Chapter 5: Which Day for Gentile Christians?

God gave the Sabbath covenant to identify first the true God, as distinct and separate from false gods, and second to identify those who are not God’s people!

The true God and the false gods are distinguished by the fact that the true God is the Creator and the false gods are of the creation. 

An examination of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 shows that Israel was given the Sabbath as a means of remembering who their God was: the God who created the heavens and the earth (Ex. 20) and the God who brought them up out of the bondage of Egypt. (Deut. 5) They managed to remember the Sabbath, but forgot who their God was.

John 7:28: "Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not." John 8:19: "Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also."

It was not given to distinguish between two kinds of God’s people—that is, for example, two kinds of Christians—whether Jew or Gentile-born, whether male or female, we Christians are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28).

Where does it say in Scripture that the Sabbath identifies who are not God's people?

Have you not read, in Hosea, how God pictured the House of Israel (the Ten-Tribed Kingdom) as "Lo-ammi," meaning " not my people"? (Hosea 1:9.) This was because they had rejected God’s Sabbath, and followed King Jeroboam’s custom of observing the first day of the week (today called Sunday) as their "Sabbath."

Does Scripture relate that Jeroboam changed the Sabbath day to Sunday, or just changed the month of the fall festival? (Read ESN article: Did Jeroboam Change the Sabbath to Sunday?) Jeroboam ruled over Israel because Israel had already abandoned God. 

Therefore," said God to this idolatrous Sabbath-rejecting house, "behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths" (Hosea 2:6). 

Yet here in Hosea 1 and 2 there is no mention that this punishment will occur because of breaking the Sabbath alone. Other reasons are given, such as her unfaithfulness to God.

Read these first two chapters of Hosea—a prophecy for the Ten-tribed house of Israel. It portrays them as having lost all knowledge of who their True God is!

It does not say they had or would lose all knowledge of the true God. Israel is depicted as being unfaithful and going after other nations—"lovers," but when this is unfruitful, they decide to return to God (Hosea 2:7).

That pictures Britain and America today! God has given us the unprecedented national wealth He unconditionally promised Abraham—not because of our sins, but because of Abraham's obedience! 

One could just as easily conclude that Britain and America are "Christian" nations, and as such participate in the blessings prophesied for Abraham, seeing as Christians participate in the promises made to Abraham, due to Abraham's faith.

So, notice, verse 9, what God is going to do about it!

"Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereon..." —that is, the famine already now beginning in its early years—prophesied by Joel, Ezekiel, by Christ, and in Revelation! Yes, this is a prophecy for now! For our people! It is even now, as you read, beginning!

This booklet shows a copyright date of 1962. Did this famine occur? The population of the world has greatly increased since 1962, and more people are better fed today than then. Does Scripture warn us concerning prophets whose prophesies do not come about? (Deut. 18:20-22)

Continue! Notice what else God is now about to do to us: "I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days"—those of Baal... Continue: "her new moons and her Sabbaths..." (Not God's, but those of Baalism, which our people call their Sabbaths—the pagan Sunday!) (verse 11).

Is there any historical proof that the worship of Baal occurred specifically on Sunday? This judgment that was to come would destroy her yearly feast days, including the Sabbath (mentioned alongside "new moons") because they had been corrupted because of this Baal worship. (Hosea 2:13). They had forgotten God's goodness. Nothing said about the first day of the week.

Probably you never understood the prophecy of Hosea before! It cannot be really understood unless you first understand the Sabbath Covenant of Exodus 31:12-17!

The Sabbath Covenant of Exodus 31 ends with verse 18, which disproves this whole line of reasoning: "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." If this is a separate covenant, then there must be separate tablets (plural) of stone, written by God. If it took two or more tablets to inscribe the Ten Commandments (written on both sides, by the way) Then would it take two or more tablets to inscribe the Sabbath Covenant? And how is it we never hear about these separate tablets of the Sabbath Covenant? Or are these tablets one and the same with the Ten?

