What do You Say to Insistent Sabbatarians?

[Luke]

What do You Say to Insistent Sabbatarians?


Tell them, We reject you because Paul said, "Don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain days or newmoon ceremonies or sabbaths" (Col. 2.26).

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit I rebuke, refuse and reject your idolatry of insisting on a day of the week must be kept even though the Sabbath has itself been summed up and fulfilled in Christ by the rest of the Holy Spirit to now indwell believers during the dispensation of grace, the mystery age of the Church. People have jobs in this world on Saturday and Sunday, and God hates how you judge them falsely by the evil spirit in you that guides you and moves you to alter God's word. What evil vanity!

God hates idolaters. You're an idolater, Judaizing Christianity, and it is twisted. God hates Judaizers, legalizers, engrossed in your petty legalism, idolatry and double standards. I am sure you will take the mark of the beast-the implant under your skin-because you think a day of the week is the mark. There is no life in you. You come across dead in spirit to God. Christians reject your false letter.

The Sabbath was a sign of covenant between God and Israel they are His chosen people to become the center of all nations. It was not for the Gentiles. Remember Paul, John and Peter agreed nothing needed to be kept-no Jewish laws, foods, sabbaths or rituals. Since you have worked on your Sabbath you created yourself that you try to keep, but fail to do so, you should be stoned to death according to the law since you don't want to live by the Spirit of the Law and Truth. You try to live by the law so you will die by the law, dying in your sins, to be eternally separated from God. How sad for you, for you know not what you do.

You try to make Jesus a liar that He fulfills nothing; but praise the Lord He is at the right hand of the Father and has given us the Holy Spirit for His body of Christ on earth-the Church. Amen.

The activities in the outer court represent our body, so we do not practice those activities in the outer court anymore, because the lamb slain on the alter was fulfilled in the once-for-all-sacrifice on the cross. Jesus filled up the law. Similarly, the activities in the Holy Place are not performed anymore because they are fulfilled in the activities of our soul for we who are in Christ are the temple (there is still the Temple at the end of the age Jesus will reign in for 1000 years on earth). Jesus filled up the law. And the Holy of Holies (the most Holy Place) represents our spirit where the Holy Spirit comes down past the cherubim onto the mercy seat and indwells my spirit.

The three items of the ark of the covenant represent the Trinity of God: Father gives the law, manna from heaven corresponds to the Son whom we eat, and the rod that budded is the spark of the Holy Spirit quickening our spirit. Our intuition is is given new life like the rod that budded from the Holy Spirit. Communion is effected in our spirit with the Son as like daily manna from heaven. And the Father impacts our conscience by the law of God impressed upon it. Our conscience judges by the law, we commune with God on the mercy seat, and we we do so intuitively in the Temple from the deepest part within which is our spirit.

God works from inner to outer, whereas Satan works from outer to inner like trying to keep the Sabbath which has already been fulfilled in the Father and Son giving the Spirit to indwell now that the veil is rent. This peace and rest we have in the Spirit is unquenchable. Do know the Lord's day is Sunday (called, the "third day" from Friday), the day the Son of God resurrected, is a day of spiritual activity and fellowship. Even then it need not be kept. Perhaps you have to work that day. Perhaps you fellowship 2 or 3 times a week on other days. God is flexible and gracious with His meeting times. The Lord's day is quite unlike the Sabbath under the law which no work could be done. They should not be compared to think the Lord's day is a Christian Sabbath. There is no such thing as a Christian Sabbath other than the Holy Spirit now indwelling.

Here we have seen the three operations of the tripartite nature of man: spirit (God-consciousness), soul (self-consciousness) and body (world-consciousness) in Hebrews 4.12 and 1 Thessalonians 5.23, as well as, the tripartite functions of our spirit. The tripartite functions of our soul are mind, will and emotion which comprise part of our outerman ("soulical body") and correspond to the activities in the Holy Place (soul) that mediate between the Outer Court (body) and Holy of Holies (spirit).

Praise the Lord for this discernment! Amen.

[Luke]

What Sabbatarians are not understanding among other things is the change in dispensation which removed the ceremonial law. There was a change in dispensation when the Priests worked on the sabbath, another change of dispensation when David profaned the sabbath and was rejected like Jesus, and still yet another change in dispensation when the disciples and Jesus worked on the sabbath. So clearly Jesus has put aside the sabbath. What you really need to know is the person of Jesus was seen in David and His nature in the Temple. As long as Israel still rejects the Messiah, there is not going to be a sabbath. But now Jesus substitutes the sabbath with His presence and by the Holy Spirit indwelling now that the veil is rent. Pray on these words.

