Sabbath Debate Debrief

Fighting for the Faith

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It's time for another edition of Fighting for the

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Faith. Wednesday, May 14th, 2014. Okay, today we will definitely be doing some

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Sabbath debate analysis. And it's going to be complicated.

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That's all I can say. And then definitely a sermon review in an hour or two.

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So, kind of a slightly modified episode of Fighting for the Faith. Thank you for tuning in.

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You're listening to Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. And this is the program that dishes up a daily dose of biblical discernment.

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The goal of which, help you to think biblically, help you to think critically, and help you compare what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God, because there's no shortage of crazy things being said out there. We take the time to slow down, stop, open up our

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Bibles, and compare what people are saying. Well, to God's Word in context. And when we do that, well, oftentimes we find that people are not rightly handling

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God's Word, not properly distinguishing between law and gospel. And as a result of it, they're not teaching us the truth about God or sound doctrine or things like that.

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Now, on Monday's episode of Fighting for the Faith, you had the opportunity to hear my debate with Jim Staley.

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And so what I wanted to do today in the first hour is basically dedicate our numero uno to doing some analysis, doing a little bit of a debrief, and taking you through some things, and kind of debunking some of what it is that Jim Staley said, and also reveal to you what my strategy was so you kind of understand why

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I talked about what I talked about and why I didn't go after particular things. In fact, going into the debate,

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I had an extremely tight strategy that I needed to stick to.

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In fact, we talk about what the three major tenets of my strategy were, and so you can kind of understand what's going on there.

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Strategy number one was to attack the unstated major premise that people like Jim Staley or Sabbatarians or people in the

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Seventh -day Adventists attack their unstated major premise that Christians are required to keep the

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Mosaic Covenant -slash -law. Now, you'll notice if you go back and you listen to my opening argument, my opening argument is entirely biblical, and that's on purpose, because you have to build a biblical foundation, and understand that there was kind of a challenge in the debate, and that is that—well, more than one challenge.

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I had the negative position regarding whether or not Christians are required to keep the Sabbath, and understand this, it's difficult to prove a negative.

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It's very difficult to prove a negative, and so I had to find a way to argue it in such a way that it was more of a positive rather than a negative, while still—does that make any sense?

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So the idea was, is I was trying to actually build a positive case. A positive case that states that the

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Mosaic Covenant has been fulfilled in Christ, and that Christians are not required to keep

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Torah. That's the idea behind it. And so by doing that, it made it so that I can attack the unstated major premise that Jim Staley has, and that would force him to actually come on to my argument rather than me going on to his argument.

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The idea was is that I knew that if I got bogged down in his bad hermeneutic, that it would just—it would have been a furball, and it wouldn't have—I wouldn't have done very well.

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And so the idea is is that his whole—his bad hermeneutic is because of—that he doesn't rightly understand that Christ has fulfilled the

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Torah for us and that Christians are not under the Torah, okay? In fact, we're under the law of Christ or the law of liberty or the law of the

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Spirit. That's something completely different. Under the New Covenant, Torah is not what reigns.

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And so I wanted to put forward the biblical argument for that in my opening argument.

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And then because we had two rebuttals going into the debate, my strategy was to chop up what

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I was doing. So the idea is is that my opening argument only being 20 minutes,

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I had to build a positive biblical case. Rebuttal number one, the idea was to continue to build off of my opening argument rather than spend time directly attacking his ideas.

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Does that make sense? And so by building off of the biblical foundation that I had built,

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I could demonstrate that the early Church Fathers pre -Constantine—this is kind of important— that they rightly understood the biblical teaching, that the

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Torah and the Old Covenant had been fulfilled in Christ. And so the idea then was to build off of my biblical arguments and then undercut

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Jim Staley's conspiracy theory. Because with a theology like Jim Staley's, he has to come up with some kind of a plausible explanation as to why

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Christians, all the way back in earliest recorded history—this includes the

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New Testament and the earliest Church Fathers— are worshiping on Sunday and have continued to worship on Sunday.

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Why is it that Christians are doing that rather than keeping the Sabbath? Well, the answer to that is simple in Jim Staley's mind.

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It's a conspiracy. This is a conspiracy on the part of Rome, the

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Pope, Constantine, and anti -Semitism. This is what's going on here.

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And so by first doing what I did, build the biblical argument that the Mosaic Covenant is completed, has been fulfilled, and that the

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Old Covenant has given way to the New and that we're under the New, not the Old, I can demonstrate the

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Church Fathers in the earliest ones understood this biblical reality, and that's why they worshipped on Sunday.

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And what that does is it takes away Jim Staley's argument that all of this was changed as a result of a conspiracy and anti -Semitism.

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And so going into it, I had basically—the strategy was build the biblical argument, build off the biblical argument, and then rebuttal number two, being only seven minutes long, that one

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I had left open kind of as, okay, this will be one that I try to craft while up on the dais and address some of his things.

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And then during my cross -examination, my goal with the cross -examination with him was basically to ask questions to show the inconsistency in his theology, and also

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I asked him questions about whether or not he receives direct revelation. In fact, we'll be listening to a portion of something that he recently, not too long ago, did, so that you can hear what

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Jim Staley is about, who he is. And I think that's actually something that plays into all of this, is that what it is that makes

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Jim Staley Jim Staley is apparently he's hearing directly from God. And so you can kind of put him into the broader category of visionary leaders.

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In fact, I would even say, based upon kind of the warp and woof of his arguments, that he receives direct revelation from God, has an inspired interpretation of the book of Romans, and based upon the details of the vision that he had—he had a vision, apparently, where he and Jesus were walking through the ruined foundations of the temple, and he's been tasked with rebuilding that—you could make a parallel between Jim Staley and maybe even

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Joseph Smith of Mormonism. It's something very similar going on there, but we'll be playing that as part of the program today, so you understand that's going to be in our analysis.

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But so, you know, cross -examination was to help bring some of that out, and then my closing—again, this strategy was finished long before I ever went up on the dais— was to demonstrate how the

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Sabbath is type and shadow of our Sabbath rest in Christ, which is salvation by grace through faith and not by works, and demonstrated that from Hebrews.

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So that was my strategy going in, I crafted it long before I got to St.

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Louis, and when I had asked for prayers from you guys before leaving, specifically my prayer was that the strategy would work.

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And I'm very, very satisfied with what happened, and understand this, there were certain things going into it that I knew

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I couldn't allow myself to go down the bunny trail, because it would burn precious minutes, and I had to make every minute really count.

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And I also knew that I would have the ability, once the debate was finished and up, that I could do some analysis on it, go back and do a post -mortem on it, and kind of tease out some of the things that I didn't want to allow myself to get bogged down in.

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For instance, one of the things I specifically said that I was going to avoid during the debate was a debate on whether or not the

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Sabbath is a creation commandment. And it's not that I believe that it is, it's that in order to demonstrate that it's not, it takes a little bit more work than I wanted to give it in the debate, okay?

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So I didn't contest the fact that God created, that God rested on the sixth day, and that He hallowed it by resting.

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That's absolutely in the Genesis account. I don't have a problem with that. But we'll take a little bit of time today to kind of unpack some of that thing as to whether or not it's a creation ordinance, and things like that.

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So anyway, that's the overall strategy that I employed.

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And so what we're going to be doing for the rest of this first hour here is, I'm going to go back and I'm going to kind of pick apart a few things that Jim Staley said, and do a little bit of fact -checking so that you kind of get what's going on, and we can see if we can't tie up some loose ends from the debate, if you would.

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And so what I'm going to do right now is we're just going to get right into the analysis, and we're going to take a look first and foremost at whether or not the

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Sabbath was given as a commandment at creation. Let's listen to Jim Staley from the debate.

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Again, I should warn you here, this isn't in chronological order. This is kind of by topic, and even the topics that we're going to cover, there's no rhyme or reason to them.

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It's just that as I analyze these things, this is what I wanted to talk about. So here's soundbite number one from Jim Staley, talking about the

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Sabbath being given at creation. Here we go. First of all, I want to show and give an overview of history from creation to today to show that God's original intent.

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It's very important that we understand God's original intent, and whether or not his original intent was for us to keep the

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Sabbath, or in Hebrew, the Shabbat, for all eternity. So we're going to turn to Genesis 2, verse 2, and it says,

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On the seventh day, God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

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And God blessed the seventh day, and he sanctified it. That Hebrew word there is kadosh. It's to be set apart.

