Concerning Keeping The Seventh Day Shabbat

Concerning the keeping of Shabbat [Sabbath] on the seventh day. How clear does the Eternal Father have to be, in order for us to get a grip on what His intentions are for His people? Is our heavenly Father double minded? Does He give us His instructions [Torah], only to change His mind at a later date? If He gives His instructions for living to one group of people, only to abolish them at a later date for another group of people, would that not make Him a respecter of persons? Would that not make Him untrustworthy? The words of the Eternal Father are eternal. He says what He means, and He means what He says. There is no shadow of turning with Him [James 1:17], and He is not a respecter  of persons [Acts 10:34], neither does He change [Malachi 3:6].

Genesis 2:2 & 3;

" And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."  (KJV)

Exodus 31:11 & 17;

"And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel saying: Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does work on it , that person shall be cut off from his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.  Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.'"  (NKJV)

Our Creator is setting an example for His children in Genesis. It is the example He expects His children to follow, and it starts right there with the creation. He rested on the seventh day, setting the groundwork for all eternity. Nowhere in Scripture, is there one verse, that does away with, or alters this example. Look closely at the wording in Exodus 31:12 - 17. How long are the children of Israel to observe the Sabbath? What do the words "perpetual covenant" mean? To whom, is this to be a sign between? How long is this to be a sign between them? When did forever end?

Many, who believe the lie of replacement theology, believe, that these verses are now speaking allegorically about the church, because, in their thinking, the church has replaced Israel, and is now the "New Israel." If that were true, wouldn't this covenant also apply to the so-called "New Israel," if indeed the covenant is a perpetual covenant, and the covenant is with Israel forever? Wouldn't it also apply to the "New Israel," or has the Almighty changed, and made Himself to be an untrustworthy liar? Their logic amuses me. If the Almighty changed His mind about the Hebrew people, will He someday change His mind about the Church?

We need to learn, to rightly divide the Scriptures, according to the leading of Ruach haKodesh [the Holy Spirit], and not according to the wisdom and doctrines of men. I am always  amazed, as to how the church, somehow seems to always skip over Romans, chapter eleven, and boast upon themselves, as though the Almighty has forever rejected His people Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Gentile believers are grafted into Israel. It is not the other way around. Israel was the original called and chosen people of the Eternal Father. The words of Paul are perfectly clear in Romans 11:29;

"For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable."

Yet, to this day, there are people who cannot get their hands around this fact. It seems, that people want to read into the Scriptures, what they want to believe, instead of believing what the Scriptures actually say.

Many Christians, have never come to the understanding, that if we are grafted into the olive tree, we are in fact, of the commonwealth of Israel. We are one new man, and are no longer strangers to the covenants. Therefore, we are bound by the same covenants, that the Eternal Father made with them [read Ephesians 2:11 - 22]. There is One people, one Spirit, and one Elohim [God]. There are no Scriptures, that declare the church [ekklesia], to be separate from Israel. The early believers all observed the Shabbat on the seventh day of the week, without exception. It was not until the pagans and Hellenists began coming to Messiah, that there was a departure from the seventh day Shabbat.

The Sunday Sabbath is rooted in  pagan worship of the sun god. I have read volumes on this subject, and continue to do so. I find it interesting, that so many, who claim the Sunday Sabbath is not pagan, are also the same people who question the divine inspiration of Scripture. More likely than not, they approach the Scriptures from the Hellenistic view, rather than the Hebraic perspective from which they were written. The vast majority seem to approach these matters from a secular, intellectual view, void of any spiritual revelation. They are constantly trying to disprove the Scriptures, rather than trying to confirm them. They rely heavily upon the non-canon books,  in an attempt to make their point, and it is their common practice to quote Scripture out of context. They like to quote people like Ignatius, and Justin Martyr  who had a hatred for the Jews. They seldom quote Constantine, even though they consider him to be a great father, and liberator of Christianity. Ignatius, (circa 50 - 110 C.E.)  is considered by many, to be an Apostolic father. Let's examine some of the writings of this man, and it is not difficult to see his hatred for the Jews. In his Epistle to the Magnesians, Ignatius wrote;

VIII. "Be not seduced by false doctrines and antiquated fables. If we still live after the manner of Judaism, we avow that we have not received grace...."

