The Christian Sabbath Vindicated from Adventism

As a history book, comparable to Samuel and Kings in the Old Testament, the Acts of the Apostles is not a good place to base ones doctrine. That isn't an issue of error; Acts is as inerrant as is the rest of Scripture. Rather, that isn't its purpose. Acts is Luke's record of what the Apostolic church did, not what it taught.

For example, we have the record of the worship activities of the apostolic church. We know that they gathered at the Temple for their social meetings (there were house church meetings in Jerusalem during the same period). However, a meeting is not the same thing as a worship gathering. When we are told that they gathered for worship, that activity occurred in the home gatherings, not the Temple. Notice that contrast in Acts 2:46: "Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes." Thus, they gathered at the Temple for community, but not for worship.

Instead, we find this record: "On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight" (Acts 20:7; see also I Corinthians 16:2). We find, not on the seventh day, as Adventists claim, but on the first day of the week, the church gathered together for communion (the breaking of bread) and for teaching. Nor can this be described as a special occasion, because Paul himself says (verse 20), "I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house." It was exactly in these home meetings that Paul was accustomed to teach the word to his fellow Christians.

Adventists like to point to the references to Paul's attending the synagogues on the seventh day. And he certainly did so. Yet, they consistently ignore what else those references tell us. He is not recorded as speaking to Christians in any of those occasions - not even one. In each case, he proclaims the word to the Jews. That is, his attendance at the synagogues was for the sake of evangelism. And, in a mixed community, where would he find Jews? Well, at the synagogue, of course, and on the seventh day. The whole Adventist argument is built on a very weak argument from silence, and committing the fallacies of cherry picking and moving the goalposts. Yet they claim that their teaching on the Sabbath is the distinguishing mark between the true Bride of Christ and the Great Whore. Surely such an important doctrine would require more proof than questionable exegesis!

A doctrine should never be based on an historical reference, absent reinforcement from explicit teaching texts. Yet, the Adventist can provide none. After the Christians are expelled from the synagogues in Acts, we never see another reference to a Christian gathering, whether at the Temple or at a synagogue, or any activity on the seventh day of the week. Paul never mentions one. Peter never mentions one. John never mentions one. And - most telling of all - the Epistle to the Hebrews never mentions one, even though much of it is devoted to Jewish law and worship. Not once in any of them.

The Futility in Life for the Unbeliever

"Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
     and fill his belly with the east wind?
Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
     or in words with which he can do no good?
The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
     through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
     in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
     and he is marked for the sword.
He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
     He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
distress and anguish terrify him;
     they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
Because he has stretched out his hand against God
     and defies the Almighty...
Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself, 
     for emptiness will be his payment."
- Job 15:2-3, 20-25, 31

After the fall of Adam, God announced a curse against him: "Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread..." (Genesis 3:17-19). Here the curse is pronounced in a life of toil made difficult and unproductive. The passage above fleshes out that curse. In both, Adam, both for himself and for his posterity, is given a life of futility in place of the blessedness that he knew, and would have continued to know, in the Garden of Eden. 


However, Job adds as element to the curse. 

We know from elsewhere that the regenerate will experience life in a world in which that curse is gradually rolled back. We see this in both agricultural and lifestyle blessings described in various portions of the prophecies of Isaiah. For example, see Isaiah 35:1-2: "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing."

That isn't what the passage in job describes. Rather,  it is about the continuous, lifelong futility experienced by the unbeliever. Pursuing a life in rebellion against God brings against the unbeliever the opposition of the world created by that God. Even the dirt beneath his feet conspires against him. 

Does this mean that every unbeliever suffers through life or that every believer prospers? No, it doesn't. It's a generalization. But not by much. 

No Hierarchical Bishops in Scripture

In Acts 20, Luke gives us an account of a trip by Paul to Miletus. From there, he calls for the elders from the church in nearby Ephesus to come to meet with him: "Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him." In today's parlance, we would call it a strategy meeting.

