When my daddy was a little boy, he loved to play marbles. He was good at it! With his excellent eye-hand coordination and great dexterity, he could easily win marbles from the other boys…except that his mother wouldn’t let him play “for keeps.” That wasn’t quite fair, she taught him. But his shot was so good, sometimes the boys would pay him in marbles to shoot theirs for them! Those marbles were his. He could keep them.

   Jim and I have two daughters in college. The older one, a senior music major, is dating a young man who thinks the world of her. He’s a devout Christian and dedicated to doing things “right.” He has smarts, great dreams for the future, incredible natural people skills. When Carol calls home, she asks, “Do you think he’s a ‘keeper’?” Absolutely!—as far as character goes. Is he “the right one” for her? Only she can decide. People come and people go; relationships move through our lives as life itself changes. But some are so special we want to keep them, hold them close and treasure them, not let them go, ever. They are “keepers.”

   I have a favorite recipe¹ for a sandwich spread…or burrito filling...or a great layer in a quesadilla. The main ingredient is “Chic-Ketts” ² — a vegetarian fake “chicken” made from soy and wheat proteins. Stir in cream cheese, green chili peppers, stuffed Manzanilla and black olives, and season with cumin. Yum! And leftovers are just as good the next day. In fact, refrigeration will preserve for many days all of its original flavors and textures. It keeps well.

   Different kinds of “keep.” God has given us the Sabbath to keep.³ What can I learn about keeping the Sabbath from these other meanings of the word? For one, God gave it to me.⁴ It’s mine; I can keep it. It’s hard to keep what I don’t have. In fact, I think that’s why many people struggle with the Sabbath. It’s not theirs—not really. They haven’t accepted that gift from God. That law isn’t written on their hearts. They are trying to become Christians through their own obedience—or looking for “freedom” in all the wrong places.

   And so many distractions crowd through our lives, the Sabbath is in danger of being dislodged and swept away. But Sabbath was designed to be treasured. If we cherish it, if we hold it close because of who is with us in it, Sabbath will bring us joy in a growing relationship with our Creator.⁵ He is a Keeper, for sure!

   It is in that sense, as I understand the original Greek word in Revelation 14:12, that the saints “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”⁶ The devil will try to sneak them away from us; he will try to wrench them out of our hearts. But if we see the Sabbath as a precious gift from God—a symbol of His work in the world and in our lives, as well as an integral part of our relationship with Him—there is no power that could separate us from it. As we preserve the Sabbath, God will preserve us in it.⁷ And the Sabbath doesn’t “spoil” unless it is abused. Keeping it means cherishing that time as sacred, preserving the holy purpose for which God designed it.⁵

   Thinking about how the Sabbath came to be, when God rested on the seventh day at the end of Creation,⁸ the question sometimes is asked why God needed to rest at all. Surely He wasn’t tired? I find a helpful answer in the creative pursuits of "children" made in His image.

   When I make bread, there comes a point in kneading when the texture of the dough is just right. If I add any more flour after that point, the dough will get too stiff and when the bread is done, it will be heavy and hard. So I stop kneading; I "rest" from flour. But oh! When the bread is baking, what a wonderful smell fills the house!

   Sabbath is like that, to me. When Sabbath arrives, I stop working, lay aside my own secular pursuits, and enjoy it.

   When God was finished creating the world, He stopped. In fact, that is what the Hebrew word "shabbat" means: cessation, a stopping of something. God rested from His work because He was done creating and He set apart the seventh day as holy time,⁹ thus setting up the recurring weekly cycle.¹⁰ Sabbath was a date between God and humanity, a symbol of His creative power, and God gave it to them as a present. Adam and Eve hadn't lived even one day yet. They couldn't have been tired. And they hadn't done any work, so there was nothing for them to rest from, no need to rest. But of course, part of the joy of “stopping” is sitting back and reveling in the beauty of the finished work… especially when you can share it with someone!

   That first Sabbath was a sacred occasion for them to spend time with God and with each other, and I can imagine God saying, "This is nice! We're going to do this every week!" No, it wasn’t an afterthought—He had had it in mind all along. But isn't "gift" one meaning of the word "grace"? Could it be that grace doesn’t necessarily only deal with sin? Might the Sabbath be seen as grace even before rebellion took over our planet?

   Of course, God knew that humans eventually would be sinners and would need that special time with Him—and with each other, particularly in families. Sabbath is not only a symbol of God's creative and re-creative power, Sabbath is also part of the method God uses to bring that healing about. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”¹¹ It's good medicine, truly grace! It’s a gift in time, an oasis in time, a sanctuary in time, a safe and sacred place—Grace in time!

