When Did The Women of Galilee Buy Spices?

Sixteen years ago, I did a post called "Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28" where we investigated Herbert Armstrong's Wednesday crucifixion timeline and his claim there were two Sabbaths in that week. We saw several things, one of which was the timing of when the women from Galilee purchased and prepared spices to anoint Jesus' corpse. It recently dawned on me there is no article on As Bereans Did dedicated specifically to this topic. We do go over it in the article I mentioned, but you wouldn't know it was there unless you stumbled over it. I want to correct that. This article is only going to focus on this topic - the women of Galilee and their spices - with no side quests.

Time to dust off the old As Bereans Did patented gauntlet! Will Armstrong's version survive or come out a wreck?

THE SPICE MUST FLOW

For the "final clinching proof" of his Wednesday timeline, Armstrong said this:

"There is only one possible explanation: After the annual high-day Sabbath, the feast day of the days of Unleavened Bread - which was Thursday - these women purchased and prepared their spices on Friday, and then they rested on the weekly Sabbath, Saturday, according to the commandment (Ex. 20:8-11)."
-Herbert Armstrong, "The Resurrection Was Not On Sunday", 1972, p. 13

Is it the only possible explanation, though? Let's find out.
But first, just to be thorough, let's put up the two verses we need.

(MAR 16: 1) Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him.

(LUK 23: 55-56) 55 And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

The women from Galilee are usually recognized as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Susanna. There may have been others besides these who went unnamed in the Gospels.
Now, notice that Mark says after the Sabbath and Luke says before the Sabbath. That's the key here. A contradiction? No. There are explanations. Armstrong says his explanation is the only one and it clinches the debate. Other authors from the Armstrong tradition copy and reprint this booklet almost verbatim, so they must agree. I am not convinced.

Let's put this into a chart to help you visualize when the women could buy and prepare spices.
The following chart compares the Wednesday and Friday crucifixion scenarios. It gives the date in half days, then shows when the ladies could work versus when they had to rest for religious reasons. The chart starts on the day Jesus was crucified. The chart stops before the Sunday morning when they found Jesus alive.

	Nissan 12 Wednesday	Nissan 12/13 Wed/Thu	Nissan 12/13 Thursday	Nissan 13/14 Thu/Fri	Nissan 14 Friday	Nissan 14/15 Fri/Sat	Nissan 15 Saturday	Nissan 15/16 Sat/Sun
	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day	Night	Day	Night
Wednesday	Work	Rest	Rest	Work	Work	Rest	Rest	Work
Friday	----	----	----	----	Work	Rest	Rest	Work

All the green cells in that chart are opportunities for the ladies to purchase and prepare spices.

In the Friday scenario, the events before Friday are not relevant to the spice purchase. In this scenario, the women prepared spices and oils on the Friday on which Jesus was crucified, rested as commanded, then bought spices again on Saturday evening after the Sabbath ended.

In the Wednesday scenario, Herbert Armstrong tells us the only possibility was that the women purchased and prepared spices on Friday. But you can see for yourself Friday was not the only option. Armstrong prefers a one-time purchase and preparation, but nothing in the Gospel narrative demands this. Even in the Wednesday scenario, the women could have done it in the same way as the Friday scenario - meaning, on two different days. In this scenario, they could have purchased spices on any of three opportunities. He never explains why he ignores Wednesday before the holy day begins, Thursday after the holy day ends, and Saturday after the weekly Sabbath ends.

We know that Nicodemus brought 100 pounds of myrrh and spices to anoint Jesus before His entombment (JON. 19: 39). There was apparently more than enough time and resources available on the day of the crucifixion. So, there is no good reason to exclude that day.
Also, we know from historical sources that shops would be open to the last possible moment before Sabbath began, then they would reopen as soon as possible in the evening after sundown when Sabbath ended, especially at this very busy time of year. So, there is no good reason to exclude the evening before Jesus' resurrection.

In case someone from the Armstrong camp wishes to eliminate Saturday evening as an option because Jesus was resurrected on Saturday in their scenario, I remind you this is not about when Jesus was resurrected. This is only about when the ladies bought spices. They didn't know a thing about the resurrection yet. Whether Jesus was resurrected on Saturday evening or Sunday morning is neither here nor there to either scenario.

The Wednesday crucifixion scenario has all the time the Friday crucifixion scenario has plus an entire free day. So, Armstrong's version of events is not the only possible explanation. He simply declares it so.

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

Herbert Armstrong ignored another important point. The biggest issue I have with his explanation is the eagerness of the women to go to the tomb.

One must ask why did they not visit the tomb on Friday or Saturday?

As I said, the Wednesday crucifixion scenario has all the time the Friday crucifixion scenario has plus an entire free day. This is very bad for Armstrong's explanation. If Nicodemus can obtain what he did in such short order, then these women couldn't possibly need all that time. They weren't afraid to travel in the dark, which only adds more time. They could have visited Him at any time on Friday or even Saturday evening. Why didn't they go? If they were so eager, then why wait until Sunday morning?

In the Friday crucifixion scenario, there is a very good reason for why the women were so anxious to get to the tomb on Sunday morning - this was their first real opportunity.

Does the Wednesday scenario provide the better explanation versus the Friday scenario? I cannot agree that it does. It makes the ladies seem rather aloof and lazy, like the lazy grasshopper who sat around while he should have been working then had to rush, versus the industrious ant who worked hard the entire time.

EASTER SEAL

I want you to consider another point which greatly complicates Armstrong's timing. The Romans sealed the tomb on the Sabbath after the crucifixion.
Let that idea roll around in your head a bit.

In Armstrong's Wednesday crucifixion scenario, LUK 23: 56 must happen on Friday. Allow me to quote it again, "After the annual high-day Sabbath, the feast day of the days of Unleavened Bread - which was Thursday - these women purchased and prepared their spices on Friday."
But have you read verse 55? It says, "...they observed the tomb and how His body was laid..." It is quite clear, they saw the body.

Now, let's consult Matthew's rendition.

(MAT. 27: 62-66) 62 On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, 63 saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.

On the Sabbath which began after the crucifixion - Thursday, according to Armstrong - during the daylight hours, the Romans sealed the tomb.
How, pray tell, could the women go to the tomb on Friday and see the body if the tomb was sealed on Thursday? They could not.

To fix this, we might imagine a day-long gap between Luke 23 verses 55 and 56. The women went to the tomb and saw the body on Wednesday evening - insert gap here - then, on Friday they prepared spices. That seems like the only way to solve this. But it also seems like convenient excuse making. There is nothing in the original Greek which precludes this, but nothing to support it either. In fact, verses 55 and 56 read strongly like one continuous action. Luke is the most chronological of the Gospel writers, after all.

For the sake of argument, let's grant that gap. Now, let's see the issue it has caused.

The ladies took their spices on Sunday morning before sunrise, expecting to have the stone rolled away so they could anoint the body, but the tomb was sealed almost three days before, on Thursday. The women obviously were not yet aware of this seal and guard.
This causes us to ask - why didn't the women know this?
The sealing was quite public, after all. This was not done in a corner. The chief priests and Pharisees all went in a cluster to the Romans, risking ceremonial uncleanliness on a high holy day. It is a hard sell indeed to claim it took three days for word about this to get around.

Now, which makes more sense:
A) The tomb had been sealed since Thursday, for almost three days now, but the women had not heard about it yet, or
B) The tomb was sealed Saturday, a half day at this point, but the women had not heard about it yet?

I am going with option B!
Considering the amount of interest these ladies had in the death and the amount of time they would have had in a Wednesday scenario, it makes practically no sense at all to go with option A.