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It's to be made holy. As a matter of fact, it's the very thing that we're commanded to do, is to be set apart and to be made holy.

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And so he says, Because then he had rested from all the work which God had made. Okay, now, so that's kind of soundbite number one, arguing from creation.

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And in his closing statement, he kind of ratcheted it up a notch.

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Listen to what he said in his closing regarding this. Now listen, for those that believe that God meant what he said, when he told us to remember the

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Sabbath and keep it holy in the garden before man sinned. Okay, so you kind of catch the problem there.

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Let's take a look at the Genesis account, and you'll kind of understand where the problems are when we go from here.

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When we look at the Genesis account, number one, when was Genesis written? Okay, think about it for a second.

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Pause for a second. Genesis, or Bereshit, which is its

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Hebrew name, was written by Moses. Huh?

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That's right. So we've got a little bit of a problem here. The book of Genesis did not exist at the time of Abraham or Adam or Isaac or Jacob.

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It didn't exist back then. The book of Genesis comes on the scene at Mount Sinai, while the children of Israel are doing their wilderness thing.

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So we've got a problem here in that quoting Genesis to somehow say that this is a creation ordinance kind of misses an important fact, and that is that this was written by Moses, and we're talking at least 2 ,500 years after the earth has been created.

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You're saying 2 ,500 years? Are you saying that the earth is young? Yeah, I am. Read your Bible. Jesus believed in a literal six -day creation.

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So I'm not going to deviate from him because he rose from the grave, and he's an eyewitness to the account. You get what

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I'm saying, but that's a different topic. So let's take a look at Genesis 2. Here's what it says, Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

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And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

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So God blessed the seventh day, made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

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Straight up. So yes, it's absolutely true that God blessed the seventh day, and on it he rested from all of the work that he'd done.

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No doubt about that. Absolutely true. What is missing in all of this is a commandment.

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There is not a therefore here. Now, this is important also because this was written at the time of Moses, that this then becomes the basis later as God gives his commands as to why they're keeping the

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Sabbath. But keep this in mind. There's no commandment here. God rested on the seventh day, made it holy, because on it

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God rested from all his work. It doesn't say, therefore, go and do likewise. And so when we get to Adam and Eve, there's no mention that they're

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Sabbath keepers. None whatsoever. Enoch, no mention that he's a Sabbath keeper.

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Same also with circumcision. Was Adam circumcised? Scripture doesn't say he was circumcised. Enoch wasn't circumcised.

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Noah wasn't a Sabbath keeper, nor was he circumcised. You kind of get the idea. Abraham's the first guy circumcised, but he's not a

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Sabbath keeper. So to basically claim that this is the equivalent of a commandment, talking about how

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God blessed the seventh day, and that the original intent of God was that everybody would, quote, keep the

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Sabbath, well, that's not actually what the text says. Because in order for that to be the case, you would have to demonstrate that along with this note of what took place in creation, that there was a command associated with it, that everybody was supposed to know.

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But Adam didn't keep the Sabbath, nor was it ever mentioned that he was commanded to.

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And so all the way through the patriarchs in the book of Genesis, there's not a mention of Sabbath keeping.

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Not at all. And so we've got a big problem. And so when Jim Staley makes the claim that it's a commandment in the

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Garden, listen again to what he said. Now listen, for those that believe that God meant what He said, when He told us to remember the

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Sabbath and keep it holy in the Garden before man sinned. Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy before man sinned.

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You see, that's not what the text says. The text in Genesis 2 does not say remember the

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Sabbath day and keep it holy, it just says what God did on the seventh day, keeping in mind the book of Genesis shows up during the time of Moses.

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Moses is the author of Genesis. So this idea that God's original intent was this, well, that goes beyond the text.

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It goes beyond the text and it's not what the text says. If this was God's original intent, that man keep the

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Sabbath, why is there no text that says that was God's original intent?

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And so you kind of get the idea as to why I intentionally decided ahead of time this was not going to be a bunny trail that I was going to go down, because it takes a little bit of time to kind of flesh this out.

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But the idea is that just because the text in Genesis says that God set aside or made the seventh day holy by resting on it, does not mean that that was his original intent, that humanity would keep it from the beginning of creation.

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In fact, a good way to summarize what Jim Staley did is he took a descriptive text in Genesis 2 and turned it into a prescriptive text.

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But in order for me to say, in fact, in order for me to concede that God's original intent was that man would keep the

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Sabbath day, I would have to see in the book of Genesis a statement saying, and God intends for you to rest the way he rested.

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But I see no text that says that, nor do I see any of the patriarchs in the book of Genesis concerned with or even making mention of anything to do with the

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Sabbath at all. Therefore, what Jim has done is overstated what the implications are of Genesis 2, verse 2, because there is no implied commandment there.

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In fact, there is no stated commandment there, and he's basically making it an implied one, but that's not what's going on.

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Again, when did this book show up? When did the book of Genesis show up? Moses is the one who wrote it. So it makes perfect sense that God would explain to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai regarding this

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Sabbath -keeping that he's put on them, and I'll explain how this is all on them and not on us in just a minute, and that this is tied back to the six days of creation.

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But again, in all of Genesis, ain't no Sabbath -keepers, and there's no commandment in Genesis to keep the

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Sabbath, and no data as to whether or not any of the patriarchs were sinning against Yahweh by not keeping it, or, like I just said, taking a descriptive text and turning it into a prescription.

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You can't do that. And kind of on the same note then, the question that needs to be answered is, who exactly is the

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Sabbath for? Well, God's Word explicitly states who the Sabbath is for. Let's take a look here at Exodus 31.

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I'll start at verse 12 and pay close attention. I'll give you a cross -reference on this too. Here's what it says,

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Notice I'm using the plural there. That's right. Who was the Lord speaking to?

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Let me read again. Uh -huh.

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As a perpetual covenant. That's right. It is a sign. Verse 17, It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel.

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That's right. So who was the Sabbath given to? There was no prescription in the Garden, and Exodus 31 makes it absolutely clear that the

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Sabbath is a sign between the Lord and the people of Israel.

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Straight up. Ezekiel 20, verse 12 reiterates this, the people of Israel, my

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Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am

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Yahweh who sanctifies them. So it's kind of strike one and strike two here, and that is that the children of Israel are the ones who

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God made the Sabbath with. It doesn't show up on the scene until Moses. Genesis 2 is a descriptive text, not a prescriptive text, and you get what's going on there.

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Now, one of the things I wanted to also clear up in my analysis was a statement made by Jim Staley regarding what's said in the

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Augsburg Confession. Now, if you remember during the cross -examination, Jim Staley brought up the

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Augsburg Confession, and I want to point out something that he did. Number one, he made a statement by misquoting the

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Augsburg Confession, and then he didn't ask me a question, okay?

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So I want to play for you what he said regarding the Augsburg Confession because we're doing a little bit of fact -checking and kind of cleaning some stuff up here in our analysis.

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So here's Jim Staley asking me a question regarding the Augsburg Confession. Here we go. Interestingly enough, in 1530, the

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Augsburg Confession of Faith is the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church, one of the most important documents in the

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Lutheran Reformation. And they say this, in Article 28, it says, they, the

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Catholics, allege that the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's Day, contrary to the

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Decalogue as it appears. Neither is there any example more boastful of then than changing the

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Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the Church since it dispensed with one of the

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Ten Commandments. And I find it interesting that the very denomination that you belong to also believes that it is arrogant and actually virtually impossible to dispense with one of the

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Ten Commandments. Now, he made a statement. He didn't ask me a question. Let me play just a little bit so you see how he just goes right to the next point.

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He didn't allow me to actually interact with what he said. My next question is, do you believe... Yeah, so he just went right to the next question.

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So let's take a look at Augsburg Confession 28. I don't expect you all to have a copy of this.

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But Augsburg Confession 28 is a section concerning the power of bishops.

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So what happens in Augsburg Confession 28 is rather fascinating because what he's doing is he's quoting

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Melanchthon as Melanchthon is quoting an argument put out by the

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Roman Catholic Church regarding their power and ability to change ceremonies and things like that.

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So he's basically quoting a Roman Catholic argument and he will then rebut it.

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But what he's doing is he's not agreeing with them. All he's doing is restating what their position is regarding the power that they supposedly have to do particular things.

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So let me read to you the relevant portion from the Augsburg Confession. Here's what it says. Furthermore, it is also debated whether bishops have the power to establish ceremonies in the

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Church as well as regulations concerning food, festivals, and the different orders of the clergy.

