The Role of God’s Moral Law, Including Sabbath, in the “New Covenant”1 (original) (raw)
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The Role of God’s Moral Law, Including Sabbath, in the "New Covenant
2004
M any Christians today believe and teach that when the "old covenant" of the Old Testament gave way to the "new covenant"/New Testament of Christianity, the entire "old covenant" law became obsolete. 2 Since the seventh day Sabbath was part of that law, it is logical to conclude that literal Sabbath observance is no longer relevant or required. This approach has been adopted by a broad spectrum of Christians, from those (especially evangelicals) who hold that Christians are not bound to keep any particular day 3 to others (including Pope John Paul II) who slide aspects of the Old Testament Sabbath over to Sunday in order to make it a Christian "Sabbath." 4 The line of reasoning just described is logical: "Old covenant" law, which includes seventh day Sabbath, is replaced by "new covenant." Therefore seventh day Sabbath comes to an end. However, this logic is founded on an assumption, namely, that the Bible teaches such a sharp break between "Old" and "New" Testament religion that there is no continuity between the covenants that they represent. This assumption has a profound effect upon the nature of Christianity, so that many Christians reject the divine authority and value of much or all of the Old Testament. 5 If we examine the crucial assumption that there is no continuity between the "Old" and "New" Testament cov
Andrews University Seminary Student Journal, 2015
For centuries, scholars have debated the nature of the relationship between the seventh day (Gen 2:1-3) and the biblical Sabbath (Exod 20:8-11). While Covenant Theologians insist that the seventh day works as the theological foundation of the biblical Sabbath, New Covenant Theologians reject this relationship and insist the Sabbath is an institution given exclusively to the Israelites. This article argues that according to an exegetical-historical and theological reading of selected texts on the Sabbath, one must regard the seventh day as the theological foundation of the biblical Sabbath to sustain a consistent and coherent theological system that uses Scripture as its epistemological foundation.
The Seventh-Day Sabbath and Sabbath Theology in The Book of Revelation: Creation, Covenant, Sign
2011
The word “Sabbath” is never mentioned in the book of Revelation; yet, as “the last book of the Bible,” Revelation gives promise of yielding Scripture’s “final word”1 on the seventh-day Sabbath for those who would follow Christ. Revelation’s “last words” are significant because “they memorably summarize and conclude centuries of biblical insight, counsel, and experience.”2 There “all the books of the Bible meet and end.”3 So much so that when reading Revelation one is plunged fully into the atmosphere of the OT— theologically, spiritually, morally.4 Through images drawn from the past both the present and the future unfold in a way that greatly resembles the past and in which the same relationships of cause and consequence are observable that have been at work throughout God’s dealings with humanity.5 The cascade of OT allusions seems to assert that no matter the times, spiritual/moral issues
"Is it Lawful?" Interpretation and Discernment in Light of Sabbath Controversies
Vision: A Journal for Church and Theology 16:1 (2015): 79-88.
The Sabbath controversies provide a microcosm of extended debates between Jesus and Jewish leaders. While Christians often read these passages presupposing the self-evident truth of Jesus’s position(s) and the foolishness of the Pharisees, revisiting these debates as contentious sites of biblical interpretation and ethical discernment holds great potential. Not only does this shift in perspective uncover underlying dynamics at play between Jesus and the Pharisees, it also prompts readers to consider the ongoing complexity of holding together a commitment to interpret the Bible on one hand and live a life of faithful discipleship on the other.
THE EIGHTH DAY ARGUMENT: A JEWISH RATIONALE FOR THE REJECTION OF THE SEVENTH DAY SABBATH
THE EIGHTH DAY ARGUMENT: A JEWISH RATIONALE FOR THE REJECTION OF THE SEVENTH DAY SABBATH, 2024
Building from the assumption of the Sabbath’s obsolescence much has been argued for the prominence of Sunday gatherings already in the New Testament corpus, or even that Jesus, though a Sabbath keeper, paved the way for the substitution of the seventh day Sabbath, which is by no means self-evident and therefore deserves further investigation. Ad interim, irrespective of the proper biblical interpretation of the continuity of the seventh day Sabbath, only voluntary blindness would deny the clear presence of the Sunday as a day to gather and worship within the Apostolic Fathers’ literature only a few decades after the last documents of the New Testament were written, at the pace that rejecting that which is Jewish was on vogue. Undoubtedly, the post apostolic treatment of the Sabbath is unprecedented given the Jewish origins of most New Testament writers, at the pace that the resurrection of Jesus became the main reason to account for the novelty of either worshiping on or keeping the Sunday. But how? What was the theological route that brought about such a phenomenon, i.e., that the Old Testament Sabbath became void on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus. Whereas Bacchiocchi, and many in his footsteps, find in the confluence of paganism, anti-Jewish sentiment and the prominence of the church in Rome as reasons that account for the suppression of the Sabbath in favour of the Sunday or Lord’s Day, there remains a need to explore the process through which such a belief came to be in the first place, hence the question: how did the resurrection of Jesus become the hermeneutical framework for the rejection of the