A Failed Product
Can you imagine if Bill Ford President and CEO of Ford motors came out and declared that Granddad Henry really despised Ford cars? What if McDonalds Ray Kroc had said he preferred Burger King Hamburgers? What if Microsoft owner Bill Gates whispered Apple computer operating system was the way to go? It would seem astonishing and if it were to happen not only would it be major news but also tarnish the character of these designer owners, their stock holdings and company reputation. Certainly many would think we’d better not buy from them.
Sadly though this appears the case for President and Designer Jesus Christ for in the eyes of many He has a flawed product. As a matter of fact it was so flawed man had to come on board and redesign it for Him. What is this failed product, what did He design, what product did He declare Himself President of? Why the Sabbath of course.
Originally when this Designer came up with this product He decided that this is something that men need to give respect to which is what is meant by the word sanctify and it is by this that it was truly made. That is that God made that day Holy so by doing this He made the Sabbath. One day always comes after the next and the next after it but by making a rest day to occur every seven days God in essence made the seven-day cycle. Just as God made a 24hour cycle that we run very well on He also made a perfect weekly cycle for us too. Scripture says, “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” Ge 2:3. By this He decided we are to respect it and that is what one does to something sanctified by God, we respect it. But it is not really the day we are respecting but He. How so? Well if we look prior to the seventh day we see He creates all sorts of things for man and calls them good. Whenever we see a beautiful sunset, remember God created it. Whenever we hear the pretty melody of birds, or the sound of a waterfall, He created that too. When He finished all this creation He decided that men ought to respect Him for all His works, for all His goodness by honoring the end, the Sabbath. Is this not what is meant by, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” Ex 20:8-11. So when we keep the Sabbath our minds should reflect upon the true God and the good He has done.
In chapter five of the book of Deuteronomy the Sabbath is again mentioned but in the light of slavery. The Israelites were once slaves without rest but God rescued them and gave them rest. The pattern He sets is one where they are to imitate Him. Like Father like son seems to be the implication. He tells them under their new freedom they can now rest on the seventh just as He did or, “be imitators of God as dear children” Eph 5:1.
But the idea of imitate the Father, be like the Father is always under attack. We see it on television in situation comedies, we see it in preferential cases of child custody we see it in government and more. Even though we know that Jesus kept the Sabbaths perfectly and we are told to imitate Him saying, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” 1Jn 2:6, even though these things are written man has decided no way, I know better. So in this God says, “You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths” Eze 22:8.
The Silent Change
Some want to say that Christ did change the seventh day Saturday Sabbath to Sunday. They believe scriptural authorization exists for this change. But the truth is that this is what they want to believe so they read ideas into God’s word. NOWHERE in scripture does such authorization exist. The arguments are basically because it appears Christ rose on a Sunday and then a passage is discovered where it seems the disciples met on a Sunday that a change must have occurred. The only problem is that the disciples never say, teach or even whisper that this is what happened. Likewise neither Christ, God nor any Apostle teaches us such. Certainly this is what we could call a silent change because no one speaks of it. Think about it, Paul, someone or anyone had ample opportunity to say they were worshipping on the wrong day yet no one ever did.
Other problems also exist. This is that it cannot be proved that any of the scriptures cited for the silent change occurred on a Sunday. That is that the term, “first day of the week” is a massaged translation and the term, “after the Sabbath” does not necessarily mean the day after Saturday. Any honest Biblical scholar knows this. Let’s see why.