Then, when he is speaking to them, we find this interesting comment: "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers" (Acts 20:28).

What makes such a seemingly-mundane statement interesting? Notice the title "elders" in verse 17. That is a translation of the Greek word "presbuteros." From it, we get the English word "priest." However, its basic meaning is "an older person," from which it has been adapted to designate the church office of "elder."

However, in verse 28, the same men get addressed, not by their title, but by their job, "overseers." That English word is used to translate the Greek word "episkopos," from which we get the English word, "bishop." But it simply means "one who oversees," or a manager (see also I Peter 5:1-2).

The significance of that is that it eliminates any claim by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, or the Anglican Church, that their office of monarchical bishop is derived from Scripture. The word is there, of course, but of a kind completely different from the extravagant powers and privileges associated with that title, especially those blasphemous claims to the pope to be the Universal Bishop, with authority over all Christians in the world.

Presuppositionalism and Evangelism: The Innate Knowledge of God

Paul says something that people, even professing Christians, don't like: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:18-22). His point here is that all men know God and our accountability to Him, because he has revealed Himself in His works, so that no man can claim ignorance as an excuse for unbelief. Unbelief is the result of a choice, not of innocent ignorance.

Paul applies that principle to his evangelistic sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16-34) at about the same time that he was writing Romans. "So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: 'Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: "To the unknown god." What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In Him we live and move and have our being’;as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring'" (Acts 17:22-28). Paul uses the altar to the "unknown god" to prove that the Athenians know about, but do not know savingly, the one true God. Therefore, he has come to reveal to them the God that they have known about, so that they may now repent of the deliberate ignorance (verse 30), and come to know the God who had been unknown before. Even the pagan poetry which he quotes, Paul uses as evidence that there is a breaking out of the underlying knowledge of the true God, though that knowledge had been suppressed in the confusion of the Greek mythological religion. 

Contrary to traditional apologetics, biblical apologetics does not try to prove the existence of a god. The unbeliever already believes that. Therefore, the presuppositional apologist directs his apologetic to what the unbeliever already knows, but wants to avoid, with the goal being the unbeliever's repentance.

The Physical Resurrection: One Event or Two?

The predominant eschatology among American evangelicals is premillennialism (which has different forms, but that isn't the issue here). One particular way in which premillennialism differs from other schools is in making literal the description of two resurrections (Revelation 20:5-6). According to the premillennial interpretation, the godly dead will be resurrected, then a period of a thousand years will elapse, at the end of which the wicked dead will be raised. Then the premillennialist denies the literal interpretation of other passages that point to a single resurrection.

As I describe here, comparing scripture to scripture gives us good grounds for taking the First Resurrection in a non-literal sense, to refer to regeneration of believers.

So, what of the references to a single, general resurrection?

We can start with Job 14:11-12: "As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep." Without distinguishing between the types of people, he places resurrection at the end of this physical creation, not a thousand years before the end.

And what of the words of Jesus in John 6:40: "This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." Not only does Jesus place the resurrection at the end of history, not a thousand years before the end, but He explicitly tells us that this is the resurrection of the godly, whom the premillennialist claims will have been resurrected for a thousand years by that time.

The premillennialist view in general, and specifically regarding the resurrection, depends on a literal interpretation of a highly-figurative passage, and then forces that interpretation on other, clearer, not-at-all figurative passages in order to maintain its peculiar doctrine. That is just bad hermeneutics, which depends on the clearer passage to interpret the more obscure.

The General Revelation of God and Romans 1:18

I frequently refer to Romans 1:18:  "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth." The significance of this verse is that it is a denial of the assertion of some Arminians and most unbelievers, especially the Mormons, that God is unjust to condemn to Hell those who have never heard the Gospel. Those people are supposedly never given a chance to convert, and, therefore, should not be punished for something that they did not know. That assertion is false. As Paul explains (see Romans 1:16-23 for context), no one is ignorant of the existence of God and our accountability to Him; rather, the unbeliever suppresses that knowledge. Should a person not be accountable for what he knows, even if he avoids that knowledge? Thus, the justice of God is vindicated.

