The 7 Myths Of Forgiveness

1. Forgiveness Does Not Mean Restored Trust 

When we forgive we get changed, not the person who did us wrong. The person's character who did you wrong is still the same. It's damaged and needs to be transformed and healed by Christ before you can develop trust with that person again. Remember actions speak louder then words, look for the change in actions to see if there character truly has changed. If not then it's like putting your hand back into the pocket with the snake, your going to get bit and/or burned again by that person.


2. Forgiveness Does Not Come After The Offender Says There Sorry 

We need to forgive them in our own hearts to free us from the damage it can do in our own lives if we hold onto it. Then if the offender also says sorry, well that's great too and you want that as well. but saying sorry and having true repentance for the sickness in your heart that lead you to make/do the bad choice/sin is totally different. Most people who say they are sorry really do mean it when they say, but they are also thinking about ways to do it again and not get caught next time. True repentance that leads to true reconciliation is when your are sorry for the sick heart and mind that lead you to do the bad deed.


3. Forgiveness Does Not Equal Salvation 

We need a “Remedy” (God dieing on the cross for our sins) and “Trust” in the one who provided the remedy so we will follow God. Jesus's death on the cross wasn't enough, it was just the "Remedy". We then also need "Trust" in God so we will follow God and take the remedy he provided on the cross.


4. Forgiveness Does Not Mean What They Did Was Ok 

No that person who did you wrong is still wrong and should know that for themselves, and you should let them know this fact in a kind loving way.


5. Forgiveness Does Not Lead To Greater Vulnerability 

When you get burned you lose the ability to tell the difference between touches of play, touches of aggression, and touches of love….everything hurts. We must heal the wounds. So don't hold onto hate or anger thinking that it makes you strong and/or will make you a weak person if you extend forgiveness to someone. Holding onto it only eats you alive and causes stress.....stress you will carry around forever if you don't deal with it with Christ! 


6. Forgiveness Does Not Mean We Have To Forget 

Jesus forgives our sins, but that doesn't mean they are erased from the record books in heaven. At the final judgment God knows all of our past sins and bad things we have done. They are apart of our history and will never go away......but here is the beautiful part. Jesus died for our sins and loves us so much that when he judges us he judges us with our new transformed heart and characters that we received when we gave our life to Christ when we accepted him, understood him, believed in him, trusted in him with faith, and love Him as our Father in heaven. If you do that Christ judges us based on our new characters....so our sins that are in our past don't apply as far as our salvation is concerned. That doesn't give us a licence to sin, but a choice to remember the past, but don't forget so we don't repeat it again. That's why actions speak louder then words.....look for them so you can ask yourself......has that person real changed? How are they different? Is it safe to start to rebuild a relationship with that person? There character will give you all the evidence you need.


7. Forgiveness Does Not Mean The Offender Gets Away With It 

Jesus knows everything and nobody can get away with it in His eye. Jesus will judge all fairly in the end, and justice will be served. Remember the soul and character gets damaged in the person who did us wrong, so they are paying the price already here on earth as they live. Imagine you are raped as a little kid by your uncle. Would you want to live your life recovering from the damage or live as your uncle going around raping kids all the time. I mean would you want to live that other life? No way!! Imagine living your uncle's life and you go around raping kids day after day after day. Of course you would pick your own life....and why would you? Because something much deeper gets damaged in the person who does us wrong. Imagine how damaged that uncles character must be to rap kids everyday and rest easy at night. There character might be beyond repair, might be eternally lost.

Is The Bible Accurate?

1.     How do we know the Bible is accurate and true?

There are three manuscripts from which all Bibles in all languages are translated. The Bible was written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.  You’ve got the “Textus Receptus”, which means “Received Text” in Latin. 

The word “Holy Bible” or “Santa Biblia” means “Holy Book” – the word “Bible” means “Book”. Martin Luther felt that it was the most dependable text, and the King James Version and the New King James Version in English are translated from the Textus Receptus.