The timing of Luke 23: 55-56 is one continuous thought with no gap, taking place immediately after Jesus was taken down from the cross on Friday. The ladies observed the way He was buried, then returned to prepare spices that same evening. They rested on the weekly Sabbath while the Pharisees plotted further. At sundown Saturday, they busied themselves with more spices. Then, at the first opportunity early on Sunday - roughly between 4:30-5:00 AM - they hurried out, not yet aware the tomb was sealed and under guard.

So, insert the gap between verses 55 and 56 of Luke 23 to save the Wednesday timeline and you only cause an issue with Sunday morning which harms the Wednesday timeline. The Friday timeline, however, fits naturally.

CONCLUSION

Did Armstrong really deliver the crushing blow of arguments? Does the timing of spice preparation clinch the victory and demonstrably prove there were two Sabbaths? I have no choice but to conclude no. I think that, when we look at this critically, the Wednesday scenario is not a clincher at all but is quite weak.

Decide for yourself which scenario best explains the behavior of the women of Galilee. Did they buy and prepare spices during the limited time available then rush to the tomb at the first opportunity, or did they take their time over three possible opportunities, avoiding gossip about Roman guards, then inexplicably decide they needed to rush to the tomb on Sunday morning?

If we only read Herbert Armstrong's material, the explanation he offers will seem to work. It is only when we question it critically that the issues arise. Armstrong simply ignored the problems his scenario created and hoped we wouldn't notice. Rather than clinching the argument, we are left clinching two logical fallacies in the Wednesday scenario:

Circular Reasoning (using something as evidence for itself)
How do we know the crucifixion was on Wednesday? Because the ladies bought spices on Friday. How do we know the ladies bought spices on Friday? Because the crucifixion was on Wednesday.

Begging the Question (assuming the truth of the conclusion without supporting it)
Armstrong concludes the ladies bought spices on Friday, but ignores the opportunities on Wednesday and Saturday. He offers no other support for this. He just declares Friday the only option when it was not, even in his own scenario.

The flaws in logic we see here are not unique for Armstrong. They are less a one-off mistake and more a way of life.

I know many will punt to "three days and three nights" (we have an article for that), or argue for there being two Sabbaths in Matthew 28 (we have an article for that, too). Today's post is not about those things, so did not going to get into them here. I invite you to read our other material on the Categories page which address any additional concerns you may have.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Road To Sabbatarianism - Part III

Today we conclude talking about what, in my experience, are the top things which I've seen over the years that lead a person into Sabbatarianism.

In the previous posts, we saw the road to Sabbatarianism includes:

• Insufficient information,
• Misunderstanding who Jesus is,
• Misunderstanding the two Covenants,
• Misunderstanding the singular nature of the body of laws,
• Not Properly Understanding To Whom The Bible Was Written, and
• Not Properly Understanding the Sabbath itself.

Today's post is going to require everything we've reviewed up to this point. That's why I've saved it for last. (See if you can spot where the points above fit into the scenario below.) Today, we will see two critical errors in understanding, and then we'll see what to do about it.

Please understand that this is a much bigger topic than I can do justice to here. This is merely a surface overview, not a manifesto. I am only touching on things relevant to the topic at hand, and my hope is you will take it from here on your own. I will put some resources at the end to help you further. First, let's see how far you can make it through this post before walking away.

Thinking Laws Define Sin and Righteousness

Sabbatarianism is a symptom of a fundamental misunderstanding about sin and righteousness. 

The base assumption is that law - Old Covenant laws, Ten Commandments especially - defines sin itself, and therefore righteousness. It does not.
And therefore sin is breaking those laws, and righteousness is "keeping" those laws. (Partially keeping, that is.) It is not.
Now that I've lost most of my audience....
Refer back to our very first point in this series. In that post, I said the claim "the Sabbath is necessary for righteousness" is based on a false premise about the law. Let's see why.

Sin Without Law

The first critical error is thinking sin needs a law to exist. This is one side of the coin.

We all know there is such a thing as sin. The legalist mindset equates sin with law-breaking. Sin apart from law doesn't compute. They conclude the Old Covenant law is the only law, and so they imagine the Old law is everywhere - for Cain and Abel, for Gentiles in the New Covenant, and even for the angels. This definition causes other things to make no sense, like "sin nature", the weakness we all have to sin. (If a law isn't written, are we weak to it, or is there more to sin than written laws?) This can be taken to an extreme. "A Christ without law is a false Christ," I've heard it said. As if to say Christ must perpetually be subject to the law, even after His death. Which, of course, is contrary to the law.

If law defines sin, then there cannot be sin without law. Yet, the Bible tells us sin does not need a written law to exist.

(ROM. 2: 12a) For as many as have sinned without law...
(ROM. 5: 13) For until the law sin was in the world...
(GAL. 3: 17a) And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later...
(GAL. 3: 19) What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions...

Therefore, the claim must be false.

And before the KJV fans get angry with me, no, I am not ignoring I John 3: 4. (For more, see "Without the Law There Is No Sin".) I want to clarify that I am talking more about sin itself in the larger sense. If there is a Covenant which applies to you and a law is in that Covenant, then yes, breaking that law is a sin (the Old Covenant does not apply to you). I am not saying rules have no part to play at all. But sin in and of itself does not require a law to exist.

Righteousness Without Law

The second critical error is assuming righteousness needs a law to exist. This is the other side of the coin.

Once we equate sin with law-breaking, it seems natural to equate righteousness to law-keeping. What else could it be? Yet, the Bible tells us righteousness does not require a law to keep.

(ROM. 2: 14-15) 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness...
(GAL. 2: 21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.
(GAL. 3: 21) For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

God is righteous, but not because of keeping laws.

Neither sin nor righteousness require a law. If not by law, then what and how are these things?

Sin

Here is a glimpse into the Sabbatarian thinking:
Murder is wrong? Yes. Adultery is wrong? Yes. Theft is wrong? Yes. Idolatry is wrong? Yes. Then, this means the Ten Commandments are still valid, and therefore Sabbath-breaking is wrong, too. False!

How??

Murder, adultery, idolatry, and etc are sins, it's true, but not because of the Old Covenant law. There is a greater principle at work, which has always been and always will be.

Jesus said the two greatest commandments were to love (MAT. 22: 34-40). Everything else hangs on these (even the Sabbath). Everything in the Old Covenant law is summed up in these two. "Hangs on" indicates dependence; because of; lower than. But above these two is love itself. And God is love (I JON. 4: 7-8). It is the nature of God which is highest. So, any violation of love is a violation of His nature. And therefore, at its very core, sin is a violation of God. David understood this about sin (PSA. 51: 4).

And that extends to us, His images. When we violate (or bless) each other, we violate (or bless) Him (MAT. 25: 40). When Saul persecuted the church, what did Jesus say (ACT. 9: 3-6)?

Sin is not just a violation of God's loving nature, but any aspect of God. His reason, justice, truth, etc. In the Old Covenant period, we see this expressed in laws, laws, laws. Like a nanny guiding Israel (GAL. 3: 23-25). But if laws, laws, laws were all we needed, Jesus never would have arrived in the first place. Now, Jesus has come and that Covenant has gone. Replaced by the very One who built it. In the New Covenant period, things have matured quite a bit. So, sin and righteousness are much more than just lists of laws. Sin and righteousness are distilled to their essence. The law described many good things. Those things do continue, but not because of the law. They continue because of God Himself. This is not a distinction without a difference.

Righteousness

When I was an Armstrongist, we would often say, "Sin is missing the mark." That is a good way to understand it! But what mark? Our answer was the law, of course (the ones we picked). Ironically, that answer misses the mark. If law-keeping were the answer, then the Pharisees would be kings! Yet, Jesus called them lawless (MAT. 23: 28). (You can see "lawless" does not mean "without law".) But if not law-keeping, then what is the standard? Isn't it obvious? If sin is violating God, then righteousness is...