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For those who grant bishops this power cite this saying of Christ in John 16.

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I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes,

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He will guide you into all truth. They also cite the example in Acts 15 where the eating of blood and what is strangled was prohibited.

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They appeal as well to the transference of the Sabbath to Sunday, contrary to the Ten Commandments, as they view it.

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No other example is so strongly emphasized and quoted as the transference of the Sabbath.

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Thereby they want to maintain that the power of the Church is great because it has dispensed with and altered part of the

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Ten Commandments. Concerning this question, our people teach that bishops do not have the power to institute or establish something that is contrary to the gospel as is indicated above and is taught by canon law throughout the

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Ninth Distinction. Now it is patently contrary to God's command and word to make laws out of opinions or to require that by observing them a person makes satisfaction for sin and obtains grace.

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So what's happening there in Article 28 in the Augsburg Confession is that Melanchthon is quoting basically the argument of Rome.

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They're saying, oh, our bishops have all kinds of power. We're so powerful. Why are we powerful?

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Well, we even have the power to dispense with one of the Ten Commandments, the one regarding the

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Sabbath. We're so powerful. You've got to obey us. This is the power that Christ has given us.

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And the response of the Lutherans is, yeah, listen, you don't have the power to institute or establish something that's contrary to the gospel, straight up.

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So for him to quote the Augsburg Confession the way that he did, somehow in support of his position that the

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Lutherans are acknowledging that Rome changed the Sabbath, the

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Lutherans are not saying that Rome changed the Sabbath. The Augsburg Confession isn't saying that at all.

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Instead, what all Melanchthon is doing is pointing out that they claim that they have this authority, and he's saying, no, you don't.

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And it doesn't matter if you think that you have the authority to change the Sabbath or not. You don't have the power to change anything contrary to the gospel.

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So Augsburg Confession 28 is talking about the abuse of power of Roman Catholic bishops, and he quotes their definitive argument claiming that Roman bishops have all kinds of power, and the

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Lutheran position is, no, you don't. You don't have that kind of power, and so you get what

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I'm saying. So that's, again, another really bad argument on the part of Jim Staley.

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But note the fact that that occurred during the portion where he was supposed to be asking me questions. But Jim Staley, I noted the fact that he used a lot of his time during his cross -examination of me to not ask me questions, but instead to make statements, and that was one of the statements that he made, and he didn't actually ask a question.

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So you get what I'm saying. So I hope that clears that up. He misquoted the Augsburg Confession and then quickly moved along without giving me the ability to actually answer a question because he didn't ask one regarding the statement that he made out of context from the

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Augsburg Confession. All right, we are up on our first break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

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Faith, you can do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com, or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com

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forward slash piratechristian. Follow me on Twitter, my name there, at piratechristian. Quick break. When we come back, we'll be doing some more fact -checking of Jim Staley's statements that he made during the

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Sabbath debate to see if they hold any water. Stay tuned, don't want to miss it. We'll be right back. We don't need to rethink

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Christianity, we need to rediscover it. You're listening to Fighting for the Faith. You're listening to Pirate Christian Radio.

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Let me thank you for your support. We cannot do what we are doing here without it. Okay, moving along,

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I'm going to spend a little bit more time, like I said, debunking some of the things that Jim Staley said during the

34:34

Sabbath debate that I had with him. And one of the more interesting comments that he made was that the

34:39

Ten Commandments are not connected to the law of God. Listen very carefully to Jim Staley's statement here.

34:46

Here we go. That's absolutely fine, but the mistake that he is making is that the Ten Commandments are connected to the law of God.

34:53

Matter of fact, so much so that if my opponent is correct and the law of God is completely obliterated and done away with, ladies and gentlemen, we can commit adultery.

35:03

Yeah, that's right. Apparently, the mistake I'm making is believing that the Ten Commandments are connected to the law of God.

35:09

Let me play that opening statement again. Listen again. That's absolutely fine, but the mistake that he is making is that the

35:15

Ten Commandments are connected to the law of God. That the Ten Commandments are connected to the law of God.

35:20

Now, this is one of those ones that I expected to show up, but Jim Staley actually did a pretty good job of, how shall

35:28

I put it, of not overemphasizing this point and alerting more people to it, because this is a very interesting argument that all

35:40

Sabbatarians seem to have in common, and that is that they will basically say, listen, the

35:45

Ten Commandments are not part of the law of God or the New Covenant.

35:51

That's their way of basically brushing aside the argument that I gave in my opening statement.

35:58

My opening statement was that we are not under the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant has gone away, and we are under the

36:05

New Covenant. So what they try to do is somehow take the Ten Commandments, which, by the way, if I were to ask you, what were the

36:13

Ten Commandments written on? You go, stone tablets. Right. Stone tablets. The Ten Commandments were written on stone tablets.

36:20

The Ten Commandments are not part of the law of God that we're required to keep.

36:26

So the Ten Commandments are different than the Torah in this sense. So they're trying to make some kind of a distinction so that they can save the

36:34

Ten Commandments. You can't do that. Listen, the whole thing gets obliterated, and the reason why is because of what

36:41

God's Word says. Let me read to you just a couple of passages, one short and the other long.

36:47

Deuteronomy 4, verse 13, Moses talking, and he says,

36:52

And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the

36:59

Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.

37:08

Yeah. Deuteronomy 4, verse 13 makes it clear that the Ten Commandments are part and parcel.

37:16

In fact, they are the covenant, and that's the Old Covenant. So Jim Staley, like many

37:23

Sabbatarians, tries to say that, oh, no, no, no, no, no, the Ten Commandments, they're, yeah. What Chris is talking about is, oh, yeah, that's right.

37:30

That Old Covenant stuff, that's sure, yeah, that's gone and done away with, but the Ten Commandments are not part of that.

37:37

Well, Deuteronomy 4, verse 13 says that they are. So does Deuteronomy 5. Here's what

37:43

Deuteronomy 5, I'll start at verse 1, here's what it says. And Moses summoned all of Israel and said to them, Hero Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.

37:55

The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did he make this covenant.

38:02

Now, stop. There's another passage that points out the fact that Sabbath -keeping and all that other stuff that, you know, why didn't it appear with the patriarchs,

38:15

Abraham, Yitzhak, you know, Yaakov, you know, all those guys, why?

38:20

Because, it says right here in this verse, verse 2 and 3, the

38:26

Lord our God, Yahweh, made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did he make this covenant, but with us.

38:34

Who are all of us here alive today? Yahweh spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the

38:45

Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of Yahweh, for you were afraid because of the fire and you did not go up into the mountain.

38:55

He said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

39:03

Question, when were any of you in slavery, in the house of slavery? Did you live in Egypt? No? Okay.

39:10

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or that is in the water or under the earth.

39:20

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

39:33

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Verse 12, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the

39:39

Lord your God commanded you. Six days shall you labor and do all of your work, but on the seventh is the

39:45

Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

39:58

Yeah, you get the gist of what's going on there. Verse 16, honor your father and your mother.

40:03

Verse 17, you shall not murder. Verse 18, you shall not commit adultery. Verse 19, you shall not steal.

40:09

Verse 20, and you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Verse 21, you shall not covet.

40:14

Verse 22, these words the Lord spoke, Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice.

40:27

And he added, no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

40:34

Yeah, so here was the summary of the covenant, and it's the

40:41

Ten Commandments written on stone. And my argument was that the covenant, the old covenant, has passed.

40:52

It is gone. It's kaput. Jesus has superseded it and given us the new covenant, and that we are no longer under the old covenant.

41:01

This is why I quoted Ephesians 2, verses 14 and 15. For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.

41:17

There's that. Hebrews 8, 6 -7, says,

41:36

Hebrews 8, 13, So the idea is that the clear passages in the

41:54

New Testament make it clear that the Christians are not under the old covenant, they are under the new covenant.

41:59

Therefore they are not obligated to observe the Passover, circumcise their male children, keep a kosher diet, appear before Yahweh three times a year in the city of Jerusalem, celebrate the new moons of the

42:09

Sabbaths. These were all types and shadows. And now that Christ has come, the shadows have given way to the rightful substance.

42:16

And that's exactly what Paul was saying in Colossians chapter 2. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a

42:25

Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

42:33

You get the point. So Jim Staley, like other Sabbatarians, tries to make a distinction between the

42:41

Ten Commandments and the law or the covenant, but you can't do it. Because, like I said,

42:48

Deuteronomy 4 .13 as well as Deuteronomy 5 .1 -22 make it clear that the covenant itself is the

42:57

Ten Commandments and that's the old covenant that is obsolete and has passed away.

