From: John Mann
Subject: Re: Old and New Covenants
Date: 09 January 1999 01:21
Rick has posted a study by the famous SDA theologian Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi
in which he claims Bacchiocchi disproves the Dual Law theory. In fact
Bacchiocchi's argument is against "Dispensational and New Covenant authors"
and he is fairly equivocal in the question of whether the law should be
split in two. For example one section he entitles "Nowhere the Bible
Suggests Two Sets of Laws", and later he states:
A survey of the use of the term "law" in Matthew leads them to conclude that
the "Law" Jesus has reference to is the entire old covenant law, which
included the Ten Commandments. This conclusion per se is accurate, because
Jesus upheld the moral principles of the Old Testament in general. For
example, the "golden rule" in Matthew 7:12 is presented as being in essence
"the law and the prophets." In Matthew 22:40 the two great commandments are
viewed as the basis upon which "depend all the law and the prophets."
There is much in Bacchiocchi's argument that I agree with, and I shall
indicate this below. However while Bacchiocchi is arguing against
Dispensationalism rather for the Dual Law theory, he does assume the Ten
Commandments can be treated separately to the rest of the law, a view I
believe is non-Biblical. I shall therefore point out where I believe his
arguments can be enhanced by removing this error.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.adventist
Date: 05 January 1999 17:49
Subject: Old and New Covenants
>Those who attack Seventh-day Adventist as "dual-law" theorists have a
>basic misunderstanding of the gospel. Rather than attack others for
>their beliefs it would be wise if they concentrated upon the beautiful
>gospel of Christ and learn more of Him, praying for His Spirit to help
>them understand the truth.
I don't believe all Seventh-day Adventists are "dual-law" (sic) theorists,
but I believe it is a widely held view. Having been an Adventist for nearly
40 years I am not aware that the Dual Law theory was an SDA "belief" - I
have not seen it listed as one of Adventism's fundamental beliefs. I believe
in the Second Coming, Seventh-day Sabbath, state of the dead, the Sanctuary
in heaven etc etc - these are what I would
term SDA beliefs - the Dual Law theory is just that, a "theory" to
understand the law.
It should therefore be possible to discuss it on its merits, rather then
engage in all this "it would be wise if they concentrated upon the beautiful
gospel of Christ and learn more of Him" language which implies if anyone
disagrees with Rick on anything they must be experiencing some sort of dark
night of the soul.
> Their basic error comes from a
>"dual-covenant" theory. The see the New Covenant as distinctly different
>from the Old, but what they fail to understand is that the "New
>Covenant" is really the oldest covenant of all; it was given in Eden to
>Adam and Eve. The New Covenant is new in location, not in content. It is
>an internal covenant based upon the promises of God replacing an
>external covenant based on the promises of men.
This is all a bit of a muddle. A covenant is an agreement, and often in the
Bible God makes a covenant or agreement with someone - Noah, Abraham, Moses
and Israel etc. To find out about God's covenant with Noah read Genesis 9,
to find out about God's covenant with Abraham read Genesis 15-17 etc. To say
that they are all really one and the new is really the old is just
confusion.
>The following study on
>the New and Old Covenants has particular concentration on the Sabbath
>because that is one of the most misunderstood principles which is
>contained in both covenants. The Sabbath is also the key doctrine which
>is under attack by those who accuse Seventh-day Adventist as "dual-law"
>theorists.
As I stated above, I don't believe all SDAs hold to the Dual Law theory, nor
do I believe you can't be an SDA if you don't hold to it. I don't have a
problem with the Seventh-day Sabbath and I don't believe rejecting the Dual
Law theory makes any difference to the issue of the Sabbath.
>The study has been adapted from the writings of Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi.
>
>The Old and New Covenants
>
>The renewed attempts to negate the continuity and value of the Sabbath
>for Christians today, largely stem from a blatant misrepresentation of
>the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. Dispensational and
>New Covenant authors argue that there is a radical discontinuity between
>these two covenants, often referred to also as Law and Gospel.
>Allegedly the Old Covenant was characterized by strict obedience to the
>law, of which the Sabbath was a chief precept. By contrast, the New
>Covenant is presumably manifested in a faith-acceptance of the provision
>of grace, of which Sunday is for many a fitting memorial. Simply stated,
>the Cross is seen as the line of demarcation between the Old and New
>Covenants, Law and Grace, the Sabbath and Sunday.
>
>The first part of this essay focuses on the alleged distinction between
>law as the basis of the Old Covenant and love as the basis of the New
>Covenant. The second part examines the use of the book of Hebrews to
>support the contention of the abrogation of the law in general and the
>Sabbath in particular with the coming of Christ.
>
>This study is most important because it examines, not an isolated
>opinion, but the prevailing misconception of the Christian world at
>large regarding the relationship between the Sabbath and the Covenants.
>Without hesitation most Sundaykeeping Christians think of Sabbathkeeping
>as a relic of the Old Covenant and of Sabbatarians as "Judaizers" still
>living under the Mosaic law. Thus, there is an urgent need to unmasks
>the fallacies of this popular New Covenant theology.
>We want to examine New Covenant theology’s major arguments as espoused
>by Dispensationalists and New Covenantists.
>
>For the sake of those less versed in theological nuances, it might help
>to clarify the difference between Dispensational and New Covenant
>theologies. Both of them emphasize the distinction between the Old
>Mosaic Covenant allegedly based on law and the New Christian Covenant
>presumably based on grace.
>
>Dispensationalists, however, go a step further, by interpreting the
>distinction between the Old and New Covenants as representing the
>existence of a fundamental and permanent distinction between Israel and
>the church. "Throughout the ages," writes Lewis Sperry Chafer, a
>leading dispensational theologian, "God is pursuing two distinct
>purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly
>objectives involved, which is Judaism; while the other is related to
>heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives, which is
>Christianity."
>
>Simply stated, Dispensationalists interpret the Old and New Covenants
>as representing two different plans of salvation for two different
>people, Israel and the Church, whose destiny will be different for all
>eternity. What God has united by breaking down the wall of partition
>between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14), Dispensationalists are trying to
>divide by rebuilding the wall of partition not only for the present age,
>but for all eternity. It is hard to believe that intelligent and
>responsible Christians would dare to fabricate such a divisive theology
>that grossly misrepresents the fairness and justice of God.
My position is quite different to that Bacchiocchi is attacking, and the
points he makes against their positions are quite valid. Here are three
points in which I agree with Bacchiocchi:
* the law is not abolished with Christ but "internalised", this is
Bacchiocchi's term, I use the term "spiritualised", so we are still required
to be circumcised, but of the heart not the flesh etc etc.
* the old covenant is not a legalistic path to salvation, I have often
pointed out that in the Old Testament there are many attacks on a legalistic
view of salvation, for example Isaiah 1.
* the truth of the Sabbath is its internal, spiritual meaning - it is a
symbol of God's eternity, his day without evening and mornings, a symbol of
the Second Coming - I have often used the term "Seventh-day Advent" to
illustrate this.
>
>A LOOK AT THE DISPENSATIONAL VIEW OF THE NEW COVENANT
>
>Dispensationalists define the New Covenant in terms of contrasts with
>the Old Covenant. Their aim is to show that the New Covenant is better
>than the Old, because it is no longer based on the law but on love for
>Christ. They reduce the Old Covenant to the Ten Commandments and the New
>Covenant to the principle of love, in order to sustain the thesis that
>Christ replaced both the Ten commandments and the Sabbath with simpler
>and better laws. For the purpose of this analysis, I will focus on
>the major contrast that is established between the Old and New Covenant,
>namely, law versus love.
