Understanding the Sabbath (Part 3)

To follow the analysis thus far we suggest that the reader refer to “Understanding the Sabbath” Parts 1 and 2 in the analysis of John MacArthur’s Sermon, “Understanding the Sabbath”. Part 3 continues the analysis of Dr. MacArthur’s scripturally vacuous quarrel with the Bible where he imprudently overplays his hand of empty tricks.

We continue to quote from MacArthur’s sermon at 28:54-29:37. At Jesus’ first coming, he opines, “everything that is part of the system of Judaism is coming to its end.” [Author’s emphases throughout.] ’Again MacArthur employs the ipse dixit gambit; because I say so it is so! He presents no scriptural proof for his assumed authority to make this declaration.

MacArthur’s declaration is yet another patently baseless assertion. The Sabbath is not part of the “system of Judaism” and it did not come to an end with Christ’s arrival. God established the Sabbath for man, not Jews, centuries before Judaism came into existence. Thus, the Sabbath, being NOT THE INVENTION OF JUDAISM, did not come to an end as part of the "system of Judaism!" [Refer to our article: "The Sabbath is not Mosaic or Jewish!"]

MacArthur functions in precisely the same fashion as, inter alia, the Babylonian Jewish Rabbis and the Roman Catholic Priesthood who devise their own human traditions on the presumption that they have the authority to declare the Eternal’s holy instructions null and void [Mat 15:3; Mark 7:9-13] and then abuse the scriptures as a smokescreen to conceal their duplicities, deceits, and dishonesties by logical errors, human preferences, paganized customs, and unbiblical doctrines. His Protestant/Reformed spiritual ancestors, of course, set the example and methodologies for him a half a millennium ago by adding to scripture and taking away from it! [In view of Revelation 22:18 some stiffened spines should suddenly shudder in serious self-reflection – even if already devoid of any muscle and sinew in ornately decorated tombs.]

MacArthur confuses Judaism with Yehovah’s old covenant which He made with all of Israel, not Jews alone!

Judaism is not the old covenant instituted by the Eternal in ancient Israel through Moses. Judaism as a ritualistic religion practiced from the time of the second temple era. It came into being centuries after the Eternal inscribed His laws on two stone tablets on Mt Sinai and delivered the statutes and judgments to Moses.

Whilst the sacrificial system with its ceremonies were set aside by Christ’s death the entire moral law, the Ten Commandments [not nine!] as an integrated whole, were in no way abrogated. The Sabbath is part of the Ten Commandments – the divine moral code of conduct for ALL MANKIND, not for Jews only. This MORAL LAW has never been abrogated, or destroyed, or annulled, or cancelled, or terminated, or dissolved, or set aside by Christ at any time – neither by Paul, NOR the Apostles. To so aver and teach is a false gospel narrative. It’s declaring unholy what the Eternal Creator declared holy!

What unimaginably frightful and astonishing self-assuming religious authority a man must presume he and his graveyard cronies possess to defy the living Christ who said, “Think not that I am come to destroy [abrogate, obliterate] the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” [Mat 5:17].

MacArthur, in accord with Churchianity as a whole, pits himself squarely in opposition to Christ in a role not unlike that of the historic great adversary in Eden, or the prophetic man of sin! Of course, having Calvin as his staff and stay provides enough bravado to confront the Great White Throne confidently!

At 29:49 we encounter the following expository inanity from MacArthur regarding Christ’s contention with the Pharisees on the Sabbath as recorded at Luke 14.

“And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?' But they kept silent. He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away. And He said to them, 'Which of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?'

“They thought healing someone was a violation of the Sabbath... Jesus appears to have chosen the Sabbath day for His healing purposely because it struck a blow at this symbol... Jesus is announcing the end of the Sabbath.”

Nowhere in the account is there an announcement from Christ to that effect. MacArthur is inventing text out of his own imagination, and adding to scripture!

Such people face perilous prospects in the face of Jeremiah 23:25-27 and Revelation 22:18. Note:

Jer 23:25 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. 26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; 27 Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name [Yehovah] for Baal [Lord]!

In other words, they replace the name of the Eternal with the commonly accepted Churchian term “LORD”, the translation of "BAAL!"

