In my last post, "The Sabbath Rest of Genesis 2", we looked at a very popular Sabbatarian claim that God created the weekly Sabbath on day seven of creation week and bound all mankind to it forever. That claim almost always comes paired with another. If they don't appear together, then you can be assured someone will be by shortly to deliver the other:
"There is a Sabbath in Isaiah 66. If we see it in prophecy, then it is perpetual and so we are bound to it today."
Of the several challenges for Sabbatarianism, one of the biggest is the fact that the weekly Sabbath is never commanded in the New Covenant (if it were, we wouldn't need claims like these). And so the thinking is, a weekly Sabbath that exists in prophecy is like having a Sabbath command.
There are two major issues we will run into here.
The first is one of shifting standards. Sabbatarian doctrine is frequently built on establishing a standard but only long enough to get what it wants. After that, the standard is quickly abandoned. (As Bereans Did has several articles which demonstrate this.) Watch for that today.
Also, watch how prophecy is front-loaded with assumptions. The entire case today depends on one particular interpretation of prophecy. No other interpretations are allowed. But if the interpretation of prophecy is wrong, this entire claim is wrong.
A HIDDEN COMMAND
(ISA. 66: 23) ...from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.
There's the word we were looking for - Sabbath. Now we load it up with our interpretations and assumptions, then we are ready to insert our claim: "If we see something in prophecy, then it is perpetual and valid for today." Everybody Sabbath! And so we see articles and sermons and memes without end using Isaiah 66:23 to support Sabbath-keeping, alongside others like Ezekiel 46:3.
In Genesis, we had to prove if the weekly Sabbath is there at all. It is not. Things are different here. Here, Sabbath is right in your face. It's even translated correctly. No need to dive into Hebrew or Greek today.
Isaiah talks about more than just the Sabbath. These words were said to me quite recently, "Isa 66 is a prophecy of the second coming. He saw in vision God destroying those eating foods that God has called an abomination, including swine and mouse [v17]. Unless Isaiah prophesied falsely, these foods are still an abomination."
So, it's not just the Sabbath.
Apparently, through prophecy, clear New Testament statements about foods, like Mark 7: 19, can be overridden. And prior commitments to "ceremonial law" being removed can be partially overridden (meats were ceremonially unclean).
Prophecy fills in when you don't have something you want in the New Covenant, and it takes over when you have something you don't want in the New Covenant.
Impressive.
We should expect to see something this powerful discussed throughout church history.
A NEW COMMAND
Where does this "prophecy is a command for today" idea come from? Not from the Bible. God never made this claim. Even the Prophets who gave the prophecies in the first place never made this claim. So, where does the idea come from?
Try as I might, I cannot find anything in history to show this is an older claim. Plenty of people through the centuries have discussed Isaiah 66 and what it means (we will see one later), but they did not come to a conclusion like the one we are looking for. It genuinely appears to have been first articulated in the 1800s, and most likely from ... Sabbatarians.
Earlier Sabbatarians were aware of prophecies, but they were mainly concerned with what they believed was returning to a basic Christianity (as opposed to Catholicism). Seventh Day Baptists used prophecies like Isaiah 66 to claim the Sabbath is perpetual, but these were supporting proof-texts at best. Early SDA pioneers merged their prophecy-focused Adventism with Sabbatarian themes. Ellen G. White refined the use of Sabbath prophecies from a supporting proof text to a clear present obligation, and popularized the idea in her writings.
Now that we know how we got to where we are, we need to ask - if it isn't Biblical and it isn't an older tradition, and if we don't accept Ellen White as a prophet, then why should we accept this claim to begin with? Because it's undeniably true, or because it gets us what we want?
Now let's look at the problems that accepting the claim has caused.
NEW MOONS, LEVITES, AND CEREMONIAL LAW
I purposefully left part of Isaiah 66:23 out.
(ISA. 66:23) From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath...
"New moon to new moon"?
It's the same in Ezekiel:
(EZE. 46: 3) The people of the land shall bow down at the entrance of that gate before the Lord on the Sabbaths and on the new moons.
Any Sabbatarians out there observing new moons? Some are! But that's a small fraction of a minority who do. Most Sabbatarians are fully aware of new moons but disregard them as required observances.
Can we get Sabbaths without new moons, though? Not in prophecy. It's a package deal.
How can it be that prophecy is how one can know Sabbaths are a perpetual requirement, but the same prophecy does not do the same thing for new moons? How is prophecy the next best thing to a law where Sabbaths and meats (ie. ceremonial law) are concerned, but nothing of the sort for other less desirable things?
