Debate on the Sabbath

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February 10, 2019

Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? Rev Rob Ham of Keystone Heights Presbyterian Church says yes. Pastor Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church says no. This debate was held at SGFC. Both sides have: 20 Minute Opening Statements 10 Minute Rebuttals 10 Minutes Cross Examinations 10 Minute Closing Statements Followed by Audience Questions

00:01: Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
00:03: Thank you so much for attending our event this evening.
00:05: We have a, I'm sure to be spirited and quality debate in front of us.
00:10: Just wanted to introduce myself.
00:11: My name is Matthew Henson.
00:12: I'll be your debate moderator this evening.
00:14: My job tonight is to one, stay out of the way because I'm fairly sure you did not come to see me.
00:20: The second is to be relentlessly neutral.
00:23: I hope to learn very much during this evening, and so my job is to make sure that that happens in a fair and unbiased way.
00:31: In a formal debate, there exists a set of rules and formatting that are mutually agreed upon to help ensure a quality exchange of ideas.
00:38: Our thesis tonight is the following statement.
00:41: Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.
00:43: Now that, as a proposition, you can choose to support or to oppose.
00:47: And so in debate terms, we would say that we have a proposition and an opposition.
00:53: The our participants are therefore assigned the labels proposition in the case of Reverend Ham and opposition in the case of Pastor Foskey.
01:00: These terms will be used throughout the evening to refer to them.
01:02: So if you get a little mixed up, I'm pretty sure it's also on your programs.
01:07: As for the format of the debate, you can see on your program as well that we have opening statements, rebuttals, and intermission, cross examinations, closing statements, and then time for audience questions.
01:17: There will be some closing remarks in prayer, and we hope to keep everything close to our laid out schedule.
01:24: Now, before we begin this evening, the three of us engaged in a discussion of rules and expectations.
01:33: And so I just wanted to go over those in brief, so there are a few more that are gonna govern how tonight works.
01:39: Each participant has to stay within their allotted time slot based upon what that particular element of the debate is allotted.
01:46: Minor deviations will be tolerated with sovereign grace, but excessively going over time will be deducted from the participant's closing statement, so if they do go two minutes over on an opener, they'll only get an eight minute instead of a ten minute closing statement.
02:01: The moderator will indicate that 60 seconds remain by raising a hand, and then verbally with the word time at the conclusion of the participant's time slot.
02:10: There's also a clock up here that they can see that I will do my best to reach around and reset each time.
02:16: In the event of a technical issue, the clock will of course stop.
02:18: In the event of a rapture, in case you believe in that, we'll figure out what happens then.
02:25: During cross-examination and audience question and answer, we have some more specific structure, and we'll go over that once that happens.
02:30: We don't want to bore everybody with details at this time.
02:34: So having covered the responsibilities and rules for us three, I wanted to move on to you, our audience.
02:41: We are very happy to see you here tonight, and we're grateful that you have an interest in quality debate.
02:47: In order to allow ideas to be openly exchanged, we ask that your participation be limited to the turning of pages and checking for scriptural references, that sort of thing.
02:56: We will have a time to applaud our participants at the end, because they've prepared very hard for this, I'm sure.
03:01: And so we do want to express our appreciation, just not until the very end of the event.
03:07: Any sort of booing, cheering, jeering, throwing of vegetables, anything like that, projectiles, these things are prohibited.
03:17: And if your passion for the topic exceeds your self-control, we may ask you to continue to participate from out there, that's all.
03:26: I do not have anything else on my notes.
03:28: Are we clear to begin? Okay, we will now start with our 20 minute proposition opening statement.
03:34: So I'll get the mic set and the clock running.
03:37: Thank you, gentlemen.
03:46: Okay, 20 minutes begins now.
03:50: All right, can you all hear me? It's good to see you.
03:53: I'm so glad to be here tonight.
03:54: My name is Rob Hamm.
03:56: It said Reverend Rob, just call me Rob if we hang out afterwards, please.
03:59: It's an honor and it's a privilege to get to share this platform with Dr.
04:04: Keith.
04:05: Keith, I consider you a friend and a faithful minister of the gospel.
04:09: He's frowning, so I'm not sure what that means.
04:11: And a brother in Christ.
04:12: And this last Thursday, Keith and I actually got to go to Chick-fil-A.
04:16: We went to lunch together, our two families, which is Jesus' favorite restaurant, by the way.
04:20: And I'm just saying, they're Sabbatarians.
04:23: So I may have already just won by us going and eating.
04:26: We have much in common.
04:29: I think that we agree on 99.99% of our theology.
04:33: This is less of a debate for me and more of an occasion for spiritual sharpening.
04:38: And so when Keith asked me to do this debate, what immediately came to mind was Proverbs 27, 17, that says, as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
04:48: And so I hope that's what we're doing tonight.
04:51: That's my heart's desire.
04:52: I've been tasked this evening with representing and defending the position that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.
04:59: In other words, I'm defending and promoting the theology and the doctrine of the Westminster Confession from the 17th century in regards to their teaching on the Fourth Commandment.
05:09: And so you're gonna hear me tonight talk a lot about the Fourth Commandment.
05:13: And I'm not going to read to you the Westminster Confession of Faith because I said I don't really care about quoting old confessions, which I love and admire, but if you want to, you can look up Westminster Confession of Faith 21, Section 7, Chapter 21, Section 7.
05:30: And that is my position that I'm going to be explaining tonight.
05:34: I'm gonna be giving three arguments this evening for the proposition that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.
05:40: Those three arguments are this, that the Fourth Commandment, number one, is an abiding part of God's moral law.
05:48: That's what I'm gonna be speaking about tonight, that the Fourth Commandment is an abiding part of God's moral law.
05:53: And as my counter goes down, my timer goes down, you'll notice that I spend the majority of my time on my first point.
05:59: The other two points, I believe, naturally follow.
06:01: So, number two, I will be defending the statement that the Sabbath ordinance is founded upon one day in seven.
06:10: So it's a pattern of one in seven.
06:12: And number three, I'm going to make the case that after Christ's resurrection, the Sabbath was moved to the first day of the week.
06:19: And so that is what I'm preparing to do this evening.
06:22: My job tonight is to explain and to hopefully do service to these three propositions.
06:29: And it's your job to test what I'm saying against the scriptures.
06:33: And so I don't think that I'm in an active stance tonight and you're in a passive stance.
06:38: I think that even though your only job is to rustle the pages, I'd hope that you'd be rustling the pages of your Bibles.
06:43: Can I, is it okay if I ask for an amen? I'm a priest, amen.
06:46: Okay, so I want you to be like the noble Bereans in Acts chapter 17, who examine the scriptures to see if the things that are being said are so.
06:56: And so that's what I'd ask for you to do tonight.
06:58: My first argument is this, that the fourth commandment is an abiding part or aspect of God's moral law.
07:08: It's part of God's moral law.
07:10: So I want to define my terms as we get started this evening.
07:13: There are three kinds of law, three types of law that are contained within the scriptures.
07:19: There is what is known as the moral law.
07:22: There is the ceremonial law and the civil law.
07:26: So let me explain these three just quickly and briefly, just so we're all thinking about the same things.
07:31: There is the moral law, known in the Hebrew as the Mishpatim, and that's often translated in your Bibles as an ordinance of God, one of God's ordinances.
07:41: The moral laws of God are laws that are based upon God's character.
07:47: They're based upon who God is, his nature and his essence and his being and his holiness.
07:52: These moral laws are holy.
07:55: These moral laws are just, and these moral laws are unchanging.
07:59: So they deal with issues such as justice, respect, sexual conduct, purity, things like this.
08:06: These laws in the Bible, moral laws are permanently binding on all people in all ages.
08:12: And whether or not we agree that the fourth commandment is a moral law, I think that Keith and I, he'll have to share later, agree that moral laws in the Bible are permanent, that they're abiding.
08:22: So there are the moral laws, the Mishpatim in the Bible.
08:24: There is also something known as the ceremonial laws.
08:28: This is what's called the Hukim in the Old Testament.
08:31: This is sometimes referred to as positive law.
08:33: And what this means is that these are temporary customs for the nation of Israel, okay? So as you're thinking about laws, you have moral laws, which are fixed and absolute.
08:43: You have ceremonial laws, which are temporary customs in Israel.
08:47: They're often referred to in the Bible as statutes.
08:51: And they're specific regulations that are given to distinguish the Israelites from their pagan neighbors.
08:57: And so this comprises of dietary restrictions, if you remember reading this in your Old Testaments, or clothing restrictions, or sacrificial ceremonies.
09:06: These are temporary statutes, which Galatians 3 reminds us have been absolutely abrogated.
09:12: They've been fulfilled with Christ, and in the coming of Christ, his life, and his ministry.
09:16: These laws are not morally necessary.
09:19: So for example, there's nothing inherently evil about eating pork.
09:22: And all God's people said, amen.
09:24: I'm gonna go and have some pork tonight, is the plan.
09:26: So that would be an example of a ceremonial or a positive law.
09:30: They're only binding for the person or the nation to whom they were given.
09:34: There's also a third, and very briefly I'll go over this, which is the civil laws, the judicial laws of the Old Testament.
09:40: These have to do with the culture.
09:42: They have to do with the place and the form of government that was present in the time of ancient Israel.
09:47: So they have to do with being a member of a citizen of a theocracy, for example, in the Old Testament, or a monarchy.
09:53: And we're no longer a monarchy.
09:54: We're a democratic republic.
09:56: And so those rules, those regulations, no longer apply to us.
10:00: My position tonight is that the Fourth Commandment is a part of the Mishpatim.
10:06: It's a part of the moral law, and it's not part of the hakim.
10:10: It's not part of the ceremonial law.
10:13: And let me just say briefly a definition again, as this is how I'm spending most of my time tonight.
10:17: A moral law is a commandment that's given by God that reflects his nature, his character, his essence.
10:26: They're based on his holy character.
10:28: And so they are holy, just, and unchanging.
10:31: They're permanent.
10:32: They're binding all men in all ages.
10:35: And I wanna give you an example of an abiding moral law.
10:37: When we think about the law, thou shalt not murder.
10:40: Again, I'm a pastor.
10:42: I have people do this all the time.
10:43: How many of you like that law and think that it should be abiding? Thou shalt not murder? Okay, good.
10:47: Murder is always wrong, not simply because God's word prohibits it, but also because it's an inherently evil act that goes against God's moral nature or his character.
10:59: And so Genesis 2.7 says that God essentially is life, that he breathes life into Adam in the garden.
11:07: In Genesis 2, Job 33.4 says that the spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
11:15: We hear about Jesus in the New Testament that in him was life, right? And the light was the light of men.
11:21: And so murder, for example, is a moral law that never goes away.
11:25: We should always not murder because it's a moral law that's abiding.
11:29: Why do I hold in the time remaining? Why do I hold that the fourth commandment is a part of God's abiding moral law and not part of the ceremonial or positive law of the Old Testament? Because it's my position and the position of the Westminster divines that it's not a statute that originates in the Mosaic covenant, but that which is founded upon creation, okay? It is a creation ordinance is my position.
11:58: Exodus, as we'll see in a moment, and we'll turn in a moment to Exodus 20, grounds the fourth commandment upon God's example in creation.
12:08: That there is a Sabbath in the Bible is evident in the very first pages, the opening chapters of the word of God.
12:16: And so my position is that the Sabbath or the fourth commandment reveals to us a pattern that's built into creation itself.
12:24: In other words, it's part of the very nature of how things are.
12:27: It's instituted by God before there was a fall.
12:30: It's instituted by God before there was Moses.
12:34: And so I want you, if you have your Bible, to turn with me to Genesis chapter one, because I wanna point this out.
12:39: What I aim to show over the remaining minutes is that the idea of a six-in-one pattern of Sabbath rest existed long before the 613 Mosaic commandments and the temporary typological national covenant that was made with Israel at Sinai.
12:55: So Genesis chapter one, I wanna give you some examples of creation ordinances.
13:00: Creation ordinances are that which is an abiding part of God's, the way that God has created the universe.
13:07: It's a mandate for all of humanity and they're abiding, they last forever.
13:12: Genesis chapter one in verse 27, we read this.
13:15: God created man in his own image.
13:17: In the image of God, he created him male and female, he created them.
13:21: Verse 28, and God blessed them.
13:23: God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
13:29: And then it says, and have dominion.
13:32: Here we have a creation mandate.
13:37: We call it sometimes the dominion mandate that we have the principle or the idea of work already before the fall.
13:44: Adam had a job to do, right? Eve had a job to do in the garden.
13:47: We have this principle of work, of vocation.
13:50: A pattern of work is an abiding and permanent ordinance for us on this earth, because it's an ordinance that's founded in creation itself.
13:58: It's not something that is post-fall.
14:01: So for example, 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 10 through 12, Paul says that if anyone is not willing to work, let him not, remember what it says, eat, right? Sorry, I know they're not supposed to talk, I'm a pastor.
14:13: Let them not eat.
14:15: And so we know that Paul agrees with the Old Testament creation mandate that work is abiding, that we are still to work.
14:22: You don't need another command in the New Testament to say that we should be working.
14:26: In fact, in 1 Timothy 5, 8, Paul says to Timothy, if not provide for his relatives, especially for the members of his old household, he has denied the faith and worse than an unbeliever.
