Recently I stumbled into a discussion of the Sabbath and its applicability to Christians. It started with seeing a video by Tudor Alexander instructing people how to balance the Ten Commandments as Christians, to which I replied that “keeping the Sabbath” in particular was both technically impossible and morally illogical in the modern world. My response raised some questions and comments from others, so I figured I’d make a quick post trying to clarify my position and hopefully shed some more light. (That “quick post” turned into this.)
I’ll be quoting from Caroline Robinson’s comment directly. Please recognize that she’s probably a wonderful lady and is sincerely seeking the truth, like everyone else. My own comments here are likewise my best attempt to understand the subject, not authoritative dogma. So grant me, Tudor Alexander, and others who may join the conversation some grace, too.
Hi Terry,
Thank you for your reply, “come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord”
Certainly, Caroline! Thank you for replying.
I have a question- why are you saying you can only keep sabbath if you kill everyone who doesn’t?
I know you used Exodus 20 v10 as support for your argument, but by the same argument you would have to say no one can keep commandment 7 - do not commit adultery, because we’d have to kill anyone committing adultery.
Great observation, that is absolutely correct: you’d have to kill adulterers too.
Capital offenses require death, period. Keeping the law requires you to enforce the law (or at least do your part). The community, collectively, was responsible for reporting their neighbors, especially as witnesses, convicting the guilty party, and executing justice by stoning them usually. The logic was literally that by killing the guilty party and throwing rocks at them, you were washing your own hands of their guilt.
As Israel’s legal system evolved to include a king and a proper temple there was some variation on this, but this basic setup remained. There were supposed to be judges and elders (both loose terms, but real appointments) to help decide tough cases and prevent Moses from having to personally decide every case. None of this mitigated the straightforward commandments from God about what needed to be done, however. If the judges declined to enforce the law and put people to death, they were wrong.
Most churches don’t teach the Moses Law correctly at all. It’s disgusting, really.
The Moses Law was never a broad morality system for mankind. It’s not something for us to champion today, as if we could follow it. It was specified by God to be a holy land purification system for Israel only, which is why it was very strict, and very exclusive to the land of Israel itself, with the people of Israel being the ones bound to enforce it on each other and anyone who resided within God’s land—no exceptions. It was a hyper-specific legal contract with the residents in that particular territory of the world, and it should never be misconstrued as anything beyond that.
Consequently, the sacrifices and offerings of Israel were instituted specifically in order to atone for all of their failures to keep these specific legal requirements; the accumulated sins polluted the land and they needed to cleanse it spiritually on a regular basis. This was an acknowledgment that they were continuously failing to keep the laws, which is to say, they failed to kill those who deserved to be killed!
If they had truly killed everyone who committed a capital offense, they would have been far less guilty. Having “mercy” and letting crimes slide was not their prerogative! God commanded it, and the land itself demanded it. And yes, that is precisely why eventually the Jews were kicked off of the land: they stopped trying to enforce it. They became lax, and God hated them for it. Even their atonement rituals disgusted him, because He knew they had no intention of going back to enforcing it properly. So this is not a matter of God softening His law and tolerating the lawbreakers. He was bottling up His wrath toward them.
So again, “keeping the law” did indeed require killing the offenders, and if you wanted to “keep the law” today you’d have to do the same. (Even though you couldn’t, because you don’t live in Israel and you’re not an Israelite, and you’re not part of that specific covenant that doesn’t even exist anymore—get it?) Think of how many people we would need to kill in order to “keep the commandments” today. Thank God that we are not asked to “keep” the law that the Israelites never managed to keep!
