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Episode 635: Did Jesus Keep The Sabbath
Notes:
Did Jesus Really love and honor the Sabbath or not ?
NO ONE IN JUDEA WOULD EVEN CONSIDER ALTERING THE SABBBATH ?
All Jews including Jesus were totally committed to the Sabbath. Why? It marked who was the true God , Jehovah the English version of His name. God gives His people a sign or mark that would define and set them apart from all the pagan nations!
Exodus 31:13 “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
Further, the apostle Paul is clear that the Old Testament and Israel are still the core of Christianity. He states this in Romans chapters nine thru eleven- clearly take note:
Romans 11:24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree..?
We gentile believers have been grafted into the theological system of the Bible including of course, the sign of God- the Sabbath. Paul says remember:
Romans 11:18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
It would have been considered spiritual treason to adopt Sunday and abandon the Sabbath. The Sabbath told the world who was your God, the Creator who rested on THAT DAY. No one in Israel during Christ days would even have considered leaving the sign or mark of the true God for a pagan symbol.
Exodus 31:16-17 Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. 17 ‘It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.'”
This is a clear and bluntly obvious scripture which all in Jesus’ society would know. Why ?
Ezekiel 20:12-23 “Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them. 13 “Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me..,and they greatly defiled My Sabbaths…but profaned My Sabbaths;..23 I lifted up mine hand unto them …that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries;
Everyone in the nation knew that they went into captivity for abusing the Sabbath, and they were determined to not make that mistake again and face the wrath of God.
WHAT ASSUMPTIONS ARE CLEAR IN THE NEW TESTAMENT ?
BELIEVERS IN JESUS OF NAZARETH were considered a sect within Judaism, note:
John 4:22″You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
Romans 2:28-29 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter;
Revelation 3:9 “Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie–indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
Acts 10:14 But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.”..28 Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.
Acts 18:15 “But if it is a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves;..”19 “but had some questions against him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, who had died, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.
The Jewish leadership rejected Jesus as the Messiah but, it did not undercut the Sabbath law or any other law appropriately applied.
Acts 24:14 “But this I confess.., so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.
Mark 2:27-28 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.”
Further Jesus was not resurrected as the sun rose on Sunday morning, He was already gone while it was still dark. Note John 20:1-3. When the gentiles were given an exception on that requirement to be circumcised, note what was assumed.
Acts 15:20-21 NKJV 20 “but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. 21 “For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
Where were the gentiles converts to be found, in the synagogue on the Sabbath of course.
Acts 26:11″And I (Paul) punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged against them,..
FURTHER PROOF THAT GENTILE BELIEVERS KEPT THE SABBATH
Paul spoke in synagogues on the Sabbath many times in his ministry to gentiles. Note this:
Acts 16:13 NKJV 13 And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.
Acts 17:2 NKJV 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
If the true believers had been keeping Sunday for the last 25-30 years why did believers still meet on the Sabbath at the river. Did Paul take new converts and move them over to Sunday ?
Acts 13:42-44 NKJV 42 So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. 43 Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. 44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.
He did not and at the very end of the New Testament cannon period, regarding believers, the Jews still considered them an unpopular sect within Judaism. This would not have happened if they had been keeping Sunday-Easter for an entire generation , THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED pagan and lost years ago by other Jews. It is clear that Sunday came centuries later. Naturally the small scattered true church never did keep Sunday.
Acts 28:21-22 NKJV 21 Then they said…”We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren who came reported or spoken any evil of you. 22 “But we desire to hear from you what you think; for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere.”