In the NT we find many references to not judging your fellow man and God is only to judge man. But,By what means does God judge us by? Are there laws to which we should all adhere to? Are they the ten commandments? Most would say yes accept the sabbath commandment. Now if you take out the book of Hebrews i would presumably agree. But, there it is in the book the catholic church canonized. In this book of Hebrews ch 3and 4 it speaks of a "rest". Please read it carefully! Now this rest would have to be one of two things, either Paul is speaking of the Seventh Day Sabbath or he is speaking of our rest with God in heaven after our ressurection. Some might say that the "rest" is Christ but if you read ch 4:8 Jesus did not give us rest and verse 10 tells us that there REMAINS a rest to the people of God. So, what is it(rest)? Now hopefully i do err when saying that this "rest" is either two things. Please,please someone explain to me that it means something else. If this "rest" does not mean something else that i havent realized yet it really puts the RCC and most protestant churches in quite a pickle. If it means the "seventh day sabbath" then obviously we should all run for the nearest seventh day church and repent. Or, if it means , our rest in heaven, then the RCC is teaching false doctrine and most protestant churches are believeing it. And what is this "promise" in ch 4:1?

-- Michael (mdroe@erinet.com), December 09, 1999

Answers

Michael, I highly reccomend you read the article REST in Vocabulaire de Theologie Biblique, directed by X. Leon Dufour. It is very complete and certainly will answer your questions. I am sure there is an English translation in Libraries.

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), December 09, 1999.

Dear Michael,

I'm trying to understand your point. Off the top of my head, I would say that the "rest" of Hebrews 4 is our eternal rest in Christ which we begin to receive after we die and receive fully at the resurrection when we will rest with Him for all eternity. I don't understand why you say that this puts Catholics and Protestants in a pickle. The literal sabbath is a sign of and points toward the true rest in God spoken of in Hebrews 4. The New Covenant is a fulfillment of the Old Covenant and so we celebrate the rest of God now. But Paul says in Col 2:16:

"Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath."

That would seem to indicate that we are no longer bound to strictly observe the sabbath day. But it seems like you are judging us with respect to "a sabbath" and I'm not sure why.

I will try to dig out my books and read up more on the "rest" of Hebrews 4; my books are mostly still packed away in boxes :-(. But tell us more why seeing the "rest" in Hebrews 4 as our eternal rest with Christ in heaven puts us Catholics and Protestants in a pickle. And tell us how you interpret Col 2:16.

God bless,

-- David Palm (djpalm64@yahoo.com), December 09, 1999.

We've through this one Michael. Click here to go to the thread where we tackled this subject a month or so ago

Is the sabbath fulfilled?

Thanks David for reiterating Col 2:16 which pretty much puts to rest (sorry for the pun) this issue :-)

-- David Bowerman (dbowerman@blazenet.net), December 09, 1999.

First of all, i am not judging anyone here. That is not my job, that belongs solely to God.

David Bowerman, i am not done with this topic yet(sorry for the delay). I thought it would be better to put this to the whole forum. While discusing this with you i never really got a full answer about the Hebrews "rest". You also brought up the Col 2:16 verse as David Palm.

To both Davids, you could say that the Col. 2:16 verse means just the opposite or could go either way depending on the outcome of the Hebrews "rest". Maybe the key word in that verse is "man". Could this verse have started out "Let only God therefore judge you in...."? So, would this verse mean we have freedom to eat and drink what we choose, that we have freedom to respect a holy day or not,that we have freedom to choose to acknowledge a new moon or not , and we have freedom to choose to respect a sabbath day or not? If so, the RCC and most protestant churches require that we respect the Sunday sabbath. Wouldn't this be in direct conflict with this verse Col 2:16?

David Palm, The pickle would be:

If the "rest" in Hebrews means "our eternal rest with Christ in heaven", then you would presumably be saying that the Sabbath of the OT has not yet been fulfilled since its at a time appointed, correct? If so, may i point you to Matt.5: 17-18.

Maybe an easier way of deciding what this word "rest" means , is to replace the word "rest" with the word "sabbath" meaning the OT sabbath, or the words "eternal Life". Try it! Take special note of Heb.4:8-9

"For if Jesus had given them (sabbath)/(eternal life), would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a (sabbath)/(eternal life) to the people of God."

There are three opposing views concerning the sabbath. (1)The Sunday sabbath, (2)the saturday OT sabbath, and the (3)no day or eternal life sabbath. Which would you say fits these passages in Hebrews? Or, does the word "rest" here mean something different?

I would like to ask can we fully exhaust the Hebrews "rest" before discusing Col. 2:16, please? I know it helps to point to other verses but Col.2:16 seems kind of trivial and the Hebrews verses seem pretty straight forward and have much context.

-- Michael (mdroe@erinet.com), December 10, 1999.

Michael, I believe there is a book entitled "Divine Rest for human Restlessness" that deals with this subject written by Dr Samuele Bacchiocchi. He is a graduate of the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, where he received a gold medal from the Pope for his work on the subject of the change from Saturday observance to Sunday observance--"From Sabbath to Sunday".

Hope this helps,

John

-- John Foster (fostjoh@sc.llu.edu), January 22, 2000.