Love is an outgoing concern. It is the way of giving, serving, sharing. Human nature wants to take.

And because of this, we create laws—good for society as a whole, not unlike the laws God gave to Israel. Paul said the Law was not made for the righteous, but for the unrighteous; the lawless, etc. ( I Tim. 1:9) 

God instructed Moses: "Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow...And be ready against the third day: for the third day the Eternal will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. " On that great day, in the morning, there was a tremendous display of thunder and lightning up on the mountain.

Can you picture it? I think I can—at least partially. Years ago-in early winter, 1934—I was driving around the Mt. Hood Loop in Oregon. Reaching the east of Mt. Hood, there was a spur-road leading to the very base, and part way up the mountain. As I reached this spot, a frightening storm developed around the snow-capped peak just above me. A dark, foreboding cloud-the darkest I had ever seen—hovered over the top of the mountain. Lightning flashed, so bright I had to hide my eyes. Thunderclaps resounded louder, sharper, than any I had ever heard in Iowa or Nebraska. I drove back down, away from that storm, as fast as safety would allow. It was the most frightening, terrifying sight I had ever witnessed. It seemed to display the magnitude of the very fury of Almighty God! 

It is interesting to note the mindset: the "fury" of Almighty God—not the awesome power of God, not the holiness of God, but the fear the author tries to generate by this supposed "fury." 

This was no ordinary occasion! God wanted the paramount importance of this Law—God's perfect way of life—impressed on His people!

If this Law was so good, even perfect, then why a New Covenant for Israel? Heb. 8:7 says: "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second." The Law given to Israel could not cause them attain to righteousness. It condemned (2 Cor. 3:9) them and it showed their sinfulness. (Rom. 3:19-20). 

How significant! On that very first day of Pentecost (called Festival of Firstfruits, or Festival of Weeks in the Old Testament), amid this tremendous and awesome manifestation by the very forces of nature, God gave His Law—His way of life—to the only ones on earth who were His people. 

Did Pentecost exist at this time, or even prior to this time? How could the feast of firstfruits have existed before the Israelites traveled through the wilderness and planted their crops in the Promised Land? "When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: ..." (Lev. 23:10) Is the author making an assumption based upon the belief that all the Law, with the holy days, sacrifices, and the rest of the Law already existed prior to Israel agreeing to the Law?

Then, many centuries later, on the day of Pentecost, 31 A.D., with a tremendous and awesome manifestation, God gave His Holy Spirit to His people—the Love of God to fulfill that law. And that came at the founding, and setting up, of God’s Church on earth!

Love is the fulfillment of the Law, not the means for attaining the fulfillment of the Law (Romans 13:10). Paul points out that the Law was made for the lawless and disobedient (I Tim. 1:9). If the Law God gave to Israel could cause them to attain righteousness, why give it to a physical people devoid of God’s Spirit? If it is the Spirit that enables a person to keep the Law, then why didn't all the Israelites, who did not have the Spirit, kill off each other? If the Spirit is a Spirit of love, then the Law that says, do not kill (murder) would be unnecessary, as one would not kill or murder those they love. Can the reader see now how the New Covenant will replace the old? If you have love, which is a fruit of the Spirit, you are not going to murder (the product of hatred)—something the old covenant could not address and shows its limitations through this understanding.

Next, notice Deuteronomy 5:4-22. This is later, Moses is talking to the people of Israel. And to the people Moses says: "The Eternal talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire...saying..."—then follow the words of the Ten Commandments (verses 6-21).

Read those passages again! Why have you been taught that Moses "gave the law"? Why has this law been called the "Law of Moses"?

God spoke through Moses. Moses was the administrator of the Law, hence the title, Law of Moses. It also helps to distinguish it from other laws. If this is not the "Law of Moses," then what is? Did Moses on his own initiative and authority attach more, or other laws, along with the Law he received from God?

And to whom was God Speaking? HWA keeps making accusations regarding Sunday and who gave the Law, but then he overlooks to whom the Law was given. Only Israel was party to that covenant Law, and Christians came along, after that covenant was ratified, and after this covenant ended upon the death of Christ, who even HWA agrees was the God of the old covenant. What happens when either party to a covenant dies? The covenant ends.