43:03

It's gone. And you're thinking, well, does that mean that we can commit adultery like Jim Staley said?

43:08

Of course not. Of course not. Read your New Testament. You'll find that the

43:14

New Testament does have laws. In fact, what I did yesterday, and I strongly recommend that you take the time to read this.

43:21

Yesterday I posted in the podcast stream and on the Fighting for the Faith website a portion of Eusebius of Caesarea's Demonstratio Evangelica, and the whole point that is made, one of the major points, is that the new covenant does have commands.

43:44

And so you think you can't commit adultery? You don't know your new covenant. You don't know your new covenant well at all.

43:49

And so you need to read what Eusebius wrote. Now, talking about the Church Fathers, by the way, kind of changing the subject here,

43:56

I wanted to address a little bit more of some of the things that Jim Staley said, and what

44:02

I did is I put together what I call the antisemitism montage. And the reason this is important is because Jim Staley has to come up with a way of plausibly explaining why it is that the

44:15

Church has worshipped on Sundays from the beginning. Real simple.

44:22

It's because of that evil Constantine. Constantine is because of the power of Roman Catholicism, which, by the way, is a historical anachronism.

44:33

To somehow talk about the power of the papacy or the power of the Roman Catholic Church in the opening centuries of the first millennia,

44:42

I mean, that is very anachronistic. That's like me saying that John the Baptist was really into microwave burritos.

44:49

I mean, they didn't have microwave burritos back then. And in the opening centuries of the first millennia, the

44:56

Church was persecuted and underground, and there were many bishops who had – of different cities, and they were kind of bickering and fighting amongst each other.

45:06

It wasn't until Islam came and wiped out a lot of the bishoprics in North Africa and in the

45:15

Mediterranean, the north part of the Mediterranean, that they created the power vacuum that led to the ascendancy of the bishop of Rome.

45:22

For him to kind of talk the way he's talking is that there's this iron fist thing going on between the state and Rome in the fourth century.

45:32

I mean, it's so anachronistic. It's not even funny. But the other major theme that he had there was that the early church fathers were all anti -Semites, which again is not true.

45:44

I'm going to demonstrate that even a little bit clearer here. But I want you – this is what I call the anti -Semitism montage.

45:51

Here's Jim Staley from the debate, all the different times he's talked about anti -Semitism. Here we go.

45:56

An anti -Semitism that changed the Sabbath from its biblical root with anti -Semitism.

46:02

Of the anti -Semitism in the church, and should we trust church fathers that had virtually no

46:09

Hebraic training and were very much anti -Semites, as we shall discover.

46:16

On and on it goes that the so -called church fathers are heavily slanted against the

46:23

Jewish people and against their Jewish roots, if you will, because of the anti -Semitism.

46:29

Because of anti -Semitism. Quotes from anti -Semitic church fathers that were looking for any way to distance themselves from the

46:36

Jews. Why you choose to follow the church fathers who hated the Jews. All right, that's the montage there of all the times.

46:44

I mean I'm surprised. I mean he didn't accuse the church fathers of wearing black boots and having swastikas.

46:50

I was waiting for him to play the Hitler card. But again, in kind of what

46:56

I've noticed about Jim Staley, what's becoming kind of standard hallmark of his work, he's completely overstated this anti -Semitism and to the point where what he's saying, it doesn't make any sense.

47:12

Let me give you an example, okay? An example of this would be his quoting of St.

47:19

Augustine. And if you listen carefully to the quote that he gives from St. Augustine, Staley inadvertently refutes himself.

47:27

Listen to this. In 354, St. Augustine says this, how hateful to me are the enemies of your scriptures.

47:33

How I wish that you would slay them, the Jews, with your two -edged swords that there should be none to oppose your word.

47:39

Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you. Did you hear that?

47:47

Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you.

47:54

Hmm. Isn't that what all Christians are called to do? Die to themselves and live to God?

48:03

Yet that's a quote as if somehow this is something really that proves the anti -Semitism of St.

48:12

Augustine. And, well, his prayer was that the Jews would die to themselves and live to Christ.

48:18

Yeah. Boy, can you imagine if that's what the

48:23

Nazis were all about? We really just wish that all these Jews in Germany would just die to themselves and live to Christ.

48:30

Would the Holocaust have happened? The answer is, well, no, it wouldn't have happened at all.

48:35

Now, let me go back and give another quote here from Justin Martyr, because Justin Martyr does a lot of damage to Jim Staley's position.

48:49

So he must come up with an ad hominem attack. And, by the way, that's what this is. This is an ad hominem attack against the

48:55

Church Fathers so that we shouldn't listen to them. The question that needs to be answered is it's not that the

49:00

Church Fathers are authoritative. The question is, have the Church Fathers rightly understood what Scripture has said?

49:07

That's the question. And what's the most plausible explanation as to why Christians through the millennia have not worshipped on Saturday?

49:16

Which, by the way, isn't Sabbath -keeping. I'm going to explain that in just a minute. But the question is, why have churches met on Sunday and not held synagogue services on Saturday?

49:29

Well, according to Jim Staley, well, it's because they're all anti -Semites. No, it's because they rightly understand the

49:36

Scripture. But let me quote him. Let me play his quote regarding Justin Martyr. I'll make the point that I made during the debate, and then

49:42

I'll circle back regarding the epistle of Barnabas. Let's listen in. Justin Martyr, who he quoted multiple times to prove his case, dialogue with Trifo between 138 and 161

49:53

A .D. He says this.

50:45

Even though it was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, my opponent says that none of them recorded to keep it.

50:53

Yeah, now notice, again, he keeps saying that the Sabbath was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

50:59

No, it wasn't. There's nowhere in the book of Genesis that Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob actually kept the

51:06

Sabbath, or observed the Sabbath. But I've already made that point. Like I said, in Genesis 2, he's taken a descriptive text and made it prescriptive.

51:14

Now, the issue at hand, though, is that he's saying that Justin Martyr is an anti -Semite.

51:19

But Justin Martyr was not an anti -Semite, and the quote that he gave, just like the

51:26

Augustine quote, does not show that Justin Martyr was an anti -Semite. In fact, the text that Justin Martyr came up with, basically got that idea from, why is it that the

51:38

Jews were given the law? Well, it's found in Galatians 3, verse 19, and here's what it says.

51:44

Well, why then the law? The law was added because of transgression, until the offspring should come, whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

51:58

Now, an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. So here's the idea. Why was the law given, which included the

52:05

Sabbath? It was added because of transgressions. That's what Justin Martyr was getting at, and Justin Martyr was basically picking up the same theme given in Galatians by the

52:20

Apostle Paul and giving it to Trifo. So, yeah, we've got this problem here, and that is that Jim Staley's claims regarding anti -Semitism actually don't hold up under scrutiny.

52:34

Now, let's go back to the debate where I ask him directly about the

52:41

Epistle of Barnabas and why does Barnabas argue that Christians shouldn't keep the Sabbath. Now, this is kind of an interesting thing.

52:48

Now, what I'm going to do here with today's episode of Fighting for the Faith, at the Fighting for the

52:53

Faith website, with this episode, I'll put some links to some resources.

52:58

One of the resources I'm going to put a link to is the Epistle of Barnabas. And the reason why

53:05

I'm doing that is because Barnabas, the Epistle of Barnabas, all scholars agree this was written by a

53:12

Jew. That's right. Now, whether or not this is the Barnabas of the

53:19

Apostle Paul thing, Paul and Barnabas, that's debated, okay? Some scholars say, well, it could be, and others say, no, it probably isn't.

53:27

But all scholars agree that the Epistle of Barnabas was written by a

53:33

Jew. That's right. It was written by a Jew. And if you read it, and again, I'm going to put a link up to it because it's in the public domain.

53:40

If you read this, you will see how this claim just doesn't make any sense.

53:47

And again, this is written late 1st century, late 1st century

53:52

Epistle of Barnabas and written by a Jew. And if you actually take the time to read it, you'll see that this

53:59

Christian who is a former Jew is how he is handling the scriptures.

54:04

And what does he do with the Sabbath? What does he do with circumcision? What does he do with the temple? He says all of these things are type and shadow and that the reality is

54:13

Christ and something to do with the church. That's how the Epistle of Barnabas goes.

