Was the Sabbath kept prior to the Commandments at Sinai?

[Hobie]

Looking at Creation with Adam and Eve there, when God created the Sabbath we can see that they knew very well about the Sabbath before the Commandments were written on the stone tablets at Sinai.

Genesis 2:2-3
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
There is no denying that God was here setting aside the Sabbath as holy time and its clear that Adam and Eve were not Jewish. "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it" before sin entered. "Sanctified" means "to be set apart for holy use." The only ones in the Garden of Eden for whom the Sabbath was 'set apart' were Adam and Eve, who werent Jewish.

Is it logical to believe that God first created man, then the Sabbath, and then failed to mention to man that the seventh day was holy time in the weekly cycle, of course not. God must have immediately explained to Adam all about His sacred seventh day and how to observe His day as He wanted it to be observed. Everyone would have known of it from them, and would have kept the Sabbath if they followed God, in the time before Sinai. The Hebrew word translated "sanctified" in Genesis 2:3 and "hallowed" in Exodus 20:11 is qadash, a word meaning "to hallow, to pronounce holy, to consecrate, to set apart for holy use."

Abel and even Cain knew about what God had set up at Creation from their parents and giving sacrifices unto God, and notice what it says in Genesis 4..
Genesis 4:3
And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

At that point, the only length of time was the week, as it wasnt counted then in months and years. The words "in process of time" are translated from the Hebrew mikkets yamim, meaning "at the end of the days." This can only be telling us that on the Sabbath, Cain and Abel, with the rest of Adam's family, gathered to worship God. So its basically when the week 'came to pass', or the weekly end, the seventh day that God had blessed and sanctified, or made holy. It is just not reasonable to think that God would make the Sabbath for man and then keep it from him for over 2000 years until Moses at Sinai. The very fact that the seven-day week existed as the weekly cycle, even till today, is good evidence the Sabbath also existed from Creation.

If you look, a week of seven days is frequently mentioned in Bible, so the patriarchs knew of the weekly cycle of the Creator who made the Sabbath. In Genesis we see that Noah was clearly acquainted with a seven-day week.
Genesis 7:4
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
Genesis 8:10
And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
Genesis 8:12
And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

Unless the Sabbath was their pivot of time, people then could not have used such a measure of days. If fact the margin rendering of Genesis 7:10 is "on the seventh day," a reference to nothing but the Sabbath. You can be sure that Noah, a just man who walked with God knew about the weekly cycle, and kept God's seventh-day that He blessed and made holy.

And if you read what was given at Sinai, you see "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The Bible never calls it "the Sabbath of the Jews." It isnt their Sabbath, but God's. Another thing you find is that the Sabbath commandment is for the "stranger" too. The fourth commandment itself says the "stranger" is to rest on the Sabbath. Exodus 20:10.'Strangers' are non-Jews, or Gentiles. Thus the Sabbath applies to them too, and the Creator who made heaven and earth also made the Sabbath....

Mark 2:27
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

 

[Fred]

When would Adam and Eve have obeyed the 7th day Sabbath since they were created days after Day 1?
Would their 7th day be different from the 7th day of creation?

 

[Soyeong]

When would Adam and Eve have obeyed the 7th day Sabbath since they were created days after Day 1?
Would their 7th day be different from the 7th day of creation?

The 7th day is in memorial of when God rested, not of when they were created.

 

[Fred]

The 7th day is in memorial of when God rested, not of when they were created.

Did Adam and Eve observe the 7th day Sabbath by resting on it?

 

[CrowCross]

The 7th day is in memorial of when God rested, not of when they were created.

Sunday is a memorial of when Jesus rose from the grave....or am I making that up?

 

[Soyeong]

Sunday is a memorial of when Jesus rose from the grave....or am I making that up?

People have the freedom for follow their own tradition honoring the resurrection over whatever time increment they want. For example, we could honor the resurrection once a decade, once a year, twice a year, once a month, twice a month, once a week, twice a week, once a day, one an hour, and so forth, but none of that means that we should set aside any of God's commands.

 

[Fred]

People have the freedom for follow their own tradition honoring the resurrection over whatever time increment they want. For example, we could honor the resurrection once a decade, once a year, twice a year, once a month, twice a month, once a week, twice a week, once a day, one an hour, and so forth, but none of that means that we should set aside any of God's commands.

God already invalidated all the commands of the Old Covenant (Hebrews 8:13).

 

[Soyeong]

Did Adam and Eve observe the 7th day Sabbath by resting on it?

The text does not directly say that they did, but I see no reason to think that they did not. In Genesis 4:7, God told Cain that sin was crouching at the door and that he must master it, which implies that he already knew what sin is and must have already been given laws in that regard. Likewise, in Genesis 7:2, Noah was told what to do with clean and unclean animals without being told how to tell the difference, and in 8:20, he knew to offer a clean animal. In Genesis 39:9, Jospeh knew that it was a sin to commit adultery. So there are many examples of people following God's instructions without it being recorded when God first gave those instructions. We should emulate God's example of keeping the Sabbath (Hebrews 4:10), so we shouldn't need to be commanded to do that. What is holy to God should not be profaned by man, so we would still be obligated to follow God's example of keeping the 7th day holy even if He had never commanded anyone to do that.

 

[Soyeong]

God already invalidated all the commands of the Old Covenant (Hebrews 8:13).

The New Covenant still involves following those commands (Hebrews 8:10), so what the Mosaic Covenant has become obsolete, God's law did not.

 

[Fred]

The New Covenant still involves following those commands (Hebrews 8:10),

No, it doesn't.
They have been "abrogated." (Hebrews 8:13)

 

[Fred]

The text does not directly say that they did, but I see no reason to think that they did not.

