Joy In A Day Or In The Person Of The Day?

Is the pattern of one day of seven ministering holy works the external sign of love to the Lord?

Again, I have been laboring to answer better the objections thrown at those of us who don’t believe in a Christian ‘weekly’ Sabbath. I am going to try to answer these objections further by first exposing the hypocrisy of these objections. Walter argues that the Sabbath continues to be binding on a Christian by twisting the principle of the sabbath rest altogether; he states,

‘The day of worship is called the Sabbath, which means rest or cessation from labor. However, inactivity or non-exertion is not the issue intended. We are not to imagine that he keeps the Sabbath most holy who sleeps the most or remains motionless.’

As noted before, through Lk.23:56, the intent of the sabbath principle is a motionless rest. So I dare to step on some toes to say that Walter’s statement is nothing more than a pocket full of rocks.

‘Without love for God such a requirement will seem narrow and a heavy burden. But for the godly it is a broad road of liberty and joy,’ says Walter.

So now the definition of love and godliness is a whole day of labor around ‘possibly’ listening to lies (Ezk.13:19; Jer.27:16; Ps.1:1-2)? Now I understand that Mr. Chantry truly wants to honor what he thinks is God’s commandment, but that didn’t keep Christ from rebuking the Pharisees who also sincerely wanted to honor the commandment (Mk.7:13)(or did they?).

Luke 13:15–16 (NKJV)

15 The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? 16 So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”

Luke 14:5–6 (NKJV)

5 Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” 6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.

Exodus 21:33–34 (NKJV)

33 “And if a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls in it, 34 the owner of the pit shall make it good; he shall give money to their owner, but the dead animal shall be his.

Exodus 23:4–5 (NKJV)

4 “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.

Exodus 23:12 (NKJV)

12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.

Now, in going through these verses, I want to point out before we get to Walter’s objections what the point of Christ’s miraculous ‘works’ was about, being specifically performed on the Sabbath. In Luke 13:15 and Luke 14:5 Jesus is combining two civil commandments signified by the national sign of Israel’s Sabbath to make his defense of “doing good” on the Sabbath against their legalistic view of holiness (to the law). When your donkey is reconciled to you as holy through God’s covenant (Zech.14:20), then watering it is justifiable and is no less than a good work than any other day of the week because it honors God’s commandment. God doesn’t have commands that are more holy than others. They are all to be weighed out in the respective priority, but the Pharisees were misusing the law because they could not do spiritual math in the law’s applications. Therefore, it is a holy thing to care for your animals by giving them rest with those things necessary for life. But Christ’s point is how much more should we do it for people who are burdened by sin and the wages of those sins, such as the woman who had an infirmity in her back that made her a cripple because of an oppressive ‘spirit.’ Therefore we are not to add to the law nor to change it. By the comments of your statements quoted above, you have twisted the law by not only adding to it but by changing it from one day of the week to another according to its original design and pattern.

Matthew 12:5–8 (NKJV)

5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

John 7:22–24 (NKJV)

22 Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

John 9:14 (NKJV)

14 Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

John 9:31 (NKJV)

31 Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.

John 5:18 (NKJV)

18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

Again, what we have here in the above verses is Christ deliberately going against the authority of the temple elders and civil rulers. Here Christ declares himself greater than the temple made by hands and therefore has individual authority over not only the sabbath principle but all that the Sabbath signified in the laws of the temple and his individual right to be justified by his relationship to the Father and not by external signs and ceremonial principles. Christ was known to be a worshipper not by offering sacrifices in the temple or by resting on the sabbath days but by his works being heard by the Father. It was unmistakable who this worshipper was and how he would change not the law but how worship will be received and heard by the Father. No more will the Father listen to futile sacrifices through ceremonial and formal hypocrisy. No, worship must be in the Spirit and in the truth (Jn.4). So when Christ calls for the fall of the temple and its sacrifices, the “Jewish” Sabbath is no more holy than worshipping a Greco-Roman god every day of the week (Rom.14:5-6).

Therefore those who are weak in the faith are those who esteem the days as greater than what they are in their purpose (Gen.1:14; Ex.13:10; Hos.2:11), and that purpose is so that we number our days and understand the seasons (Ps.90:12; Dan.2:21; Acts 1:7; 1Thess.5:1). But what season are we in, Mr. Chantry (Matt.21:43; Matt.26:28; Heb.8:13; Jer.31:31; Isa.1:11-19)? As Paul says, ‘Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind’ (Rom.14:5). I agree with you that Romans 14:6 is talking about Greco-Roman pagan days of the week; otherwise, why would Paul say to him who refrains from observing, ‘to the Lord he does not observe it?’ But in the previous verse, he is also speaking to the Sabbatarian, who ‘observes one day above another,’ and yet there is liberty to the one who ‘observes all the days the same,’ (that is, as evil (Eph.5:16; 6:13)). I am fully convinced that the days are evil and that our works cannot make the day holy, no matter how good or holy our works appear to be, but the Sabbath that Christ kept holy is not a created day of the seven-day cycle (Heb.4:3-14) because he ‘passed through the heavens’ in order ‘to enter that rest,’ as it was said in a specific place, ‘My Father has been working,’ and in another place, ‘even I must work,’ and again a particular spiritual day was prepared that God would ‘rest from all his works,’ as it was accomplished from ‘before the foundation of the world’ (Heb.4:3).