Christ was not announcing the termination of the Sabbath. He was correcting the Jewish religious authorities about the traditions they added to the Sabbath law, based upon their sectarian prejudices – just like MacArthur is adding to and deleting from scripture according to his denominational doctrinal heritage.

Notice Christ’s severe warning and reprimand to the learned religionists who feel they have the intelligence, learning, right legacy, religious pedigree, or simply the raw temerity to add to or delete from scripture: “For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book” [Rev 22:18].

At 42:38-42:50 MacArthur reasons: “All ten [sic!] Commandments are repeated in the New Testament … except the fourth command.” [If all ten are repeated then the fourth is not excepted; or are there eleven commands? We’ll forgive MacArthur his Freudian slip, we’re all human.] “It [the Sabbath] is never repeated in the New Testament, not one single time.”

MacArthur is so blinded by his Calvinistic denominational dogma that he seemingly has totally forgotten about Col 2 and 1 Cor 5 where we have definite evidence and proof that believers out of heathendom kept the Sabbath day and the annual Sabbaths, or sacred annual festivals, the mo'edim.

Col 2:16 reads: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat [in what you eat], or in [what you] drink [some drank wine which is permissible in scripture], or in respect of an holyday [the annual holy days of Lev.23], or of the new moon [singular, referring to the feast of trumpets, the only Sabbath that falls on the new moon], or of the Sabbath [the weekly Sabbath].”

Can anything be clearer? The New Testament church kept the Sabbath and the annual holy days. And, says Paul, no man has the right to judge them about it. Yet, there are plenty of prancing, pompous preachers of international repute and televangelistic fame who roundly condemn Sabbath and Feast [Lev. 23] observers as if they, by doing so, place themselves under “bondage”; going back to the "shadows and darkness" when, ironically the bible calls the law – the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath – a lamp and a light! [Prov. 6:23.] Isaiah 8:20 equates the law with light. It is plain deception and contra scripture to equate the law with a “return to the shadows and darkness.”

If no man were to judge the Colossian church – a gentile-based congregation – regarding the Sabbath, then surely what Paul indicates by that statement is that the Colossian congregation actually kept the Sabbath, and no man had the right to judge them – not even MacArthur, Luther or Calvin!

MacArthur further refers to “The Mosaic Sabbath”. There’s no such thing in Scripture! MacArthur again invents!

Moses did not make, invent, or institute the Sabbath day. The Sabbath was created at creation week for man [Adam and his offspring] and the Creator incorporated the Sabbath as one of His ten great moral laws.

At 45:05 – 45:30 MacArthur refers to Romans 14:5, "'One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person is fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord.' There were Jews who had come to faith in Christ and had a hard time letting go of the Sabbath. It was pretty much ingrained in them. They thought they were still obeying the Lord by maintaining old covenant Sabbath law. They observed it for the Lord.”

MacArthur clearly has no understanding of the issue at stake. [Of course, that’s what happens when you disobey the laws of the Almighty – your understanding is darkened (Eph 4:18 and Romans 1:21).]

Romans 14 has absolutely nothing to do with Sabbath observance! The issue at stake is fasting on specific days of the week as observed by the Scribes and Pharisees. Among the pagans there were also set fasting days during the week. The Sabbath is not the issue at stake. Eating or not eating on a specific day in the week is the matter under consideration. Within two verses [2 and 3] eating is mentioned 6 times! Can we have any doubt about the topic at hand?

If the prevaricators and antinomianists wish to apply verses 5 and 6 to the Sabbath we point out that not once is the Sabbath mentioned in the chapter! The reference is to “one day” and “every day” and “the day” and links it directly to eating or not eating on various days of the week. The Sabbath is not the topic of discussion!

MacArthur continues [at 47:10- 50:23] by referencing Galatians 4:9: “... how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things... “

MacArthur, in doctrinal harmony with his antinomian Protestant, Reformed and Pentecostal co-conspirators, ignores the contextual background within which this verse occurs. Paul writes to PREDOMINANTLY GENTILE CONVERTS, NOT JEWS! Therefore, as the law of God was never part of the Gentiles’ religious background, they, the GALATION Gentiles’, could never have “turn[ed] back” to it!

Further, the laws of God were never viewed as “weak and worthless”. In fact, this same Paul, writing to another Gentile-based church, the Romans, says, “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” [Rom 7:12].

