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Topic: Jesus is the Sabbath
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TB125
Advanced Member
Member # 2450
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posted
Michael,
You have probably answered this question before in one or more of your numerous messages, but I'll ask it again and hope for your brief and clear answer.
When a person has Jesus, as you have described one's relationship with Jesus as "having" him, is such a person no longer able to disobey Jesus or to "sin" against God?
I think that this question is at the base of your theology, so your brief answer will help me, and perhaps others, understand your belief more clearly. Thanks.
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Bob
Posts: 449 | From: Rockford Illinois | Registered: Nov 2003
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Michael Harrison
Advanced Member
Member # 6801
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posted
When you address Jesus in the next moment, say to Him that you don't want anybody or anything in your heart but Him. Why would anyone say anything like that?
1Pe 5:7 "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you."
After all, who or what is your primary concern? Yourself!
1Pe 5:7 Casting all of your care for yourself upon Him, who is able.
![[Cross]](graemlins/cross.gif) Amen!
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
Advanced Member
Member # 6801
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posted
Rest! In Numbers 15:32 it is recorded that a man was caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath. It was unlawful for him to do so because they were supposed to observe the day to keep it holy. This meant not working! He transgressed the law by doing exactly what he was not supposed to do. The significance of this disobedience is that, God was his provision. He was completely provided for in the OT times by the keeping of the law, yet he defied God his provider, and insulted his all knowing grace, by working. Basically, he disbelieved in God’s provision.
It is recorded that this man was stoned for his transgression. That means that he died as a result of disobeying the Sabbath rest.
In the Old Testament they observed days. The days were the Sabbaths, and the festivals, or days of feasts. All were a type and shadow of a blessing that we oft fail to comprehend today, even with all of our books, and teachers, and ever learning, the keeping of the Sabbath. The keeping of the Sabbath is a type and shadow of the relationship that was foretold of Jesus’ coming, and of our relationship with Him. It is profoundly important.
We are not under law in the New Dispensation. Rather we have a unique situation which we should, unlike the man in 15:32, endeavor with all earnest, to appreciate. We should honor God in it and not be disobedient. God’s provision is in it.
I should stop there, but I find it needful to parallel modern times with the message that is in this example. The problem with modern day serving of God is, and has been since Paul penned an epistle, legalism. Legalism is ‘doing’ something that supposedly merits God’s favor, or blessing. The term obedience is customarily bandied about as something that is necessary in order to be in God’s graces, which is correct. There is one thing or another that is focused upon as falling into the category of obedience, such as one may hear on any Sunday in any church, which is not the obedience of faith. Each one may entail a legalistic conformity in order to satisfy those observing, that the one observed is obedient. For example, in the Catholic tradition, one such may be confession. You know, that is where one goes to a confessional, and squeals on himself. Another might be that you should pray a certain amount, or at certain times a day. Yet another may be keeping the Sabbath, which leads to all sorts of controversy, since the argument is ongoing about which day to observe.
It is not in the observance of any day, in the New Dispensation. It is not about Feasts, of Festivals, which many TV preachers would have you to believe. That is Old Testament Law!
Consider this passage from Galations:
Gal 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Gal 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
What of it? They wanted to be under the Jewish calendar as though it had some redeeming value to them. They might well have been circumcised just as well. But here is the one that is most intriguing, the keeping of the Sabbath. In other words, don’t work, and go to church on Sunday. This will make you holy. That is the legalistic view of it.
Now I subscribe to the notion that these things that were laws in the old days, still have some principle in the honoring of God before men in modern times. But they are not laws that make, or keep one Holy. You have to look deeper to find what does that.
So what am I trying to say? Jesus is the Sabbath rest pointed to by examples of scripture such as we have seen today. That means something. It means that our holiness is not in the ‘doing’ of things, which 'remove' us from Him, or of being regimented to some disciplinary end, or purpose, or purpose driven strife. It is in the ‘having’ contained in the provision of our God by faith. Jesus is our Sabbath, rest. Do not pick up a single stick in unbelief, but rather discover what the Sabbath rest means to you. All 'doing' will be fulfilled when one believes unto Jesus as his Sabbath rest, and lets Him do it for you. It is all 'done'. All you have to 'do' is not transgress!
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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