Is Your Greatest Delight In A Day Of Rest Or In The Person Who Makes You His Delight?

Are there ‘difficult cases’ of conscience when the Sabbath already is a liberty of conscience issue?

I have to phrase the question this way because of the way Walter makes exceptions for it, presupposing it as a command binding upon the conscience of all men. But it’s not, nor ever will be. What is binding is not what we do with the sabbath that God made for man, but what we do with the Person spoken of that is said to have rested in this Day of promise, who swears that none of those who fall according to the same example of disobedience will enter the day of ‘My rest.’ What was that example of disobedience? It was the unbelief in refusing to follow God’s voice. Therefore it was the attitude of mockery towards God’s Word, specifically the promise rather than the command (Heb.4:12), for the command itself was given as a promise to the Jews as one national organism saved out of slavery to Egypt; and for the sake of God’s glory, which says (to them) that God would not even treat his indentured slaves that way much less his sons. So the heart of the commandment (towards Israel) is a representation of God’s character of love, justice, and mercy (Matt.23:23; Lk.11:42); but it is not, nor ever was, a commandment that is to demonstrate an obligatory custom in every culture (1Cor.7:19; Acts 6:14; 15:1; 16:21; 17:2).

So are there Biblical “. . . texts which seem to deny that there is a Christian sabbath” as Mr. Chantry implies? We most likely already went over these verses that Walter is going to twist to his own destruction, but we are going to look at them again and again until we see the root of what is going on in Paul’s letters. Even Walter says, “No doubt as you have read through Paul’s letters to the Gentile churches you have noted three passages which, on the surface, appear to have reference to the fourth commandment. All three deny in rather strong language that Christians have any obligation to keep certain days holy.” But like the original crafty and cunning snake had deceived Eve by sowing this thought into her mind (2Cor.11:3), “Did God really mean what he said he means?”, we have the same spirit of the world working hard to bring us into subjection to the principles of his influence (1Jn.5:19). Now, as we look into this according to Walter’s book called “Call The Sabbath A Delight,” we shall see how he is purposefully setting us all up to stumble over the law like its a stumbling block, and it is a stumbling block in his own conscience that prevents his members from their liberty (Rom.14:11-13). Through Walter stating, “ . . . the remaining two instances . . . of Paul’s letters which are concerned to show that it is no longer appropriate for Christians to be bound to certain Old Testament regulations. These two are far more negative in tone regarding the observance of days,” he sets us up to stumble over the tone of a passage rather than to keep our feet on what the passages actually say. One of which he is referring to is the Galatians 4:9-11 context. And then immediately he carries it over to the Colossians 2:16-17 context.

Galatians 4:9–11 (NKJV)

9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.

Colossians 2:16–17 (NKJV)

16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Now Walter’s response to these passages is troubling. He comments, “At first glance these verses seem to support those who argue that there is no sacred day whatsoever in the New Testament,” and again, “Do these texts refer to the weekly sabbath days required in the Ten Commandments?”. Now, again, he continues to put before us the law as a stumbling block according to his own conscience (1Cor.1:23; 8:9; Rom.11:9). So he continues, “To begin to answer, let us recall that Jesus our Lord plainly announced that he would personally assume authority over the weekly sabbath, . . .,” but that is not what Christ announced in what he would do but what he is doing before their hypocritical, judgmental eyes (Matt.12:8; Mk.2:8; Lk.6:5). He did not say that he will be Lord of the Sabbath but that he is (present tense, active voice) Lord of the Sabbath. Walter goes on fooling himself, stating, “In Hebrews we saw that there does remain a Sabbath observance for God’s people in the gospel age (Heb.4:9).” No, Walter, you saw that a weekly sabbath remains, we didn’t. What we saw was Christ entering the divine Day of his Father’s rest. You eisegeted your own understanding upon the text. That’s not what God said at all. Walter also continues to make us stumble over what appears to him that Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2 are all speaking of the same kind of days (i.e., Jewish worship days). But that’s not necessarily true of Romans 14. It can very easily be applied to the Greco-Roman pagan holy days of the week, for to the Lord, he does not observe them every day alike. But is it, as Walter says, “apparent that these three contexts are describing (only) the ceremonial and judicial laws of Moses,” for he continues to argue that the weekly sabbath is distinct from the festivals and new moon sabbaths (e.g., the high day of the festivals (Jn.19:31). Why would the sabbath be higher on festival days and new moons than the weekly sabbaths? Because that’s when they were to come together and remember Yahweh as their salvation as (one) nation and not just as a familial tribe (Dt.6:3-4). Therefore the weekly sabbath perishes with the sign of the covenant in its greatest fulfillment as the kingdom clearly was taken from them as a whole nation for her rebellion to the Person of that high and holy Day who is also the sign of the New Covenant in fulfillment of the old (Matt.21:42-44).

