adventis verses sunday worship

[mysterio100]

i need some information to give to an adventis friend about why catholics go to church on sundays. she says that the bible states that the sabbath which is saturday should be kept.

If we go back to the Sabbath controversies in the Gospels it would not be difficult to realize that the question debated between Jesus and the Jewish leaders was not whether it was necessary to keep the Sabbath but how the Sabbath was to be observed.
A brief look at the Gospel of Luke, written to Gentile Christians, supports our main argument. The word “Sabbath” appears in Luke twenty-one times and eight additional times in Acts. Luke introduces (4:16) and closes Jesus ministry (23:54) with references to the Sabbath and then adds that the women rested on the Sabbath “according to the commandment” (23:56). Luke describes Jesus and his followers as habitual Sabbath keepers. If we examine the Sabbath controversies in the Gospel it would not be difficult to identify one of the key issues in the discussions. In 6:2 the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” In the second incident recorded in 6:6-11, Jesus asked the Pharisees, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?” In both cases the concern is proper Sabbath observance and not whether the Sabbath should be kept or not. The same applies to the Sabbath controversies that are unique to Luke. In 13:16 Jesus asked, “Should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?,” implying that it was lawful to heal her on the Sabbath. In the final case, recorded in 14:1-6, we find the more traditional question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” It is obvious that with respect to the Sabbath the fundamental issue was defining proper Sabbath observance.
When Jesus says in Luke 6:5, “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath” Luke is saying that he has “the right to authoritatively represent the divine intention for the sabbath. . . . In this new situation the Son of Man is able to open up the full potential of the sabbath as God’s gift to humankind.” The Sabbath is for him a day of liberation from suffering and needs, a channel for loving actions. The references to the Sabbath in the gospels clearly show that the Christian communities were concerned about it. One could argue that perhaps the issue was whether one should or should not observe the Sabbath, or a conflict between the church and the synagogue, but the evidence clearly supports the conviction that the Gospels are instructing Jews and Gentile Christians on how to keep the Sabbath.
The New Testament contains irrefutable evidence to the effect that Jesus and his disciples observed the seventh day Sabbath. It is also clear that the Jewish Christian communities also kept the Sabbath during the apostolic period. Jesus, according to the Gospels, observed the Sabbath and made it a day in which he brought rest to the sick

 

[JoaoMachado]

Hi mysterio100, I wish to give you what I know and understand.

First and foremost, you must understand the two different foundations of faith between Adventists and the Catholic Church.

The Seventh Day Adventists’ entire faith rests on two points, that Christians are supposed to keep the Sabbath as our Jewish brothers and sisters and that they are the “Remnant Church”, which of course supposes that the Church that Christ established perished, went apostate.

Now, the Christian Faith, the Catholic Faith, does not rest on worship of a particular day, it solely rests on the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus Christ!

The problem most people have with debating SDA’s is that you wind up in a argument about which day you are suppose to keep Holy. But that is not the real debate and then one gets caught up in the endless debates.

              The Sabbath, you must understand was a sign between God and the Israelites and no one else. (EXO 31:13) Why, you ask, because the Sabbath was the Sign of the Covenant that God made with the children of Israel, Speak*** to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: See that you keep my Sabbath; because it is a sign between me and you in your generations that you may know that I am the Lord, who sanctify you.****** (******Exo 31:16)***The Covenant bond is very important, because to break the Covenant is to break the Sabbath. So when the Israelites were being warned over and over to obey the Sabbath it was because breaking the Sabbath meant death! *** Six days shall you do work: in the seventh day is the sabbath, the rest holy to the Lord. Every one that shall do any work on this day, shall die. (*Exo 31:15)**

Mysterio100, I hope you are starting to see the importance of the Jewish people keeping the Sabbath, this is the key to understanding why Christians celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday.

But the Seventh Day Sabbath was not the only “Sabbath” in the Hebrew Scriptures, you Say to the children of Israel: The seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall keep a Sabbath, a memorial, with the sound of trumpets, and it shall be called holy.

***(Lev 23:24)***You see the first day of the seventh month was to be kept as a Sabbath as well, but does not have the same meaning as the Seventh Day Sabbath, because the Seventh Day Sabbath was the Sign of the covenant. Keep in mind, that the sign of the Covenant is the factor of disobedience and as we stated earlier, breaking the Sabbath meant death.

Now, Jesus and the Sabbath, I have done much reading on the SDA theology and it is interesting at that, odd but interesting. They look to Jesus and the Sabbath as if He came down to “readjust” if you will, or set the Sabbath keeping correctly, they will commonly refer to this as “Jesus’ attitude toward the Sabbath”. They will also claim that the Sabbath was kept by the first Christians for about 75 to 100 years after Christ’s resurrection, but the Faith was taken over by pagan practices and thus we have “Sunday Worship”.

Ah, my dear friend, they are being deceived. When God gave Moses the Commandments written in stone, He gave them with the inclusion of the Sabbath as a commandment, as a sign of the Covenant. If the written word of God is to be exalted, which I most certainly agree it should, how much more is the Incarnate Word of God to be exalted and revered?

Continued…

 

[JoaoMachado]

Friends, is Jesus not the Eternal Word of God? If you believe that God is a triune God, would Jesus not be that God? After all Jesus tells us the “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) And as St. John tells us in the beginning of his Gospel, ***“***In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God.” Friends, Jesus is in perfect union with God and He is God, He is Divine and He is Human. If we keep that in mind we better understand that when Jesus performed a miracle, it was by the very Word of God! When He commanded Lazarus to rise from the dead, it was by His very command, when He cured the leper on the road, it was by His very command, the Centurion’s servant was healed, how, by the His command! The very instance that Jesus said anything to be done, it was done, He commanded the demons to enter the swine and they did, he commanded the ocean and the wind to calm down and they did. To have faith in Jesus is to believe that what ever He spoke, it was Truth and instant reality.

          Remember to Commandments that God gave Moses on tables of stone, up on mount Sinai? Did Jesus not give us the “sermon on the mount”? I ask you did Jesus abolish the Law written on those stones? NO, in fact He “kicked it up a notch” He gave us the Beatitudes, (Mat 5), but surprisingly there is no mention of Keeping the Sabbath, as a matter of fact, I could not find any reference to the keeping of the Sabbath as in the Ten Commandments, all other commandments were reiterated in the Gospels, but the Sabbath, the sign of the Covenant, was no where to be found! Or is it?

Jesus says, “ While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and handed it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it. This is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood of the new covenant that is being poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins.(Mat 26:26-Mat 26:28) I ask you, when Jesus says “this is my body”, what did that bread just become? Jesus’ body soul and divinity! This is the new Covenant, the sign just like the Sabbath, but this covenant is not just with Israel but with all peoples.

But before the Last Supper, Jesus tells us, “Truly, truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him to life on the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. The person who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him*** (Joh6:53)*** If you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have eternal life, the sign of the covenant, but if you don’t you break the sign of the Covenant and that means death.

Now, which day are you supposed to celebrate the Eucharist? That, was not revealed in Sacred Scripture, but in Sacred Tradition, which is to say, the Apostles knew and past it on, and His Church continued from day one on offering the Eucharist not just on Sundays but through out the week, because Jesus, built His Church upon a strong foundation, and foundation of rock, Peter and the Apostles, with Jesus as the corner stone that holds everything together. To believe that Jesus established, built, a Church on earth and then to believe that that Church would fail when He specifically said it would not is heresy!