Thanks for your guess.

Don't spread it as must be believed doctrine.

 

[Soyeong]

No, it doesn't.
They have been "abrogated." (Hebrews 8:13)

The Mosaic Covenant is eternal (Exodus 34:14-17), so the only way that it can be replaced by the New Covenant is if the New Covenant does everyone that it does plus more, which is what it means to make something obsolete (Hebrews 8:13), so the New Covenant still involves following the Torah (Hebrews 8:10), plus it is based on better promises and has a superior mediator (Hebrews 8:6).

The New Covenant is still made with the same God with the same nature and therefore the law for how to testify about His nature (Jeremiah 31:33). For example, the way to testify about God's righteousness is straightforwardly based on God's righteousness, not on a particular covenant, and God's righteousness is eternal (Psalms 119:142), so any instructions that God have ever given for how testify about His righteousness are therefore also eternal valid regardless of which covenant someone is under (Psalms 119:160). Likewise, sin was in the world before the law was given (Romans 5:13), so there were no actions that became righteous or sinful wen the law was given, but rather the law revealed what has always been and will always be the way to do that. For example, it was sinful to commit adultery in Genesis 39:9 long before the Mosaic Covenant was made, during it, it remains sinful after it has become obsolete, and that will never change not matter how many covenants God makes. If it were to ever change such committing adultery became righteous, then God's righteousness would not be eternal. The only way that the eternal set of instructions for how to testify about God's eternal righteousness can be abolished would be if God's eternal righteousness were abolished first.

The set if laws that the God of Israel has given paint us a picture of His nature, such as by seeing that God has given righteous and wise laws we can see that God is righteous and wise, and if God has instead commanded His people to commit adultery, then that would have painted a very different picture of His nature. So if the New Covenant involves following a different set of laws, then it would be made with a different God with a different nature than that of the God of Israel, but it is made with the same God with the same nature and the same law (Hebrews 8:10).

Thanks for your guess.

Don't spread it as must be believed doctrine.

I didn't claim that Adam and Eve kept the Sabbath or spread it as must be believed doctrine, but rather I said that I see no reason to doubt that they did just short of the Bible directly stating that they did, which is not a guess. The way to testify about God's eternal nature is eternally the same for Adam and Eve, the same for Abraham, the same for Moses, the same for Jesus, and the same for us.

 

[Fred]

The Mosaic Covenant is eternal

No, it isn't. It has been abrogated (Hebrews 8:13).

 

[Soyeong]

No, it isn't. It has been abrogated (Hebrews 8:13).

Hebrews 8:13 should not be interpreted as contradicting Hebrews 8:10, Exodus 31:14-17, and Leviticus 24:8. It notably does not state that the Mosaic Law has become obsolete, just the Mosaic Covenant. In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone is a false prophet who is not speaking for Him was if they taught against obeying the Mosaic Law, so if your interpretation of Hebrews 8:13 were correct, then according to God, you should consider Hebrews to be written by a false prophet.

 

[Fred]

Hebrews 8:13 should not be interpreted as contradicting Hebrews 8:10, Exodus 31:14-17, and Leviticus 24:8.

It doesn't contradict those passages. It refutes your misunderstanding concerning those passages.

 

[Soyeong]

It doesn't contradict those passages. It refutes your misunderstanding concerning those passages.

Jeremiah 31:33 says that the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah on our minds and writing it on our hearts, but you deny that the New Covenant involves following the Torah.

 

[Fred]

Jeremiah 31:33 says that the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah on our minds and writing it on our hearts, but you deny that the New Covenant involves following the Torah.

A New Covenant has different laws. Otherwise, it would be the same covenant.

The New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant (Jeremiah 31:32).

Hebrews 10:9
He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

What God took away you are trying to put back.
Not good.

 

[ChristB4us]

Looking at Creation with Adam and Eve there, when God created the Sabbath we can see that they knew very well about the Sabbath before the Commandments were written on the stone tablets at Sinai.

Genesis 2:2-3
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
There is no denying that God was here setting aside the Sabbath as holy time and its clear that Adam and Eve were not Jewish. "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it" before sin entered. "Sanctified" means "to be set apart for holy use." The only ones in the Garden of Eden for whom the Sabbath was 'set apart' were Adam and Eve, who werent Jewish.

BUT the only commandment they were under, was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Until they had sinned, and had fallen, there was no other commandment. There was no need for the commandment to keep the sabbath day.

God did set apart that day to signify to all generations and the readers of His words that He rested from all His creation in that 6 days week on the 7th day and so that really should be applied to creation in disproving the old age earth teaching between Genesis 1:1 & Genesis 1:2 since what was created that first day was the very "beginning" as there was evening and morning that "first" day.

Only when Israel became a nation is when God set apart that sabbath day and He did it by making it a commandment then; how else can Israel represent Him to a lost world?

 

[CrowCross]

Jeremiah 31:33 says that the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah on our minds and writing it on our hearts, but you deny that the New Covenant involves following the Torah.

Shall we follow the one standing in the new temple when he arrives?

 

[Soyeong]

A New Covenant has different laws. Otherwise, it would be the same covenant.

The New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant (Jeremiah 31:32).

Hebrews 10:9
He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

What God took away you are trying to put back.
Not good.

A new covenant can have the same laws (Hebrews 8:10), but be a different covenant because it is based on better promises and has a superior mediator, which is the way that the New Covenant is not like the Mosaic Covenant. In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so following the Torah is not one of the ways that it is not like the Mosaic Covenant. I agree that we are not under the Mosaic Covenant, but am speaking about how we should live under the New Covenant, so I am not trying to put back what God took away.