The two epistles [Romans and Galatians] were written about two years apart. Did the Apostle Paul lose his mind during those two years to contradict himself like that? Or, accepting that the scriptures are “God breathed”, do we assume that the the Creator God is mindless and forgetful? Or, was the spirit that inspired Paul confused about the very law which was given directly from Yehovah at Sinai and reconfirmed hundreds of times in both the old and New Testament, and by Christ, and the Prophets, and the Apostles?

MacArthur pontificates further: “You have no obligation to go back to the calendar prescriptions of the festivals and the Sabbaths of the Mosaic economy.” Another “sleight of hand” – or, to be French about it, vraisemblance [a pretense of truth]. The Sabbath and festivals were NOT part of “THE MOSAIC ECONOMY”. These sacred days were part of the God-economy! MacArthur has, despite his more than a half century of learning, apparently never absorbed, or cared much about what the Eternal declared in Leviticus 23.

Lev 23:2 “Speak unto the children of Israel [not Jews], and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of Yehovah, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations [assemblies], even these are my [Yehovah’s] feasts. 3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation [assembly]; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of Yehovah in all your dwellings. 4 These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.” There is absolutely no reference to these yearly Sabbath or Feast days or the weekly Sabbath being Mosaic, or Judaic. MacArthur again invents misleading teaching!

Next MacArthur tackles [at 51:59-55:00] -- equally unsuccessful and expositionally defective to his cause – Acts 15. He avers that the Jerusalem Council decided that Gentile believers in the church are not to observe the Sabbath.

Not once is there such a statement in Acts 15! Quite the contrary.

The Church sought unity of faith within the body of Christ [Ephesians 4:4 and 13]. Why would the Apostles promote Sabbath observance for Jewish converts but expect the Gentile believers not to keep the Sabbath? They would be creating division in the body of Christ, not unity.

Notice the Apostolic instruction regarding believers and the Sabbath day in Acts 15:21. “For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.” In other words, specific detailed teachings from the law – Torah – could be received by the BELIEVERS EVERY SABBATH IN THE SYNAGOGUE, where Moses [the law] is being read.

It is clear from this statement by James “that there was no need for the Christian church to legislate about the observance of the Mosaic law other than in these few points, because there was public teaching on the subject everywhere in the Jewish synagogues.” [Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges.] Therefor, it was expected that the Gentile believers would avail themselves of the opportunity to hear the Old Testament read every Sabbath in the synagogue to gain knowledge, understanding and insight into the Law, the wisdom and the prophetic declarations of scripture. Keep in mind that every congregation may not have had access to a copy of the Old Testament, it being the ONLY SCRIPTURES EXTANT. [There was no New Testament yet.] Therefore to learn the truth contained within scripture Christians could attend the synagogue. That was the Apostles' advice.

Thus rather than instruct the Gentile believers NOT to keep the Sabbath, quite the contrary is intimated in Acts 15:21. it can quite logically be adduced that the Apostolic Jerusalem Council decreed that the Gentile believers attend the synagogue each Sabbath to be instructed directly from the law of the Eternal! Still, MacArthur, et al, insist that the Sabbath was never taught by the Apostles! Yet here we have a direct reference that Sabbath attendance for the New Testament ecclesia as instructed by the Council.

Christ, the Apostles and the Scriptures disagree with Dr. MacArthur and his historic and contemporary fellow anti-Sabbatarian collaborators. Seemingly Christ could not smell the TULIPS FROM GENEVA, cultivated by Calvin and Co., to provide an appeasing reformed Sabbath refutational treatise. Fifteen hundred years after Christ delivered His teachings of truth and after His reconciliatory death and presenting the eternal hope mercifully granted to all who are called to be redeemed from all iniquity [Tit. 2:14]. The forces of Christ-contrariness are still rife in the Church.

Somewhere along our spiritual journey we all have to reconsider our viewpoint to reach and remain in concord with the Christ of the Bible instead of the Jesus of Churchianity. Thank you, Dr. MacArthur, for assisting me in reaffirming the truth, for strengthening my faith and hope in my eternal Redeemer and His divine, holy law!

Grace to you and your community, Dr. MacArthur!