There are many more scriptures, search your bible, the last I will note is Rev 22:14, Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city". These laws were established in Genesis when God created man and woman and put them in the Garden of Eden.

The Sabbath was not abolished by God. "There were no clear references to Sunday as a day of Christian worship are found until the writings of Barnabas and Justin (AD 135 and 150) Observance of Sunday as the primary day of worship appears to have begun to solidify during the reign of Emeror Hadrian (AD 117-135) who harshly persecuted Jews throughout the Roman Empire. Hadrian specifically prohibited practices of Judaism, including observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. These oppressive measures apparently influenced many early Christians in Rome to abandon the seventh day and turn to Sunday, the day for honoring the sun god among the Romans and other people of the ancient world.

When Christianity was delclared the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, the process accelerated." check out "Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3, chap 18, quoted in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1979, Vol 1, pp524-525. "Constantine, in a bid to unify his empire, established the first laws making Sunday the official day of rest. (man-made, not God) His AD 321 law for example stated:?On the venerable Day of the Sun, [Sunday] let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed." Several decades later, the Council of Laodicea decreed, "Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord's Day [Sunday]; ....But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ".

We have been worshipping and resting so many years on the false Sunday, it is hard to accept, but accept we/I must. Math 5:17-20. Math 7:21 The Sabbath, seventh day rest was established in Genesis, not when Isreal was lead out of Egypt. Gen 2:2 God said, remember the Sabbath.

I will do my best to follow God's Commandments/Law so I may obtain his grace. I will continue in my studies of God's New Covenant, will continue in my quest to live according to all His word.

Second Reply
Keith Sharp

I am going to examine every passage you referenced to see if they teach what you believe. But I have already sent you information answering your position, and you have not even acknowledged it, much less answered it. Your mind appears to be completely closed to the truth (cf. Isaiah 6:8-10; Matthew 13:13-15; Acts 28:24-27).

Is the Sermon on the Mount, particularly Matthew 5:17-48, just the Master’s correct explanation of the Law?

In Matthew 5:17, the Lord states, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” If Christ had destroyed the Law, it would have been rendered useless and would not have fulfilled its purpose. The Old Testament is still very useful today (Romans 15:4), but it is not our law. Jesus has “taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

The purpose of the Law was fulfilled in Christ.

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made.... But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (Galatians 3:19, 23-25).

The Master declared, “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” (Matthew 5:18). Since its purpose has been fulfilled, it has passed away as law. If a spokesman for a union on strike were to assert, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not one worker will return to work until all our demands are met,” would the union remain on strike after all its demands were met? All the purposes of the law have been fulfilled, and it has ceased.

There are some very serious unintended consequences of claiming the Law is still in force. The law permitted men to put away their wives for “some uncleanness” (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). That’s not “ceremonial law” but “moral law.” It’s a corollary to, “You shall not commit adultery” (Deuteronomy 5:18), which you will recognize as one of the Ten Commandments. It gave no permission to wives to divorce their husbands for any reason. If a husband divorced his wife, and she then married another man, the first husband could never take her back under any circumstances (Deuteronomy 24:1-4).

The Law permitted polygamy (Exodus 21:7-11; Deuteronomy 21:15-16). King David, whom the Lord called, “a man after my own heart, who will do all my will” (Acts 13:22), had at least eight wives (2 Samuel 3:2-5; 5:13) and at least ten concubines, i.e., slave wives (2 Samuel 15:16).

Christ forbids divorce for any reason other than “sexual immorality” (Matthew 5:31-32). He specifically replaced the regulation of divorce in the Law with His own law, based on God’s original intention for marriage (Matthew 19:3-9). He only authorizes marriage between one man and one woman (Matthew 19:4-6). Do you really want to return to the moral regulations of the Law?

Yes, “the law” which Christ replaced “came through Moses” (John 1:17). But Christ established His own law (1 Corinthians 9:21). We are freed from the law that came through Moses (Romans 7:1-6) to serve God by “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1-4).

Yes, the Law was good (1 Timothy 1:8-11). But the good Law made no provision by which sinners could be ultimately forgiven by God. The fault was with those who were obligated to keep the Law and failed to do so (Hebrews 8:7-9). The animal sacrifices of the Law cannot remove sin (Hebrews 10:4). Only the sacrifice of Christ will do that (Hebrews 9:13-14). For this reason, “He is the mediator of the new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15) and “has made the first obsolete” (Hebrews 8:6-13).

In Christ the purpose of the Law, to make men righteous before God (Romans 10:4), is established (Romans 3:31). But this is done by replacing the “law of works,” the law which demanded, “Do not commit adultery” (Romans 2:22-23), with “the law of faith” (Romans 3:27-28), “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:2).

The commandments of Revelation 22:14 are not those given through Moses nor those given to Adam, but those of Jesus (Revelation 22:13-16). The only commandments given to Adam and Eve in the garden were “to tend and keep” the garden (Genesis 2:15) and not to eat “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:16-17). They hadn’t even been commanded not to go around naked (Genesis 3:7-11).

Yes, indeed, the Sabbath was abolished by God.

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ (Colossians 2:13-17).

Yes, it is indeed true that an apostate church combined with Romans rulers to establish Sunday as the “Christian Sabbath.” But I have never believed or taught that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. The first day of the week, which in our society happens to be called “Sunday” (Sun’s Day) just as the Sabbath is called “Saturday” (Saturn’s Day), is the day on which the church comes together to eat the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20:7) and to take a collection from the members (1 Corinthians 16:1-2). I know Acts 20:7 is the Lord’s Supper because the apostle Paul forbids the church to come together to eat any other meal (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). That’s the reason we don’t have a so-called “fellowship hall” or come together as the church for falsely so-called “fellowship dinners.” The “Christian’s Sabbath” is our rest in heaven (Hebrews 4:1-11; cf. 1 Peter 1:3-5).

The commandments we must obey (Matthew 7:21) are those from Jesus (Revelation 22:13-16).

Prior to the Law of Moses God never commanded anyone at anytime to keep the Sabbath. Moses, looking back to creation, said God blessed and hallowed the seventh day because it was this day on which He rested from (ceased) His work of creation (Genesis 2:2-3). But the first time anyone was ever commanded to keep the Sabbath was when Israel was in the wilderness (Exodus 16:22-26). God revealed the Sabbath when He gave the Law on Mt. Sinai (Nehemiah 9:13-14). The Sabbath was to Israel a memorial of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage (Deuteronomy 5:12-15; Ezekiel 20:10,12). It has no more meaning to Gentiles than the Fourth of July has to Canadians.

Anyone who keeps any part of the Law of Moses as a means of seeking to please God and/or who teaches others to do so, is obligated to keep all the law, whether he considers it moral or ceremonial, “has become estranged from Christ,” and has “fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:1-4).