Cong Fang

在網上一個叫 Barron Von Strauss 的人對安息日的觀點，做一下筆記，不代表本人立場：

Christ is my Sabbath

1) The Sabbath was created by God for his covenant people. 

2) The Sabbath was intended a type and shadow of our rest in Christ to come. 

3) That rest was symbolized in the complete rest on one day of the week from all things that you do to sustain yourself physically.

4) The symbolism intended by the Sabbath rest was directed to the covenant people of God who were waiting for the promised Christ to come.

5) The Old Testamental period ended at the birth of the new covenant period (on the night of his betrayal) at the Lord’s Supper. In the Old Testament, the covenant people of God were directed to honor God through the Sabbath rest, but in the new covenant there was no command to keep this ritual.

6) The only rituals that were commanded in the New Testament are baptism and communion.

As a New Testament Christian, I rest in Jesus alone from my works to sustain myself and trust in him alone to save me and sustain me in all that I do. Ergo (Therefore), Christ is my rest. 

If your conscience is so broken over violating laws (that were intended to point us to Christ but offer no redemption since they cannot save you), then by all means, continue to follow them, but know that you will win no favors with God by continuing to sacrifice your time and effort to a type and shadow of what really exists. 

Like Jews in Israel clamoring to find a red heifer and to consecrate new priests for a new temple, you are signifying things that are not only paid for in Christs blood 2,000 years ago, but what you are doing is an affront to God as you are saying to him that his sacrifice on your behalf, and the rest in himself that he procured for you was not enough.

That said, as above, if your conscience is so bent on this, and if your faith cannot allow you to see that holding to these rituals not commanded by Jesus our King is offensive to him and to the work he performed on your behalf, then keep doing it.

羅馬書 Romans 14:1-9

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

信心軟弱的，你們要接納，但不要辯論所疑惑的事。有人信百物都可吃，但那軟弱的只吃蔬菜。吃的人不可輕看不吃的人，不吃的人不可論斷吃的人，因為神已經收納他了。你是誰，竟論斷別人的僕人呢？他或站住，或跌倒，自有他的主人在；而且他也必要站住，因為主能使他站住。

有人看這日比那日強，有人看日日都是一樣，只是各人心裡要意見堅定。守日的人是為主守的；吃的人是為主吃的，因他感謝神；不吃的人是為主不吃的，也感謝神。我們沒有一個人為自己活，也沒有一個人為自己死。我們若活着，是為主而活；若死了，是為主而死。所以，我們或活或死，總是主的人。因此基督死了，又活了，為要做死人並活人的主。