Molehills Part One, Sabbath Keeping

 

“Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things,” Romans 14:1.

 

Romans chapter 14 begins a series of examples of issues that Paul would consider peripheral, or perhaps even nonissues in terms of fellowship and faith. In our church there are many divisions. Sometimes those divisions are necessary and clear; they delineate between orthodox faith and aberrant or heretical teaching. Such issues address the gospel, the person of Christ, the nature of the Holy Spirit, God the Father, salvation by faith through grace alone, etc.

These are cardinal doctrines that cannot be peripheral; they are central to our faith and must be understood, embraced, and believed by anyone who calls himself a Christian. If you reject the central tenets of the church, you are not a Christian. If you do not believe the gospel, that Christ is the only way to God, and that salvation is only by faith in Christ alone, divorced of works, you are not a Christian. God Himself expressed this in the Bible, and we, His children, can do nothing more than reinforce the truth He made manifest to us.

 

But others have made mountains out of molehills, as the old saying goes. Being divisive, and not motivated by the spirit of love, everything we personally find disagreeable we make an issue. We need only look to the cult of the Seventh Day Adventists to find an example that has infiltrated Christian thinking. Ellen White, their prophetess, condemned Sunday worship in the clearest language in her writings. Of Sunday observance, she states,

 

“The sign, or seal, of God is revealed in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, the Lord’s memorial of creation…The mark of the beast is the opposite—the observance of the first day of the week. This mark distinguishes those who acknowledge the supremacy of the papal authority from those who acknowledge the authority of God,” Testimonies for the church, pg. 117.

 

That Ellen White, the reigning authority in SDA, fully believes in Saturday worship, and Sabbath observance in a very Old Testament light, is clear. Elsewhere, she writes,

 

“Parents, above every thing, take care of your children upon the Sabbath. Do not suffer them to violate God’s holy day by playing in the house or out of doors. You may just as well break the Sabbath yourselves as let your children do it, and when you suffer your children to wander about, and suffer them to play upon the Sabbath, God looks upon you as Sabbath-breakers,” Review & Herald, 09/19/1854.

 

Clearly Ellen White, and anyone beholden to this doctrine, does not understand Paul’s meaning when he wrote, “One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe  the day, to the Lord he does not observe it,” Romans 14:5, 6.

 

Much could be said about the unbiblical use of the mark of the beast meaning Sunday worship, or how papal Rome is in fact the beast of Revelation. More could be added regarding the works-salvation intonation of keeping the Sabbath—a purely Jewish Law from the Decalogue, never given to Gentiles—so God’s wrath is not poured out on us. Yet Paul refers to this matter as disputes over doubtful things. The NASB renders the latter portion of Romans 14:1 as, “but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.”

 

The Christian is allowed to have an opinion about when he (or she) determines to worship. We are commanded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves, Hebrews 10:25. But we are not expressly commanded WHEN to worship. The Jews were once commanded, and immature Christians may wrest Old Testament passages to force into the church, but Israel is not the church, and Christians need not keep the Sabbath. The New Testament is replete with verses stating in clear terms that the Law was not given to the Gentiles, and we are not under Law, but under grace. Christ fulfilled the Law for us.

 

We do violence to young believers, and gratify unbelievers, by making mountains where there should be only a plain. On flat ground we meet, fellow sinners saved by the God that deigned to die on our behalf, but not to disputes over doubtful things. Sabbath keeping is one such doubtful thing. We are permitted to worship on the Sabbath, if conscience allows, but we cannot attempt to enforce our opinion upon other saints. By doing so we are no longer walking in love, but putting up stumbling blocks for young believers to fall over, and we will share the blame in that.

 

Paul writes, “I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean,” Romans 14:14. Again, the matter comes down to what a believer personally is convicted by. We are led by the Spirit, as we mature, to do what we believe honors God in such matters, WITHOUT making it a doctrinal issue that involves forcing others to comply. It is clearly not a doctrinal issue (days of worship, that is), but one of personal choice. Going beyond that violates Scriptural warrant, which Ellen White was guilty of, as are any that cling to such beliefs instead of the Bible’s revealed truth. There is much evidence in the New Testament that Christians worshiped on Sunday, or the first day of the week, because it was when Christ rose, Luke 24:1, Acts 20:7, etc. But is this mandatory? No. We are commanded to fellowship, as Hebrews attests, but conscience may dictate what day is important to us. Paul wrote that some esteem every day alike. Every day is a day of worship to such!

 

Paul says, “But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,” Romans 14:10. The true Judge, Jesus Christ, will determine the motive and validity of what we have done in the flesh. We are commanded by the Holy Spirit not to judge our brother in regard to anything that is a matter of conscience and personal conviction, and falls outside the camp of doctrinal fidelity. Since we find days of worship in this list, it is clearly a topic that is a matter of opinion, not coercion. My prayer is that anyone who is entrenched in Saturday worship, or any other unbiblical schism some within the church create, may reconsider and extricate himself, and let God the Holy Spirit lead you into truth, by His word, and not by human conjecture.

 

God willing, I will do future installments of this post, addressing contentious topics that undermine the church’s unity and faith.