>
>Do the Old and New Covenants Contain Two Sets of Laws?
>
>The above contrast between the Old and New Covenants contains several
>major flaws. It reduces the two covenants to two different set of laws,
>the latter being simpler and better than the former. It assumes that
>while the Old Covenant was based on the obligation to obey countless
>specific laws, the New Covenant rests on the simpler love commandment of
>Christ. Simply stated, the Old Covenant moral principles of the Ten
>Commandments are replaced in the New Covenant by a better and simpler
>love principle given by Christ.
>
>The attempt of Dispensationalists to reduce the Old and New Covenants to
>two different sets of laws, the latter being simpler and better than the
>former, is designed to support their contention that Ten Commandments in
>general and of the Sabbath in particular were the essence of the Old
>Covenant terminated at the Cross. The problem with their imaginative
>interpretation is that it is clearly contradicted by Scripture besides
>incriminating the moral consistency of God’s government.
>
>Nowhere the Bible Suggests Two Sets of Laws
>
>Nowhere the Bible suggests that with the New Covenant God instituted
>"better commandments" than those of the Old Covenant. Why would Christ
>need to alter the moral demands that God has revealed in His law? Why
>would God feel the need to change His perfect and holy requirements for
>our conduct and attitudes? Christ came not to change the moral
>requirements, but to atone for our transgression against those moral
>requirements (Rom. 4:25; 5:8-9; 8:1-3).
>
>It is evident that by being sacrificed as the Lamb who takes away the
>sins of the world (John 1:29; 1 Cor. 5:7), Christ fulfilled all the
>sacrificial services and laws that served in Old Testament times to
>strengthen the faith and nourish the hope of the Messianic redemption to
>come. But the New Testament, as we shall see, makes a clear distinction
>between the sacrificial laws that Christ by his coming "set aside" (Heb.
>7:18), made "obsolete"(Heb 8:13), "abolished" (Heb 10:9) and
>Sabbathkeeping, for example, which "has been left behind for the people
>of God" (Heb 4:9).
>
The difference between the law in the old covenant and new is like this. The
law is a revelation - it reveals God's way of life, it is a picture, a set
of symbols. Like this, it reminds me of the pictures painted of people long
ago when marriages were arranged (e.g. Henry VIII's marriage to Anne of
Cleves), so that you knew what the person looked like even though you had
never met them. However when the person arrives in the flesh, do you then
need to look at the picture any longer?
So the law is still a valid external definition of right and wrong, but in
order to know how to live we don't refer to the law, but to Christ, the
living law.
As a little aside - here is an interesting question. Paul often teaches
Christians how to live a holy life and encourages them not to sin. Think of
1 Cor 13 and Rom 12:9-21. But he never uses the law as a reason to do
something, that is he never says "you must do this because the law says so",
with *one* exception. Does anyone know where Paul cites the law as a reason
for Christians to do something?
>May I ask, why should God first call His people to respond to His
>redemptive deliverance from Egypt by living according to the moral
>principles of the Ten Commandments, and then summon His people to accept
>His redemption from sin by obeying simpler and better commandments? Did
>God discover that the moral principles promulgated at Sinai were not
>sufficiently moral, and consequently they needed to be improved and
>replaced with simpler and better commandments?
>Such an assumption is preposterous because it negates the immutability
>of God’s moral character reflected in His moral laws. The Old Testament
>teaches that the New Covenant that God will make with the house of
>Israel consists, not in the replacement of the Ten Commandments with
>simpler and better laws, but in the internalization of God’s law: "This
>is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those
>days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it
>upon their hearts; and I will be their God" (Jer. 31:33).
>
This is a very good argument, but unfortunately where Bacchiocchi refers to
the Ten Commandments he contradicts himself. If the Ten Commandments are to
be treated differently to the rest of the law - as still "external" - we
can ask why didn't God say "thou shalt not lust" and "thou shalt not get
angry" instead of not committing adultery or murder? Bacchiocchi is right to
say the "change" in the law between the Old and New Covenants is that the
law has become internalised, it is now written on the heart. Jesus' Sermon
on the Mount does exactly this. But then Bacchiocchi claims the Ten
Commandments are different - they are to be treated the same as under the
Old Covenant, as external. This is an example of where Bacchiocchi's use of
the Dual Law theory actually weakens his basic argument.
The problem is the Bible never does this. The term "Ten Commandments" occurs
only a few times in the Bible - not at all in the New Testament. The Bible
simply defines them as the "words of the covenant". It never says they are
the moral law, that they are different to the rest of the law, are to be
treated differently. In fact the Bible lists two sets of Ten Commandments,
so we cannot even say *what* the Ten Commandments are. I have already given
the Biblical arguments for this in an earlier post (basically Exodus lists
them in Chapter 34, Deuteronomy in Chapter 5) so here is a quote from
_Judaism_ by Solomon Nigosian (Crucible, 1986):
"Two texts related to these commandments [the two stone tablets] are
recorded in the Bible. One is the familar formulation of an ethical code
known as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20). The other is largely ritualistic
(Exodus 34). Scholars are divided in their opinions on which is the earlier
text.. The dispute is quite academic. Later tradition has obscured so much
of the original forms that the precise terms of the Mosaic Covenant are
irrecoverable." (p. 69)
>This passage teaches us that the difference between the Old and New
>Covenants is not a difference between "law" and "love." Rather it is a
>difference between failure to internalize God’s law, which results in
>disobedience, and successful internalization of God’s law, which results
>in obedience. The New Covenant believer who internalizes God’s law by
>the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, will find it hard to break the
>law, because as Paul puts it, "Christ has set him free from the law of
>sin and death" (Rom 8:2).
>
Exactly so.
>Internalization of the Law in the New Covenant
>
>The internalization of God’s law in the human heart is the same New
>Covenant that God wants to make with the Church in the New Testament.
>In fact Hebrews applies to the Church the very same promise made to
>Israel (Heb 8:10; 10:16). In the New Covenant the law is not simplified
>or replaced, but internalized by the Spirit. The Spirit opens people up
>to the law, enabling them to live in accordance to its higher ethics.
>
>The argument that under the New Covenant the law no longer applies to
>one who has died with Christ is senseless, to say the least. Believers
>are no longer under the condemnation of the law when they experience
>God’s forgiving grace and by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, they
>live according to its precepts. But this does not means that the law no
>longer applies to them. They are still accountable before God’s law
>because all "shall stand before the judgment seat of God" (Rom. 14:10)
>to give an account of themselves.
>
>The Spirit does not operate in a vacuum. The function of the Spirit is
>not to bypass or replace the law, but to help the believer to live in
>obedience to the law of God (Gal 5: 18, 22-23). Eldon Ladd, a highly
>respected Evangelical scholar, rightly acknowledges that "more than
>once he [Paul] asserts that it is the new life of the Spirit that
>enables the Christian truly to fulfill the Law (Rom 8:3,4; 13:10; Gal
>5:14)."
>
>Any change in relation to the Law that occurs in the New Covenant is not
>in the moral Law itself but in the believer, who is energized and
>enlightened by the Spirit "in order that the just requirements of the
>law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but
>according to the Spirit" (Rom 8:4). Guidance by the Spirit without the
>respect for the law of God can be dangerous to Christian growth. I
>submit that this is a fundamental problem of the New Covenant theology
>espoused by countless Evangelicals today: it is a theology that
>ultimately makes each person a law unto himself. This can easily
>degenerate into irresponsible behavior. It is not surprising to me that
>America leads the world not only in the number of evangelical Christians
>estimated at almost 100 million, but also in crime, violence, murders,
>divorces, etc. By relaxing the obligation to observe God’s Law in the
>New Covenant people can find an excuse do what is right in their own
>mind.