There are two other manuscripts that have been questioned by many. That’s the Vaticanus, which was found in the Vatican library.  It’s an old manuscript which have some inconsistencies with the Vaticanus manuscript.  Martin Luther said in his words it’s ‘a bastardized version.

The other was one called the Sinaiticus.  The Sinaiticus was found on St. Catherine’s monastery. They found it in a dump which would make it suspicious! So the Sinaiticus had some of the same inconsistencies as the Vaticanus manuscript. They did use all of those manuscripts in creating the New International Version (NIV) Bible.  For instance in the NIV Bible, the story where the woman is caught in the act of adultery in the book of John, That story wasn’t in the Vaticanus version, and so there are some very beautiful stories that just are missing from these other manuscripts. When we talk about the manuscripts this only applies to the New Testament, because the Old Testament is much more dependable.  The Jews have kept it very secure and up-to-date, and there are very few inconsistencies, which are also proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The questionable manuscripts are the ones that pertain to the New Testament.

Some Deleted Verses in the New Testament that are not found in the NIV Bible

Matthew 17:21

Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, 15:28, 16:9-20

Luke 17:36, 23:17

John 5:4

Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:7, 28:29

Justification

Ok I think we should go over justification to start 
things off. To justify means “to demonstrate or to prove to be just, right or valid. To declare free of blame and free of the guilt and penalty attached to grievous sin. Therefore justification is a legal declaration of innocence. If you’re justified you’re declared just. According to the Bible every human (except Jesus) who has ever lived has sinned and is guilty for crimes punishable by death. To be justified by Christ means that the Lord declares you to be forgiven untainted by the crimes you have committed against Him. Yet who has the right to be declared justified without the grace of God, especially when even just one sin disqualifies a person from eternal life? Christ’s character stands in place of your character, (and my character) and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned. Justification means God looks upon you “like just-as-if-ication”. He looks upon you ”just as if” you had never sinned. Instead of seeing your filthy rags (even though you sinned and those facts did happen in history as part of your life), God sees the righteousness of His Son in your place, and you are accounted righteousness. I mean how cool is that right?

But sadly most people continue to live in open rebellion against God. So how do we obtain that justification? Most people in church or even outside of church will give you different answers…..from faith to works. Well it’s irrelevant because all that matters is what the Bible has to say about it.

 “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15). According to this verse, salvation is a gift. 

Romans 6:23 highlights this idea when it says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Justification is apparently not something for which we work. Well salvation is a gift, and thus by definition you cannot earn it. Have you ever received a gift that you earned? If so, it wasn’t a gift, because anything ceases to be a gift if you’ve done something to earn it. If you can only take possession of something with a payment, whether it’s money, a trade, or service….even after the fact, well then it’s not really a gift. 

Romans 5:17,18 says, “For if by one man’s [Adam] offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [Jesus] the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life”. 

This free gift results in justification. According to the Bible, are we justified by works or by a gift that comes in response to faith? The Bible is clear on this but lets dive deeper.Luke was a gentile who really understood the teachings of Jesus, especially when it concerned justification through faith as a gift. Here is what it says in Luke chapter 18.

“And he spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:9–14). 

As you know one of the problems in the time of Christ was that many of the religious leaders believed they were made righteous by their good deeds. They trusted in their own righteousness while they looked down on others as worthless sinners. The Pharisee was a part of a sect of Judaism known for its rigid stance of obeying the law, while tax collectors (publicans) were associated with a very loose and scandalous lifestyle. Pharisees might have been considered the obvious choice for eternal life by most people of Jesus day, but Jesus had different ideas. Notice that the Pharisee is said to pray “thus with himself.” In other words, he’s praying to himself and not so much to God. He goes on to thank God that he’s not like the worst sinners of the world, and more than that, he reminds God that he tithes and fasts regularly. It’s probably an honest resume, and technically it’s a good one. “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the … Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). 