54:19

So I find this rather fascinating that Jim Staley continues with this anti -Semitic thing.

54:26

So I asked him about, well, okay, well, why does Barnabas argue that Christians don't keep the

54:31

Sabbath? Why is the Epistle of Barnabas saying this? Because Barnabas doesn't fit the profile. He's not an anti -Semite.

54:37

He's a Jew. But here's what Jim Staley said in the debate. If your interpretation is correct, correct.

54:44

Why does Barnabas in his epistle actually argue that the Christians don't keep the Sabbath from the text that I read?

54:49

How come, you know, you know, because just like we are sitting here in 2014 was no different in 110 and 150 or 200 or 300.

55:00

Is that the Gentiles don't understand Hebraic principles, idiomatic expressions or the language itself because of anti -Semitism.

55:08

Again, Barnabas is a Jew. Whoever wrote the Epistle of Barnabas, he is a

55:15

Jew. He never sat and had a conversation with a Jew who understood the scriptures from the perspective.

55:22

Matter of fact, in the Epistle of Barnabas, I think it's the Epistle of Barnabas that you even quoted, it has Jesus dying on Saturday and rising from the dead on Sunday.

55:31

That's absolutely not true. Okay, so the reason I played that, again, I wanted you to hear the statement.

55:36

So he's basically ascribing to the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, who all scholars agree is a

55:42

Jew, that he's guilty of basically succumbing to anti -Semitism, which doesn't make sense.

55:48

Again, I'm going to put a link up so that you can actually read the Epistle of Barnabas for yourself. And then he makes this weird claim that the

55:56

Epistle of Barnabas says that Jesus was crucified on a Saturday. No, it doesn't say that.

56:03

In fact, you can look long and hard in the Epistle of Barnabas, and you will not find

56:09

Barnabas anywhere saying that Jesus was crucified on a Saturday. But I want to revisit what it is that Barnabas said regarding the

56:17

Sabbath and the eighth day, and what he said regarding when Christians meet.

56:22

I think it's relevant to hear this again from this Jew named

56:28

Barnabas, clearly an anti -Semitic Jew. And let's read again what he says regarding Jesus' resurrection.

56:36

So I'll be reading from the Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 15. A little bit of context here,

56:41

I'll back it up towards the beginning of the last paragraph. Here's what it says.

56:48

Moreover, he says, thou shalt sanctify it with pure hands, this is talking about the Sabbath, and a pure heart.

56:54

If, therefore, anyone can now sanctify the day with which God hath sanctified, except he is pure in heart in all things, we are deceived.

57:04

Behold, therefore, certainly then one properly resting sanctifies it, when we ourselves, having received the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and all things having been made new by the

57:15

Lord, shall be able to work righteousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, the

57:21

Sabbath, having been first sanctified ourselves. Further, he says to them, your new moons and your

57:28

Sabbath I cannot endure. Ye perceive how he speaks. Your present

57:33

Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that is which I have made, namely this, when giving rest to all things

57:41

I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is a beginning of another world. Wherefore also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which

57:53

Jesus rose again from the dead, and when he had manifested himself he ascended into the heavens.

58:00

That's right, so the Epistle of Barnabas written by a Jew who cannot be anti -Semitic, do you know any

58:07

Jews who are anti -Semitic, does that make any sense to you? He's arguing against the

58:13

Sabbath in chapter 15 of his epistle, and again, if you read the thing in its entirety, you will see that this is an elegant epistle written by a person who really understands the

58:25

Old Testament from the inside out because he's a Jew, and he talks about what it really means to sanctify the

58:32

Sabbath, and he notes the fact that we Christians keep the eighth day with joyfulness, and it's the day also on which

58:40

Jesus rose again from the dead. So Jim Staley kind of biffs it on two points there regarding the

58:48

Epistle of Barnabas. Biff number one is his claim that the

58:53

Epistle of Barnabas is somehow influenced by anti -Semitism, historically inaccurate because it's written by a

58:59

Jew. Biff number two, it falls short because whoever wrote it, not only are they anti -Semitic, they don't understand the

59:07

Jewish mindset. No, that's not true, because again, the Epistle of Barnabas was written by a Jew, and then you've got this weird claim off on the side here regarding the

59:17

Epistle of Barnabas apparently claiming that Jesus was crucified on a Saturday. No, the document doesn't say that.

59:23

I've provided the link so that you can check it out for yourself. Download it and read it, and you'll see that nowhere in the Epistle of Barnabas does it say that Jesus was crucified on a

59:30

Saturday. Instead, what you'll find is an elegant argument in chapter 15 showing the true meaning of what it means to keep the

59:38

Sabbath and the fact that the first -century Christians, according to this first -century

59:44

Jew, were not keeping the Sabbath anymore. They were celebrating the Lord's Day, the eighth day, the beginning of a new creation.

59:51

So we're at the end of hour number one, and clearly we've got more ground to cover. There's a lot more historical and theological things that we need to actually debunk regarding things that Jim Staley said during the debate.

01:00:05

So we're going to skip the sermon review today, and we're going to continue with our analysis on the other side of the break.

01:00:11

So if you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the Faith, you can do so.

01:00:17

My email address is TalkBackAtFightingfortheFaith .com, or you can subscribe on Facebook. It's Facebook .com

01:00:23

forward slash PirateChristian, or follow me on Twitter, my name there, at PirateChristian. Quick break. When we come back, we will continue with our debate, debrief, analysis, and debunking.

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01:02:53

Alright, we're back. Hour number two of Fighting for the Faith. Normally, this is our sermon review time.

01:02:58

Not today. We're gonna keep going through this. As we do an in -depth post -mortem.

01:03:07

Kind of doing some fact -checking on the things that Jim Staley said during the debate. I think it's important.

01:03:26

Alright, here is the next segment that we're gonna cover during our Sabbath debate post -mortem.

01:03:33

You know, if you would, as I analyze what's going on here. Let's talk a little bit about Jim Staley. Here's the question that I asked him.

01:03:39

I think this is important because you gotta understand something about Jim Staley. This is a guy who claims to be receiving direct revelation from God.

01:03:47

And we're gonna get into the specifics of that direct revelation. And the implications of what that means.

01:03:52

Here's the question I asked him during the debate. Alright, question for you.

01:04:00

Do you receive direct revelation from God? Sometimes. Okay. Are you a prophet?

01:04:07

Not in the role of prophet, but I believe in the gift of prophecy. Okay. Are you familiar with the fact that Daniel chapter 9 makes it very clear regarding that prophecy, regarding the

01:04:16

Messiah that's fulfilled with the destruction of the temple. That along with it, the prophecy and vision are sealed up.

01:04:23

Yes. Okay. Which prophecy is he talking about?

01:04:29

It's Nabi and Kazan. Both of them are sealed up. So, are you a prophet?

01:04:36

I said, in the role of prophet, no. As far as the gift of prophecy. If you're referring to the gift of prophecy as being completely rolled up and sealed up, then we have a giant problem when

01:04:45

Paul tells us in Corinthians to seek prophecy, the gift which is greater than the gift of tongues. I saw a video of yours that you did not too long ago, where you talked about a direct revelation that you had from God, at least that's what you claim is the source, regarding the book of Romans.

01:04:59

Do you consider your interpretation of Romans to be inspired by God the Holy Spirit? I believe that it's consistent with all the scriptures, which is the basis for understanding whether any revelation is of God.

01:05:08

The scriptures tell us to base it against the actual standard of the written word of God. Any prophecy that comes outside or goes against the word of God, the

01:05:15

Bible says, or if it doesn't come true, is a false prophecy. If I disagree with your interpretation of the book of Romans, am

01:05:21

I sinning against Yahweh? It depends. If your disagreement crosses the rest of scripture, then yes.

01:05:27

All right. So, that kind of gives you the idea of the exchange. Now, let's listen to what it is that brought the question up.

01:05:35

Here's Jim Staley from a video from September 9th of 2011 from his

01:05:41

Passion for Truth vision cast. This is kind of a vision casting service that they held at Passion for Truth a few years back, and he talks about how

01:05:51

Passion for Truth got started. Here's Jim Staley. All right.

01:05:56

Well, let's continue, and I want to share some more with you, a little bit about history of Jim Staley.

01:06:03

Uh -oh, what happened here? I want to go back to this, and I'm going to take two minutes, and I want to share this because I saw this today, and this is the first picture that I've seen that encapsulates a vision that I had, and I've only had a couple of supernatural experiences in my life, so don't feel like I'm supernatural.