14:36: This is a part of God's creation ordinance.
14:39: The other creation ordinance, if you turn to Genesis chapter two and look with me at verse 24, you'll see that we have another creation ordinance bound up in the first two chapters of Genesis.
14:50: And this is the ordinance of marriage.
14:52: It says in verse 24, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh, okay? Marriage is a pre-fall ordinance.
15:06: It's a pre-fall institution.
15:07: It's pre-Moses, it's pre-Sinai.
15:10: It is abiding while the earth is spinning and before God wraps everything up and creates the new heavens and the new earth, it goes on and on.
15:17: Mark 10, verses six through eight, Jesus is discussing with the Pharisees whether or not divorce is permittable.
15:24: And do you remember what Jesus does? Jesus, our Lord, appeals back not to Moses, he appeals back to creation, to these creation ordinances.
15:32: And he says, but from the beginning, quoting Genesis, of creation, he says, God made them male and female, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.
15:42: The two shall become one flesh.
15:43: They are no longer two, but one flesh, okay? So when it comes to marriage, creation ordinance.
15:49: When it comes to work, for example, creation ordinance.
15:53: I want you to notice with me Genesis chapter two, okay? Genesis chapter two, beginning in verse one.
15:58: We find that the fourth commandment, which we'll look at in a moment, goes back not simply to the time of Moses and not to the administration of the old covenant, not to Sinai, but to the time of creation.
16:10: Genesis chapter two, beginning in verse one.
16:12: Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, as was all the host of them.
16:16: 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.
16:23: So God blessed the seventh day and made it, what did he make it? Holy, I forget the rules all the time.
16:30: He made it holy, because on it, he's giving the reason now, on it, on that day, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
16:39: What we see already in Genesis chapter two is that the Lord has created this pattern of six days of working and resting on one.
16:48: This pattern is built into creation.
16:51: It's built into the nature of things.
16:53: It's instituted before the fall.
16:55: It's instituted before Moses.
16:58: And so my contention, my position tonight, is that just as the ordinances of work and marriage are permanent, so is the ordinance of the Sabbath.
17:07: You'll remember that I said that God's moral laws reflect his nature and his character.
17:12: How does the fourth commandment, how does already what we see in Genesis two, one through three, reflect the nature and character of God? What I want us to see is first, he gives us an example of his own work in Genesis chapter two, look at verse two.
17:26: It says, 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.
17:38: That word rested is the word sabbath.
17:41: It means to desist or to labor, to stop laboring and working.
17:46: It's the root of the Hebrew word Shabbat, which is Sabbath.
17:52: Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that God has decided to rest? Our God is not a God who gets sleepy.
17:58: He's not a God who gets winded or a God who gets tired.
18:01: What is he doing? He's not a pagan Greco-Roman deity.
18:04: He's not a creature, he's God.
18:07: The Lord's setting a pattern for us, my friends.
18:10: He's setting a pattern as we'll see in a moment that, and that's the teaching of Exodus chapter 20, verse eight.
18:16: The Lord created us for six days of working and resting on one.
18:20: God's Shabbat, his rest, was not a cessation, which we'll see in a moment, from all work.
18:25: We know Jesus says in John five, 16 and 17 that my father is working till now and Jesus says also I am working.
18:33: God is still holding all things together by his providential hand.
18:35: He's upholding all things in all places, but he's shavothing, he's ceasing, he's cessating, he's resting or sabbathing from his initial work in creation.
18:47: Turn with me to Exodus chapter 31 before we go to Exodus chapter 20.
18:51: I want you to see there that we find out something else that was going on in creation.
18:55: Not only did he rest, not only did the Lord shavoth or sabbath in the opening verses of Genesis chapter two, but in Exodus chapter 31, verse 17, we see this.
19:09: Actually, I'll start in verse 16.
19:10: Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever, verse 17.
19:17: It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel.
19:21: Now pay attention to the reasoning he gives behind this commandment.
19:25: That, here's the reason, in six days, the Lord made heaven and the earth and on the seventh day, he rested and then it says he was refreshed.
19:35: That word refreshed, I love.
19:37: I like to be refreshed.
19:38: I had some coffee and I snuck it up on the stage because I like to be refreshed.
19:41: It's the word nefesh and it literally means to take a breath and we know, again, what this verse doesn't mean.
19:49: We know Isaiah 40, 28 tells us that our God does not grow faint, he does not grow weary, but instead, God is, this is an anthropomorphic term to mean that he's rejoicing, he's enjoying, he's delighting and contemplating his good creation.
20:04: You'll remember that at the end of Genesis chapter one, it says, God saw that all that he had made and behold, it was very good.
20:11: In creation on the seventh day, we find God resting and we find God refreshed in the enjoyment of his finished work.
20:19: You'll notice in Genesis chapter two, you're not there, but there is no morning and evening clause in Genesis chapter two, very interesting because the sabbath foreshadows this eschatological rest, this future rest that we will once enjoy in the new heavens and the new earth where there is no longer any work that we need.
20:40: It's an eternal rest, I lost my train of thought, sorry.
20:42: This is what the author of Hebrews refers to in Hebrews chapter four, which I'll get to soon.
20:46: I want you to look with me at Exodus chapter 20.
20:51: The commandment itself, okay, the commandment itself, the fourth commandment, claims its origin in creation, not Moses, not at Sinai.
21:02: Exodus chapter 20, beginning in verse eight says, remember, that's a very important word for tonight, remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.
21:11: Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God.
21:17: On it, you shall not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who's within your gates for, here's the reason behind the command, behind the imperative, in six days the Lord made, goes back to creation.
21:34: He made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested on the seventh.
21:38: Therefore, meaning for that reason, the Lord blessed the sabbath day.
21:43: I want you to notice something about this commandment, how this commandment stands apart from all the other of the 10 commandments, the other nine.
21:51: Notice that instead of commanding or forbidding something in this commandment, it doesn't say thou shalt, and it doesn't say thou shalt not.
22:00: God tells us to do what? What's that first word? He tells us to remember this.
22:05: See, while the rest of the 10 commandments are apodictic laws, it means they're imperative commands, thou shalt do this, or some of the civil and ceremonial laws are causistic laws, meaning if this happens, then do this.
22:16: The fourth commandment is a call simply to remember something that the Lord has already instituted.
22:23: Deuteronomy 5.12 says that we are to observe the sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you, past tense.
22:33: I want you to notice Exodus 31.18.
22:35: If you have your Bibles, you can turn there.
22:37: In Exodus 31.18, and I see I'm running out of minutes, but it's okay, we'll do this.
22:42: I'll have more time later.
22:44: The fourth commandment, we see, was given to us by God's own hand.
22:48: I want you to notice tonight that all the other civil or ceremonial laws, those positive laws, those temporary laws, under the administration of the Old Covenant, they were given to Israel via a mediator.
23:00: That mediator's name was Moses.
23:02: We all know who that is.
23:04: However, when it comes to the Decalogue, when it comes to the Ten Commandments, I want you to notice that these are abiding moral commands that are provided to Israel in a unique fashion.
23:14: Exodus 31.18 says this, and he, talking about the Lord, gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, and notice what it says next.
23:27: These were written with the Ezba Elohim.
23:30: These were written with the very, what does it say? The finger of God.
23:35: My friends, I think it would take a very strong exegetical argument, an argument from the scriptures, evidence, to make the case that these 10 words, the Decalogue, are not moral, which is the opposition side, and therefore abiding perpetual commands applying to all men in all ages.
23:53: Time.
23:54: I can go one more minute, right, if I want? Okay, perfect.
23:57: It'd be off the closing statement, yes.
23:58: Okay, here's what I wanna do.
23:59: Last thing in Matthew, this is how I'll end.
24:03: Matthew 12, in verse eight.
24:06: Here's my evidence again for the perpetual moral binding nature of the Fourth Commandment in the New Testament.
24:10: I want us to notice tonight that Jesus does not ever, we don't find one instance of him abrogating or abolishing the keeping of the Sabbath, the Fourth Commandment, but instead, he claims that he has the one who has authority over that day to interpret how it is to be used.
24:27: Matthew 12, eight says, for the Son of Man, Jesus referring to himself, his favorite designation, referring to himself as the one from the book of Daniel, for the Son of Man is Lord over the Sabbath.
24:40: He's the Curios over the Sabbath.
24:43: He's the one who has authority over it.
24:45: Hebrews chapter four, this is where I'll take us last, and this is how I'll wrap up.
24:48: Hebrews chapter four.
24:50: In Hebrews chapter four, in the first 10 verses, we have New Testament teaching on the Sabbath, and some will say, I need a verse.
24:58: I need some verse in the Bible that says that the Fourth Commandment still applies, that the Sabbath is still there.
25:02: If you can't give me one verse, then I don't believe it.
25:04: Here's the verse, Hebrews chapter four.
25:08: In the first 10 verses, and we'll get into this later, I'm sure, in cross-examination, it says that, it keeps using this word, that keeps repeating, that we're looking forward to our future eschatological, one day in the new heavens and new earth, this rest.
25:21: The rest word there is katapausis.
25:24: It's from the root word katapao, and it means to be quiet, to be still, to give rest over and over again.
25:30: Eight times in verses one through 10, we see this word rest used, but notice verse nine.
25:35: If you have an ESV, the ESV translates this correctly.
25:38: In verse nine, we do not find the word katapao anymore.
25:42: We find, in verse nine, a different word.
25:44: It says, so then, in other words, because we're looking forward to this eschatological future rest, so then there remains a Sabbath.
25:54: Rest, for the people of God.
25:57: Remains, it's the word apolio.
25:59: It means to leave something behind.
26:02: Sabbath, the word sabbatismos is there, different from the word that was used before.
26:08: My three main arguments, as I wrap up my long minute over whatever I've gone over.
26:12: The fourth commandment is an abiding part of God's moral law.
26:15: Number two, the Sabbath ordinance is founded upon one day and seven, which I'm sure will come up later.
26:20: And after the resurrection, number three, the Sabbath was moved to the first day of the week.
26:24: And so, I do not think that Saturday is the Sabbath for believers.
26:28: I think Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, and I'm sure we'll get into that later.
26:31: Thank you so much.
26:34: Okay, now go to our 20-minute opposition opening statement.
26:44: Let me get our clock arranged here.
26:50: Sure, whenever you're ready.
26:59: All right.
27:01: Well, I wanna again reiterate what Rob said at the very beginning, that I'm thankful for everyone who attended, and I'm so thankful to see so many seats filled tonight.
27:09: I'm most thankful to you, brother, for coming, for doing this.
27:14: It's important, again, to affirm that we are brothers in Christ, and we are strong brothers in Christ.
27:19: We believe so much that is the same, and we maintain unity in the gospel.
27:23: And when we had that fateful lunch on Thursday, I found out he is a fan of Superman, which makes him the best.
27:36: That was really a bonding moment for us.
27:38: We're planning a trip together now as a result of that.
27:41: So please don't think there's any animus.
27:44: We love each other, and we do disagree, but it is a gentle disagreement.
27:50: The topic of tonight's debate is Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.
27:54: I do not believe Sunday constitutes the Christian Sabbath.
27:57: Christians have a Sabbath rest, yes, but it's not found in a day.
28:01: It is found in Christ himself.
28:05: I believe everything that the Sabbath signified pointed to what we enjoy as members of the new covenant.
28:11: Please don't think that this debate is about Sabbath versus no Sabbath.
28:15: If the subject were sacrifice, and I said that the sacrifice of Christ fulfilled the Old Testament sacrifice, you wouldn't say I was anti-sacrifice.
28:23: Any more that if I say Christ fulfilled the Sabbath, you should say I'm anti-Sabbath.
28:27: It's not fair to label that, and I'm thankful that you didn't do that.
28:32: The question tonight is what is the Sabbath, not is there a Sabbath? Sabbath was a day in the old covenant, but it pointed to something greater than a day in the new covenant.
28:43: It pointed to a state of being.
28:45: It pointed to the person himself.
28:48: We had a shadow.
28:50: Now we have the substance.
28:53: Someone might well ask, how do we have the Sabbath in Christ? Well, to answer this, I too will go back to Genesis, because in Genesis, the Bible says that God rested in the garden.
29:04: Why did He rest? My brother was right.
29:05: He didn't rest because He was tired.
29:07: I submit to you He rested because He was done.
29:10: The work was finished.
29:12: The word Sabbath there means to cease.
29:13: You said that.
29:14: It means to stop.
29:15: It was finished.
29:16: The work of creation was done, and so He stopped.
29:22: But then came the fall.
29:24: And when the fall came, a new work began.
29:26: Not a work of creation, but a work of redemption.
29:30: With that, a new work began.
29:31: Genesis 3.15 tells us when the work began.
29:34: God says, there is going to come a seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent.
29:40: That work of redemption began in Christ and was completed when He said, it is finished.
29:49: All the things that happened from that time into the time of Christ pointed to Jesus.
29:56: Luke 24.27 says that He explained to the two on the road to Emmaus all the things that were written that pointed to Him.
30:04: The animal skins that Adam and Eve were given in the garden pointed to Christ.
30:11: The promises given to Abraham pointed to Jesus.
30:15: The sacrifices made pointed to Jesus.
30:18: The festivals were pointing to Jesus.
