Anyone reading Shernel’s entire document would find that he seldom commented on any of the evidence presented to him. For example, in Part Three of the original series, a great deal of information and analysis was presented about the use of the Sabbath day in the New Testament. He failed to comment on any of that material; it was simply ignored, but he did reassert some points—without any evidence.
“The Sabbath was instituted on the sixth day of creation. It was given to mankind. No Jews existed yet” (5). First of all, God did not institute the Sabbath on the sixth day; it was the seventh. Second, He sanctified it, but nothing indicates that He gave it to mankind. Here is what the text says:
And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made (Gen. 2:2-30).
All we can do is to repeat what was in Part Three:
It is not the case, however, that God gave the Sabbath to man at that time. …there is no evidence that He “gave” it—even to Adam and Eve. In fact, the word Sabbath does not even appear until Exodus 16:23—2,500 years after the Creation. God does not record that Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Moses ever kept the Sabbath until the children of Israel left Egypt (3).
When someone cannot answer the position he has set forth—but only repeat himself—perhaps it is time to consider that his position is false. He cannot cite any Scripture to support what he has written.
His only comment is: “Where is your proof about the Patriarchs not keeping the Sabbath?” Apparently, Shernel is so unfamiliar with argumentation that he does not realize that when he makes an assertion, he is the one who must produce the evidence. When he says that God gave it to mankind, it is incumbent upon him to show the command to Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc. In the absence of a command, he needs to provide an example of them keeping the Sabbath. Failing that, he must find something that implies it—something like: “Abraham could not travel the following day, for it was a day of rest.” He can find none of these as proof of his assertion and then wonders how I can prove they did not do it! Amazing! He cannot establish that anyone observed the Sabbath prior to Exodus 16:23, and he knows it. This is so much subterfuge on his part.
He says that the Creator “commands us to remember to keep it holy.” Really? Where is that command? Israel had it (Ex. 20:8-11). It was a sign between Him and them (Ex. 31:16-17). But where is the commandment that shows it is part of the Christian age? The fact that Jesus taught that people should keep it in His day is insufficient because He lived and died under the Law of Moses. He had to uphold that Law even though He spent His time teaching the gospel. He never taught that the Sabbath was part of the Christian system, nor did any of the apostles so teach, either, whom the Holy Spirit guided into all truth (John 16:12-13).
Shernel tries to get the Sabbath into Christianity by saying the disciples kept the Sabbath after His death (Luke 23:56) (5). However, Jesus had been taken down from the cross and buried only minutes before this Sabbath began. Does he really expect Jesus’ followers to begin practicing Christianity while they are in a state of confusion over His death and before His resurrection? The disciples obviously had not had time to be instructed in the ways of Christian worship as yet, including the day for it. The church had not yet begun.
This time Shernel is bold enough to cite two verses that he alleges teach the observance of the Sabbath as part of New Testament doctrine. His evidence of this point is Hebrews 4:4 and Colossians 1:16. The Hebrews reference is not a command issued to brethren or an example of the church meeting on that day. It is a reminder of what God had said in Genesis 2:2. The purpose for the writer of Hebrews quoting it does not at all relate to this controversy; he is the midst of an argument about there yet remaining a rest for God’s people. The text does not support his assertion.
The other reference should have been Colossians 2:16, since 1:16 does not include the word or concept of the Sabbath. Once again, our adversary ignored the explanation already provided in Part Three of the previous series. After citing this passage previously, I wrote as follows:
These comments are based on what Paul had just pointed out—that the law had been nailed to the cross. Since that old covenant is no longer in effect, Jewish Christians (or Gentile ones, for that matter) should not allow their fellow Jews (Christian or not) to judge them with respect to keeping portions of the law. They were no longer under that law, and they had no obligation to keep those commandments any longer (2).
It does not do any good to correspond with someone if he is not going to read the material or pretend it had never been mentioned. Probably, I should not feel slighted, since Shernel apparently did not read what he wrote, either. Last time he correctly referenced the 60 mentions of the Sabbath in Matthew through Acts. This time he writes: “”The Sabbath is mentioned 59 times. Where is Sunday worship mentioned in the New Testament?” (5).