>
This is exactly the argument I am making in my "The Seventh-day Advent (2):
The Law of Christ".
>A covenant cannot exist without the law, because a covenant denotes an
>orderly relationship that the Lord graciously establishes and maintains
>with His people. The Law guarantees the order required for such
>relationship to be meaningful. In God’s relationship with believers, the
>moral law reveals His will and character, the observance of which makes
>it possible to maintain an orderly and meaningful relationship. Law is
>not the product of sin, but the product of love. God gave the Ten
>Commandments to the Israelites after showing them His redeeming love (Ex
>20:2). Through God’s law the godly came to know how to reflect God’s
>love, compassion, fidelity and other perfection’s.
Here is where Bacchiocchi starts to weaken his argument. He should say God
gave Israel the Law to show is redeeming love - Jesus cites the "laws of
love" from the Torah outside of the Ten Commandments.
>
>No Dichotomy Between Law and Love
>
>It is unfortunate that many never stop to reflect on why the Old
>Covenant, which was based on God’s redemptive deliverance of Israel from
>Egypt, came to be equated with the Ten Commandments.
Ironically this question can be asked of those who hold the Dual Law theory!
>They do not seem to
>realize that obedience to God’s commandments constitutes a love response
>to God’s grace in being Israel’s Deliverer. They ignore the fundamental
>truth that the Decalogue is not merely a list of ten laws, but primarily
>ten principles of love. There is no dichotomy between law and love,
>because you cannot have one without the other.
>
>The Decalogue details how human beings must express their love for their
>Lord and for their fellow beings. Christ’s new commandment to love God
>and fellow beings, is nothing else than the embodiment of the spirit of
>the Ten Commandments, already found in the Old Testament (Lev. 19:19;
>Deut. 6:5). Christ spent much of His ministry clarifying how the love
>principles are embodied in the Ten Commandments. He explained, for
>example, that the sixth commandment can be transgressed not only by
>murdering a person, but also by being angry and insulting a fellow being
>(Matt 5:22-23). The seventh commandment can be violated not only by
>committing adultery, but also by looking lustfully at a woman (Matt.
>5:28).
>
Again, the problem here is Bacchiocchi simply assuming "the law" refers to
the Ten Commandments. In the Bible the Ten Commandments by themselves have
little or no significance, they are not given any special treatment or
discussed anywhere. Christian tradition (i.e. Roman Catholicism) has built
them up to be something special and important, but their only importance in
the Bible lives in their relation to the covenant, they are not significant
in themselves.
>Christ spent even more time clarifying how the principle of love is
>embodied in the Fourth Commandment. The Gospels report no less than
>seven Sabbath healing episodes used by Jesus to clarify that the essence
>of Sabbathkeeping is people to love and not rules to obey. Jesus
>explained that the Sabbath is a day "to do good" (Matt. 12:12), a day
>"to save life" (Mark 3:4), a day liberate men and women from physical
>and spiritual bonds (Luke 13:12), a day to show mercy rather than
>religiosity (Matt. 12:7).
>
One of the surprising things about the history of the Sabbath is that most
people today equate "Sabbath" with going to church - i.e. worship. However
the commandment says nothing about worship - it is a day of *rest*, and in
the history of the church people rested and fasted on Saturday and
worshipped on Sunday. So Jesus' "critique" of the Sabbath was that as an
"external" commandment does "rest" mean be inactive? Literally, yes - to
"rest" means not only to do no work, but also to do nothing, which includes
not doing good. So Jesus showed that the internal meaning of the Sabbath is
finding the one who gives us True Rest, so that we can do good ("work") on
the Sabbath.
>Any attempt to divorce the Law of the Old Covenant from the Love of the
>New Covenant ignores the simple truth that in both covenants love is
>manifested in obedience to God’s law. Christ stated this truth clearly
>and repeatedly: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John
>14:15). "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves
>me" (John 14:21). "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my
>love" (John 15:10). Christ’s commandments are not an improved and
>simplified set of moral principles, but the same moral principles He
>promulgated from Mt. Sinai.
>
Of course in the Gospel of John, where Jesus uses these words, the term
"commandments" refers to Jesus' inner law, whereas "law" is used to refer to
the Old Covenant "external" law. So it is not quite accurate to claim Jesus
was referring to the Old Covenant commandments here.
>Under both covenants, the Lord has one moral standard for human
>behavior, namely holiness and wholeness of life. Wholeness of life is
>that integration of love for God and human beings manifested in those
>who grow in reflecting the perfect character of God (His love,
>faithfulness, righteousness, justice, forgiveness). Under both
>covenants God wants His people to love Him and fellowbeings by living in
>harmony with the moral principles expressed in the Ten Commandments.
>These serve as a guide in imitating God’s character. The Spirit does not
>replace these moral principles in the New covenant, but makes the letter
>become alive and powerful within the hearts of the godly.
>
Yes, exactly, except replace "Ten Commandments" with "law".
>Jesus and the New Covenant Law
>
>The contention that Christ replaced the Ten Commandments with the
>simpler and better commandment of love, is clearly negated by the
>decisive witness of our Lord Himself as found in Matthew 5:17-19. Since
>the demands of God’s moral law continue to be good, holy, and right in
>the New Testament, it is senseless to assume that Christ came in order
>to cancel mankind’s responsibility to observe them. It is
>theologically irrational to assume that the mission of Christ was to
>make it morally acceptable to worship idols, blaspheme, break the
>Sabbath, dishonor parents, murder, steal, commit adultery, gossip, or
>envy. Christ did not come to change the nature of God’s laws by making
>them simpler, better, or optional. Instead, He came to fulfill, that is,
>to explain the fuller meaning of the moral principles God had revealed.
>Listen to His own testimony:
>
>"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I
>have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the
>truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not
>the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law
>until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of
>these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called
>least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 5:17-19; NIV).
>
Here Bacchiocchi is confusing "Law" and "Ten Commandments" again. Of course
Matt 5:17-19 makes no mention of the Ten Commandments, although
Bacchiocchi's statement:
>The contention that Christ replaced the Ten Commandments with the
>simpler and better commandment of love, is clearly negated by the
>decisive witness of our Lord Himself as found in Matthew 5:17-19.
implies that it refers to them. In fact this section of Scripture (the
Sermon on the Mount) is another good example of "the Law" being the whole
Torah - Jesus refers both to laws in the Ten Commandments and laws outside
of it, and does not distinguish between the two. So obviously Matt 5:17-19
which prefaces the Sermon on the Mount must refer to the whole Torah, not
just the Ten Commandments.
>In this pronouncement Christ teaches three important truths. (1) Twice
>He denies that His coming had the purpose of abrogating the Old
>Testament commandments. (2) All the law of God, including its minute
>details, has an abiding validity until the termination of the present
>age. (3) Anyone who teaches that even the least of God’s commandment can
>be broken, stands under divine condemnation. This indictment should
>cause New Covenantists to do some soul searching.
>
>There is no exegetical stalemate here. There is no suggestion here that
>with the coming of Christ the Old Testament moral law was replaced by a
>simpler and better law. It is unfortunate that some try to build a case
>for a replacement of the Old Covenant Ten Commandments with a simpler
>and better law of the New Covenant by selecting few problem-oriented
>texts (2 Cor. 3:6-11; Heb. 8-9; Gal. 3-4), rather than by starting with
>Christ’s own testimony-a testimony that should serve as the touch stone
>to explain apparent contradictory texts which speak negatively of the
>law.