Matthew Chapter 12 is a transitional passage. What is said in it begins to decide the fate of the Jews. It occupies a most important place in the line of dispensation. We will be strangers to God’s word if we fail to recognize the change in the Lord’s relationship told of in this section. Before the time of this chapter the Lord is clearly for the Jews, and only in a hidden way is He shown to be for the Gentiles. But after the time of chapter 12 He is clearly for the Gentiles, thus intimating that the Jews have been rejected. In view of the fact that this chapter is transitional, the one thing which typifies the old relationship must be overturned. Since men have sinned, there can be no sabbath rest in actuality. Even God cannot rest. And if God has no rest, then men can have no rest either; for where there is sin, there can be no rest. This thought will become clearer as we take up the question of the sabbath below.

Matthew 12 - The Question of the Sabbath

Of the Ten Commandments nine are moral, but only one is ceremonial—the keeping of the sabbath. If the observance of the sabbath is set aside, it must indicate a change in dispensation: that somehow God’s special relationship with the nation of Israel has been temporarily broken off.

In the Old Testament, the sabbath possessed special meanings: (1) that the keeping of the sabbath was to remember God’s rest, (2) that according to Ezekiel 20.12 the sabbath was a sign of God’s covenant with the children of Israel, and (3) that according to Deuteronomy 5.15 the observing of the sabbath by the Jewish people was to remember how they were redeemed.

For these reasons the Jews placed great emphasis on the sabbath. They regarded it as the sign of God’s covenant with them as well as the remembrance of God’s rest and redemption. If this were shaken, all would be lost.

To the Jewish tradition it was all right to pluck ears of grain out in the fields, but attention must be paid to the time of doing so; for no work was ever to be done on the sabbath. The plucking of ears was work to the Jewish mind, and therefore working on the sabbath was sin. And so, because the disciples of Jesus were found plucking ears of grain on the sabbath, they were guilty of violating the sabbath rule. Yet here we find the Lord declaring that the disciples were guiltless in working on the sabbath: He defends them by saying that even if they have violated the sabbath they are nonetheless guiltless (see 12.7).

In the section on the healing of a man having a withered hand, the Lord argues that healing does not violate the sabbath; and in the section on plucking ears of grain, He asserts that even one who does violate the sabbath is still guiltless.

vv.3-4 Christ has not said that eating while hungry is necessarily a pardonable act. The question He means to address himself to is whether or not the sabbath should be kept, not whether there is a special allowance for the sabbath. If the Lord should maintain that because David was hungry it was all right for him to eat the shewbread, where would this leave the law? Christ could never support such a conclusion. What, then, is He really saying in this section? He is simply intimating here that what was originally given to the priest to eat can now be eaten by the king also. But this is a change of dispensation. Let us understand that the communication of God with the children of Israel in the Old Testament time underwent three different periods: first through the priests, then through the kings, and finally through the prophets. David represented the nation of Israel. Though he was God’s anointed, he at that time was rejected (he had to flee for his life). Yet God communicated with the children of Israel through David, thus putting aside the priests.

In former days, political persons such as Joshua were required to stand before the priest (see Num. 27.21-22), for that was the period of the priests. But later, according to 1 Samuel 2.35-36, the priest must walk before the anointed of the Lord. Hence the king becomes the first in order, while the priest now stands second.

The fact of David’s eating the shewbread indicates how the priests and their functions had been downgraded. It was not at all an exception. David had not sinned. He could eat not only on that day but on every other day; for the time had changed. On the occasion when David had eaten the shewbread, it was at the time of his rejection. Likewise, the fact that here in Matthew 12.1 we see that the disciples of Jesus had plucked ears of grain to eat also suggests the rejection of the Lord. Moreover, the Lord mentions not only David but also his followers (“and they that were with him”), and thus the Lord is including His own disciples in His rejection as well.

Thus, verses 3 and 4 relate how the king profaned the sabbath, and so indicate a change in dispensation.

v.6 “One greater than the temple is here”—The Lord himself is the place wherein the glory of God fills the most: for no matter what He does for the glory of God, He cannot be considered guilty. Thus the Lord is greater than the temple as well as the priests. Being as David, He reveals His person; being as the priest and the temple, He unveils the nature of His work. For the sabbath therefore, He substitutes His person and work. He sets the sabbath completely aside. If the problem of sin is not solved there can be no rest. As long as the Lord is rejected and people are still in sin, there is not going to be the sabbath. As long as He is as David and the temple, then what the Lord says here is that His disciples may profane the sabbath and yet be guiltless.