Expert: Brenda Martin - 1/18/2012

Question
QUESTION: Read that you are the opinion that Christ followers are not obligated to keep the 4th Commandment because (IF I understand what you said) we are not of the Jewish nation. I am of the opinion from the teaching I have received that we are "grafted" into the nation of Israel. That we must be careful in our actions/thoughts/words to assure ourselves that we like 'them' won't be 'cut off' from the vine.

Please, what is your response to this thought?? Thanks,

George Taylor

ANSWER: Hi George, you asked--"CHRIST FOLLOWERS ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO KEEP THE 4TH COMMANDMENT?"

The fourth commandment stated: “Remembering the sabbath day to hold it sacred, you are to render service and you must do all your work six days. But the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You must not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter, your slave man nor your slave girl nor your domestic animal nor your alien resident who is inside your gates.” (Ex 20:8-10)

Consider these words of Paul to Jews who had become Christians in the province of Galatia: “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners from the nations, knowing as we do that a man is declared righteous, NOT due to works of law, but only through faith toward Christ Jesus, even we have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we may be declared righteous due to faith toward Christ, and NOT due to works of law, because due to works of law no flesh will be declared righteous.” (Galatians 2:15, 16)

Indeed, a righteous standing with God did not depend on perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law, for in the imperfect human state, that was impossible. Paul added: “All those who depend upon works of law are under a curse; for it is written: ‘Cursed is every one that does not continue in all the things written in the scroll of the Law in order to do them.’ . . . Christ by purchase RELEASED us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us.”—Galatians 3:10-13.

If Jesus’ Jewish followers were no longer under the curse of the Law, were any Christians obligated to observe all the commandments given to Israel? To the Colossians, Paul wrote: “[God] kindly forgave us all our trespasses and blotted out the handwritten document against us, which consisted of decrees and which was in opposition to us; and He has taken it out of the way by nailing it to [Christ’s] torture stake.” (Colossians 2:13, 14)

Doubtless, many early Christians needed to adjust their thinking and recognize that they had been “discharged from the Law.” (Romans 7:6) By exercising faith in Jesus’ sacrificial death, which brought an end to the Law and paved the way for the inauguration of the foretold “new covenant,” they had the prospect of gaining a righteous standing with Jehovah.—Jeremiah 31:31-34; Romans 10:4.

WE ARE "GRAFTED" INTO THE NATION OF ISRAEL.

In Romans chapter 11, the apostle Paul likens the 12 tribes of spiritual Israel to the branches in a tame olive tree.

When natural circumcised Jews were broken off from that spiritual tree because of unbelievingly rejecting Jesus Christ as the Principal Seed of the Greater Abraham, then non-Jews or Gentiles were engrafted in the places of those cut-off natural “branches.”—Rom. 11:11-32.

Both Jew & Gentile have been “discharged from the Law.” All those in Spiritual Israel are members of the “new covenant”

The law given through Moses, with its Ten Commandments, was a righteous set of laws from God. And even though we are not under that law today, the divine principles behind it are still of great value to us. By studying and applying them we will grow in appreciation for the great Lawgiver Jehovah God. But especially should we study and apply in our lives Christian laws and teachings. Love for Jehovah will move us to obey all that he now requires of us.—1 John 5:3.

All the best
Brenda


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you Ms Martin:
 So, since my creator is the same today and tomorrow as He was yesterday, and since I am redemmed from the law, I am also redemmed from the other 9 commandments?
 Thank you for the words of light shared with me so gently, but my opinion is that while I can NOT be perfect, I should try to emulate my saviors' actions, attitude, demeanor. I would expect G_D to tell us that He made a change and there is no longer a requirement to keep the sabbath HOLY.
 Like I told my pastor, if we want to meet on the day of the Sun, I am sure that G_D would not be upset, but He wants us to keep His commandments. All 10 of them. If we find it unavoidable to do 'work' on the Sabbath, then do as Jesus' disciples did, and as David (King David) did with the loaves of bread. But do not change to the heathens sun day and try to tell people that G_D said to do so, when there is no substantiation of that positon. At least, I have never found nor have been shown where G_D said, that as of now, you may observe Sun Day as the Sabbath. Please, show me where He said that.  Thank you....

Pax Tecum
george Taylor
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Answer
"GOD WANTS US TO KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. ALL 10 OF THEM"

I would encourage you to check your own bible for yourself & read what God says on the subject--

1. The Law was not given to all humankind. Jehovah made a covenant, or an agreement, with the descendants of Jacob, who became the nation of Israel. Jehovah gave his laws to this nation only. The Bible makes this clear at Deuteronomy 5:1-3 and Psalm 147:19, 20.

2. What purpose did Jehovah give his law to Israel? : “To make transgressions manifest, UNTIL the seed (JESUS) should arrive to whom the promise had been made . . . Consequently the Law has become our tutor [or, teacher] leading to Christ.” (Galatians 3:19-24)

3. When Christ came and gave his perfect life as a sacrifice, what happened to the Law? It was removed. “We are no longer under a tutor,” Paul explained. (Galatians 3:25)

4. Does this mean that the law to keep a weekly Sabbath, which is the fourth of the Ten Commandments, was also removed? Yes, it does. What the Bible says at Galatians 4:8-11 and Colossians 2:16, 17 shows that Christians are not under God’s law given to the Israelites, with its requirement to keep the weekly Sabbath and to observe other special days in the year. That keeping a weekly Sabbath is not a Christian requirement can also be seen from Romans 14:5.

5. Christians are urged to “fulfill the law of the Christ,” rather than to keep the Ten Commandments. (Galatians 6:2) Jesus gave many commands and instructions, and by our obeying them we are keeping or fulfilling his law. In particular, Jesus stressed the importance of love. (Matthew 22:36-40; John 13:34, 35) Yes, to love others is a Christian law. It is the basis of the entire law of Moses, as the Bible says: “The entire Law stands fulfilled in one saying, namely: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’”—Galatians 5:13, 14; Romans 13:8-10.


GOD SAID, OBSERVE SUNDAY AS THE SABBATH?

Although Christ was resurrected on the first day of the week (now called Sunday), the Bible contains NO instruction to set aside that day of the week as sacred.

“The retention of the old Pagan name of ‘Dies Solis,’ or ‘Sunday,’ for the weekly Christian festival, is, in great measure, owing to the union of Pagan and [so-called] Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine [in an edict in 321 C.E.] to his subjects, Pagan and Christian alike, as the ‘venerable day of the Sun.’ . . . It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the Empire under one common institution.”—Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church (New York, 1871), A. P. Stanley, p. 291.

All the best
Brenda