#7 SABBATHS and SUNDAYS

Following: http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/hell-no.html

Come sunset this Friday, Seventh Day Adventists around the world will again respect sabbath for 24 hours despite most of the community enjoying leisure or engaged in commerce.                                                              
Why?                                                                       
Another Fundamental Belief…Clause 20. Sabbath: “The beneficent Creator…instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation.”

Is that correct? Did God institute the Sabbath for all people?                              
After Creation, “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Genesis 2:3) but later He said: “I gave them (Israel) my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Ezekiel 20:12.                
Okay, we all need a break from work but the Sabbath covenant was made only with Israel in particular.

But isn’t Sabbath-keeping part of a Christian’s obligations?                           
No, the apostle Paul upheld the principals behind all of the 10 Commandments – EXCEPT the Sabbath!

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days…”

Really??  What about a pork chop with a glass of rosé?                                         
You’re missing the point - it’s all about Jesus Christ, not about food and drink and sabbaths!               

“…which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
Colossians 2:16

Paul spelled it out to the Corinthians like this:

“…One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” ch14

Well that’s plain enough. So what did Ellen White teach on this?                                                                                                            

“The enforcement of Sundaykeeping on the part of Protestant churches is an enforcement of the worship of the papacy - of the beast….those who continue in transgression will receive the mark of the beast.”

Whoa!  Worshipping on Sunday earns the mark of the beast??                               
The coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 was on the day of Pentecost which fell on the morning after the seventh sabbath. (Leviticus 23:15-16)                                       
No matter what Emperor Constantine or the Roman Catholic Church decreed, there is ample historic record from the writings of the early church fathers such as Justin Martyr that early Christians celebrated Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week (8th day) or ‘Lord’s Day’, which happened to be called Sunday by the secular world. No-one then claimed that this replaced the Jewish Sabbath day.

That means that if I continue to follow the Biblical precedent of taking communion on the first day of the week to remember our Lord’s death (Acts 20:7) and celebrate his resurrection I will eventually receive the mark of the beast and the resulting punishment?

…according to Ellen White!

 

NEXT: No secret rapture
Click on...    http://hotspuds.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/a-secret-rapture.html

Acknowledgements:                                                                                     
White E, ‘The Great Controversy’, United Publishers, 1971                                             
sdanet.org/atissue/doctrines/gc28  
Photo credit: lifehopeandtruth.com