Sin and Sabbath

(John 9: 16) Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.

The consensus of both the Pharisees and “others” was that Jesus did not keep the Sabbath. The Pharisees concluded Jesus was a sinner by reason of the fact He did not keep the Sabbath. He worked on the Sabbath. They watched Him, “witnessed” Him, work on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, like Sabbatarians today, concluded that working on the Sabbath breaks or transgresses the Sabbath commandment of the Decalogue, resulting in sin. Even Jesus’ disciple at the time witnessed Jesus break the Sabbath, and stated so in John 5:18, right after citing Jesus’ admission that He worked on the Sabbath.

Ask a Sabbatarian to define sin and he or she will cite the second half of 1John 3:4 that states in the KJV, “… sin is the transgression of the law.”

This is not about what sin “is.” The whole verse tells you what sin does. By taking part of the verse out of context, and interpreting that according to modern English instead of how the language was used over 400 years ago when the KJV was written. A false perception results that negates a declarative statement made by Jesus: “Good works are lawful on the Sabbath” which He further contrasted to evil works.

There are good works, and there are evil works.

Sabbatarians wasted no time in redefining good works to mean something not supported by the context of what Jesus said and taught, so that “good works” morphs into “approved” works where Sabbatarians become their own authority on the matter. Jesus’ explanation of good and evil works is totally ignored, where only good people can and do produce good works, only, and more importantly, only bad/evil people can and do produce evil works (Matthew 7:17-18).

Sabbatarianism recoils at the very thought that any and all good works produced by Christians - “good trees” done on their sabbath idol - are not sinful as a result, forcing them to twist and contort even what Jesus declared in an effort to insulate their sabbath idol from destruction.

Every imaginable and conceivable excuse and rationalization is employed to build a hedge around their idol in order to make it impervious to criticism as well as “doubling down” on emphasizing its overarching importance to the world, so that even the Gospel succumbs to its influence.

Sin is any evil, any iniquity, that is based in action or thought.

Why do Sabbatarians ignore the first half of 1 John 3:4?

It is because the Greek word used for sin there actually defines sin, and it is a definition with ramifications that Sabbatarianism tacitly rejects.

The Greek word for sin at the beginning of 1 John 3:4 is “hamartia.” In Greek, it means “missing the mark” like shooting an arrow at a target and missing it. “The transgression of the law” comes from the one Greek word, “anomia” (against law) which reinforces the actual definition of sin and how sin is “against law” that, in this progression of the statement, ends up invoking the condemnation of law; a death penalty.

Sabbatarianism bypasses the first condition of missing the mark and reconstructs the whole concept of sin into just transgressing the law, so that transgression of the Sabbath commandment results in evil / iniquity / lawlessness in one fell swoop, which is what the Pharisees did with Christ Jesus. They too circumvented the progression so as to make something “sin” that wasn’t sin, and that circumvention was in itself a sin.

Missing the mark / hamartia provides us with only part of the picture. It doesn’t tell us specifically what the “target” or “goal” was that was being missed.

(Romans 3:23) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

This reveals the target: the Glory of God. The perfection of God. This is what sin falls short of.

When it comes to a person defined by God as evil / sinful / iniquitous, there is nothing they can do to “hit that target” or even come close to it. An evil person cannot by any measure achieve unto the Glory of God. The absolute “best” they could do was to refrain from their otherwise evil works and even their evil imagination. This brings up an interesting point.

(ISA. 58:13) If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

They could “honor” God by NOT doing those things they normally did - seeking their own “pleasure”, their own desires, even their own lusts. God wanted them to be focused in on Him when it came to the Sabbath, where this passage states what they were really thinking about on the Sabbath:

(Amos 8:5) Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

Now, an important observation.

I would simply point out at this setting that Christians do every day what the Hebrews were called to do on the Sabbath.

What did Jesus do, on the Sabbath, that we would agree was to the Glory of God and that we can contrast to the works of mankind who were incapable of doing anything to the Glory of God?

Everything.

Everything He did, whether on the Sabbath or otherwise, were works to the Glory of God. He healed people of diseases and afflictions and the people gave praise to the Glory of God ...but not the Pharisees. They remained adamant, hard-hearted, refusing to give Glory to God for the miracles wrought by Christ Jesus, thereby showing their contempt and hatred for both He and the Father in Heaven. They attributed His works to the ‘glory of the devil.’

Compare this now to the works of Christians, wrought in and through the Holy Spirit now dwelling in them, where all their works are now a reflection of God who now dwells in them, so that all their works, all the fruits of these “good trees”, are to the Glory of God.

There is no “missing the mark.”

Evil people not only cannot produce good fruits/works, they also deny the good fruits/works of those called of God and given the Holy Spirit, whose fruits are now wrought in God to the Glory of God. They call the good works of Christians "evil" and "sin", using the Sabbath as justification for doing so.

Sabbatarians, like their predecessors the Pharisees, call good, evil, and evil, good. The works of a Christian, now motivated by the Holy Spirit in them - with the “new heart” and “new law of God” in them - are viewed by Sabbatarians as works of the devil, performed by the servants of the devil, for the faithful Christians trod on the sabbath idol of Sabbatarianism where they do all to the glory of their sabbath.

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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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