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The
10 Commandments are very special. The Creator
of the universe manifested His presence on Mount
Sinai with an awesome display of power and holiness
and spoke the 10 Commandments to an entire nation
of human beings! In addition, the 10 Commandments
were written on two special stone tablets inscribed
by God Himself. In addition, the second set (the
first set was broken by Moses) was placed in the
most special place on Earth - the Ark of the Covenant,
in the Most Holy Place - the place closest to
the Presence of God. Yes, the 10 Commandments
are very special!
The
10 Commandments are best understood as a summary
of the entire Sinai Covenant. There are 603
other commandments that, along with the 10 Commandments,
form the Sinai Covenant. The Sinai Covenant is
a unity and includes all 613 commandments. For
a Jewish person to be fulfilling the Sinai Covenant,
all 613 need to be observed - not just the 10
Commandments. It is important to understand
that the Sinai Covenant was specifically made
between God and Israel and did not include all
of humanity. That means that the 10 Commandments
are specifically directed to the nation of Israel
and are a summary of the Sinai Covenant. There
are many teachings and principles and laws and
stories that are part of the Sinai Covenant that
every Christian should understand, but the Sinai
Covenant as a covenant was not directed to Gentile
Christians. Gentile Christians are participants
in the Noah Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant (the
promise of salvation to the nations), and the
New Covenant made through the Messiah - but not
the Sinai Covenant. Therefore, Gentile Christians
are not required to observe the Sinai Covenant
(of which the 10 Commandments are a part).
All that
is required for Gentile Christians is to have
faith in the Three-In-One God, fulfill the Moral
Law that is written on every human heart (some
of which is included in the 10 Commandments, such
as, “You shall not murder”), and observe the Four
Requirements found in Acts 15 (abstain from food
polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from
the meat of strangled animals and from blood).
Most of the 10 Commandments happen to coincide
with those conditions of faith and practice. Since
the Sabbath is not part of the Four Requirements
mentioned in Acts 15, there is freedom to observe
the seventh day of the week or another day - like
the first day of the week. And, since taking
one day off every seven days is very beneficial
for our physical and spiritual well being, the
majority of Christian leaders have strongly recommended
that Christians rest every seventh day - on Sunday.
However, I recommend that Messianic Jews, because
of our unique heritage and because the Sabbath
is a special sign between God and Israel (even
though it is part of the Sinai Covenant), observe
the seventh day of the week. Gentiles have the
freedom to do that as well. Practically speaking,
Christians wind up observing the 10 Commandments
because they overlap the requirements to have
faith in God and observe the Moral Law that is
written on the human heart and the wisdom that
we need to rest. The theological reasons that
motivate Gentile Christians to “keep the 10 Commandments”
are important; but these reasons do not include
“because they are the 10 Commandments" -
which should be understood as a summary of the
Sinai Covenant directed to Israel.
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Sunday
may be the new Christian Sabbath, but not because
God Himself changed the seventh-day Sabbath to
a first-day Sabbath. The first day of the
week may be the Christian Sabbath, but it is because
Christians have the freedom to worship God within
their cultures and institute their own traditions
- not because God ordained a switch from Saturday
to Sunday. The following thoughts are based on
the works of Samuele Bacchiocchi (deceased) and
Clifford Goldstein. Both men were/are Seventh
Day Adventists (which I consider a cult). In spite
of being in serious error about many things, they
have produced some good information about the
Sabbath.
Has the
Sabbath been switched from Saturday to Sunday?
The Son of God never changed the seventh-day Sabbath
to the first day of the week. Throughout His life,
Yeshua consistently observed the Jewish Sabbath
(Luke 4:16). In fact, Messiah never even mentioned
the first day of the week! If the Sabbath were
switched, you would think that the Head of the
Messianic Community would institute this dramatic
change Himself, or at least mention it. But nowhere
in the first four books of the New Testament (the
Gospels) is it recorded that Messiah ever changed
the Sabbath to Sunday. In fact, our Supreme Rabbi
informed us that a seventh-day Sabbath would still
be kept, at least by Israel, in the future, immediately
before His Second Coming (see Matthew 24:20).
Even though many people assume that the Apostles
became the first Christians and worshiped on Sunday,
Messiah’s foundational disciples did not change
the Sabbath to Sunday. They did become Christians
(followers of the Messiah), but they also continued
to identify and live as observant Jews. They followed
the Jewish Messiah in a Jewish way, which included
observing the Sabbath. Even after the resurrection,
Luke 23:56-24:1 shows that the followers of Yeshua
hadn't been taught to abandon the Sabbath. Acts
1:12 mentions that the apostles were still observing
the Sabbath and were aware of the Sabbath limitations
regarding travel. This indicates the attitude
prevailing among the apostles and Luke at the
time of the writing of Acts in the 60s AD. The
Jerusalem Congregation, the mother of all the
churches, observed the Sabbath (Acts 21:20-21).
They were zealous for the Torah. Even Rabbi Paul,
the apostle to the Gentiles, observed the Sabbath,
along with Jews and Gentiles living outside the
land of Israel (see Acts 13:14, 42, 16:13, 18:4,
Acts 21:21-24). We know from history that Messianic
Jews continued to observe the Sabbath for centuries.
Would
it surprise you to learn that the Sabbath is mentioned
50 times in the New Testament, but the first day
of the week is mentioned only eight times?
Let's consider all eight references. Matthew says
nothing about Sunday replacing the Sabbath. Everything
Matthew says about the first day of the week is
found in just one place - 28:1. It is a historical
reference to the day of Messiah’s resurrection.
