jimbussell

This is a subject that I never considered until about a year ago until I heard Chuck Missler’s audio on The Seventh Day, which really challenged me to think. I grew up with the ten commandments in plain sight for all to see. Then, as now, the fourth commandment was there stating remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Almost every teacher in every class in every church I attended that mentioned the ten commandments glossed over the fourth commandment about the Sabbath or reminded us that Sunday was our Sabbath. I guess I considered this commandment about as important as the tenth commandment about coveting your neighbor’s possessions; the Sabbath just meant go to church and covetousness was this quaint way of saying jealousy. Right? Not exactly…

I regained an interest in the scriptures a couple of years ago, after a thirty year hiatus, and started going through them via Chuck Missler’s audio commentaries while traveling or working and reading when sitting still, and because it had been thirty-something years since I had taken it seriously, it was like discovering this really cool, new manual on life. One of the major breakthroughs I have made during my study of this awesome book was the realization that to understand the New Testament, we are required to understand the Old Testament and to comprehend and accept that we are not dealing with two separate books but one single, cohesive message system that links the past, present and future of the existence of our reality within one package.

What does this have to do with the Sabbath? The Sabbath is mentioned all through the scriptures in some different contexts, depending on who the author was talking to, or about. For instance, Exodus chapter sixteen links the importance of the Sabbath to the creation rest while Exodus chapter twenty sets it up as a law to be adhered to by the Jews and Ezekiel and Colossians prophesy the Sabbath will regain ceremonial importance in the millennium.

Exodus 20:8 & 11⁸ Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. (ESV)

The word remember in Hebrew (זכר zakar)basically means the same thing as it means to us*1which tells me this is something they already knew about and the scripture supports that directly in Exodus chapter sixteen.

Exodus 16:22-26And so it was, on the sixth day, [that] they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23Then he said to them, “This [is what] the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow [is] a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake [today], and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.’ ” 24So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25Then Moses said, “Eat that today, for today [is] a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 26“Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”(NKJV)

The ceremonial law for Israel wasn’t established yet in chapter sixteen so that means that God’s chosen people had knowledge of the Sabbath already before Moses came down with the tablets of law and they knew it was established to honor the creation as chapter twenty later states, instead of as a rule for the Jews, which is laid out later by Moses, which was the common view point I grew up with. Whatever rules and regulations that were attached to the observance of the Sabbath later in Exodus chapter twenty and also in Deuteronomy chapter five were specific rules and regulations designed for the Jews to follow.

To me, an example of a parallel thought is to use an example of theft. In most countries, theft is against moral values and therefore it is taught it is wrong to steal as the eighth commandment states. However the punishment for breaking this commandment varies from government to government. What’s the parallel? The Lord wants us to commemorate the creator and remember the creation in his fourth commandment but The Lord then went on to establish punishments for His chosen people under the ceremonial law set down by Moses because He had delivered them from their oppressors and used the Sabbath ceremonial laws as one way to make sure they didn’t forget it and the restrictions and punishments He established through the law for the Jews was specific to them as was written down by Moses in Exodus and Deuteronomy. That is a point that Christ and the apostle Paul were making to the Jewish leadership and the Gentile brethren in the New Testament gospels and the letters to the churches.

OK, I think I have shown the Sabbath was not created as a Jewish institution, but it is something The Lord established in Genesis with his demonstration to us when he rested on the seventh day according to Genesis two. Was The Lord tired? No, I don’t think so. I believe, as any great parent should do, The Lord was leading by example. I think The Lord was demonstrating to us, His creations, what he expects from us, and so what does He expect? He expects us to honor His creation and The Creator by resting on the seventh day from labor. I know of no other religion, not based on Our Lord, that wants you to rest one out of every seven days, regardless of wealth or position in society.

To us this may not be that big of a deal, but for most of the history of our planet, slavery and servitude have been a way of life and to be a slave with the ability to rest one out of every seven days, it is a huge blessing. This is what The Lord was stressing in Deuteronomy chapter five when he reminded his people just who it was that rescued them from the back-breaking slavery conditions they were under in Egypt, where there was no day of rest for them, but every day was comprised of grueling labor under challenging conditions.

Deuteronomy 5:15And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (NKJV)

What about us as Christians, how does the Sabbath apply to us? Galatians chapters four and five hammer away at the fact that the Jews were slaves to the law and that Christ releases us from the constraints of the law. That means we aren’t subjected to the rules and regulations and punishments set forth by Moses after he came down from the mount which is good, because I don’t relish the thought of being stoned for lighting a fire on the Sabbath*2.