01:06:21

I'm not. I'm about as natural as you can possibly get, but I have had a couple of supernatural experiences.

01:06:26

Really, our entire ministry began on my couch back in about 2005.

01:06:35

I was going through the book of Romans. We had already started our Bible study, and the Lord told me that the foundation of everything that he would lay before me would start in the book of Romans, and so I opened up the book of Romans on my laptop.

01:06:46

My wife was on her laptop right next to me, and I came to the third chapter, and I was already completely, utterly confused.

01:06:52

I had no idea what this meant. I had more questions than answers, and so I did what anybody would do that has a headache and wants to meditate.

01:07:01

I put my head back on the couch, and I closed my eyes, and I began to pray and meditate on this verse, asking the

01:07:07

Lord to reveal to me what this answer might be or how to interpret the Scripture. Little did

01:07:13

I know that this would be the most incredible experience of my life outside of hearing an actual audible voice years earlier.

01:07:26

As my head was back, and I was kind of meditating, my wife elbowed me, and she said, Jim, what are you doing?

01:07:33

Stop humming. And I said, I'm not humming. What are you talking about? I'm just praying. She said,

01:07:38

You're humming. And so we kind of laughed a little bit. I didn't think anything about it, but in that vision,

01:07:44

I saw this, something very similar. I saw a foundation, like in rubble, like an ancient foundation, and beautifully manicured grass, very short, manicured grass, and that's all

01:07:58

I saw in that vision because my wife elbowed me. And then I went to bed that evening, and the vision, the dream, immediately started from what happened earlier.

01:08:12

And in that dream was this exact same picture of an ancient foundation. All of a sudden,

01:08:17

Yeshua came into the picture, and then I came into the picture, and the camera angle is from behind as we are walking, and He is silently telling me, explaining to me all of the foundation and the problem with the foundation.

01:08:29

He was showing me the door, and this is where the window was, and the gate, and He walked all the way around the footing of this foundation.

01:08:37

And I began to understand what He was telling me, even though in the dream there was no words whatsoever. There was full communication integrated into this dream.

01:08:44

And by the time I got all the way around this foundation, I had realized, even though I knew nothing about it at the time,

01:08:50

I realized that what He was showing me was the foundation of His house, His temple, and why it was in ruins that it was in.

01:08:57

Well, I woke up to my wife looking at me. Now, you have to understand,

01:09:02

I have five children, five girls, and at the time I think we had three, and my wife was always up with the baby way before I was, and I never wake up to my wife right there, very rarely, because she's always tending to the sheep, if you will.

01:09:21

And so it was kind of a shock, and she was a bit shocked, and she said, Jim, what happened last night? I said, what do you mean?

01:09:26

She said, well, I never sleep on my side. You know, I sleep on my stomach, but I woke up on my right side, which is impossible for me to sleep on my right side, and there was a man standing over the top of you in the middle of the night.

01:09:38

And she said, it scared me so bad that I prayed that it would go away. I opened my eyes later, and it was gone, and she said that she hardly got any sleep the rest of the night, but she was 100 % sure that they're in love.

01:09:52

Right at that moment, I connected the two. This was not a dream. This was a vision.

01:09:58

This is what happened in the New Testament. It happened to many men, you know, throughout time, where an angel was bringing a message.

01:10:05

But I still didn't have a clue what that meant until that afternoon. I went back. I plopped down on the couch, opened up my

01:10:13

Bible, read Romans 3, and I understood what it meant. It was as if he had put a chip in my brain to understand

01:10:20

Paul because there wasn't enough time for me to go to college. There wasn't enough time for me to learn Hebrew. There wasn't enough time for me to dig into all the cultural nuances of a rabbi,

01:10:30

Rabbi Shaul, studying under Gamaliel and knowing the entire Torah. He began to download to me understanding, and I began to read through the book of Romans, and it was as if I was there in the church of Rome, and I began to understand what he meant, and light bulbs began to go on.

01:10:46

And that's when I began to teach. For six months, I taught verse by verse on the book of Romans, and that was the foundation, beginning of understanding of this thing we call the

01:10:57

Brit Hadashah, the New Testament, and how the Torah fits into it. So there's Jim Staley's vision and claims to kind of direct revelatory downloads in an inspired interpretation of the book of Romans, which plays into the debate because, obviously,

01:11:18

I asked about it. But the reason why I asked about it is because I wanted to get it within the record of the debate, you know, where he's coming from.

01:11:28

And let's be blunt. I mean, what he's describing here is something very much akin to the same kind of story that Joseph Smith tells.

01:11:42

You know, Joseph Smith tells the story of, you know, he wasn't sure which church to join or which denomination was right, and so he prayed, and, you know, he had a revelation from God, and that he was supposed to, you know, kind of restore the church, the

01:12:01

Church of Jesus Christ, and then from there he had the revelation from the angel Moroni and the golden tablets and stuff like that.

01:12:08

I hate to say this, but Jim Staley's claim here is very much akin to the same claim that Joseph Smith makes.

01:12:19

And having listened to his teaching on the Book of Galatians, Acts chapter 15, and portions of Romans, he turns all of those books on their head, and the end result is that Christians must circumcise.

01:12:37

They've got to keep the Sabbath and all this kind of stuff. So I would basically say, based upon the fact that his interpretations of these passages fly directly in the face of what those passages say and what the

01:12:48

Church has always understood those passages to be saying, that, well,

01:12:53

I don't want to, you know, sound like I'm running him down, but unfortunately the source of that revelation wasn't

01:13:03

God the Holy Spirit. That entity that was next to him that his wife saw wasn't an angel.

01:13:10

I would argue that it was actually demonic. So, you know, I put that in there because you need to know a little bit about Jim Staley, where he's coming from, and what it is that drives him.

01:13:23

He really believes that was a direct revelation from God, and based upon how he twists

01:13:28

God's Word and is putting people back under Torah and the Old Covenant, I would say that wasn't God, that was something else.

01:13:34

Next point. During the debate, Staley actually said that Pentecost was not on Sunday.

01:13:41

I pointed the fact that it was on Sunday, and I will demonstrate to you that it is.

01:13:47

In fact, I will demonstrate that it's on Sunday using his own words, but let's have

01:13:53

Jim Staley explain to us how Pentecost was not on Sunday, which is fascinating because this is a typical argument from Sabbatarians because they don't like the idea that the

01:14:04

Holy Spirit shows up on a Sunday, the first day of the week, and yet that's exactly what happened.

01:14:11

But here's Jim Staley to explain why that didn't take place. Running out of time here, so let me go back to all the things that he had mentioned.

01:14:20

Pentecost was not on Sunday, ladies and gentlemen. The history records tell us otherwise. We go back to this.

01:14:27

We go back to the writings of Josephus, the first -century Jewish historian, who says, but on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the 16th of the month.

01:14:35

So you have to know about the first -century feast days is that the 14th is when Passover meal was. The very next day was the 15th.

01:14:42

The 15th is the first day of unleavened bread, which is a high Shabbat on the Hebrew calendar.

01:14:48

The 16th is the day that they started counting for the feast of Shavuot, or in Greek, Pentecost.

01:14:56

If you count 50 days from the 16th, it is not on a Sunday. It can be on any day. It is only the

01:15:02

Christian church, mainly, and some sects in Messianic circles, that believe that the

01:15:09

Shavuot, or the feast of Pentecost, was on Sunday. Even in the Aramaic versions of Targum Onkelos, on Leviticus 23 .15,

01:15:16

the very scriptures that are used to tell us when that happens, says, and count to you after the festival day, from the day you brought the

01:15:23

Omer of the Elevation, seven weeks after the festival day. Which one? Not on Shabbat. It's after the high

01:15:28

Shabbat. So the mistake that Christians make, not understanding the culture of the Hebrews, is they believe it's the weekly

01:15:34

Sabbath, not understanding that the first day of unleavened bread is a high Sabbath. Okay, so let's kind of, that sounds kind of detailed, but if you could, you can follow along, if you would like to, and make yourself a grid.

01:15:48

Grab a piece of paper, and make yourself, you know, something of a grid, that looks like a calendar, with Sunday being the first, you know, the first box, and what you're going to need is the ability to have seven weeks.

01:16:04

That's what you're going to need, and just a little bit of work here. By the way, I'm familiar with the Josephus passage that he's referring to.