First there are several problems with the term “first day of the week”. One is that the translators insert the word “day” so it is said to clarify the meaning. But this is a mistake. The mistake is that it is assumed that the term “after the Sabbath” equals the Sunday or the day after Saturday. We will see the error in assumption in a moment. The phrase “first day of the week” is derived from the Greek mia sabbaton. All mia sabbaton means is first week or weeks and not “first day of the week”. It can also mean one week(s) or one Sabbath(s) or first Sabbath(s). In verse 16:9 of the gospel of Mark he uses the phrase, “first day of the week” but here the word “first” is the Greek protos and can mean best, chief or first so in his account we can have chief week or chief Sabbath. So at best we have first Sabbath(s), chief week(s) or first week(s). But the term “first day of the week” is serious mutilation to the scripture and should not be. Confused? Don’t be because the term first week(s) does mean something that would be readily clear if you lived back then. What does it mean? Well first week(s) means exactly what it says and that is that it is the first week which is followed by a second week which is followed by a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and finally seventh week. And guess where this lands us? Why at the day of Pentecost exactly as the scripture says, “You shall count seven weeks for yourself” Dt 16:9. This is how God originally told the Israelites to number the time unto Pentecost. And the count toward Pentecost always begins during the Passover week. The words that have been translated into, “first day of the week” occur eight times in the Bible. Oddly enough they all occur between Passover and Pentecost, a very narrow fifty-day window. It is a strange coincidence that this is the only time anyone seems to find reference to Sunday. Also strange is that nowhere is there ever a reference to any other day of the week in that way. Nowhere do we see the phrase second or third day of the week. We see words like “seventh day” but not seventh day of the week. The truth is that the words translated, “of the week” should not be made to appear as reference to Sunday but is better translated as first of the weeks, which is the count between Passover and Pentecost.
Now what about the term “after the Sabbath”? Doesn’t Sabbath mean a period of time that falls onto our Saturday? Well yes it does most of the time except that God also instituted annual Sabbaths in addition to the weekly Sabbath. All Bible scholars ought to know that the day after Passover when Christ was murdered was an annual Sabbath and can occur on any day of the week. John wrote in regard to the day after Christ’s death, “for that Sabbath was a high day” Jn 19:31 meaning it was no ordinary Sabbath as of course it would not have been. This was the fifteenth of Nisan and is always an annual Sabbath and can occur on any day of the week. If it were a Thursday then the following day could not be Sunday.
Still another problem is that of the silent change itself. What is about to be presented may seem a diversion from this study on the Sabbath but it will become clear that it is not.
A Not So Silent Change
A through study of the New Testament would reveal that Paul was in constant battle with a group called, “the circumcision”. These people plagued Paul most of his life. Some wanted converts and the thrust of their membership was the outward sign of circumcision that they held out as one of their key foundations. They taught, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” Acts 15:1. The dispute was big as scripture reads, “Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question” v2. The issue was settled at this meeting. The result was new gentile converts did not have to be circumcised but this did not stop Paul from being continually harassed. Why was this a big issue? Why couldn’t Paul easily discard the issue? Why? Because there was a law handed down through Abraham by God saying, “Every male child among you shall be circumcised…he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant…the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant” Ge 17:10-14. God had also said no one, “uncircumcised in heart or uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter My sanctuary, including any foreigner who is among the children of Israel” Eze 44:9.
Certainly the new converts were trying to learn God’s ways. Contrary to popular belief these ways are also Jewish ways. They include the laws. As Paul said of himself and all true disciples, “we uphold the law” Ro 3:31 RSV. Jesus was a Jew, He kept all the laws and we are told to, “walk just as He walked” also saying, “He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar”1Jn 2:4-6. So in trying to get near God, His people and His sanctuary, circumcision became a big item being pushed by the group of the circumcision. The New Testament shows the zeal of the gentiles often got them caught up in this controversy sometimes believing those of the circumcision were right. But Paul and the other Apostles met and were able to separate and make clear the issue. Paul indicates that the truth behind the group of the circumcision was not to make the gentiles do right even though they may have held good arguments for a time but for personal gain. In one of Paul’s letters he writes, “For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain” Titus 1:10-11. We have a power struggle by the group of the circumcision to gain Church members for the sake of monetary gain.
Now some try to tie God’s law into the council meeting in Acts 15. That is by dismissing the group of the circumcision is to abolish all Jewish law because the argument of the circumcision was to, “circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses” Acts 15:5. It is clear Paul taught that circumcision is not required for the gentiles because the result of council wrote, “we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, "but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood”. However, for some funny reason people read into to this that we can now abolish God’s law. It’s an odd thing to put these words into Paul’s mouth. Why don’t we allow Paul to speak instead? What Paul concluded was, “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters” 1Cor 7:19. What Paul taught is true and you can do your own personal study and prove that it is not circumcision of the flesh that God is so greatly concerned about. The Old Testament nearly mirrors Paul’s words saying, “what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him…and to keep the commandments of the LORD…Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart” Dt 10:12-16. Paul’s words show that God’s laws still stand in saying, “keeping the commandments of God is what matters”. God’s commandments include the Sabbath. The day Paul taught the gentiles. Acts 13:42-44, 17:2, 18:4. And he taught on this day not of convenience as some say implying that is when people met out of ignorance but was “his custom” Acts 17:2. So Paul threw out the requirements of circumcision for the gentiles but still upheld the Sabbath. Why would he need to pick another day? He did not know of another. He never even hinted at a significance of another. There is no proof he kept another. And as shown there is no evidence any disciple or any person in the New Testament kept another.