30:21: Even Matthew 11.13 says the law prophesied of Jesus.
30:26: And yes, even the Sabbath day pointed to Jesus.
30:31: The Sabbath pointed to the rest that Christ would ultimately bring.
30:35: Not only a future eschatological rest, yes, we look forward to that, but also a rest that we have now, a rest from the work of redemption.
30:44: When Jesus was on the cross and said, it is finished, the work of redemption was done.
30:49: You can add nothing to it.
30:51: It was fully completed.
30:53: Therefore, He says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
31:01: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, for you will find rest for your souls.
31:11: The writer of Hebrews does use the word Sabbath, but I would contend tonight that he uses the word Sabbath in a different way than my brother has mentioned.
31:20: And I know this isn't the time for rebuttals, but it was part of my, I didn't know you were gonna say that, so I'll say this.
31:25: I wanna read a portion of this.
31:27: If you have your Bible still open to Hebrews 4, I'd encourage you to look at it.
31:30: I am in the ESV.
31:31: I'd encourage you to look at it with me.
31:33: It says in verse one, therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
31:43: Right there, that tells us the context of the rest.
31:46: The rest is not a day that we're gonna enter into over and over and over and over again, but it's a state of being.
31:52: It goes on to say in verse three, for we who have believed enter that rest.
32:01: The only time a day is mentioned here is in verse seven.
32:04: He appoints a certain day, today, saying that through David so long ago, and the words already quoted, today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.
32:13: Beloved, this is not about a Sabbath day.
32:15: This is about a state of being in Christ that you can enter today through faith and repentance.
32:22: Verse 10, who, actually, I'll read verse nine because it's where the word Sabbath, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.
32:36: Let us, therefore, strive to enter that rest.
32:40: It's not a day.
32:42: It's a state of being.
32:44: That's the point of chapter four of Hebrews, and that's my point tonight.
32:49: I contend the Sabbath referred to here, again, is not a day.
32:51: It points to Christ, like so many of the other things of the Old Testament, and we would all agree.
32:56: The tabernacle pointed to Jesus.
32:58: The priesthood pointed to Jesus.
33:00: The sacrifice is pointed to Jesus.
33:03: Sabbath is a picture of what Christ would accomplish.
33:07: So, too, was the Sabbath.
33:10: Therefore, I submit, Sunday cannot be the Sabbath because Christ is our Sabbath.
33:17: But what about the Ten Commandments? I mean, am I anti-Ten Commandments? That would be a good question.
33:24: Well, I am aware that the Sabbath is included in the Decalogue, but are you aware of what the Decalogue really is? You might automatically say, that's God's moral law.
33:36: Well, before we say that, what does the Bible say the Ten Commandments are? If you have your Bibles, open to Exodus chapter 34.
33:44: While you do that, I'm going to get a sip of water.
33:45: Go to verse 27.
33:55: By the way, as far as I can tell, the words Ten Commandments only are in the Bible twice, and both in the same way.
34:03: Exodus 34, Deuteronomy 4 is the only time where you see the words Ten Commandments as stated.
34:08: Listen to what it says.
34:10: Verse 27, and the Lord said to Moses, write these words, for in accordance with these words, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
34:17: What did God make with them? A covenant.
34:20: So he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights.
34:22: He neither ate bread nor drank water.
34:24: And he wrote on the tablets, the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
34:31: What are the Ten Commandments? It is the covenant God made with Israel in the wilderness.
34:36: Now, again, you don't have to turn there, but Deuteronomy 4.13 affirms this.
34:39: So you can believe me, or you can just write that down.
34:41: Deuteronomy 4.13, it says that he, Moses commanded you to perform the Ten Commandments, which he wrote on tablets of stone, because that was the covenant that he made.
34:51: Deuteronomy 9, the tablets of stone are the tablets of the covenant.
34:55: A lot of people don't think of the Ten Commandments that way.
34:58: This was the constitutional document of the nation of Israel.
35:03: That was its first and foremost purpose.
35:07: Now, here's the question.
35:09: Does not the covenant come with a sign? Well, we know Noah's covenant came with a sign.
35:15: It had the rainbow.
35:20: And Abraham's covenant came with a sign.
35:21: It was circumcision.
35:23: I will ask you to turn to Exodus 31.
35:26: In Exodus 31, verse 12, we read this.
35:30: I'll give you a second as your pages turn.
35:35: Exodus 31 says, and the Lord says to Moses, you are to speak to the people of Israel and say, above all, you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you, and you throughout your generations that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.
35:50: You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you.
35:54: Down to verse 16.
35:55: Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever.
36:00: Verse 17, it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel.
36:07: What's the covenant? The Ten Commandments.
36:10: What is the sign of the covenant? The Sabbath.
36:15: Some people get hung up on the word forever here, just in case that may be where you're thinking, because it does say it's a covenant forever.
36:22: Just keep this in mind.
36:23: That Hebrew word olam is also applied to the feasts, the priesthood, the dietary laws, and the sacrifices, and I have the verses to back that up, just to show that we do know that those things were fulfilled in Christ, and that's how they perpetuate forever, is being fulfilled in Christ.
36:37: Not that they're observed forever.
36:39: We no longer sacrifice animals, and we know why.
36:42: We no longer have a priesthood because we have a high priest.
36:45: When it's fulfilled in Christ, it becomes forever, right? And Ezekiel 20, 19 agrees again.
36:53: I am the Lord your God.
36:53: Walk in my statutes.
36:54: Be careful to obey my rules, and keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between me and you.
37:01: Sabbath's a sign.
37:02: It's a sign given to Israel, national Israel, for a purpose, because it designated them.
37:06: What was different about Israel? They ate different, they dressed different, and they kept the Sabbath.
37:13: Some argue, well, they kept the Sabbath before Sinai.
37:19: So it couldn't have come at Sinai.
37:21: They kept it in Exodus 16.
37:24: I would challenge you to read Exodus 16 again, and see that that's the initial giving of the Sabbath, not the something that they had been given in creation that kept going.
37:33: In fact, if you read it, they were surprised as to what it was, and how to do it.
37:38: It wasn't something from creation.
37:40: It was something they were given.
37:41: Exodus 16, if you read it, in fact, Ezekiel 20 says this.
37:44: So I led them out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness.
37:47: I gave them my statutes, and made known to them my rules, by which if a person does them, he shall live.
37:52: Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
38:00: Ezekiel seems to agree that they were given the Sabbath in the wilderness, not in the garden.
38:06: Nehemiah 9, 13, and 14 say essentially the same thing, and for lack of time, I'll simply say the relevant portion.
38:12: It says, you made known to them your holy Sabbath.
38:15: Who? Through Moses.
38:20: This all makes sense, then, as to why the Sabbath would be in the Ten Commandments.
38:24: If the Ten Commandments is a covenant documented in Israel, and this is the sign of the covenant, you would expect that.
38:30: Not because it's abiding moral law, but because it was the sign of the covenant given to the nation of Israel.
38:39: And then the argument comes, well, but it says, remember.
38:44: And again, I didn't know you were gonna say this.
38:45: I just assumed.
38:47: The argument is, well, remember.
38:49: Okay.
38:50: There's another place in the Bible where it says, remember as well.
38:54: Jesus said, when you take this bread and eat this cup, you do this in remembrance of me.
38:59: Remembrance doesn't always look back to something.
39:01: It's saying, this has happened.
39:02: As you go forward, remember this.
39:08: We must remember that we are in a new covenant.
39:11: We are not in the Mosaic covenant.
39:14: The Mosaic covenant is obsolete.
39:18: Ooh, I don't like that language.
39:19: Take it up with the writer of Hebrews.
39:21: I'll read it to you.
39:23: Hebrews 8, 13.
39:24: In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the old one obsolete.
39:28: And what is obsolete is growing old and beginning to pass away.
39:34: What's the new covenant? Jeremiah 31 tells us that he will make a new covenant.
39:39: When did the new covenant come? In the blood of Jesus Christ.
39:42: This is the blood of the covenant.
39:44: We are new covenant Christians.
39:46: By saying that, am I saying that all old covenant law is obsolete? No, I agree with my brother in one sense.
39:56: He said there's moral, ceremonial, and civil law.
39:59: I use a little different language, but it's similar.
40:02: So I don't think that we would argue over this.
40:06: But I believe that there is law that transcends the covenants.
40:10: And there's law that doesn't.
40:13: Transcending the covenants is what's important.
40:17: There is law that goes, and it's like this.
40:20: I use this example.
40:21: If a church has a constitution and the church writes a new constitution, some of the language of the new constitution may very well be the same as the constitution that came before.
40:29: But the new constitution takes the place of the old constitution.
40:33: Even if the language is the same, we're under the new covenant.
40:42: Yes, there's going to be language that's similar, even language that's exactly the same.
40:49: But a change has come.
40:54: We think about what are transcendent laws.
40:56: He mentioned murder.
40:57: Absolutely, Cain knew he was wrong when he murdered his brother.
41:00: He didn't have a commandment, but he knew it was wrong.
41:02: Joseph knew it was wrong to commit adultery with Potiphar's wife.
41:05: He didn't have a commandment, but he knew it was wrong.
41:09: There are certainly laws God makes known to us all by nature, and they transcend the covenants.
41:16: But it's also certain to me that the Sabbath is not among them.
41:24: Here's my reasoning.
41:25: I don't have three points, I'm sorry.
41:27: I have like seven, but I'll give them quick.
41:30: I'll give them quick.
41:33: Gives you more for your rebuttal.
41:37: Number one, there is no evidence at all that anyone kept the Sabbath before Moses.
41:43: It's just not there.
41:45: The belief that God gave an ordinance for the Sabbath in the garden is assumed, but not proven from the text.
41:50: We don't see Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, or even Job keeping the Sabbath.
41:57: We cannot use something not recorded as proof of something we want to believe.
42:03: Number two, there is no evidence that any Gentile nation was ever condemned or rebuked for not keeping the Sabbath.
42:09: If it's for all people for all time, for everyone, then you would think, because they were rebuked for things like idolatry.
42:15: Never rebuked for not keeping the Sabbath.
42:18: Number three, the New Testament scriptures never command the keeping of the Sabbath following the ascension of Christ.
42:24: Some people argue, well, it was so commonly known, it didn't have to be taught.
42:28: You're telling me a brand new Gentile church with no history in the Old Testament doesn't have to be told about the Sabbath? They would just know it by the very virtue of becoming Christians? Why all the rest of those explanations of all the other laws in the New Testament? In fact, if you go back to the Old Testament where they were commanded to do it, you'll notice throughout many of the prophets, there is all this instruction about doing it wrong.
43:00: So even the ones who had instruction needed more instruction.
43:03: How could it be that someone that didn't get any instruction never has it mentioned that they're doing it wrong or there's any issue with how they're doing it? Or even this, in all those lists of sins that Paul gives us? Not once is there a time where it says, oh yeah, and you're not keeping the Sabbath.
43:23: Jerusalem Council, Acts 15, when the church came together to discuss the inclusion of Gentiles into the church, they discussed circumcision, eating of blood, sexual immorality, never the Sabbath.
43:39: The New Testament never, this is number five, by the way, the New Testament never refers to Sunday as Sabbath or imposes any of the regulations or expectations of the Sabbath to Sunday.
43:51: If one proves the Sabbath law is moral, abiding, and continual, he then must also prove that it is able to change and fundamentally so.
44:00: Not only does it change the day, but it really changes the purpose because it goes from the purpose of rest to the purpose of worship and gathering and all those things.
44:12: I want to conclude, and I only have a few minutes left, I want to conclude with these thoughts.
44:18: And this may surprise you, so buckle up.
44:24: I believe in the Lord's day, really do.
44:29: You may think that all that I've said up until this point means I don't believe that we should worship on Sunday or that I don't hold Sunday in esteem.
44:36: I really do.
44:38: I believe it's a clear term used in the New Testament.
44:41: Revelation chapter one, verse 10 says that John was in the spirit on the Lord's day.
44:45: I believe the Lord's day is Sunday.
44:47: I do believe in that.
44:48: But I believe that it's functionally and fundamentally different than the Sabbath.
44:53: I believe it's a time to remember the resurrection, celebrate the resurrection, gather for worship, focus on the Lord.
44:58: And I even do believe you like this.
45:00: I do believe it's based on a principle of six plus one.
45:03: But that's not the Sabbath.
45:05: It's the Sabbath.
45:07: God didn't hallow one and six.
45:11: He hallowed the seventh, just to point that out.
45:16: We don't worship on the seventh day.
45:17: By the way, the Seventh-day Adventists would make a lot of the same arguments about the creation ordinance that we've heard tonight, but they would take a whole different conclusion and say that we're all wrong and idolaters and even keeping the mark of the beast by worshiping on Sunday.
45:33: So I think they're wrong.
45:36: They are wrong.
45:37: Worshiping on Sunday is good.
45:39: And on that, we all agree and everybody can say amen.
45:42: Amen, okay.
45:44: Two, I say I do believe in the Lord's day.
45:46: Two, I do not believe the Lord's day and the Sabbath are the same.
45:49: Why? Three reasons.
45:50: One, it does not have the same precepts.
45:52: Like it or not, the Old Testament Sabbath had regulations which neither of us would apply to the new covenant Sabbath if we called it the Sabbath.