>
Of course, exactly so.
>Paul rejects the law as a method of salvation but upholds it as a
>standard for Christian conduct. The Christian is not under the law as
>the basis of justification, but upholds the law as a revelation of God’s
>ethical standards for his life.
>
>The failure to recognize this fundamental distinction, causes many to
>develop a unilateral antinomian position. A responsible study of Paul’s
>view of the law must take into account both his negative and positive
>statements about the law. For example, in Romans 3:28, Paul maintains
>that "a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law," yet in 1
>Corinthians 7:19 he states that "neither circumcision counts for
>anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God." How
>can these apparently contradictory statements be reconciled?
>Dispensationalists make no attempt to deal with this problem. They
>prefer the "cafeteria style" of selecting those texts that best
>support their termination view of the law. Such a method is hardly
>reflective of responsible Biblical scholarship.
>
Yes, this is all perfectly true.
>Jesus: the Law’s fulfillment
>
>The conclusion of many is that this passage (Matt. 5:17-19) does not
>support the continuing nature of the Ten Commandments. They reache this
>conclusion through an imaginative but unfounded interpretation of the
>two key terms "Law" and "fulfill." A survey of the use of the term
>"law" in Matthew leads them to conclude that the "Law" Jesus has
>reference to is the entire old covenant law, which included the Ten
>Commandments. This conclusion per se is accurate, because Jesus upheld
>the moral principles of the Old Testament in general. For example, the
>"golden rule" in Matthew 7:12 is presented as being in essence "the law
>and the prophets." In Matthew 22:40 the two great commandments are
>viewed as the basis upon which "depend all the law and the prophets."
>
>The problem many run into is that they use the broad meaning of the Law
>to argue that Christ abrogated not only the Ten Commandments, but the
>entire Old Testament. They do this by giving a narrow interpretation to
>the verb "to fulfill." They conclude that the word "fulfill" in Matthew
>5:17-19 refers, not to the continuing nature of the law and the
>prophets, but to the fulfillment of prophecies regarding the life and
>death of Messiah.
Bacchiocchi is so close to getting it right here it is painful! He admists
that "the law" refers to the entire Old Covenant law, yet does not carry
this logic through to its conclusion. He simply insists that this does not
mean the law is abolished, and then never gets close to this line of thought
again.
All of Bacchiocchi's argument can be maintained without reference to the Ten
Commandments. What Bacchiocchi is saying is that the law in the Old Covenant
becomes "internalised" in the New Covenant, but then he starts insisting
that this isn't quite the same for the Ten Commandments because they are
still external as well as internal. The problem is that the law was part of
the Old Covenant - if you want to keep the law unchanged from the Old
Covenant you have to accept that whole framework, you can't pick bits out
and leave other bits.
>
>The Continuity of the Law
>
>There are several serious problems with this conclusion which largely
>derive from an unwillingness to closely examine the text in its
>immediate context. The immediate context clearly indicates that the
>fulfillment of the law and the prophets will ultimately take place, not
>at Christ’s death, but at the close of the present age: "I tell you the
>truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not
>the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law
>until everything is accomplish" (Matt 5:18). Since at Christ’s death,
>heaven and earth did not disappear, it is evident that according to
>Jesus the function of the Law will continue until the end of the present
>age.
>
>The claim that the six antithesis "You have heard…but I say unto you"
>indicate that Jesus intended to do away completely with the binding
>nature of the old covenant, is preposterous to say the least. Why?
>Because in each instance Christ did not release His followers from the
>obligation to observe the six commandments mentioned, but He called for
>a more radical observance of each of them. This fact is widely
>recognized by respected evangelical scholars. For example, Eldon Ladd
>writes: "Jesus taught the pure, unconditioned will of God without
>compromise of any sort, which God lays upon men at all times and for all
>times…Jesus’ ethics embody the standard of righteousness that a holy God
>must demand of men in any age." John Gerstner similarly observes:
>"Christ’s affirmation of the moral law was complete. Rather than
>setting the disciples free from the law, He tied them more tightly to
>it. He abrogated not one commandment but instead intensified all."
>
>Christ did not modify or replace the Law, but revealed its divine intent
>which affects not only the outward conduct but also the inner motives.
>The Law condemned murder; Jesus condemned anger as sin (Matt. 5:21-26).
>The Law condemned adultery; Jesus condemned lustful appetites (Matt.
>5:27-28). This is not a replacement of the Law, but a clarification and
>intensification of its divine intent. Anger and lust cannot be
>controlled by law, because legislation has to do with outward conduct
>that can be controlled. Jesus is concerned to show that obedience to the
>spirit of God’s commandments involves the inner motives as well as the
>outer actions.
>
This is true but you can go wrong with this line of arguing. If he is not
careful what Bacchiocchi is implying is that we need to still carefully
study the Old Covenant because this is where God has revealed how he wants
us to live. This is looking at the picture instead of the real person, there
is no point living in shadows when the reality has arrived.
>Christ is the Continuation and Realization of the Law and the Prophets
>
>It is correct to say that "to fulfill" in Matthew generally refers to
>the prophetic realization of the law and prophets in the life and
>ministry of Christ. This implies that certain aspects the law and the
>prophets, such as the Levitical services and messianic prophecies, came
>to an end in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. But this
>interpretation can hardly be applied to the moral aspects of God’s Law
>mentioned by Jesus, because verse 18 explicitly affirms that the law
>would be valid "till heaven and earth pass away." In the light of the
>antitheses of verses 21-48, "to fulfill" means especially "to clarify,"
>"to explain" the fuller meaning of the law and the prophets. Repeatedly
>in Matthew, Jesus acts as the supreme interpreter of the law who attacks
>external obedience and some of the rabbinical (Halakic) traditions
>(Matt. 15:3-6; 9:13; 12:7; 23:1-39).
>
Again, Bacchiocchi is going a little wrong here. Jesus has stated that no
part of the law would pass away, yet Bacchiocchi has already lined much of
it up for abolition, leaving only the "moral" part. Yet how do we decide
what the moral part is? We must already have a standard of morality to
identify it. If we have decided that Jesus is an insufficient moral example
(which is why Bacchiocchi has said we need the Old Covenant law to remain
"in force", external as well as internal) then the only criteria left is our
own judgement, which is what Bacchiocchi was condemning as a moral standard
in the first place.
>In Matthew the teachings of Christ are presented, not as a replacement
>of God’s moral Law, but as the continuation and confirmation of the Old
>Testament. Matthew sees in Christ not the termination of the law and
>the prophets, but their realization and continuation. The "golden rule"
>in Matthew 7:12 is presented as being in essence "the law and the
>prophets." In Matthew 19:16-19, Jesus tells the rich young man who
>wanted to know what he should do to have eternal life, "keep the
>commandments." Then He proceeds to list five of them.
>
Jesus' point in all his teaching on the law is that obedience to the law
(i.e. external obedience) is insufficient, it is more of Isaiah 1. His point
about the "golden rule" (which is not of course one of the Ten Commandments,
which certainly questions Bacchiocchi's claim that it can be the moral law),
is that obedience is from the inside. Jesus tells the rich young man to
keep the commandments as a build up to showing external obedience is
insufficient (he then has to go and sell all that he has).
