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Post by Josh on Aug 10, 2011 7:46:24 GMT -8
elsewhere Kevin wrote:
I'm not sure I understand your dilemma. Are you saying that it seems like a long time to rest?
Keep in mind that one can make a good case that the 7th day has never ended (it's the one day in the text that doesn't say- there was evening and there was morning, etc.
The "resting" need only mean "resting from creating". And one can make a great case that, aside from bacteria/ virus, there have been no new species since the advent of modern humans.
Also, the author of Hebrews (Hebrews 3-4) says that God's "rest" can still be entered into, which may support the above theory.
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Post by asaph on May 30, 2015 11:46:50 GMT -8
Six days Christ put on the incredible creation display for the morning stars and sons of God, and especially for Lucifer and his host following him, hoping he could pull off being like the most High. Unfortunately ... not.
The seventh day, finished, Christ rested. Why does there need to be an evening and morning stated, when the record of evenings and mornings was for what He did in six days previous?
If you believe the Earth is billions of years old and all kinds of death and bloodshed had taken place before the creation as accounted in Genesis 1, this explanation would be meaningless but, if you believe there was no death, because there was no sin, and everything was very good in the new creation of this world, then not stating evening and morning the seventh day may simply be stating what rest existed that day was meant to go on forever. An endless time of eternal life for Adam, Eve, and their offspring, and the rest of creation's creatures. Pretty much what it will be when Christ returns and eternity finally arrives.
There does remain a rest, a Sabbath, for the people of God. There shall always be a Sabbath rest for God's people, throughout eternity, to remember the work of our Creator and Redeemer, who rested from His work of salvation in the tomb on the seventh day.
Unlike the world we live in now, all creation shall be aware of His rest, and be blessed in it.
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Post by Josh on Jun 1, 2015 21:22:30 GMT -8
Please read here for more rationale why the creation days should be seen as longer than 24 hour periods. I think there you'll also see that I don't hold that billions of years of earth history happened before Genesis 1, but rather that Genesis 1:1 is synonymous with the big bang and the days of creation synonymous with the progression of earth's early history. |
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Post by asaph on Jun 5, 2015 18:39:29 GMT -8
But the big bang hypothesis states a different order of what came into being then Genesis. They are not compatible just by stated order of events.
If yom is not a 24 hour period, what does evening and morning mean? You certainly cannot have epochs of evening, darkness, and then epochs of daylight and expect anything to live.
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Post by asaph on Jun 5, 2015 18:58:19 GMT -8
"One more question if my case needs more ammunition: consider day 6. All the following things happen in just that day: 1) Creation of land animals 2) Creation of Adam 3) Adam names animals in the garden 4) Adam gets lonely 5) Eve created. Does it seem even remotely likely that all of these events could happen in one 24 hour day? I know men need women, but I'm sure with all the new sights, Adam wouldn't have gotten lonely for at least a week!" Josh Read more: aletheia.proboards.com/thread/287/long-creation-days-yom-controversy#ixzz3cFJe8F2HAll on day six? Without question. First, God spoke and there the creatures were on day six. How long would it take Christ to mold a mound of dirt? How long would it take anyone, in perfectly moist dirt? Fifteen minutes? The Creator breathed into Adam the breath of life and man became a living soul. Fairly instantaneous I would say. Now we have this new creature, made in the image and likeness of God, with a brain that could absorb a medical dictionary of today in in an hour, I suspect? Naming the 'kinds' of animals in the garden, not knowing just how many kinds were there, is no stretch at all. In the process Adam realizes there is nothing like him in the garden. That could have been a no brainer about an hour into the process. It doesn't say he was lonely. It just says there was no helper for him. It doesn't even state Adam realized that. It just states it as a fact. God puts him to to sleep, Eve is created, and I doubt it was early afternoon yet. |
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Post by asaph on Jun 6, 2015 4:01:29 GMT -8
Something else which comes to mind is the weekly cycle. Man did not invent it. God created it. And His fourth commandment is bound up in it. If Genesis 1 is not to be taken as literal, actual events, where did the weekly cycle come from which God commanded man remember the seventh "yom" as a memorial of creation week?
Once you allow modern "science" to direct events according to its understanding, which is a godless understanding and therefore no true understanding at all, you really begin to mess up all kinds of things laid out in Scripture, both old and new testaments. The Bible lays out what God wants man to know and sooner or later man is given grace to catch up to it all. That is why the list of creationists grows exponentially every year now. You can jive the creation model. All you wind up with is unsolvable problems with other models.
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Post by Josh on Jun 26, 2015 23:28:53 GMT -8
I do think much of genesis 1 records literal, actual events, and yom literally means a 12 hr , 24 hr, or age-long period of time.
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Post by Josh on Jun 26, 2015 23:30:32 GMT -8
There are not only sabbaths of days there are sabbaths of years listed in the OT. It's the 7 that is fixed in its significance, not the duration of the 7.
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Post by asaph on Jun 27, 2015 3:54:47 GMT -8
Then the fourth commandment is moot?
The fact that the number seven has varying significance in Scripture does not negate its significance in context wherever it is found. In Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 we have context for a 24 hr. period, and the weekly cycle.
