ESTABLISHING THE SABBATH DAY REST

Once we understand God’s calendar, establishing the Sabbath day rest is easy. Genesis 2.1-3 give a simple explanation for the Sabbath rest:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Later when giving the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.9-11 God again established the seventh day as the Sabbath:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

In Exodus 31.13-17 we see that it is for all generations:

Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

Many will say this is only for the Jews, we are in the new covenant. When I saw that the Sabbath is a sign between us and our Creator it hit me like a bolt of lightning! It is a special identifying sign between us and Yehovah!

The Apostle Paul always taught on the 7^th day Shabbat and he said that we are grafted into Israel in Romans 11.16-18:

…if the root is holy, the branches are too. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.…

The whole chapter of Romans 11 explains our grafting into Israel—in other words the Sabbath is still the 7^th day. This is why we believe that Saturday is the true day of worship.

There are many other verses that testify to this in the New Testament: Acts 13.14, 27, 42, 44; 15.21, 16.13, 17.2, 18.4. We also know that Jesus Himself observed the 7^th day Sabbath. So what happened? How did it become changed to Sunday? Once again we must understand history to find our answer.

After Jesus’ death all the early believers worshipped according to the Biblical Sabbath. The first believers were Jewish and were coming to faith in their Messiah. In Acts chapter 10 Peter is sent to Cornelius’ house and they became the first Gentile believers. Now the Gentiles were accepting the Jewish Messiah as their own.

In Acts 15.3 we see the Jewish believers rejoicing that the Gentiles were converting to the faith: And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.

That’s right, that’s what the Bible says! Conversion of the Gentiles! Then later in Acts 15.20-21 we see: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.

The new converts were told to abstain from idols, fornication, meat that was not killed properly, and blood (all Torah commands) and then to go to the synagogue on Saturday to hear the Torah (Moses) and the rest of the scripture readings which are read. They were worshipping on the 7^th day Sabbath. They were learning about Yehovah’s Torah. What happened?

At that time in the Roman Empire the Jewish faith was legito or legitimate which meant that the Jews had an exception from the Romans to freely worship their one God without fear of reprisal.

As the gospel spread the unbelieving Jews did not want to be associated with this “sect of Judaism” and began to persecute any Jews who believed in Messiah. They also told the Roman government not to associate Judaism with this new faith. Why?

The Christian believers refused to recognize the Roman Emperor as a god. This began to make trouble for the Jews who had not accepted Jesus as Messiah. Then Jews began to persecute both Jewish and Gentile believers.

As scripture says, the Jews then entered into the time prophecy that said they would be blinded and not see. This opened the way for the Gentiles to be grafted into the prior covenants. Remember that Abraham was told he would be the father of multitudes and a blessing to all nations (Gen 12.1-3; Gen 17.1-8).

Today we are living in the “times of the Gentiles” until the Jewish people return to Jesus and accept Him just prior to Armageddon. Until then we are living in the time which the Gentiles are being grafted in. Yeshua/Jesus did not come to start a new religion! He came to renew the covenant(s).

This does not mean we are to become “Jewish” as Judaism, just as Christianity, has detoured into areas which are not scriptural or in the Torah. The rabbi’s have created “takanot” which are laws they have made and which they say, supersede the written Torah. This is what Yeshua was constantly pointing out in His debates with the rabbi’s of His day.

We all know that in 70 AD the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed as Jesus said it would be. Even though it is not politically correct to say this, I believe it was because the Jewish people had rejected their Messiah as the scriptures prophesied. After this event they were scattered throughout the world until they became a nation in May 1948.

After 70 AD both Christians and Jews were persecuted by the Roman Empire. As time went on into the second century the Christian faith began to become more accepted. The Jews were then the target of persecution by the Christian community who looked upon them as “Christ killers” and unworthy of any respect.

An interesting scripture that seems to indicate this reversal is found in the third Epistle of John. He is having trouble with a Greek by the name of Diotrephes. It seems that John is not welcome in this fellowship anymore: I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us.  Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.

This very interesting scripture shows the Gentile leaders in John’s time were beginning to come against the Jewish believers. This persecution is written throughout church history. The Spanish Inquisition, blood libel, and ghettos were just a few of the terrible things down to Jews by those who called themselves “Christian.”

We then come to the time of Constantine. By this time many, but not all who called themselves “Christian” had been separating themselves from anything considered “Jewish”. Sunday had replaced Saturday because the Christians did not want to worship on the same day as Jews. Since Jesus rose on Sunday they used that as the reason for change. Note: Yeshua most likely was risen from the dead just prior to sundown on Saturday. As the sun set it became Sunday. Biblical days begin and end at sunset. What we would call Saturday night on our Roman calendar is actually the beginning of Sunday on the Biblical calendar. This would have allowed Yeshua to be in the grave for three complete nights and days—rising on the third day just as the sun went down Saturday night.

The Feast of Passover was replaced by Easter. The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and gods. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE), a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre).

She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." ₁ Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime.

The Emperor Constantine was a worshipper of the sun god Mithras. Prior to a battle in 312 AD he thought he saw a “sign of cross” in the sky. He vowed if he won the battle he would honor the Christian faith. He kept his promises and in 325 AD held the First Council of Nicaea, a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia.

Interesting how in Roman Catholicism one uses the “sign of the cross.”

This resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent local and regional councils of Bishops (Synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy—the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom. Ref: Wikipedia.

Even by the fourth century there were still many believers that still celebrated the resurrection during Passover/Unleavened Bread like the early church before them. The Roman Emperor Constantine said at the council of Nicea in 325A.D.,

“It appears that the churches of Syria and Mesopotamia continues to follow the custom of the Jews, and celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon whether falling on Sunday or not. All the other churches observed the solemnity on Sunday only.” (The “fourteenth day of the moon” was how the Bible told the early believers to calculate Passover.) It was also at the Council of Nicea that Constantine made it law that the celebration of the resurrection of Christ was to be done on Easter Sunday: “…This subject having been discussed, it was decreed to celebrate Easter on the same day…(Sunday) …which was the practice of Rome.”

 

Constantine was a huge sun worshipper before he supposedly converted to Christianity along with the rest of the citizens of Rome. And celebrating Easter on the first Sunday after the spring equinox was already “the practice of Rome”. Constantine went on to finally declare for all time, “…We should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite.” It was the practice of Sun worship.

And so it became on that day, in the beginnings of the Roman Catholic Church, that anyone that celebrated the resurrection on any other day would be excommunicated, severely punished or even killed. Not much has changed since that proclamation by Constantine almost seventeen hundred years ago.

There was a Protestant Reformation. But for the most part, most Christian churches operate in some way shape or form EXACTLY how their Catholic predecessors taught them without virtually any examination of doctrine and traditions to verify their biblical accuracy.

There are many writings from these councils which eliminated anything “Jewish” from the new Roman Christian Church. Ref: attached sheets: Replacement Theology in the church and Mithraism Worship of the sun god.

As you can see we who practice a more Hebraic roots faith believe we are allowing the Bible to interpret itself and wish to return to Hebraic Biblical worship then is now practiced by most denominational churches. We do not feel we have been deceived but rather have returned to the truth as it was originally written in both the O.T and the N.T.

A the very least we hope you will find it in your heart to understand and respect the reasons for the way we are moving in our faith in Jesus Christ our redeemer, Savior, and Messiah.

Search this blog for many more studies on these subjects.