In sheer gratitude to God

Ian Henderson, an Associate Professor of New Testament at McGill University in Montreal - an Anglican - in an article at FIRST THINGS titled "Law & Unlaw" addresses "legalism" and "antinomianism." What is the "Law" and what is the biblical attitude toward it? Some excerpts:

The distinction between moral law and ceremonial law is essentially un-biblical, based sadly in anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic polemics. Christians have so often been taught to distinguish between moral and ceremonial law(s), that this kind of moralizing reading becomes second nature to us. The distinction, however, is not made in the Bible itself. Often, we look for the moral or spiritual "principle" underlying a practical, "ceremonial" provision, for example, the principle of devoted rest beneath the practice of avoiding ordinary work on Sabbath. The Bible itself, however, does not detach principle from practice. Marriage law, in fact, dramatizes the unhelpfulness of separating the "moral" and the "ceremonial": marriage is both. Christian marriage norms are derived from Jesus’ unusually strict reception of biblical marriage law (Mark 10). By analogy, moreover, marriage law has important doctrinal implications (Eph. 5). Marriage law, and, indeed, most biblical law, is at the same time moral, ceremonial, doctrinal and civil. ....

In the Bible, by contrast, law usually refers to God-given Torah norms, interpreted or misinterpreted by human tradition, but deriving its unique authority from God rather than from the consent of the community. It is basic to biblical Christianity, vehemently renewed in the Protestant Reformation, that our standing before God does not derive from any obedience we may achieve to Torah-law. No one’s relationship with God depends on Torah observance. Ideally, Israel and the Church observe Torah in sheer gratitude to God. ....

Especially since the Holocaust, there has been a huge change among biblical scholars toward recognizing that Jesus remains forever a Jew. Jesus is a Jew not only in some accidental cultural-ethnic sense, but also programmatically and eschatologically. In Jesus "something greater than the Temple is here" (Matt. 12:6, Heb. 12:18-29), as Torah finds its heart in the Incarnate Word. Jesus of Nazareth was a Torah-observant Jew; he challenges other Jews with the extravagance of God’s grace, but he never repudiates Torah as such. Neither Jesus nor Paul understood the gospel to be a religious system in opposition to Torah-Judaism as a religious system. ....

Paul does say some shockingly critical things about Torah observance. Paul is concerned to make absolutely clear that even Torah, divinely-inspired religion at its very best, cannot give us a relationship with God. The only way to have a meaningful relationship with God is to place all our confidence in Jesus Christ. The enormity of the limits which Paul sets on the role of Torah can only be appreciated when we take with full seriousness that what he is talking about is not law in some vague sense, or the religious traditions of his ancestors extrapolating on Torah, still less “conventional morality,” but divinely-revealed Torah itself. When the New Testament speaks of Law it is almost never speaking of “Jewish Law” and almost always of God-given Torah.

It is God’s own Torah embedded in creation and given to Israel and to humanity by divine revelation and prophetic inspiration which for Paul loses its precedence compared with the wonders of a life entrusted to Christ (Phil. 3). Interesting things happen if, instead of translating the Hebrew Torah and the Greek nomos as law, we try the exercise of translating them as "divinely ordained religion." It is divinely-ordained religion at its very best which Paul subordinates infinitely to the gospel-power of God in Jesus Christ.

The point is therefore not that Torah-law no longer matters. The point is that even the most wonderful thing in the universe (that is, God’s Torah itself) finds its proper meaning only under Christ. Torah and the gospel are not opposites in the Bible, so that the one may be abolished by the other. Instead God speaks both Torah and gospel in every paragraph of Scripture. Torah is everywhere subordinate to the free gift of God proclaimed in the gospels, but a grateful and trusting heart always receives God’s Torah as the means of responding to grace. .... [read it all here]

FIRST THINGS: On the Square » Blog Archive » Law & Unlaw

"Living with quietness of heart"

Ray Ortlund on the Sabbath:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. This is ancient wisdom. I know that some of us consider the Sabbath no longer valid in any sense, and I can see why. It is legislated old covenant culture (Exodus 20:8). But more deeply, it is embedded in the very creation (Genesis 2:2-3). And in the creation account the seventh day is the only one that doesn’t close out with "And there was evening and there was morning, the nth day." The Sabbath remains open. It’s not written on our calendars as much as we are built into its calendar. It’s part of the God-created rhythm for weekly human life.

