Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@cbnewsm.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: law and love, again Message-ID: Date: 11 Oct 89 08:44:05 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 85 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu David Buxton points out that my earlier note was not phrased in a manner that would lend itself to coherent discussion: + You ... think I am side stepping something. Be specific so I can be responsive. My passions are engaged in this controversy because I see David's position as amounting to a denial of the gospel. He (correctly) infers that I am no advocate of blue laws, or indeed of any other meddling of the Church in secular society. I am an ardent disestablishmentarian. But let me see if I can provide a brief and relatively cool enumeration of the problems I find in the sabbatarian position. 1. The piling up of OT commendations of the Law is irrelevant. These are all references to the *whole* Torah and they are all written from the standpoint of Israel. Insofar as one takes these citations as binding for Christians, then the whole of Torah must be binding -- and as has been pointed out by others, observance of days is *specifically* named by Paul as nonbinding. Acts 15:20 does *not* name sabbath observance as one of the things Gentiles should do when they turn to God. Nothing from the OT may be used to override the Christian proclamation. 2. I have no quarrel with the general notion that human morality has its foundation in human nature, as created by God. It is less clear that such a notion can be derived from scripture; if so, the derivation is oblique. I am suspicious of *all* doctrinal positions that do not come from direct scriptural sources read with close attention to their context. [This position is not as "Protestant" as it may seem at first glance; part of the context is, necessarily, the context of the church as teacher, since that is the *origin* of the gospels and Paul's letters.] I see no evidence that the "general moral law" is equated with the ten commandments, anywhere in scripture. It is simply a logical fallacy to infer that rejection of murder implies acceptance of a sabbath. 3. My previous post was an empassioned plea to recgonize that *all* ritual observance amounts to the observers separating themsleves from the non- observers. This also seems to me to deny the gospel, though I admit a certain practical necessity of some such liturgical/ritual separation. At the very least baptism and eucharist *do* separate Christian from non-Christian -- but I am wary of anything that calls too much attention to this separation. The only separation that matters is that on the Day of Judgment; and only God knows the lines of division there. 4. More speculatively, and treading ground that many Christians will not want to follow me onto, the mythology of a 6-day creation followed by a 7th day on which God rested, which is used by the Priestly author as "justification" for the sabbath ordinance in the decalogue, is in my opinion pure literary figuration. Note that the Deuteronomist has a very *different* justification: "You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day." [Deuteronomy 6:15] This, to me, makes three points. It reinforces what I said above about this law, and the rest of Torah, being *Israel's* and not mine. And in connection with Christ's passion and resurrection being the Christian's passover and deliverance, the *reason* for the law given in Deuteronomy would seem to point quite directly at our taking Sunday for our sabbath. The third point is that the sabbath is to be a reminder of deliverance from oppression. (Which should in itself support David's objection to blue laws; it surely can make no sense to remember deliverance from oppression by *enforced* measures!) The sabbath, however and whenever observed, is no part of God's will if it is observed *against* mankind. The sabbath was made for us (for rest and recollection of deliverance) and not us for the sabbath. + I simply want to stand up and show that there are solid scriptural grounds + for the stand that we take. Unless you are a Jew, I think those "solid grounds" are quicksand; and even for the Jew it seems to me to be a very weak foundation if the Jew happens also to be Christian. A new covenant abrogates the old one, and trying to bring the old one back in by exegesis is dangerous, because for those who live in Christ, the old law is dead. I may no longer rely on "I did right; it says so here in the book" but must always act in love, and constrained only by love. -- Michael L. Siemon "O stand, stand at the window, cucard!dasys1!mls As the tears scald and start; att!sfbat!mls You shall love your crooked neighbor standard disclaimer With your crooked heart."