It appears that Christ seemed to chose the Sabbath on several occasions to heal. I think the fact that His healing the afflicted on the Sabbath more than other days of the week was recorded in the gospels because of several reason. I believe one reason that Christ chose the Sabbath to heal was that in the villages of Israel, many of the people of the villages and towns would be gathered at the Synagogs for the reading of the law by the Rabbis, therefore, more people would be on hand for his displays of healing than any other day of the week. I think that this would work in conjunction with a couple of other points I believe He was making. I think Christ chose to heal on the Sabbath to not only help those in need, but to also make a public point to the Pharisees that the strict adherence to the letter of the law that they hammered away at was being replaced by the grace and mercy of Him, The Lord of the Sabbath, and that the original purpose of the Sabbath was taking center stage. In Matthew and Mark and also in Luke is a record of an incident of one of the confrontations with the Pharisees in which Our Lord states a couple of great facts about the Sabbath.

Mark 2:27-28And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 “Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” (NKJV)

First, Christ is telling us that the Sabbath was established as a blessing from our day to day labors. When is the first example of a day of rest from labors mentioned? It was mentioned in Genesis chapter two when The Lord gave us an example of the rest from His labors of creation of the universe. Should we bother honoring the creation. Romans chapter one*3 is clear and direct on the punishment that The Lord levies on a society that doesn’t even acknowledge it, much less honor it.

Secondly, in verse 28 of Mark 2, The Lord establishes himself Lord over the Sabbath. If He were going to teach that the Sabbath day was a thing of the past and it’s importance was no longer valid, this would have been the perfect time to do it, in my opinion. He had already ticked the Pharisees off, why not go for the gold? He didn’t discount it’s original underlying importance, the importance of the purpose that had been established in Genesis. Instead, by His words and actions He is overriding the strict adherence to the Mosaic law that was established for the Jews to the Sabbath and Paul in his letters to the Galatians, the Corinthians and the Colossians will put what Christ is only implying here into plain language. Why didn’t Christ abolish the Sabbath? Why would He abolish something He had made? John 1:3 and Hebrews chapter 1:10 both clearly state that Christ is the author of the creation. That means if we honor the Sabbath as it was established as a day of rest from labors and as a memorial to the creator, we are directly honoring Christ, for it was Christ, the Creator, that labored for six days and then rested on the seventh day as an example for us to follow.

John 1:3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. (NKJV)

Hebrews 1:10And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. (NKJV)

What about Sunday replacing Saturday as the Sabbath? Someone would have to show me the explicit verses in the holy scriptures and not just alogizations and assumptions. The commands regarding the Sabbath are clear and repeated in several places in the scripture, therefore the basis for Sunday replacing the Sabbath would need follow the same pattern…and it doesn’t.

In my opinion, the Sabbath was established for humans to reflect and remember the creation and The Creator. That is what God prefers us to do. Fortunately, we as Christians fall under the grace of Our Lord as Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter six, so when we don’t do as he prefers, we aren’t instantly condemned as the Jews were with their boot-camp like restrictive rules and regulation that The Lord had them follow.

Romans 6:14For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (NKJV)

I have heard speakers say on several occasions that what The Lord allows and what He prefers, are two separate things. Through habits and traditions established over the centuries by well meaning, but error prone church leaders, we view Sunday as our Sabbath even though there is no scriptural basis for the substitution. To honor Christ and His resurrection and our redemption on Sunday, I think, is great and scripturally sound but it is not required for salvation. We read in Romans 14 and also in Colossians 2 the anticipated argument about which day should be reserved to honor The Lord.

Romans 14:5-6One person esteems [one] day above another; another esteems every day [alike]. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who observes the day, observes [it] to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe [it]. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks.(NKJV)

Colossians 2:16-17So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.(NKJV)

What is my conclusion about the Sabbath? It seems that we have the freedom to honor The Lord on whatever day that has been worked out between us and The Lord through our communications media we share called the bible and prayer. The Sabbath is first mentioned in relation to the creation and the Creator. After Israel had settled into their homeland, the importance of the Sabbath to the Jews really kicked into high gear, for the Holy of Holies in the Temple is where The Lord rules from according to Exodus 25:22. In the New Testament, even though during the Christian dispensation we aren’t required to follow the law, the Sabbath retains an important place in the scriptures. Colossians chapter two indicates that the Sabbath will regain ceremonial importance in this prophetic verse about the millennium. So, maybe we aren’t specifically required to worship on the Sabbath, even though I feel ignoring it takes courage, but think of it this way. Our Lord established the Sabbath in Genesis, he reiterates it throughout the scriptures and Isaiah and Ezekiel let us know it will be reestablished in the millennium. In my way of thinking, if the processes of worship in Heaven follows similar patterns that The Lord has established all though the scriptures and it follows the pattern of being ‘made in His image’ and since we will all be his “chosen people’ in heaven, I think many Christians might be surprised if they find the Sabbath remains important as a prominent day of worship in Glory Land, if the pattern He has established here on earth remains in place. After all, we all need to remember that we worship a Jewish Lord.

