| Author | Message | ||
| Stardoc57 Registered user Username: Stardoc57 Post Number: 1 Registered: 4-2004 |
I am a recovering adventist and a "newbie" to this forum. I have a question about the Sabbath. I have studied the new covanent and am comfortable that the old covanent (including the 10 commandments) have been replaced by the new covanent. I also have learned that there is no mention of a person keeping the sabbath until the exodus from Egypt. This is confirmed by Neh 9 where the history of the Jews is recounted and the Sabbath is stated as being "made known" during the Exodus. My question is based on Genesis 2:3 where God is stated to have rested and "hallowed" (i.e. sanctified, made holy, consecrated, dedicated) the day. How does God consecrate the day? My adventist training doesn't let me see another interpretation of this verse. How do you folks understand it? | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1074 Registered: 12-2003 |
Welcome, Stardoc! We're glad you're here and look forward to hearing more from you. My understanding of this text has a couple of parts. First, the seventh day is the only one of creation week about which it does NOT say, "the evening and the morning were the _____day." There is no mention of beginning or ending of the day. In other words (part 2!), God's rest did not begin and end with the evening and the morning of the seventh day. There was no command for Adam and Eve to "keep" the seventh day or to rest. Genesis merely says God rested and blessed/hallowed the seventh day. The seventh day was the day of perfection. All of creation was complete. Adam and Eve were intimate with God, spiritually alive in Him. They were in perfect rest. All creation was hallowed and honored God. In other words, I see the seventh day of the creation week as the beginning of man's rest in God's finished work. That rest was unbroken--hence no morning or evening to stop the "sacred time". that rest in God's finished work was over when the couple sinned. Now they were spiritually dead. Intimacy with God was a thing of the past. Now they could only repent and wait with faith for a coming redeemer. The unbroken holiness of God's finished work was violated. Now man had to toil and suffer. Only when Jesus died, rose again, and ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit was spiritual life possible again. Not until Pentecost did humanity again experience unending rest in God's finished work. Now our spirits are alive in Him when we believe in Him, and we are forever His, intimate and claimed by our Father and prepared in advance for glory with Him! Colleen | ||
| Goldenbear Registered user Username: Goldenbear Post Number: 9 Registered: 12-2004 |
Wow, what a thought... Eden, God is finishing his work. He makes a pronouncement and blesses ... a day? How about what he just created and who he just created. If Adam was to rest on the sabbath, why? What work was he doing... Sitting by a stream naming the animals? Every thing was perfect. No weeds to pull, no grass to cut, no corporate memos to type. Colleen your post really got me to thinking. It really makes sense, I just never had put the thought together. | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 122 Registered: 9-2004 |
Goldenbear, How long has you been seeking the truth? I ask because someone I love ISN'T seeking the truth and is complacent and content in SDA's teachings. Welcome! Tracey | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 123 Registered: 9-2004 |
C told me last night that he believes that if he doesn't keep it, then he is willfully sinning and will go to hell. I told him he doesn't know the Gospel of Jesus Christ then. and that's that salvation is not tied to the sabbath. That's what so amazing about the savior coming! We couldn't earn it to get salvation and we can't do anything <except reject Jesus> to lose salvation. Poor thing. he really thinks he'll go to hell? <sigh> What was the savior for? I hate false teachings and I hate it more and more everyday. He is so bound up and not free in Jesus. I told him that he is now accountable to me presenting the gospel to him. That he needs to ask God if he is really reading the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the veil of a religious teaching. How in the heck could people be deceived and blind as to think salvation is tied to the sabbath????????????????????????????? | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1078 Registered: 12-2003 |
Because, Tracey, early conditioning becomes so much a part of a person that it's almost organic. It's almost impossible to dissect "teaching" from one's own personality. Just as we bond to mother from even before birth, so we are shaped by the spiritual imprinting our moms give us from even before birth. That's why it's only a miracle of the Spirit that ever brings a person to the point of asking God to help him know what is really TRUE. It's a crisis of identity and destiny even to consider that one's preconscious beliefs about God and salvation might be wrong. It's like rejecting your mother. This is why Jesus said that unless one "hates" his mother, father, sister, brother and loves Him above all else, he cannot be His follower. God will reveal truth to us, and He will reveal Himself--but only as we allow the Holy Spirit to crack open our package of cultural identity and and family belonging and allow Him to become the focus of our existence. C demonstrates what I've tried to verbalize but find hard to express in a way that makes sense to onlookers: Adventists say nothing they do is part of their salvation. Salvation is not by personal merit. Yet simultaneously they believe they can lose their salvation by giving up something they do--i.e., keeping the Sabbath. So, salvation is not by merit, but damnation is by demerit...?! Yet that is the dissonant position they rationlize. Praying for you, Tracey. Colleen | ||