The answer is the same as in the last letter. The disciples came together for worship on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). Paul commanded brethren to give on the first day of the week (1 Cor. 15:1-2). Thus, we have both a command and an example. So we ask: “The brethren in Troas who met for worship on the first day of the week—was it from heaven or from men?” Also, where is the passage that talks about the church meeting on the Sabbath day for worship?
Colossians 2:14
The force of Colossians 2:14 is so great that those trying to bind the Sabbath day today must find some way to try to explain it away. Shernel correctly notes that Paul warned the Colossians about philosophy and empty deceit (2:2, 8) (6). What he fails to realize is that some Jewish ascetics were numbered among them, with some Gnosticism thrown in just to make things confusing. One needs to be aware of all the false theories of men and be certain that he stands for the truth. It is false to claim this passage has nothing to do with God’s commandments—only those of men.
While it is true that Colossians 2:1-10 does not mention Judaism (although it refers to these others), it is also true that the practices of the Jews are brought into the discussion in verse 11, when Paul says that Christians are circumcised—not in the flesh but by the circumcision of Christ—“Buried with Him in baptism, in which you are also raised with Him…” (v. 12). Now why did Paul suddenly bring into the conversation the Jewish practice of circumcision unless some Jews in Colosse were arguing that Gentile Christians had to be circumcised in order to be saved? Those Judaizing teachers were a constant problem, trying to force certain things from the Law upon brethren (just like Seventh-Day Adventists try to bind the Sabbath day).
Can Shernel really think that “the handwriting of requirements” (“ordinances,” KJV) refers to the “rudiments of the world”? Why would God nail man-made traditions to the cross which were never valid in the first place? God is bringing to an end something that was once valid—namely, the Law of Moses. Since the Law was no longer in effect, that truth was the basis of not allowing someone to judge them with respect to those things (Col. 2:16). Ephesians 2:15 is even clearer, since what divided Jews and Gentiles was the Law. The reader can discern for himself the meaning of these two passages.
Our adversary cited Strong and Vine to try to establish his case, but he should be careful. If he gets to reading standard commentaries, he will find that they do not share his interpretations at all. Furthermore, in quoting Strong, he completely overlooked point number 12 from Part Two of the previous series, in which it was pointed out that all of the Ten Commandments are referred to as “ordinances” (Deut. 5:1). If they were referred to that way in the Old Testament, it is scarcely strange that they should be so designated in the New.
The Book
That covers the relevant material from Shernel’s second correspondence. Toward the end of June a package came to the church building, containing a letter and a book. The letter is from someone in Dongola, Illinois, we will refer to as Shamgar. He begins by saying he had read several Spiritual Perspectives that reviewed, ”The Law and Its Binding Requirements,” but that he did not know how long ago they were written, which is strange since the date is on each one—unless someone photocopied them without it or cropped them. He further does not say who sent them to him.
He thought that a book in his library might be of interest; so he sent it to me. The remainder of the letter deals with the qualifications of the writer and several endorsements of his work, which shall be skipped at the present time. The book is titled (and what follows is precisely the way it appears on the cover, except the top half of the last word is shifted a short distance from the bottom): divine REST for human RESTLESSNESS by Samuele Bacchiocchi. The subtitle is: a theological study of THE GOOD NEWS of the Sabbath for today.
It is interesting that the word divine is in small letters but that REST is capitalized. Although the value of the book is no doubt enhanced by the author’s autograph, it is uncertain what the value of it may be. Most of it seems to be irrelevant to anything I had written in the four articles—except the Appendix—“From Sabbath to Sunday,” which is a summary of the author’s published dissertation.
