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What Changed at the Cross & What Happened to the Lord’s Day?

Many people have read a number of our articles on the web and are confused by some of the conclusions. In your article, What Changed at the Cross, you claim the laws of Moses were nailed to the cross, but you maintain there remains a difference between clean and unclean foods. This seems contradictory. If the laws of Moses were abolished at the cross, then the difference between clean and unclean foods has to disappear. The apostle Paul agrees: “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.”  (1 Timothy 4:4,5)

Second, in your article, What happened to the Lord’s Day?, you claim that Saturday, the seventh day of the week, is God’s holy day, but Paul says it doesn’t matter which day of the week we keep holy. “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.  He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and give thanks to God.” (Romans 14: 5,6)

I will explain these conflicts. There are many of you who want to know more of God’s truth and are searching for answers. I will offer two short responses to your questions and then I will provide substantial responses for deeper study.

 

Clean and Unclean Animals

God made a sharp distinction between clean and unclean animals one thousand years before Moses received the law. At the time of Noah’s flood, God sent into the ark seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals. (Genesis 7:2) The greater question that needs to be addressed is: Why did God make some animals clean and others unclean? Unclean animals were created to be scavengers. They eat the refuse of Earth and God declared them unfit for human consumption. When God delivered Israel out of Egypt, He wanted His people to be a healthy nation. Therefore, God gave them dietary restrictions that were based on His design and creation, and forbade the eating of unclean animals. (Leviticus 11) Even though the laws of Moses were discontinued at the cross (Colossians 2:14; Hebrews 7:12), unclean animals are still scavengers and remain unfit for human consumption. The consumption of unclean food is not an unpardonable sin, but it is foolish to rebel against God’s wisdom. God wants His children to enjoy good health and long life. Since diets affects our well being, God has generously revealed what is good to eat and what is not. Paul refers to the body as God’s temple; therefore, we should be thoughtful about our diet! (1 Corinthians 3: 16,17)  A longer response to this matter will be presented later, but for now, consider Paul’s words to the church at Corinth [insertion mine]:

“’Therefore [children of God] come out from them [the heathen] and be separate [from the pagans], says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’ Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” (2 Corinthians 3: 16,17)

The Seventh Day Sabbath

You also asked if the observance of the seventh day Sabbath is necessary since the laws of Moses were nailed to the cross. I know that many people use Paul’s comment in Colossians 2: 14-16, Ephesians 2:15 and Romans 14 to nullify the fourth commandment which commands us to keep the seventh day holy, but I think this is a distortion of Scripture.

There is nothing Jewish or Levitical about the seventh day Sabbath. God’s seventh day Sabbath predates Abraham (the first Jew) by 2,000 years! The seventh day was declared holy at Creation. “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” (Genesis 2:1-3) The first full day of life for Adam and Eve was God’s seventh day Sabbath. You might be surprised to know that Adam and Eve understood the holiness of the seventh day and they faithfully observed it while they were in the Garden of Eden. We know this because the Bible describes the first sin of Adam and Eve. This sin was not the desecration of the seventh day. (Genesis 3) We can also conclude that Adam and Eve passed this knowledge to their offspring. This is demonstrated by the fact that some 2,500 years after Creation, God tested the nation of Israel to see if they would keep His seventh day holy before He gave them the Ten Commandments. God would not test Israel’s willingness to observe His Sabbath if they did not know about it. (See Exodus 16.)

A few weeks after the Exodus, God Himself descended from Heaven and personally spoke the Ten Commandments from Mt. Sinai. At that time, He declared the seventh day had been made holy during Creation week-as a memorial to His Creative works. (Exodus 20: 8-11) The first word of the fourth commandment is “remember.” Since the seventh day is a memorial to God’s Creation week, why should this memorial be discontinued at the cross?

The Ten Commandments were widely known by the people who lived before the flood because God’s law was passed down from generation to generation by oral tradition. Think about this: When God delivered the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai, murder did not suddenly become wrong, adultery did not suddenly become wrong, taking God’s name in vain did not suddenly become wrong, and the holiness of the seventh day did not suddenly begin! How do we know this? In Noah’s day, before the flood, mankind lived in defiant rebellion of God’s commandments. Look at this text: “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” (Genesis 6: 5,6, emphasis mine)  The point is that the antediluvians were destroyed because of wickedness. The biblical definition of wickedness is defiant rebellion. Paul says, “… And where there is no law, there is no transgression.” (Romans 4:15) God destroyed the antediluvians because they rejected His authority. As a God of love, He had no other choice but to destroy the people who were destroying succeeding generations.

The Ten Commandments define sin. They are God’s declaration of right and wrong to man. Contrary to many claims, the Ten Commandments were not discontinued at the cross and the apostles never suggested this was the case. (Romans 3: 31; 7:7; James 2: 10,11) Paul’s comments in Romans 14, about one man regarding a particular day as a holy day while another man regarding that same day as a common day, have nothing to do with God’s seventh day Sabbath. Romans 14 concerns the observance of six annual Jewish feast days that were also called Sabbaths even though they fell on various days of the week. (Leviticus 16:31)

Paul’s comments in Romans 14 were limited to a specific controversy. Jewish and Gentile converts in Rome were arguing over the consumption of clean meat that had been presented before idols. This act, Jewish believers argued, polluted clean meat-making it unclean. Some of the Jewish believers wanted to observe Jewish feast days and Gentile believers argued this was not necessary since the Law of Moses had been discontinued. Paul’s position on both of these “disputable” matters is clear: If a Jewish convert wants to observe a feast day because he thinks it is holy, then give that believer the freedom to do so. There is no harm done. Likewise, if a Gentile believer wants to eat clan meat that has been offered to an idol, then give him the freedom to do so. An idol is nothing, so no harm is done. However, Paul makes it clear that believers cannot use their freedom from the laws of Moses to offend the sensitivities of new converts who are weak and immature in their faith!