Then why did God make this special everlasting Sabbath Covenant with Israel—and not with Gentile nations?

Simply because all Gentile nations had cut themselves off, totally, from God. All had gone into idolatry. None knew the true God.

Couldn't this line of reasoning apply to Israel in Egypt?

Simply because God had taken a down-trodden slave people—yet a people of superior heredity through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph—who were not inoculated with any religion, and made them His nation.

Superior heredity? Even with the inbreeding, seeing as Abraham married his half-sister? And if they had not been "inoculated" with any religion, where did they come up with the idea of making a golden calf and worshiping it?

God gave His right ways—and all His promises—including salvation through Christ—to Israel, so as to make these ways and blessings known and available to the Gentiles!

At the very beginning of humanity, God talked to Adam and Eve personally. He gave them His instruction—preached to them His Gospel. They knew that God offered them eternal life as His gift. They knew the wages of sin is death. But they reasoned their way around this truth—just as some of you reading this are reasoning your way around what God would like to give you. Adam and Eve rebelled. They willingly obeyed Satan.

1) God did not offer them eternal life. He stated that they would die if they partook of the forbidden fruit. They were made physical. Physical beings grow old and eventually die. 2) It wasn't a matter of reasoning around what God had told them. They did not believe what God had told them; they were lacking in faith toward God.

And God has decreed that man must choose! God does not allow man to reason out or to decide what is sin. But God forces every man to decide whether to sin. God has made it sin to break His Sabbath. You must decide! And as you sow, you shall reap!

Does God really "force" people?

HWA has yet to offer any proof; any "thus saith the Lord" regarding Christians and the Sabbath. What he has done is resort to the methodologies of deception.

It was in such a world—cut off from God—that the Eternal called out a despised, humiliated, slave people, descended from Abraham. They had listened to and obeyed God.

That must be why God called them a "stiff-necked people." Heb. 3:16: "For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, let by Moses?"

It seems human nature and human degradation are such that God had to take a debased, beaten-down, slave people as the only ones who were humbled enough to listen to and obey the Creator!

That's why the whole first generation besides Caleb, Joshua, and Moses perished in the wilderness.

But, remember—though reduced to slavery by circumstances, they were a superior people by heredity.

How?

God purposed now to give all other nations a chance through this called-out people. Israel!

Why then was Naaman the Syrian healed of leprosy? He did not "convert" over to the Sabbath or any other laws of Israel. His healing had to do with faith. And, as Jesus pointed out later, there were plenty of lepers in Israel at the time, who had the Law, but were not healed. If this is all about being an example to other nations, then Naaman would have been told to keep the Law, especially the Sabbath, wouldn't he?

Of course, these Israelites had human nature. Even Israel, for whom God performed stupendous and most astounding miracles, never followed God's ways for long. But through them God has taken away every excuse from all who rebel. Humanity has been given every chance to repent of its way!

If humanity has been given every chance to repent of its way, why did the author teach that God was not dealing with all of humanity then, and is only dealing with those called out of the world now?

Later, during Christ's earthly human ministry and after, God used His Church. Christ called out the Church as special called-out people, not merely to preach His Gospel to the world, but to show the world the desired results reaped from obedience! As ancient Israel was called to be, so the Church, too, was to be a light to the world!

Christ's gospel to the world was to show the desired results reaped from faith in Him! An attempt is made to indicate that those who would obey God now, as Christians, in keeping the Law, would reap the physical rewards and benefits the author claims were given to Israel, which is not accurate. Christians were portrayed as being those who would be persecuted and chased from place to place, even killed by those who believed they would be doing God a service in the process.

"Ye are the light of the world," said Jesus to His disciples. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works"! (Matt. 5:14, 16.) That is, set the example! Let the world see the happy results!

The results would be that people would see Christians' behavior of love toward one another. They were a light by sharing the light of the Word of God, not the keeping of a day. The rest of verse 16 that the author fails to quote says: "...and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Our good works are for the purpose of glorifying God.