But instead of thanking God for His goodness in humility, he’s thanking God for his resume as a point of pride. The tax collector however doesn’t even feel worthy to approach the front of the temple….instead, he stands back and cowers before the altar. His feelings of guilt and shame cause him to bow his head and beat on his breast, a sign of repentance….a genuine display of his sorrow for sin. He pleads to God to be merciful on him, a lowly sinner. Where the Pharisee has so much to offer God, the publican has nothing good to offer. Also unlike the Pharisee, he’s appealing solely to God’s mercy. My point is that according to Christ, the one who went home justified that day was the reviled tax collector, which means the respected Pharisee did not, even though he was paying his tithe, fasting twice a week, and most likely living an exemplary religious life of obedience. But where do works play into all of this….aren’t works connected with justification? 

Of course they are, but the operative word is “connected.” Justification does not depend on works. This is very very important to understand, so I want to give you this example. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” (James 2:21). But wait and here is a point of confusion….doesn’t James contradict Paul’s message in Romans 3:26: “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” 

Is the Bible contradicting itself? Ok the Bible clearly says we’re saved by grace through faith. How then can we deal with James? If you’re confused right now on this point that’s okay because I was too when I first dove into this topic trust me. Plus the apostles and early church leaders were also confused. But we have a clear answer from the Bible. We know that the Holy Spirit inspired both writers, and that both of these passages are Holy Scripture. Is the Bible still trustworthy? Yes!! Without any question. Here is another verse in James to understand this perplexing verse: “Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?”. Faith, then, works together with works. How? 

When we read the word “perfect” in this sentence, it means complete. When used in the sentence, it means Abraham’s works by faith were made manifest that is….they gave evidence to his faith. Meaning….his works proved he was justified! The problem stems from the fact that Paul and James are talking to two different groups of believers. Paul was dealing with Jewish believers who were trying to force gentile converts to keep all of the law of Moses in order to be justified. Paul responded to this by saying that people can’t earn salvation, but rather it comes as a free gift of God. However in James, James is dealing with new converts who have come into the church believing that since they’re justified by faith obedience doesn’t really matter. 

Let’s go back to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector again because I like it haha….no mainly because I think it’s a good illustration to use from the Bible. When the tax collector repented and asked God for mercy, Jesus said he went home justified. Here are some good questions to ask….Did the publican know he was justified when he went home? Likewise should a person know when they’re justified? To answer these questions I want to ask you another set of questions…..If we’re saved by faith, should we know it? Should the publican have asked for mercy not expecting to receive it? We should readily acknowledge that the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts to give us the peace that God has heard our prayers. I have prayed about certain problems that come up sometimes in life….but then later feel a sudden peace overflood my soul. It’s that feeling that your prayer got through to God and it’s all in His very capable hands. All Christians should be experiencing this. So, I believe the tax collector went home knowing he was justified in the eyes of His God.

God says, “You’re forgiven” to the tax collector. Is he therefore a different man? In one way, he certainly is. He came as a sinner to stand humbly before God, and now he goes home covered with Christ’s righteousness. But the bigger question is will he behave differently now that he knows he’s been justified?.....this is key. I strongly believe that if you’re truly saved you will show a definite change in behavior. The fruit of the Spirit will be made manifested in you. The things of this world will grow strangely dim. Again by their fruits you will know them.

Ok another thought….Imagine that for whatever reason, Pilate told his soldiers, “I want to let one of those thieves hanging with Jesus go.” So his soldiers choose the one who Christ guaranteed access to heaven on resurrection day, and they remove the nails and bind his hands and feet so that he will heal. He’s scarred for life of course, but he lives. Do you think he would have been different? Would he have returned to the sins that put him in bondage before the moment Christ freely gave him forgiveness? If he did willingly return to the sins of his past do you think he was a true believer on the cross? I’m asking this because to me real justification can be witnessed by the attitude and behavior of the one who has been saved. Don’t ever ever fall for the lie that Christians are never to talk about good works because that makes them legalists. That is total crap!! The Bible is filled with apostles and prophets talking about how important good works are in this world. It’s not a sin to do good and it’s not wrong to stop sinning. “also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid” (1 Timothy 5:25). This passage shows us that the works of the saved are evident because they are good.

