Hi Rob. I have one question for you. Will you be granted entrance into heaven if you should decide to stop keeping the Sabbath?

You are lost, my friend, and you know it. The purpose of Christ’s death is for us to be holy, perfect and permanently separated from sin and sinning ansd not for the remission of sin and lostness? Really?

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)

The purpose of the shedding of his blood was for the remission (forgiveness) of sin and not for a kind of holiness you accomplish by keeping the Law. Rubbish! If that were true, the publican in Luke 18 would never have prayed, “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke 18:13). In fact, it was the Pharisee who never got saved who boasted that he kept all of God’s laws. Did the publican sacrifice Jesus again on the cross when he asked to be forgiven his sins? Perish the thought!

I SUPPOSE, IN YOUR NEXT COMMENT YOU WILL BE TELLING US NOT ONLY THAT YOU ARE PERFECT, BUT THAT YOU ARE ALSO THE CHRIST.

Artaxerxes Miguel Garcia

So your prophetess is Ellen G. White as well?

You said “There ARE perfect saints who do not transgress the Commandments because they find no reason to do so. There ARE perfect, Commandment-keeping saints who do not need Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross any more because they no longer commit sin.”

WOW, so according to you are on the level of Jesus Christ – sinless. Pheewwww, I would seriously repent if I was you.

You wrote:

In the context of James 2:8-12 your argument says that there is no difference in keeping the Sabbath day and breaking the rest of the Commandments. That’s not my problem. That’s yours. I keep the Sabbath Commandment and the rest of the Commandments.

You are a liar; you have never kept all the commandments. No one has. Your lies make you a sinner and in need of salvation. REPENT and believe the Gospel which says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Yet, you say you do not come short because you keep all the commandments. You are the Pharisee, not us.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10).

SIN = NOT KEEPING GOD’S LAWS. CAPICHE?

Tell me, is Sabbath-keeping necessary for one’s salvation?

How can you base your keeping of the Sabbath on Jewish oral traditions which are NOT God’s Commandments? You think those 39 points that you have enumerated are God’s Laws? They are NOT. They are YOUR rules, NOT God’s rules. They are pharisaic rules and you yet you endorse them as though they God’s rules, but those pharisaic restrictions don’t necessarily mean they are God’s rules. When God says stop working on the Sabbath day, that prohibition includes only those He explicitly stated such as no cooking (Ex. 16.22,23), no igniting of fire in relation to building of the sanctuary (Ex. 35.1-3), no traveling in relation to personal interests (Isa. 58.13,14), no buying and selling (Nehemiah chs. 10-12), no work inside the house on the Sabbath day. And this keeping of the Sabbath is what I am my family have been enjoying since I was born into the world. The sabbath day is holy because God ordained it so. He never made it unholy or desecrated it or changed its blessedness in any way because there was NO REASON to. Therefore it will stand as the same holy Sabbath day from Eden lost to Eden restored (Isa. 66.22-23).

Your enumerated points are NOT what God had mandated or enumerated. I do not follow some of it, but some are explicitly stated such as the ones I have cited. Certainly your way of Sabbath-keeping is copied from the Orthodox Jews like the washing of cup in Matthew 12 and Mark 7, both of which are NOT valid in Christ’s eyes because they are HUMAN TRADITIONS, but NOT God’s Commandments. You ought to have distinguished which are God’s Commandments from pharisaic additions to it. But you don’t. In one breath you cite those pharisaic points are wrong. Obviously some of them are wrong because not all of them are scriptural or divine but pharisaic such as the washing of cup and of hands, and the “corban” (Mk. 7.10-19). God had given no such stringent rules as what the pharisees and Orthodox Jews had done. And we do not need to keep all those 39 points, either. Some of which are “senseless restrictions” and cannot be valid at all because they are NOT explicitly mentioned, enumerated, and prohibited by God. Therefore they are not God’s mitzvahs, but plain human stupidity invented by rabbinic Jews.

You cited James 2:8-12. Now i have been keeping the Sabbath day perfectly and keep all the rest. What can you do? Can you truthfully accuse me of one single sin? You cannot because i have kept all the Law not only in spirit but to the letter of it, and i am right and am sure I am walking in God’s ways because that is what God had commanded and that is what i did. You want to make it appear that my Sabbath-keeping is not valid because it’s ok to keep the Sabbath and break the rest. But no. I keep the Sabbath perfectly and keep all the rest perfectly. So there is no reason to condemn me for not keeping all the Commandments because i have kept and have been keeping ALL of them. You may rant and complain at this, but there’s nothing you can do. I am a law-abiding believer in Christ. You aren’t. I keep perfectly the Sabbath Commandment and the rest of the Commandments. You do not, you cannot, and you would not. So that’s not my problem but yours.

In Revelation 14:12 the saints keep the Commandments of God and the faith “OF Jesus.” I do that as a saint and am still doing it, and will be doing it, and persist in doing it steadily and trustworthily as long as I breathe. I’d rather die than break a single precept of God’s Commandment. When I die and when I rise from the dead, my attitude of Sabbath-keeping and Commandment-keeping remains the same and will never change. There is not one law-breaking principle, behaviour, or thought in my heart, and I’m happy to make sure that i keep God’s Commandments as what saints ought to do. Now what’s your problem?