If we did set apart as holy one day each week, we would add to every year, for the rest of our lives, over seven weeks of vacation. And not for goofing off, but for worship, for fellowship, for mercy, for an afternoon nap, for reading a theological book, for thinking about God and taking stock of our lives, for lingering around the dinner table and sharing good jokes and tender words and personal prayers.

I know the objections to the Sabbath. But I am answering this question: How can I live with quietness of heart in the madness of this world? If anyone has a more biblical (and more immediately usable and beneficial) place to begin answering that question, I’m open. But raising hermeneutical objections to the Sabbath principle doesn’t give me quietness of heart. .... [more]

Christ is deeper still: Quietness of heart #1

Honoring the day

Iain Campbell believes that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. I believe the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath set by God.* It is a difference that can only exist among those who believe that the idea of Sabbath is important. Behavior like that described here does honor to God - not because it earns anything - we are saved by grace - but because it is the appropriate response to the love He has demonstrated for us. It is also a good example for those of us who, although we may go to church on the Sabbath, otherwise treat that day like any other in the week. Campbell in a post titled "Them that honour me...":

Some of today's Scottish newspapers are running a story about our local school's girls' football team. Against all the odds, they beat off older teams from larger schools all over Scotland, to reach the final of a national tournament sponsored by Coca-Cola - only to discover it was scheduled to be held on a Sunday. To not a little disappointment, the decision was taken to pull out of the opportunity to win the national tournament because of the religious convictions of our community. ....

I'm not sure what other evangelicals think of the decision of our local girls to pull out of the final: I suspect that on the whole issue of observing the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, many evangelicals have capitulated to the world's way of doing things, and would see nothing wrong with holding, or attending, sports events on the Lord's Day.

If this week's headlines demonstrate anything, they show that there is one God-given opportunity for us to nail our Christian convictions to the social mast - to honour the Lord publicly by honouring his day, and making it altogether different from every other day of the week, whatever the cost.

The story, and its title, calls to mind the great film, Chariots of Fire, and Eric Liddell's refusal to run on Sunday in the 1924 Paris Olympics.

*“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. (Ex 20:8-10, ESV)

Them that honour me... - Reformation21 Blog

Sabbath-keeping

Rick Phillips is persuaded, although I would question the relevance of the "Lord's Day" to the Sabbath. It seems to me that the Sabbath should be observed, if at all, on the seventh day. But then, that's why I'm a Seventh Day Baptist. There was once a quite respectful discussion of the issue between Sabbatarians who disagreed about the proper day. It is pleasant to find someone who still believes in Sabbath, even if he thinks it is Sunday:

I am persuaded that the Fourth Commandment, establishing the Sabbath observance, remains in effect for Christians. Not all Christians agree on this and some think Sabbath-keeping is a form of legalism. I am persuaded that this is mistaken, since Sabbath-keeping is one of the Ten Commandments, since the Sabbath ordinance is rooted not in the old covenant but in creation (see Gen. 2:2-3), and since as a sign and foretaste of God's eternal rest in glory, it is still needed on this side of Christ's Second Coming. As Hebrews 4:9 states, "There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God."

The Fourth Commandment says that on the Lord's Day "you shall not do any work" (Ex. 20:10). This means that each of us should rest from whatever is our typical work. Students should set aside their books; businessmen should set aside their business; housewives should set aside their chores. We are to rest from our normal labor. Isaiah 58:13 adds that we are to refrain "from doing your pleasure on my holy day... not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly." This tells us that the day is to be set aside for worshiping, fellowshipping with God, and enjoying his spiritual blessings. [more]

Update 4/25: I've revised my introductory sentences. What I had originally written read as much less appreciative of the Phillips insights than I actually felt. There is an interesting history of the Saturday/Sunday Sabbath question at WorldNetDaily.