01:16:12

Josephus and Philo note the fact that the Pharisees had a different way of counting for the

01:16:19

Feast of Pentecost than the Zadokim, that would be the Sadducees, and what's fascinating about this is that because of the details given to us in Scripture, that particular year that Jesus was crucified, both according to the

01:16:37

Pharisees' way of keeping the system, and according to the Sadducees, the Pentecost would have fallen on a

01:16:45

Sunday, the first day of the week. I'll demonstrate that to you, and what we'll do is we'll kind of get our bearings here.

01:16:52

What you need is, you're going to need to, let's take a look at John chapter 18,

01:16:59

John chapter 18, so that you can see how we're going to get our bearings, so we know what's going on, because he's right.

01:17:07

The Passover itself is going to be eaten on Friday the 14th of Nisan.

01:17:19

That's when it's going to actually be consumed, and this can be confirmed by looking at the story of Jesus when he was before Pilate.

01:17:30

Jesus before Pilate, we learn something about what's going on here, and so here's what it says,

01:17:37

John chapter 20, sorry, John chapter 18, verse 28. I'll start, it says,

01:17:43

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning.

01:17:49

They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the

01:17:57

Passover. So it's Friday morning, Jesus is being marched over to Pilate, and it's

01:18:06

Nisan 14th, that's the day when they're going to eat the Passover, and it says that they didn't want to go into the governor's house so that they would be defiled, so that they couldn't eat the

01:18:19

Passover, right? So it just so happens that the year that Jesus was crucified, the

01:18:26

Friday morning that he was crucified, Nisan 14th was the day of his crucifixion. Also, the weekly

01:18:34

Sabbath coincides with the

01:18:41

Passover. So what you will do on your paper here is in that first week, you put for Thursday put a 13, for Friday put a 14, for Saturday put a 15, just so you kind of have your bearings, and then for Sunday, the next week, you put a 16 in the box, okay?

01:19:02

So you got your dates worked out here, okay? So the reason why the

01:19:08

Pharisees didn't want to go into Pilate's house is because they wanted to eat the Passover, that was that Friday night.

01:19:13

Remember, Pilate had a habit, a tradition of releasing somebody to them on the

01:19:20

Passover, right? And they chose Barabbas rather than Jesus, so we have our bearings here.

01:19:27

Now, like I pointed out, yes, it is absolutely true that Josephus as well as Philo note the fact that the

01:19:35

Pharisees had a different counting system. However, when you pay attention to the details, that particular year, both the

01:19:43

Pharisees and the Sadducees, the way they counted, it worked out the same way. Okay, so let's go back and listen to Jim Staley's argument.

01:19:52

Again, we're going to kind of prove what's going on here. Listen. Running out of time here, so let me go back to all the things that he had mentioned.

01:20:00

Pentecost was not on Sunday, ladies and gentlemen. The history records tell us otherwise. We go back to this, we go back to the writings of Josephus, the first century

01:20:09

Jewish historian says, but on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the 16th of the month.

01:20:16

That's right. The second day of unleavened bread is the 16th of the month. So you have to know about the first century feast days is that the 14th is when

01:20:24

Passover meal was. The very next day was the 15th. Okay. The 15th is the first day of unleavened bread, which is a high

01:20:30

Shabbat on the Hebrew calendar. The 16th is the day that they started counting for the feast of Shavuot.

01:20:40

Now this is correct. Now this is in Hebrew. The Hebrew thing we're looking for here is from Leviticus chapter 23.

01:20:48

Let me pull this up in my computer. And just so you know what he's talking about, the day when they begin counting, he says the day they begin counting is on the 16th.

01:20:58

Right. This is Rashid Katsir. This is the day when they—it's the first fruits, okay?

01:21:04

And we read about the first fruits in Leviticus chapter 23, verses 9 through 12.

01:21:10

Let me kind of fill you in on what's going on here. I am familiar with these feast days. Here's what it says.

01:21:15

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits, the

01:21:25

Rashid Katsir, of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the

01:21:31

Lord so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it.

01:21:38

And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the

01:21:45

Lord. So this wave offering, this Rashid Katsir, this takes place on the day after the

01:21:55

Sabbath, okay, which is what's being talked about here. But that's not all, okay?

01:22:02

That day then becomes day one for keeping track of the days that you count until the

01:22:10

Feast of Shavuot or Pentecost. And let me read to you the passage then that pertains to that.

01:22:16

It's Leviticus 23, same passage, verses 15 through 16. And here's what it says.

01:22:23

You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering.

01:22:30

You shall count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath, then you shall present a grain offering of the new grain to the

01:22:39

Lord, okay? So that's what's going on here. You count seven full weeks from the day after the

01:22:48

Sabbath. Now, you have your grid here. Again, Thursday is

01:22:54

Nisan 13th, this is in the first week. Friday is Nisan 14th, the day when the

01:22:59

Sabbath is eaten. The Saturday is the Sabbath, Nisan 15th.

01:23:06

Nisan 16th is Sunday, the first day of the week, and it's Rishit Qatsir, the first fruits are waved, and that's when you begin counting.

01:23:16

And then all you got to do is fill in the numbers, okay? So the 16th of Nisan is day one, and then count all the way up to 50.

01:23:25

So week one is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

01:23:30

Saturday is day seven. Sunday is day eight. The next week, the next

01:23:36

Sunday is 15 days. The next Sunday is 22 days. The next

01:23:41

Sunday is 29 days. The next Sunday is 36 days. The next Sunday is 43 days.

01:23:48

The Pentecost is the 50th day, and it's the first day of the week, and it's on a

01:23:54

Sunday. Now, it's absolutely true that the Pharisees and Sadducees had two completely different ways to count to the

01:24:04

Feast of Pentecost, and the Pharisees' system meant that that day was all over the place, while the

01:24:10

Sadducees, it was always on a Sunday. But the year that Jesus was crucified, that year, both of those systems, they counted the exact same days, and Pentecost was on the first day of the week, on a

01:24:25

Sunday, seven full Sabbaths after the Passover, and it was the first day of the week.

01:24:33

So, I mean, he says that he's this great guy who understands the

01:24:39

Hebrew mindset, and that we Gentiles don't understand the Hebrew system and the

01:24:44

Feast and all this kind of stuff, and that this is some kind of crazy thing that we've come up with, or that somehow I was pulling a fast one on people when

01:24:51

I said that Pentecost occurred on a Sunday. I wasn't pulling a fast one, this just called math.

01:24:57

Now, the last thing I'm going to cover in our post -Sabbath debate, post -mortem, if you would,

01:25:04

I want to talk about the purpose of the law and answer the question, does anybody who claims to keep the

01:25:12

Sabbath actually keep it? Yeah, that's the question we're going to answer, because we're going to take a closer look at what it is that Scripture demands regarding Sabbath -keeping to point out the fact that the people who claim that they're keeping the

01:25:24

Sabbath, they aren't keeping it. But let's first go back to my cross -examination of Jim Staley, where I talk about the law and its purpose.

01:25:33

What is the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law is to show people their sin and to prove our love for God. Do you keep it?

01:25:41

I absolutely keep the best that I can, no questions asked. No more than I keep my wife's laws the best that I can.

01:25:46

Is the standard set out in Scripture regarding the keeping of the Torah that you do the best that you can? What's the standard?

01:25:52

The standard is perfection, there's no questions asked. Because the standard is Christ, and we are to attain and reach for the standard of our

01:26:00

Messiah. So you do not keep the Torah? I keep the Torah as I absolutely best can, reaching for the rung of the

01:26:07

Messiah. Do you appear three times a year before the Lord in Jerusalem? Not required to. You're required to.

01:26:13

Are you sure? If you're keeping Torah, you're required to appear before the Lord three times a year. Do you know where that Scripture is? Yes, actually, this is talking about the feast days.

01:26:21

Now, by the way, if you want more details on that, read the PDF I put on the website and in the podcast stream about Torah fulfilled.

01:26:29

This is one of the arguments that I picked up from Eusebius of Caesarea. We continue. And do you know the conditions of which we are required to appear before the

01:26:39

Lord, and those conditions are not available today. So that commandment is put on pause because the requirement is that the temple is supposed to be standing.

01:26:46

If a temple was there, would you be keeping that? Now, which is kind of weird, by the way. Where in Scripture does it say that certain commandments are just put on pause?

01:26:56

It doesn't. I suppose I would ask for him to give me free flight status to get there.

01:27:04

But absolutely, I would do my best to always honor my King. Now, I'm going to point this out.