45:58: So I don't think it's the same.
46:00: Two, it doesn't have the same purpose.
46:02: The Sabbath was meant to signify Israel and who they were.
46:06: It was a sign for them.
46:08: Sunday's not a sign for the church.
46:10: What's the sign for the church? By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
46:17: That's the sign for the church.
46:18: That's how the world knows us.
46:21: So it doesn't have the same precepts, doesn't have the same purpose, doesn't have the same practice.
46:24: Again, I stress that rest and worship, while there could be some bleed over, I do think there's a difference between what was commanded and what we do on Sunday.
46:35: Number three, I do not believe the New Testament church saw the Lord's Day as the Sabbath, but something new, a new day for a new covenant.
46:42: And this is my final argument, and I can't get it in 18 seconds, but I will hold as my brother did, a one-minute overture.
46:48: Very well.
46:51: There's only two times the phrase Lord's, L-O-R-D apostrophe S is used in the New Testament for the possessive.
46:59: Lord's Day, Revelation 110, and Lord's Supper, 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
47:09: The Lord's Supper is similar, but not the same to the Passover.
47:14: And if somebody came in and saw us eating the Lord's Supper and said, look, you're eating the Passover, we'd say, no, we're not, we're having the Lord's Supper.
47:24: The Sabbath certainly is modular.
47:27: But when somebody comes in and sees us celebrating the Lord's Day, and they say, you're celebrating the Sabbath, I would say, no, this is the Lord's Day.
47:35: The Lord's Supper is not the Passover.
47:37: The Lord's Day is not the Sabbath.
47:40: That was a shadow, and its substance is found in Christ.
47:46: Let me say one last thing.
47:48: By saying the Sunday is Sabbath, I believe that we are possibly doing something potentially negative.
47:54: Number one, we're using confusing terms because people will be confused as to what is expected.
48:00: Two, we're giving unbiblical expectations because even among Sabbatarians, there is wide divergence of disagreement about how it's supposed to be done.
48:09: The expectations diverge.
48:11: What are we supposed to do? What are we not supposed to do? Well, it's not about what you do.
48:14: It's not about restrictions.
48:15: Well, for some people, it is.
48:19: And third, we are taking away, not adding to what Sunday is supposed to be.
48:26: Sunday is the Lord's Day.
48:28: It's not a rehashing of the Sabbath.
48:30: It's something new for a new covenant.
48:33: Thank you.
48:40: Okay, that concludes our opening statements, and glad we got the full prepared remarks from both participants.
48:48: By remarkable coincidence, you were within 10 seconds of each other on your overtime, so I think we just call that one a wash.
48:53: Yeah.
48:58: So we're now going to move into our rebuttal phase.
49:00: The point of a rebuttal phase is not to make any additional argumentation, but rather to consider the opponent's argumentation and perhaps to respectfully challenge some of the assertions made.
49:14: First, we're going to call our proposition side.
49:16: The rebuttal period will be 10 minutes, and again, this will handle topics and points made during the other side's opening statement.
49:23: So whenever you're ready, we'll get the clock running.
49:29: All right, is this on again? All right, good.
49:32: A few things.
49:33: I'm not exactly sure where to start, but we'll start with this.
49:36: You mentioned, Keith, towards the end.
49:38: I'll address everyone.
49:39: I'll stare at you sometimes.
49:42: You addressed towards the end that the seventh day, which I'm assuming you meant, you'll have to tell me during cross-examination, you're referring to as the last day of the week is what I understood you to say.
49:54: I don't believe that you will find anywhere, and when I say I don't believe, I mean I know it's not there.
49:58: You won't find anywhere.
50:00: Notice that the fourth commandment, if you're in Exodus chapter 20, for example, or in Genesis 2, one through three, none of those texts will tell us that the Sabbath was celebrated on the last day of the week.
50:10: What it tells us is simply that we are to celebrate the Sabbath on the seventh day.
50:16: Seventh is just simply the number seven.
50:19: It's an ordinal number.
50:20: It's a number about sequence and series.
50:23: In other words, that the commandment, even in Genesis chapter two, verses one through three, doesn't tell us that we need to keep the last day of the week as Sabbath, simply that we must keep the seventh as Sabbath, or seven.
50:38: Notice that the order of days is not fixed by the command.
50:43: The Saturday Sabbath, I would agree with my brother Keith, is Mosaic, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in a moment.
50:48: So I think that the Saturday Sabbath has been abrogated.
50:50: I kinda want you to hopefully understand my position.
50:53: I believe that there are certain aspects of this Mosaic Sabbath that is positive law, meaning ceremonial and temporary, and no longer applies.
51:02: I'm sure we'll get into Colossians chapter two at some point tonight, I believe.
51:07: And in Colossians chapter two, I do believe, Paul, when he says that in regards to new moons and Sabbaths and things like this, that those no longer are in effect for the people of God.
51:18: But what I wanna point out to us is that as New Covenant believers, he mentioned this as well, we celebrate what I believe is the Sabbath, this creation ordinance, on the first day of the week.
51:30: We're looking for a pattern of one in seven, not necessarily the last day of the week.
51:35: I agree with my brother Keith when he talks about the rest that we have in Christ.
51:40: Not only are we looking forward to an eschatological rest, but we are resting in Christ right now.
51:46: In fact, I believe that the celebration of the Lord's day on the first day of the week is part of what has gone on in the resurrection and the full redemption of Jesus Christ.
51:56: Second Corinthians five says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, right? And so you have this aspect of not only redemption, but recreation for those of us who are in Christ.
52:08: I wanna address in my seven minutes left, I wanna address a few things, Keith, that you said.
52:13: Number one, you mentioned again that the Sabbath was merely, and I'm using my language here, I don't know precisely how you worded this, but that it was ceremonial, what I would refer to as ceremonial or positive law, that it was bound up completely in the Mosaic covenant.
52:29: What I wanna point out is that the Sabbath was appointed, I'm gonna say this again, because the most important aspect of what I'm saying has to do with Genesis one through two, Genesis one and two.
52:39: The Sabbath was appointed in paradise before there was any sin.
52:44: Let me say that again.
52:45: The pattern of six days of working and one day of resting was appointed in paradise prior to the intrusion of sin.
52:52: It was given before the Proto-Evangelion, the first mention of the gospel in Genesis 3.15.
52:59: It's given before the mention of a coming savior.
53:03: I agree with Keith that the entire Old Testament, according to Luke chapter 24, points us to Jesus Christ.
53:10: Jesus, after his resurrection, he's walking on the road of Emmaus with his disciples.
53:15: You'll remember this passage in the Gospels.
53:17: And he says that he starts with Moses and the law and the prophets and the Psalms.
53:22: He says all of these things were about him.
53:24: All of these things were about Christ.
53:26: And so Christ is the fulfillment of all the Bible.
53:28: It's Jesus on every single page of the Bible.
53:31: However, the principal task of the Sabbath, I want you to notice, even in the giving of the Mosaic law in Exodus chapter 20, its primary task, its principal task, was to keep into our memory the creation of God.
53:46: Notice what it says.
53:47: Four, it says, in six days God created.
53:50: Here was the reason.
53:51: It had to do with creation.
53:52: It was to remind men to worship their creator.
53:55: It was given to Adam prior to the fall.
53:58: I want us to keep reminding ourselves of that.
54:00: It was given to him prior to the fall.
54:02: No savior was yet expected.
54:03: Now, the Lord knows what was coming, right? He's decreed everything that has ever happened and ever will happen in eternity past.
54:11: I'm a sovereign, grace-believing, reformed Christian, right? So I believe he's foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.
54:16: And yet, for Adam, there was no expectation of a savior just as marriage and work were ordained in man's innocence, so was the pattern of six days of working and one day of resting in his mind.
54:31: It was the nature of things.
54:33: God himself, I believe, makes a clear distinction in Deuteronomy chapter four.
54:36: If you have your Bibles, you can look there.
54:38: Deuteronomy 4.13.
54:40: He makes a distinction between that which is the Lord's, what I would refer to as moral, abiding, and perpetual law, and that which is typological, that which is a shadow, as Pastor Keith has said, that was unique only to the administration of the Mosaic covenant.
54:55: Deuteronomy 4 says, "'Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire.
55:00: "'You heard the sound of words, but saw no form.
55:03: "'There was only a voice.'" Verse 13 says, "'And he declared to you his covenant, "'which he commanded you to perform, "'that is, the Ten Commandments,' which we looked at, "'and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.'" So he says, I've given you the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, which I'm arguing is God's moral law.
55:20: Then he says in verse 14, "'And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you,'' and now he uses a different phrase.
55:27: He's given you the commandments, but now he's given you statutes.
55:31: Do you see that in the text? Statutes and rules that you might do to them in the land that you're going over to possess.
55:38: I believe that the Lord is making a clear distinction between those moral laws that God gave in person of his own self in the Ten Commandments and those that we have by Moses, which were ceremonial laws.
55:52: You mentioned, Keith, that in essence, Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath in the gospel, that he is the Sabbath, and amen to that.
56:00: By the way, most of what Dr.
56:02: Keith said tonight, I was cheering.
56:04: So I'm in 95%, we'll say 95, 94% agreement with all that.
56:09: But you said, in essence, that Christ has taken away the Sabbath in the gospel.
56:13: Let me make this clear.
56:14: I think that what we would need to find, if a creation ordinance was going to be abrogated, at least one example in Christ's ministry that such was the case, or one example in the New Testament where a creation ordinance, remember, I'm going back to Genesis 2.
56:29: I'm saying I'm starting there before I ever get to Exodus 20, that you need at least one explicit text letting us know that.
56:35: Instead, though, in Mark 2, verse 27, Jesus now referring, as he's speaking with the Pharisees, he says to them in Mark 2.27, the Sabbath was made for man.
56:46: Again, we're talking about made for man in creation is when this first comes up, not in the Mosaic Covenant.
56:54: Notice that Christ doesn't say that the Sabbath was temporary.
56:57: He doesn't say that it was abrogated.
56:59: He's simply denying that he's ever broken that rule.
57:02: You'll remember that the Pharisees are constantly accusing Jesus of breaking the what? Breaking the Sabbath.
57:07: And what he tells them is not that the Sabbath is done away with or that he's gonna fulfill it and then it's gonna go the way of the buffalo, if you will.
57:15: What he says in Mark 2.28, I'll say this again, is that he is the kurios of the Sabbath.
57:20: He is the Lord of that.
57:22: He has authority over it.
57:23: He doesn't dispute the validity of that moral law, but he disputes the false teaching and corruption that had been added to that law.
57:32: He explains, I believe, in Mark chapter two, 23 through 28, that neither he nor his disciples, in that case, were ever guilty of breaking the law of the Sabbath by plucking heads of grain.
57:43: You said that Jesus never spoke of this.
57:47: I would have our turned, I guess our attention turned to Luke chapter four.
57:52: And in Luke chapter four, verse 16, what we find there, as my minutes drain away, what we find is that for the Jew, you have to understand that for thousands of years, okay, now my contention is since creation, some would argue, he said in the Old Testament, there was never a mention of anybody worshiping the Lord on a particular day.
58:11: I think that one could make the argument, I'm not going to tonight, but one could make the argument that Cain and Abel knew what was going on when it says that in the appointed time, meaning in a certain day of the week, in Genesis chapter four, when they come to bring their sacrifices, I believe that they were celebrating that day.
58:26: But notice what we read in Luke chapter four.
58:28: It says, Luke four, verse 16, he, Jesus, came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up.
58:35: And then it says, and as was his custom.
58:40: I want you to note, and then it says, as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, he stood up to read.
58:44: This was Jesus's custom.
58:46: In other words, this was Jesus's habit, okay? He was used to this, and the people of Israel were used to this for thousands of years.
58:54: And so if this was going to be abrogated or taken away in the New Testament, I think that we should find explicitly something that says one of God's 10 words, the decalogue, has been revoked or removed or rescinded.
59:06: Jesus never abrogates the Sabbath.
59:08: I believe he teaches the proper understanding or intention of the Sabbath.
59:13: One last thing, Keith, as I have 20 seconds.
59:15: In Matthew chapter 24, verses 20 through 22, Jesus is giving his speech on the Olivet Discourse.
59:21: And in the Olivet Discourse, he's making a prophecy that in 70 AD, we know this, right? He's talking about the fall and destruction of Jerusalem's temple.
59:28: So in 70 AD, in just a generation's time, there is going to be great tribulation.
59:34: Jerusalem is going to fall.
59:35: It's going to be sacked by the Romans.
59:36: All of that came to take place.
59:38: I have to stop, or can I have 30 seconds over? Can I go? Okay.
59:41: He says this, Matthew 24, verse 20.
59:43: Pray, Jesus says, that your flight, and he's talking about future events, mind you, okay? When he's already going to be gone from this earth, pray that your flight may not be in a winter or on a Sabbath for then there will be great tribulations.
59:54: This has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will ever be.
59:59: And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.
01:00:01: But for the sake of the elect, those days would be cut short.
01:00:04: Here in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus is obviously assuming Sabbath keeping, at least up until the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, if not indeed to the end of the world, because we know that he's talking about Jerusalem, but also in part about the end.
01:00:18: We'll leave it there.
