Dear Rich,
Quote:
Originally Posted by SemperFideles  I'm not interesting in debating this point. It's off topic. It is the Confessional view of the Scriptures that the actual day of the Sabbath was not the principle that was perpetual as much as the principle that one day in seven be consecrated. [...] As I said, however, this is off topic. If you're not even convinced that the Lord's Day needs to be consecrated then it's an interesting opinion but not something I'm interested in discussing in this thread. |
Thanks for your response. I really don't want to be a pain here, but I'm not sure I understand why this is "off topic"--aren't we discussing the liberty of Sabbath keeping? If we are, then how the Sabbath commandment relates to the New Covenant surely is critical to the discussion.
For what it's worth I believe that one day in seven is for rest. However, I don't arrive there from the 4th commandment alone. And again, I'm not sure you appreciate that the fourth commandment isn't teaching the
principle of one day off in seven, it's teaching that the the
seventh day (Saturday) and
not any other day is a Sabbath for Israel. This may be a subset of a general principle, but that general principle is not articulated in the 4th commandment itself. We must go beyond it. This is
critical in understanding how the Torah relates to the New Covenant, which is at the heart of our discussion.
Hence, I don't think we can start with the 4th commandment and argue for liberty / non-liberty of the Sabbath. Rather, we start at creation, go through Cain and Abel, onto the command to rest from collecting manna (before the Torah was given), through the 10 words given at Sinai, and into Christ's statement that "the Sabbath was made for humanity (
anthropos -- not just Israel)" and not
vice-versa.
Every blessing dear brother,
Marty.