Why are we including the weekly Sabbath with other yearly festivals?
The weekly Sabbath may seem disconnected from the other festivals but God does not see it that way.
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts. ‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. ‘These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.
(Leviticus 23:1-4 New King James throughout unless noted)Already we see some important points.
First: "The feasts of the LORD… these are My feasts". These are God’s feasts, not man’s, not Israel’s, not the Jew’s, but God’s, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Second: Verse 3 has a repeat of the forth commandment and a reminder of [Genesis 2:2-3]. In fact God probably repeats the Sabbath command more than any other single command in the Bible. And yet the majority of Christians overlook this. Some say Nobody knows what day is the Sabbath, some say we no longer need to keep that commandment, some say the church has changed the Sabbath to Sunday, Some say we should celebrate the resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus), not the Sabbath.
Third: A Holy Convocation, a Sacred Assembly.
In this article I intend to show that the Sabbath is still in effect today, that we should be keeping it, just as we should be keeping the rest of the feasts listed in Leviticus 23.
How can we be sure Saturday is the seventh day?
During the time of Yeshua (Jesus), Saturday was the seventh day, the Sabbath day.
So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
(Luke 4:16)Since Yeshua was God, He knew exactly which day was the genuine seventh-day Sabbath, Yeshua Himself was a keeper of the seventh-day Sabbath. Now, if the Jews had somehow lost track of the Sabbath day since the time of Moses, Yeshua would have certainly corrected them, but this was not necessary, since they were already observing the right day. As this establishes a firm reference point in history, it remains for the skeptic to try and prove that the Jews, and the rest of the world, somehow collectively lost track of the seventh day Sabbath in the 2000 years since the time of Messiah (Christ), a period which is very well documented.
What about The Gregorian calendar Reform?
Some may say the calendar reform in the Middle Ages must have altered the weekdays as we know them, so we cannot be sure which day is the seventh day. But people who think this have not researched the issue.
Pope Gregory XIII initiated the calendar reform of 1582, because under the calendar established by Julius Caesar, the date of the vernal equinox had moved from March 21st in 325 A.D. to March 11th in 1582. This was due to the fact that the Julian calendar added a leap day every 4 years, without exception.
To correct this problem, Pope Gregory XIII (
Inter Gravissimas) returned the spring equinox to March 21st by decreeing that Thursday, October 4th, 1582, would be followed not by the 5th, but by Friday, October 15th. He jumped the calendar 10 days numerically, but did not change the weekly cycle of days. For this correction to be maintained, the Pope then decreed that leap years would occur only when the year was divisible by four, and only the centennial years that were divisible by 400. This method of calendar keeping was gradually adopted across Europe, and the world, and is nearly universal today.So both history and the Bible make it quite clear that Sunday is the first day of the week and Saturday is indeed the seventh day, which has been kept by the Jews for millennia, even to the present day.
Was the Sabbath moved to Sunday?
Was the Sabbath moved to Sunday, by what authority? Following are many statements from prominent members of the Catholic Church throughout its history talking about this subject.
Cardinal Gasparri's Catholic Catechism
Article 3. The Third Commandment of the Decalogue.
(203) What does God command in the Third Commandment--"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day"?
In the Third Commandment-"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day"--God commands that festival days--that is, days dedicated to Him--should be kept with divine worship, business and bodily toil being laid aside. 190
(204) What were the festival days in the Old Testament?
In the Old Testament there were many festival days, but the chief one was the Sabbath, the very name of which signifies the rest needful for the worship of God, whence it is called "the day of rest."
(205) Why is the Sabbath day not observed under the New Testament?
The Sabbath day is not observed under the New Testament, because in its place the Church keeps Sunday in honor of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the coming [pg. 121] down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; the Church also adds other festival days. 191
(206) To what, then, are we bound nowadays as regards keeping festival days holy?
As regards keeping festival days holy we are today bound to sanctify, in the manner proscribed by the Church, the Sundays and other Feast Days appointed by her 192
The Catholic Catechism, by Peter Cardinal Gasparri, translated by the Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., third printing, copyright 1932 and printed by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, Typographi Pontificii, 12 Barclay Street, New York, questions 203-206, pages 120-121.
