STROM/PUCKETT DEBATE ON SABBATH

 
 
Proposition: 
Resolved, that the keeping of the weekly Sabbath is scripturally binding on 
Christians today.

Affirm: Bob Strom
Deny: James Puckett

(Upper case used for emphasis not volume)

Assumptions - that might be held in common:

1. The Bible (scripture) is the Word of God and consists of the 66 books as found 
in most Protestant versions of scripture. This is the highest authoritative source 
document known to mankind. All doctrine, theories, guesses are to be held subject 
to the Word of God.

2. Scripture is to be accepted as it is literal - as it is written unless symbolism is 
obviously employed. Therefore according to the text of Gen 1-3 we have;
1. A literal God the Creator who created a literal planet earth
2. God created mankind (consisting of 1 man and 1 woman)   
3. God created earth, the Sun and the moon in 6 literal days
(Literal rotations of planet Earth) - and rested the 7th day.
The first literal week for planet Earth.
4. Adam and Eve were created sinless, in perfect harmony with God and lived in 
the paradise Garden called the Garden of Eden.

In mankind's sinless state we (Adam and Eve) were blessed by life created on this 
planet by God AND blessed by the institution of marriage as well as the sanctified 
- holy - day - the 7th day of the week.

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.
2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested 
on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from 
all His work which God had created and made.

After the fall of mankind - we lost paradise among other things, but we took with 
us - the institution of marriage, the 7 day week  (with it's holy seventh day) and 
creation's living systems decaying yet stills blessing us).

Ex 20 expands our understanding of what God was doing on that 7th day of 
Creation week. Here in chapter 20 God Himself elects to speak audibly to 
mankind, thundering each of His own 10 commandments down the sides of Mt 
Sinai.  God informs us that in adding day 7 - God was creating a memorial in 
time. A memorial to His act of creating both mankind and the planet with all it's 
living creatures.

The 4th commandment reveals that when mankind's creator God sovereignly 
chose to bless and sanctify (made holy) the 7th day He intended to convey a 
stipulation - to honor - remember what was made 'holy'. The language is one of 
history - telling us in the 4th commandment what happened in the past at Creation 
week.

We have a "holy day" from the instant creation week is finished.  In fact 
NOTHING is created on the 7th day (of our 7 day week) EXCEPT the creation of 
the Creator's own Holy Day - given as a blessing to mankind - it is the first full 
day man spends with his Creator. A fitting memorial in time.

The language God chooses to use as He speaks His own 10 commandments 
directly to His people gathered at the foot of Mt Sinai is unique in the OT. So 
much so, that when we see it being quoted in other parts of scripture it is easily 
recognized as a reference to this first instance of that language - found in Exodus 
20.

Vs 11 of Exodus 20 hits the Genesis 2:4 formula square on the head - providing 
repeated proof that this particular Sabbath (the weekly Sabbath) is a memorial a 
holy day that looks back to honor the Creator's work in creating mankind and our 
planet. A holy day NOT of our choosing - but rather made Holy by the creator 
Himself at Creation -

Exodus 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not 
do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant 
or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that 
is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed THE 
Sabbath day and made it holy.

God makes it clear that the day is of his own choosing and is completely focused 
as a memorial of creation week - honoring mankind's Creator God.

The language of vs 11 will be repeated a few times in both the OT and NT - be 
sure not to miss it.

Is 56:2-5 shows us God's purpose in blessing non-Hebrews that chose to serve the 
true God and honor the Creation Sabbath commandment that serves as a memorial 
of our Creator's act of making this World and mankind himself.

Is 66:23 tells us of God's plan to have "all mankind come to bow before ME" 
from Sabbath to Sabbath and from New Moon to New Moon (in the New heavens 
and the New Earth to come).

The fact that our Creator God would choose to continue the blessing of His own 
Creation Sabbath "holy day" for all mankind EVEN in the New Earth helps us 
understand how the value God places on this blessing.

In the NT we are told that worshipping God in a way that specifically honors Him 
as Creator - continues to be significant to God's saints.

Rev 14:6 And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel 
to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue 
and people;
7 and he said with a loud voice, "" Fear God, and give Him glory, because the 
hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth 
and sea and springs of waters.''

Recall "the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them"

When God first made the 7th day of creation week "holy", mankind had not yet 
fallen into sin. We had no desire or need for a future salvation, nor even of a 
Savior. Rather mankind was in complete harmony with God "And God saw that it 
was good". It was a day of worship and rejoicing.  The text of Gen 2 and the text 
of Exodus 20 both refer us back to creation week and both leave the entire subject 
of animal sacrifices for later topics in the OT.

In Leviticus 23 we find that God ADDs a number of "Sabbaths" to the one 7th-
day Sabbath of creation week.

These new Sabbaths are also 'made holy' by the God that gives them. But in this 
case - He does it long after the first 7 day week at creation. And in giving these 
new Sabbath "feast days" God places sacrifices and offerings in their very 
inception - the them of substitutionary death permeates the wording of the 
ordinance for observing them - unlike the 7th day Sabbath ordinance found in 
Exodus 20.

These new "festival" Sabbaths are in fact shadows - prophetic promises to be kept 
by the coming Messiah.

For example -
The Passover promises that we can be free from the sentence of death via the 
blood of the Lamb of God.  In the Day of Atonement we see the Lamb of God 
that takes away the sins of the world - the Lord's goat dying as a sin offering in 
our place. All these Sabbaths rich in sacrifice and offering at their very start - are 
to have their "prophetic promise" fulfilled in Christ to whom they point as a 
shadow. But the memorial Sabbath given at creation - by contrast - stands out in 
the list as separate. Even it's position in Lev 23 suggests two lists as it is given it's 
own introduction separate from the other Sabbaths.

It should not surprise us that God continues the theme of His own 7th-day "holy 
day" even 2500 years AFTER first establishing it for mankind at creation. It's 
blessing remains for mankind for as Christ said "mankind was not MADE for the 
Sabbath, but the Sabbath was MADE for mankind". Though Jewish leaders may 
try to "own it" as if it belonged to them - Christ states that it is HE that is "Lord of 
the Sabbath Day". It is not something open to use/abuse by supposed Jewish 
usurpers of the Creator's day of worship.

This concludes my first affirmative.

Bob Strom
Cary, N.C.