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Post by Josh on Jun 28, 2015 20:09:53 GMT -8
Where did I say the 4th commandment was moot? However, I do think that it was fulfilled in Jesus and that now every day is sabbath, now that we have entered into his rest.
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Post by asaph on Jun 29, 2015 6:19:46 GMT -8
'Moot' is the only conclusion one can come to if yom does not mean a 24 hr. period in Genesis 1. The fourth commandment is meaningless for all of OT history if the weekly cycle was not established by the Creator in Genesis 1 and 2.
This is obviously not the place to enter into the "rest" of discussion about the seventh-day Sabbath and the moral law. I won't go there. I am just stating if yom does not mean an actual 24 hr. day in Genesis 1, when did the weekly cycle become established by the Creator and how could Abraham keep God's laws and commandments if he didn't know them before Exo. 16 and 20, and how can the 4th commandment have ANY meaning as to establish an actual day of rest for God's people?
Because I cannot resist here, if the seventh day of the week is the same as it always has been, and most believers gather for convocation on the first day of the week, in honor of Christ's resurrection, where do they get that reasoning if Genesis 1 is not about literal 24 hour days? You say every day is the Sabbath. The Bible does not. It says ONE day is the Sabbath, based on creation week, the seventh day of that week.
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Post by Josh on Jul 6, 2015 22:47:10 GMT -8
I don't see how it's meaningless; God is saying, just as I created in 6 yom epochs and then rested, so shall you repeat the cycle every week of 7 24- hr yoms.
We don't know for sure if God directly gave human cultures the original idea of a 7 day week. It was almost a ubiquitous observance in the ancient world (Greece, Near East, China, India, etc.) but whether that is because it intrinsically makes sense mathematically or because all these cultures have a memory tracing back to Adam and Eve, we can't say for certain.
I don't understand what you're getting at here. The Christians orginally met on Sunday because, as you point out, it was the day that Jesus' rose from the dead, and probably because the early Christian were also still worshipping in the synagogue with their fellow Jews on Saturdays. What does this have to do with Genesis 1, except that the epochs of Genesis 1 correspond with the 7 days of the week?
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Post by Josh on Jul 6, 2015 23:06:50 GMT -8
A couple points in defense of the idea that every day is now the Sabbath in the kingdom of God.
1. Hebrews 4 says "There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience." What is this Sabbath that Hebrews is talking about? It's definitely not a 24-hr period. It is the rest that God has been enjoying since the original creation week. So, therefore, it has been an epoch-long rest. And when we come to enter into it, we enter into it for good: it becomes an unending Sabbath.
2. "Jesus fulfilled the law. In some cases this means the letter of the law is now abrogated/ no longer necessary to follow (ritual sacrifice being a clear example). Some see the Sabbath in this light, but that's not satisfactory to me. In other cases fulfilling the law meant actually expanding it (as in Jesus' "you have heard it said, but I say" sayings), and I think it's likely that the author of Hebrews is saying that the "shadow" of Sabbath stipulated as day 7 of the week is now fulfilled in the entire epoch of the Kingdom of God. In this way the Sabbath laws are not abrogated but rather expanded. |
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Post by asaph on Aug 8, 2015 7:53:40 GMT -8
Your position is that Genesis 1 is about epochs of time. Your position is that the Sabbath rest is about an epoch of time.
Your position then negates the direct simplicity of the fourth commandment and what it relates to in regards to the weekly cycle and creation. And, if everything is about spiritual epochs what is the point of Sunday convocation? There is zero command for it. The resurrection should be seen by you as the beginning of a spiritual epoch so every day is about new life and resurrection and meeting on Sunday has no more significance than setting aside Sabbath for those who keep the seventh day.
I do not see that you can have it both ways. If the fourth commandment was about epochs, and is now about an epoch, it was stupid of the Creator to have His people stop work and rest every seventh day for four thousand years of recorded biblical history. People like Bill Maher would be absolutely correct in everything they say about God if your theology is correct. It is nonsensical on the face of it.
It certainly seems your theology is based more on the 'big bang' than what the Scriptures plainly teach.
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Post by Josh on Aug 10, 2015 8:45:29 GMT -8
My position is that the Sabbath rest (now) is about epochs of time, predicted (then) by the weekly daily cycle (as well as the cycle of Jubilees).
And, if everything is about spiritual epochs what is the point of Sunday convocation? There is zero command for it. The resurrection should be seen by you as the beginning of a spiritual epoch so every day is about new life and resurrection and meeting on Sunday has no more significance than setting aside Sabbath for those who keep the seventh day.
You're right, Sunday has virtually no more significance than any other day according to Scripture. Every day is holy to the Lord. The only thing that Sunday has going for it is a mention in Scripture of Christians meeting that day (among many other days) and a very early Christian tradition of meeting on that day.
The fourth commandment wasn't about "epochs" originally. It was about a specific day of course. But just as specific commands about specific animal sacrifices are now fulfilled in one final lasting Sacrifice (Hebrews 7-10)so too, I'm arguing, specific commands about a specific day are now fulfilled in the era of the Messiah's reign.
All that said, it doesn't mean that the natural God-built-in benefits of taking a day of rest every week aren't still valid.
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