You’ll know a saved person by their fruit! (1 Timothy 6:18)  reiterates, “That they do good, that they be rich in good works.”When you’re saved in Christ, a new power is given you to live a new life. This is what James is talking about when he says, “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). 

That’s how a man is justified by works: Abraham believed…that was his “works.” He believed enough to offer up his own son. Jesus supports this interpretation of course in the new testament. John 6:28, 29 is an extremely important passage about works and faith. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Are we saved by works? Yes! What are those works? “This is the work … that ye believe.” Does it take effort to believe? Yes it does!! Sometimes you don’t feel like believing and you need to pray that God will give you the courage and strength to believe in His Word. 

There is an effort involved in trusting God because our whole nature has been driven to believe in the lies of the devil. He makes us doubt by twisting the evidence, and we doubt those things we cannot see. So God knows it takes effort to believe that we must choose it. But if you pray, He will gladly help you believe.

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 12

Part 12 – The Sabbath Forever?

The beautiful thing is at the end of time God’s people will not only be alive during the great work of creation, they will get to see if for themselves. Can you even imagine what that’s going to be like?? To see God remake the earth again and to watch as He organizes it like He did in the beginning, puts it in order and fills it with His glory? On the First day God will say, “Let there be light”, and light will appear. On the Second day God will say, “Let there be the firmamanet”, and so it will be. On the Third day God will say, “Let there be productive land, trees, plants, flowers”. On the Fourth day God will say, “Let the sun, moon, and stars occupy their places again.” God will set the heavens in order and organize the cosmos, and place the sun, the moon, and the starts where they were before they were thrown out of their orbits during the second coming of Jesus. On the Fifth day God will say, “Let the sky be filled with birds and the waters with fish.” All of these creatures will have died because of the plagues, but God will repopulate the earth with them once more. Then on the Sixth day God will say, “Let the earth produce living creatures”. God is going to create all the millions of wonderful animals that we have come to know and love as well as animals we never seen before I’m sure. The world is going to be one gigantic zoo and everything will be perfect…..man I can’t wait for this day!! Then Jesus is going to say something like this…..”I have made this whole world in six days, now come I am going to give you the scenic tour”. Then He will show us everything He has made when He suspended His rest and started working again. Just as He did after the first creation, at the beginning of this world, God will step back. He will take a deep breath and rest. And God will enjoy the experience of rest and joy and gladness. The whole heaven and earth will be filled with singing as He enjoys the work of His hands. Then at the end of the first Sabbath day after the creation of the new world, God will say to His people, “Now this day is holy. I rested on it. Therefore, from now on, you will come into my presence from Sabbath to Sabbath to commemorate the glorious work of re-creation.” Meaning that the Sabbath has a prophetic dimension, a future dimension. It points forward to the time when God will create a new heaven and a new earth, and His people will be eyewitnesses to that. Once again He will establish the Sabbath after creation, as a sign that He’s the wonderful, generous and loving Creator. Some people think that there will not be monthly or weekly cycles of worship in the new earth. People bring up Revelation 21:23. Well in this verse God is telling us that the city had no need of a sun or the moon to shine on them, for the glory of God illuminates them, and the Lamb is the light. Notice that it says “the city”. Also notice that it doesn’t say that the sun or the moon will be taken away. Think about when you shine a flashlight on the ground outside on a bright sunny day. The flashlight is still shining, but the sun is so bright and so brilliant, that it’s like you don’t even have a flashlight. This is what is going to happen in heaven. There will still be a sun and a moon, but God’s glory is so bright that the sun and moon will have to step aside and allow God to shine in the Holy City. Isaiah 24:23 tells us more about this. This verse tells us that the moon and sun will be disgraced and ashamed. It doesn’t say they will disappear, just that they will be disgraced and ashamed. Key to notice here.