You may want to browse the more complete list of offenses that warranted the death penalty in the Old Testament, and ask yourself whether you can really enforce them the way God demanded the Isrealites did:
Murder — Exodus 21:12; Leviticus 24:17; Numbers 35:16–21
Striking or assaulting a parent — Exodus 21:15
Cursing/blaspheming a parent — Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9
Kidnapping — Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7
Blasphemy against God’s name — Leviticus 24:10–16, 23
Idolatry — Deuteronomy 13:1–18; 17:2–7
Enticing others to idolatry — Deuteronomy 13:6–11
Worshiping other gods — Exodus 22:20; Deuteronomy 17:2–7
Working on the Sabbath — Exodus 31:14–15; 35:2; Numbers 15:32–36
Human sacrifice to Molech — Leviticus 20:2–5
Being a medium or spiritist — Leviticus 20:27
(Note: this verse addresses the practitioner. Consulting a medium is addressed separately in Lev 20:6, with the lesser penalty of being “cut off” — not explicit execution.)Adultery — Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22
Sex with another man’s betrothed — Deuteronomy 22:23–27
Rape of a betrothed woman — Deuteronomy 22:25
Sex with one’s father’s wife — Leviticus 20:11
(Ordinary mother-son incest doesn’t have its own explicit death clause; it’s usually read as falling under this verse by inference from Lev 18:7’s language, not stated separately.)Sex with one’s daughter-in-law — Leviticus 20:12
Sex with a woman and her mother (three-way marriage) — Leviticus 20:14 — death by burning
Male homosexual intercourse — Leviticus 20:13
Bestiality — Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 20:15–16
Rebellious son — Deuteronomy 21:18–21
False prophecy / false prophetic claim — Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:20
A priest’s daughter engaging in prostitution — Leviticus 21:9 — death by burning
Unauthorized entry into the holy sanctuary — Numbers 1:51; 3:10, 38; 18:7
I think we’d have to kill hundreds of millions just from the rebellious son offense itself. And did you know that Jesus himself reminded the Jews that they were failing to uphold that commandment?
(Mark 7:9-13) He went on to say, “You neatly set aside the command of God to maintain your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’
But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you would have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), he is no longer permitted to do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”
So you see clearly, Jesus was aware that people should have been killing even their own children. They had created excuses. By saying, “And you do so in many such matters,” obviously he is thinking of that huge list of capital offenses we’ve just given you. Do not imagine that Jesus (who carries the voice of God) was ignoring the requirements that said somebody “must be put to death”.
Let’s continue with your comment, Caroline…
Also, the 4th commandment in Exodus 20 doesn’t say we must kill anyone not keeping the sabbath.
Again, many don’t realize that the “ten commandments” are really more like headers, which contain within them a longer specification of how to enforce them, which is found in other places. Killing offenders is absolutely required, it just wasn’t specified in that initial list. You even seem to think the pre-law example of the man who was killed for picking up sticks could be an exception:
On reading about the man who was gathering wood on the sabbath (Numbers 15), he was blatantly and very publicly breaking the commandment recently given to the Israelites and written by the finger of God on stone tablets. He was brought before Moses and Aaron because a specific punishment for this act had not yet been declared, in this instance God gave an instruction and told Moses he had to be put to death.
That story was a foreshadowing of what God really wanted for His entire holy land. When it came time to codify it, death penalty was instituted. “Must surely be put to death” is not ambiguous, is it?
Below are the key verses regarding why the Sabbath was instituted for the Israelites, and what “keeping” it actually requires. I will leave my notes in [square brackets] in the verses to highlight key ideas:
(Exodus 20:10) “but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or resident foreigners who are within your boundaries
Here’s what you need to notice: it was not only each man that had to keep the command for himself, but his job was to ensure that his entire family was not working at all. They were all in danger, and he was personally responsible for preventing them from working. That included all animals, and all employees, and even foreign strangers living among them. Nobody was safe, and everybody was supposed to tattle on those who broke it. Community enforcement, including against children.
(Exodus 31:14–15) And the LORD said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites [note: he does not say it is for Gentiles everywhere], ‘Surely you must keep My Sabbaths, for this will be a sign between Me and you [that is, the Israelites specifically] for the generations to come, so that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. Keep the Sabbath, for it is holy to you [not the whole world].
Anyone who profanes it must surely be put to death [“must surely” removes any excuse under any circumstance]. Whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from among his people [that is, killed]. For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death [again, “must surely” removes any wiggle room].”
