John 4:21-24 EMTV
(21) Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
(23) But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
(24) God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
In modern Christianity, there has been an eternal biblical divide that seeks to establish more a day of worship than worship The Father. Are we being misguided into a doctrine of day of worship?
In John 4:21-24, Jesus gave the Samaritan woman a great bible study in correcting her views on the correct place of worship and what worshipping entails. If we understand the scope of the dialogue, worshipping the Father does not require any particular day, neither Saturday nor Sunday, as Jesus made it clear to the Samaritan woman. We must worship The Father in spirit, Jesus says. That does not mean that we have to gather at a particular place on a set day to worship The Father in spirit. Worshipping The Father would have been reduced to one day when worship is an anytime act of intimacy with The Father.
Therefore, on the basis of worship, the push to discard the Sabbath day in favor of Sunday as the Christian day of worship has nothing to do with neither Judaism nor Christianity. Because, from the point of view of Jesus, worshipping The Father does not involve one set day of the week.
Let us read and appreciate the seventh day institution from the verses that established the Sabbath (rest).
The Seventh day is a commemoration of the end of the creative works of God (verses 1-2). (I do not know why in verse 2 the translator uses "completed" and "ceased from" as if the 2 words imply two different actions. He does not follow the other translations that read "rested'. But he joins the other translators in Exodus 20:11.
The Seventh day marks the day of rest of God (verse 2). Some are of the opinion that God cannot get tired but God had man in mind as the Creator, the Owner of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5; Isaiah 58:13) revealed that the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27).
The Seventh day is blessed and set apart (verse 3).
Honestly, what in Genesis 2:1-3 that makes the seventh day a law, a burden that could have been abolished at the cross?
As a day made for man (Mark 2:27), the seventh day
calls for man not to do any work on it (Exodus 20:11)
calls for man to set the day apart, to recognize that the day belongs to Jehovah God (Isaiah 58:13) who gives him 6 out of the 7 days.
calls for man to partake the blessings imparted on the day.
What can make a day of no work to be a burden, a law to get rid of? Would the one who calls for abolishing the seventh day legacy looks for the best interest of man?
The attack on the seventh day is nothing new. By the time Jehovah became flesh, the day was totally defaced but Jesus restored it by calling out its adulteration.
Not at all. Jehovah God called for a holy convocation for the day at the Exodus.
Yes, God called for a holy gathering on Saturday but God did not call the gathering for worship in the Temple where one was made to believe it was for worship. If the Temple was for worship ( house of prayer)and the Sabbath was for worship, Jesus puts an end to local worship during His conversation with the Samaritan woman.
John 4:19-24 YLT
(19) The woman saith to him, `Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet;
(20) our fathers in this mountain did worship, and ye--ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where it behoveth to worship.'
(21) Jesus saith to her, `Woman, believe me, that there doth come an hour, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father;
(22) ye worship what ye have not known; we worship what we have known, because the salvation is of the Jews;
(23) but, there cometh an hour, and it now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father also doth seek such to worship him;
(24) God is a Spirit, and those worshiping Him, in spirit and truth it doth behove to worship.'
Jesus did not speak of a particular day or place to worship. Worship had been upgraded, independent of a particular day or physical location. There is no longer a requirement to attend any particular church to worship anywhere in the planet from the perspective of Jesus, if the purpose of the gathering is for worship. Do you get that point? Thus, there cannot be any pulpit where a preacher could stand on a Sunday to smear or calumniate the Sabbath day with empty (verse 23) doctrinal rants attempting to validate Sunday worship because there is no nemesis Saturday worship.
Casually, that "controversy" about which day is the worship day can be settled by Judaism. And, technically, Saturday has nothing to do with worshiping, a fact that should have been self-evident.
