Do these Bible texts mean EXACTLY what they say?

Question

"It is therefore the duty of the people of God [the Saints] to keep the Sabbath [Saturday]. For he who has entered into his rest also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His" (Hebrews 4:9,10, Lamsa).

Concerning ETERNITY: "From one Sabbath [Saturday] to another, all manknd shall come to worship befor.e me, says the Lord" (isaiah 66:23)

And see: www.abiblecode.com/666.htm

Answer 1

i think so .. lets do it ...

Answer 2

It is my assumption that every ancient text, unless written in clearly metaphorical terms, means exactly what it says.

The question then becomes, Does this ancient text have any application in the present? Therein lie the controversies.

"It is therefore the duty of the people of God [the Saints] to keep the Sabbath [Saturday]. For he who has entered into his rest also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His" (Hebrews 4:9,10, Lamsa). Does Hebrews 4 actually say what you have quoted here? That is another question.

Answer 3

No, not every thing in the Bible mean exactly what they say. Like in the book of Deu. when God says not to eat some kinds of birds. The interpretation of that wasn't about food, it was about our relationships .

To answer your question, the word Sabbath means to fix. It is a Hebrew word. So God asks us to fix a day on which we do no any work, just to have faith in God that that work He would help us finishing it at the due time. That day could be Monday or Sunday or whenever.

Good Luck!!

Answer 4

Not only is the word "Saturday" nowhere to be found in the text (a highly debatable inference at best), but neither is the word "duty." A much more accurate translation of the Greek would read as follows:

"Therefore, it can be inferred that to the people of God there has been left a Sabbath rest”

Note the emphasis in the passage is not on duty, but on something left to us, in the same sense as an inheritance. The “therefore” refers back to the previous point that the author has just made, that the Israelites did not accomplish the reality of rest through military conquest of Canaan. By analogy, Canaan represented the spiritual rest of believers, but those who did not enter into it failed because of unbelief. Yet there would be no point in talking about a future rest, as the author infers of David’s statements in Psalm 95, if the conquest of Canaan was all that was in view. The writer wants his audience to know that there is another kind of rest, a real rest that cannot be entered into except by belief.

Additionally, the word translated Sabbath in the above passage is “sabatismos,” which appears nowhere else in the New Testament, despite many references to the Jews keeping the weekly Sabbath. Why is this so? Because it is not a reference to the form but the substance of the Sabbath, the rest the people of God enjoy when they enter into the New Covenant with God through belief, a rest from the obligation to earn their salvation through works of the flesh, such as mere formal Sabbath-keeping. The writer specifically says this rest is entered into through belief, not through participation in ritual observance of a given day. This rest is analogous to the rest of God on the seventh day of the creation week. Again, the substance, not the form, is the issue. The book of Hebrews is all about how the forms of the Old Covenant foreshadowed the substance that would come in Christ. The Sabbath under Moses was a mere form for expressing the real, spiritual rest we now enjoy in Jesus, and there is simply no reason to go back to an empty form once you have the real thing.

Edit:

I have discovered that part of your problem is relying on the translation work of George Lamsa. Unlike reputable Bible translation experts, this individual was quite liberal in inserting his own theological views into the text. I suggest you find yourself a better Bible before you get too deeply involved in Lamsa's theories. Apparently he thought very highly of his self-appointed prophetic mission to unify all religions around an Edgar Cayce-styled psychic revision of Christianity, complete with a denial of the resurrection. Go too far down that path, and overtake you the dark side will.

