Messianic Judaism: What About The Sabbath?

<p>For additional notes and resources check out Douglas' <a href="https://www.douglasjacoby.com/messianic-judaism-9-what-about-the-sabbath/">website</a>.</p><p>Main ideas:</p><ul><li>Sabbatarians are right about the day: Sabbath is the 7th day, sundown Friday-sundown Saturday. The 4th-C church created a "Sunday Sabbath". (Although Christians had long been meeting on Sundays, it was not legally day of rest/worship.) This happened under Constantine (early 300s).</li><li>Yet in the 1st C, there <i>was</i> a change to the 1st day of week: John 20:19, 26; Acts 2:1, 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2; Rev 1:10. Jesus, after all, rose from the dead, appeared, ascended, and gave the Spirit on Sundays.</li><li>John was in the Spirit on "the Lord's day" (Gk.<i> kyriakē,</i> the Greek word for Sunday).</li><li>True, Paul enters synagogue on Sabbath, but this was for purposes of evangelizing the Jews (Acts 17:2).</li><li>Some claim that the Sabbath preceded Moses—that it was for Adam. Yet there is no evidence of Sabbath before time of Moses (New 9:14).</li><li>The patristic writers agree that Sabbaths are no longer kept. Rather, Christ's followers assemble on Sunday (Ignatius, <i>Magnesians </i>9:1; <i>Epistle of Barnabas,</i> 15:8-9; Justin Martyr, <i>First Apology,</i> 67. It seems highly unlikely the generation after the apostles forgot the truth about the Sabbath. Ignatius, after all—writing around 107 AD—was a disciple of the apostle John!</li><li>Sabbath receives near zero emphasis in the N.T. documents. If it is so important, isn’t it odd Paul that explicitly mentions it only once (saying it should <i>not</i> be an issue, Col 2:17-17; also Gal 4:8-11). It is certainly not a matter of salvation / superiority.</li><li>What about the feeling that all 10 commandments must still apply, for aesthetic purposes or symmetry? Asymmetries are a feature of biblical revelation as well as of the natural world. Arguments from symmetry have aesthetic appeal, but not logical power.</li><li>Christianity is a continuation and fulfillment of Judaism, but