Isn't it odd, that Peter, Paul, John, James and all the other disciples still lived after the manner of Judaism until their deaths?

IX. "If then those who had lived under the old covenant attained to a new and higher hope by abandoning the observance of Sabbaths and by keeping the Lords day - the memorial of Christ's resurrection, whereby we found life through His death, which some deny but which to us is the ground of our faith and the strength of our endurance; if, I say, this be so, how can we live without Him?....."

Again, where did the original Apostles abandon the seventh day Shabbat? It seems they have given a new meaning to "the Lord's Day," that is contrary to the Hebrew Scriptures definition of the Lord's Day, or the Day of the Lord, which is speaking of the tribulation, that is yet to come upon the whole earth. When you look at the context of the words "Lord's Day," it does not mean the day of the Lord's resurrection. It is always pointing forward to a time, yet to come. A great example of this, is the book of Revelation, given to John. He was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. When you continue reading, it should become quite evident, that Yeshua translated, or propelled John forward in time, to the very end of the age, and was revealing to John what was to come to pass in the future, during the Day of the Lord. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the Spirit on Sunday. The context makes that assumption absurd.

X. "Let us not be insensible to His goodness. If He were to treat us, as we treat Him, we should indeed be lost. Therefore, as His disciples, let us learn to live Christian lives. He who is called by any other name than Christ's, is not of God. Put away the sour and stale leaven of Judaism, and replace it with the new leaven of Christ. Be ye salted in Him, that ye may escape corruption. It is monstrous to name the name of Christ and follow Judaism. Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity, wherein all nations and tongues were gathered unto God."

("The Apostolic Fathers" Lightfoot, Part 2, Vol. 2. Hendrickson. 1989 pp 124, 128, 133.)

I suppose, Ignatius had never read Paul's letter to the Romans. Especially Chapters, ten, eleven and twelve. I would imagine, the other disciples, who remained Torah observant Jews throughout the rest of their lives, might have taken offence to this anti-Semitic epistle.

 Any Christian, with minimal study under his belt, understands, that Scripturally speaking,  leaven is a type of sin. Apparently Ignatius did not have a grasp of this fact. Are we to put away the sour and stale sin of Judaism and replace it with the new sin of Christ? Only a man speaking under the influence of anti-Christ would make such an absurd blunder.

As the power of the Church grew, The Jews came under heavy persecution, and were  called "Christ killers." Through the prevailing Hellenistic/pagan Christian theology, the Church Fathers were to become more and more obsessed with Jewish guilt. The following teachings of the Fathers were to be handed down throughout succeeding generations in Christendom. Origen (185-254 C.E.) trumpeted the growing hostility:

"On account of their unbelief and other insults which they heaped upon Jesus, the Jews will not only suffer more than others in the judgment which is believed to impend over the world, but have even already endured such sufferings. For what nation is in exile from their own metropolis, and from the place sacred to the worship of their fathers, save the Jews alone? And the calamities they have suffered because they were a most wicked nation, which although guilty of many other sins, yet has been punished so severely for none as for those that were committed against our Jesus."

( "Against Celcus." In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956), Vol. IV,  pp 433.)

Hippolytus (170-236 C.E.) was obsessed with the belief that the Jews were receiving, and would continue to receive God's punishment for having murdered Jesus. Hippolytus writes;

"Now then, incline thine ear to me and hear my words, and give heed, thou Jew. Many a time does thou boast thyself, in that thou didst condemn Jesus of Nazareth to death, and didst give him vinegar and gall to drink; and thou dost vaunt thyself because of this. Come, therefore, and let us consider together whether perchance thou dost boast in unrighteousness, O, Israel, and whether thou small portion of vinegar and gall has not brought down this fearful threatening upon thee and whether this is not the cause of thy present condition involved in these myriad of troubles."

 (Ibid, Vol. I, p 219.)

As the Hellenists and pagans began to outnumber the Jewish believers, it was not long before the hatred of anything Jewish became commonplace. Paganism and Hellenism homogenized with Christianity to the point, that the worship would not be recognized  by those who worshiped in the earlier days in Jerusalem. Despite the heavy persecution, the church throughout the early centuries remained distinctly Jewish, and it was alive. Miracles were commonplace, and people broke bread regularly in their homes. Ruach haKodesh (the Holy Spirit) was still at work in the true believers.