Paul's explanation here is not something out of the blue, as if it originated with him. In fact, it is a concept that he brought forward from the Old Testament.

For example, we see Psalm 97:6 (compare Psalm 19:1-4): "The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory." This is what theologians call "general revelation," God's revealing Himself in the creation, exactly what Paul also mentions in Romans 1:20. And notice that the Psalmist explicitly tells us that the revelation is visible to all cultures, refuting the assertion of the critics mentioned above. 

Consider also Psalm 98:2-3: "The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." Here the Psalmist repeats, in even stronger terms, his belief that God has revealed, not just His Person, but also that He is the Savior available to all who believe. This is a poetic version of John 3:16, showing in what way God loves the world and then His plan for believers. 

The Scriptures preclude any rational accusation of injustice against God.. He reveals Himself, His goodness, and His plans. If men refuse to see that revelation, because it would deprive them of their pet sins, then He can only be said to be just in His consequential judgment upon them.

The Bible and Sacrifice by Abortion

I recently heard about the person described in this news story. He claims to be a Christian abortionist who is doing God's work. However, according to the words of that God, the man is an apostate under judgment for pagan sacrifice. I am sad to say that the reason that the Bible addresses his remarks is that he is not the first to do so. His particular form of apostasy is an ancient one.

"They [i. e., Israel] served their idols,
     which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
     and their daughters to the demons;
they poured out innocent blood,
     the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
     and the land was polluted with blood.
Thus they became unclean by their acts, 
     and played the whore in their deeds." 
- Psalm 106:36-39

In times of low spiritual condition, the ancient Israelites adopted the practice of their pagan neighbors of sacrificing their own children to pagan gods in order to gain prosperity for themselves. Instead of having children who would be a financial burden, they turned them into a supposed resource for purchasing economic advancement. is that not essentially what most supporters of abortion claim now?

Abortion Is Not Avoiding Pregnancy

When people talk about why some mothers abort their preborn children, the main reasons given are rape and incest, the most-horrific cases. In reality, those are only about 1% of abortions. They are used as a smokescreen to prevent a real discussion of the justifications for abortion. Rather, the main reason is convenience: the pregnancy will result in a financial burden, or interfere with the mother's career. Or worse still, the abortion is justified because the baby tests as having a defect or the wrong sex.

All of these real reasons boil down to convenience. A baby will crimp the lifestyle of one or both parents (you do remember that a pregnancy requires two parents, don't you?). While these supposedly-important considerations didn't prevent the act that created the pregnancy, they do supposedly justify avoiding the consequences of that act. Why do they get ignored in the lesser situation, but are paramount in the greater? If that were the real consideration, wouldn't a dollar for a condom be a priority expenditure, rather than waiting for the expenditure of a medical procedure that can cost as much as three-thousand dollars (barring complications)?

Let me put this in basic English: If an unplanned child will negatively affect a person's life, then there are far cheaper and safer methods of avoiding that circumstance!

Love God, Love His Commandments

In general, people understand that Hebrew poetry is different from English poetry. For example, there is no rhyme in Hebrew poetry. And an element it has that English does not is the use of parallelism. Different lines can be parallel in saying the same thing in different ways. We see such a parallelism in this verse:

"Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, 
     who greatly delights in His commandments!"
- Psalm 112:1 

The parallelism is between the second and third lines, which describe the blessed man. He fears the Lord and delights in His commandments. In English, those appear as two different things in succession. However, in Hebrew, they are parallels, different ways of saying the same thing. In other words, this verse equates fearing the Lord with delighting in His commandments. 

This hermeneutical principle is important because it demonstrates the erroneous hermeneutic of the dispensationalist, who claims that there is a contrast, an opposition, between loving God and loving the commandments. Rather, they are necessarily complementary.