>In Matthew 22:40 the two great commandments are viewed as the basis upon
>which "depend all the law and the prophets." It is important to
>understand that the summary does not abrogate or discount that which it
>summarizes. It would make no sense to say that we must follow the
>summary command to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev. 19:19; Matt.
>22:39), while ignoring or violating the second part of the Decalogue
>which tells what loving the neighbor entails. We must not forget that
>when the Lord called upon us to recognize "the more important matters of
>the law" (Matt. 23:23), He immediately added that the lesser matters
>should not be neglected.
>
Again Bacchiocchi tries to move from what he calls the "abolished" bit of
the law, but which Jesus seems to insist on using, back to Bacchiocchi's
"moral" law which Jesus insists on improving!
>We might say that in Matthew the law and the prophets live on in Christ
>who realizes, clarifies and, in some cases, intensifies their teachings
>(Matt. 5:21-22, 27-28). The Christological realization and continuation
>of the Old Testament law has significant implications for the New
>Testament understanding of the Sabbath in the light of the redemptive
>ministry of Jesus.
>
This is the juicy bit.
>THE NEW COVENANT IN THE BOOK OF HEBREWS
>
>To defend the position that the Ten Commandments and other Mosaic laws
>were part of the Old Covenant which came to an end with the coming of
>Christ, Dispensationalists appeal especially to the book of Hebrews.
>
>They proceed with citing Hebrews 8:13, which reads: "In speaking of the
>new covenant, he treats the first obsolete. And what is becoming
>obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." In interpreting this
>text they argue that what is obsolete and vanishing away is the Mosaic
>law in general and the Sabbath in particular.
Of course I don't agree with the Dispensationalists. See my "The Sabbath
Truth" etc.
>
>Discontinuity in Hebrews
>
>In the interpretation of Hebrews, Dispensationalists are right in
>pointing out the discontinuity between the Old and New Covenant as far
>as the Levitical services which were brought to an end by Christ’s
>coming,
This is where the Dual Law theory contradicts the "internalisation" part of
Bacchiocchi's argument, what I call the "spiritualisation" of the law. The
"abolition" or "making obsolete" of the law cannot apply to bits of it, as
Jesus said none of the law was abolished, not one bit of it, what is
abolished is the "externalisation" of the law, what Paul refers to as "the
flesh". The Levitical services, as we know, continued in heaven in the
Heavenly Sanctuary, and so Bacchiocchi is incorrect to say they were brought
to an end by Christ's coming (in fact strictly speaking he should say his
death). The Dual Law theory is actually an attack on the Sanctuary doctrine,
as I have argued in a previous post.
>but they are wrong in applying such a discontinuity to the moral
>principles of the Ten Commandments, especially the Sabbath. There is no
>question that Hebrews emphasizes the discontinuity brought about by the
>coming of Christ, when he says that "if perfection had been attainable
>through the Levitical priesthood" (7:11), there would have been no need
>for Christ to come. But because the priests, the sanctuary, and its
>services were "symbolic" (9:9; 8:5), they could not in themselves
>"perfect the conscience of the worshipper" (9:9). Consequently, it was
>necessary for Christ to come "once for all at the end of the age to put
>away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (9:26). The effect of Christ’s
>coming is described as "setting aside" (7:18), making "obsolete" (8:13),
>"abolishing" (10:9) all the Levitical services associated with the
>sanctuary.
There is no justification to suppose this attack on the flesh, on
"externalisation" does not apply to the Ten Commandments, the same as the
rest of the law.
>
>New Theology interprets these affirmations as indicating a radical
>abrogation of the Old Testament law in general and of the Sabbath in
>particular. Such an interpretation ignores that the statements in
>question are found in chapters 7 to 10, which deal with the Levitical,
>sacrificial regulations. Though the author uses in these chapters the
>term "law" (10:1) and "covenant" (8:7, 8, 13), he mentions them with
>reference to the Levitical priesthood and services. It is in this
>context, that is, as they relate to the Levitical ministry, that they
>are declared "abolished" (10:9). But this declaration can hardly be
>taken as a blanket statement for the abrogation of the law in general.
Of course I take a more radical view than both New Theology and Bacchiocchi.
New Theology says all the law is abolished, Bacchiocchi says some of it is,
I argue none of it is (see Matt 5)!
>
>The reference to "the tables of the covenant’ in Hebrews 9:4 is found in
>the context of the description of the content of the ark of the
>covenant, which included "the tables of the covenant." The latter
>mentioned are part of the furniture of the earthly sanctuary whose
>typological function terminated with Christ’s death on the Cross.
>However, the fact that the services of the earthly sanctuary terminated
>at the Cross does not mean that the Ten Commandments also came to an end
>simply because they were located inside the ark.
>
Heb 9:10 makes the point that the Sanctuary was an "external regulation"
which only applied until the time of the "new order". By implication the
Sanctuary is now therefore an internal regulation, performed in heaven. As
usual Bacchiocchi's remarks about the Ten Commandments are a red herring.
>Continuity of the Ten Commandments in the New Covenant
>
>Hebrews teaches us that the earthly sanctuary was superseded by the
>heavenly sanctuary where Christ "appears in the presence of God on our
>behalf" (Heb. 9:24). When John was shown a vision of the heavenly
>temple, he saw within the Temple "the ark of the covenant" which
>contains the Ten Commandments (Rev. 11:19). Why was John shown the ark
>of the covenant within the heavenly temple? The answer is simple. The
>ark of the covenant represents the throne of God that rests on justice
>(the Ten Commandments) and justice (the mercy seat).
>
>If the argument was correct that the Ten Commandments terminated at the
>Cross because they were part of the furnishing of the sanctuary, why
>then was John shown the ark of the covenant which contains the Ten
>Commandments in the heavenly Temple? Does not the vision of the ark of
>the covenant in the heavenly sanctuary where Christ ministers on our
>behalf suggest that the principles of the Ten Commandments are still the
>foundation of God’s government?
>
The Sanctuary is in Heaven, but it is incorrect to make a special case for
the Ten Commandments. Revelation shows the Day of Atonement in Heaven (Rev
1:12-16 shows Jesus dressed as the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, see
Lev 16:4-5; Rev 8:1-5 refers to the incense, see Lev 16:12-14; Rev 8:5 is
the censer full of burning coals, see Lev 16:12; note the frequent
references to "seven" in Revelation which mirror the Day of Atonement, "he
shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times" Lev 16:14; "sprinkle
some of the blood on it with his finger seven times" Lev 16:19); Rev
8:6-11:18 is the sounding of the trumpets, "then have the trunpet sounded
everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement
sound the trumpet throughout your land" (Lev 25:9), finally Rev 11:19 says
"within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant", matching the Day of
Atonement when the High Priest goes into the Most Holy Place where the ark
of the covenant is (Lev 16:2; 17-19).
The fact that the Ten Commandments are in the ark of the covenant does not
make them different to the rest of the law. The Book of the Law was by the
side of the ark, and of course all the furniture (lampstands, the golden
altar etc) are present also. The point is, no one is claiming that because
all these are in Heaven their original Old Covenant function remains.
Bacchiocchi has already stated that by being in Heaven the meaning of the
Sanctuary has become "internalised", the Law has become written on hearts,
so to pick one part of the Sanctuary in Heaven (the Ten Commandments in the
Ark) and claim that unlike all of the other items in the Sanctuary these
retain their Old Covenant function is inconsistent and special pleading.
After all, the Ten Commandments are not even actually mentioned, only the
Ark of the Covenant is referred to, so there is really no argument to make a
special case for the Ten Commandments here.
