Dear Louis: I have read many and I mean many reason to not keep the seventh-day Sabbath, but yours has been the most interesting to date. If I could even begin to understand what you are saying and I read it three times I still do not know where and how you come to your conclusion. …It is a remnant that will keep the commandments of God. This is the New Testament message. Liane
The Bible is filled with commandments of God, but understanding the appropriate application of the commandments of God depends on properly ascertaining to whom various commandments of God applied or apply. It is not rocket science to conclude (correctly) that not all commandments of God apply to all people for all time. Noah was commanded by God to build an ark or giant barge-like boat, but no one today believes that he or she must perform that commandment of God today. Why is that? God’s commandment to Noah to build the ark was just one of the commands God gave to various people under a general period of time (Patriarchy) preceding the institution of Judaism. However, once God instituted Judaism, beginning with the giving of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites were no longer bound by Patriarchy.
Likewise, the commandments of God given to the Israelites (overall called Judaism), inclusive of the Ten Commandments, were superseded when Christianity was instituted. The commandments of God under Judaism were replaced with the commandments of God under Christianity (recorded in the New Testament), though some commandments of God under either Patriarchy or Judaism have been re-implemented under Christianity. Regarding the replacement of the commandments of God under Judaism, consider these New Testament passages.
For He Himself [Jesus Christ] is our peace, who has made both [Gentiles and Jews] one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation [Judaism], having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances [Judaism], so as to create in Himself one new man [Christians] from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both [Gentiles and Jews] to God in one body [the church] through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off [Gentiles] and to those who were near [Jews]. For through Him we both [Gentiles and Jews] have access by one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18 NKJV).
But now we are delivered from the law [Judaism], that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit [Christianity], and not in the oldness of the letter [Judaism]. What shall we say then? Is the law [Judaism, of which the Ten Commandments were a part] sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet [one of the Ten Commandments]. (Romans 7:6-7 KJV).
The New Testament is no less the commandments of God than the commandments of God under Patriarchy and Judaism. “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I [the apostle Paul] write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37; compare 1 Thessalonians 4:2). The commandments of God about which the inspired New Testament writers wrote and spoke pertained to the New Testament writings or Gospel of Christ, having to do with Christianity rather than Judaism (including the Ten Commandments) or Patriarchy. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3).
Essentially, nine of the Ten Commandments have been re-implemented in the New Testament. The one of the Ten Commandments that has not been re-implemented in the New Testament for Christianity is to revere the seventh or Sabbath day as a day of worship. Instead, the first day of the week (the same day of the week on which Jesus Christ rose from the grave and the same day of the week our Lord’s church began in Acts 2) is revered in the New Testament as the weekly, special day of worship (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2).