   Getting practical about time, when does Sabbath begin? At midnight, like birthdays, or at sunset¹² on the previous evening, like Christmas? In Genesis, God tells the story of how He created this planet and all the good things on it. As He proceeded from one day to the next, the record states “the evening and the morning were the first day,”¹³ or “the evening and the morning were the second day,”¹⁴ and so on through the week. Maybe one reason God set up the daily cycle so that evening comes first, followed by morning, is that the night before sets the stage for the day after. Sleep first (and enough!) so that you can be refreshed and restored to take on the responsibilities of the next morning. It’s preparation.
But it’s also true that any celebration takes on the character of its welcome—the "opening ceremonies," as it were. If we were asleep, we'd never know when Sabbath arrived. Our first awareness would be in the morning when we woke up—scrambling to get everything and everybody ready to go to church! What an uproarious beginning! Instead, I believe God had in mind a joyous time of prayer and praise and conversation with each other about the good things He has done the previous week. The Sabbath welcome should be a conscious and conspicuous celebration, as though it were a special guest. After all, He is a special guest on Sabbath!

   Turning a corner…but not quite: Is the seventh-day Sabbath really holy? God said it is.¹⁵ And it was His “say-so”—His Word—that was the method by which He created everything else on this planet,¹⁶ with the exception of humanity.¹⁷ God set apart the weekly Sabbath to a holy purpose for His people,¹⁸ who likewise were set apart to the holy purpose¹⁹ of reflecting His character to the world. In fact, the relationship I enjoy with the Creator during each week is “set up" on the previous Sabbath; it is that relationship that enables me to live any of the Ten Commandments, and as such, is the “spring of obedience.” Sabbath, pointing back to Creation²⁰ and its God, reminds me that there is One who has not only the authority but the ability to be the Lawgiver, because He is Creator of not only all things, but of all the laws that describe how those things operate and interact. Sabbath leads me to trust Him to write His Law in my heart²¹ so that I can love what He loves and hates what He hates. “And His commandments are not grievous.”²²

   But…why the seventh day? Why not some other day for Sabbath? Because that’s the day God picked out²³ to be with us in a special way. It is significant of His creative power and of our relationship with Him. It is also a time for remembering what He has done in our behalf.²⁴

   I look at it this way. I was born into a family of girls—no brothers. The only kind of brother I have is brother-in-law and there are seven, counting my sisters’ husbands, my husband’s sisters’ husbands, and my husband’s brothers. Add Jim himself, my own sweet husband—and that’s a great stack of fine men!

   I have done many kinds of things for my brothers-in-law. Once upon a wedding, I altered Brent’s trousers so he could wear them as Best Man. For Wesley’s dental lab, I designed a business card. With John, I occasionally discuss theology over the phone. And even before he married my sister and became my brother-in-law, I filled in for David as Sabbath School superintendent when he needed to be out of town.

   But with whom do I live in holy covenant? Only Jim. He is the only man on that list to whom I am married. For Jim, not only do I mend and alter clothes and design business stationery, teach his Bible class when he's out of town, and discuss theology with him; Jim and I share a beautiful intimacy that is appropriate with none other. It is sacred—holy!

   Every day of the week we should honor God. There is no day that is better lived apart from Him, singly, “on our own.” But God has a particular blessing for us in the seventh day, a delight that embodies the covenant relationship we share with Him. I want it! If the contrast between the Sabbath and the other days of the week is anything at all like the contrast between the relationship I have with my brothers-in-law and the joyous fellowship I share with my own Jim, so much better than a brother, Hey!—I don’t want be left out!

   But isn’t the Sabbath part of the “old covenant”?²⁵ Isn’t it superceded by the “new covenant”? Well, take this marriage covenant of ours: Is it an old covenant, or a new covenant? I’d say it’s new, because it was licensed in Rankin County coming up on twenty-five years ago, as I write. It’s new also because we renew it continually—the relationship keeps getting sweeter, stronger, deeper, and more supple as we deal with the vicissitudes of life.

   But as a covenant in general, marriage is really very old in that it echoes the very first covenant in the world,²⁶ the marriage of Adam and Eve. Might Sabbath also contain an old/new element? It is as old as marriage, and with marriage was given to humanity at the dawn of time. But does being old make Sabbath something to be cast aside when we enter into the “new covenant”? What is the “new covenant,” and what constitutes its being “new”?

