These churches may even be trying to outdo the Jews to whom the Sabbath has been given according to the Torah or the Book of the Laws through Moses. The Torah is composed of books containing laws or commandments given by God through Moses that are specific and exclusive only to the Jews alone.
Jewish Rabbis are one in saying that the Gentiles are not covered by all the Laws given to the Jewish people but that the Gentiles are covered by the Noahide laws - universal moral and natural laws given for all mankind that do not include the law on the sabbath. On the other hand, all the Noahide laws are included in the covenant between God and Israel given in Exodus we call the Ten Commandments which actually are not just Ten according to the Jewish teachings but 613 laws in all.
THE SATURDAY SABBATH-KEEPERS AND THE SDA
They have differentiated themselves from other Protestant churches with their regular observance of the Sabbath on Saturday that for them is one of the Pillars of their doctrines as a church. Foremost of Saturday Sabbath-Keepers is the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) cult. Since the founding of SDA, they have made the Saturday Sabbath-keeping the center of their religious faith because they believe that Saturday is the unversal seventh day of the week. They go around the world preaching that all the other churches who follow Jesus Christ but don't observe the Sabbath on Saturday are in error and in violation of the commandment of God. That members of those churches must convert to SDA for their salvation. This is contradictory to Christians Faith that Jesus is the end of the Law and the fulfillment even of the sabbath. That Jesus alone is the rock of salvation not the keeping of the Sabbath.
Since the Catholic Church has the biggest and largest membership in the world, it is the main target of the SDA recruitment to their cult and all the other cults. Unlike in the past centuries when the Catholic Church would even go to secular schools to teach Catechism, many modern-day Catholics today lack the necessary Catechism, and because they lack the knowledge regarding the biblical origin of the Church doctrines they have become easy prey for the Saturday Sabbath-Keepers who go from house to house preaching and spreading heretical beliefs. There are Catholics who have fallen to SDA doctrinal heresies and black propaganda against the Catholic Church. They left the Catholic Church and became members of the SDA. But soon many of them also left the SDA some even founded their own heretical churches one of the more famous SDA members is the founder of Iglesia ni Cristo, Felix Manalo.
The main doctrinal argument of SDA for their Saturday Sabbath-keeping is Exodus 20:8-10
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it, you shall not do any work..."
What then is the meaning of this commandment for the Catholic Church and the Catholics? This is the 3rd commandment in the Ten Commandments according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, not the 4th as the SDA would teach. The differences between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches such as the SDA are far and wide, especially on the Sabbath. The Catholic Church continues to teach in its Catechism the observance of the Sabbath. It has not in any way "abolished" it much more change it otherwise it won't be in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, the Lord's Day which is on a Sunday has become the day of the Sabbath for the Catholics and even the mainstream Protestant denominations. The SDA observes the Sabbath on Saturday while the Catholic Church observes the Sabbath on a Sunday. The question which one is right?
WHAT IS THE SABBATH?
Since one of the Laws of the Ten Commandments obliges us to "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" we must first deal with the true meaning of the Sabbath.
The word "sabbath" in an English word is a transliteration of the Hebrew word "shavat", meaning to "rest", to "cease", or to "stop". The word "shavat" first appeared in Genesis 2 in the Hebrew Bible after the sixth-day creation account in Genesis 1. We can read the following in Gen 2:2-3: "On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation." The Hebrew word for rested or rest is "shavat" or "sabbath".
On a closer look, we need to take note of three important lessons that we will discuss separately that will change our understanding of the Sabbath from the limited perspective and shallow understanding of the day it must be observed to its deeper meaning in understanding God's purpose for his creation encapsulated in the word sabbath:
1. On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing.
Did not God finish the work on the 6th day? Why does the text say "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing"? By this text, it appears that God still has done something on the 7th day when he ceased the work of creation. Was it possible that while God completed his work on creation on the 6th day yet he still did some things on the seventh day but were no longer considered work of creation? Thus as far as work of creation, God had ceased or rested but he is still at work in sustaining his creation.