| Tracey Registered user Username: Tracey Post Number: 124 Registered: 9-2004 |
not accountable to ME -- but he's now accountable because I presented him the gospel. Colleen, your insight about the imprinting. It's like I appreciate the truth, but the words and truth of it sickens me! And clearly, this was the Holy Spirit that led me to tell him the scripture of Jesus dividing a household because it is EXACTLY what I told him-- Just last night even!! God does confirm His word. Colleen, colleen, Colleen.. I am speechless about what you just wrote to me. That's such a trait that I see!! He sooo identifies with his mother and family.. Weirdly though.. I thought I was just from a different kind of family. My new question that I pose to myself.. Do I give up? Do I help him? I am afraid that if I stop talking to him, any little undoing that I aid in, will regress back to the false things he knows. And for sure when Christmas is home with his parents, he's gonna regress more. But I have the victory through Christ Jesus!!! | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 177 Registered: 10-2004 |
Yes, some SDAs will say, "you can't work your way to heaven, but you can sin your way to hell." But that makes no sense! If you have to keep the Sabbath in order to not be sinning your way to hell, then you are keeping the Sabbath in order to not go to hell, in other words, you are keeping the Sabbath to get to heaven--salvation by works pure and simple!!! Stardoc57, Regarding Genesis--you can listen to a good sermon by former SDA Pastor Mark Martin along the lines of what Colleen was saying. It's called "The Sabbath Keeps Me" and it's available to listen to online at http://www.sdaoutreach.org/audio.cfm with a high-speed internet connection, or you can order it for a nominal price here. But actually, regarding Genesis 2:3, I think that it is an anachronism, meaning that it is talking about the future sanctifying and giving of the Sabbath in Exodus 16. The similar wording of the Ten Commandments to Genesis 2:3 seems to indicate this. Moses does this quite frequently in his writings. A good example is this: "And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations. As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept." (Exodus 16:33-34 KJV.) The Testimony (Ten Commandments) had not been given yet, so that is talking about the future. And, unlike Genesis 2:3, it doesn't even say "then" ("and"--KJV) such and such happened, as Genesis 2:3 does. Also, when it says that God rested in Genesis 2, it is not the word for Sabbath. The word for Sabbath means "intermission" but the word used in Genesis means a "ceasing." So God "ceased" from creating the world, and He was not going to start creating the world again on the first day of the week or any other day! Jeremy | ||
| Pw Registered user Username: Pw Post Number: 228 Registered: 6-2004 |
Jeremy...I heard the same garbage you did about paving the path to hell for willingly breaking the Sabbath day. In fact when I quit the SDA, the pastor made a special trip to my home to share that bit of "good news" with me, claiming I was re-joining the "Babylon" world again. Of course I felt guilty at the beginning when I started doing chores and other things on Saturday but it wore off, while the presence of the Holy Spirit got stronger. That's how I knew I was enjoying my freedom in Christ rather than the bonds of the SDA laws. | ||
| Raven Registered user Username: Raven Post Number: 127 Registered: 7-2004 |
Tracey, You're so funny! Looks like you turned an SDA argument on C. I'm sure he has said, or believes, you are now accountable for the Sabbath truth that you have surely been presented by now through him. And now he is accountable to the "gospel" that has been presented to him through you! | ||
| Windmotion Registered user Username: Windmotion Post Number: 79 Registered: 6-2001 |
Hello, long time no see, huh. Actually I confess to be lurking for a little while now, and I'm not sure why I'm jumping in now, but here it goes. (For those of you who do not know, my husband permanently left the sda church after years of wanting to but not knowing how. (in a nutshell) The reason I'm coming back to this forum now is we have moved to Washington State and are living near his family members, all of which are Adventist. He is not tempted or anything to go back, but Adventism is now a new reality for me. So, about this thread. I heard an Adventist sermon recently that illustrates this point nicely. The pastor announced he would be speaking on Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are you saved" etc. ... "not of works." And I thought to myself, hmmm this will be interesting. It was! This was a little while ago, so I can't remember everything he said, but he likened the gift of salvation to the gift of the garden of Eden to Adam and Eve. It was free, but when they sinned OOPS away it went. He intoned, "Works are nothing, but they are everything." (I couldn't give the sermon my full attention b/c Adventists apparently don't believe in children's church and my two-year-old doesn't believe in sitting quietly.) I was absolutely horrified, but I felt I had to bring up the subject (casually) later. Somehow I thought I would get at least a partial agreement. Up till then I had assumed my relations to have fairly similar beliefs on that subject as me. They were quick to inform me the pastor was "right on," so I dropped the subject, since I didn't even know where to begin in my disagreement! That is just one of several oddities I have noticed since moving. We are attending a Free Methodist church now, which we found on the Willow Creek Web site. It is 100 years old and is surprisingly like my last church, which was about 5 years old. Both the music and the preaching have that reverant but laid-back feeling if that makes any sense. | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1219 Registered: 11-2002 |