   Jesus spoke of giving “a new commandment…that ye love one another.”²⁷ Why new? He had answered the questioning scribe, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”²⁸ In fact, Jesus was quoting Moses in Leviticus²⁹ and Deuteronomy,³⁰ —quite old, but He calls it new. Might it be that His people had lost sight of the nature of the Law in their zeal for rules?³¹ Might we find a similarity in the “new covenant”?

   The writer of Hebrews describes the new covenant of the New Testament:
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.”³²
But even here, there is nothing really new. He was quoting from the prophet Jeremiah,³³ from the promise God made to His people at that time…in the Old Testament!

   God promised through Ezekiel a new heart³⁴ with His new spirit to empower it, one that keeps His laws and His statutes. But that wasn’t new, either. The very first promise in Scripture,³⁵ the one that gave hope to Adam and Eve that Messiah would come one day and vanquish the deceiver, “that old serpent called the devil and Satan,”³⁶ in that same promise God says He will put “enmity between thee and the woman”— hatred between the evil that the serpent personified, and His own people. Jesus would come to liberate us from the tyranny of sin, to undeceive us from the devil’s lies. As the very embodiment of Truth,³⁷ He would show us what God is really like³⁸ and explain what He really wants,³⁹ then make it possible for us to be like Him.⁴⁰ If we will let Him, He will come into our very souls and live His own character through us. “All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses.”⁴¹ Could that be other than receiving a new heart with His law written in it?

   Such a marvel as a new heart, only the Divine Creator could make. That’s why it was the Creator who became the Re-creator, the Redeemer.⁴² And Sabbath, besides being a gift to humanity and a treasure in time, besides being the symbol that reminds us of God’s creative power,⁴³ it is a sign of our relationship with Him and the transformation He is effecting in our lives. It is a sign that He is the God who sanctifies us,⁴⁴ who is making us His people.

   Far from being a relic of rigidity, a part of the “old covenant” relegated to an old dispensation and nailed to the Cross,⁴⁵ Sabbath is for us, now, as much as it was ever for God’s people. As a symbol of our loyalty to the Creator, it has great and awesome meaning, still. It also will be a test in the last days in the issue of who has the authority to command worship and create law—whether the God of the universe, or humanity claiming that prerogative.⁴⁶ But didn’t Peter say “We ought to obey God rather than men”?⁴⁷ Yet even as a test, Sabbath will not be merely a legal duty, but an act of worship, a symbol of loyalty. It always has been.

   In Bible times, when His people had so terribly rejected Him and “gone a-whoring” after other gods, which were no gods, God said they had committed spiritual adultery.⁴⁸ And it wasn’t their Sabbath-breaking that God addressed so much as their loyalty —though they must have profaned it and abandoned it wholesale. But that very profanation was a symbol of their abandonment of God. They had left their relationship with Him even as an adulterous woman or a prostitute abandons a husband.⁴⁹

   These modern days, adultery still is rampant…but there is another aberration of marriage that seems to have become even more popular—“shacking up.” In marriage, the two become one, bonded in every possible dimension as well as legally. (Legality isn’t necessarily legalism, is it?) All the pleasures and joys come with the commitment, besides individual growth and an ever-deepening couple-bond—which, ideally, creates a safe environment for children. But in a “shack-up” situation, there is no stability. Oh, it’s more exciting, they say—aren’t “stolen waters” supposedly sweet?—and the pleasure is racy. But it isn’t fulfilling in the long term. And children don’t fare well. And the couple tends to take each other for granted after a while, because, after all, they really are in the relationship for only their own self-centered jollies. She wants the “bridegroom” but not the marriage. And many Christians want the joy of the gospel without the law in their hearts. Are they scared of the law? Afraid of what God might require of them?

   Yet even as a marriage relationship has many dimensions, multifaceted to reflect the pervasive complexities of life and personhood, so our commitment to God requires all our passion, all our prayer, all our intellect, and all our muscle.⁵⁰ Sabbath both grows out of that experience and empowers it in return.

   A man-made sacredness imposed onto Sunday could never cover all the bases. Too much would be left out. To be sure, those who promote it refer back to the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week. But Scripture has given us its own memorial to Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

In Baptism we join in His death, symbolizing our choice to leave the old life behind, and we are raised from that watery “grave” to new life in His power.⁵¹ Baptism represents a commitment to new motives, new purposes, new methods—even a new heart with God’s laws written therein and the treasure of the Sabbath at its center, truly a “keeper” forever!