In the 6 days of creation, God introduced the reckoning of time and day with "Evening came, and morning followed—the first day". Together with the creation of the world and everything in it, God appeared to have introduced the reckoning of time and days and must have been the basis of the calendar that will be invented later on in the ancient civilizations. It then appeared that God has limited himself by his own accord to time and day which is peculiar since he is eternal and is not subject to space and time. But one thing we noticed when the count "Evening came and morning followed - the sixth day" at the end of Genesis 1, there was no such count on the seventh day in Genesis 2. Time and day reckoning has stopped on the seventh day after creation when God had finished the work he had been doing. We must remember this as we go through the Article.
Now let us go back to Genesis 2 again. We are told that God planted a garden in Eden. When was the garden planted at the time of creation may not be known exactly but if we compare both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as to the timing of which came first in creation there seems to be confusion with or among the writer(s) of the book of Genesis. In Genesis 1, the animals were first created before man, but in Genesis 2 it appears the man was already created before the animals. Which one is correct then? This can be explained with the theory of the 2 sources of Genesis, the Yahwist, and the Priestly sources. When there are differences in the account of the witnesses to arrive at the truth, we will need to look at what is common to both and that is both points to the fact that God created all living things on the 6th day. We are pointing this up for us to understand that while there may appear to be contradictory statements both are talking of the same thing that happened in Genesis 1 and 2.
Genesis 1 is a generalization of what had taken place in the 6 days of creation. But in Genesis 2 some of the details of creation are expounded such that we know that man was first created before the animals and the woman. and before the garden of Eden was planted. In verses 5-7 it says "there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the ground, but a stream was welling up out of the earth and watering all the surface of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." When man was created, God planted the garden in Eden and then took the man and settle him in the garden "to cultivate and care for it."
After God had settled the man in the garden he then created the animals, birds of the air, all living creatures and brought them to the man for him to give a name to each one of them but none of them proved to be suitable as a helper to man, so God then created the woman from the rib of the man. For God, this is not impossible but for man, to do all the things we read in Genesis 2 in one day must be impossible so we have some questions which will be the subject of our discussion in this series of articles particularly on what is the equivalent of a day in Genesis? For now, we just have to deal with God who has completed his work on the seventh day.
So then the purpose of the creation of Adam is for him to do the works in sustaining (cultivate) what God has created and to care for them. This is consistent with Ephesians 2:10 that says "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life." In Genesis 2:15 the word to cultivate is to work on the garden and care for it. Thus when God had finished the work, he then gave the "good works" of sustaining his creation to Adam as a way of life.
What are in the Garden of Eden that Adam has to care for it and for what is the Garden for?
Isaiah 43:7 "All who are called by my name I created for my glory; I formed them, made them." The world is represented in the Garden. Everything in the world is in the garden there is nothing in creation that is not in the garden. It is paradise. All of the living creatures and the means to sustain life on earth are represented in the garden where man is given dominion over everything to care for them. Even the woman was created as a helper to man. She is to be a partner and united with the man for all the works needed in the garden representing God's creation.
The Garden of Eden was planted by God for his dwelling place on earth and put the man there Adam as his deputy that he may rule over the world through him. There in the Garden, he meets Adam and Eve, and he continues to make his presence even as he has completed his work of creation. So it appears that the very purpose of the Garden is to serve as the dwelling place of God among men on the earth with the cooperation of Adam as his deputy. This shows that after creation was completed God rested but sustains his creation through the cooperation of man.
So where God stops working on the seventh day, the man's work begins. We are made to do the good works of God as a way of life.
2. He rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken.
Rest here which literally means "to cease" in Hebrew is not about how we understand rest as human beings like God relaxing or taking leisure, What the word rest means is that God's creation was complete, perfect, and finished. There was nothing more to create and so God ceased or rested from all his work of creation on the seventh day. Here is the key to understanding the deeper meaning of the Sabbath which is God's rest.