(MAT. 5: 48) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
(I JON. 3: 3) And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
(I PET. 1: 15) but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct

...mirroring Him. God Himself is the target and the standard, and God's holy, righteous perfection is expected of us. Anything less is sin.

Still think you're basically a "good person"?

Wait, what?! I can handle not murdering, but this is too much for me! Woe is me! How do we, mere sinners, ever achieve such a lofty thing??
We cannot. It's impossible.
The law was intended to help Israel realize this. Poorly keeping a handful of laws was never the solution. The law is good, but law-keeping fails because it relies on us. We are the issue.

So, I am offering you impossibility?? No.
But I just said it was impossible! Yes.  ...for us.

Look. Our own righteousness is not what God wants. It's filthy. It's incomplete. It's sporadic. It's imperfect. It's barely better than sin. (ISA. 64: 6; ROM. 3: 10.) The law is great for showing us this wretched condition of ours (and condemning us for it), but it does little at all for fixing it. Remember, it was the people who were the most fanatic about the law that killed the very Law Giver.
Begrudgingly - or worse, self-righteously - doing our law-keeping rituals and thinking it earns something from God is so far from the mark I cannot find a good word for it. Sitting idle for 1/7th of your life certainly is not going to make you more like God. Using the law as a weapon to beat others with, like Satan, when we are supposed to understand our own guilt and therefore act as attorneys for the defense, is among the worst things we can do.

Promising God that this time you're going to try even harder is not the solution. (You know you do it.) The solution to our weakness is His strength. What God wants is His own perfect righteousness within us. That is what righteousness is. His righteousness. Remember MAT. 5: 48.
Not to try harder, but to surrender.

Faith

How can anyone achieve this? Not by law. The law is all or nothing. Sabbatarians are fond of saying, "Jesus did not die so we could continue to sin." Well said! But He also didn't die so we could continue failing to achieve righteousness via the Old Covenant. There is but one way for us: faith!

(ROM. 3: 21-22a) But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.
(PHP. 3: 9) ...and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith...

This grace comes only by being one with Him through faith, He solves the problem as we are credited His righteousness and covered by His grace. This is about so much more than just forgiveness! In this life and in our present condition, the path to achieving real, biblical righteousness is not to look to ourselves but to Him. His efforts, not ours. His righteousness, not ours. Not to the law, which is beneath, but to faith and love, which is above.

Do me this favor - read the book of Romans again with this in mind. I know you don't agree with me yet, but try anyway. Especially chapters 3 and 4. See for yourself if it fits. But here is one good selection for you:

(ROM. 9: 30-32) 30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

Once you see it, you'll see it all over in the New Testament.

(GAL. 5: 5-6) 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision [being a Jew with the law] nor uncircumcision [being a Gentile with no law] avails anything, but faith working through love.

Remember this phrase: Jesus is the law-keeper.
(ROM. 5: 19) For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
He is the only one who ever truly kept it. He is the only one who could. The law is one indivisible body. Break one and you're broken them all. In over a thousand years of law-keeping, Israel never once achieved the goal. Only Jesus, the True Israel, did. And the Sabbatarian conclusion is even more of the same frustrated failure? No! Jesus Himself tore down that system. And He replaced it with Himself (ROM. 10: 4).

When you conclude righteousness comes from laws, you stumble over Jesus, the source and goal of righteousness. But when you conclude righteousness comes from God to us through faith, you fulfill the goal of the law.

Get this in place first. Then, let our lives be an expression of this truth; of His love. It is the only way.

And that should lead you to realize this: Works are not a cause of righteousness, they are a result.

Righteousness is a proper relationship with God, and works should be an expression of the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For sake of time, I am not going to get into works today. But understand that "works" does not equal law-keeping. It equals love. Faith expressed in works of love. James and Paul, Peter and John all speak the same thing on this. And that is why Paul can say, "for whatever is not from faith is sin," (ROM. 14: 23b), and "love fulfills the law" (ROM. 13: 8-10; GAL. 5: 14; JAS. 2: 8).

Murder is wrong? Correct. Adultery is wrong? Correct. Theft is wrong? Correct. Then we must keep a seventh-day Sabbath, too. False!
How??
The nature of God, and faith working through love! A well-formed conscience that follows the Holy Spirit is not going to be doing evil things. They will be enjoying a Sabbath rest in Jesus Christ.
The Old Covenant and its laws is gone. A direct connection to God is brought in. Faith and love - that is the law in the New Covenant. (It has always been the law. I JON. 2: 7; II JON. 1: 5-6.)

(I JON. 3: 23) And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

The road to Sabbatarianism is paved with a fundamental misunderstandings of law, faith, love, sin, and righteousness. Sabbatarianism is not necessarily a detour away from these things, but it very easily can be.

CONCLUSION

I think that's enough. Those are the most important points, in my experience, that lead to Sabbatarianism. These are things I wish I'd known before I "studied" myself into the system. I hope they help you. There are definitely more things that could have been on the list, but I needed to choose only so many or risk dragging this out far too long.

In this series, we saw how the road to Sabbatarianism always involves:

• Insufficient information - The road to Sabbatarianism always involves not having enough accurate information which one needs to truly understand the issue and make truly informed decisions. Hopefully these articles help with this.
• Misunderstanding who Jesus is - This is the most important point in this list. Understanding who Jesus is and what He did, and following that through to its conclusion, is key not just to this but to everything.
• Misunderstanding the two Covenants - We must, must, must comprehend what a covenant is and which Covenant we belong in. Truly understanding this point alone would solve most issues.
• Misunderstanding the singular nature of the law - There are not 10 laws, nor 20, nor 500, but 613, in the Old Covenant. Do not add to nor take away from them. Keep all the law, or you're not keeping the law at all. Jesus is the only one who ever has, or could.
• Misunderstanding to whom the Bible was directly written - It wasn't to "us". But it was for us.
• Misunderstanding the Sabbath in the New Covenant - Going to church on Sabbath is never commanded anywhere in the Bible. Not once. Rest is, though. But the Sabbath day never gave rest. A new rest was promised and now it is delivered. The rest is by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. The rest is for our very souls.
• Misunderstanding sin and righteousness - Both sin and righteousness exist apart from laws. Laws only put sin on display and condemn us. Righteousness and sin are not in laws, but in our proper relationship with God. A rightly ordered relationship with God is bounded by the New Covenant. Believe, have faith, and stay true to the Covenant God made with you, and you will be counted as righteous by faith. Same as Abraham. Then, go, love God and one another.

If you spend just a little of your precious time to study these things before you rush off to a Sabbatarian church, you may just save yourself quite a bit of headache later on down the road.

Most of my target audience will never read this far. It is simply too much for the legalist mindset to accept. You, dear reader, are to be commended for making it to this point. Have these been difficult things? I do apologize. I honestly feel like this is a Christianity 101 series. The basics. At least they ought to be basics. If modern church leaders would do their jobs properly, they would be. I know this can be a very difficult topic until it "clicks" (sometimes, even afterward). There is a lot more to this topic than I can get to here. So, to help you further, I suggest a few articles:
"Without the Law There Is No Sin"
"Sin And The Law"
"Covenant Loyalty, Righteousness In Faith"
"Are The Ten Commandments Removed?"
"Works, Faith and Salvation - or Faith and Parachutes, Part 2"
"Faith, What It Aint"
"What Use Is The Old Law?"
"Common Legalist Arguments part VI"

Our Categories page has quite a few more articles to help you now that you have the basics.