>It is unfortunate that in their concern to prove the discontinuity
>between the Old and New Covenants, many ignore the continuity between
>the two. The continuity is expressed in a variety of ways. There is
>continuity in the revelation which the same God "spoke of old to our
>fathers by the prophets" and now "in these last days has spoken to us by
>a Son" (1:1-2). There is continuity in the faithfulness and
>accomplishments of Moses and Christ (3:2-6).
>
>There is continuity in the redemptive ministry offered typologically in
>the earthly sanctuary by priests and realistically in the heavenly
>sanctuary by Christ Himself (chs. 7, 8, 9, 10). There is continuity in
>faith and hope, as New Testament believers share in the faith and
>promises of the Old Testament worthies (chs. 11-12).
I agree, the Old Covenant was not a "legalistic" covenant as some claim, but
emphasised faith and ethics over religioius practises .However note that
when the Old Testament praises morality over religiosity it places the
Sabbath on the side of religion, not morality. In Isaiah 1 God contrasts
those who practise religion - who keep the Sabbath, the festivals, who
offer sactifices - with those who do good, who seek justice and encourage
the oppressed. This is another reason why it is incorrect to assume the Ten
Commandments are the moral part of the Law.
>More specifically, there is continuity in the
>"Sabbathkeeping—sabbatismos" which "remains (apoleipetia) for the people
>of God" (Heb. 4:9). The verb "remains—apoleipetia," literally means "to
>be left behind." Literally translated verse 9 reads: "So then a
>Sabbath rest is left behind for the people of God." The permanence of
>the Sabbath is also implied in the exhortation to "strive to enter that
>rest" (4:11). The fact that one must make efforts "to enter that rest"
>implies that the "rest" experience of the Sabbath also has a future
>realization and consequently cannot have terminated with the coming of
>Christ.
>
Now we come to the interesting part about the Sabbath. What is the inner
truth about the Sabbath? What is the Sabbath's real meaning? Is it resting
one day in seven, or is it entering God's rest, resting in Christ, entering
the rest that God founded at creation? Hebrews begins the discussion of the
Sabbath Rest in Chapter 3. It states that because of disbelief God has
declared that Israel "shall never enter my rest" (Heb 3:11), so immediately
we have the claim that of all the seventh-day Sabbaths of rest Israel has
kept, still God says they have not entered his rest. So we can see that the
true Sabbath rest is more than a day of resting. Chapter 4 begins "the
promise of entering his rest still stands" (Heb 4:1), so God has still
promised that his people will enter his rest, and indeed the author writes
that "we who have believed enter that rest" (Heb 4:3), so we enter the
Sabbath rest through faith, not works.
"For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about
another day" (Heb 4:8). Resting on the seventh-day, the author says, did not
enter Israel into rest - so "God again set a certain day" (Heb 4:7). God set
a certain day in the Law, the seventh-day (the evening and morning
seventh-day), but Israel did not enter into rest by keeping that day. So
having set a certain day what happened? "God again set a certain day". So
now we have two days set by God for entering into his rest. The original day
(evening and morning day) was the seventh-day of the Law. The second day God
set aside was... Sunday? No, Hebrews says the second day God set aside was
"Today":
"God again set a certani day, calling it Today" (Heb 4:7)
So do we still keep the Sabbath? Yes, "there remains, then, a Sabbath-rest
for the people of God" (Heb 4:9). Is that Sabbath rest an external day of
rest, and "evening and morning" day of rest? No, it is an internal day of
rest, called "Today", "for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his
own work, just as God did from his" (Heb 4:10). So this True Sabbath, the
"internalisation" of the Sabbath is modelled on God's rest at creation. When
God rested at creation his "seventh day" had no evening and morning, because
God did not go back to work again on the first day. So the True Sabbath also
has no evening and morning, because once we enter God's rest we do not then
leave it again the next day.
Such a view of the Sabbath is entirely consistent with what the Bible
teaches about the Law in general. We still keep the laws of clean/unclean
food, circumcision and so on, but as "internal" laws, laws of the heart.
This is how Paul can say "for in Christ circumcision nor uncircumcision has
any value" (Gal 5:6), yet also "circumcision is circumcision of the heart,
by the Spirit, not by the written code" (Rom 2:29). Clearly in Galations
Paul is writing about the external law, in Romans about the internal law. So
Col 2:16 is referring to external Sabbaths, while Heb 4:9 to the internal
Sabbath.
>It is noteworthy that while the author declares the Levitical priesthood
>and services as "abolished" (Heb. 10:9), "obsolete" and "ready to vanish
>away" (Heb. 8:13), he explicitly teaches that a "Sabbathkeeping is left
>behind for the people of God" (Heb. 4:9).
>
As we have seen, all the Law remains. What are "obsolete" are external
practises, which are obsolete once they become written on the heart. Hebrews
in effect claims the evening and morning seventh day is obsolete, as it
speaks about "another day" (Heb 4:8), yet this other day is not another
external evening and morning day, but the inner seventh-day Sabbath.
>Objections to Literal Sabbathkeeping
>
>Some reject the interpretation of "sabbatismos" as literal
>Sabbathkeeping, obviously because it does not fit their discontinuity
>construct between the Old and New Covenants. The author of Hebrews did
>not have to invent a new word because it already existed and was used by
>both by pagans and Christians as a technical term for Sabbathkeeping.
>Examples can be found in the writings of Plutarch, Justin, Epiphanius,
>the Apostolic Constitutions and the Martyrdom of Peter and Paul.
>Prof. A. T. Lincoln, one of the contributors to the symposium From
>Sabbath to the Lord’s Day, acknowledges that in each of the above
>instances "the term denotes the observance or celebration of the
>Sabbath. This usage corresponds to the Septuagint usage of the cognate
>verb sabbatizo (cf. Ex. 16:23; Lev. 23:32; 26:34f; 2 Chron. 36:21),
>which also has reference to Sabbath observance. Thus the writer to the
>Hebrews is saying that since the time of Joshua an observance of Sabbath
>rest has been outstanding."
Of course the term "sabbatismos" refers to the literal Sabbath, the same as
"peritome" referred to literal circumcision. However the term becomes a
metaphor for a higher spiritual truth. This is what it means to have the law
written on the heart. This is the point of being sealed by the Spirit.
>
>Three Levels Interpretation of Sabbath Rest in the Old Testament
>
>To help the reader better understand the preceding discussion of the
>Sabbath rest in Hebrews 3 and 4, I will mention briefly how the notion
>of the Sabbath rest was utilized in the Old Testament and in Jewish
>literature. There we find that the Sabbath rest was used to describe not
>only the weekly Sabbath rest experience, but also the national
>aspiration for a peaceful life in a land at rest (Deut. 12:9; 25:19; Is.
>14:3), where the king would give to the people "rest from all enemies"
>(2 Sam. 7:1; cf. 1 Kings 8:5), and where God would find His "resting
>place" among His people and especially in His sanctuary at Zion (2
>Chron. 6:41; 1 Chron. 23:25; Ps. 132:8, 13, 14; Is. 66:1).
>
The True Sabbath is God's eternal rest. Symbols of this rest, "Sabbaths",
occur frequently in the Law.
>The rest and peace of the Sabbath, which as a political aspiration
>remained largely unfulfilled, became the symbol of the Messianic age,
>often known as the "end of days" or the "world to come." Theodore
>Friedman notes, for example, that "two of the three passages in which
>Isaiah refers to the Sabbath are linked by the prophet with the end of
>days (Is. 56:4-7; 58:13, 14; 66:22-24) ...It is no mere coincidence that
>Isaiah employs the words ‘delight’ (oneg) and ‘honor’ (kavod) in his
>descriptions of both the Sabbath and the end of days (58:13-‘And you
>shall call the Sabbath delight…and honor it’; 66:1 ‘And you shall
>delight in the glow of its honor’). The implication is clear. The
>delight and joy that will mark the end of days is made available here
>and now by the Sabbath."