Another area of Sabbath-keeping is travel. Are you saying that all traveling is forbidden during the Sabbath? If that’s what you mean, you are WRONG. Jesus was travelling during the Sabbath (Mark ch.2; Matt. 12), and yet He stated that it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day (Matt. 12.12). Christ and His disciples were on outdoors on many instances during the Sabbath days. They were not inside the synagogues, for there is no such commandment that every Sabbath day every believer should always be inside the synagogue. Sabbath is a temple of time, not a place. It is the day that is holy, not the place. What was mandated is the regular “holy convocation” during the Sabbath day (Lev. 23.3), or a worship gathering. This is the reason why the New Testament believers always gather on the Sabbath day (NOT Sunday) to hear God’s words as what we can read in Acts 15.21; chs. 13-18. And you cannot say that their travelling on foot on the Sabbath day to gather for worship is sin because the purpose is worship. You cannot use the rabbinic/pharisaic/orthodox version of Sabbath-keeping or the 1-km distance travel as valid criterion for that matter because God had not prescribed such rule. That’s pharisaic, not Divine, and therefore, NOT valid. You ought to have distinguished what is Divine from human nonsense. This you have failed to do. You lump up together the obsolete and invalid pharisaic rules as divine, even if they are NOT, and you insist that i break the sabbath because i break the rules of these anti-Messiah pharisees specifically on travelling and on the 39 points YOU have defined. Should i adhere to their manner of Sabbath-keeping? Decidedly no. And why should i obey a human rule when God had not prescribed such rule in the first place? Should i need a rabbi’s opinion to teach me to be a good Sabbath-keeper? No. What God had stated plainly in the Scriptures are enough. No rabbis needed. No human traditions are necessary. And what were not prohibited in the Scriptures are NOT prohibited. What were plainly stated are to be understood in its immediate context.

When Jesus and His disciples traveled during the Sabbath day, they were accused of profaning the Sabbath because they grabbed ears of corn in their hands, which according the rabbinic Judaism is an act of threshing or harvesting. But which rule does it came from, from God’s or from the pharisees? When Jesus defended Himself of the charge of Sabbath -breaking, did He admit that He broke the Sabbath? No. He said “It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day” (Matthew 12.12). There was no reason for Christ to break any of His Father’s Commandments because there is no reason for Him to commit sin and promote lawlessness. What He condemned is WRONG Sabbath-keeping, wrong law-keeping which during His day was legalism, – a keeping and performing of God’s Commandments while the heart and attitude is lawbreaking, a sort of hypocrisy and ritual religion without wholehearted allegiance to YHWH. But Christ Himself had no intention to alter of break the Law. On the contrary, He enforces it to the letter and the spirit of it (Matthew 5.17-19; 19.17). He did not said, “ONLY BELIEVE.” He said, Believe and “do” (Lk. 10.28.37; Matt. 7.21-27; Lk. 12.47). He does not break nor profane the Sabbath Commandment or any of the Commandments. Our Lord and Example plainly said “I have kept My Father’s Commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:10). Which of these words indicate that Jesus has an attitude, action, or disposition to be a lawbreaker? IN YOUR DREAMS. He was a law-abiding believer, and we ought to be like Christ: law-abiding; and be as perfect as God is in this very side of life (Matthew 5.48; Deut. 18.13; Eph. 5.1; Phil. 2.12-15; 1Jn. 4.17), and overcome as Christ overcame (Rev. 3.21; 21.7; Heb. 12.1-4; 1Pet. 2.21-24; 4.1,2; 1Jn. 2.3-6). There is no reason to say that you cannot be as perfect as God is or overcome as Christ overcame because Scriptures do not provide such silly excuse or reason for incompetence. On the contrary, that book is an encouragement that we can and ought to be perfect even in this sinful lifetime, despite environment, despite the sinful human heredity, just as Christ was in the same “sinful flesh” like ours. We ought to dominate sin (Gen. 4.7). The Bible does not say “NO, YOU CANNOT KEEP GOD’S COMMANDMENTS IN THIS LIFE, ONLY JESUS CAN DO THAT FOR YOU.” Heck, no. Since the days of the patriarchs, God says that there have been “thousands of them that love Me and KEEP My Commandments” (Ex. 20.6; Deut. 5.10; cf. Jn. 14.15; 15.10; 14.21; Dan. 7.9; 1Jn. 5.2,3; cf. 1Ki. 19.18). The remnant shall do no iniquity (Zeph. 3.13; Rev. 14.12; Rev. 12.17; 19.10; 22.14-King James Version; See Isa. 51.7).

In the context of James 2:8-12 your argument says that there is no difference in keeping the Sabbath day and breaking the rest of the Commandments. That’s not my problem. That’s yours. I keep the Sabbath Commandment and the rest of the Commandments. So where’s the difference? How about you? You keep all the rest of the nine and yet break God’s longest Commandment. How dare you desecrate that which God had commanded to be sanctified and provided with such well-explained rationale: “For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is and rested the Sabbath day. For this reason YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.” (Ex. 20.11). If you keep the rest of the Commandments and yet break the Sabbath, there is no difference, either. So that logic applies to you, lawbreakers, not to us. We have no issue for lawbreaking because we do not break them, all of them (unless of course individually there are Seventh-day Adventists who do not keep God’s Commandments and fall short of the perfection required from them from God). But not all are wicked, not all are unjust, not all have sinned or rebellious. There ARE perfect saints who do not transgress the Commandments because they find no reason to do so. There ARE perfect, Commandment-keeping saints who do not need Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross any more because they no longer commit sin. They became righteous and remain righteous still, even if they are not conscious of it. The purpose of Christ’s death is for us to be holy, perfect, and permanently separated from sin and sinning. In short, He came down to the point of dying at the cross, “that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not in the flesh but in the spirit” (Rom. 8.1-4). And when we reach that point, why need to sacrifice Christ again and again and ask for forgiveness when there is no more reason to do so?