(Exodus 35:2) “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. [Automatic death penalty without exception.]”
That’s about as clear as it gets. It’s bizarre that people somehow overlook this.
I would think that God could not allow this transgression of His law to go unpunished as it would lead His people to believe it was ok to break His commandments.
Jesus and his followers kept the sabbath, the word sabbath appears about 60 times in the New Testament, so it’s a big deal.
Jesus did not keep the Sabbath as written in the Moses Law, that much is obvious. He didn’t keep any of the laws of the capital offenses, because it would have been futile and contrary to what he came to do. Even if you don’t count his miracles as “work” like the Pharisees did, or his command for the healed man to pick up his mat, the fact is that Roman soldiers were occupying the land and constantly working, with no respect for the Sabbath. If Jesus lived up to the commandment, as you have just read with your own eyes, he would have accused them of being guilty at the very least, and brought them to the elders and council to have a verdict. More directly, he could have rallied an execution for them himself, since he was actually their king and high priest, given full judgment by God. That’s not to mention all of the Greek workers and foreign traders in the marketplaces.
Jesus ignored the blatant disregard for the Sabbath happening across the land of Israel because the time had already come to “fulfill” the law and the prophets, thus make the old system “obsolete” by taking control of God’s judgments and laying down a new covenant. I’ll explain that.
Let’s continue, because Caroline brings this up herself…
However, I agree, Jesus came to show us that serving God is more than observing rituals. Jesus came to set the Jews free from the law of ordinances which were against us, Col 2 v 14 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross” (ordinances were the ceremonial laws - circumcision, keeping the feasts, animal sacrifices).
The sabbath wasn’t part of these ordinances, the sabbath is not against us as “The sabbath was made for man” Mark 2 v 27.
Jesus came to remind us of the new covenant God wanted to make with us “This is the covenant that I will make with thee after these days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them”. Hebrews 10 v 16 and Jeremiah 31 v 33.
Jesus in His sermon on the mount was emphasising the importance of the commandments “For I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled”
That’s a healthy selection of verses, and a common argument.
So now let’s think about what is said in Hebrews a bit more, and then move on to what it means to “fulfill” the law and the prophets, okay?
You mentioned Hebrews 10, but you should be looking at Hebrews 8 first:
(Hebrews 8:7-13) For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one. But showing its fault, God says to them,
“Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.…”
When he speaks of a new covenant, he makes the first obsolete. Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear.
Tell me, how can the New Testament boldly teach that the old covenant was obsolete, faulty, and about to disappear 2,000 years ago while writing to Jews (the book is called “Hebrews” for a reason) if its laws were meant to continue? Those laws were 100% dependent on the covenant that tied them to the land; the covenant they broke, which needed to be replaced because it was impossible to keep. (And yes, one of the reasons it was impossible to keep is because it demanded so much capital punishment.)
The obsolete, fading, faulty covenant from Moses being discussed here was not just the ceremonial law. The question of sacrifices was just one of many examples given in Hebrews, but the Sabbath was indeed brought in as an example of a “shadow” that was a “symbol” (see Hebrews 4 discourse). Again, this is not complicated once you can understand the purpose of the covenant and its many foreshadowings. People make it complicated by trying to force unnatural things together.
And guess who warned against doing exactly that? Jesus himself.
(Luke 5:36-39) He also told them a parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old garment. If he does, he will have torn the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. Instead new wine must be poured into new wineskins. No one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’”
New things go together. Do not drag the old Sabbath into the new covenant, as if we can keep it. Keeping it means killing those who break it. Not even Jesus did that. And look for youself at what Jesus does directly after this teaching about new wine requiring a new wineskin: he breaks the Sabbath repeatedly, on purpose, and tells his critics that he’s the Son of Man and has authority over the Sabbath. Don’t you think he was trying to make a point about starting over, and using the Sabbath as a perfect representation of what was an “old wineskin”?