 Emperor Constantine (272 - 337 C.E.) pretty much put the nail in the coffin of the Hebraic worship. Constantine, like most Romans of his time, had a deep hatred for the Jews. Especially since the destruction of their temple and holy city Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the horrors of Masada in 73 C.E., and the defeat of the Bar Kokhba rebellion in 135 C.E.. By the time of Constantine, the congregations at Rome and Alexandria were already Hellenized, and he began to cleanse the congregations of all the Hebraic elements. In 312 C.E., prior to his pivotal victory over his rival Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, Constantine supposedly became a “Christian” after claiming to see in  a vision  “a cross above the sun” in broad daylight, with these words emblazoned, “in hoc signo vinces” (by this sign conquer”). After defeating his enemies and becoming Emperor of Rome, Constantine presided in full royal pomp over the “First Council of Nicea” in 325 C.E.

As a shrewd political genius, his scheme was to unite Christianity and paganism in an effort to strengthen his disintegrating empire. Constantine, being a worshiper of Mithras himself,  knew that pagans throughout the empire worshiped the sun on “the first day of the week,” and he discovered, that many Christians, especially in Rome and Alexandria also kept Sunday, because Christ rose from the dead on that day. Nowhere in Scripture is there a command to worship on the day of Messiah's ressurection. So, Constantine developed a plan to unite both groups on the common platform of Sunday keeping. On March 7, 321 C.E., he passed his infamous national Sunday law, as stated below.

“On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time [C.E. 321].)” Source: Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; trans. in Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol.3 (5th ed.; New York: Scribner, 1902), p.380, note 1.

Now a professed Christian, Constantine nevertheless remained a devout sun worshipper. “The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine,” notes Edward Gibbon in his classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xx, par. 3.

Circa C.E. 364, the Catholic Church outlawed Sabbath keeping in the Council of Laodicea, when they decreed their 59 Canon laws. The following is the relevant Canon law: Canon XXIX:

“Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.” (Percival Translation).

 It should be quite clear, that although Constantine did not outlaw the seventh day Sabbath, he paved the way for the Church to do so, at a later time. The source for Sunday worship, can only find its foundation in the pagan Mithras (sun god) worship. It cannot be found in Scripture.

Shalom Ahlaychem, 

Barry W. Gaugler
 © 2012

Colossian 2:16 The Proper Context

Colossians 2:16

 The church, for centuries has used Colossians 2:16, out of context, as a proof text to say, that we are free to eat, or drink whatever pleases us, and we can celebrate any holyday we wish. Is that really what is being said by Paul in these verses? Let's look at some History, and the context of Scripture to get the real picture.

First of all, it is necessary to understand, whom Paul is addressing in this letter. Some say he is speaking to the Jews in the dispersion. Does the context of his epistle verify this? No, it does not. Let's look at the context to verify, to whom Paul is speaking. Chapter 1 verse 27 says;

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

 There are no Jews mentioned in this Chapter. It is clear, that Paul is bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, who were formerly pagans.

Again in Chapter 2, verses 11 - 13, Paul makes it plain to whom he is speaking.

"In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses."

It should be evident, that Paul is clearly speaking to those who have not been circumcised in the flesh, but are circumcised in their hearts. A circumcision made without hands.

 Colosse, was a pagan city in Phrygia, which is modern day Turkey. These pagans were being converted to the Messianic belief. They were leaving their former paganism, and were being taught the Hebraic ways. So, when Paul was saying,

"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body of Christ,"

it should become quite obvious from the context, that these former pagans were being persecuted, and judged, for now keeping these things. They were not being judged by Jews for keeping these things, that the Almighty gave to the Hebrew people, so they had to be being judged by someone else.

Formerly, they were not eating kosher, partaking in the Lord's table, keeping God's appointed feasts, keeping God's commandment to celebrate the new moons. Nor were they keeping God's Sabbaths. However, now they were keeping these things, exactly as Paul was, and they were being judged in doing them by the pagans. The context is 180 degrees out of phase from what the churches have been teaching for centuries in their lawlessness. Why would Paul have these new converts worship Messiah, in a different manner than the way he, himself worshiped? Think about it.

Context, context, context.

Shalom Ahlaychem,

Barry W. Gaugler
© 2013