¹ “Chicken Burrito Filling”
Soften 2 to 3 8-oz. pkgs. cream cheese or "Better Than Cream Cheese"
Stir in:
1 roll thawed ChicKetts, shredded or torn into small pieces
2 4-oz. cans diced green chili peppers
_ c. chopped Spanish Manzanilla olives (stuffed with pimento)
_ c. chopped black olives (opt.)
1 t. ground cumin
Fold into burrito or sandwich with tomato and lettuce.
For snazzy appetizer, spread on tortilla, roll, and slice.
For quesadilla, spread thin layer on tortilla shell; top with grated cheese, dot with salsa and sautéed onion, sprinkle lightly with McCormick “One Step Chicken Seasoning—Stir Fry.” Grill. Serve hot or cold.

² ChicKetts is a pure-vegetarian fake “chicken” product made from soy protein and wheat gluten. From Worthington Foods, it is found in the frozen food section of many health food stores.

³ Exodus 31:13 “Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.”

⁴ Ezekiel 20:12 “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.”

⁵ Isaiah 58:13, 14 “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” (emphasis supplied).

⁶ Revelation 14:12 “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” (Keep—tereo: hold fast, preserve.)

⁷ "It is not so much that the Jews kept the Sabbath as that the Sabbath kept the Jews."— Ahad Ha'am, The Sabbath and Zionism, p. 286.

⁸ Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

⁹ The record states that God finished creating on the seventh day, rather than on the sixth day when He ended making the things in the earth. Evidently, creating rest, or Sabbath, was what finished out the Creation Week.

¹⁰ “The amazing thing is that today the 7-day week, which is widely viewed as being Judeo-Christian, even Bible-based, holds sway for civil purposes over the entire world, including countries where Judaism and Christianity are anathema. Chinese, Arabs, Indians, Africans, Japanese, and a hundred others sit down at the UN to the tune of a 7-day week, in perfect peace (at least calendrically!). So dear is this succession of 7 days that when the calendar changed from Julian to Gregorian the week was preserved, though not the days of the month: in 1752, in England, Sept. 14 followed Sept. 2—but Thursday followed Wednesday, as always. Eleven days disappeared from the calendar—but not from the week!”—From the Web’s Global Encyclopedia.

¹¹ Mark 2:27, 28 “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”

¹² Leviticus 23:32 “It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.”

¹³ Genesis 1:5 “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

¹⁴ Genesis 1:8 “And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”

¹⁵ Exodus 16:23 “And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.”

¹⁶ Psalm 33:6, 9 “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”

¹⁷ Genesis 2:7, 21, 22 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

¹⁸ Exodus 31:14 “Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.”

¹⁹ Exodus 22:31 “And ye shall be holy men unto me: neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs.”
Deuteronomy 4:6-8 “Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
Isaiah 44:8 “Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.”

²⁰ Exodus 20:11 “For [in] six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

²¹ Psalm 40:8 “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.”
Proverbs 3:1 “My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments.”
Jeremiah 31:33 “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

²² I John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”

²³ Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

²⁴ Deuteronomy 5:15 “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and [that] the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.”

²⁵ This is the argument of some, who want to combine the Ten Commandments with the ritual ceremonial law that pertained to the Sanctuary, and which foretold in type or “shadow” the work of Messiah in dying to save humanity and eventually ridding the universe of sin.

²⁶ Matthew 19:4-6 “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

²⁷ John 13:3, 4 “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

²⁸ Mark 12:30, 31.

²⁹ Leviticus 19:18 “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I [am] the LORD.”

³⁰ Deuteronomy 6:5 “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

³¹ Matthew 15:7-9 “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

³² Hebrews 8:10. See also verses 8-13 for context.

³³ Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

³⁴ Ezekiel 36:26-27 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

³⁵ Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

³⁶ Revelation 12:9 “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

³⁷ John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

³⁸ John 14:7-10 “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”

³⁹ John 14:15, 21 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”* “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
* NOTE: Jesus didn’t throw away the Ten Commandments: He opened our eyes to their true meaning and what it takes to really keep them. So far beyond observing the mere letter of the law (see Matthew 5:20), Jesus said that if a man even lusted after a woman in his heart, he was guilty of committing adultery with her (see Matthew 5:27, 28). He also showed that the essence of Sabbath-keeping didn’t consist in rules and restrictions, and risked His life to give us an example (see John 5:1-18). Jesus disregarded the man-made rules that burdened the Sabbath and oppressed the people, thus bringing upon Himself the accusation of Sabbath-breaking from the leaders. But, He countered, “the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28). He is the One with authority to define Sabbath and its purpose and its keeping.