Tracey, I'd like to make a comment about discussing Sabbath observance regarding salvation to a SDA. It goes like this-they honestly believe someone is bound to observing the Sabbath in order to maintain their salvation. They will frequently say then regarding "the law" "Well, then are we free to steal whatever we want whenever we want something we don't have the money to pay for it? Then can we just kill anyone we are irritated with and would like that person to leave us alone? And, how about adultry? If we are not under the law then can I just have fling after fling while my wife sits at home night after night tending the kids?" Honest, I just got this line of reasonng recently from my adult son. With a SDA it is extemely difficult to break through this line of reasoning. Maybe Colleen or Jeremy or someone else can share on here how to respond to that reply from the SDA. And, Windmotion, hello and best wishes from me to you regarding the in-law situtation. You say you are in Washigton State. Are you near Walla Walla College? Washington is beautiful. I've been up there several times. It's just georgeous. | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 832 Registered: 3-2004 |
Stardoc57, Windmotion, Welcome to the FAF. Tracey, All you can do is present the truth to your friend. God will do the rest, not you. Maybe if you leave him alone for a while he will have time to think and pray on what you have presented to him. Just because you are near him is not going to change him. Give him to God and let God do His work. It will be hard to do that because if you are like me, I like to be there stirring the pot and think I am doing what God wants me to do. But that is just me and how I think. I continue to pray for the both of you. I repeat myself when I say, God did not bring you this far to drop either of you. I know you are praying about your friend also and God will let you know what to do with him. Colleen, you are so on target when you explained about early conditioning. That is so true. God is awesome in how He answers us. Diana | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 183 Registered: 10-2004 |
Susan, A short concise answer to that SDA line of reasoning about "is it ok to steal, murder, lie, etc. now?" would be: "No, because Jesus and the New Testament/New Covenant teach that those things are wrong. But they never teach Sabbath-keeping!" Jeremy | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1220 Registered: 11-2002 |
Since the title of this discussion is about Sabbath I will share a story with you that I went through just two days ago with my elderly mother. My mom relies on me for transportation. She came over on Saturday and needed me to take her to the supermarket. I was a bit surprised that she'd want me to take her to the store on Sabbath but I said "Sure, let's go". She noticed I looked at the sunset. It was broad daylight. I'm not kidding, it was not dark in the least. I guess I just had a confused look on my face because my mother told me, "It's o.k. to go shopping now as the sun has set". I told her, "I don't think so. Look, it's still daytime". She told me it doesn't go by how dark or light it is outside but it goes by the official sunset time and in the church bulletin they always print the sunset times for that Saturday and the next Friday (and get this, I'm not joking) my mom says, "According to the bulletin the sun set at 5:44 and it's now 5:49 so it's o.k. to go shopping now". Honest, I bit my tongue. An, honest, I'm not going to elaberate on what went through my mind. I just took her shopping and said not another word. | ||
| Susan_2 Registered user Username: Susan_2 Post Number: 1221 Registered: 11-2002 |
Since the title of this discussion is about Sabbath I will share a story with you that I went through just two days ago with my elderly mother. My mom relies on me for transportation. She came over on Saturday and needed me to take her to the supermarket. I was a bit surprised that she'd want me to take her to the store on Sabbath but I said "Sure, let's go". She noticed I looked at the sunset. It was broad daylight. I'm not kidding, it was not dark in the least. I guess I just had a confused look on my face because my mother told me, "It's o.k. to go shopping now as the sun has set". I told her, "I don't think so. Look, it's still daytime". She told me it doesn't go by how dark or light it is outside but it goes by the official sunset time and in the church bulletin they always print the sunset times for that Saturday and the next Friday (and get this, I'm not joking) my mom says, "According to the bulletin the sun set at 5:44 and it's now 5:49 so it's o.k. to go shopping now". Honest, I bit my tongue. An, honest, I'm not going to elaberate on what went through my mind. I just took her shopping and said not another word. | ||
| Goldenbear Registered user Username: Goldenbear Post Number: 12 Registered: 12-2004 |