Caroline, you pointed to the classic part of the sermon on the mount where Jesus says he did not come to “abolish” the law (and the prophets) but to “fulfill” them. This is the #1 verse that Judaizers and legalists will use to smuggle in the entire Torah into Christian living, and it’s tragic how badly it twists the logic of what Jesus is saying. I’m not saying you are trying to Judaize, but we need to keep in mind the serious warning about “a little leaven” infecting the whole lump. Legalism creeps in slowly, and it convinces you that you are a failure, that the Torah law was perfect, and that you are sinning if you don’t try to keep it. Sister, I beg you to have ears to hear.
I’ll try to break this down as simply as possible:
The “law and the prophets” (never forget to include them here) he is referring to consists of more than Torah laws. The term “the law and the prophets” was a Jewish idiom referring to the entire Old Testament. It was the full weight of all the instructions and prophecies given before him, which all together constitute the “covenant(s)” that God made with Israel and the patriarchs, to demand from them holiness and obedience. Jesus was saying he would personally fulfill all of the expectations, and receive all of the blessings as a result.
When Jesus assures them he’s not going to “abolish” the law and the prophets, he means that he will not give up and declare the project of God a failure; abolishing the law and the prophets so would invalidate the promised rewards for fulfilling it! But fulfilling it means the opposite: the arrival of the “Kingdom of Heaven”, which he preached for years, and proved by miracles. And along with it comes salvation, eternal life, the Holy Spirit, miracles, and all the other proof Jesus provided that he was the inheritor of the promises given to Abraham and the Israelites. He fulfilled the law AND THE PROPHETS and thus received the promises given to Israel for obedience.
Therefore, when he says “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law” he is setting up the key phrase: “until everything takes place.” That is to say, until he personally fulfills it, which he later did, when he was resurrected after being crucified. That is the full completion, which is why he could say on the cross, “It is finished.” It’s also why the book of Hebrews can confidently say the old covenant is now “obsolete” and “ready to disappear” because Jesus did fulfill the law and the prophets, rendering it no longer necessary or binding on anyone. (We have new wine and a new wineskin to go with it, which are both much superior.)
But then Jesus says: “So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,” right? Listen to what he is saying: “these” commands, meaning the ones he is giving at that moment, the better ones than Moses received! These are the higher principles of the Kingdom of Heaven, the replacement of the faulty, old covenant that is being discarded now that Jesus has inherited the Kingdom personally.
Fulfilling the law and the prophets is a key concept that Judaizers (knowingly or not) confuse and misrepresent. Unfortunately, it then distorts the next statement about how—unless all is fulfilled!—the law wouldn’t even vanish if heaven and earth disappeared. That’s why it’s so vital to recognize that Jesus did fulfill everything necessary in order to attain the promises. Because only upon fulfilling it—and thus not abolishing it—can the Kingdom arrive and the “new wine” get poured into the “new skin”, with a “new covenant” that is “not like the covenant [God] made with their fathers”. I hope you can see the beauty of that.
Caroline continues…
So, our actions are important but also our thoughts and our heart. Jesus said we shouldn’t kill but also “whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement” Matthew 5 v 22.
I think God would be happy if we try to keep the sabbath ( on His 7th day) by spending time with Him, in prayer and bible study, in worship, in fellowship, in enjoying His creation by spending time in nature and just resting and leaving the cares of the world behind, “And God did rest the seventh day from all his works” “There remained therefore a rest to the people of God” Hebrews 4 verses 4 and 9.
God bless you
God bless you as well, Caroline! Asking about these things is a sign of a desire to understand God’s word more fully, testing our understanding, validating our interpretations, and allowing a dialogue. It took me many years of pondering and intermittent studying to overcome the legalism and Judaizing arguments I was raised hearing around me, so this isn’t some hastily improvised argument, and I didn’t borrow it from somebody else.
Enjoy the Law of Liberty, the Law of Christ, which is much higher and better than the old laws, which required capital punishment, and which were only ever binding on the citizens of Israel while they were still under the old covenant. Never forget your true calling, and do not let anybody try to trick you into swapping your new wineskin and new wine for the old stuff!
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