⁴⁰ II Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

⁴¹ The Desire of Ages, p. 668.

⁴² John 1:1-3, 14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

⁴³ See Exodus 20:8-11.

⁴⁴ Ezekiel 20:12 “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.”

⁴⁵ Colossians 2:14-17 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,* which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you^† in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days^‡: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
* NOTE: This “handwriting of ordinances that was against us” is also translated “the record that stood against us with its legal demands” (New Revised Standard Version), “the record that contained the charges against us” (New Living Translation), “the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments” (Phillips), and “the old arrest warrant” (The Message).
That is the record of our sins, rather than the Law that told us that we had sinned and showed us our need of a Savior. That Law would not have been made void at Jesus death; if it could have been set aside, Jesus would not have needed to die. At the same time, the law can never make us righteous—only Jesus can do that. “What the Law could not do, because human nature was weak, God did. He condemned sin in human nature by sending his own Son, who came with a nature like man’s sinful nature, to do away with sin. God did this so that the righteous demands of the Law might be fully satisfied in us who live according to the Spirit, and not according to human nature” (Romans 8:3, 4, Today’s English Version).
^† NOTE: Romans 14 is a similar message, but from the other direction: Don’t you be judging others. “If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.” “Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is.” “God’s kingdom isn’t a matter of what you put in your stomach, for goodness’ sake. It’s what God does in your life as he sets it right, puts it together, and completes it with joy. Your task is to single-mindedly serve Christ.” “Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don’t impose it on others. You’re fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent.” “Each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.” (Excerpts from Romans 14, The Message.)
Paul is not setting aside a standard of right and wrong in either passage. Rather, in Romans 14, he is urging individual conviction and remonstrating with petty nit-picking. The letter to the church at Colossae was not dealing with the Ten Commandments, either. In it, Paul purposed to refute false teaching that was “propagating two errors: first, that the universe contained a number of beings of various degrees of power and importance ranging from man to God, and that Christ was to be thought of as merely one of the superior powers. Paul combats this by his unequivocal declaration that Christ is God’s ‘Son,’ the first principle and the upholding principle of the whole creation. The second false tendency was the attempt to force on the Colossian Christians a system of purely arbitrary observances and angel-worship, coupled with extreme asceticism. Paul meets this by pointing out that the Christian’s position in God is far beyond the petty observances of man-made rules. The true asceticism, moreover, is to abstain from evil passions and evil thoughts, not to cut oneself off from the normal use of God’s good gifts.”—J.B. Phillips, Introduction to the book of Colossians.
^‡ NOTE: There was more than one kind of sabbath in the Old Testament. Besides the weekly seventh-day Sabbath that was enjoined in the 4^th Commandment, there were festival sabbaths that were part of the cycle of rituals related to the Sanctuary.
How can we know which kind of sabbath Paul is referring to in this passage? The following phrase defines it: “These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ”—that is, that which casts the shadow is Christ. His work of salvation was foreshadowed by the ceremonies and rituals and of the ancient Sanctuary, which, to put it another way, pointed forward to the cross. The seventh-day Sabbath didn’t point forward to Messiah to come, it pointed backward to His work at Creation.

⁴⁶ See Chapter 10, “Ultimate Jeopardy.”

⁴⁷ Acts 5:29 “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

⁴⁸ See Jeremiah 3, 5, 7, 23, 27

⁴⁹ Ezekiel 16, esp. v. 32 “But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband!”

⁵⁰ Luke 10:25-28, KJV “And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.”
Luke 10:25-28, The Message “Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. ‘Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?’
“He answered, What’s written in God’s law? How do you interpret it?’
“He said, ‘That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.’
“‘Good answer!’ said Jesus. ‘Do it and you’ll live.’”

⁵¹ (Romans 6:1-4, KJV “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:1-8, Phillips “Now what is our response to be? Shall we sin to our heart’s content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God? What a ghastly thought! We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer? Have you forgotten that all of us who were baptised into Jesus Christ were, by that very action, sharing in his death? We were dead and buried with him in baptism, so that just as he was raised from the dead by that splendid revelation of the Father’s power so we too might rise to life on a new plane altogether. If we have, as it were, shared his death, let us rise and live our new lives with him! Let us never forget that our old selves died with him on the cross that the tyranny of sin over us might be broken—for a dead man can safely be said to be immune to the power of sin.”