If the question involves the day of the week, then Judaism from which Christianity springs forth settles the matter, it is Saturday. From the creation of the world to the death of the last Jews who spread out Judaism from the perspective of Jesus Christ, no one from the Jewish heritage worships Jehovah God on Sunday. It has always been on their Saturday day, if, for argument sake, we may treat the Sabbath as a day of worship. Thus, it is kind of mindboggling that any post Apostolic evangelist, preacher, pastor, or priest teaches in any way that Sunday is the day of worship. Which Jew who is in the camp that still rejects Jesus Christ as the Messiah could make the case by any reasoning that Sunday is the worship day, supplanting Saturday? In religion anything can be taught but it is inconceivable that a Jew would give much credence to Christianity condescending the Sabbath day of Jehovah God, of Moses, of Jesus, of the Apostles, in favor of Sunday. If the seventh day Saturday Sabbath had been made obsolete by Jesus Christ who, paradoxically, while He was still alive, says that He is the owner of the Sabbath, why is it that the foundation of Sunday seeks to duplicate and further what the Jewish heritage, Jesus Christ and His Apostles included, had been doing since eternity on the Sabbath day? Why would the Sabbath day be abolished to give way to Sunday worship? Colossians 2:16 does not abolish the Saturday day even if the Sabbath day was a day of worship. Read and meditate the verses on the institution of the Sabbath in the book of Genesis and ask yourself if there can ever be any argument against it.
Where in the Bible do we read that Jehovah God no longer chooses Saturday? Where is the command from Jesus or His Apostles to choose Sunday instead of Saturday? Nowhere.
The other aspect of the "controversy" about the correct day of worship that might not have been addressed is whether God instituted or envisioned the seventh day Sabbath as a day of worship. So, let us consider what is written about the first Sabbath day in Genesis 2:1-3.
To rest and to be obedient in the spirit of Matthew 5:17-19 because Jesus says that He only fulfilled what was fulfillable and that not one jot had been discarded in the Law or the Prophets.
When Jesus uttered these words in Matthew 5:17-19, the New Testament was not even conceived yet. So, these words concern what we wrongly call the Old Testament (because the title is misleading). To reiterate, Jesus says that every single command in the Old Testament is still valid, unless it had been fulfilled. According to Jesus, the ones who still do and teach the commandments of the Old Testament will be called great in the kingdom of heavens (verse 19). That is not legalism, teaching the everlasting codes of living of the Old Testament.
You read "to destroy" in verse 17 but the Greek verb means "to loose". Jesus is saying that His mission was not to loose, to liberate us from, to free us from the Torah or the Prophets. In other words, the Torah (Law) or the Prophets are still in full force demanding compliance from believers. What did Jesus fulfill? Whatever that had to do with killing an innocent lamb for remission of sin in the ceremonial sacrificial services in the Temple and whatever was a shadow as listed in Colossians 2:16-17. Read the verses intelligently because they have been twisted beyond their true scope.
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The verse speaks of judging others about eating and we expand that to meat that the Torah forbids to eat even though Jesus says that He did not come get rid of the forbiddances of the Torah or the Prophets.
I do not know of the drinking mentioned in the verse, but I do know that some denominations forbid alcohol consumption when the Bible does not explicitly forbid that behavior while the same Bible states that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 5:11; 6:10). Thus, drunkenness is hardly a shadow, if it disqualifies form the divine society to come.
The verse also mentions judging about feasts, new moon, Sabbaths but it does not abolishes the Sabbath day that was not a shadow of things to come but a signature, a memorial, a day set apart, the only day that God claims for Himself (
In the case of drinking, it shows that we do not have the liberty to drink and get drunk as we please even though the verse discourages judging others about drinking. By the same token, we have to understand that the mention of Sabbaths or Sabbath days in the verse does not imply that the Holy Day of Jehovah is included with the other Sabbaths listed in Leviticus 23. The feasts and Sabbaths that were shadows are listed in Leviticus 23.
After reading Isaiah 58:13-14 and other verses (Matthew 5:17-19) calling for the setting apart the Sabbath day and teaching it to others, how can we think that the Sabbath day is one of the shadows of coming things and, therefore, no longer divinely binding?
Since there are blessings reserved to those who still teach the old eternal ways of the Law and the Prophets, I am taking the opportunity to point to you the biblical way to keep the Sabbath.
Jesus already says that it is fine to do good on the seventh day sabbath day (Matthew 12:10-12).
There is no consensus on when to start the Sabbath, Or, if there is, the time chosen to start the Sabbath is not biblical.There are some believers who start the Sabbath at sunset. However, the biblical divine day does not start at sunset, according to the book of Genesis. Hence, what is a biblical day or when does the divine day start?
