Daily Bible Nugget #807, Acts 2:32

 

The Nugget:

Acts 2:32  This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

The Seventh Day Adventist Claim:

EG responded to me:

sure I do not like you. Firstly, if the apostles didn’t kept the sabbath did you think the Jews will not go after them when they persecuted Jesus only to heal in Sabbath? The Bible is clear that the first disciples kept the Saabbth from the resurrection all over the book of Acts . Mat 24:20, Acts 18:4. The issue of your interpretation is that you don’t know that the Sabbath day started prior of three Law, from the Creation Gen 2 , and the commandment says remember the sabbath day, means something already known or in place .

My Response:

You have not carefully addressed the challenge I gave you:

“There is no record in the New Testament that Christians ever met for Christian worship on the Sabbath.”

Your response was:

“The Bible is clear that the first disciples kept the Saabbth from the resurrection all over the book of Acts . Mat 24:20, Acts 18:4.”

It would likely be more correct to say that the first disciples kept the Sabbath until the resurrection.

You make reference to Matthew 24:20,

Mat 24:20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

This is a specifically Jewish reference in the Olivet Discourse. The difficulty for the Jews should their flight happen to take place on the Sabbath involves the fact that Jews in that day were forbidden to travel farther than “a Sabbath day’s journey,” about a mile.

It also involves the difficulty for Jews in that day because of the fact that the gates of the cities through which they must pass to travel the roads to flee would be shut, making escape difficult.

Matthew 24:20 has nothing to do with the supposed proper day of worship for Bible believing Christians of today. We are obviously not living under those circumstances which they faced back then.

You make reference to Acts 18:4,

Act 18:4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

When Paul reasoned every Sabbath in the synagogue, Paul was not present in the synagogue for the purpose of explicitly Christian worship (which involved partaking of the Lord’s Supper), but for witness to the Jews in obedience to the command of Christ found in Acts 1:8,

Act 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Paul was witnessing to the Jew first. The best place to find a group of Jews would be in a Jewish synagogue on the Sabbath day.

The Fourth Commandment is not found anywhere in the book of Genesis, contrary to your implied claim.

The Bible itself claims that the Sabbath commandment was first given on Mount Horeb to Moses, never before:

Deu 5:2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

Deu 5:3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.

but with us. This is a most clear statement that the Law was given first on this occasion at Mount Horeb to Moses, and never given at a prior time, including the Sabbath commandment, an affirmation confirmed by the combined witness of the following Bible references:

Nehemiah 9:13

13 Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:

King James Version

Nehemiah 9:14

14 And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:

King James Version

Ezekiel 20:9-12

9 But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

10 Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness.

11 And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.

12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.

King James Version

Ezekiel 20:20

20 And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.

King James Version

Malachi 4:4

4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

King James Version

The Sabbath Commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, a commandment observed every week, does not appear in the book of Genesis. Such a command was first given to Israel when the Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Horeb, as the Scripture references I have given you directly state.

 

EG replied to me:

you are so obsessed with your indoctrination that you ignored the Scriptures

Exodus 16 is before the 10 commandments (Exodus 20) so is not logic according to your reasoning that they kept the sabbath before

”And 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. Then 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.’ ” Then Moses said, “Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.” See! For the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.“

Exodus 16:22-23, 25-26, 29-30 NKJV

 

EG further responded to me:

non commandment was given in the Genesis but Cain was condemned for murder, they knew what was adultery (Abraham wife), etc. don’t be close minded.

If no commandment about murder why Cain was condemned?

 

My response to EG:

Very clearly, your belief directly contradicts the explicit statement given in Deuteronomy 5:3,

Deu 5:3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.

“This covenant,” which contained the Ten Commandments, was not made “with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.”

I furnished you with additional passages in the Bible which confirm this explicit statement of Moses, including Nehemiah 9:13, 14; Ezekiel 20:9-12, 20; Malachi 4:4.

The text of the book of Genesis does not contain the Sabbath commandment regarding a weekly day of rest. There is no evidence in the book of Genesis of any regular observance of such a day.

By necessary inference we can discern that in Patriarchal Times the Patriarchs (“our fathers”) had knowledge of the true God. They were aware of the use of altars, animal sacrifices, prayer, the tithe, and some of the basic morality later enshrined in the Ten Commandments. But what we now call the Fourth Commandment regarding the strict observance of a weekly Sabbath we find no trace.

 

My further response to EG:

If, as you claim, the Sabbath Law was already well-known to the Israelites before the Ten Commandment Law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai after the Exodus from Egypt, how do you explain the necessity to “remember the Sabbath” given with great particularity including dire consequences for failure to obey the directive if the Israelites already were most familiar with that Law?

Rather, as I have stated, and I have proved from Deuteronomy 5:3 and several confirmatory statements from the Old Testament itself, the Sabbath Commandment, the Fourth Commandment, was not made known to the fathers who lived before those assembled at Sinai when the Ten Commandments were first given.

In regard to the issues Paul addressed in the book of Galatians, you stated:

“Secondly, the problem in Galatian’s was not the Sabbath but the ceremonial laws, and they want to go back to the old system.”

First, the Galatians were Gentile believers so they were never in a position to “go back to the old system” for they had never been part of it. Rather, they were being deceived by those who were Judaizers who brought false doctrine accompanied by false practice.

Second, the practice Paul sternly warned against was the matter of observing the weekly seventh day Sabbath in obedience to the Law of Moses, which the Judaizers insisted was required for salvation.

Unfortunately, Seventh Day Adventists have sided with the Judaizers in this matter and are guilty of doctrinal apostasy in their mistaken emphasis upon the Sabbath.

 

EG responded:

as you deflected from my previous comment I will repeat again. Who Cain was condemned if not commandment was given ?

Exodus 16 is before Exodus 20 (Ten Commandments)so is evident that the observance of Sabbath was prior. Or you still want to argue that’s ?

Nevertheless, you make one good point why he has to remember? As you may know they were in Egypt as slaves and they kind of merge with the egipcias culture and was very difficult to slave to keep the Sabbath.

Again the Sabath is prior to the 10 commandments and came directly from the Creation since God rested the sabbath but some may think they are above Him

 

I responded to EG:

That Cain in fact was condemned for murder shows that long before the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, God had revealed or conveyed much truth to the Patriarchs. This truth included a knowledge about the coming Messiah (Genesis 3:15). We read of altars, sacrifices, the tithe, monogamy as opposed to polygamy (which Jesus also appealed to on the basis of Genesis 2:24 in Mark 10:6-8), but in the book of Genesis itself there is no mention of a weekly observance of a Sabbath day of rest.

In the New Testament, the Seventh Day Sabbath Commandment is NEVER ONCE listed in any of the several listings of the Ten Commandments, and is NEVER stated in the imperative mood of command.

In order for us today to be in line with, in conformity with, and obedient to the truth as it is now given to us in the New Testament, it is necessary for us to maintain the balance of truth in our teaching as it is found in the New Testament itself.

The New Testament itself emphasizes the apostolic witness to the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the grave “on the third day” (Luke 24:21. Acts 2:32). This is the message of the Gospel that must be believed in order to be saved (Romans 10:9, 10). Observance of the Seventh Day Sabbath is never seen in the New Testament as any part of the Gospel message.