The Ten Commandments did not come from Moses, but from God! The Ten Commandments were not given to the people by Moses, but by God to all the nation, assembled. Moses says: "The Eternal talked with you face to face" —with the vast assembly of the whole people!

And the narrative also says, in Deuteronomy 5:1-5: "Moses summoned all Israel and said: Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our fathers that the LORD made this covenant, but with us, who are alive here today..." You have to take it all together. Moses then goes on to detail the Ten Commandments and the rest of the laws to Israel.

Moses explains (verse 5), that because the people were frightened, in order to reassure them, he stood in front of them—but He was with them, as merely one of that vast assembly.

Moses was hardly "merely" one of the vast assembly.

Notice further—after completing, in verse 21, the rewriting of the words of the Ten Commandments which God spoke, Moses continues, verse 22, to say to the people of Israel: "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me."

And He added no more." That was a complete law! It is a spiritual law. It is complete. He added no more—to that law! Any other laws are different, separate laws—no part of that spiritual law! It is complete in itself!

Why then does the apostle Paul and other N.T. writers not treat it as such? Paul says that if a man believes he should become circumcised, he is obligated to keep the whole Law—that is, the rest of it also. Is circumcision listed in the Ten Commandments? No, but it is still part of that Law. The author knew that obviously some of the Law, such as the sacrifices, could not be binding on Christians, therefore it became necessary under his theology to create divisions in the Law in order to justify keeping some of it. Or are we now to believe that the statutes and judgments, etc., are not of God, but that Moses came up with them on his own?

And if you think this law was for "Jews only," you couldn’t be more wrong! Have you not read, in Acts 7:38, that those Israelites "received the lively oracles to give unto us"—for us who, under the New Testament, are Christians?

Who is talking, and who is he talking to? In other words, what is the context? This is from the martyr Stephen as he stood before the counsel, with the High Priest present. Verse 37-39: "This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina [Sinai], and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt," The one who received the living oracles (Moses) to give to us—the "us" being the people of Israel, whom they all were—"whom our fathers would not obey..." Stephen is not talking about "us Christians" but "us Israelites."

All other nations had turned from God and His ways. Now God was choosing a downtrodden slave people as His nation—the only people on earth who had not cut themselves completely off from God.

Israel was no different than the other nations, as far as having "rejected God." One could make the claim God was not yet dealing with other nations and peoples, because of the covenants with Israel’s forefathers regarding their descendants.

This was the basis upon which the Old Covenant was made—but what is the basis of the New Covenant? Read it, in Hebrews 8:10: "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people."

The claim that the "finding fault with them" refers to the covenant and not the people is cleared up in the Greek where it literally says: "For finding fault, to them he says" or "he says to them." Israel violated the conditions of the contract/covenant. Therefore God disregarded them. The New Covenant then is not according to the first or old covenant. It is not the old covenant with a new twist. It is different entirely. The capstone of this is in verse 13: "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."

Observe more closely, now, the Sabbath command.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8). God said remember this day! So men have insisted on forgetting—or trying to change it to a different day!

Again, who is God telling to remember the Sabbath day? Israel. No one else. Why, after stating that it is Jesus the Christ that we should look to for the answer to this question, we are still trying to find the answers to the New Testament in the Old?

Christ said, in the sermon on the mount: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law," so professing Christians think He did come to destroy it!

What did Christ say here? "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." What is the Law and the prophets, but the entirety of the Old Testament, which is full of prophesies concerning Him. He wasn’t there to cast it all aside, but rather fulfill [complete] it. In Luke 22:44, after His resurrection, Christ said: "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me." (Luke 22:44) The "law" mentioned in Matt. 5:17 comes from the Greek nomos and refers to the whole book of the Law and not just the Ten Commandments. 

By having omitted this part of Scripture a different meaning is attempted than what is meant by the context and so one could conclude that the Law continues in force without even the slightest alteration, and circumcision in the flesh would still be required also. 

Christ said: "Love your enemies," so professing Christians—pretending to follow Him, hate their enemies and go to war to kill them.