Let's read a couple verses up.
(ISA. 66: 20-21) 20 And they shall bring all your brothers [diaspora Jews] from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. 21 And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.
Here is my response to the person I mentioned earlier, the one trying to convince me Isaiah proves meats laws are still in effect: "And unless Isaiah prophesied falsely, it is mandatory to go to Jerusalem every new moon and sabbath to make offerings with a Levite priest. The ceremonial law is still in effect."
The standard is one thing for Sabbaths and meats, but another thing for new moons, Levites, a Temple, and other points.
This talk about Levites and offerings isn't lost on Sabbatarians.
"The reinstitution of the Levitical priesthood and temple in Jerusalem by Christ will revive the sacrificial system."
-"Should Christians Observe the New Moons?", Worldwide Church of God, Feb. 2002, p.10.
Notice the timing there. Sabbath now, Levites not now.
The insistence upon reading prophecies literally leads to all sorts of doctrinal incoherence. Why on earth would Jesus reinstitute the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices (which includes animals) at all when it runs contrary to His own priesthood and His own sacrifice? Answer: He has to because we have committed to a literal interpretation of prophecy and we can't back away now.
A PROPHECY THAT MISREAD COULD HAVE BEEN
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: prophetic interpretation is inherently speculative. I've been preaching that since I was still an Armstrongist. In all this talk about the Sabbath, has anyone considered that we are balancing a near-salvation-level doctrine on a speculative reading of prophecy? We are reviewing one of its most popular proof texts.
This tension between literal and figurative, and the impossible task of proving one over the other prior to the fulfillment, is why I say it is a terrible idea to base doctrine on prophetic interpretation.
Which of these makes more sense:
A) Prophecy must be read literally, so in the immediate future there will be a Levitical priesthood and a Temple and new moons and chariots and ceremonial law, and the entire world will go to Jerusalem every week,
-or-
B) Perhaps we shouldn't read prophecy so literally, because these words could be using ideas the Jews of that time could grasp but really they mean things no human alive at that time could grasp?
I'm going with B.
It's not so far fetched. Do you genuinely expect that in the near future the world will be riding chariots and litters and mules to carry Jews to Jerusalem? Chariots went out of favor 1,500 years ago. Short of robbing a museum, I have no idea where you could even get one. Or!
Could these words picture something else? Is it not said that the locusts of Revelation 9 are really helicopters (or something similar)? Just think of all the images in prophecy which literally are one thing but mean something completely different. The sea is humanity or chaos, stars are angels or saints, beasts are empires, horns are power, oil is the spirit of God, etc etc. When Daniel had his visions, an angel was sent to explain what it meant. When John had his visions, he asked the angel what they meant. Jesus spoke in parables, and the Apostles asked what they meant. When I propose ancient words picture modern realities, it's not outrageous. This is an idea I got from Herbert Armstrong, who in turn got it from Adventists.
With that in mind, Tertullian has an interesting take which we should not ignore. This is from Tertullian's work "Adversus Judaeos" (Answer to the Jews), which was written in about 198-206:
"Whence we [Christians] understand that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all “servile work” always, and not only every seventh day, but through all time. And through this arises the question for us, what sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to a sabbath eternal and a sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, “Your sabbaths my soul hateth;” and in another place he says, “My sabbaths ye have profaned.” Whence we discern that the temporal sabbath is human, and the eternal sabbath is accounted divine; concerning which He predicts through Isaiah: “And there shall be,” He says, “month after month, and day after day, and sabbath after sabbath; and all flesh shall come to adore in Jerusalem, saith the Lord;” which we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when “all flesh”—that is, every nation—“came to adore in Jerusalem” God the Father, through Jesus Christ His Son, as was predicted through the prophet: “Behold, proselytes through me shall go unto Thee.” Thus, therefore, before this temporal sabbath, there was withal an eternal sabbath foreshown and foretold; just as before the carnal circumcision there was withal a spiritual circumcision foreshown."
-Tertullian, "Answer to the Jews", chapter IV, on CCEL.
Tertullian argued Isaiah was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and reads Isaiah's "new moons and sabbaths" as "month after month, and day after day". It is fair to treat these phrases this way and some translators do. Do you recall in the post "The Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28" how we discussed the plural of Sabbath actually means weeks? The idea of new moons and sabbaths in prophecy might just be another way of saying month after month and week after week and day after day. Or, in other words, always.