Mark mentions the first day of the week twice,
also referring to the day on which Yeshua rose
from the dead. Mark says nothing about it replacing
the Sabbath. In fact, Mark said the Sabbath was
past before the first day of the week began (Mark
16:1-2, 9), which means the Sabbath was distinguished
from the first day of the week. Luke 23:56-24:1
shows that the followers of Yeshua hadn't been
taught to abandon the Sabbath. Luke teaches us
that “on the Sabbath (the one following Messiah’s
death) they rested according to the commandment”.
If any of the apostles should have mentioned a
change from Saturday to Sunday, it should have
been the beloved disciple John, the last of the
Apostles, who wrote his book toward the end of
the first century. John mentions the first day
of the week in just two places. John 20:1 mentions
the empty tomb and 20:19 describes a gathering
of the Apostles, who were hiding because of their
fear of the authorities. Their meeting on the
first day of the week was not a worship service.
They weren't assembled to celebrate the Lord's
resurrection, because they didn't believe in it
yet! If Sunday replaced the Sabbath, John should
have said something theological about the first
day of the week replacing the seventh day - but
he didn’t. In the first four books of the New
Testament, all mentions of the first day of the
week are reports of historical events that happened,
focusing on Yeshua's resurrection from the dead.
But to claim that the Sabbath was switched to
the first day of the week, or that Sunday is the
new Christian Sabbath, or that Sunday is now holy
to the Lord, is something altogether different.
Nowhere do Yeshua or Matthew, Mark, Luke or John
claim that.
What about
the rest of the New Testament? Surely the book
of Acts, which records the early history of the
Church, would have mentioned this significant
change. Acts 20:7 is the only mention of the first
day in the entire book of Acts. A group in Ephesus
was gathered together to hear Rabbi Paul before
he was about to leave them for the last time.
Rabbi Paul started that community of believers.
He labored there for years. This was his last
meeting with them. This could have been a special
meeting to see him off. Or since, according to
the Bible, the first day of the week begins at
sunset, the only example of a first-day meeting
could just as well be a Saturday evening as a
Sunday morning! In all the rest of the New Testament,
the first day of the week is mentioned only one
more time - in 1 Corinthians 16:2. It doesn't
mention a public worship service, only that Paul
instructed the Congregation in Corinth to put
money aside the first day of each week for an
upcoming collection for the Messianic Jews in
Israel for whom Paul was raising funds. There
is nothing said about Sunday being holy, or even
a public meeting for worship taking place.
Well,
everyone knows that Sunday is "the Lord's
day". What about "the Lord's Day"?
In fact, the phrase, "the Lord's day",
is mentioned in only one place (Revelation 1:10)
in the entire New Testament! Just because Sunday
has been called the Lord's Day doesn't mean that
is what John is referring to in Revelation 1:10.
The Lord's Day could also be translated "the
Day of the Lord", which refers to that special
period of time connected with the Second Coming
of the Messiah (see Zephaniah 1:14-18). In
fact, the Lord’s Day or the Day of the Lord more
likely means Saturday than Sunday. From the
very beginning, God made the seventh day special,
not the first day of the week. In Exodus 20:10
the Sabbath is called the Sabbath of the
Lord your God. In Isaiah 58:13 the Creator
calls the Sabbath "My holy day". The
Son of God called Himself "the Lord of the
Sabbath" - not the Lord of the first day
of the week. Nowhere in the New Testament is
Sunday specifically declared to be the Lord's
Day. Nowhere in the entire New Testament is Sunday
called holy, or a day that replaces the Sabbath.
Nowhere in the entire New Testament is there a
teaching passage where it specifically says that
Sunday is the new Christian Sabbath.
Historical,
not scriptural factors, are what prompted the
switch from Saturday to Sunday as the day of worship.
After Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, and later
when the last of the Jewish Apostles died, a trend
away from Jewish observances developed in the
Gentile Christian communities. Then, in 132-135
AD, during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian,
this movement away from Jewish observances intensified
as a result of a second, failed, Jewish revolt
against Rome. The Second Revolt was crushed, the
city of Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish
people were forbidden to enter it. Many Gentile
Believers no longer wanted to be identified with
the Jewish people or culture, and deliberately
disassociated themselves from our holidays, customs
and traditions. So, instead of worshiping on the
traditional Sabbath day, as the Jewish people,
including Messiah Yeshua and the Apostles had
done for over a millennium, the primarily Gentile
Church chose the first day of the week, the "day
of the Sun". The Christians infused it with
new meaning, focusing on the Messiah's resurrection.
It was no longer the "day of the Sun,"
but the "day of the Son" and "the
Lord's day." No one at that time is recorded
as having said, "Aha, the Son of God rose
from the dead on Sunday. The Church must switch
to Sunday worship!" It simply did not happen
that way. Throughout those early centuries there
continued to be Messianic Jewish communities that
worshiped on Shabbat and considered sunset Friday
evening until sunset Saturday evening to be the
Sabbath.
There
is room for both the traditional Jewish Sabbath
observance and worship on the first day of the
week. Rabbi Paul makes it clear that Jewish
people need not live like Gentiles, nor Gentiles
live like Jews. As God has called each, in that
manner let him live (see 1 Corinthians 7:17-24)
- which would include days of worship. The Apostle
to the Gentiles specifically pleads for tolerance
when it comes to religious days (see Romans 14:5-6).
When the First Jerusalem Council met to decide
the relationship of Gentile Believers to the Laws
of God, Sabbath observance was not required. I
would ask my Gentile Christian brothers and sisters
to show this same kind of tolerance for the special
calling and lifestyle of Messianic Jews. Just
as the Messianic Jewish leaders at the First Jerusalem
Council did not require our Gentile brothers to
conform to our customs, today's Gentile Christians,
who far exceed us in numbers and influence, should
now extend to us the same grace and courtesy.
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