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NEWTESTAMENT?
(Continued from page 26)
ly means, as most margins show,
"keeping of a sabbath." The Sabbath
rest each week is a memorial of cre–
ation and a picture of the soon-com–
ing millennial "rest."
Correctly rendered, this verse
reads: "There remaineth therefore
the
keeping of the Sabbath
to the
people of God."
Notice these points about this
verse. This keeping of the Sabbath
REMAINS.
lt
is not forgotten, or done
away, or nailed to the cross. And, it
remains for the people of God. The
rest of the world has forgotten that it
still remains. If it still remains, then
it is still holy to God. We ought
therefore to remember it and keep it
holy as God has always commanded.
This day pictures the rest that God
had on creation week and therefore
honors the fact that He is Creator. It
also foreshadows the fact that He is
soon going to bring a millennium of
peace, the seventh thousand-year pe–
riod, to this world.
The command to keep the Sabbath
today is a lso proved by severa! other
scriptures. Paul instructed us to follow
him as he followed Christ (1 Corin–
thians 11:1 ). Peter also told us that we
ought to walk as Christ walked (1
Peter 2:21 ). The apostle John said the
same thing in l John 2:6.
Christ
a/ways
kept ·the Sabbath!
It
was His custom (Luke
'4:
16}, and He
was continually showing His disci–
ples and the religionists of that time
the proper way to keep it. He showed
this by the perfect example He set.
The disciples were to follow His ex–
ample and teach others the same
things. His parting instruction was:
"Go ye therefore, and teach all na–
tions, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit: teaching them to
observe
all things whatsoever I have
com–
manded
you: and lo, 1 am with you
alway, even unto the end of the
world" (Matthew 28: 19-20). This
makes it plain that His commands,
including the Sabbath, are to be ob–
served today!
Paul followed Christ in always
keeping the Sabbath (Acts 17:2) and
taught the Gentiles as well as the
Jews on the Sabbath (Acts 13:42, 44
The
PLAIN TRUTH December 1979
and 18:4). There are severa! other
scriptures in the New Testament ,
particularly in the book of Acts,
which show plainly that the Church,
as
ii
started out, kept the Sabbath.
Sunday on the other hand was always
a workday. Jesus said that He was
Lord of the
Sabbath,
not Lord of
Sunday (Luke 6:5).
A New Commandment
We have now seen that each of the
Ten Commandments is commanded
in the New Testament. But what
about the "new commandment" that
Jesus and the apostle John spoke of?
Just what was this new command–
ment, and does it abrogate or do
away with the Ten Commandments?
"A new commandment
1
give unto
you, That ye !ove one another; as
I
have loved you, that ye also love one
another" (John 13:34).
People assume that all we have to
do is "love' ' one another. Then they
interpret "!ove" to mean that they do
not necessarily have to obey God's
comma ndments. They take for
granted that love is just affection.
They do not realize how much Christ
loved His disciples. He had the kind
of love described in
1
Corinthians 13,
the kind which always
OBEYS
God's
Ten Commandments. He had the
kind of love which caused Him to
instruct His disciples, "Ye are my
friends, if ye oo whatsoever 1
com–
mand
you" (John 15:14).
That is the
kind of /ove
that Christ
was talking about when He told His
disciples about the new command–
ment.
Yet how could this be a
new com–
mandment
when Israel in ancient
times was'commanded plainly to love
God and neighbor? (Deuteronomy
6:5 and Leviticus 19: 18.)
Notice 11 John 5: "And now
1
be–
seech thee, lady, not as though I
wrote a new cornmandment unto
thee, but that which we had from the
beginning, that we Iove one another."
Love is ever
new
and yet
old.
That kind of love that Jesus and
John spoke about is not just affec–
tion.
People today have come to think
that Iust is love. Lust is getting, but
!ove is giving and serving others in
the way defined by God. The first
four commandments define the way
to show love to God, and the last six
show the way to express love to
neighbor.
Any other way is not !ove at all,
but is only lust, greed, and selfish–
ness. The commandment of !ove is
therefore not only the one which is
given at the beginning of Christ's
ministry to His disciples, but also a
way of life given to the first rnan
Adam.
This kind of !ove is fu rther
affirmed by John:
~· For
this is the
!ove of God, that we keep the com–
mandments: and bis commandments
are not grievous"
(1
John 5:3).
Instead of the new commandment
of love doing away with the old Ten
Commandment law, this scripture
shows plainly that it
establishes
it in
this New Testament age more firmly
than before.
What Wlll You Do?
There a re many religious teachers in
the world today who will not keep
God's commandments and, for that
matter, teach that we are under a
curse if we do keep them. They claim
that they know Christ. Christ says
differently through the apostle John:
" H e that saith,
l
know him, and
keepeth not his commandments,
is a
LIAR,
and the truth is not in him "
(1
John 2:4).
Such people have claimed in vari–
ous tracts and articles that
only
part
of the Ten Commandments appear in
the New Testament. Tbis is a very
convenient way to "do away" with
any command that one does not want
to obey, or does not want others to
obey. The Bible plainly labels such
teachers.
Are you going to follow those who
want you to disobey God and forfeit
eterna! salvation or a re you going to
obey
al/
of God's commandments?
It should be crystal clear now that
all Ten Commandments are to be
obeyed today! It is obvious from
hundreds of OId and New Testament
scriptures that they are to be fol–
lowed as a way of life. These com–
mands of God a re in the Bible from
Genesis to Revelation.
In the very last chapter of the Bi–
ble it is made clear that the com–
mandments a re still to be obeyed.
"Blessed are they that
do
bis
com–
mandments
[all of them], that they
may have right to the tree of life ..."
(Revelation 22:14). o
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