Here is what I wrote at the end of my posting "On Evening and Morning
Sabbaths":
As each Adventist offers up the day and night Sabbath as a sacrifice, so
collectively the Sabbath message will be transformed into the most intense
visionary experience of God. We enter his rest as our soul is flooded with
the spiritual ecstasy of heaven. Each Christian will experience "the third
heaven" (2 Cor 12:2), will receive "visions and revelations" (2 Cor 12:1),
will be "caught up to Paradise" (2 Cor 12:4). The true Sabbath experience
means we become "a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor
5:17). God will "set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our
hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come" (2 Cor 1:22). Entering
this vision, receiving his Spirit will give us "God's secret wisdom, a
wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time
began" (1 Cor 2:7). "I will also give him a white stone with a new name
written on it, known only to him who receives it" (Rev 2:17). The true
Sabbath is a roaring, exploding vision of God - like Rev 1:13-17 - once we
arrive at the Seventh-day Advent we shall understand the truth and purpose
of our movement.
>
>Later rabbinic ‘and apocalyptic literature provide more explicit
>examples where the Sabbath is understood as the anticipation and
>foretaste of the world-to-come. For example, The Babylonian Talmud
>says: "Our Rabbis taught that at the conclusion of the septennate the
>son of David will come. R. Joseph demurred: But so many Sabbaths have
>passed, yet has he not come!" In the apocalyptic work known as The Book
>of Adam and Eve (about first century A.D.), the archangel ‘Michael
>admonishes Seth, saying: "Man of God, mourn not for thy dead more than
>six days, for on the seventh day is a sign of the resurrection and the
>rest of the age to come."
>
>How did the Sabbath come to be regarded as the symbol of the world to
>come? Apparently the harsh experiences of the desert wandering first,
>and of the exile later, encouraged the viewing of the Edenic Sabbath as
>the paradigm of the future Messianic age. In fact, the Messianic age is
>characterized by material abundance (Amos 9:13-14; Joel 4:19; Is.
>30:23-25; Jer. 31:12), social justice (Is. 61:1-9), harmony between
>persons and animals (Hosea 2:20; Is. 65:25; 11:6), extraordinary
>longevity (Is. 65:20; Zech. 8:4), refulgent light (Is. 30:26; Zech 14:6,
>7) and absence of death and sorrow (Is. 25 :8).
>
>This brief survey indicates that both in the Old Testament and in later
>Jewish literature, the weekly experience of the Sabbath rest epitomized
>the national aspirations for a resting place in the land of Canaan and
>in the sanctuary of Jerusalem. This in turn pointed forward to the
>future Messianic age which came to be viewed as "wholly sabbath and
>rest."
>
Here is what I wrote in my posting "The Sabbath! At Last the Truth":
So now let us consider what the symbolic meaning of the law is. We know the
True Sabbath is God's Eternal Seventh-day rest, without evening and morning.
God says "enter my rest" - submerge into his eternity. Thus the eternal law
must be related to this deep mystery of the Sabbath. To obey God's eternal
law must mean to dwell in his eternity. The law described a whole way of
life, a choreography of existence. This living in God, experiencing the
ecstasy of the vision of God, is the eternal law of our being. From the
beginning, the sacred has been experienced through music, dance, painting,
language and symbol. Only in the modern era has "art" separated itself from
the spiritual life, in Bible times to live in God's eternal law was to live
in the (he)art of God. So symbolically the law represents the medium through
which we experience and live in God, the art of life, the Christos Choros
(Christ Dance). The eternal law is Christos Choreography - the art of the
Christ Dance. In the Christ Dance we experience the vision of God, we
receive the vision on the mountain after forty days and nights without food
or water we return back to earth with a vision of God in our hearts. This is
the power of the eternal law.
>Three Levels Interpretation of the Sabbath Rest in Hebrews
>
>In Old Testament times the existence of three levels of interpretation
>of the Sabbath rest, as a personal, national, and Messianic reality,
>provides the basis for understanding these three meanings in Hebrews 3
>and 4. By welding together two texts, namely Psalm 95:11 and Genesis
>2:2, the writer presents three different levels of meaning of the
>Sabbath rest. At a first level, the Sabbath rest points to God’s
>creation rest, when "his works were finished from the foundation of the
>world" (4:3). This meaning is established by quoting Genesis 2:2.
This is exactly what I have been saying about the Sabbath being finished at
creation - God's eternal rest without evening and morning.
>
>At a second level, the Sabbath rest symbolizes the promise of entry into
>the land of Canaan, which the wilderness generation "failed to enter"
>(4:6; cf. 3 :16-19), and which was realized later when the Israelites
>under Joshua did enter the land of rest (4:8).
This is the evening and morning Sabbath which failed to bring Israel into
God's rest.
> At a third and most
>important level, the Sabbath rest prefigures the rest of redemption
>which has dawned and is made available to God’s people through Christ.
>
>How does the author establish this last meaning? By drawing a remarkable
>conclusion from Psalm 95:7, 11, which he quotes several times (Heb. 4:3,
>5, 7). In Psalm 95, God invites the Israelites to enter into His rest
>which was denied to the rebellious wilderness generation (vv. 7-11). The
>fact that God should renew "again" the promise of His rest long after
>the actual entrance into the earthly Canaan, namely at the time of David
>by saying "today" (Heb. 4:7), is interpreted by the author of Hebrews to
>mean two things: first, that God’s Sabbath rest was not exhausted when
>the Israelites under Joshua found a resting place in the land, but that
>it still "remains for the people of God" (4:9). Second, that such rest
>has dawned with the coming of Christ (4:3, 7).
>
>The phrase "Today, when you hear his voice" (4:7) has a clear reference
>to Christ. The readers had heard God’s voice in the "last days" (1:2)
>as it spoke through Christ and had received the promise of the Sabbath
>rest. In the light of the Christ event, then, ceasing from one’s labor
>on the Sabbath (4:10) signifies both a present experience of redemption
>(4:3) and a hope of future fellowship with God (4:11).
This is the inner meaning of the Sabbath truth. Enter God's rest through
redemption.
>
>For the author of Hebrews, as Gerhard von Rad correctly points out, "the
>whole purpose of creation and the whole purpose of redemption are
>reunited" in the fulfillment of God’s original Sabbath rest.
>
This is again something I have been arguing for as the meaning of the
Sabbath in my posts - see quotes above.
>The Nature of the Sabbath Rest in Hebrews
>
>What is the nature of the "Sabbath rest" that is still outstanding for
>God’s people (4:9)? Is the writer thinking of a literal or spiritual
>type of Sabbathkeeping? Verse 10 describes the basic characteristic of
>Christian Sabbathkeeping, namely, cessation from work: "For whoever
>enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his"
>(4:10).
>
>Historically, the majority of commentators have interpreted the
>cessation from work of Hebrews 4:10 in a figurative sense, namely as
>"abstention from servile work," meaning sinful activities. Thus,
>Christian Sabbathkeeping means not the interruption of daily work on the
>seventh day, but the abstention from sinful acts at all times. In other
>words, in the New Covenant the Sabbath rest experience occurs not on the
>seventh day, but daily as believers experience salvation-rest.