So here is a question…..Do you think the devil loves the Sabbath? No, the devil hates the Sabbath. In fact it is the devil that has led many many Christians to hate the Sabbath and call it a Jewish institution or a yoke of bondage. The fact that we can clearly see from this Sabbath study is that it’s not a yoke of bondage, and it is not a Jewish institution. Jesus did not create the world for the Jews only, He created it for the whole human race. He did not come to redeem the Jews only, He came to redeem the whole human race, and the new heavens and earth which He will create, which will soon be commemorated by the Sabbath, will be for the saved regardless of country or culture.

The devil hates the Sabbath because the Sabbath exalts Jesus as Creator and Redeemer of this world. He also hates the Sabbath because it points forward to the new earth, where we will go to worship Jesus from one Sabbath to the next, and from one new moon to another. It should be no surprise that the devil hates the Sabbath that points forward to Jesus, because the devil hates Jesus.

To me if you want to know how much the devil hates the Sabbath, all you have to do is look at the history of the Sabbath. From the moment God gave the Sabbath in the fourth commandment, the devil tempted Israel to trample on that Sabbath. They worshiped the sun, they worshiped other Gods, and in the words of the Bible, “did their own pleasure” on God’s holy day. So God sent them into Babylonian captivity because they trampled the Sabbath, desecrated and disobeyed it. The devil is very sly, however, and managed to use even this to his advantage. The devil said, “So God wants them to learn to keep the Sabbath, I’m going to tell them that they need to establish a whole bunch of laws that will make it virtually impossible to break the Sabbath”. So the Jews enacted a long list of burdensome laws, supposedly to protect the Sabbath from being desecrated, and also so they would not be taken captive again.

One of these laws said that if you had false teeth, you had to take them out of your mouth on the Sabbath because carrying them would be a burden. If you had a prosthetic leg, you had to take that off, because it was a burden on Sabbath. You couldn't look in a mirror and pull out a hair on Sabbath, because that, too, would be committing a sin. You couldn't jump over a river because you might fall in and get wet. Getting wet in and of itself would not be breaking the Sabbath, but wringing out your robe or garment would be. It’s crazy all the rules they made up. Nowhere in the Bible do you find these rules and regulations. In other words, the devil led Israel from trampling on the Sabbath to idolizing the Sabbath and making the Sabbath a means of salvation. The devil was also busily preparing a way for Christians of the early church to look at the seventh day and say, “That Sabbath…it’s a yoke of bondage, a burdensome bunch of Jewish rules and regulations. Let’s not keep the Sabbath because of that. Lets keep Sunday because it’s a happy day, a day that honors the resurrection of Jesus, instead of that old Sabbath yoke of rules and regulations. They were only seeing the Sabbath through the eyes of the religious leaders of the time of Christ.

Do you understand what the devil has done and is still doing today? He wanted Israel to establish a whole bunch of laws under the guise of wanting to protect the Sabbath….laws that would actually turn it into a yoke of bondage. The devil wants to lead Christians to reject the Sabbath, to think that the Sabbath of the Pharisees is the same as the Sabbath of the Lord. It is up to us to see that that the Sabbath of the Pharisees during the days of Christ is not really the Sabbath, but a distortion of the Sabbath. Jesus didn't come to break the Sabbath, He came to deliver the Sabbath from the truckload of rules that made it a yoke of bondage.

Jesus would never have given this rule-ridden Sabbath as a blessing!! He would not have made a day holy, and blessed it, that was virtually impossible to keep. The fact is Jesus came to delivery the Sabbath from the bondage that had been created by the devil.

I have a separate study series that I made and also posted up on my blog here dealing with the end times and Bible prophecy.  I encourage you check it out, but this Bible prophecy tells us that there was a “little horn” in the period of the Middle Ages that actually thought it could change God’s law. Today there is a church in the world that says, “We are the ones who changed the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday.” Let me ask you…..who do you think would like to see a change of Sabbath from the seventh day to Sunday? Do you think God would want such a change? The answer to that question is no!! Satan is the one who would want such a change, because the original Sabbath pointed to the God who established it, but the change in the Sabbath points to the person who changed it.