01:00:19: I'm sure we'll have more to say during cross-examination.
01:00:22: Good.
01:00:23: Now going to switch to our 10-minute rebuttal by our opposition side.
01:00:29: Let me get this reset.
01:00:33: Okay.
01:00:35: You may begin whenever you're ready.
01:00:43: Am I on? Yes, sir.
01:00:47: The entire argument seems to hinge on the idea of creation ordinance.
01:00:52: In fact, we heard that a few times just now as part of the rebuttal.
01:00:56: Well, if it's creation ordinance, it cannot be undone.
01:01:01: And during my brother's intro, his opening statement, he gave us the creation ordinances as he sees them.
01:01:09: He said, these are built into creation.
01:01:11: One was the Dominion Mandate, Genesis 128, which you'll remember was a positive command.
01:01:17: Go and be fruitful and multiply.
01:01:19: There is imperative.
01:01:21: Be fruitful and multiply.
01:01:23: Then he said, marriage is a creation ordinance, Genesis 224.
01:01:28: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife.
01:01:31: The two shall become one flesh.
01:01:34: It's given as an imperative.
01:01:36: It's going to happen.
01:01:37: This is what's going to happen.
01:01:39: We do not see that language in Genesis 2, 1 to 3.
01:01:44: In fact, I will encourage you just very quickly, just look at it.
01:01:48: There is no language of command here at all.
01:01:53: We can assume it is.
01:01:55: We can assume that that's a dangerous thing to do.
01:02:00: To assume that the Bible says something that it just doesn't say.
01:02:05: Genesis 2, thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.
01:02:10: And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done.
01:02:14: And he rested on the seventh day from all the work.
01:02:16: So no commandment, second time commandments are given.
01:02:19: He gives the Sabbath and look at verse 12.
01:02:28: Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you.
01:02:33: Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
01:02:35: But the seventh day is a Sabbath.
01:02:37: The seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God.
01:02:40: On it, the sojourner that is within your gates, that your female servant may rest as you.
01:02:46: You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.
01:02:52: Deuteronomy have an entire thing that we're looking back to.
01:02:56: As to why it's a six in one pattern.
01:02:59: Not saying this is where from.
01:03:01: And Exodus chapter 20 and Exodus 20, when it looks back, this isn't saying because you've been doing it from creating saying do this.
01:03:11: But God established it out.
01:03:14: If we look at.
01:03:18: This is all the way through Exodus 16.
01:03:21: We cannot find people keeping the Sabbath.
01:03:25: Now he mentioned Cain and Abel in the appointed time.
01:03:28: There's nothing said there about the Sabbath.
01:03:31: Again, you can assume it.
01:03:33: And what assuming does is causes, and I'm not, please don't take this.
01:03:37: When we talk about eisegesis is reading into it, right? Reading something we want it to say.
01:03:41: We look at the text and we say, this has gotta be it because this is what I want it to be.
01:03:49: There is no example of Abraham keeping the Sabbath.
01:03:55: There is no example of Isaac, Jacob.
01:03:57: One could say, well, they lost it in the slavery time and it came back after that.
01:04:03: Well, there's nothing saying they ever had it.
01:04:10: Now I wanna point to something else.
01:04:13: Exodus chapter 31, 18 does mention the tablets of stone being written with the finger of God.
01:04:19: You know what the New Testament says about the tablets of stone? Just real quick, turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter three.
01:04:28: 2 Corinthians chapter three.
01:04:33: And we're gonna pick up at verse four.
01:04:40: 2 Corinthians chapter three, beginning at verse four.
01:04:43: Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.
01:04:47: Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit.
01:04:59: For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
01:05:03: Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone, that's where we see the letters of stone, came with such glory that Israelites could not gaze at Moses's face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory? Beloved, we're not under the stone.
01:05:21: We're under the new covenant.
01:05:23: That's the whole point of that text is we're ministers of a new covenant.
01:05:32: Again, referencing Hebrews four.
01:05:35: It's not a daily Sabbath.
01:05:37: It is a rest in Christ himself.
01:05:40: That is our Sabbath.
01:05:44: He said again, Sabbath is appointed.
01:05:46: Where is it appointed before Exodus 16? Where do we see it? He said this, for a creation ordinance to be abrogated, we have to have a command in the New Testament.
01:06:08: That's begging the question, isn't it? That's making the assumption that it's a creation ordinance.
01:06:13: I don't accept the premise, thus I don't accept the accusation.
01:06:17: However, I do find it very interesting that there would be no reason for Jesus to speak of abrogating the Sabbath since he himself was born under the law, to redeem those under the law.
01:06:29: Jesus kept the Sabbath.
01:06:31: I have no doubt of that.
01:06:34: I have no doubt that Jesus kept the Sabbath because he had to, to fulfill all righteousness.
01:06:38: I have no question.
01:06:40: So really, even to mention Jesus abrogating the Sabbath, it's a non-issue.
01:06:48: But we do go to Colossians 2.16, which he mentioned, and I didn't mention in my opening.
01:06:53: I'm glad he brought it up so I could actually mention it.
01:06:55: Just please look at it with me, because I didn't mention this passage because I really didn't want to hinge my entire argument on one verse.
01:07:06: But if you go to Colossians 2.16, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath.
01:07:27: Now, I will go a step further than people on my side normally go.
01:07:32: And I'll even point out something that's sort of in his favor.
01:07:36: The word Sabbath here should be in the plural, because in Greek it's plural.
01:07:41: So it says festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths.
01:07:44: And a lot of times that's used to argue that the Sabbath that's being spoken of here in Colossians 2.16 isn't the Sabbath day, but the Sabbath recognition of the feasts, which were the Sabbath years, and the Sabbath, the 77, and those different types of Sabbaths that we see in the Old Testament.
01:08:00: So this isn't talking about the Sabbath day.
01:08:02: It's only talking about the Sabbaths that were extraordinary, not the creation ordinance, as we've heard, but it's the others that's being abrogated here.
01:08:13: However, as Vodibachum says, that dog won't hunt, because this is the weekly Sabbath.
01:08:21: In fact, oh, by the way, Vodibachum is a Sabbatarian, so he would hate that I just said that.
01:08:28: And I love him dearly.
01:08:31: But this is the weekly Sabbath because of the language being used here.
01:08:37: Festivals are annual things, new moons are monthly things, and Sabbaths are weekly things.
01:08:43: It may refer to other Sabbaths, Sabbath years and whatnot, but it definitely does refer to Sabbath days, the seventh day.
01:08:51: And if you go back to where this language is used in the Old Testament, it's always in either ascending or descending order.
01:08:57: It's either festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths, or Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals, but it's always to refer to the weekly, the monthly, and the yearly observance of God's ceremonial expressions of worship.
01:09:12: And so, yeah, I would have to say that, and think of what Paul's saying here.
01:09:17: Let no man judge you.
01:09:21: I have 16 seconds to say this.
01:09:24: If it's a law, then to break it is sin.
01:09:28: And if to break it is sin, 1 Corinthians tells us that we're supposed to judge one another.
01:09:35: We couldn't exercise church discipline without judging one another.
01:09:38: If sin is sin, it has to be judged.
01:09:43: Therefore, it's not sin.
01:09:47: Thank you very much.
01:09:48: We're now completed both of our rebuttals.
01:09:51: At this time, we are going to take our 10-minute intermission.
01:09:56: So our audience, we thank you so much for listening respectfully.
01:09:59: We're gonna reconvene in 10 minutes.
01:10:01: During this time, we'd encourage you, if you have a question for either of our participants or for both, I have a stack of question cards up here if you wanna fill them out and just leave them here.
01:10:10: In addition, we have a book table out in the lobby that you should check out while you're traveling to and fro.
01:10:16: So 10 minutes, we will resume with our cross-examination period.
01:10:19: Thank you.
01:10:19: Please buy books.
01:10:20: Please buy books.
01:10:21: Hey, man.
01:10:25: So we're now going to begin our cross-examination period, and this is the only time, in fact, during the debate where both participants can directly address one another.
01:10:36: Cross-examination is typically the time where the nuances of arguments get teased out, and it can be very exciting and lively.
01:10:44: So we have a couple of structural guidelines for cross-examination.
01:10:50: One participant will be given the role of examiner.
01:10:53: So they are to ask questions and have the other participant answer them.
01:10:57: Questions end with a question mark, and this is an extremely important note during cross-examination.
01:11:03: Ask your question.
01:11:04: Be sure that it is, in fact, phrased in the form of a question.
01:11:07: Your role as examiner is not a time for you to make an additional point.
01:11:11: For the respondent, if a yes or no answer is sufficient, we ask that you please limit your response to that, but of course, there are nuances to things, and we certainly understand if there's a need for further explanation.
01:11:22: To put some time limits in place, a question cannot exceed 30 seconds, and a response should not exceed 60 seconds, but if the cross-examination shifts into a free exchange where ideas are flowing back and forth, then we'll sort of advocate some of the more formal structure and let that exchange happen.
01:11:39: We'll begin our first cross-examination period.
01:11:42: The proposition side will be questioning the opposition side.
01:11:45: This will last for 10 minutes, and let's see.
01:11:51: You may begin when you're ready.
01:11:52: All right, am I on? Yes, sir.
01:11:54: All right.
01:11:55: So I'm one of those guys who thinks out loud, so I have a million thoughts, and so I'll just fire questions your way, and you don't have to give me yes or nos.
01:12:02: You can give me long answers, long Keith answers.
01:12:06: You mentioned, I meant that in a positive way.
01:12:10: You mentioned Exodus 16, so your position, let me ask you a couple of yes or no questions, if that's okay.
01:12:17: Was it, am I getting you right that you said that prior to the 10th commandment, we don't see the celebration of the Sabbath until, unless you talk about Exodus 16? Yeah, I think Exodus 16 is when they're actually given the initial command.
01:12:34: I think based on my reading of that particular text, I don't wanna go there and read it for you, take your time away, but it seems as if they're getting the manna, the manna is coming down, and Moses is telling them, you're gonna collect for six days, but you're not gonna collect on the seventh day, because the seventh day is the day that you don't do anything.
01:12:53: This is the day that you rest.
01:12:54: And it says in the text that he gave them the command.
01:12:58: And so yes, I would see that as the initial giving of the command.
01:13:01: It was about a month before Sinai, so it leads right into what's about to happen with the formal giving of the document, which is the 10 commandments.
01:13:09: You said the word seems, it seems as if, what do you mean by that? I don't think that it can be proven that that is it, but it seems to me in reading the text that that is the initial giving of the command.
01:13:23: But, okay, I'll just say that, yes.
01:13:25: No, that's fine.
01:13:26: Would you, when you say that it seems to me and there's no way to prove it, would that be an assumption? Oh, yes.
01:13:31: Okay.
01:13:31: Yeah.
01:13:32: Because it doesn't say this is the initial time that it's coming, but it is the first time that we read it.
01:13:38: So it's possible, would it be possible that that is not the first time? Yes, in fact, I mean, it could have been possible that he told them about it earlier in the Exodus.
01:13:47: I do hold that it came in the Exodus based on what I said from Ezekiel chapter 20 and Nehemiah 9, that it would have been bound to that, but I don't think that that may be the first time they heard it, but I do think it happened in the Exodus.
01:13:58: Okay.
01:13:59: And again, Deuteronomy 5 would point that out too, because Deuteronomy 5 points back to the Exodus as the reason for the giving.
01:14:10: Romans 3.31, I'll read it, and then please grab it as well.
01:14:15: Romans 3.31 says, Paul's speaking about the law.
01:14:20: He says, do we then overthrow the law by this faith, after he's unpacking justification by faith alone, by no means, on the contrary, we uphold the law.
01:14:30: What is Paul referring to when he's talking about the law? I think that it's hard to define, I mean, in that particular instance, I think that he's talking about moral law, but I don't like to use the term moral law.
01:14:43: I like to use the term transcendent law, and the only reason why is I think that the tripartite understanding of the law, which you mentioned, moral, civil, and ceremonial, is fraught with some difficulty, because the difficulty is this, and again, I don't wanna waste time, but when we look at it as, okay, this is moral, this is ceremonial, this is civil, then, and the civil and the ceremonial is put away, the moral stands, then the problem becomes, when we look to the Old Covenant, it's not given to us that way.
01:15:09: There are moral laws mixed in with ceremonial laws, mixed in with civil laws, and so I think it's easier to say there's laws that transcend, and the laws that transcend are the ones that are morally binding, and thus, those are the laws that are being referred to there, and in that regard, I would say a law that is certainly recommanded in the New Covenant, or known naturally by men, and again, I would say that a tribe in New Guinea wouldn't know to keep the Sabbath, but they would know not to murder, so I would say that'd be natural law.
01:15:39: I would say that would certainly be, I recognize that.
01:15:41: Would you refer to marriage as natural law? No, but I don't disagree that marriage is a creation covenant, because we agreed, it came with a command in the first, in Genesis, it actually comes with, therefore, so I don't disagree that that's a creation ordinance.
01:15:58: Would work also be, would work be natural law? Yeah, I agree, as I said, I agreed with you, that came with a imperative, be fruitful and multiply, so I don't have an issue with the idea, the idea of creation ordinance is not my problem.