A New Catechism
What day was the Sabbath?
The seventh day, our Saturday.
Do you keep the Sabbath?
No: we keep the Lord's Day.
Which is that?
The first day: Sunday.
Who changed it?
The Catholic Church.
Source: A New Catechism of Christian Doctrine and Practice, American Edition, Authorized, by James Bellord, published in Notre Dame, Indiana, by The Ave Maria, 1907, pages 86, 87.
Keenan's Catechism
[pg. 53]
Q. When Protestants do profane work upon Saturday, or the seventh day of the week, do they follow the Scripture as their only rule of faith?
A. On the contrary, they have only the authority of tradition for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of God's commandments, which he has never clearly abrogated; "Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day."
Q. Is the observance of Sunday, as the day of rest, a matter clearly laid down in Scripture?
A. It certainly is not; and yet all Protestants consider the observance of this particular day as essentially necessary to salvation. To say, we observe the Sunday, because Christ rose from the dead on that day, is to say, that we should rest on Thursday, because Christ ascended to heaven on that day, and rested in reality from the work of redemption.
[ pg. 54]
Q. What do you conclude from all this?
A. That Protestants have no Scripture for the measure of their day of rest; that they abolish the observance of Saturday without warrant of Scripture; that they substitute Sunday in its place without scriptural authority; consequently, that for all this, they have only traditional authority. Yet Protestants would look upon a man who would do profane work after five o'clock on Sunday, or keep the Saturday, and profane the first day, as a victim of perdition. Hence we must conclude, that the Scripture, which does not teach these things clearly, does not contain all necessary truths; and, consequently, cannot be the only rule of faith.
[ pg. 108]
Q. Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?
A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her - she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.
Source: Controversial Catechism, by the Rev. Stephen Keenan, Second Edition, published in 1851 in Edinburgh; by C. Dolman, 13 South Hanover Street, and 61, New Bond Street, London,
pages 53, 54, and 108. A Doctrinal Catechism, by Rev. Stephen Keenan, Imprimatur by John Cardinal McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, Third American Edition, Copyright 1876 by T. W. Strong, published by P. J. Kenedy, pages 352-355, 174.Rebuilding A Lost Faith
Protestants often deride the authority of Church tradition, and claimed to be directed by the Bible only, yet they too, have been guided by customs of the ancient Church, which find no warrant in the Bible, but rest on Church tradition only! A striking instance of this is the following: The first positive command in the Decalogue is to "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy," and this precept was enforced by the Jews for thousands of years. But the Sabbath Day, the observance of which God commanded, was our Saturday. Yet who among either Catholics or Protestants, except a sect or two, like the "Seventh Day Baptists," ever keep that commandment now? None. Why is this? The Bible, which Protestants claim to obey exclusively, gives no authorization for the substitution of the first day of the week for the seventh. On what authority, therefore, have they done so? Plainly on the authority of that very Catholic Church which they abandoned, and whose traditions they condemn.
Source:
Rebuilding a Lost Faith By An American Agnostic, John L. Stoddard, published in New York by P. J. Kenedy and Sons, circa 1921, p. 80.I think we have seen enough evidence as to what the authority of man has done.
The seventh day, or Saturday is still the Sabbath. It always was, it always will be.
"If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
(Isaiah 58:13-14 NIV)The Sabbath is a sign between God and man.
"Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
(Exodus 31:13)A sign of what? "that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you". Why would anyone not want to keep YHVH’s (the LORD’s) Sabbaths? Also see… [Exodus 31:17], [Ezekiel 20:12], [Ezekiel 20:20].
Was the Sabbath kept by Yeshua?
So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
(Luke 4:16)What about the apostles, did they keep the Sabbath after Yeshua’s ascension?
On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.
(Acts 13:44)And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.
(Acts 16:13)And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks.
(Acts 18:4)The fact remains the Sabbath was the seventh day or Saturday from the first week of time [Genesis 2:2] until now, and by the very words of the Catholic Church they admit the day was changed to Sunday on their own authority. Who is man to do such a thing? Remember, God’s Sabbaths are a sign for all people to see, those who keep the days are God’s people [Ezekiel 20:19-20].
Portions of this article taken from information on the Web.