The final question becomes, then, whose authority are you going to accept? Will you accept the authority of God, who established the seventh day as the Sabbath, or will you accept the authority of the power (Man/Satan) that established Sunday as the day of rest? The issue is not one day versus another; the issue is, whose authority do you accept……God’s authority or Man’s/Satan’s?

I can say from my heart that the Sabbath has been a great blessing to me personally. It’s relaxing, refreshing, and certainly isn’t a burden to me whatsoever. It reminds me of all of Creation, it reminds me of my great Creator, it reminds me of my Redeemer, and it reminds me that soon we will be in the kingdom, the new heaven and the new earth, where we will live forever in peace and glory worshiping God from Sabbath to Sabbath. So how is the Sabbath with you? What does the Sabbath mean to you? 

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 11

Why Monthly and Weekly Worship?

So of course Part 10 leads into Part 11 of my Sabbath study…..why will we all go to worship the Lord from “month to month” and from Sabbath to Sabbath? We know we will be worshipping before His throne, because that is where people go t bow before God on the “see of glass” before his throne as Revelation tells us. But why would we still go every month once we get to heaven? Well the Bible gives us the answer of course in Revelation 22:1-2. Revelation is really helpful in explaining the Old Testament. You can’t understand the book of Revelation fully without going back to the Old Testament, and you can’t really understand the Old Testament without studying Revelation. So it works both ways, which is why people who say they are just “New Testament Christians” or just “Old Testament Christians” are studying with one hand tied behind there back so to speak. So anyway back to Revelation 22:1-2. As it states in Revelation 22, we will go to eat fruit from the tree of life. Did you know that even in the kingdom of heaven, our immortality will be “conditional”? Meaning that we will continue to live in heaven because we will still be eating from God’s tree of life. We will not be “inherently” immortal. Our immortality will be derived from God’s tree, and we will have to go every month to eat from that tree if we want to live forever and ever.

Ok so then why weekly worship…or from “Sabbath to Sabbath”? The answer to this is found in Isaiah 66 where we are told that God is going to make “a new heaven and a new earth”. A re-creation, or creation of a new heaven and a new earth, will be necessary because the earth will be physically decimated at that time of the second coming of Jesus Christ. It will return to the condition it was at the very beginning of its history, before creation. In Genesis 1:2 we read that “the earth was without form and void and the planet was in darkness.”  Jeremiah 4:23 gives us more information about the condition of the earth when Jesus comes at His second coming. Now if this planet returns to the chaotic condition that existed before creation, God will have to make a new heaven and a new earth if they are ever going to exist. He will have to make them just as He did at the beginning, and in order to do this Jesus is going to suspend the rest that He entered into after He first created this world way back during the first creation week. The evening and the morning of the seventh day at the beginning of time never came for God, because after the seventh day He created no more with regard to this earth. But when the earth returns to the condition it was in before creation, God is going to break His rest and start creating again. Now if it took God six days to create this world the first time around, how many days do you think He will take the second time? It’s something to think about isn’t it? I used to think that when God creates the new heavens and the new earth He would just somehow/someway just say “Let there be a new heavens and a new earth”, and everything would be done…..but in doing this Sabbath study I am totally wrong with that idea haha. Isaiah 66 tells us differently. In Isaiah 66:20 and onward we learn that from week to week, or Sabbath to Sabbath, we will worship before the Lord as a commemoration of the creation of the new heaven and the new earth. Now of course you can’t keep the seventh day unless you have the first six. If there weren’t six days before the seventh day, it wouldn’t be the seventh! So if we are going to go from Sabbath to Sabbath to worship before the Lord, it must mean that there are six days before the Sabbath. Meaning God must create the new heavens and new earth just like He did during the first Creation…..in six days and then resting on the seventh. 