The Conclusion Of The Not So Silent Change
Maybe you are asking yourself why the diversion into this exercise on circumcision since this subject is about the Sabbath? There is an obvious reason that is overlooked. Circumcision was a very open, vocal and heated debate. Paul was continually facing this argument. The NLT reads that Paul once got so angry he wrote, “if I were still preaching that you must be circumcised-as some say I do-why would the Jews persecute me? … I only wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves*” “*Or castrate themselves” Gal 5:11-12. So here is the point. There was so much debate on the small law of circumcision. Yet on a great law, the Sabbath given by God from Mount Sinai there is silence. If Paul was preaching, teaching or observing another day, where is the heat? You just read that he suffered much persecution because he preached against circumcision yet not a bit of persecution or a word over Sabbath breaking. Considering this climate if he or any disciple changed the Sabbath this could in no way have gotten by as a silent change.
An Interesting Mirror
Didn’t Christ break the Sabbath? It’s another argument made by a light knowledge of scripture. A careful study would reveal that Christ kept the Sabbath but argued against additional Sabbath regulations imposed by the ruling parties of His time, not against the Sabbath itself. For example, there was a law prohibiting healing on the Sabbath because we can read, “So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him” Mark 2:2. Can anyone show where God imposed a law against healing on the Sabbath? Rather is this not a bad interpretation of the Sabbath law? In another example they taught, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed” but it was Christ who said, “take up your bed and walk” Jn 5:8-10. It was not the Sabbath itself that Christ was against but the bad laws and restrictions surrounding the Sabbath because He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” Mk 2:27. It is in this light that one can better understand the scripture that is incorrectly used to do away with the Sabbath saying, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men … let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths …Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle … according to the commandments and doctrines of men?” Col 2:8-22. This scripture is better read that when one keeps the Sabbath don’t let anyone judge you with the manmade traditions like not healing on the Sabbath. It is in regard to the way you KEEP THE SABBATH and not with regard to breaking the Sabbath. Jesus did not break the Sabbath but shows us how to keep it.
But then is this not in a sense a mirror to what happened in Acts 15? Anyone who thinks that Paul was only concerned about circumcision itself is missing a bigger picture. In Acts 15:10 Peter said, “why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” This was the real issue. Heavy Sabbath regulations and other such things as Jesus said, “they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders” Mt 23:4. The disciples did not want these burdens on the gentiles as they had. So it is not God’s laws that were a burden. When God rescued the Israelites from slavery He did not put them back into slavery when He gave them the law. Christ and the Apostles were teaching that it is mans laws that were a burden. But man being evil says God’s laws including the Sabbath are a burden. Notice man says, “What's the use of serving God? What have we gained by obeying his commands or by trying to show the LORD Almighty that we are sorry for our sins?” Mal 3:14 NLT. Yet God says we are to, “call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable” Isa 58:13.
The Future Of The Failed Design
Many people probably think Israelites in Bible times were always diligently to observe the Sabbath or that the Sabbath day is only for Jews. But scripture reveals that the Jews didn’t want it either. They couldn’t wait for it to be over. They rarely observed it. One could almost think God should just give up and go along with the change to Sunday. But unless prophecy fails, the scripture of prophecy says God will try again saying, “And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me," says the LORD” Isa 66:23. Last time I checked “All flesh” included Hispanic, Oriental, Caucasian, Black, or any of the other variety of races and not the Jews only. It included all mankind but then again isn’t it for all mankind that God created the pretty melody of birds, the sound of a waterfall, a lovely sunset or awesome mountain range? God is simply telling us to remember to honor Him for these things. So we are told to, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”. By this we remember our Creator and what is so bad about that?
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May God Bless your mind with the knowledge of the truth.
In Christ’s service,
Glenn Williams - Editor