He mentions that several doctoral dissertations have re-examined this question. With all due respect to the hours of effort that went into all of these, the only thing that actually matters is what the New Testament says. He begins by quoting Thomas Aquinas as saying that “the observance of the Lord’s day took the place of the observance of the Sabbath, not by virtue of the precept but by the institution of the Church” (227). He cites another quote from the Council of Trent three centuries later. Yawn.
Supposedly Luther thought the Church (meaning the Roman Catholic Church) did away with the fourth commandment, and Calvin thought that Sunday was a human rather than a Divine idea (228). The quote from Calvin, however, ascribes the change to early Christians rather than the Church. The author next gives a list of religious writers that do not think that the Catholic Church changed the day—that it was done in the first century—so he examines all the claims.
Remarkably, Samuele does not provide a discussion of Acts 20:6-7. Nor can references to early writers be found. He finally draws the conclusion that Sunday became the new day of worship because of the ever-increasing popularity of worshiping the Sun, which is just as ludicrous as the claim that the Catholic Church changed the day. He also says that Paul talked about honoring the Lord’s death in 1 Corinthians but that the day for doing so was indeterminate. He did not comment on 1 Corinthians 16:2 providing a clue as to what that day was.
In the “Notes” section, however, he writes:
Space limitation has necessitated the total omission of significant aspects of the problem such as the NT reference to the first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:1-3; Acts 20:7-12) and to the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10); Paul’s attitude toward the Sabbath (Col. 2:14-17; Rom. 14:5-6; Gal. 4:10); the earliest patristic references to Sunday by Ignatius, Barnabas, and Justin Martyr…” (296).
Well, this is rather like saying that an automobile dealer has a beautiful car for sale; it just lacks an engine. Those omitted passages are at the core of the Bible’s teaching regarding the proper day of worship. We cited the quotations by Ignatius and Justin Martyr in Part Four; they are significant in showing that Sunday did not become the day of worship either because of the popularity of the Sun or the Roman Catholic Church. What was stated in Part Four remains true, Samuele’s book notwithstanding.
It does not matter what many people, who lived hundreds of years after the New Testament was written, might claim. What matters is what the Bible teaches.
Authority
How does the New Testament authorize what we are to do and teach (Col. 3:17)? The Bible may give us a direct command. There might be an approved example, or a passage may imply a certain truth. Paul actually did command brethren in Corinth and in Macedonia to take up a collection on the first day of the week. We contribute our money for the Lord’s work on the same day. We do so because this is the day we (and brethren in the first century) set aside for worship.
The brethren in Corinth had a time they came together as a church (1 Cor. 11:18, 20; 14:23). The time is not specified in those verses, but considering cultural conditions of the day, do we imagine that they switched days every week? One can only imagine the confusion of brethren trying to figure out which day they were going to meet during a given week. How chaotic!
We know that the brethren in Troas met on the first day of the week because the text implies that this meeting was their usual custom. Furthermore, they did not meet during the week, or Paul would not have waited seven days to meet with them, since he was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem (Acts 20:16).
We find a command, an approved example, and a text that implies a regular meeting on the first day of the week. Now where is the command to worship on the Sabbath, an example of brethren meeting on that day, or any implication that the church did so? The question that Samuele or anyone else needs to answer is the one posed before: “The brethren in Troas who met for worship on the first day of the week—was it from heaven or from men?”
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, until Jesus returns, some will continue to advocate that the Sabbath remains in effect, which means that from 6:00 P.M. Friday evening until 6:00 P.M. Saturday evening no work could be done. If someone owned a company, his employees could not work for him on that day (see Exodus 20:8-11). All God-fear-ing men would need to close their factories, gasoline stations, restaurants, etc., every Saturday. All worship would need to be conducted every Saturday, and everyone would need to live within a Sabbath-day’s journey of the meeting place (less than a mile). We ought to be grateful that the Sabbath did come to an end; it was not designed for the world we live in today—but for the people of a simpler society.
The focus of attention will remain upon what the church in the New Testament did. They did not meet on the Sabbath; they did meet on the first day of the week. In one sense, it is as simple as that. Christians have been right for 2,000 years to meet on the Lord’s day.