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 10

Third and Final Meaning of the Sabbath?

This third and final meaning of the Sabbath has a future significance, a significance that, like the second one related to redemption, would never have come about if man hadn’t sinned. Before sin, the purpose of the Sabbath was to commemorate creation. After sin, the Sabbath still commemorated creation, but it also took a new and very important role of pointing forward to redemption. The beautiful third dimension of the Sabbath is that it points forward to the end of time when God will create a new heavens and a new earth….which is another task that became necessary through the entrance of sin into the world. You can read about this in Isaiah 66:22-23. Without a doubt these verses are talking about the new heaven and the new earth. The new moon in this verse marks the beginning of each new month for the Hebrews. The months are lunar months, so the months are reckoned by the moon just as the days are reckoned by the sun. Notice how this verse doesn’t say “from one Sunday to another”. Also missing is any statement about “all Jews coming to worship before me”. The Bible is very clear from one Sabbath to another, and one month to another, all flesh (that means every living person) will come and worship before Him. So the Sabbath, which is not for just the Jews alone, will be celebrated every week in the new earth.

What Is The Sabbath / Does It Matter? - Part 9

The Sabbath Takes on a New Second Meaning of Redemption?

So as we have seen so far in Exodus 20:8-11 the Sabbath was a reminder or commemoration of God’s work of creation. God is saying that we should work six days and rest on the seventh. The reason is that He created the world in six days and rested the seventh. God set an example for us right from the start, an example He wants us to follow. The Sabbath is really an ordinance of Creation. It came into existence before sin and it was instituted before the cross of Christ was needed. So the original intention or meaning of the Sabbath has to do with the fact that it was a sign of creation.

However everything changed when sin came into the world. The Sabbath had a second additional function. The Sabbath took on new meaning when sin entered the world. We can read about this in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. These verses are just a repetition of the 4^th commandment found in Exodus 20, but with an added new motivation clause, or reason for keeping the Sabbath. This is the second or post-fall reason for keeping the Sabbath. In this verse notice the motivation clause: “And 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.”

As you can now see by reading Deuteronomy 5:12-15 the reason for keeping the Sabbath in this passage is not creation. It is redemption. The sign of redemption from bondage was an annual feast instituted by God and celebrated by the Jews, known as the Passover. This sacred ceremony pointed forward to the liberation that would come through Jesus Christ. Because the God who created is also the God who redeems, the fall of man brought about this second or post-fall reason for keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a sign of both Creation and redemption…..a sign not only of the Creator God, but of the Redeemer God as well.

So to see this new sign/meaning of the Sabbath as redemption lets look at John 5:45-46. In this passage Jesus is speaking to the Jews of His day, saying, “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you….Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.” Jesus was saying to God’s people of that day that, “If you believe Moses and the writings of Moses in the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) you would believe in me, for Moses wrote all about me.” In other words, “I am the central meaning and content of all the writings of Moses. Moses was the writer, but I was the author.” The fact that Moses was really writing about Jesus puts on a whole new light on Deuteronomy 8:3. Moses tells us that the reason God gave Israel manna wasn’t just to provide them with physical food. God’s primary intention was much deeper than that. There was spiritual meaning in the manna, which pointed forward to Jesus Christ, a meaning that Moses recognized when he wrote: “God gave the manna so you would know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” God gave Israel manna then to teach them that man does not live by physical bread alone, but instead man should live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The manna really represented the word of God, and God gave Israel the manna to teach them that if they were to survive, they were to live by the word of God just as surely as they depended on the manna provided by God in the wilderness. This is powerful and such an example of the many redemption examples from the Bible that the Sabbath takes on.