Advice for Sabbath-keeping - Reformation21 Blog

Sabbath Recorder May 2008

The May, 2008, Sabbath Recorder is available online here as a pdf.

This month's issue of The Sabbath Recorder focuses on the Sabbath with three articles by Seventh Day Baptist pastors: "God's Choice; My Choice" by Don Sanford, "The World Needs a Sabbath" by Donald Chroniger, and General Conference President, Andrew Samuels, contributes "Thankful for the Sabbath." Rev. Samuels writes:

For me, Sabbathkeeping has always been intricately connected to my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. My salvation and my Sabbath are intertwined. Both are gifts from the Lord, and I have grown to enjoy and appreciate them. I see my weekly Sabbath rest as a physical and practical expression of the eternal and spiritual rest which is mine through my acceptance of His salvation.

This issue also contains registration materials for the General Conference sessions at Carthage College, Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 3-9, 2008.

The Sabbath Recorder is the magazine of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference and has been regularly published in some form since 1844.

Give It a Rest

Jared Wilson, quoting Eugene Peterson on the importance of Sabbath:

If there is no Sabbath - no regular and commanded not-working, not-talking - we soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying, and God's work is either forgotten or marginalized. When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that it is easiest to develop god-pretensions. Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives. We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of resurrection. We lose the capacity to sing "This is my Father's world" and end up chirping little self-centered ditties about what we are doing and feeling.

Or, as in many a church, blasting self-centered anthems about what we're doing and feeling.
(Quote is from Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places)

The Gospel-Driven Church: Give It a Rest

"...as if things had always been this way."

Christianity Today excerpts from Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Superbowl, by Craig Harline. Apparently, when it became common for Christians to worship on the first day of the week they called it "The Lord's Day," to distinguish their practice from that of the pagans, but the time came when "Sunday" was the acceptable name for the day. Two paragraphs:

Most telling here is that even the Sun, greatest symbol of Roman paganism, no longer had exclusively pagan meaning. Some early Christians had already used, with mixed results, the Sun's imagery to speak of Christ. But such imagery became more acceptable during the fourth century, when far more Christians began calling the first day "Sunday" rather than exclusively the Lord's Day—despite even the condemnations of an Augustine or a Chrysostom. Saint Jerome himself defended the practice, saying, why shouldn't we call it Sunday, since Christ is the Sun of justice and has filled the world with his light? Jerome even claimed that Sunday took its name from Christ the Sun rather than from the physical Sun. This was a classic example of reading present desires into the past, but Jerome demonstrated perfectly the ability to take something previously seen as Roman and make it Christian. ....

In sum, by 600 one may speak of a Christian Sunday in the old Roman provinces touching the Mediterranean. By 800 this had expanded into the large portions of northern Europe already Christianized. Like the Jewish Sabbath, Sunday had become the most important day of the week, indeed gave the week most of its meaning. Once thoroughly pagan, Sunday now had a decidedly Christian connotation. It would remain this way for so long that countless generations in the Western world would consider the day's very existence, name, and status as obvious, unquestioned facts of life, as if things had always been this way.

The Son's Day to Sunday | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Seventh Day Baptists are not the same

The Seventh Day Baptist denomination, to which I belong, is small and, because of its name, often confused with the much larger and better known Seventh-day Adventists. A post at SDB Forums has once again emphasized that error. There are really quite a few differences - one of which is that Adventists are not Baptists. Here is a comparison of the beliefs of Seventh Day Baptists with those of Seventh-day Adventists. For those with sufficient interest: the SDB Statement of Belief and the SDA Fundamental Beliefs. Also a brief history of Seventh Day Baptists.

SDB/SDA Compare

Giving God the first fruits of your time

In the course of an article with good advice for Christian college students, Kevin Offner suggests this:

Take the idea of the Sabbath seriously. Busyness is one of the greatest idols of contemporary America and when we purpose to do no work one day out of seven, this idol loses some of its hold on us. In the Ten Commandments we read, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work . . .” (Exodus 20:9-10) The point here is not legalism, but rather that a habit of intentionally refraining from work is a continual reminder to us of our need for God.