01:27:10

The laws regarding the Sabbath are very specific, and so are the laws regarding observing the

01:27:16

Passover. Very specific. And anybody today who claims that they're keeping

01:27:23

Torah regarding the Passover, or they're keeping Torah regarding keeping the

01:27:30

Sabbath, I would basically say, no, you are not.

01:27:36

Let's review what it is the Torah requires regarding Sabbath keeping.

01:27:42

And ask yourself the question, are you a Sabbath keeper or are you a Sabbath breaker? The Torah only defines what it means to keep or to break the

01:27:51

Sabbath. And here's what it teaches. That Sabbath, the Sabbath, must be observed from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday.

01:28:00

From evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath. Leviticus 23, verse 32, is where it says that.

01:28:09

No work can be done on the Sabbath. It is wholly a day of rest. This is from Exodus 31, verse 15, which reads,

01:28:17

Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, wholly to the

01:28:22

Lord. Exodus 35, verse 3, teaches that if you turn your furnace on during the winter on the

01:28:29

Sabbath, you are a Sabbath breaker. Here's what it says. You shall kindle no fire in all of your dwelling places on the

01:28:39

Sabbath day. That's right. You're thinking, well, man, the winters are kind of cold in my neck of the woods.

01:28:47

Oh, well, if you want to keep the Sabbath, you cannot. You cannot kindle a fire in your home on the

01:28:54

Sabbath. If you do that, you are a Sabbath breaker. If you bake or boil food on the

01:29:01

Sabbath, you're a Sabbath breaker. And here's where I get that from. Exodus 16, verses 22 and 23, which reads,

01:29:08

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each, and when all of the leaders of the congregation came and told

01:29:14

Moses, he said to them, This is what Yahweh has commanded. Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the

01:29:20

Lord. Bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept until the morning.

01:29:27

So no baking or boiling on the Sabbath. You've got to prepare all of your food ahead of time.

01:29:32

If you don't, you are a Sabbath breaker. Exodus 16, verse 29, teaches that you are not allowed to travel far from your home on the

01:29:41

Sabbath. It says this, Remain each of you in his place, let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.

01:29:47

Exodus 31, verse 15, also says that you don't keep the Sabbath unless you enforce the

01:29:53

Sabbath with the death penalty. Here's what it says, You are not keeping the

01:30:05

Sabbath unless your community is enforcing the Sabbath with capital punishment.

01:30:13

Numbers chapter 15, verses 32 through 35, teaches this also as well.

01:30:19

It kind of reinforces the idea. It tells the story of a man who was gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Here's what it says, So you're not a

01:30:48

Sabbath keeper unless you are enforcing the Sabbath with capital punishment. Numbers chapter 28, verses 9 through 10, says this,

01:31:02

Here's what it says, This is the burnt offering of every

01:31:15

Sabbath besides the regular burnt offerings and its drink offerings. So you're not keeping the Sabbath unless your priests are sacrificing two lambs every

01:31:23

Sabbath. So based upon how the Torah defines what it means to keep the Sabbath, who of you can say that they're a

01:31:32

Sabbath keeper? You can't. There's nobody who's a

01:31:37

Sabbath keeper. Not one person. And listen, if you really want to be stringent and try this out, you can find yourself in a lot of trouble, but I would basically argue this.

01:31:48

Let's just say that your little faith community decided they're going to keep the Sabbath, and they're going to keep it biblical, man.

01:31:55

And by that, that means any of us in our community who breaks the Sabbath, we're going to take the law into our own hands, and we're going to take them out behind the church, and we're going to stone them to death.

01:32:06

And let's say that they found your eight -year -old son gathering sticks on the

01:32:13

Sabbath, and they took him back behind the church, and they're getting ready to stone him. Do you think at that point you're going to be thinking, maybe we need to reconsider this?

01:32:22

Are we sure this doesn't apply only to the Jews? Let me throw something else out here. These laws were never meant to be kept by all the world.

01:32:32

These were laws that were given specifically to the children of Israel at that time, and they're quite adapted for them.

01:32:40

And this kind of goes back to this idea then about appearing before the Lord three times a year.

01:32:46

Yes, this is absolutely certain that you must do this, even if you want to keep the

01:32:52

Passover. Nobody keeps the Passover unless they keep the Passover in Jerusalem at the temple.

01:33:00

Oh, by the way, there is no temple, right? Yeah, you're not even keeping the Passover if you're not in Jerusalem to do it, nor are you keeping the

01:33:09

Feast of Tabernacles or Yom Kippur or anything else. Those three feasts require the men of Israel to appear before the

01:33:16

Lord in Jerusalem three times a year physically, which means that it's impossible for somebody who's living somewhere else to actually keep these laws.

01:33:28

Also, the Sabbath laws are not based upon a 24 -hour clock. They're based upon sunset to sunset.

01:33:35

So let's say that you lived up in Anchorage, Alaska, okay? And it just so happens that the sun sets on a

01:33:44

Friday evening and doesn't come back for three months or however long the sun disappears in Anchorage, Alaska.

01:33:54

The Sabbath doesn't end until the sun goes down the next time it comes up.

01:34:02

How are you going to keep the Sabbath? There is no way for you to keep it, is there? You're going to have to basically say to your boss, listen, the sun went down on Friday night and hasn't come back.

01:34:11

I can't work until the sun comes back. Yeah, you see, it doesn't work, does it?

01:34:19

No, not at all. Because, again, nobody can keep the

01:34:25

Sabbath. Nobody does keep the Sabbath today. So even the people who are out there saying that Christians must keep the

01:34:34

Sabbath, I would say, oh, really? Okay, okay, sure. You go ahead and you try to keep it, and just keep in mind that the

01:34:42

Sabbath requires you to keep it from sunset to sunset. You can't light a fire in your house during the winter if it's cold, otherwise you're breaking the

01:34:51

Sabbath. You must enforce the Sabbath with capital punishment for those who are

01:34:57

Sabbath breakers. And the list goes on and on, as I've pointed out.

01:35:03

Oh, and you have to sacrifice two lambs every Sabbath. Are you really a Sabbath keeper? You aren't at all.

01:35:10

You're not a Sabbath keeper at all. This goes back to the point that I was making in my opening argument in the debate, and that is that the old covenant is gone.

01:35:26

Let me give another passage to that effect. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 4.

01:35:32

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the

01:35:50

Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone— what was carved in letters on stone, folks?

01:36:01

Yeah, the Ten Commandments. That's the old covenant. Let me read that again. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came with such glory that the

01:36:11

Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because its glory, which was being brought to an end— that's right, the old covenant was being brought to an end— will not the ministry of the

01:36:21

Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.

01:36:29

Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

01:36:36

For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

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For since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so the

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Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened, for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.

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Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but when one turns to the

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Lord, the veil is removed. And now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the

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Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all we with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the

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Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the

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Lord, who is the Spirit. That's right. 2 Corinthians 3 makes it very clear.

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The old covenant has been brought to an end. We are under the new covenant. The old covenant, which is the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, has been brought to an end.

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This is what the Scripture says. Now, this does not mean that the new covenant doesn't have morals.

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It does. And read the PDF that I put together yesterday regarding Torah fulfilled.

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Now, the other thing I'm going to make available is Riggle's book on the

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Sabbath and the Lord's Day. And again, it's a PDF. It'll be available on the website as well as in the podcast stream.

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And I make that available because Riggle's arguments are absolutely brilliant, and they are of this same stripe.

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He was quite an aid to me in preparing for this debate. And it will help you understand that the old covenant has passed and that the new covenant does have morals.

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The new covenant does have commands. It does. And they're all over the New Testament.

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It'll actually aid you in properly dissecting and keeping not jumbled in your mind the proper distinction of law and gospel.

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So I'm going to make that available as well. But as you can see from our postmortem,

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Jim Staley, his arguments have come up wanting in so many ways.

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And the sad thing about all of this stuff is that he is mixing the old covenant and the new.

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And by doing that, what you end up losing is the new covenant. And it's really sad. This is a man who believes he's receiving direct revelation from God.

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Has a direct inspiration as to understanding the book of Romans.

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And he's putting people back under bondage of the old Mosaic covenant. This is really, truly a tragedy.

01:39:35

What do you think? All right, we're at the end of another edition of Fighting for the Faith. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

01:39:44

Faith, you can do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com

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forward slash piratechristian or follow me on Twitter, my name there, at piratechristian. Until tomorrow, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.