Christ said: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which in heaven is perfect," so, professing Christians say, "It's impossible to Keep God’s Law, let alone to be perfect. Christ kept it in our stead, and then abolished it."

Where in the Law does it say to love your enemies? The Old Testament (covenant) actually says quite the opposite, as in Deuteronomy 23:6. This "perfection" (completeness or maturity) talked about in the N.T. can only be gained through the sanctification of the Spirit (Rom. 8), as the Christian abides in Christ. Love is the fulfilling of the Law, and love is a fruit of the Spirit. (Rom. 13:10) The author attempts to connect being "perfect" with keeping the Law, yet the reference (from Matt. 5:44-48) does not address the Law at all.

Christ commands "Do!" —and His professed followers Don’t!

Christ commands "Don’t!" and His professed followers Do!

Christ commanded: "Remember the Sabbath day!" So pretending followers forget it!

The author again uses the word "professed" as if none could be Christians who do not keep the Sabbath. But Paul said that there were those who tried to teach the Law who didn't know what they were talking about. (I Tim. 1:7)

HWA continually attacks or "persecutes" those who do not keep the Sabbath. An examination of Galatians 4:21-5:1 shows that it is those of the old covenant persuasion that persecute those of the new covenant persuasion where the old covenant is no longer in force. In other words, who persecutes whom in the whole scheme of things?

The only weekly day God ever made holy is His Sabbath. It is utterly impossible to keep Sunday or Friday Holy—because God never made them holy, and man has no power to make anything holy. These are not arguments—they are facts that will judge you in God’s judgment!

Scare tactics? If you were not sure, you might keep the Sabbath just to be on the safe side. Romans 14:5-6a: "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it...." Perhaps the author would claim this is not, and does not relate to, a Sabbath day; but do you suppose the apostle Paul then would not have been aware people might think he was referring to Sabbath days? If Paul taught Sabbath observance, would not he have worded this in another way in order to avoid someone thinking he might mean a Sabbath?

Now notice verses 9 and 10 (Ex. 20): "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work..."

Not just any seventh day! Not "one day in seven" —Christ said "the seventh day!" In Matthew 28:1—after the crucifixion and resurrection— after whatever was "nailed to the cross" had been nailed—you will find it is the seventh day of the week—the day before the first day of the week!

If you were reading along, you might conclude that the quote "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God" was located in Matthew 28, but it is not. The author is referring back now to Exodus 20. Jesus did not make the statement from Ex. 20 here in the New Testament.

Right here, let’s put an end to the rebellious arguments about Sunday being the "Lord’s Day." I will make to any reader this challenge: Produce any passage in the Bible identifying Sunday—or the first day of the week—as "the Lord’s Day," and I will proclaim the truth of that passage to the millions of people who hear the World Tomorrow program on the air in every inhabited continent on earth, and publish it prominently in The Plain Truth ...

Why wasn’t the offer made to someone who could try and prove that no day was binding on Christianity? 

The "Lord’s Day" is the day the Lord is lord of—the day that is His day—and in Mark 2:28 Jesus Christ said He is Lord of the Sabbath—not of Sunday.

And He was accused of "breaking" the Sabbath by the religious leaders. Seeing as Jesus as God made the Sabbath, then naturally He would be Lord of it, and know what He could and could not do on it, regardless of what the religious leaders of the time thought.

"Mr. Armstrong, I have been told that Saturday is your day. I do hope that is not true!"

"It certainly is not true," I replied. "Sunday is my day."

"Oh, I’m so glad!" she exclaimed.

"But wait a minute," I said quickly. "I see you don’t understand. Sunday is my day—and Monday, and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—those are all my days—but Friday sunset until Saturday sunset is not my day—that is God’s day—that is the Lord’s day!"

And a N.T. Christian could just as easily say I don't keep Sunday—but then neither do I keep Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.  

This very Commandment, in the law which defines sin, plainly says so!

The Ten Commandments (with the Sabbath) were not the only things that defined sin. Whatever is not of faith is sin. To know to do good and not do it is sin. All unrighteousness is sin. But try this out: "The law is not of faith." (Gal. 3:12) "Whatever is not of faith is sin." (Rom. 14:23) Do you answer that you live by both law and faith? That does not work—to add works of the Law to faith is to fall from grace. (Gal. 5:4) Remember, Law is not of faith! You can't mix the two. You can't put new wine into an old wineskin.