Our friends over at the "God Cannot Be Contained" blog also have some very helpful material for you. They would love to help you along your journey to understanding.
Also, Rescue Ministries International has a fabulous article on the Sabbath which I highly recommend, titled "The Sabbath, the Patriarchs, and the Sinai Covenant".

I leave you with a prayer, dear reader, beloved by God. I pray the Holy Spirit fill you and guide you to a fuller, deeper faith and love in and through Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father. I pray you will be led by the Holy Spirit to a truer understanding and a more meaningful walk with Him in the New Covenant.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Road To Sabbatarianism - part II

In my last post, we talked about what, in my personal experience, are the top things which I've seen over the years that lead a person into Sabbatarianism. We saw the road to Sabbatarianism is paved with:

• Insufficient information,
• Misunderstanding who Jesus is,
• Misunderstanding the two Covenants, and
• Misunderstanding the singular nature of the body of laws. 

Today, I would like to continue on.

Not Properly Understanding To Whom The Bible Was Written

Some people say, "Look what the Lord says to us," as they turn to Leviticus. Well, I have some bad news for you. The Lord didn't say that to us. He said that to ancient Israel. If you hear someone say the Old Testament was written to "us", then you have my permission to walk away from that person, because they do not yet understand as they should in order to teach others.

Don't get me wrong here. I am not saying to walk away from the Old Testament, or that there's no value there for us. Oh, there's a ton of value! But it wasn't wasn't to us. The very first step on the road to Sabbatarianism is overlooking this distinction; misunderstanding the audience; believing that God wants us to do a thing that He commanded someone else to do.

The Old Testament was not written to us; it was written for us. Big difference.

How so, you ask? We are like people overhearing a conversation and receiving benefit from it, but we were not part of the conversation. Many times, as Jesus preached, He would engage in conversations with specific people, such as scribes and pharisees for example, but He would do it in a very public fashion. Everyone there could witness the interaction, but He wasn't speaking to everyone there. He was speaking to the scribes and Pharisees. He kept those side conversations public for everyone there.
And so it is with the Old Testament. It was written to the Jews. Ancient Jews. In the Middle East. But it contains wisdom and principals that are good for us all.

Imagine you visit a hospital. While there, you overhear a doctor telling a patient about certain medicines to take and a health regimen to follow in order to lower their blood pressure. Should you run to the pharmacy and get those medicines too? No. The doctor was not speaking to you. Those medicines might actually harm you. You may learn a thing or two about lowering your blood pressure, which is definitely good, but that conversation did not include you.
Imagine you are in the audience at a trial. A person accused of a crime stands before a judge. The judge declares the person guilty and sentences them to 5 weeks of community service. Was the judge speaking to "us"? No. Must we all do community service? No. The judge was speaking to someone specific. Yet, court rooms have audience sections for a reason. It is good to witness such things and learn from them.

Sabbatarians will emphasize, "This is what the CREATOR said!" (A woman said this very thing to me last week. All caps.) This is a bit of manipulation. An attempt to get you to feel like you are somehow brazenly defying Almighty God if you don't think as they do. Yes, the Creator said these things, but to whom? Not to "us"!
What would you think if a person said to you, "Look what the CREATOR says to us in Ezekiel 4: 5"? Would you lie on your side for 390 days? No? Why not? Those are God's words aren't they? Because you know that wasn't said to you. Then why do you think it's any different when you read what God said to Israel? That wasn't to you, either.
There is a ton of good benefit in reading Exodus. For one thing, you can learn a lot about Jesus in there. But when was the last time you put blood on your door posts? When was the last time you waded into the Red Sea? Well, God said that to "us", didn't He? Of course He didn't! Everyone knows He didn't. The people to whom He said those things went and did those things, and it was written down years later for our benefit.
Sabbatarian groups like to throw away huge tracts of the indivisible law by saying things like, "Some laws were ceremonial and some were national laws, and all of those were for Israel only." (Recall the indivisible nature of the law.) Hey! Wait just a minute. What happened to, "Look what the Lord says to us"? So, I am to believe the CREATOR spoke 2/3 of the law to Israel only but the last 1/3 directly to me? Of course He didn't. It was all to Israel. None of it was to me. Everyone involved knows the law was not written to "us". That only changes when someone finds a law they want other people to follow.

Now do you understand what I meant when I said, "The Old Testament was not written to us; it was written for us,"? It was all recorded for our edification. There is a ton of benefit in reading and studying the law. Read it and be edified! But we cross the line when we start thinking it was commanded directly to us. This ties in with the last post, when we talked about the Covenants.

The road to Sabbatarianism always involves a degree of not understanding to whom the Bible was written; inserting "us" and "me" where they do not belong.

Not Properly Understanding the Sabbath

I'm not going to beat around the bush here --- as I said in the last post, there IS a Sabbath in the New Covenant, and that Sabbath is Jesus Christ.

If you cannot accept that our Sabbath rest is not a day, and righteousness does not come from sitting idly on our hands one day in seven, but it is Jesus who gives true rest for our very souls, every day, then perhaps understanding Jesus better is what you need. He's not just the Son, or the Savior, or the Messiah, or King, or High Priest, or Shepherd, or Seed, or Root, or Vine, or Branch, or Servant, or Bread, or Son of Man, or Second Adam, or true Israel, or Way and Truth and Life, or Logos, or Alpha and Omega, or Passover Lamb, or Wave Sheaf, but He is our Sabbath, too. Giving us rest. He can be all these things.

(MAT. 11: 28) Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Did you notice He was alluding to Exodus 33; 14 there? See! Value in there for us, even though it wasn't written to us. He said the law and prophets pointed to Him (MAT. 5: 17; JON. 5: 46; LUK. 24: 25-27). So, why not this law? Any law but this!

Some Sabbatarian groups heap praise on the Sabbath. Of course they do! It's their identity. It's their raison d’être. Without the Sabbath, why even have a church? They call it "the sign of the Covenant", for example. But where do they get this? From the Old Covenant. Once again, we see a misunderstanding of the Covenants. But what do we see when we read about the Sabbath in the New Testament? Hebrews 3: 11-19 and 4: 1-10 are blatant and clear that the Sabbath never gave rest, and another rest was spoken of. We enter that promised rest by faith in Jesus. (For more, see "The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4").

That prohibition against work refers to regularly assigned work, by the way. It's not like Israel could do nothing at all on Sabbath. "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working," Jesus said (JON. 5: 16-17). Jesus tried to explain how it is perfectly acceptable to do good on the Sabbath (MAT. 12: 12). The Pharisees simply would not listen.

Sabbatarianism is almost defined by going to church on the Sabbath. That is, however, not what the Fourth Commandment says. All of this "Saturday vs Sunday" stuff is entirely man-made and beside the point. If you hear someone tell you they keep the Fourth Commandment by going to church, you can feel free to respond, "The Sabbath is not about going to church."

Going to synagogue on Sabbath developed in the Second Temple period. It was the Pharisees who started the synagogues and going there on Sabbath. Nowhere in the Bible is there a law that demands going to church (or synagogue) on Sabbath. It just says, in short, 1) remember to keep it holy, and 2) not to work. It says as much about going to church on Saturday as it does about going to Chipotle on Tuesday. The thing Sabbatarians emphasize most is not really even part of it. It would be difficult to find a more fundamental misunderstanding.

Notice I did not say it is wrong to go to church on Sabbath. I simply said it is not part of the Old Covenant law. How much less, then, is it part of the New Covenant law.

The road to Sabbatarianism always involves not understanding the Sabbath rest as it is in the New Covenant. And, so it seems, also misunderstanding it as it was in the Old Covenant as well.

CONCLUSION

I know I said I would talk more about righteousness today, but it turned out that I am simply unable to write anything compact enough to fit here. (Luc and Seeker always did call me the wordsmith. Rightfully.) So, I am forced to do one more post.