God Bless, Jim

6-18-11

for Koinonia Institute

*1http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H2142&t=ESV

*2Exodus 31:15‘Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh [is] the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does [any] work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. (NKJV)

*3Romans 1:18-3218For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (ESV)

What is the main issue behind the blood curse that God gave to Jeconiah

The curse of Jeconiah

The curse of Jeconiah (also called Jehoiachim and Coniah) by the Lord came after a string of evil kings of Judah as listed in II Kings chapters 22, 23 & 24. The Lord had all he could take of these evildoers and pronounced a curse on Jeconiah and his descendants in Jeremiah 22: 24-30 “As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off; “and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans. “So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die. “But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return. “Is this man Coniah a despised, broken idol— A vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his descendants, And cast into a land which they do not know? O earth, earth, earth, Hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the LORD: ‘Write this man down as childless, A man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah.” (NKJV). This in itself is bad enough, but when you consider the implications of the Lord’s Covenant with David that the Throne of David would be established forever as was written in II Samuel 7:16 “And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.”‘ (NKJV), it seems to throw a wrench into the works. While researching this, I found several discussions pointing to the curse of Jeconiah as proof that Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah because of the curse, for after the Babylonian captivity, no descendant of David sat upon a Throne of Israel. I also saw many sites with discussions trying to prove that the curse was later lifted and all was forgiven. All of these discussions and all of these websites totally miss the point of the virgin birth that was prophesied in Genesis 3 and the ancestry of Mary (even though it says Joseph)*3 laid out in Luke 3 beginning in verse 23.

But for ceremonial and legal purposes within the Jewish community, where does this leave Christ? After all The Lord promised David that his descendant would reign over the Nation of Israel (using that word that most denominations cringe at) forever and this curse apparently screwed all that up. I think it’s just so cool how The Lord uses obscure thing to achieve His purposes, possibly to throw Satan off, possibly simply because He enjoys it…anyway. Some little, apparently unimportant, legal entanglement that happened several hundred years earlier when the Israelites were preparing to enter the Promised Land fits this situation with Jeconiah’s curse like a perfect, lazer-cut puzzle piece, which it is.

The daughter’s of Zelophehad

In this scenario, the Jews are wandering through the wilderness, having been rescued from the Egyptian captivity by divine guidance and then messing up their first chance to enter Canaan. Thirty-eight years have almost passed and a Jew by the name of Zelophehad had five daughters but no son. Jewish law said that land would be awarded and transferred from son to son. This means Zelophehad’s line would stop here and there be no inheritance for his daughters. They appealed to Moses to create an exception in the law for them so their father’s line would continue and so they could inherit land once they arrived in Canaan. Moses took it to The Lord and The Lord agreed to create an exception in the law for them to inherit as long as they married within their tribe, which means their husbands will be adopted as sons into their immediate family. The marriage clause in this addendum may seen trite but we will see it will have great significance and impact in the future.

Several years pass and after Canaan has been conquered and they are dividing up and doling out land grants, the daughters of Zelophehad approach Joshua and remind him of the exception awarded to them by Moses so they can inherit the land. Joshua checks and them concurs with them and they become the first females within the Jewish community to inherit land and carry on the family name.

Why is this significant? This small, legal entanglement, coupled with Jeconiah’s curse, created a situation where The Lord pulls an apparent rabbit out of his hat when Mary’s virgin birth of Our Lord (the seed of the woman) established the greatest miracle of all with God becoming man. Mary, being of the line of David through Solomon’s second surviving son, Nathan, as we are told by Luke, fulfilled the prophecy that Jesus would be of the tribe of Judah and of the bloodline of David. There is still the problem of the legal royal line that still carries the curse. Matthew tells us that Joseph was of the royal bloodline of David through Solomon’s first surviving son, Rehoboam. Since Joseph was married to Mary and we find in Luke that her father had no sons, which means the exception-to-the-rule inheritance takes effect and Joseph becomes a son to Mary’s father which means Christ, by law becomes part of the royal line thus bypassing the cursed bloodline of Jeconiah. Wow! Isn’t that an ultra cool flanking maneuver by Our Lord? No one but Our Creator could have come up with such an unexpected chess move as this where he had Satan in check a thousand years before the move played out…only Satan didn’t know it.