>
>In support of this view, appeal is made to Hebrews’ reference to "dead
>works" (6:1; 9:14). Such a concept, however, cannot be read back into
>Hebrews 4:10, where a comparison is made between the divine and the
>human cessation from "works." It would be absurd to think that God
>ceased from "sinful deeds." The point of the analogy is simply that as
>God ceased on the seventh day from His creation work, so believers are
>to cease on the same day from their labors. This is a simple statement
>of the nature of Sabbathkeeping which essentially involves cessation
>from works.
>
This contradicts the passages on "another day" and the meaning of the
Sabbath at the time of Joshua (the second meaning of the Sabbath, above).
The goes against the whole argument of the passage, which is that evening
and morning sabbaths have failed to allow God's people to enter his rest.
>Further support for a literal understanding of Sabbathkeeping is
>provided by the historical usage of the term "sabbatismos—sabbath rest"
>found in Hebrews 4:9. We have seen that the term is used in both pagan
>and Christian literature as a technical term for literal Sabbathkeeping.
But as we have seen, it is a constant theme of the New Testament writers
that the inner meaning of the law, its "internalisation" as Bacchiocchi
calls it, takes the literal meaning and makes it into a metaphor for the
spiritual meaning. There is no evidence that when referring to clean and
unclean food, or circumcision, that the Bible writers used a different word
to refer to the "internalisation" of these laws, they used the same literal
term but gave it a spiritual meaning.
>
>The Meaning of Sabbathkeeping in Hebrews
>
>Is the author of Hebrews merely encouraging his readers to interrupt
>their secular activities on the Sabbath? Considering the concern of the
>writer to counteract the tendency of his readers to adopt Jewish
>liturgical customs as a means to gain access to God, he could hardly
>have emphasized solely the physical "cessation" aspect of
>Sabbathkeeping. This aspect yields only a negative idea of rest, one
>which would only serve to encourage existing Judaizing tendencies.
>Obviously then, the author attributes a deeper meaning to the resting on
>the Sabbath.
>
The author is not encouraging his readers at all to interupt their secular
activities on the Sabbath, he is teaching about the inner meaning of the
Hebrew Law. He is not suggesting that because the other parts of the Law
(Torah) that he discusses have inner truths and meanings that their external
observance remains, no more is he doing this for the Sabbath.
>This deeper meaning can be seen in the antithesis the author makes
>between those who failed to enter into God’s rest because of
>"unbelief—apeitheias" (4:6, 11)—that is, faithlessness which results in
>disobedience—and those who enter it by "faith—pistei" (4:2, 3), that is,
>faithfulness that results in obedience.
>
>The act of resting on the Sabbath for the author of Hebrews is not
>merely a routine ritual (cf. "sacrifice"—Matt 12:7), but rather a
>faith-response to God. Such a response entails not the hardening of
>one’s heart (4:7) but the making of oneself available to "hear his
>voice" (4:7). It means experiencing God’s salvation rest not by works
>but by faith, not by doing but by being saved through faith (4:2, 3,
>11). On the Sabbath, as John Calvin aptly expresses it, believers are
>"to cease from their work to allow God to work in them."
>
>The Sabbath rest that remains for the New Covenant people of God (4:9)
>is not a mere day of idleness, but rather an opportunity renewed every
>week to enter God’s rest, that is, to free oneself from the cares of
>work in order to experience freely by faith God’s creation and
>redemption rest.
>
This is true if by "day" we mean the "other day" - Today.
>The Sabbath experience of the blessings of salvation is not exhausted in
>the present, since the author exhorts his readers to "strive to enter
>that rest" (4:11). This dimension of the future Sabbath rest shows that
>Sabbathkeeping in Hebrews expresses the tension between the "already"
>and the "not yet," between the present experience of salvation and its
>eschatological consummation in the heavenly Canaan.
>
>This expanded interpretation of Sabbathkeeping in the light of the
>Christ event was apparently designed to wean Christians away from a too
>materialistic understanding of its observance. To achieve this
>objective, the author on the one hand reassures his readers of the
>permanence of the blessings contemplated by the Sabbath rest and on the
>other hand explains that the nature of these blessings consists in
>experiencing both a present salvation—rest and the future
>restoration—rest which God offers to those "who have believed" (4:3).
>
The Sabbath rest has blessings both Today and in the future.
>It is evident that for the author of Hebrews Sabbathkeeping remains in
>the New Covenant not only as a physical experience of cessation from
>work, but also as a faith response, a yes "today" response to God.
>
Heb 4:10 is about entering God's rest, not a physical rest.
>Conclusion
>
>The preceding study of the New Covenant in relationship to the Sabbath
>has shown that there is an organic unity between the Old and New
>Covenants. Both covenants are part of the everlasting covenant (Heb
>13:20), that is, of God’s commitment to save penitent sinners. In both
>covenants God invites His people to accept the gracious provision of
>salvation by living in accordance to the moral principles He has
>revealed. Christ came not to nullify or modify God’s moral law, but to
>clarify and reveal its fuller meaning. Christ spent much of His
>ministry clarifying how the love principle is embodied in the Ten
>Commandments in general, and in the Sabbath in particular.
>
>Of all the commandments, the Sabbath offers us the most concrete
>opportunity to show our love to God, because it invites us to consecrate
>our time to Him. Time is the essence of our life. The way we use our
>time is indicative of our priorities. A major reason why the Sabbath has
>been attacked by many throughout human history, is because the sinful
>human nature is self-centered rather than God-centered. Most people want
>to spend their Sabbath time seeking for personal pleasure or profit,
>rather than for the presence and peace of God.
This is true of the inner, true meaning of the Sabbath.
>
>New Covenant believers who on the Sabbath stop their work, allow God to
>work in them more fully and freely. They show in a tangible way that
>God really counts in their lives. They make themselves receptive and
>responsive to the presence, peace, and rest of God. At a time when New
>Covenant theology is deceiving many Christians into believing in the
>"simpler" and "better" principle of love, the Sabbath challenges us to
>offer to God, not lip-service, but the service of our total being, by
>consecrating our time and life to Him.
>
>God bless,
>Rick
>
So what do we mean by the Seventh-day Sabbath? Jesus received knowledge from
the Father, Paul received visions from the Father (1 Cor 5:11). These
visions lead us back to the original Sabbath rest when God dwelt with man.
The day after the Great Disappointment Hiram Edson received a vision, over
the period of her life Sister White received many visions. This points to
the latter rain when the Spirit will fill God’s people. The Seventh-day is
not a day like the other six (e.g. the six days of creation). Instead the
Seventh-day is a symbol for the time God and man dwelt together, prior to
the fall. In this period, man and God existed as one as a time outside of
history. The seventh-day is not a historical day, but a time in which God
dwells. John was in the Spirit on the Day of the Lord (Rev 1:10), a day
outside of time.
So the Seventh-day Advent points us to a time when God meets us on the
Seventh-day. God met Moses, he met Jesus, he met Paul, Hiram Edson, Sister
White - in the Old Testament the word "commanded" is always used with
reference to the law, which God commanded to Israel, but in the New
Testament God "commanded" Paul and the apostles with a vision. So we live in
the Seventh-day Advent if we too live in the vision of God - the vision in
which he appears and speaks to us.
We have a Spiritual Ecstasy. It is a continuation of of the vision of God
given to Jesus, Paul and John. It was given to Hiram Edson and Sister White,
now it is given to us. We receive it as our inheritance, to which we give
testimony, verifying to the Spirit within, our seal, our guarantee and our
covenant.
Lift the Veil of the Law!
John