You went on to say,

‘Nevertheless the intent of the day is not rest, absolutely considered. It is rest from “our works” so that we may give ourselves to the Lord on that day.’

And again,

‘God’s commandment forbids this process of thought by forbidding us even to employ the alien in work for us on God’s holy day.’

But you are doing that, sir, by employing them as hosts of the table! of the Lord’s grace, I might add. And if “our works” are completed after six days, but we are to take up the Lord’s work on the seventh, where is the example or image/pattern of God’s rest in that, if God is working and we are working on the day of his rest? For you said,

‘Our life is to take on the imprint of God’s image with regard to the use of time.’

You really know how to contradict yourself, Walter. But what you’re really twisting is the Word of God. Now, I agree that we establish the law (Rom.3:31). But that law is not to be built on another man’s conscience but by the law of faith (Rom.14:4). So then a sabbath principle of rest remains, but not according to a uniform day of the created workweek (Mk.2:27; Jn.5:15-18; 9:4).

Again, by way of reminder of my point in a previous post, you are assuming the Christian is under the sign of Israel’s national covenant, but I proved by Scripture we are no longer under that obligation as Christians, nor even as a pagan nation taken captive to do the devil’s will according to his covenant (“We the people”) (2Tim.2:26). The sabbath principle was made to give the man who was created in weakness rest, by the guidance of the standard of faith in Christ to give him that rest (Matt.11:28; Heb.4:16; Matt.9:13; 12:7). And I don’t believe the culture can be accused of not giving the majority of its workforce an adequate time and season of rest in the promised benefits of vacation and sick/personal days that are contracted between such parties. But you are calling for a holy rest, but so-called holy works aren’t promised to give rest. It is Christ who gives rest to the weary, not Sabbath observance, for if it could, why didn’t Joshua give them rest and why did God have to speak of another day (Heb.4:8)? And again, by way of reminder in the last post, the Christian is made holy by his justification in Christ to do any good work (2Tim.3:16-17; Rom.14:16), for it is his liberty in Christ that makes him holy in whatever work he does (Ecc.9:10; 1Cor.10:31; Gal.5:1-2; 1Pet.1:17; 2:12).

Now I don’t want this blemish to fall upon the chosen bride of Christ, who in his righteous and generous eye sees her without spot or wrinkle (Matt.20:15; Heb.9:14; 1Pet.1:19; 2Pet.3:14; Eph.5:27), but has white garments and is most beautiful in the eye of the holy beholder (Jn.1:14; 2Cor.5:21). So will you allow this traditional Roman Catholic blemish to cling like dust to the congregation of the justified? Will you be that accusing devil who stands before God day and night to point out blemishes that the water and the Word have removed from the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rev.12:10)?

Psalm 101:3–4 (NKJV)

3 I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me. 4 A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will not know wickedness.

Does the whore and spirit of the beast still cling like dust to the white garments of her who came out and was separate to the Lord our God? Sadly in many ways, because of her history!

Mark 6:10–12 (NKJV)

10 Also He said to them, “In whatever place you enter a house, stay there till you depart from that place. 11 And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!” 12 So they went out and preached that people should repent.

The answer to your objection then, Mr. Chantry, is not to subject the bride of Christ (that is, the baptized body) to devote an entire day of so-called super holiness but to be patient around the table that God has promised to bless the culture with (James 1:2-11). Rather than creating unstable individuals who declare (any) work on the sabbath unclean because of activities performed or not performed on the Lord’s Day, wait on the Lord to do his work through the table and be patient among the hosts. As sinners, we are not all saints, and therefore the table can cleanse and transform wherever the Word is being rightly divided and wholly, fully proclaimed (Acts 20:27). Making the day holy will not make the fruit of the day holy. Your branch of God’s fruit tree is not what makes the roots holy, for we are made holy by patiently abiding in Christ (Rom.11:16-18). Lord willing, in my next blog post, we will dig deeper into what makes a man unclean versus holy. But for now, think on these holy words of Scripture in their proper application and shake off that unholy dust of traditions that continue to divide the members of Christ’s body, for our work is to reconcile those holy members.