Why not keep a day a week (Sunday is a good choice) to worship with others, rest, write snail-mail letters, take long walks, drop in on friends, read fiction or play with children? Spend concentrated time in prayer, reflecting on your last week and preparing for the upcoming week. Keeping a day a week to rest is giving God the first fruits of your time, showing him that you trust him to help you accomplish all he is calling you to do.

Making the most out of college - StudentSoul.org

Preparing for the Sabbath

Douglas Wilson, at Blog and Mablog, has composed a series of Sabbath Prayers. They are used as part of a "sabbath dinner liturgy we follow every Saturday evening at the Wilson home." The prayers are very good - anyone who wishes to formally recognize the beginning of the Sabbath could use them [although seventh day Sabbatarians will need to make an occasional minor emendation]. The most recent [number 88!] is below. All of them can be found here.

Father, we thank You for yet another Sabbath, where we may sit down together with friends and other members of our family in order to prepare our hearts to worship You in the morning. We thank You for connecting us to one another the way You have done, and we pray that a spirit of peace and contentment would be pervasive in our relationships with one another. Help this meal to embody that, and we ask for this IN JESUS’ NAME, AMEN.

[An explanation of a Seventh Day Baptist position on the Sabbath can be found here, and another here.]

Source: BLOG and MABLOG: Sabbath Prayers

What day is it?

YouTube has several video parodies of the PC/Mac commercials. Here is one of them:

The post originally linked to GodTube. YouTube has a better version so I have shifted the link there.

Source: Mac vs. PC parody part 2

Sabbath

Why Do Seventh Day Baptists Observe the Sabbath?

by Dr. Paul Manuel

Seventh Day Baptists keep a day for worship different from that of most other Christians. Instead of gathering on the first day of the week, Seventh Day Baptists meet on the seventh day of the week, the biblical Sabbath. Why would they choose to separate themselves in this way? What scriptural reasons are there for worshipping and resting on the seventh day rather than on the first day? Seventh Day Baptists keep the Sabbath because…

1. They note God's example, for He observed it at creation.

By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.[Gen 2:2]

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth…and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. [Exod 20:11]

2. They recall God's deliverance, for He instituted it after the exodus.

See, the Lord has given you the sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. [Exod 16:29]

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day. [Deut 5:15]

3. They obey God's precept, for He commanded it on Sinai.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. [Exod 20:8]

Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. [Deut 5:12]

4. They recognize God's designation, for He appointed it for worship.

For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. [Lev 23:3a]

5. They accept God's invitation, for He opened it to gentiles.

Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord…every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath…I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer….for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples. [Isa 56:6-7]

6. They join God's people, for He gave it to Israel.

…speak to the sons of Israel, saying, “You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for [this] is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” [Exod 31:13]

…you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree [Rom 11:17]

7. They seek God's approval, for He linked it to reward.

If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your [own] pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy [day] of the Lord honorable, and honor it, desisting from your [own] ways, from seeking your [own] pleasure and speaking [your own] word, then you will take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you [with] the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. [Isa 58:13-14]

How blessed is the man…who keeps from profaning the Sabbath….[Isa 56:2]

8. They anticipate God's kingdom, for He demands it in tribute.

“And it shall be from new moon to new moon and from sabbath to sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the Lord. [Isa 66:23]

9. They follow God's son, for he kept it on earth and expected it from disciples.

…as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath…. [Luke 4:16]

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others [to do] the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches [them], he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. [Matt 5:19]

…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…. [Matt 28:20a]

10. They copy God’s church, for early believers, Jews and gentiles, continued to keep it.

It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God…. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. [Acts 15:19, 21]

11. They await God’s heaven, for it is the ultimate release from their labor.

So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.[Heb 4:9]

Seventh Day Baptists do not keep Sunday because there is no biblical evidence that God changed His appointed day or that the earliest believers observed another day. In fact, there are only three New Testament references to Sunday, none of which gives that day priority over the Sabbath.