Today, we saw how the road to Sabbatarianism is paved with:

• Misunderstanding to whom the Bible was written, and
• Misunderstanding the very Sabbath itself.

In my next post, God willing, we will finish this list.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Road To Sabbatarianism - part I

Today I want to talk about what, in my personal experience, are the top things which I've seen over the years that lead a person into Sabbatarianism. No one just wakes up a Sabbatarian one fine day. It's a path; a path built on many simple mistakes. I'd like to go over some of the bigger mistakes.

Some people are born into it. This article isn't about that. That has its own challenges. Also, some just come along for the ride then blend in. Perhaps a wife just comes along with her husband and is content to go wherever her family goes. This article isn't about that, either.
This is an article about the people (like me) who "studied" themselves into the system. Hopefully, it will also help those with well-meaning family or friends who are trying to convince them to join.

Insufficient Information

When I was a member of the Armstrongist system, we would say things like, "I just read my Bible." That's true only to a degree. And ironically, it's part of the issue. We just assumed we were going to read without guidance and whatever thoughts popped into our heads were going to be correct. It's the quality of our reading that I question. We didn't understand critical but less than obvious ideas. We didn't speak Hebrew. We didn't understand ancient Israel. We weren't trained theologians or historians. We didn't even consult those types of resources. We actively rejected any ideas but our own, which meant we rejected most of the documents that might make sense of things for us. We didn't even know how to use a Strong's Concordance correctly. We didn't know what we didn't know. Some even purposefully came to unorthodox conclusions, simply to be different. So, when we "just read our Bibles" we did not have what we needed to correctly understand what we were reading. Much of the time we rejected any challenge to our understanding. And so, we unsurprisingly came to incorrect conclusions. Then, we went out searching for others who would give us affirmation.

Now, I realize that sounds a bit harsh, but it's true. At least it is for most of us.

We concluded things like, the Ten Commandments are our most important guides for righteousness, and the Sabbath is one of the Ten, and the Bible says the Sabbath is on Saturday, therefore the seventh day Sabbath is necessary for righteousness. Logical enough! Based on a false premise about the law, but I can at least understand it. Back in the day, there was a Ten Commandments on practically every wall. Many Christians do see the Ten as important guides for righteousness. Few realize the conundrum with that fourth Commandment. The Old Testament is pretty clear the Sabbath was the seventh day, not the first. It was no huge leap to ask, "Why do you put that on your wall then keep all but one?"
Armed with our new realization, we set off to find others who believed this, too. Welcome to Sabbatarianism!

But get this.
Once you join, you are told you are not qualified to understand things on your own, there's so much more for you to learn, and you must agree with all the leadership's conclusions or you're a rebel and you'll be kicked right back out again. What it shows is that everyone admits new members do not know what they ought.

My point is, we were making life-altering decisions with a fraction of the information we needed.

We made huge decisions without really taking the time to fully understand the matter comprehensively enough to make a truly informed, life-altering decision in the first place. We didn't really know the history, or the theology, or the counter-arguments, or what a Covenant is, or even what the Sabbath really is. Yet, there we go, rushing off to make big changes with the barest of information. "The Sabbath day was Saturday? I'm gonna upend my life!"

I have to hand it to Herbert Armstrong. At least he claims to have tried to disprove Sabbatarianism first before he joined. He failed because ... he didn't have enough information to challenge it. He went about it all wrong. I don't think it was wise to just assume all the answers were in the Portland, Oregon local library. He was pretty much an unchurched Quaker. Quakers aren't known for the richness and depth of their theology. Going to a Quaker church leader would probably not have helped, and he didn't go to another church's leadership, so, unfortunately, he probably felt he did not have many options.

Sadly, I do not think Armstrong would have found much help if he had gone to a church leader. It's a crying shame so few in mainstream Christianity are equipped properly to answer honest questions from a person who is thinking of leaving for a Sabbatarian group. It's a shame they do not prepare their flocks. I joined Armstrongism after asking several people what I thought were simple questions, but the responses I got were nowhere near satisfactory. Good thing you have your friends here at As Bereans Did to help you out.

The road to Sabbatarianism has many gaps and pot holes where knowledge should be.

Not Properly Understanding Jesus

This is what I consider to be the most important thing on the road to Sabbatarianism. As Christians, if who Jesus is and what Jesus did is not at the center of focus throughout our understanding of the Bible, then we will never properly understand what's going on.

Oddly, most Sabbatarian groups minimize Jesus. I think they have to or their opposition to mainstream Christianity falls apart.

So as to avoid a very long and complicated treatise that could last until He returns, let's just narrow it down to one critical point we need here: Jesus is the God with whom Moses spoke and with whom Israel ratified the Old Covenant at Sinai.

Oddly, most Sabbatarian groups accept this. The problem is, they don't see it through to its logical conclusion. We'll see a few examples as we go along. The next section has a big one.

The road to Sabbatarianism always involves misunderstanding Jesus in one way or the other. Sometimes purposefully.

Not Properly Understanding Covenants

I've hammered away at this in article after article, so I will skim this time. Understand these points: the Old Covenant was a contract between God and Israel, and the laws were the terms of that contract. The logical conclusion of Jesus being the God with whom Israel ratified the Old Covenant at Sinai is - the entire contract was dissolved upon Jesus' death. When a contract ends, the terms end. The contract and its terms are one. The Ten Commandments are the base and foundation of the Old Covenant (for more, read "If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments").

(HEB. 8: 13) In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

There is no Old Covenant anymore. It was replaced. The New Covenant is not like the Old (JER. 31: 31-32). It is not a continuation of the Old. It is not a reiteration of the Old. The Old is gone and the New has come in.
It's not as if there are no similarities whatsoever, since the basis of both covenants is the loving nature of God - the spirit of the law remains (its reasons, its motivations) - but the Covenants are quite a bit different. Different parties, different terms, and different promises. But more importantly, they are two individual, distinct covenants. Nothing "comes forward" from the Old into the New. Everything in the Old is gone. If something from the Old is also in the New (and there are many such things), then it is only similar to what was in the Old. Identical, perhaps, but not one and the same. You must understand we are talking about two different agreements. Even if a million contracts have the same terms, it does not mean those terms have leaped from one contract into the other.

Imagine I have two children. One day, I tell one child to go to the store and get eggs. Several days later, I tell the other child the exact same thing. Does that mean they are one and the same command, jumped from child to child? No. Did my instructions "come forward"? No. I told both to go buy eggs, but they are two separate instructions, given to two different children on two different days. Would it be reasonable for me to be angry with my second child, saying, "I told your sibling several days ago to buy eggs. Why didn't you do it?" No. That would be ridiculous.
Or, imagine I pay off a car loan. Then, at some point in the future I find myself in need of another car. When I get the new loan, I see both required me to make payments no later than the fifteenth of the month or I incur a late fee. Isn't that odd! Both loans have the same term. Does that mean the two loans are really one loan? No. Does that mean they are one and the same term that "came forward" into the new loan? No. They are not one and the same, they are only similar. Do the terms of the first loan continue into the second loan unless otherwise stated? No. All terms from the first loan are gone. What if I treat the second loan like the first and pay the amount required in the first loan. Would the bank praise me for obeying them like this? No. That would be ridiculous.
And so it is with the two Great Covenants.

Sabbatarians have many arguments which attempt to partially resurrect the Old Covenant. A popular one is, "Jesus did these things, and He is our example, so we should do them, too." Except Jesus was born a Jew during the Old Covenant period. He was born under that contract and its terms. He subjected Himself to it because He is the True Israel. He kept the law perfectly. He didn't set it aside or nullify it or simply dismiss it in any away. He accomplished it. All of it. Blamelessly. Then He died. And in dying, He ended it. We don't have to do what He did because He lived in a different Covenant than we are in now.