I know that my explanation of Romans 14 will not be acceptable to many people. So, let us take Paul’s words in Romans 14: 5,6 at face value by asking a question. “If the holiness of Saturday, the seventh day of the week, was terminated at the cross, where does God Himself say this is so? Please bear with me for a moment regarding this question. This world was created by speech. The creator spoke and it appeared. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light…. ‘For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.’” (Genesis 1:3; Psalm 33:9) How can mere mortals undo these commands? The Ten Commandments were so important to God that our Creator did not permit Moses to speak them to Israel. God Himself descended from Heaven to declare His Ten Commandments and there is no evidence in the Bible that He has declared them null and void.

If Romans 14 gives human beings the right to arbitrarily determine which day of the week is holy, this would make every day of the week holy. Some people would choose Sunday to be holy, some would choose Monday, some would choose Friday, etc. Was the world created in six days by men? Do men have the authority to convert one of God’s work days into a holy day? Isn’t man made of dust? How can he presume to redefine God’s memorial to the incredible and unparalleled event called the Creation of Earth? Many Christians fail to understand why God created the seventh day and this allows them to casually dismiss or diminish the importance of it.

When Jesus was on Earth, the Pharisees falsely accused Him of violating the Sabbath commandment. Jesus never sinned (Hebrews 4:15), so Jesus did not break the Sabbath. Instead, He broke the Pharisees’ rigid and distorted views. Jesus responded tot heir accusations saying, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) The seventh day was established at Creation for our benefit because God wants human beings to rest from their work on the seventh day just as He rested from His work. God has given mankind a day of rest so that we can thoughtfully consider the creative works of our Creator. If mankind did this, the truth and glory of God would fill the whole Earth today!

One last point. The Bible teaches the Ten Commandments are just as obligatory today as they were at Creation. (I will demonstrate this point in my longer response.) God winks at the ignorance of billions of people who currently do not understand their obligation to obey the fourth commandment. (Acts 17:30) However, a time is coming when God will notify the whole world that everyone is required to worship Him on His seventh day Sabbath. During the Great Tribulation, God’s 144,000 servants will proclaim that everyone is commanded to worship the Creator on “His” holy day. (Revelation 14: 6,7) Of course, many people will rebel against God’s demands just like they did in Noah’s day and they will be very shocked when God confronts their rebellion. Revelation 11:19 points forward to a day near the end of the Great Tribulation when the Ten Commandments will be completely visible in the sky. God will show the wicked the very law they rejected and the law by which they will be judged. For now, you have my short responses to your questions and I hope you will continue reading and investigating these interesting matters in greater detail.

 

Early Christian Conflicts

Many Christians unknowingly manipulate and distort the Scriptures, particularly the writings of Paul. Textual distortion occurs when a person lifts a text out of its context and applies it to an issue that has nothing to do with the original context or setting of that text. When people offer Scriptural support for conclusions that stand in opposition to the body of Scripture, distortion occurs. The Bible is not internally conflicted. Textual distortion has been a problem ever since Moses wrote the book of Genesis. Jews and Christians alike have been guilty of distorting Scripture. The apostle Peter noticed how Paul’s writings were often distorted. He wrote, “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3: 15,16) If Peter’s words were true during the first century A.D. when specific controversies in the early church were ongoing, how much easier is it to distort Paul’s writings today now that we are removed from both the setting and circumstances of Paul’s day by two thousand years?

Bible history indicates the Christian Church began within Judaism in A.D. 30. For many years, there was very little difference between Jews and early Christians. In fact, Romans considered Christians to be a sect of Judaism – just as the Pharisees were a sect of Judaism. The extraction of Christianity from Judaism was painful, slow, full of intense feelings, and grievous conflict. Jewish leaders hated the Christian movement because they saw Christianity undermining their religious control and considered it an apostate offshoot. The Romans hated Christians because they thought they were Jews. To make matters worse, early Jewish converts found it difficult to worship with Gentile converts because of their ‘disgusting” ways, and Gentile converts had a difficult time being around Jewish believers because Jewish believers insisted on maintaining their Jewish traditions. If it had not been for the powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit and the dedication of the apostles, the early Christian Church would have died in the graveyard of controversy by the end of the first century A.D.

Everyone reading the New Testament needs to understand that Jewish converts came into the early church with strong Jewish paradigms. They were ninety-five percent Jewish in their thinking and ninety-nine percent Jewish in their behavior. The same was true for Gentiles. The theological ramifications of the ministry and death of Jesus took several decades to understand. Old habits and cherished beliefs die-hard and it took a few generations before Christians and Gentiles became a unique and cohesive body of believers. To keep the Christian church from imploding after His ascension, Jesus gave the apostles many revelations that spurred them to develop Christianity. To make matters worse (or so it may have seemed at the time), Jesus appointed Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles. The addition of Gentiles into the Jewish/Christian conflict that already existed added another level of confusion for early Jewish converts. All of these conflicts were timely and important because God wanted church leaders (which were former Jews) to carefully research and clarify Christian doctrine.

A survey of Paul’s fourteen books in the New Testament reveals an interesting fact. The first century Christian church faced many well-defined problems because any assembly of Jewish and Gentile converts always produced the same controversies. These controversies included topics involving the Law of Moses, the pollution of food which has been offered to idols, the drinking of animal blood, the subject of circumcision, fornication, the observance of feast days and other religious customs.