Edit2:

As for Isaiah 66:23, we must conclude, if you are right to use this in support of an obligatory Saturday Sabbath for Christians, that Paul was mistaken in Colossians 2:16, where he specifically states that no ritual obligation of the law stands as judge over Christians, but only served as a mere shadow of the reality to come in Christ. So then, who is right? Paul, or Isaiah? Both, because both wrote under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit. How then can these two references to the Sabbath be reconciled? Please note that Isaiah does not say that worshippers will observe the Sabbath as formulated under Moses, but that worship will happen with the steady regularity of the moon in its cycles, and the passing of weeks as marked by the Sabbath day in Israel. Use of the Sabbath as a time-marker is well-established in Scripture. This is only natural because the Hebrew term for Sabbath is rooted in the numerical idea of “seven,” thus Sabbath can be used to refer to the passage of seven days, not necessarily to a particular form of Sabbath observance. Since Paul has told us the mode of Sabbath observance is not obligatory on Christians, we must conclude the Isaiah prophecy points us to something deeper, that is, the ongoing joyful celebrations Christians will experience in the kingdom as we regularly come together to worship Jesus, who, by His death and resurrection, has opened the way for us to enter into His perpetual Sabbath rest.

Answer 5

You really don't have a clue what you are taking about. I notice you inserted the word "saturday" in there. You are wrong to insert your own thoughts into the Bible. The sabbath rest talked about in these chapters is a spiritual rest, you just need to read a lttle more. Isa 66 is not talking about eternity, it is talking about the kingdom.

Answer 6

If you read the Hebrews verse in context with the earlier verses and verse 11, you can see that those verses are talking about a future rest for those who have believed (eternity in heaven).

The New Testement gives no direct command to remember the Sabboth and keep it holy as was commanded in the ten commandments.

It's easy to see that the principle of keeping the Sabboth was to set aside a time to remember what God had done for them by abstaining from the work of day-to-day life. The pharisees distorted this and made it legalistic and Jesus rejects this legalistic view throughout the gospels.

But it is a important to keep God first and take time out of our busy schedule and devote it to him.

Answer 7

Yes . . . but the problem is in the "knowing of what it says, exactly"

Context . . . very important

example: in Genesis . . . there are six days of 'creation' . . . each one has a beginning and an end . . . except for the seventh day . . . only the beginning is mentioned and the end is not in the text . . . why?

because it has not ended

we are in the seventh day still to this day . . . even the scripture you have in Hebrews says God is not presently doing any "work" (creating) . . .

You see, the first six "days" were long periods of time . . . or better read: ages . . . and astronomers can tell you a lot about these long periods of time in the Cosmos . . .

So the text means what it says . . . but knowing what it means, takes study and mucho effort (a bit of Spanish lingo, there)

Answer 8

No doubt, yes, but, how to make them mesh with these?

Romans 14:5 -- One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Col 2:16 -- Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, OR OF THE SABBATH DAYS: 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. ... 20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

Answer 9

Do these Bible texts mean EXACTLY what they say?

You have to read these texts within the whole context of God's Word. You can't take isolated passages and have a correct understanding of what the Bible is teaching.

Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

Colossians 2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 having blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He has taken it out of the midst, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed principalities and powers, He mocked them in public, triumphing over them in it. 16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or of a new moon or of sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.

Jesus has fulfilled the ceremonial Sabbath law that was a "shadow" of the rest that believers could find in Christ from trying to be justified before God by keeping the law.

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore let us fear, lest while the promise remains to enter into His rest, any one of you seems to have fallen short. 2 For indeed we have had the gospel preached to us just as those also; but the word which they heard did not profit those, not having been mixed with faith in those having heard it. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest,.....9 Then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered into His rest also rested himself from his works, as God did from His own.

Answer 10

I suppose if you believe that Saturday is the Sabbath you are welcome to keep it as Jewish people and some Christian Denominations do.

I hope you are correct and are justified by always making Saturday the Sabbath, and that no one made a mistake in the calendar over the past few thousand years .

It would be a shame for you and people like you if we were not justified by works and could only be justified by Faith.

Answer 11

No one says if it is saturday or sunday, and Jesus showed through parabyls that while keeping the sabbath Holy there are still things to help others if they need help, Jesus healed, and explained in certain instances that the pharisees would also if it came to it.