BavarianWheels wrote:I thought a bit more highly of you K...I figured you already understood that I agree none are justified through the law...never have been...never has been even possible.
Yes, but what you espouse appears to be a different to my understanding of grace through faith. Rather, you appear to be espousing grace through faith by works, rather than an outworking of good by grace through faith.
BW wrote:The law does not save...it is by grace through faith as it has always been and as Adam was apparently taught also.
Actually there are two covenants. One can save themselves by the law, if they have kept and keep the law 100%. This is the first covenant. The second, often referred to as the new covenant, found its reality in Christ, and is one of grace. Paul explains this towards the end of Galatians 4. Yet, you say you are under the covenant of grace, and then turn back to incorporate law which did not serve to save, but to condemn and ready us for grace.
Are you not like the Galatians to whom Paul said: "But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you."
BW wrote:If in fact the Sabbath is so irrelevant, why is it one cannot find anywhere in scripture a change to the commandment?
There is no change in commandment, but simply a different covenant. Scripture is clear that those under the new or second covenant, that the laws of the first do not apply. This is made especially clear of the Sabbath in the Galatians 4 passage I quoted above, and also in Colossians 2:16-17:
"Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."
You keep proclaiming that you arer saved and freed by grace through faith in Christ, but then such words seem empty as you keep turning back to (in Paul's words) "the weak and miserable principles..." Is it your desire to be enslaved to them as Israel were?
Now if you say that you only wish to keep the Sabbath out of some sort of sign of respect, or because of your own conscience, then so be it. But don't go saying this is a commandment all Christians should abide by. Such is to place Christians back under the covenant of law they were freed from in Christ!
BW wrote:If the Sabbath is irrelevant...why does Christ admonish in Matthew 24 that we should pray that our "flight does not take place in winter or on the sabbath??? Is not Matthew 24 the "Little Apocalypse" (sp?) ?
Clark makes an interesting observation in his commentary:
"That you may not raise the indignation of the Jews by travelling on that day, and so suffer that death out of the city which you had endeavored to escape from within. Besides, on the Sabbath-days the Jews not only kept within doors, but the gates of all the cities and towns in every place were kept shut and barred; so that their flight should be on a Sabbath, they could not expect admission into any place of security in the land."
Scripture elsewhere is clear that Christians are not under the Sabbath law requirement, nor any other Mosaic law.
BW wrote:Christ himself says that the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath...Since when is MAN spelled J-E-W?
You read Christ's words but miss some of their meaning entirely. What does it mean that sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath? Well, if "man was made for the sabbath," then we all would be required or observe it because that is a reason why we were made! But the sabbath was made for man, and so it was instituted not as an obligation man had to it (although it was made obligatory as apart of the Mosaic law), but rather to provide rest and so forth to mankind.
Kurieuo.