01:16:09: Can you define, in Genesis chapter two, verses one through three, he says that he blesses the Sabbath day and makes it holy, so he gives a benediction on the day, can you define how you would, explain to me what you would view the benediction as, meaning, or would you disagree that it's a benediction? I think that he is setting it apart, and just like sometimes we talk about sanctifying things set apart for use, I do think he's gonna use it among his people, national Israel, to sign them, and that's when they're gonna find out about that.
01:16:40: I don't even know that Adam knew that he did that, in the sense that I don't know that he told Adam, I'm blessing this, you're setting it apart, I know that Moses knew, because Moses is writing later, and he's telling them that this is what happened, but there's no indication in the text that God let Adam know that.
01:16:56: Could it be, this is just a hypothetical, could it be that Exodus 16 proves that they did know? No, I don't think that it proves it, could it be, you know, I don't agree that it does, I don't think that it, I don't think that we base our understanding of moral law on could it be.
01:17:19: I agree, I agree.
01:17:20: So yeah.
01:17:22: Now you said, you weren't sure, say you'll have to reconstitute what you said, I'm gonna look at my time, you said you're not sure if he set aside that particular day, what day are you understanding Genesis 2, 1 through 3 referring to? The seventh day, the day that God rested on, you mentioned in your introduction to rebuttal that it doesn't really focus on the seventh day, it focuses in one of seven.
01:17:52: I said that it, can I repeat? Yeah, please, please, please.
01:17:54: Yeah, I said that it doesn't say last day, it simply says seventh day.
01:17:57: Okay.
01:17:57: That was what I said.
01:17:58: So it depends on when you start, right? Correct.
01:18:00: So would you then say that Sunday is the seventh day? I think that it is the...
01:18:05: Oh, now I'm asking him.
01:18:06: Oh, sorry.
01:18:07: Wait, yeah, wait.
01:18:08: It's gonna let it flow for a minute, but yeah.
01:18:10: It's a flag on the flag.
01:18:13: Okay, ask me the question again if you remember.
01:18:16: See if I can remember it, I've already added a new question.
01:18:20: Is it your position that what's being described in Genesis 2, 1 through 3 must needs be the last day of the week and not simply one and seven? Well, here's where we may agree and yet still have a distinction.
01:18:34: I think there is a pattern of six and one in Genesis 2, so I don't disagree with the pattern.
01:18:39: The idea is whether or not that pattern makes it moral law because I think God uses that pattern to then give to the Israelites.
01:18:46: And I don't think there's an Israelite alive then or today.
01:18:49: And by that, I mean an Orthodox Jew who would ever allow it to be anything other than the seventh day based on the reading of the text.
01:18:56: I think that anybody who says it's six and one is gonna have a mountain of SDA people, a mountain of Hebrew roots people, and a mountain of Orthodox Jews are gonna have a fit if you say that that just was one and seven and not the seventh day.
01:19:08: You and I would agree that Saturday is no longer the Sabbath day, correct? Yes, and I'm thankful we agree with that, yes.
01:19:18: You and I, and both would agree that Sunday, we might hash this out differently, but that Sunday is the Lord's day.
01:19:23: Absolutely.
01:19:23: Okay.
01:19:24: Do you think that the apostles, the believers in the early church under...
01:19:32: Here, let me ask it a different way.
01:19:33: Why did they worship on a weekly basis? Do we see them worshiping on a weekly basis in the New Testament and why? I think that we see them worshiping on a weekly basis primarily not because of the pattern necessarily, but because that was the day Jesus rose.
01:19:50: And I think you and I both would agree that that's the reason why the first day has the most significance.
01:19:55: The most significance is Jesus rose on the first day and every appearance after that is told of us that it was on the first day of the week.
01:20:02: And if I remember correctly, the ascension was on the first day of the week and the, was it Pentecost happened on the first day? Maybe I'm wrong about that, but there's so much significance given to that day.
01:20:12: And to see a pattern coming out of the New Testament of weekly worship, that was different than Old Testament worship, but it's still the Lord's day.
01:20:19: So yeah, I hold to the Lord's day and I see the pattern there.
01:20:22: Is it our duty to attend church on Sunday as Christians? Yeah.
01:20:27: The first day of the week as Christians.
01:20:28: Yes, this is where, and one of the questions I ask you will relate to this.
01:20:36: If I think, and this is tough to say, I think if there was a body that was convicted as a body to meet on Saturday, I would have a hard time telling them no, but I would really want to.
01:20:56: I would have a hard, based on Romans 14 and the idea of one man esteeming one day above another, if a brother is weaker, and I would call that a weakness as that he doesn't understand the blessing of the Lord's day and he was part of a body, I would say he should worship on Sunday, but I don't think that I could condemn him for choosing to worship on it.
01:21:19: Since I have 30 seconds, is it the duty of Christians to celebrate Christmas Eve services? No.
01:21:25: Okay.
01:21:26: Why, in 29 seconds, would then it be the duty of Christians to worship on Sunday? The New Testament gives us positive affirmation of the Lord's day.
01:21:35: I will point everybody to Sam Waldron's lesson at Shane Waters' church last week where he did express very much, and 90% of what he said, I would agree with, on the importance of the Lord's day and how it is the only other thing other than the Lord's supper that gets that ownership of the Lord's, and I agreed with so much of what he said, so I would say, yeah, absolutely.
01:21:56: So we have positive, can I ask this final question? Sure.
01:21:58: Do we have positive evidence in the New Testament that believers were worshiping on the first day of the week? That's my question.
01:22:04: Yeah, I don't disagree, and absolutely, absolutely.
01:22:06: All right, thank you, gentlemen.
01:22:08: So that is our first cross-examination of our proposition questioning opposition.
01:22:13: We will now turn the question marks around and reset 10 minutes on the clock, and whenever you're ready.
01:22:22: Understanding that you believe the Sabbath to be a creation ordinance, do you believe Adam was verbally commanded by God to keep the Sabbath, therefore making it special revelation, or do you believe that it was intuitively given to him, therefore making it natural revelation? Remember, again, when Jesus is asked about his position on divorce, he doesn't go to the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue and say, thou shalt not commit adultery, for example.
01:22:49: He doesn't go there.
01:22:50: He doesn't go Moses.
01:22:51: He goes creation.
01:22:53: I think it was any form of revelation that is not expressly revealed to us.
01:23:02: So Paul says, for example, Romans 1, I don't wanna take up all your time.
01:23:04: Romans 1 says that the evidence of God, his power, his glory, his majesty is clearly revealed in the things that are seen.
01:23:10: So there's certain things in general revelation or natural revelation that we can know about God.
01:23:15: I think things like marriage, work, vocation, what I would say is the pattern of one in seven, work and rest, and things like this, this is supernatural revelation.
01:23:32: I think that it's given to us and presented as that, that God sets something, sanctifies something, and sets it apart as a particular thing.
01:23:37: So you would say Adam knew that God set it apart? I'm assuming that he knew that, yeah.
01:23:43: And I'm not gonna actually prove that.
01:23:45: Because my next question is this.
01:23:48: If Adam was given the command prior to the fall, could the fall have happened as a result of not keeping the Sabbath? The covenant that God enters into, the answer is, could Adam have sinned in a variety of ways? Yes.
01:24:03: Did Adam sin in a variety of ways even when he took the fruit? Absolutely.
01:24:07: There's a multitude of sins that went into the first sin.
01:24:10: So it wasn't simply eating the fruit.
01:24:11: It was also rejecting God's word, adding to God's word, taking away from God's word.
01:24:16: Does that make sense? There was a host of idolatries involved in that act.
01:24:19: So he could have sinned in that way, I guess, but that wasn't the nature of the covenant that was made.
01:24:23: Okay.
01:24:24: Very quickly, I'm gonna ask you a few just yes or no questions.
01:24:27: Can you show us in scripture where Adam or anyone up to the time of Moses in Exodus 16 was positively shown as keeping the Sabbath? Outside of Exodus 16? Outside, before Exodus 16.
01:24:39: So Exodus 16 came before, okay.
01:24:40: Can you show us anywhere in the Old Testament where the Gentile nations were rebuked for not keeping the Sabbath? No.
01:24:46: Okay.
01:24:48: Has the seventh day, sometimes called the Jewish Sabbath, been abrogated? I think you've already answered that.
01:24:52: Now let me ask the follow-up to that.
01:24:53: Would you say that Colossians 2, 16 and even Galatians 4, 9, and 10 both refer to that abrogation? No.
01:25:00: Of the Jewish Sabbath? Okay.
01:25:01: The Jewish Sabbath, yes.
01:25:02: I think it's an abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath.
01:25:03: Okay, I'm asking about the Jewish Sabbath.
01:25:04: Okay.
01:25:05: If a Christian was convicted to keep the seventh day rather than the first day, for whatever reason, would you say that they were in sin? I would say, what I would say is that we are sole scripture people.
01:25:20: I'm kind of speaking to everyone.
01:25:21: Hopefully we're all sole scripture people.
01:25:22: Scripture alone is our highest authority.
01:25:24: Westminster says in chapter one, I don't know what section, so you guys are smarter than me.
01:25:28: You can figure it out.
01:25:29: But in Westminster Confession chapter one, it says that God's will is revealed to us.
01:25:34: It's either expressly set out in the scriptures or by good and necessary consequence, we can deduce it from the scriptures.
01:25:40: So I would say by that, that by sanctified common sense, in other words, reasoning backwards from the text, we do things not simply because we like it, but because we think that God is implying it or explicitly telling us in the scriptures.
01:25:52: So we worship on the first day of the week because we see explicit example of that taking place in the New Testament, which is why we model our practice and our piety around what we see in the scriptures.
01:26:05: Can you show us where the New Testament ever calls the first day of the week, Sabbath? Say it one more time, sorry.
01:26:10: Does the New Testament ever call Sunday or the first day of the week, the Sabbath? No.
01:26:16: Okay.
01:26:17: Does the New Testament ever prescribe resting on the first day of the week? In that language.
01:26:25: So a verse that says rest on the first day of the week? Yeah.
01:26:27: No.
01:26:28: Okay.
01:26:29: I'm not trying to trap you.
01:26:30: You know, I understand we might differ on how we understand what the word rest means, but can you show us where the Sabbath breaking is identified in any of the lists of sins given in the New Testament? If you're asking me for explicit or implicit? Well, how would you see it as implicit? So for example, in, let's see, Hebrews, we were at Hebrews chapter four.
01:26:55: Let me go there in my little thing here.
01:26:58: And you guys can turn to your Bibles in Hebrews chapter four if you'd like as I answer this.
01:27:06: Well, let me, before you even.
01:27:07: Yeah, please.
01:27:07: Would you see the Sabbath in Hebrews four as being the Sabbath day? Yes.
01:27:12: Then that would be your answer? Yes.
01:27:15: And I would also say just quick, just briefly, it's not a long exegesis of it.
01:27:17: Verse 10 says in Hebrews chapter four, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
01:27:26: So we have something that's an action that something has been completed.
01:27:31: Some work just as God completed his work in creation.
01:27:33: Something has been completed.
01:27:34: Someone has entered God's rest.
01:27:36: Verse 11 says, let us therefore, there's a therefore.
01:27:39: Someone's entered the rest of God.
01:27:41: Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
01:27:46: And in verse nine, again, we read, there remains therefore a Sabbath for the people of God.
01:27:51: So I believe that verse 10 is speaking of Christ, that he has entered God's rest.
01:27:56: I'm not, and by the way, I'm not disagreeing with you that we have rest in Christ.
01:27:59: I agree wholeheartedly.
01:28:00: I don't think it's purely eschatological.
01:28:02: I think it's now as well.
01:28:04: So I think that it says that the whole scope of that focus in Hebrews four and previous chapters is that Christ is preeminent, that Christ is the one who succeeded where Adam fell.
01:28:14: He's a better Moses.
01:28:15: He's a better than the old covenant.
01:28:17: Verse 10, I think he's entered God's rest.
01:28:19: He's rested from his work of redemption just as God did from his.
01:28:22: Verse 11, therefore let us then strive to enter into that rest.
01:28:26: So I think that we have a part to play there.
01:28:30: I think he's talking about verse nine, a Sabbath remaining for the people of God.
01:28:34: And that we, as we celebrate the Lord's day, which I think is the Christian Sabbath, Sunday by Sunday, first day of the week by first day of the week, it is not only us resting on that day, but it's looking forward.
01:28:45: We're praising God, we're being refreshed by the grace that we've already been given, the new creation that he's made us, the rest that we have in him.
01:28:53: And also we're looking forward to this future eschatological rest.
01:28:56: Okay, did Paul write Hebrews? I believe so.
01:29:00: Okay, then this question is gonna be different.
01:29:03: And that was not part of the debate.
01:29:05: That is a legitimate question.
01:29:06: Okay, so how many times in the writings of Paul, if we, because I disagree, I don't think Paul wrote Hebrews, but if we limit the Pauline corpus without Hebrews, how many times the word Sabbath in the writings of Paul? I do not know the answer to that question.
01:29:19: One, and what is the subject of that passage? Colossians 2.16.
01:29:24: Colossians 2.16, oh, yes, he's speaking, I do know that passage.
01:29:28: He says, I have it in front of me, 16, 17, therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink, or with regard to festival or new moon or a Sabbath.