Why is this important? Because if Tertullian is right, then Isaiah heads straight in the direction of the New Covenant Sabbath as a perpetual rest in Jesus Christ.
To put it another way, Isaiah could be supporting the Sabbath in Christ.
I am absolutely certain every Sabbatarian will balk at this. But accept it or reject it, either way it's based on preference. Short of having an angel come and tell you exactly what it means, all prophetic interpretation is inherently speculative.
But if we reject figurative interpretations in favor of literal, then we return to a requirement to observe new moons with a Levitical Priesthood ...and trying to back out of that requirement.
ESCAPING ARMSTRONGISM
Armstrongism has always considered new moons for their calendar. For example, see the article by Kenneth Hermann, "Prove God's Calendar Correct" Good News Magazine volume VI, number 10, October 1957. The author goes into great detail about the minutiae of how the moon works for establishing lunisolar calendars. It's not that they aren't familiar with new moons. But when it considered whether or not to observe new moons, the Worldwide Church of God said no.
"It might be noted here that the new moons are often mentioned in association with festival celebrations in the Old Testament. During the lengthy centuries when the calendar was determined by observation of the new crescent, witnesses had to report to the proper authorities and the new month could officially be declared. The day of the new moon was, consequently, very important. Therefore, the new moons were always given a certain special regard.
On the other hand, new moons are never designated holy days. They are not included in any of the lists of festivals. No special sanctity is ever attached to them. The only extraordinary regard accorded them was that certain special offerings were carried out on their days, But this did not in any way hallow them, since offerings were offered every secular day as well. They also lost something of their former special function when the calendar became determined solely by calculation in the early centuries A.D. "
-"Systematic Theology", Worldwide Church of God, 1978, p.8.
And they kept saying no. Earlier in this post I quoted a WCG Doctrinal Paper titled "Should Christians Observe the New Moons?". In that Doctrinal Paper, the WCG reiterated what we just read in the Systematic Theology.
What happened to treating prophecy like the command we never had? What happened to the prophecy providing what was missing?
But get this, from page 9 of the Doctrinal Paper:
"But there is no indication that these special days [new moons] are commanded of Christians today who worship God without a physical temple or Levitical priesthood."Do you realize what they just said? Put in other words, they just said, "Just because we see something in prophecy does not make it binding on us today."
Why, I'll be! They made the same argument that I am making!
...but only when it comes to new moons, the Levitical priesthood, and most ceremonial laws.
Please read this next part slowly and carefully. This is the heart of everything I've written here.
They dismiss new moons because there is no command for Christians to observe them today. But why are we appealing to Isaiah 66 for the weekly Sabbath in the first place? Because there is no command for Christians to observe it today. Same condition, different result.
Did I not say at the start of this post that if the Sabbath were commanded in the New Covenant then we wouldn't need claims like this one? Yes.
They use a prophecy when it seems to support their existing doctrine, they dismiss the very same prophecy when it doesn't support their existing doctrine. When Isaiah 66 appears to support meats laws, the prophecy is more important than clear New Testament statements. But when the same prophecy points toward new moons, a Levitical priesthood, etc, then New Testament statements suddenly become more important than the prophecy.
One standard here, another there.
A literal view of prophecy here, a metaphorical one there.
CONCLUSION
Which is true: “If we see it in prophecy, we are bound to it today,” or “we are not bound today to what we see in prophecy”? Sabbatarians use both claims, depending on what they are trying to prove.
There are two problems here.
The first is interpretation. How are these prophecies really meant to be understood? Literally? Figuratively? Fulfilled already? Still future? Everyone insists their reading is obvious while disagreeing with each other constantly.
The second problem is standards. The same prophecy used to restore Sabbath-keeping and meats laws is quietly abandoned when it points toward new moons, sacrifices, and Levitical priesthood. One standard here, another there.
If it were truly a binding claim, it would be consistently applied, and it would not inherently rely on a speculative interpretation of prophecy. It stands or falls on one view of prophecy, which no human can prove. So no, this is not the solid claim it is presented to be.
A shifting standard founded on a best guess. And that is one of the prime proof texts for Sabbatarianism.
I leave you with this advice - building doctrine on prophetic interpretation is a bad idea.
We have several other articles on the Sabbath to help you on your way. I particularly recommend "The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4" and "The Sabbath Rest of Genesis 2". And don't forget to check out our Categories Page as well.
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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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