• Jesus rose on the first day, but only after he rested in the tomb on the seventh day.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. [Luke 24:1; cf. v v. 13, 21, 46]

• Paul preached on the first day, but it was a final [not a regular] meeting before he left the area.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul [began] talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. [Acts 20:7]

• Corinthians set aside money on the first day, but it was a private savings not a public collection.

On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. [1 Cor 16:2]

The shift from Sabbath to Sunday followed an influx of gentile converts that changed the demographic makeup of the church, leaving Jewish believers a marginalized minority. Because the law did not have the same status among non-Jews as it did among Jews, there was less concern for keeping it. Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, became the preferred day of worship, a practice the Emperor Constantine promoted in the 4th century and subsequent church councils prescribed.

Although some Jewish believers [those who managed to avoid assimilation] continued to keep the Sabbath, gentile Christians generally did not. Seventh Day Baptists arose in the mid-17th century with a renewed recognition of the Sabbath’s importance.

The primary difference between the two days is that Sabbath observance is based on biblical teaching, whereas Sunday observance is based on church tradition.

"How blessed is the man… who keeps from profaning the sabbath."

Rev. Paul Manuel is a member of the Madison Seventh Day Baptist Church and pastor of the German Seventh-Day Baptist Church in Salemville, PA. His Ph.D. is in Hebrew and Semitic Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Sabbath Resources Online

It was recently brought to my attention that several valuable Seventh Day Baptists resources are currently available on the internet.

One of these resources, Spiritual Sabbathism, by A.H. Lewis, the famed Sabbath Reformer of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century is out of print and unavailable another way. If you haven't perused any of Lewis's work, the following link would be an excellent place to start:

Spiritual Sabbathism

In addition, a more recent study of Sabbath-keeping by the late Rev. Larry Graffius, True to the Sabbath, True to our God, is also available here, at the webpage of the current SDB mission project at the Rez Connection. Other Sabbath related writings are also available on the Rez Connection page, including other works by A.H. Lewis.

Denominationalism and the Sabbath

Once again the Young Adult Seventh Day Baptists site discusses an interesting topic: Does the Sabbath belief, the only belief that differentiates us from other Baptists, justify a separate denomination? Excerpted from one of the posts:

Is a church or the Church splitting off or dividing over an issue a bad thing? Especially when that split leads to different ministry that could not have taken place when the group was a whole. I think specifically of Peter to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles. That seems to me what denominations are--split over ideas leading to new ministry.

While the splits may not occur in ideal fashion, God may still use them. Especially since it seems when a new group is formed, there is a renewed vigor for their mission--even if this energy stems from spite. I am thinking here of what Paul said in Philippians:

"Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of partisanship, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice." (1:15-18)

My short point is this: Denominations are good. Each denomination services a different niche (to put it in marketing terms). I praise God for denominations, and I think we should pray for other denominations, because there is a diversity which allows for greater outreach to different people.

The discussion also has good things to say about the significance and importance of Sabbath observance.

Seventh Day Baptist Beliefs

The doctrinal statements adopted by Seventh Day Baptists over the years aren't prescriptive but simply describe what most Seventh Day Baptists in fact do believe. Consequently it is interesting to see how much that has changed from the first Expose of Sentiments, published in 1833, up to the most recent adopted in 1987. A chart comparing the various statements can be found here [and a .pdf here]. I would guess that the 1987 description of our beliefs is still pretty accurate.

More Views on Sabbath

In the last issue of Denver Journal, a publication of Denver Seminary, Dr. Douglas Groothuis, professor of philosophy at DenSem, reviews a book about Sabbath-keeping. Although he also lamentably takes the Sunday = Sabbath position, he does mention Seventh Day Baptists by name as a group that keeps the Seventh Day Sabbath.

You can read that book review here.

Dream Awakener: Practicing Sabbath

Someone who worships on Sunday reflects on Practicing Sabbath. He quotes Eugene Peterson, who has some good ideas on the subject, but, unfortunately goes on to say

"...I have found that it replenishes the soul. God wanted us to see the importance of rest and replenish so much, that He commanded it, though He has not commanded which day."” [emphasis added]

Ah, well - at least he he thinks a Sabbath is important.