01:29:36: You said it correctly, that it's referring to multiple Sabbaths.
01:29:38: It's plural, it's not singular.
01:29:39: Verse 17, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
01:29:44: I don't think Paul is referring to a weekly Sabbath, or as you said, I think he's referring to monthly Jewish ceremonial Sabbaths that went on that are all over the Old Testament.
01:29:54: I think that those are abrogated.
01:29:55: Okay, so then you wouldn't say that that abrogates this Jewish Seventh-day Sabbath? Remember, I don't believe, my position is not that the Sabbath is a Jewish institution.
01:30:06: Jeremiah, yeah.
01:30:08: Slightly different from what others I've heard, so I'm just clarifying, okay.
01:30:14: The principle, let me refresh to say the principle of the Sabbath, is what I wanted to say.
01:30:20: If a person chooses to observe the Lord's Day as a time for assembling, study, prayer, and fellowship with other believers, normal church life activities, but chooses not to consider it a Sabbath, how would that be an error, other than an error of language? What do you mean by, can you explain what you mean by doesn't consider it a Sabbath? I think you and I do pretty much the same things on Sunday.
01:30:43: We both get up, we go to worship, we spend time with the Lord, and we focus on Him on that day.
01:30:50: However, I see the Lord's Day as a new thing.
01:30:55: You say it's a carryover of an old thing.
01:30:57: Creation, yeah.
01:30:57: If we're doing the same thing, are we just using different language, or is there something more substantive? I think there's substance in terms of the intention.
01:31:07: So, for example, if I stand before my congregation and say, like as I asked you earlier in my question, is it a duty for Christians to worship on Sunday? I would say yes, because we have explicit example in the New Testament that we are, that they were worshiping on the first day of the week.
01:31:23: We have a command, I believe it's in Corinthians, where Paul says, when you come together, I want you to do this, and he talks about the giving of offerings and tithes.
01:31:31: And so, I think we have explicit example that that's what we should be doing, because that's what they're doing.
01:31:36: We model our practice, our theology, and our piety off of the scriptures.
01:31:41: So, when I stand up and I say, yes, it's our duty, my position is that I have ultimate justification for saying that.
01:31:48: You had mentioned, you're gonna have to respond to this, I don't know, and I'm not trying to cross-examine.
01:31:52: Your position was that we do it, and you should do it, but there's no ultimate justification.
01:31:59: I might be putting words in your mouth, but that's how I understood your statement.
01:32:02: Would that be correct, that there wouldn't be ultimate justification? Are you, can I respond? Sure.
01:32:09: I would say we have positive command in the New Testament, but because, again, I would look at the New Testament as being giving us something new, then it's not a carryover, it's still positive command.
01:32:21: So, I think in that regard, I would have the same justification as you as to say, here's the New Testament, here's what it does, here's what it says.
01:32:28: I wanna ask one more question, can I ask one? It's fine with me.
01:32:31: Okay, then we will carry it.
01:32:39: Do Sabbatarians unanimously agree, and I know this is loaded and maybe unfair, I'm not trying to be unfair, but do Sabbatarians agree on what should be done on the Sabbath? I'll answer it quickly by saying yes, and.
01:32:52: It's not a yes, but, it's yes, and.
01:32:54: The positive, why I'm saying yes, is we all agree that it should be a day of rest, refreshment, and worship.
01:33:00: How that gets carried out, there's disagreement there.
01:33:02: I would say that's a tertiary issue.
01:33:04: So, I don't think that there was a disagreement between, for example, the Dutch Reformed, and the, or the Continental Reformed, and the British Reformed.
01:33:12: I think they were in agreement on the principle of the Christian Sabbath, or the Lord's Day, how to carry that out.
01:33:18: There's disagreement there.
01:33:21: Okay.
01:33:21: So, that would be conscious, a matter of conscience.
01:33:26: Okay.
01:33:28: I still wanna ask another question, but I'll leave it.
01:33:30: I'll leave it be.
01:33:30: All right, all right.
01:33:32: Thank you, gentlemen, both, especially for the lively and respectful exchange of ideas.
01:33:38: We're now gonna move into our closing statements, beginning with our opposition side.
01:33:42: This is not, again, not a time to bring up any new argumentation, but rather to conclude your line of thinking.
01:33:48: I wanna remind our audience that we are going to have a 20-minute question and answer period after these closing statements.
01:33:53: So, if you have a question you wanna add to the pile, we have question cards up here.
01:33:56: As of right now, we have one.
01:33:59: So, if you'd like to throw your question into the pile, you can address it to either participant or to both.
01:34:05: You can do so during closing statements.
01:34:07: I'll just leave these here on the corner.
01:34:10: If we only have one question from the audience, we either did really good or really bad.
01:34:18: You can go ahead and begin.
01:34:19: All right.
01:34:19: With the time.
01:34:21: I wanna say this.
01:34:22: The reason why I'm going first now is because it's harder to do what Rob's doing than what I'm doing.
01:34:28: Rob has the proposition, which means he's gotta make a positive argument and all I have to do is come along and say, uh-uh.
01:34:33: You know what I mean? So, he gets to go first and he gets to go last because he gets to have the first word and the last word.
01:34:39: And so, that's how the rules of debate work.
01:34:42: And so, I'm thankful to give him the last word.
01:34:45: The truth of the matter is we are so close in practice that some might even think this debate is unnecessary.
01:34:54: We both worship on Sunday.
01:34:55: We both dedicate that to a day of focusing on the Lord.
01:34:59: And if all we mean by the Sabbath is that we gather for worship on Sunday and we use that day to focus on the things of the Lord, then we don't disagree.
01:35:07: But that's not all the Sabbath is in the Scripture.
01:35:10: Sabbath involves a complete cessation of work and recreation.
01:35:14: And if you say, well, there are commandments that don't apply, how do you apply those commands that are left up to the kind? I mean, I've heard a lot of different variations.
01:35:23: It's sort of my last question to him.
01:35:24: Is there unanimous, because I'm gonna tell you there are Sabbath keepers who believe to the extreme, to the point of, and these things are not conscience issues for these folks.
01:35:36: These issues are absolutely demanded and they're ones upon which, and again, I'm not saying that that's you, brother.
01:35:44: I just know that that exists.
01:35:47: And ultimately, here's my point.
01:35:48: If it is not carrying the regulations of the Sabbath, then it's not the Sabbath.
01:35:55: The Sabbath wasn't about having the conscience as to whether or not to throw a football or whatever.
01:36:00: It was about doing what God told you to do.
01:36:02: And God gave very specific commands for the Sabbath in the Old Testament, commands that were punishable by death.
01:36:11: Man collects sticks on the Sabbath and he is stoned as a result.
01:36:18: Somebody says, well, that doesn't apply anymore.
01:36:21: Why not? Because the Sabbath changed or because we've been given something new? It is my contention, again, it's not because it changed.
01:36:35: It's because we've been given something new.
01:36:37: Sunday is a new day.
01:36:39: It is the Lord's day.
01:36:41: And like the Lord's Supper, it has an Old Testament counterpart, which is similar pattern after the same pattern, but it's not the same.
01:36:51: And I wanna speak directly now to those who would disagree and those who would agree with me on this position.
01:36:59: As I prepared for this, I realized just how strong the opinions are on both sides.
01:37:05: I saw firsthand how both sides can have the potential to be very stern and sometimes downright aggressive in the language that they gave toward one another.
01:37:14: Those on my side have a tendency to look at people like Pastor Rob and say, you're a legalist.
01:37:18: And people on Pastor Rob's side, not Pastor Rob, but there are those who would say, well, you're a libertine or a liberal.
01:37:26: Oh, how dirty is that? All right, and so there becomes this back and forth of legalist.
01:37:32: I don't think either one is true.
01:37:33: I don't think Pastor Rob's a legalist.
01:37:36: And I hope he doesn't think I'm a liberal.
01:37:37: How bad would that be? This is a legitimate question between two brothers in Christ who share a different opinion on what the Bible says.
01:37:45: We both affirm the Bible is the word of God.
01:37:47: It's our sole authority.
01:37:48: We both affirm that we want to be obedient to God and his word.
01:37:51: We simply come to a point of interpretational difference.
01:37:56: But it's not an issue which defines the gospel and thus it is not an issue upon which our brotherhood will stand.
01:38:03: At the end of the day, we cannot both be right, but we can both be charitable.
01:38:10: Saying that someone hasn't thought through it enough or isn't thinking deeply enough or anything like that isn't really fair.
01:38:19: Just because we come to different conclusions don't mean that we have not been thoughtful, prayerful, and seeking God.
01:38:27: Having said that, I want to address something else that's on my heart.
01:38:31: And my brother believes in Sunday as the Sabbath.
01:38:34: And I know that he is at liberty to believe that.
01:38:37: And I am thankful for his conscience, which is tied to his understanding of the word of God.
01:38:43: And I'm so thankful for that.
01:38:44: And I would never encourage him to violate his conscience.
01:38:47: If your conscience binds you to this, I would never say otherwise.
01:38:50: We may challenge one another, but Romans 14 very clearly tells me that I am not to come to you and make you think the way I think about the keeping of days, things like that.
01:39:03: But in my research, I did come across a lot of information coming out of groups that do bind people with heavy burdens that are too hard to bear.
01:39:17: And I'm gonna say this, we agreed on this.
01:39:19: And I'm thankful that, I said, Rob, in my last five minutes, can I say something about something that really isn't about this debate? And he was gracious enough, and the moderator was gracious enough to give me this.
01:39:30: Because in my study of this, I had to look at the Sabbath, and I started looking into movements that actually try to hold to a seventh day Jewish Sabbath.
01:39:38: That's the SDA, the Hebrew roots, and some of the messianic movements.
01:39:41: And I've been really moved by some of the dangers therein, and saddened by the testimonies of those who are trapped in those movements that do not teach salvation by grace alone.
01:39:52: I know that isn't the subject of the debate.
01:39:54: I'm deviating slightly, but I wanna, again, we talked about this, and I wanna say this.
01:40:02: I truly wish, if you were part of those groups, whether you're listening to us online, I truly wish you've heard both of us, because both of us have stood on one thing very clearly, and that is, Saturday is no longer where you need to be standing with Christ.
01:40:15: You need to stand on the day he rose, and worship on the day he rose, and come to the Lord's day, and give up the shadow for the substance.
01:40:23: Give up the shadow, receive the substance in Christ.
01:40:28: How you practice on that day may differ, and how we understand that day may be different.
01:40:35: But there is no difference in this.
01:40:37: We are not, we are not saved by keeping that day anymore.
01:40:45: We are saved through Christ alone.
01:40:48: No matter what our differences may be on defining Sunday, with all of its regulations or whatever, the question we have been debating is not whether or not we should worship on Saturday, and if you are bound to the ceremony, please come to the substance, come to Christ.
01:41:04: That's it.
01:41:06: Thank you, we'll now have our final closing statement, and then audience Q&A time.
01:41:18: I've had a wonderful time so far.
01:41:20: Have you guys had a good night so far, a good day? I agree with almost, almost everything that my brother Keaton said tonight.
01:41:28: Let me say a few things just to summarize, again, my position, to make sure I make this clear.
01:41:35: Number one, I would say that I believe that the Lord's day is when Christians need to be worshiping.
01:41:41: We worship on the first day of the week, the day that Jesus rose, as he said, ascended and all the rest, that this is the day that has been set apart for him, and just as the Lord's supper is his Sunday, the first day of the week is his day.
01:41:55: How we go about practicing that day is slightly different, but the substance is Christ.
01:42:02: Here's a recapitulation of my position, that there is a Sabbath, the principle of one day in seven, I'm not referring to the Jewish Sabbath, which is on Saturday, but the principle of one in seven is evident in the very first chapter of God's word.
01:42:18: According to the scripture, he worked, as it were, for six mornings and evenings, and he rested on the seventh, and as I said earlier, have we ever wondered why it was that God rested? He wasn't tired.
01:42:32: The God of scripture is not a projection of human personality into the cosmos.
01:42:36: He's not a pagan Greco-Roman deity.
01:42:38: He is not a creature.
01:42:40: He spoke into nothing and made everything that exists, and all God's people said, amen.
01:42:45: The Lord, I believe, now this is where you won't amen me, necessarily, but the Lord, I believe, was setting a pattern for us.
01:42:52: I believe that that's the teaching of Exodus 20, verse eight, that the Lord created for six days and he rested on one, that it's a pattern that's built into creation.
01:43:02: It's a pattern that's built into the very nature of things.
01:43:05: I believe that it was instituted even before the fall, that the pattern of one in seven is instituted and existed long before the 613 Mosaic commandments and the temporary typological and national covenant with Israel at Sinai.
01:43:21: That's why the Lord referred to the creation pattern at Sinai in the 10 commandments.
01:43:27: I believe that the fourth commandment is grounded in creation.
01:43:30: All human beings should observe to celebrate that creational six-in-one pattern in the same way that all humans observe laws against idolatry, laws against abusing God's name, laws against respecting authority, against sexual immorality, against theft, lying, and against coveting.
01:43:49: The Sabbath pattern is just as permanent, just as built into the nature of things as universal as they are.
01:43:56: But that being said, I don't wanna end my time as I have seven minutes left.
01:44:00: I won't take up this whole seven minutes, but I do want you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah.