You know, the prospect of "coming out" to the SDA's I know, is scary. Loss of social interaction, respect, and hours of council. (Although, I am not so sure. We haven't been to church service at the local SDA church in 8 months. Not a word or comment. In fact I had someone call me and ask me to teach the lesson on Daniel.") I am sure that I won't be telling my mom. She would probably have a stroke. She is trully in the adventist mode (we used to park outside the mall waiting for the sun to set on sabbath - we would also wait at the gas station for the sabbath to end). The pastor of the local Alliance Church we are attending almost outed us at Halloween. Saw an adventist and confused her with my wife. Honestly I am ready to be moving on. We talk with my daughter this week. Not sure how she will take it. I think okay. I believe the Lord has been protecting her and preparing her for this time. | ||
| Stardoc57 Registered user Username: Stardoc57 Post Number: 2 Registered: 4-2004 |
Thank you all for your postings. I never realized that the Hebrew words for sabbath and resting in Gen 2:3 were different. (Sad isn't it after 20 years of Adventist school "education") I still need to meditate and pray about Colleen's response regarding the spiritual rest being continuous as long as we depend on Christ for salvation. My wife (also a former adventist) and I read the postings from Susan and chuckled because that is how we were raised to think about sunset times. I have no problem believing that Adventists still do this. All of my family still are Adventists and pray for me - their black sheep. My wife just asked me a question that I'd like to post. Why does the God of the OT seem so exacting and stern (e.g. Uzzah touching the ark to keep it from falling) - yet we see such a gracious and forgiving God manifested in Christ? | ||
| Dd Registered user Username: Dd Post Number: 251 Registered: 7-2004 |
Windmotion, I live in Washington state. Are you on the east or west side? I'd love to have some contact with a former in my area - I am on the east side. Stardoc, I use to have the same idea of the OT God until I did a study of Israel and the minor prophets last year. WOW! What a loving, kind, patient, encouraging, supportive, understanding God. Those Israelites were complete morons!!! God did so much for them and all He wanted in return was their undying devotion. When you look at all OT heroes (Abraham, Moses, Noah, Samuel...) you see they were people just like us (I'll speak for myself - they were stubborn, flakey people but God still called them His people and in Abraham's case, He was called God's friend)! In Hebrews 11 you can read about their awesome faith and belief in God. That is how God counted them righteous - they really were the first New Covenant believers, I think!  SO, in answer to your wife's question...I personally see the God of the NT the same God in the OT - He has NEVER changed! Praise God we can count on Him to be the same forever and ever! | ||
| Truthseeker2004 Registered user Username: Truthseeker2004 Post Number: 17 Registered: 12-2004 |
Hello stardoc..you asked "Why does the God of the OT seem so exacting and stern (e.g. Uzzah touching the ark to keep it from falling) - yet we see such a gracious and forgiving God manifested in Christ?" The fact of the matter is that God has not changed.He is and always will despise sin..He is exacting and stern.He saw the drops of blood fall from His Son in the garden and he knew His anguish..He saw His skin being tore open by the lash and the cruel punishment He endured to death. The road to Jesus' death was so prolonged..so evil..so cruel. The ugliness and severity of the price that needed to be paid for sin could never have been more self evident than it was for our Saviour on His way to Golgotha. He allowed His own Son to be tormented and hung upon a cross because of our sin. The price had to be paid and He required it from His own Son, that we might come into His presence and become joint heirs with Christ. The bible says about His character "Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed......Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness(change), neither shadow of turning. Despite what some believe..God has always been a God of mercy,yet at the same time He has required that a price must be paid for sin and that the penalty of sin is death..The bible does not mince words on this at all. ..I got out my strong's concordance this morning and can tell you that mercy is mentioned and shown countless times in the old testament. Psalm 136 says it best when it says "His mercy endures forever." So we know that God never changes and that He has always been full of mercy and grace....What has changed however is His covenant with His people.....No longer do we need to present a living sacrifice before a priest for fear that we cannot enter into that holy place behind the veil...Now we can come boldy before the throne of grace, pleading the precious blood of our Saviour..the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Through Christ we can communicate with the Father in His holy place...clothed in the righteousness of Christ...not of our own works.....We live by grace through faith and not of works but the gift of God through Jesus Christ. It is through the atoning work of God through Christ that we can only see His grace and mercy now..and with good reason..He paid the highest price possible and showed the greatest amount of love and selflessness.......He had nothing to gain by His work....and we deserved nothing but death......This is why we dont see the God of the OT as stern and exacting anymore. But as a sidenote..we need to be careful that we never forget the price that was paid....nor do we forget that God hates sin and that the price of sin(transgression of the law) is still and always will be death..................John |