God's rest is eternal and not limited to space and time. The six days of creation are memorialized on the seventh day when God ceased the work of creation on that day. But the seventh day that refers to the day God enters his rest is eternal which is why creation must be eternal and continuing. Again we note that after the sixth day of creation the reckoning of time and day also stopped as there was no mention of "Evening came and morning followed - the seventh day" meaning the end of the seventh day and the beginning of the eight-day was not recorded although the 7th day is very much part of creation as the climax of God's creative action.
So when God entered his rest or sabbath on the seventh day after creation, he left the care of his creation to Adam as we shall see when the sixth day was completed there was no more counting of evening and morning on the seventh day signifying eternity of God's rest and the beginning of man's work in the Garden of Eden, the garden planted by God.
God's creation is originally meant for eternity and not for destruction and the Sabbath is the remembrance for that original purpose of God. Therefore God's rest is the glory of God's creation remembered or memorialized in the Sabbath for all time.
When God entered his rest after creation, he brought in his rest, Adam and Eve. God's rest is in the Garden Paradise of Eden. There Adam and Eve have the beatific vision of God's glory and they have everything even though their work is to cultivate and take care of the Garden paradise, their work is light and not burdensome as the land is very fertile that all kinds of plants and fruits grow with ease.
3. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation.
The meaning of "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy" can literally mean "God rested on the seventh day and set it apart." God "set apart" the seventh day as the day he rested from the work of creation and sanctified it. Genesis 2 tells us what God did after the sixth day of creation and the text of the scripture is not about a commandment to observe the sabbath. We understand this now because at that point there is nothing to remember yet as Adam and Eve were living early on in the creation and they are in God's rest in the Garden Paradise of Eden.
All creations exist because God sustains their existence otherwise, since they come from nothing, without God, all creations will come back to nothing from where they started. In philosophical reasoning, nothing can come from nothing, but nothing is impossible to God that he can make things happen by his Word.
All creations glorify the work of God in them and since God entered his rest on the seventh day, he blessed it and made it holy. However when God ceased work on the creation, his entire creation by the same spirit of God that continues to exist in all of creation "works" to sustain them. The divine plan works through each created being and materials to achieve the very purpose of their existence. Thus all of the creation glorifies God in the state of which they are created and made. And so for his own purpose and will, he sustains his creation and is, therefore, God is in a sense perpetual work in sustaining his creations.
The creative spirit of God is continuously present and they give glory to God. This is the reason why Jesus said, "...even now the Father is at work and I'm at work". Meaning the Father is continuously at work non-stop in sustaining his creation because God is beyond the measure of space and time. By his design in creation, he is ever-present in them that they have become his pro-creators enabling the material physical creation to multiply, renew, and sustain their existence.
God is the reason we continue to exist. In Science, they have discovered for the first time what sustain matters to hold together and they call it God's particle or Higgs boson. It gives mass to matter without it there will be no mass and all things go back to nothing that is why Scientists call it God's particle. It is the thing that holds all matters together of living things and material things. We don't see it working according to its design, but it is there, that is why in faith we profess that God is the creator of all things both seen and unseen.
WHY IS THERE NO COMMANDMENT OF THE SABBATH IN GENESIS?
Before the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, there was no hard work. The man was in a state of God's rest in the Garden of Eden. The man was with God in Paradise. Note that in Paradise there was no reckoning of night and day, there was no counting of days unlike during the days of creation when every day from the first day to the sixth day was reckoned with "Evening came, and morning followed—the nth day" observance. It was an easy-going lifestyle for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden called Paradise.
They have everything they need for life without the need for labor. Yes, they cultivate the garden and care for it, they have dominion over all the things God created in accordance with God's purpose for them yet they did not labor as the Garden was very fruitful because the Garden in itself is God's dwelling place on earth where he interacts with man. Adam and Eve were in God's rest, the eternal presence of God. They have the beatific vision of God in the Garden that appeared to converse with them, give them instructions and orders.