I think the events of the daughters of Zelophehad’s appeal to Moses and Jeconiah’s curse by the Lord are just a couple of the thousands of strands of prophecy that is woven throughout the bible to form proof of the power and the majesty and of the unmistakable and irrefutable fact the The Lord is the only true God and Creator of all things.

God Bless, Jim

7-27-11

for Koinonia Institute

My preference among the scores of translations and paraphrases of the Word of God is the King James Version, or one of it’s derivatives. For the most part we can completely rely in that fact that when we open a copy of the King James Version, what we read within the covers of that translation of the bible is accurate. Why do I say for the most part? I say it because it seems all translations have errors. What about the King James Version then? Lets take a look.

Joe Focht, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Philadelphia, PA, in his lesson on the Accuracy of the Scriptures for the Koinonia Institute, spoke about the King James Version of the bible (Which I am going to refer to as the KJV). He said that the KJV is based on more than 5500 manuscripts with a major reliance on the Textus Receptus as well as the Hebrew Vorlage, the Latin Vulgate and the Masoretic Text plus many other old comparative manuscripts. Over 50 scholars were commissioned to create the translation which is based on a literal equivalency of the old manuscripts. Literal equivalency is where scholars translate word for word between languages as best that they can and they always defer to the meaning of the original language of the manuscript. Even though there were English translations before this time, the KJV was first widely available copy of the Holy Word available to the public because of the recent invention of the printing press. The extreme that these scholars prayerfully attacked their work to bring as accurate a translation as they could make, deferring to the nuances and meanings of the original languages of the manuscripts, gives us access to not only a faithful copy of the original scrolls and codices, but it gives us insights into the human writers of the bible, for we can render an understanding of them as people by inspecting their individual writing styles as we read the text.

Other translations such as the New International Version (I am going to refer to it as the NIV) however, were translated with a different agenda in mind. Even though the NIV was translated from some of the same texts as the KJV were1, the NIV was translated using what is referred to as dynamic equivalency. Dynamic equivalency means that men look at the original language and defer to the modern language and try to interpret what it means to us.

To defer to Joe Focht again he gave an example of the textual and interpretive difference between the changes in the NIV from the KJV:

3600 changes in the text

2000 singular to plural removes personal responsibility

1600 gender changes.

Wow, that’s a lot of changes and potentially a lot of dangerously incorrect ideas and assumptions that can be made by using the NIV as the sole access to the scriptures. Browsing the internet on the subject brought forth several websites dedicated to the dangers of the NIV translation of the bible.2 I sometime use quotes from the NIV and other translation when I look up scriptures in the Blue Letter Bible online for clarity, but I always compare it to the KJV for accuracy of context.

There even more modern translations that are much worse and they demonstrate a growing trend toward ‘feel good’ Christianity where personal responsibility and the lack of acceptability of our modern way of life is too harsh and unforgiving, therefore they are softening the word and making God a soft, cuddly teddy bear of a creator that accepts everything and everyone. It just getting insane, folks. But for those of us that still believe in that cruel, uncompromising truth called The Word of God, there is still the KJV and it’s derivatives to rely upon. The KJV has been around for so long and has been scrutinized by so many scholars that even though there are errors in the KJV translation. Those errors are well known and most of our copies we have in our hands record those slight errors as sidebars that can easily be researched and checked out. For, me, I believe the proof is in the pudding and the pudding is still the KJV.

All translations and versions will have disadvantages. What are the disadvantages of the KJV? Except for the textual errors which are very well known and noted. I believe the biggest disadvantage to the KJV is the Middle English verbiage of thee and thou and heareth, etc. which is probably the biggest reason there have been all these other translations popping up to make it more ‘language friendly’ with results ranging from stupidly absurd to dangerous to OK (such as the New King James Version). We all need to keep in mind what The Lord thoughts were when mankind starts meddling around with His Holy Word in some of these translation that are being bandied about.

Revelation 22:18-19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book. (KJV)

God Bless, Jim

7-24-11

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_International_Version

2 here is one person’s example of errors within the NIV: http://www.wordsoftruth.net/NIV2002.htm