You will find all of the elements of the Old Covenant are also in the New Covenant ...but with significant changes.
Why aren't sacrifice and offering laws necessary in the New Covenant? Because Jesus provided one sacrifice for all - a sacrifice that actually does take away sins. So, the New Covenant does not have those things. The sacrifices and offerings and tithes of the New Covenant are our prayers and charity. Why aren't ceremonial cleanliness laws and meats laws necessary in the New Covenant? Because you have been washed clean by Jesus' sacrifice. Once and for all time. With real cleanliness, there is no further need for ceremony to simulate cleanliness. Not only are you able to occupy sacred space, but the curtain preventing access to the Holy of Holies is torn down. Direct access to God! So, the New Covenant does not have those things. The cleanliness of the New Covenant is our faith and repentance. Why aren't the Levitical priesthood and various ritual laws necessary in the New Covenant? Because Jesus is the Hight Priest of a new priesthood. So, the New Covenant does not have those things. The High Priest and Temple of the New Covenant is Jesus Christ Himself. Why isn't the Sabbath day law necessary in the New Covenant? Because He has given us rest. A true rest. So, the New Covenant does not have those things. The Sabbath of the New Covenant is Jesus, and our rest in Him.
If you properly understand who Jesus is and what He did, then you will understand all of these things. 

Do you see how the Covenants are similar but are not the same?

The road to Sabbatarianism always involves confusing the two Great Covenants. There is no Old Covenant any longer. There is only the New Covenant.

Not Properly Understanding The Entire Law Is A Single, Indivisible Whole

Sabbatarians insist they keep the law, but in reality they only keep about 2% of the law. If that. The Jews have identified 613 laws in the Covenant, not 10, and they are all equally the spoken commands of God (to the Jews). But all Sabbatarian groups ignore that and make their own list of laws to keep. James says if you break one [of the 613], you break them all (JAS. 2: 10). We used to quote that verse back in my Armstrong splinter group. But, did James say, "If you've broken one of the laws your church feels is necessary"? No. Did James say, "but you can ignore the rest"? No. Yet that's precisely how most groups treat it. They quote this verse in order to justify violating it. Most Sabbatarians never make the connection here. They are given a list by their church, and never come to realize James didn't have that list. James was born in the Old Covenant period and lived while the Temple yet stood. When he said "laws" he meant all 613. While the Sabbatarian mind thinks 2% of the law, James' had 100% in mind.

The law is a singular body. One indivisible whole. The road to Sabbatarianism often starts with, "I should be keeping ten laws, not nine." After a while, you learn there are a few more tossed in. Maybe it's meats laws, maybe it's tithes. But that fails to grasp the singular nature of the body of the law. One group keeping 9 laws and another group keeping 90 laws have equally failed at keeping them all. Sabbatarians treat the law as if God gave us a recipe with 10 steps, and most people skip step 4. But that's not at all how it works. God gave ancient Israel a recipe (if you will) with 613 steps, and everyone is skipping steps 11 through 613. If you skip out on any one of the 613, then you've skipped them all. If you aren't keeping all the law, then you aren't keeping the law at all.

Imagine you travel to a foreign country. When you arrive, they hand you a booklet of the laws they expect you to observe while you're there. Perhaps you respond to them, "Tell ya what. I am going to keep all the ones on page 10 ...most of the time." Do you suppose they will congratulate you for your good work? No. Keep them all or you're a criminal. Now, imagine you return home with that booklet and start telling others how they must follow those laws, too. Do they really have to? No. Those laws do not apply in your country and never have.

The law is a singular whole. 100% of the law applies to the people under the law (the people bound to the law by Covenant); 0% of the law applies to everyone else (the people not in that Covenant). It's all or nothing. This is only a problem for people who think the Old Covenant law is our path to righteous behavior. We'll get to that in the next post.

The road to Sabbatarianism always involves misunderstanding the singular, whole, indivisible nature of the body of law. Correcting the Sabbath law does nothing while you ignore the vast majority of other laws.

CONCLUSION

I think that's enough for now. We will see more in the next post.

Today, we saw how the road to Sabbatarianism is paved with:

• Insufficient information
• Misunderstanding who Jesus is,
• Misunderstanding the two Covenants,
• Misunderstanding the singular nature of the body of laws.

In my next post, God willing, we will continue this list.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Why No Salvation For Demons?

I just want to think out loud today. Nothing definitive. Lots of guessing, speculating, and wondering.

A while back, I wrote two posts "Banished or Saved from Eden?" and "Once and Future Kingdom - part II", and in those, I went over the idea that since we chose poorly and went for the Tree of Knowledge rather than the Tree of Life, death was necessary in order to redeem us, and therefore not allowing humans to reach the Tree of Life made our reclamation possible. That sparked a thought in my mind.

If death was critical to human salvation, is the inability to die critical to why demons cannot be redeemed?

This is speculation, mind you! I am not claiming to be so wise that I have the solid answer. The Bible doesn't really tell us about these things. It's ambiguous enough to where some people actually believe there will be a salvation for demons. I'm not convinced of that, though. I think people dream up all kinds of things, and this is one of them. I think there is no salvation for fallen spirit beings. But why not?

There are two thoughts on the immortal nature of the spirit beings we commonly call angels and demons.
One says these beings are unconditionally immortal and therefore they can never die.
The other says the one and only unconditionally immortal being is God Himself. Other spirit beings are conditionally immortal. Meaning they can live forever, but only if God allows it. It appears Adam and Eve were conditionally immortal ...until they weren't.

If fallen spirit beings cannot die, and death is required for salvation, then there can be no salvation at all. Their end is Hell eternal. End of discussion. So, let's not focus on this.
But if their immortality is conditional, then God could simply revoke their existence. Annihilation. God, the Creator and Sustainer, can do all that can be done. The question is, can this be done? Or, perhaps if it can be done, is there some kind of limiting factor like an oath sworn by God that He would never do this? The Bible is silent.

So, according to the second line of thinking, they can die. Like Tolkien's elves. Then, why no salvation? Is it because of annihilation? Perhaps because they have no body, no mortal form, death for them is immediate annihilation, whereas death for us is a separation of our spirit from our physical body without annihilation...? Immediate annihilation would pretty effectively rule out salvation.

I wonder, if they would first be embodied and made human, then killed, would that count?
But would it count as a human death or a spirit being death? Jesus was embodied and died, but His death counted as a human death. My guess is the death of an embodied spirit being would probably just count as yet another human death among billions. It can't be that simple.

I think it wouldn't matter either way because their own death cannot redeem them. Humans die all the time but we've never redeemed ourselves. Only the death of God, as a man, was able to redeem mankind. If you turned a demon into a human and then killed them, there is not sufficient value to redeem anything, not even their self. So, it might count as a human death plus it has insufficient value. Chances are good that this path fails.

Just for completeness sake, I know of two selections from the Bible that seem to talk about Satan being killed.

(EZE. 28: 18-19) 18 By all your wrong-doing and sinful trading you made your holy places sinful. So I made a fire come out from you, and it has destroyed you. I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the eyes of all who see you. 19 All the nations who know you are filled with wonder and fear because of you. You have come to a bad end, and you will be no more forever.

But is Satan going to be destroyed, or just his works? The word translated as "destroyed" does not necessarily mean annihilation of existence. Just two verses prior, in verse 16, Satan was "destroyed" from among the fiery stones. Past tense. Yet, he still exists today. So, what really is being destroyed here? What will be no more forever?
Or, since this is a lamentation for the King of Tyre and an allusion to Satan both, in poetic form, does every little thing even apply to Satan?
I have no answer. Only questions.