So is the weekly sabbath a ceremonial and judicial law? Well, if you want to argue that it is not, because it is found in what is traditionally called the Moral law, you may have a case, but your argument is self-defeating. While everything that God commands is moral in its relationship to God, it doesn’t always make it morally applicable to all men. The Ten Commandments were offered as a covenant to fulfill a promise to Abraham, that Yahweh would make a spiritual nation from him with the blessing of God’s salvation, but they were also a response to the Pharaoh of Egypt who held God’s people captive to do his will against the Spirit of his own will. It was Yahweh saying, “I AM not like the gods of Egypt.” So the Ten Commandments have a unique representation of God before the nations at that time and for that culture on behalf of the elect children of Yahweh. They were never to be binding upon all peoples in all times. They were presented in such a way that demonstrates a national covenant. For example, the commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” in its relationship to their ‘oath’ before God, is not a covenant that permits any kind of individual liberty from one another in God’s witness (Dt.5:23-27). The sign of the sabbath is what sealed that covenant and their oath to it, and that’s why it is a unique covenant on a national level for Israel only. Now that doesn’t annul the moral obligation not to lie to one another under the New Covenant (Col.3:9-11), which subjects every man to the law of Christ (1Cor.9:20-21; Rom.8:2; 10:4; Gal.6:2; Rom.3:27), who not only fulfilled the Old Covenant but increased the moral relationship of the law to himself as the (only) lawgiver (Matt.5:20, 43-48; James 4:12).

Now, Walter misrepresents the fourth commandment by stating, “The Decalogue’s fourth commandment does not point forward to Christ with shadowy images of him. It clearly points back to creation and to God’s rest.” Here is Walter’s self-defeating argument. This makes the weekly sabbath a judicial and ceremonial law then as the sign of their covenant (Ex.31:13); but more emphatically since (this is) pointing back to God’s example of rest at creation week, it is also the judicial Sabbath which most of them were not able to enter because of unbelief as the Hebrews context clearly points out (Heb.4:2, 4-5). But that rest is eternal, having no evening nor morning to complete the daily cycle (Gen.2:1-4), so it is pointing forward (again) to the rest which remains for the true worshippers of God (Heb.4:3, 8-10)! As the Colossians 2 context rightly points out as shadows of things even still to come! That means this (eternal) rest is not yet fulfilled unto us who wait upon the Lord. If it is still to come, then the weekly sabbath remains merely a shadow, but the substance of our rest is Christ alone.