To these Gentile-born Christians, Paul wrote: "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles...That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ...Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. 2:11-19).

Notice that these verses refer to covenants "of promise" which includes Abraham’s covenant. Being of promise means it was not by Law. The promises to Abraham’s seed were unconditional. No performance was necessary by the offspring of Abraham to secure what God had promised Abraham. Romans 4:13-16: "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression." If we take this statement in context, it draws a conclusion that is anathema not only to those who believe in keeping the Sabbath, but many other Christians also. If we live by faith, and are not under the Law, we are not accounted as transgressors. Verse 16: "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all." Yet we are made to believe that there is only one brand of Christian, and they are all "of the Law." Gal 3:17-18:"And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise." If Abraham had been given the Law, then Paul could not have written this.

To become a converted Christian, one must become, spiritually, an Israelite! Salvation, as quoted before, is for "every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. 1:16)

Paul didn't use any such term, "spiritually an Israelite."

But let's humor HWA here a bit. If we indeed are spiritually Israelites, and spiritual Israelites undergo a spiritual circumcision and not a physical one, then wouldn't our Sabbath also be spiritual, and not physical? This is exactly what is being explained in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 is one but has the eyes to see.

But were not Gentiles excluded, under the Old Testament?

They were not!

This is partly true and partly false. They could become included if they underwent circumcision, and then they came under the old covenant. Otherwise, they were excluded. This is not the case in Christianity.

And let's not forget what HWA himself cited earlier about the Gentiles being excluded from the covenants of promise, which are in the Old Testament.

Gentiles always could come into the congregation (Church) of Israel—and many did. Even as they were first leaving Egypt, "...a mixed multitude went up also with them" (Ex. 12:38). These were Gentiles.

The implication being that this mixed multitude remained with Israel. Egypt had been destroyed. Anyone who was not Egyptian would most likely have left, some along with Israel. It is unlikely they would have remained with Israel for long, given the hardships they underwent. In any event Numbers 11 mentions them again.

In the instructions for observing the Passover, God said: "And when a stranger [Gentile] shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the Passover to the Eternal, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land" (Ex. 12:48). Again, verse 49: "One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you."

Gentiles had to become "physically" Israelites, through circumcision. As far as strangers being under the same Law, God did not want Israel oppressing the stranger, but rather for them to be just, treating strangers equally under the Law.

No, the Sabbath was not a sign to separate Gentiles from Israelites! Gentiles were not excluded!

Exodus 31:12-13 shows that under the Mosaic system the Sabbath was given for the children of Israel. The ones that were excluded were the Gentiles who did not join themselves to Israel.

The Sabbath was made for man—for mankind—for Gentile as well as Israelite.

God Himself made His Sabbath binding forever—(Ex. 31:12-17). It is binding forever, perpetually, throughout their generations, on Israelites. Their generations have not ended. Forever has not ended.

It must be stated again this had to do with Gentiles joining themselves to Israel according to the covenant with Israel. The nation of Israel as a theocracy has ended. Their generations as the nation of Israel have ended. 

Israelites become Christians through Christ, the same as Gentiles. Israelite Christians, then, are bound to keep God’s Holy Sabbath.

But what about Gentiles? They, too, must keep it. They become Israelites, spiritually, when they receive God’s Holy Spirit and become truly converted Christians. ...

We are all one in Christ!

But we are not all alike! Can the Jews and Gentiles be different and yet still be Christian? Galatians 2:14: "But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" There were differences, and Paul points out that they shouldn’t be compelling Gentile Christians to be as the Jewish Christians. They were both justified by faith, not the works of the Law, as Paul goes on to explain. Verse 16: "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,..." Also consider Romans 2:11-12: "For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law"; Verse 9 shows he is talking about Jews and Gentiles, and that they are not both judged by the Law, such as the Sabbath, for example.

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