And then you have this from Isaiah. The majority of the chapter is about death and it very much seems to be referring to Satan.

(ISA. 14: 15-16) 15  Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. 16  Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms'...

Quite a bit of this chapter would go well with the parts in Revelation that speak about the final defeat of evil. Yet, it's poetic, apocalyptic language. It is never a good idea to be too literal with apocalyptic poetry.
These words really seem to describe a conscious existence, as well as something that can be seen. This confounds many, because it says, "those who see you". Does "those" include normal humans, as if to say there is an embodiment involved? Or, does it refer to glorified humans and spirit beings only, with no embodiment involved? Or, is it just more apocalyptic poetry that points to a definite reality but couches it in hyperbolic language?

Both selections talk about a possible death. Neither mention any value coming from it. So, there are no solid answers other than there is no salvation to be found here. We will have to wait and see about the particulars.

I warned you up front that I'm just thinking out loud today!

I think the answer to why there is no salvation for fallen spirit beings is because salvation requires death, and 1) if they can die then they cannot die without being annihilated, and 2) even if they could die as we do, there is insufficient value in it for salvation. I think it won't matter if there is an embodiment or not. The only salvational death is God's death. God would have to become one of them and die. Not gonna happen! (I don't even think that's possible. You can't be born an angel as you can a man.)

In the end, the most reasonable choices I can see are annihilation or eternal torment. Revelation 20: 10 appears to side with eternal torment.

And this takes me right back to my post "Banished or Saved from Eden?". Good thing God kicked us out of that garden before we could access the Tree of Life, or we'd be in the very same boat as those spirit beings. Thank God for our enemy, death. Thank God for HIS death, specifically! He saved us from death, through death. God does love a good turnabout.

Thoughts?

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Common Legalist Arguments - Part VII

In my last post in this series, part VI, we went over the idea that the law is eternal like God is. We saw that this does not work. The law had a start and an end. We saw how sin and righteousness both exist apart from the law. Most people who say the law is eternal only believe some 2% of the law is eternal. So, even as they make this claim they don't really believe it. We found what is eternal is actually the nature of God behind the law. Or, you could say, the spirit of the law. God is love, love is in the inspiration for the law, love is over and above the law, and love endures even when the law does not. We found these three things are needed today: faith, love, and God-indwelling. These three bring us to righteousness. Possess these things and you will fulfill the requirements of the law.

This time, I would like to address what I consider to be a very subtle approach that many take to justify their views on continued Old Covenant law-keeping: claiming that the law applied to Israel, and since we are "Spiritual Israel" then the law must apply to us.

A person said as much to me just recently.

ARGUMENT #7
"The law applied to Israel, and since we are Spiritual Israel the law applies to us."

Certain people are what we might call "legalist". When I think of legalism, I think of a person who looks to generate their own righteousness in law-keeping before they look to faith. They often fixate on minutiae, and "major in the minors". Armstrongism is a Sabbatarian system. So, they believe that to gain righteousness and please God we must all "keep" a cherry-picked list of Old Covenant laws, like Sabbath, holy days, tithes, and clean/unclean meats for example - but never all 613. And they rarely keep those laws the way the law says to. But are they keeping the law if they aren't keeping the law?

Let's be blunt here. The Old Covenant is gone. Period. When the Old Covenant goes, the law goes. I go into this in depth in other posts (for example "Review - Written By The Finger of God"). Still, perhaps it would help to very briefly review the Old Covenant.

The world rejected God three times - at Eden, the Flood, and Babel. So, God rejected the world. To salvage mankind, God called for Himself a man named Abraham to be the progenitor of a very small and insignificant (by worldly standards) nation whom He called Israel. Out of all the wide world, Israel would be His portion; His people. This little nation would help do the most wondrous thing of all. From the moment He rejected the Gentiles, He put in motion a plan to reclaim them. That plan was to bring the Messiah, and bringing the Messiah is where Israel comes in. The Old Covenant was made between God and Israel alone (DEU. 5: 3). This Covenant literally excluded the Gentiles (EPH. 2: 11-12). Covenants are contracts. God and Israel alone were parties to that contract. What we call "the law" were the terms of that contract. The laws were specifically designed to fence Israel away from the Gentiles until Messiah could come. He has come! He alone kept the law blamelessly. And when God died, the Old Covenant dissolved. End of laws. End of division. Time for a new covenant with all nations.
Enter Spiritual Israel.

It should be simple to see why the law was brought in, how the situation has changed, and why the law must change with it. Yet some people are absolutely determined to misunderstand that message. Their teachers have failed them.

Don't get me wrong here. I am not advocating a free-for-all now that the Old Covenant law is gone. There is a standard of righteousness in the New Covenant. However, righteousness is not found in trying and failing to keep a few cherry-picked laws from the Old Covenant.

To bind us to some of the law, they have to break into the Old Covenant somehow, as if through a rear window or back door.

BACK DOORS

Let's go over some of these back doors. I discuss all this in depth in other posts, so you can always go to the Categories page to find more. But reviewing this now will help later in this post. You will find that today's common legalist argument never stands alone. It must be paired with another back door, like one of these. Needing so many back doors is evidence that the initial claim is false to begin with.

Some people misunderstand covenants and just assume the laws are separate from the Covenants that create them. That's not possible. A contract and its terms are one. The terms are the contract and the contract is the terms. What is a contract without terms? It is nothing. And what are terms with no agreement to bind parties to them? It is no agreement at all. When the contract ends, its terms by necessity are dissolved.
I speak of the Old Covenant and its laws. People think the Covenant can end but the laws are untouched by this. Understand covenants and you will understand why this cannot be. (See "Confusing the Covenants" and "Parties to the Covenants" for more.)

Some say the New Covenant is the same as the Old, which is completely redundant. This flies in the face of what God Himself said in Jeremiah 31: 31-32. He specifically said they would not be the same. If they are the same, then one isn't necessary, all 613 laws are still in force, and you're still excluded by law. I like to use Passover as an example (EXO. 12: 43, 48-49). If the law has not changed, then Gentiles are still forbidden by law to observe Passover. Saying the Covenants are the same doesn't get you Passover, it gets you excluded from Passover. The law cannot be eternal and gone at the same time. It cannot be unchanged and changed at the same time. It cannot be required and forbidden at the same time. To demand Gentiles must observe the law is to demand all of these contradictions. I agree that the law has changed! Since there are obvious changes, the answer cannot be that the Covenants are the same.

Some say the Covenants are different, but laws defy reason and magically skip like a flying reindeer from Covenant to Covenant ...but only certain ones! (The ones they choose. The  Bible doesn't choose. The Bible makes them an all-or-nothing deal.) How can some terms of a contract flit about so? They say all the terms of the Old Covenant come forward into the New Covenant unless otherwise stated. Notice, it's made up. Nothing in the Bible says this. Absolutely nothing in the New Testament says the terms of the Old Covenant come forward into the New Covenant unless otherwise stated. Since this is the opposite of how contracts work, we must have something in the Bible to say this - yet there is nothing of the sort. Therefore, it is impossible. Also, this ignores the fact that most of the 613 laws are never "otherwise stated", so they should have come forward, yet they don't appear in the cherry-picked list. And no two churches seem to agree on what that list is.

Some believe the laws were given to "us", regardless of whom Moses (DEU. 5: 3) and Paul (ROM. 9: 4) plainly and clearly state they were actually given to. If the laws were given to "us", then Gentiles were never excluded to begin with, which is contrary to the law and the Bible narrative. The Gentiles were excluded by law. In order to keep the law, the Gentiles had to go through steps to join Israel first. If they had to join Israel, then they were not Israel. And if they had to become Israel to get the law, then law was not given to them (to us). Plus, if it was given to "us", then that means all of the laws were given to us. All 613, not just a few. Now, we're right back to the previous paragraph again. Why aren't they keeping all of the laws? This back door is not possible.