Again, Walter makes the traditional assumption when he says, “Even when our Lord Jesus changed its observance from the seventh day to the first because it was then that he had finished his redemptive work, still the emphatic concern is that man enter God’s rest, which has been fully enjoyed from the creation of the world.” But the problem with that assumption is that it forces a change in the weekly pattern. It does not! If anything, looking back to the creation week reinforces it to be the seventh day if indeed the Sabbath was a created day. But it’s not! And what does the Scripture say when it says it was finished before the foundation of the world? Therefore when Christ says it is finished in our spiritual dimension on the sixth day of the created Friday of his death, it doesn’t change the spiritual dimension of the everlasting Day of his Lamb’s Book of Life written before the foundation of the world. So what day he enters that rest is irrelevant to a sabbath day in the created dimension, which is designed for our rest. Now I hold fast to the apostolic tradition of worshipping and serving on the Lord’s Day because it was the first day of the week upon which our Lord was resurrected, signifying his triumph over death and the grave, but he entered that rest before he became our resurrection and our life (Lk.23:43). To be absent from the body is to be present with Lord (2Cor.5:6-8), but he did, for our sake (Jn.20:17), need to rise bodily and ascend bodily into his glory to fulfill the witness of heaven and earth (Jn.5:36-37; 1Jn.5:9). So he did enter that rest in triumph at the moment of death (Lk.23:46; Acts 2:25-28), but death had nothing in his soul to hold him in the grave for judgment in God (Acts 2:24; Jn.14:30), so for our sake, he rose again bodily bringing many sons to glory (Heb.2:10).

Now, Walter continues to argue against the plain understanding of the text to subject the body of Christ to a law that was buried with him in death and sealed over in the grave by a large tombstone by further stating, “To what days, then, are Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2 referring? Is there another possibility beside the weekly sabbath of the fourth commandment?” So what Walter is arguing for is that the feast days of the Passover, Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Day of Atonement are the only sabbath days pointing forward as shadows of Christ’s light. But this is all based on poor exegetical work and meditation surrounding these precious passages of Paul’s letters to the Gentile churches. Walter says, “It is these sabbaths which naturally come to mind in connection with ‘months and seasons and years’ in Galatians 4 and with ‘religious festivals and new moon celebrations’ in Colossians 2. It is only an attempt to refer these ‘days’ and ‘Sabbath day’ to the weekly sabbath which brings conflict and contradiction between Scriptures.” Now we have to pay close attention to the grammar in order to object to this sly and cunning work against the obvious intentions of the Spirit to liberate the conscience of these Gentile believers. I don’t know which translation Walter has chosen to use, but why does he purposely leave out the full context of Galatians 4:10? Both manuscript traditions read ‘days and months and seasons and years’ as the full context. That would include the weekly sabbath ‘days’ if it is only referring to the Jewish tradition of worship. But I believe Paul is pointing out more than that. I believe he is also including all the pagan festivals into his thought and rebuke of subjecting themselves to weak and beggarly elements of all human tradition. I don’t think he is talking about birthdays, nor do I believe he is talking about making a rule that we can never establish our own traditions of memorial celebrations of any kind, but that all that we do under the sun should reflect Christ’s glory rising above it all and that no individual Christian is bound to any one tradition or custom of these celebrations, which in effect is what the Judaizers were laboring to do against Paul’s work of liberating the Gentile conscience in the work of Christ, and what Paul explains in practical terms in Romans 14. So I pray that Walter’s use of leaving out the ‘days’ isn’t purposefully malicious.

Next, we behold the Colossians 2:16 context, which appears that Walter is reading from the NASB, as he translates it ‘sabbath day.’ The Greek, however, reads in it in the plural as sabbaths in both manuscript traditions. So as far as I can see, there are no textual variations limiting anyone’s understanding of the text. But would it really matter if it is rendered in the plural or in the singular? Does that make a difference to the point Paul is making regarding a sabbath of any kind? The context carries on to: let no one cheat you of your reward by permitting someone to approach you with a heavenly language other than what Paul already taught them, not holding fast to the Head, which is Christ, who raised this Colossian membership from death over the elementary principles of this world, which Paul testifies of all these things having been nailed to the cross with Christ in his death, triumphing in victory over them, to subject themselves all over again to what Christ put to death (Col.2:13-15, 18-22). So again, we see here Paul’s consistency regarding the use of days, weeks, months, and years for the purpose of festivals and new moons and the weekly sabbath days. Paul is not inconsistent. So we can rightly understand that a weekly sabbath can be understood here regardless of how we translate the plural use of Paul’s intent to the Colossians. Even the NASB refers to the NKJV as a corresponding annotation. So the translators are referring to the weekly sabbath day that occurs weekly and not just on the high days of the new moons and appointed festivals. So it is a rather weak ‘attempt’ on Walter’s part “to refer these ‘days’ and ‘sabbath day’” as [not] applicable to the recurring weekly sabbath that God made for man. Therefore we are to make no judgment for or against it because if they are yet a shadow of things to come, God has not changed it! But God did say he would cause them to cease altogether. The question is, when?