If you read Exodus 16 you will see that the bread did not breed worms or stink on the Sabbath. This is also a redemption example and you will see the connection with how it connects to Jesus’s death in just a bit. In the week that Jesus died on the cross the Bible calls Friday the preparation day. It was late on Friday and Jesus was hanging on the cross of Calvary, was about to finish His work of redemption. He was about to finish providing the means by which men and women could be delivered from slavery to sin, just as Israel had been delivered from literal slavery to the Egyptians. What happened in the Old Testament was literal, but when the fulfillment took place in the New Testament it was spiritual. This is important to see and understand. In the Old Testament we have the literal manna, literal rock, literal water, literal taskmasters, literal passing through the Red Sea, and also the literal deliverance. Each of these things pointed forward to what would be spiritual realities in the future. Isn’t it beautiful how God paints the complete picture!!

When God was done creating the world, the Bible tells us that He “finished His works which He had created and made.” Similarly, when Jesus died on the cross He said the words, “it is finished.” In the first case the work of creation was complete. In the second case, it was the work of redemption. So as Jesus was dieing on the cross it was late on the sixth day of the week. Jesus finished His work of redemption late on the sixth day of the week. The sun was about to set and you can read about that in John 19:30. After being offered some sour wine, Jesus cried, “it is finished!” Then, bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. So notice the order of days involved in this series of events. It will help you understand why Sunday can’t be the seventh day, it’s impossible for that to be the case. So many people are confused with this. Sunday was the first day of the week, the day Jesus was resurrected on, according to the creation by God, the Jewish calendar of today, as well as the lunar calendar of today. Many people in Europe are confused more then others because there calendars in many countries in Europe actually start on Monday. If those calendars were correct, Sunday would be the seventh day, but that doesn’t agree with the Holy Scripture of the Bible. In Luke 23:54-56 you can read that Joseph of Arimethea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. He took the body of Jesus down from the cross, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb from rock, where no one had ever lain. Before the end of the day Jesus said, “it is finished”. It was the preparation day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. They the women who was helping returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. The Bible says they rested on Sabbath according to the commandment. After Jesus died late on Friday, and placed into the tomb Jesus was now resting on the Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week. Even in death Jesus rested on the Sabbath and kept the commandment holy. Amazing!! We know this because in Luke 24:1 we are told that Jesus was resurrected very early on the first day of the week. On the seventh day, however He was resting in the grave. Jesus spoke about His sacrifice in John 6:51, where Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world”. I have already mentioned that the manna which was picked up on Friday in Exodus did not breed worms or stink on the Sabbath. When Jesus rested in the tomb on the Sabbath day His flesh did not begin the process of decomposing. His body was as fresh on the Sabbath as it had been on Friday when He died. See the connection between the manna in Exodus and Jesus during his death? Beautiful isn’t it!! Jesus was the living manna and living hope of the world. Read Psalm 16:8-10 to see this. The Messiah would rest in the grave with hope, and His body was not going to see decay or corruption. Both the manna in Exodus and Jesus’s body represented the same thing in both the Old and New Testaments and did the same thing. They were both fresh on the Sabbath.

Please remember that these facts don’t mean that when the Israelites ate manna, or when we eat communion bread today that it is the physical flesh of Jesus. No that’s wrong and not supported in the Bible. We need to understand that Jesus’s flesh was simulated through these ceremonies. We are not eating physical flesh, but rather consuming His living word. Remember Jesus had to answer these questions himself while on earth.  Read John 6:63. The people were basically saying, “Oh He is trying to make us cannibals. We don’t want to eat His flesh. That’s not only gross, but forbidden in the law of Moses”. But Jesus wasn't saying to eat His physical flesh. He was saying that we could, and should assimilate His flesh spiritually by studying the Word of God.

So from all of these examples we can understand the second redemption meaning of the Sabbath. The Sabbath points not only backwards to creation, but forward to redemption, or what Jesus was going to do when He died on the cross. Towards the end of the sixth day in both cases Jesus said, “ it is finished”. God rested on the seventh day after creation and also rested on the seventh day after the great act of redemption was complete, the body of Jesus rested, but not without hope in the tomb. When we compare Exodus 16 with John 6, we see that there was a beautiful messianic prophecy wrapped up in the manna, or bread of life!!