Introduction
About 25 years ago, liberals gained control of the Church of God (Seventh Day). They began quietly and slowly changing the doctrines they did not like. In this article I will only look at the Sabbath doctrine changes.
The change is most easily seen in the Doctrinal Beliefs of the Church of God, Adopted 1994, Amended 1996, which says:
That was changed in the Statement of Faith Church of God (Seventh Day), Adopted 2006, Amended 2010, which says:[The Sabbath] is kept from Friday sunset until Saturday sunset by ceasing from secular work, engaging in corporate worship, cultivating the Godly life, and doing good for others.
Note the change from keeping to celebrating. The word "celebrating" is a generic word that could mean many things, or practically nothing. The word "keeping" is very specific in its meaning, to obey and do.The Sabbath should be faithfully celebrated by believers now as a day of rest, worship, and well doing.
Most pastors would have seen this as an odd formulation of the Sabbath doctrine but it was accepted. They could not have recognized what was happening.
Years later the book of doctrine, This We Believe, came out. It characterized the Sabbath in the same way.
Most pastors did not understand the importance of "now" in that description. It created the concept of a change that had happened in the Sabbath at a previous time. The Sabbath was one thing prior to that time and a different thing after that time, that is, now. The liberals were changing the Sabbath.
The details of that change were not made known until much later. Because the pastors had signed-on to this doctrinal change already, the details were not considered a change. They were made public in a Sabbath School lesson, TViR 9, Lesson 3, in 2019.
This article focuses on the statements made in that lesson. The full reasoning of that lesson is incomprehensible as arguments are started but not taken to their conclusion. The likely reason for doing this is that the authors would have been openly mocked for their conclusions. Therefore, this article will focus only on the foundations for the reasoning. By refuting those, the entire argument is dead, like kicking out enough legs of a chair will cause the chair to fall.
Leg 1 - A Day of Rest, Worship, and Well Doing
Nowhere does the Bible refer to the Sabbath as a day for worship nor as a day for doing good. In both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 the commandments only refer to the Sabbath as a day of rest. The liberals need the Sabbath to include worship, though, because they are changing the Sabbath to a day of worship only.
It's fair to say that the understanding of the nature of the Sabbath by the laity has been muddled for quite a while. This appears to be the result of infection from other "Sabbath-keeping" denominations that have adopted these liberal ideas.
The Sabbath is a day of the week for rest, for sure, but every day of the week is (or should be) a day of worship and every day should be a day for doing good. When Jesus said it was alright to do good on the Sabbath, he was not excluding us from doing good on the other days of the week. His point was that we should not let keeping the Sabbath hinder us from doing good on the Sabbath.
As a day of worship, we see the Pharisees of Jesus' time strictly enforcing the Sabbath law. We only ever see them challenging people about resting on the Sabbath. We never see them tell someone they need to go to the temple on the Sabbath. They did not understand worship as a requirement of the Sabbath.
If the Sabbath was a day of worship, how long would we have to worship? The Sabbath lasts for 24 hours, so we would be expected to worship for 24 hours - forget sleep.
We do see a few mentions in the Bible that refer to the Sabbath as a "holy convocation", a holy getting-together. Some pastors interpret this as "going to church" - thinking, what could be more holy than going to church. That would have the same problem as seen above, 24 hours of church.
In the book Shattered Tablets, David Klinghoffer, a Jew, explains this holy convocation as people getting together to strengthen the community, discuss things, resolve differences, etc. Therefore, it is a holy convocation, not because it is at a holy place, but because it is made holy by the Sabbath.
Leg 2 - A New Rest That Replaces The Sabbath
TViR 9, Lesson 3 tries to establish the idea that Jesus, in his death, created a new rest.
They don't give Biblical support for this. In fact, the whole lesson quotes sparsely from the Bible. The basis for this new rest is this verse.We fail to comprehend and interpret the Sabbath day in light of the rest God gives us in Christ
This rest is interpreted as being a new Sabbath.Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
There are many rests, though. I can rest in my chair - a physical rest. I can rest in Jesus as the world around me is in chaos - a present spiritual rest. I can rest on one day of the week, the Sabbath - a present observance. I can rest eternally - a future spiritual rest. Not every rest is the Sabbath.
In this verse, Jesus is talking about both the present spiritual rest and the future eternal spiritual rest. He is not talking about a new Sabbath.
Leg 3 - A New Sabbath Was to be Expected
The liberals need a way to say that a new Sabbath is not an unusual idea. In fact, they imply, it should have been expected.
Their basis for this is the idea that the original rest of God is duplicated by Jesus and thus creates a new Sabbath. This hinges on the idea that God finished creating and Jesus said, "It is finished." From this idea they derive four false statements.
- God rested after creation because he had finished something very good - the Bible does not say why God rested. It only says "By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done." (Genesis 2:2)
- God always rests after he has finished something very good - the Bible does not support this idea or that there ever was or would be another rest
- Jesus' work was also very good - the Bible does not rate the quality of Jesus work. Was it good like a creation day or very good like the end of creation? Who can know?
- Therefore, Jesus' work is another instance of very good work that is finished - there is no Biblical basis for this idea and there is no logical basis for this conclusion. All they have in common is the word "finished"
Leg 4 - Salvation
Another thing the liberals need is to remove "keeping" the Sabbath. They do that by trying to show the Sabbath is like salvation. Then they claim the Sabbath is something we receive, like salvation, and therefore there is nothing we need to do for the Sabbath. In selling this idea they make two false statements.
- Salvation is a gift that we are to celebrate - the Bible does not talk about a requirement to celebrate our salvation, nor does it refer to celebrating our salvation.
- Therefore we are to celebrate the Sabbath as a gift instead of keeping it - the Bible does not support this. Logic does not support this either. The only claimed commonality between the Sabbath and salvation is that they are both gifts, a claim that is not supported in the Bible.
Leg 5 - Trying Hard Not to Work
Yes, I know of no chairs that have 5 legs.
TViR 9, Lesson 3 tries to establish the idea that it requires work to keep the Sabbath and that people try hard not to work on the Sabbath. Anyone who knows the Sabbath knows that it is not possible to work to keep the Sabbath. In presenting this idea, they make the following false statement.
Later in that lesson we see that the author thinks stress is a kind of work, which it isn't. The Sabbath is stressful ... to those who hate it. Stress is caused by inner conflicts such as being required to do something you don't want to do. Amos talks about this kind of stress and the Sabbath.On the Sabbath we rest from our work and from trying hard not to work - the Bible does not support any idea like "trying hard not to work" on the Sabbath.
In the teachers guide for that lesson, we see what they mean by working too hard."When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?" (Amos 8:5)
The author says that it is better to work on the Sabbath than to stress over not working. Therefore, not only is stress a kind of work, but it is a more important kind of work than cleaning your house.One [example] is not cleaning up the messy house because it's the Sabbath and God says to rest. The problem with this is that the clutter and messiness of the house brings stress, which is anti-rest in and of itself.
The author has no understanding of Preparation Day. The Bible mentions Preparation Day as the day before the Sabbath. It is the day when we are to do the work we need to do so that we can rest on the Sabbath.
Leg 6 - Why Do We Keep the Sabbath?
A theme repeats in the TViR lesson. This is one example of it.
The implication is that people who are keeping the Sabbath are doing so to earn something from God. I know of no Sabbath-keeper who believes that. It appears to be a strawman liberals can beat up.[The Sabbath] is not something we keep as a mandate in order to be right with God, thinking there's something more to do.
Instead we keep the Sabbath because he has asked us to. We do this because we are submitted to the all-wise king, who knows us better than we know ourselves.