In I John 3:4 you read the Bible definition of what constitutes sin. "Sin is the transgression of the law." In Romans 7:7 you read which law it is sin to disobey—the law that says, "Thou shalt not covet"—quoted from this very law—Exodus 20:17. In James 2:9-11 you will read which law defines sin. It is a law subdivided into "Points" (verse 10). One of its "Points" is "Do not commit adultery," quoted from this very law (Ex. 20:14), and another of its ten "Points" is "Do not kill," also quoted from this same law (Ex. 20:13).

I John 3:4 "Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." The Greek word translated "transgresses also the law" and "transgression of the law" is anomia which is translated nearly everywhere else as "iniquity" and in one place "lawlessness." This interpretation of anomia has been made by churches that also hold to systems of law or legalism. If you replace "transgression of the law" with "iniquity" you will see an entirely different meaning come through. The Greek rendering word for word into English is: "Everyone that practices sin, also iniquity practices and sin is iniquity." (From the Interlinear Greek - English New Testament) Christians do not "practice" iniquity or sin. Sin is not defined for Christians as transgressing the Law. Christians have died to the Law and no longer serve the letter of the Law. (Romans 7:6)

In James 2:10 you read that if you break any one of these 10 points you are guilty of sin. The same law also says: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy...the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Whoever disobeys that Command commits sin!

James 2:10 "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." What is the "whole" Law? Is it just the Ten Commandments? Galatians 5:2-3 says: "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised [because the one believes he should be] Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law." There were those that believed and taught that Christians should be circumcised and keep the Law. Circumcision is a point of the Law. The whole Law. The whole Law is more than just the Ten Commandments. James 2:10 does not say if you break any of these 10 points (commandments) you are guilty of sin—it says whoever breaks any "point" in the whole Law, he is guilty of all. It is also important to understand what is really being discussed in James 2:10, and that the Law is being used as an example in order to explain the Law of the spirit and that one sins by not demonstrating love to all, but only to some, notably those who are higher in the social order.

This is probably far from what you have believed or been taught. But if any wish to argue, I should suggest they save their arguments for the Judgment, and then try to argue face to face with their Saviour and their Maker, Jesus Christ!

Are we to understand here that we should not question or debate this topic, but rather save it for God? Does not the Bible instruct us to prove all things and test it against what we read there? (I Thes. 5:21) Or are we taught not to argue, not to question a matter, or we will be judged and condemned by Jesus the Christ? The Berean Jews searched the Scriptures daily to see if it was true what Paul and Silas taught. (Acts 17:11) 

Now when did the Lord bless and hallow this seventh day? You will read, as explained before, in Genesis 2:3, that He did this blessing and hallowing on that seventh day of original creation week. ... And what He then blessed and hallowed, says Exodus 20:11, was the Sabbath day. 

Making the Sabbath and making the Sabbath day a day of commanded rest to the people of Israel are two different things. There is no evidence that the Sabbath was kept as a day of commanded rest until this covenant with Israel.

Many have used the deceptive argument that God never made the Sabbath until He gave the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. But this says plainly that the seventh day of creation week, which the Lord then blessed and hallowed was, then, the Sabbath day. Further, as emphatically proved above, the Sabbath existed, and was God’s Holy Day before the children of Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai—as shown in Exodus 16.

Exodus 16:4 says: "Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no." God wanted to know if the Israelites would obey the Law He had in store for them, before the giving of the Law, or codification of the Law. He sent them manna also to show His provision for them. The Sabbath rest day was given to Israel as part of the old covenant, not as an already pre-established Law. The narrative says God wanted to see whether they would walk in His Law or not. What then could be easier to do regarding a commandment than to tell the people to do nothing but rest? And yet, because they indeed were a rebellious and stiff-necked people, they couldn't even do something as simple as ceasing from labor on that day and rest.

... more than two millenniums later, this same Lord, the Person of the Godhead who became Jesus Christ, commanded His people to keep it holy! And, about another two thousand years after that, He said He is Lord of that day!