Some even deny there is a New Covenant at all. Are you really a Christian if you get it this wrong? Tell me you don't read the Bible in light of the Christ event without saying you don't read the Bible in light of the Christ event. Usually, this back door comes from certain extremists who intentionally want the Gentiles to remain excluded. They cut Paul out of the New Testament and become a "Red Letter Christian" in order to minimize the New Testament as much as possible. If the Bible doesn't say what you want - change it! Yet, everything one needs to demonstrate the goal was always to bring back the Gentiles can be found in the Old Testament. (For more, read "Once and Future Kingdom - part II" where I go over a list of verses that state the Gentiles will be brought back.) And bringing the Gentiles back demands a change in the law because it excludes them. And a change in the law requires replacing the Covenant they are strangers to with a Covenant they are party to.

But of all the ways I've seen to bind us to parts of the Old Covenant, the most subtle is probably the "we're all [Spiritual] Israel now" method.

SPIRITUAL ISRAEL BACK DOOR

We are all Israel now ...Spiritual Israel, that is. It's a different Israel.

I'm not going to get deep into what spiritual Israel is. Spiritual Israel is a legitimate, biblical thing. It just means Christians. The idea comes from several verses, but mainly Romans 9. In Galatians 4, Paul uses Jerusalem instead of Israel, but it's the same idea. It is not to be confused with Physical Israel. 

In brief, Christians are all "grafted in" to the promises and inheritance given to Jesus because we are one body with Jesus (GAL. 3: 26-29). He is the vine and we are the branches (JON. 15: 5). Jesus is the true and spiritual Israel promised in the Old Testament, who reenacted Israel's journey and succeeded in every point where they failed. Because of Jesus, the entire church, both Jews (Physical Israel) and Gentiles, are the Israel of God (GAL. 6: 16).

Spiritual Israel gets turned into a back door. The thinking behind this spiritual Israel backdoor goes like this:
The laws applied to Israel, and we are all Israel now, so the laws apply to us. Yay!
...well, only some of the laws, not all, and rarely as written.

I left the word "Spiritual" out of that sentence above on purpose to illustrate the problem.

There are two distinct peoples and two distinct Covenants which are being confused. They must not be. The sleight of hand here is one Covenant and people are being swapped in where another Covenant and people belong. You need to discern this. It's critical. Just like discerning the difference between the New and Old Covenants is critical, discerning the difference between Spiritual and Physical Israel is critical. They aren't the same.

To elaborate a bit, Spiritual Israel is not the same as Physical Israel. All Christians are Spiritual Israel, and that can include some from Physical Israel, but not all Physical Israel are Christians. "For they are not all Israel who are of Israel" (ROM. 9: 6b). If it is possible to be a part of one or the other, then the two are different. Yes, they both contain the word Israel, but that does not make them the same. Just like York, England and New York both contain the word York, but they aren't the same. Joining Spiritual Israel is not the same as joining Physical Israel. And therefore joining Spiritual Israel does not join you to the the things that applied only to Physical Israel, such as the Covenant for Physical Israel. Acts 15 and 21 make this abundantly clear (at least they ought to). In other words, the law. The law is a part of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was made with Physical Israel alone; all others were excluded. The Old Covenant is gone for everyone. New Israel is part of the New Covenant alone, not the Old. So, there is still absolutely no reason to apply the Old law to New Israel.

Two Israels. Two Covenants.

Do you see? The thinking confuses Physical Israel and Spiritual Israel because they both contain the word Israel. And it does this in order to remove Spiritual Israel from the New Covenant, turn it into Physical Israel, and then place it into the Old Covenant. This is impossible. This is against the law. And as Jesus said, you cannot put new wine into old wineskins.

This backdoor rests entirely on confusing the two Israels. "Hey! I'm Israel now. So, that makes me the Israel that the Old law applied to. Everybody Sabbath!" No. Not at all.

The law was given to a specific people in a specific area for a specific purpose and for a specific time. That wasn't the Gentiles and it's still not. That wasn't Spiritual Israel, and it will never be.

Israelites are not necessarily Spiritual Israel. You must be a disciple of Jesus to be part of Spiritual Israel, and some simply do not want to join up. Spiritual Israel allows Gentiles in - no circumcision required! How is that possible if the law is still in place? It is not possible.

Someone might say to me, "If I am joined to Jesus, and Jesus was physically an Israelite, then doesn't that make me a part of Physical Israel?" No. We are not physically joined to Jesus; we are spiritually joined. And, once again, His death dissolved the Covenant. There is no Old Covenant to join. It's like going to your bank and demanding to get the terms of your great grandfather's mortgage. You can't, even if you are literally a physical descendant. That mortgage no longer exists.

Removing the distinctions between Jew and Gentile requires the law to be gone first. If the law is not gone, then the Jews are still separate and the Gentiles are still rejected. But we know the Gentiles are no longer rejected and the Jews are no longer separate, so the law is gone. It's the only way.
And how can those laws be gone? The only possible way is by dissolving the Old Covenant and bringing in a New Covenant. The only way to replace the Old Covenant is for one of the parties to the Covenant to die. Who were the parties? Physical Israel and God. So, either all Physical Israel must go extinct, or God must die. God promised to never let Physical Israel go extinct. Therefore, God had to die. When Jesus died, that Old Covenant - with all of its laws - was dissolved, for everyone, even Physical Israel. There is no Old Covenant to break into anymore. Either you are in the New or you're in no covenant at all. The Old is not an option. The New Covenant was made in His blood. It is the New Covenant that creates Spiritual Israel. To leave the New Covenant for the Old Covenant - or rather for no covenant at all - is to leave Spiritual Israel. Some people think they are pleasing God by this when in reality they are sitting on a fence between two Covenants, satisfying neither.

Even if it were somehow possible to resurrect that old law, you would immediately be excluded by it. And that is the main reason why those who want to resurrect the law only want to resurrect about 2% of the law. They know it is impossible to fulfill the law they say must be fulfilled, so they cheat. But you cannot resurrect only 2% of the law. It's an all or nothing deal. As James said, you break one, you break them all. (Read "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?" for more.) Are they keeping all 613? No. If they aren't keeping all the law, then they aren't keeping the law at all.

Physical Israel was created hundreds of years before the Old Covenant. It can exist apart from any covenant. That is not the case with Spiritual Israel. Spiritual Israel cannot exist apart from the New Covenant. It exists only under the New Covenant. Spiritual Israel does nothing to restore the Old Covenant. Spiritual Israel does nothing to make the laws of the New Covenant the same as the laws of the Old Covenant. "New Israel, Old Covenant" is a contradiction.

So, Spiritual Israel is not the back door into the law that many seem to think it is. One must misunderstand both Israels and both Covenants to achieve this. Having failed here, one must go once again to the list of back doors we reviewed earlier and choose another. And, as we've seen, those back doors fail, too. If any one of those back doors actually worked, the rest wouldn't be necessary. So, why are there so many?

CONCLUSION

Today, we've seen two Israels are being confused and two Covenants are being combined. This cannot be.
Today, we have seen many attempts to pry open a back door into the Old Covenant. All fail.

(JON. 10: 1) Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

I know I've repeated the same things a few times today. I wanted to try and say this in a way that would resonate. I figured saying it a couple different ways might just do it.

The key takeaway here is, just because you are part of Spiritual Israel does not in any way bind you to a cherry-picked handful of terms from a dissolved Covenant. That's the wrong Israel and the wrong Covenant.

[Also see Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, & Part VI]

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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