Labor means hard physical work toiling to survive. How did the man end up laboring for his survival? In Genesis 2:16-17, The Lord God gave the man this order: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die" But as we know in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and fell into sin thus for their punishment, God cursed the ground that Adam cultivates Genesis 3:17-19 To the man he said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, You shall not eat from it, Cursed is the ground because of you! In toil (labor), you shall eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you, and you shall eat the grass of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dust, and to dust, you shall return" Note the word "In toil, you shall eat its yield all the days of your life". The word "toil" means very hard labor.
The very basic necessity of life is food. Man has to eat to live and there in Genesis 3 the fearful consequence of disobeying God resulted in separation from him from God's rest, from his presence, from Paradise, the man was banned and was not allowed entry. From easy life of abundance to hard life and hard labor to be able to live all the days of his life meaning no rest for him or he will starve to death. God threw out of his rest, Adam and Eve, and would not allow man from that time to enter his rest. Just as what he did centuries into the future to the erring Israelites who disobeyed him, they were not allowed entry into the promised land Hebrew 3:11 As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest."
The separation of man from God's rest was a very difficult period of time for Adam who lived for 930 years and this can be deduced from what Lamech said, the father of Noah in Genesis 5:28-29 When Lamech was one hundred and eighty-two years old, he begot a son and named him Noah, saying, “This one shall bring us relief from our work and the toil of our hands, out of the very ground that the Lord has put under a curse.”. Lamech was hoping that Noah will give them relief from labor without rest but such liberation will not come centuries past into the future when the savior, the Messiah finally comes.
Man's separation from God has even resulted in the corruption of the whole mankind and the earth except Noah who found favor with God was ultimately punished with the Flood. Only those in the Ark of Noah survived to repopulate the earth.
We have proven from the Genesis scriptures that God has not and never made a command on the observance of the sabbath day. What the SDA has done is to interpret Genesis 2:3-4 as a command to all people of the world for the sabbath day observance which is not. It only tells us what God has done on the seventh day. In fact, after the Great Flood, God has entered a covenant with Noah and the sabbath is not part of the covenant in the form of commands known as Noahide Laws which according to the Jewish Rabbis are moral and natural laws that is valid for non-Jews while the Mosaic Laws are exclusive only to Israel both Noahide Laws and Mosaic Laws have the same moral and natural laws.
It was not until the Exodus when God's plan of salvation was put into action when he took it upon himself to save the Israelites from the bondage of slavery in Egypt through Moses as the mediator between Him and the Israelites and their leader.
IN CONCLUSION
The Sabbath memorialized the sixth day's work of creation of God and glorify him. Sabbath is God's rest that marked the day God ceased from His work of creation. In six days God entered into space and time and introduced the reckoning of time and day marking the beginning and end of each day of Creation with "Evening comes and morning followed - the nth day" from the first day to the sixth day. On the seventh day, God ceased working and entered back to eternity of space and time, the seventh day is not marked in Genesis as having ended like the six days of creation it is a continuum - God's rest, eternal, thus it is blessed and sanctified because in it we find God.
Sabbath of God or God’s rest is about entering the Glory of God. God’s glory is seen in all his creation and the Sabbath is the apex of all his works, it is the climax after which there is nothing more to create. Thus time stops and eternity follows. So when God rested He entered back into eternity, His divine realm. He was happy and satisfied with all his creations that in it he put up his own park, the Garden of Eden, and placed there Adam his first human creation to take care of the Garden and have dominion over his creation. Thus when God ceased creating, man begun working. But in the beginning, such work is not laborious because Man was in the realm of God in the physical world. God's presence was there and work was a joyful experience to do obeying the will of God at all times. Work was a blessing and fruitful for the man until he fell into sin and work became a curse, a lifetime of enslavement to hardship and pain as a consequence of disobedience and sin against God.
- By Bro. Manny OTFS Apologist
Go to Discovering the Sabbath Part 2
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