Hosea 2:10–11

10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, And no one shall deliver her from My hand. 11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, Her feast days, Her New Moons, Her Sabbath— All her appointed assemblies.

Now the amazing thing is that Hosea’s context in the original Hebrew renders ‘the sabbath’ in the singular using similar language to that of Paul’s context to the Colossians. Now what brings conflict and contradiction is our handling of the original language in translation, not our honest confusion in laboring to apply the author’s intent. So let’s look closer at what Hosea is proclaiming. Just like what Paul wrote to the Colossians, Hosea refers to them as ‘her feast days, her new moons, her sabbath,’ which is somewhat opposite to what Paul said yet the saying the same thing. Hosea renders the feast days and new moons in the plural, but Paul renders them in the singular as a festival or a new moon. But when we come to the sabbath, Hosea keeps it singular, while Paul makes it plural, but they are both really saying the same thing. It’s merely semantics. But since Hosea renders it a singular sabbath, he doesn’t leave it as the period at the end of the sentence but rather emphasizes the sabbath as a recurring assembly, including all the days as one whole package deal, leaving no room for exceptions to their cessation when it comes. So we observe it passing away, but has it ceased (Heb.8:13; 2Cor.3:11; 5:17)?

Now, if, as Walter says, according to Colossians 2, is [not] referring back to creation week to argue that we are still obligated to keep a weekly sabbath because, in his view, the weekly sabbath is a creation ordinance, why does he still argue that a weekly sabbath is [not] a shadow of the promise of rest to come, when Paul is clearly saying we are no longer under the creation ordinances that said, “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all perish in the using of them (Gen.2:16-17; 3:2-3)? It is because Christ was crucified to the basic principles of this world that we are no longer under these restrictions (Mk.1:40-41). These things are no longer to be treated as unclean to us who have been reconciled to God, for God has reconciled them to us (Acts 10:28; 2Cor.6:17-18). Nevertheless, they were creation ordinances. So how can Walter use that hermeneutical principle in all consistency and honesty? Therefore, if we have been reconciled to God, none of those creation ordinances apply, even in marriage in that God made them male and female (Gen.2:18); if Christ dwells in us bodily (Col.1:19-20; 2:9-10), it is good to be alone (1Cor.7:1-2; Eph.5:32; 1Cor.6:17).

In closing, as my last post regarding the rejection of this book “Call The Sabbath A Delight” by Walter Chantry, I want to say that while I believe this book is a heresy regarding the faith once for all delivered to the saints, I am not saying that the whole of Walter Chantry’s ministry is heretical. This is the only work I have read of his studies. It is strictly on this point of application regarding the Sabbath and its principles that I am unequally yoked with him in our common salvation. In the weight of bearing the burden to fulfill the law of Christ, I found it necessary to address the spiritual issue as many have certainly suffered unnecessarily because of an unholy restriction in cheating certain believers of certain liberties and ‘assurance’ in the name of false humility. So I hope and pray that this short study doesn’t damage the reputation of any sincere and good works that Walter’s ministry has done for his community and friends but that it only sharpens the whole community of faith towards a deeper theological relationship in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as we labor to walk by the Spirit in God’s light. My disagreements do not make him apostate as in a full departure from the faith, but it does hold him under a heretical view of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. May we never have to eat the presumptions of our own thoughts and words but continue to feast upon the fulness of God’s grace in the supply of the Spirit by the means of Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice. Amen.