01:44:05: It would be amiss of me to try and defend the position of the Sabbatarians without taking us to Isaiah chapter 58 towards the end of that book.
01:44:17: Why I said yes to being part of this particular debate on this particular subject is because I believe that God's desire, his plan for his people is to experience in Christ deep and abiding joy, happiness in God.
01:44:35: I believe that joy and happiness in God is the very essence of the gospel.
01:44:41: You'll remember in Luke chapter two, verse 10, the angel says to them, fear not for behold, I bring you great tidings of, good tidings of great, what? Joy.
01:44:50: Philippians 4.4, Paul says this, rejoice in the Lord always.
01:44:54: Then he repeats it again, I say, rejoice.
01:44:58: Psalm 37.4 tells us to delight ourselves in the Lord and he will give us the very desires of our heart.
01:45:05: See, I believe that God's will for our lives is that we would experience joy in him, happiness in him, we'd find our delight in Christ, we'd find our satisfaction in Christ.
01:45:16: And I believe that the Lord's day, which I think is the Christian Sabbath, not the Jewish Sabbath, that the Lord's day is one of the ways our good God has ordained to bring us great joy, happiness in Christ.
01:45:30: Look with me at Isaiah 58, beginning in verse 13.
01:45:32: We have a promise here, this is how we'll end.
01:45:36: God says this, if you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, that's a Hebraism, a way of saying if you return, if you remember to keep this principle of one in seven from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and instead you call the Sabbath, what does it say in the text? A delight.
01:45:55: In the Old Testament, it wasn't viewed as something that was a burden, it was a delight.
01:46:00: A Sabbath, a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable if you honor it, not going your own ways, not seeking your own pleasure, not talking idly.
01:46:09: Now this is where people disagree in the Sabbatarian world, what does those mean? But look what it says.
01:46:13: If you do those things, verse 14, then you shall take, what does it say? The light in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
01:46:28: I believe that the Lord's day is a means that God uses for us to find our joy and our delight and our happiness in Jesus Christ.
01:46:37: That's my position.
01:46:39: We may disagree, but we agree that there's joy in Christ.
01:46:41: Amen.
01:46:44: Thank you, gentlemen.
01:46:45: Yes.
01:46:51: Yeah.
01:46:54: Having participated and moderated in quite a few debates myself, I think another round of applause is in order for all the preparation done by these guys.
01:47:02: That was an extremely thoughtful, respectful, and very well-reasoned debate for both of you.
01:47:08: So you should be very, very proud of what you were able to bring to the table tonight.
01:47:12: I think we have something before we move to our Q&A time.
01:47:19: Yes, I have something I would like to do.
01:47:21: Okay.
01:47:26: Brother, I know this is your first debate, my second debate.
01:47:30: So it's not something that I have, I have not done enough of these to have a custom, but it is a custom in debate to give a gift.
01:47:37: And so I have gotten a gift for you, for you to put on the wall.
01:47:40: There we go.
01:47:41: To remember this very special, very special time.
01:47:45: Thank you so much.
01:47:47: Meet me after the debate to figure out why this is such a big deal.
01:47:49: This is a big deal.
01:47:51: And I'm thankful that you came.
01:47:52: I'm thankful you brought people from your church.
01:47:55: And I'm grateful that we do share so much in Christ and what little bit we differ.
01:48:00: We had to find a place to differ because we wanted to do a debate because we thought it'd be fun.
01:48:06: And maybe at some point we'll talk about them babies.
01:48:10: Maybe, what to do with water.
01:48:12: Yeah, exactly.
01:48:13: We'll talk about water, but that'll be maybe in the future.
01:48:15: But this is a fun, oh, no, nobody wants to come back.
01:48:22: But thank you all for coming.
01:48:24: All right.
01:48:25: Well, we do have our one question for our Q&A time.
01:48:30: And again, if you have any last minute rushes of inspiration you wanna come up here and write one down, have at it.
01:48:36: Since we have one question, are we both able to answer that question? That'll be more fun, Keith.
01:48:42: It is, I mean, it is posed to you, but we can do two minutes each.
01:48:44: You're welcome to answer as well.
01:48:46: Well, we'll both, yeah, you go first.
01:48:48: There's a second one that was, someone didn't write it down, but I heard it discussed and figured it might be useful for the topic.
01:48:58: This question says, and we'll start with you, Rob, is your laboring as a reverend on Sunday a violation of abiding in moral law? No, and here's why, because remember, we have to look for biblical examples for anything that we do or don't do.
01:49:14: So my, again, my position that I stated earlier was the reason I asked the question, is it a duty? I kept using that word duty.
01:49:20: Is it a duty for us to worship the Lord on the first day of the week, every week? My position is, yes, it is by biblical, way of biblical example.
01:49:28: Something that we see in the New Testament by positive explicit command or by inference in the scriptures, we worship on the first day of the week weekly because that's what we see the early Christians doing in the New Testament in the book of Acts.
01:49:40: When it comes to your question, Jesus was approached by the Pharisees over and over again about him breaking the Sabbath, over and over again.
01:49:48: We think you're breaking the Sabbath because you're healing someone's hand because they're going through the field.
01:49:52: Remember, plucking the heads of grain on the wheat.
01:49:55: And so he gives them an answer.
01:49:58: What he doesn't say is, well, the Sabbath is done away with.
01:50:01: I fulfilled the Sabbath and we don't have to obey it anymore.
01:50:03: What he does say is that, don't you know what happened in the Old Testament when David was hungry and starving and had nothing to eat? Remember this? And he says, he went into the tabernacle, the tent of meeting and he took from the showbread to go eat.
01:50:18: Later, he uses another example where he says that the priests in the Old Testament had to break the Sabbath principle of working and resting in order to do the duties and carry out the duties of the clergy in the Old Testament, of the officers of the Church of Israel.
01:50:33: So no, I don't think that a pastor is breaking the Sabbath principle by working on the Lord's Day as well.
01:50:42: And we didn't get into this, but also Jesus gives us two caveats, I believe, in the New Testament in terms of what we can or cannot do on the Lord's Day, in my view.
01:50:54: So for example, let me give you an example of this.
01:50:56: Paul, Jesus, when it comes to marriage, says that there is one reason that you can get a divorce.
01:51:03: Well, it's not that it's a mandate, but it's permissible if someone commits adultery.
01:51:08: Paul goes a step further to imply that potentially if a person abandons you, then there is also a principle there.
01:51:15: We have principally that that might be possible even though it's not commanded.
01:51:19: What Jesus does is he gives us an example of two things that are fine to do on the Lord's Day.
01:51:24: He gives us the example of works of necessity and works of charity.
01:51:28: So you'll remember that he says in that instance where his disciples were hungry, they're plucking grains of wheat, he says they're not doing anything wrong, they're not breaking the commandment because they need to do what? They need to eat, right? That would be a work of necessity.
01:51:40: On another example, when the Pharisees are attacking him for healing a man's hand, I believe, on the Sabbath, what does Jesus say? He says, which of you, if your ox falls into a ditch, would not reach in and pull that ox out, right? So works of necessity and works of love or mercy is not a breaking of the Sabbath.
01:51:56: I believe when Jesus says he is Lord of the Sabbath or kurios, he's giving us the definition of what is permissible or impermissible.
01:52:05: And I think he's clearing up the mess that the Pharisees loaded upon the people of God at that time by saying, you can't do anything, you can only walk a certain number of feet, you can't eat this, you can't do that.
01:52:14: Jesus is saying, if your brother or sister in Christ needs you to run down to the store to get them food because they don't have any, you get off your butt, I'm being very cat-crash, get off your butt, go down to the store and purchase food for them.
01:52:26: That's an act of mercy.
01:52:28: If your kid is sick and comes down with a cold, you can hear some of my congestion now, comes down with a cold on a Sunday morning and you need to go and get some medicine and some chicken noodle soup, again, it might be a necessity for you to go do those things.
01:52:39: I don't think that Jesus abrogates all work, if that makes sense.
01:52:44: That's why he says the Father has been working until now and I'm working.
01:52:47: There's only certain work that we're called to rest from.
01:52:50: Okay.
01:52:50: Keith, you wanna take three minutes on that one? Yeah, I agree, with the exception of one thought because I do agree that even if Sunday was the Sabbath and even if I conceded that point, I wouldn't see what I do on Sunday as a violation any more than the priest doing what he did on the Sabbath as a violation.
01:53:12: However, I do think this teaches us something because the argument of the debate is moral and I'm hard-pressed to find a moral law that we would find things more important than that law.
01:53:28: And what I mean by that is, what's more important than keeping the Sabbath? Doing works that are good and merciful and what's more important than keeping the Sabbath? One of the things in the Gospel of John is the fact that circumcision had to be done on the Sabbath because the eighth-day law was more important than the seventh-day Sabbath.
01:53:47: And so if a child happened to be born where the eighth-day would fall on the circumcision day, you circumcised on that day, even though circumcision was quote-unquote work, you had to do that because circumcision was more important than the Sabbath.
01:54:02: That to me lends credence to the idea, if I took the idea of moral and ceremonial, it would certainly add to me the idea that it's ceremonial because there's things that are more important and the more important, even in other ceremonies, a circumcision, which we know is abiding moral law, certainly had something of a preeminence to the Sabbath because if it had to be done, more important than the Sabbath, you don't wait on it, you wait on the Sabbath and you do it.
01:54:27: So I think that's, but as far as principial, yeah, the reason why we would do what we do on, it wouldn't matter if it was Sabbath or not, we'd have to do it.
01:54:34: Okay.
01:54:36: The only other question that I heard mentioned, and I'm gonna try and rephrase it as faithfully as I can, it's referencing Isaiah 66, so at the very end, it's the last chapter in Isaiah.
01:54:52: Isaiah 66, 22 to 24, makes mention of new heavens and new earth, so the very end of all creation, or rather the very end of the record we have in the Bible, and then it does make a reference from Sabbath to Sabbath.
01:55:10: Would you comment on that with regards to your position of it being a day or not? I don't know.
01:55:17: Rob, do you wanna start with that? I don't mean to.
01:55:21: I'm still reading the verse.
01:55:22: Okay.
01:55:23: I've dealt with this, I can answer, but I wanna ask Rob a question to answer this question.
01:55:28: So Rob, do you think we're gonna have the Sabbath in heaven? No.
01:55:31: Then that's the argument.
01:55:32: The argument is that you're gonna keep the Sabbath in heaven, that's what this is based on.
01:55:36: I think that the passage of time here that's referring to is not necessarily, I think it's using an anthropomorphic idea of how we judge time and applying that to heaven.
01:55:44: I don't think it has anything to do with keeping Sabbath in heaven, so I think we'd both answer it the same way.
01:55:48: Okay.
01:55:49: Yeah.
01:55:49: All right.
01:55:50: Well, now that we're- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump for it.
01:55:53: This is one of the ones, I didn't know if you did, believe that we're gonna keep the Sabbath in heaven, and for those who do believe we're gonna keep the Sabbath in heaven based on this verse, I would disagree, and I would also say, I just don't think that's the point.
01:56:05: And you gotta remember that the position of the Christian Sabbath, remember, I'm not just talking about Sabbath, but the Christian Sabbath, which is the Lord's day, the pattern of six and one and seven, remember that, as I was talking about, that the order, I mentioned in Genesis chapter two, verses one through three, that there is no clause of morning and evening.
01:56:28: I think I mentioned this.
01:56:29: There is no clause that says, and there was evening and there was morning, and then that day was done.
01:56:33: I believe that that is typological.
01:56:36: It's pointing forward to this time when there will be no need to find rest in Christ.
01:56:40: We are at rest continually in Christ, and so I believe that in heaven, do we celebrate a Sabbath? In essence, it's all rest in Christ.
01:56:49: There's no anticipation anymore.
01:56:52: We're no longer already and not yet.
01:56:53: It is all there.
01:56:54: It is completed.
01:56:55: It's come to fruition.
01:56:56: So I think that Hebrews four, to finish that thought, I think that Hebrews four, what the writer of Hebrews, whether it's Paul or not, what I think he's getting at is, we've entered into this rest.
01:57:08: We're in Christ.
01:57:09: He's given us rest for those who are weary.
01:57:11: We're justified.
01:57:12: We're sanctified.
01:57:14: One day we'll be glorified, and so we're longing for that eschatological rest.
01:57:19: Therefore, because we're longing for this eschatological rest, the fulfillment of it all, there remains, is what he's saying, I believe, a Sabbath to remind us on a weekly basis that creational pattern of one day we get to have that eternal rest in Christ, where there's no interruption to that.
01:57:37: All right, that concludes all of our questions.
01:57:41: Any other remarks that either of you would like to make? I want to add one thought.
01:57:48: Tomorrow morning, Brother Rob is preaching here, and I am preaching at his church.
01:57:54: That was his idea, and I thought it was great, and it was just a way for us to demonstrate our love for one another, our love for the body, and the fact that this is in no way contentious between us.
01:58:04: We love each other more now than we did.
01:58:06: And I'm not preaching on the Sabbath.
01:58:10: And neither am I.
01:58:13: Thank you, gentlemen.
01:58:13: Let's give him one more hand, and this will conclude our debate.
01:58:18: Thank you so much for attending, everyone.