The Hebrew Roots Movement is not the only religious group that keeps the seventh-day Sabbath. God gave the Sabbath to Israel, so Jews continue to keep the Sabbath. Other Sabbath-Day keepers include Seventh-Day Adventists, Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, Seventh-Day Baptists, Church of God Seventh-Day, True Jesus Church, Sabbath Rest Advent Church, Adventist Church of Promise, Logos Apostolic Church of God, along with many others.
We looked in the last part of our study at how the Hebrew Roots Movement supported their belief in keeping the Sabbath. We turn now to those who disagree with HRM.
[*We do not necessarily endorse the critics listed below or their ministries or websites. Our purpose is to share some of the oppositional viewpoints to beliefs in the Hebrew Roots Movement. I will share my observations in the second section of this series.]
Sabbath-Keeping Critique
Although they often speak of keeping the “law,” they are usually inconsistent in how this is understood and defined. For example, certain laws are either broken or neglected while a great deal of attention is placed on keeping the Sabbath (Friday sunset through Saturday sunset) and celebrating the feasts mentioned in Leviticus 23. Dangers of the Hebrew Roots Movement
As opposed to what the Hebrew Roots movement claims, the New Testament teachings of the Apostle Paul are perfectly clear and self-explanatory. Colossians 2:16,17 says, “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day – things which are a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” Romans 14:5 states, “One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” Scripture clearly indicates that these issues are a matter of personal choice. These verses and many others give clear evidence that the Mosaic Covenant laws and ordinances have ended. Continuing to teach that the Old Covenant is still in effect in spite of what the New Testament teaches, or twisting the New Testament to agree with the Hebrew Roots beliefs, is false teaching. GotQuestions
All Torahists—even those who profess salvation comes through Christ alone—teach that not keeping Torah is sinful. They believe that keeping the law of Moses is not optional. They may claim it’s not necessary for salvation, but their teachings seem to say otherwise. They view disobedience of the Law of Moses (such as not observing Saturday Sabbath, or kosher food laws, or the annual feats) as living in sin and lawlessness … Torahism causes division in the body of Christ. I’ve seen it damage marriages, friendships, families, and even churches. It happens in two ways. First, Torah-observant Christians often make matters of keeping the Law of Moses a test of fellowship. As I mentioned, they view these Mosaic traditions as required of Christians, not optional. Therefore, they look down on Christians who don’t keep the Saturday Sabbath or the kosher food laws or celebrate Easter or Christmas. Those Christians are often reprimanded as lawless sinners. (I’m not exaggerating. If you’ve got a Hebrew Roots person in your life, you know what I’m talking about.) The Dangers of the Hebrew Roots Movement
The movement’s central belief is that the Torah is still binding—that Yahweh, or Hashem, did not intend for Yeshua’s appearance to render irrelevant the lessons of the Tanakh, whose rules and instructions remain valid. But notice what Paul wrote to the Colossians: Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Colossians 2:16-17 NASB …
The second group of words that Paul uses is rendered: “…or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.“
Representing, respectively, annual, monthly, and weekly celebrations that were tied in with the Mosaic Law. This phrase is indicative of all the appointed festivals of Israel (see Leviticus 23) and is used as such in at least three different places in the Tanakh.
Feast observance is a hallmark of the “Hebrew Roots Movement,” which keeps one foot in the Old Covenant while claiming to fully embrace the New Covenant.
In Galatians 4 Paul says to the fellowships of Galatia:
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. Galatians 4:9-10 NASB
So, obviously the observance of “days and months and season” was bondage. Paul did not want them to enter that bondage, but the HRM does.
Sabbath day—those of the HRM worship on Saturday, which in itself is not wrong. You can worship any and every day, but their Saturday worship is from the Torah and is bringing them under the Law.
Menachem Kaiser writes, “I met a number of Hebrew Roots followers who do not touch money on the Sabbath—which many of them call “Shabbos,” (shav-os) in the style of contemporary ultra-Orthodox Jews.” This is bondage!
The Sabbath was a type, one of the shadows of things to come. It was a type or shadow of a body or substance which we obtain in Christ. The main idea of the Sabbath was physical rest. That physical rest, therefore, must have been typical of some higher rest to be found by the Christian. The strict observance of the Sabbath, which Yahweh required of the Israelites, like the requirement of strict adherence to the divine pattern for the tabernacle, was because it was to typify a perfect spiritual rest of the Christian.
Centuries before Moses, the patriarch Jacob predicted Christ’s coming under the name “Shiloh,” or Rest-giver (Genesis 49:10). Yeshua Himself said: Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 NASB
He is the rest-giver, and the rest He gives from the burden and bondage of sin is the Christian’s Sabbath foreshadowed by that ancient Mosaic Sabbath. It was predicted that “His rest shall be glorious,” and it truly is. That this is the true Sabbath-keeping is argued by the inspired writer to the Hebrews (4:3-11). He who ceases from his own works to obtain righteousness and trusts in the mercy of God for pardon of sin has entered the true Sabbath. The Sabbath, like the other ceremonial requirements of the law of Moses, is abolished, but the blessed spiritual-rest it prefigured remains for the people of God.
The root for “Sabbaths” means: “to cease, desist.” The word came to mean a complete cessation. The idea is not relaxation or refreshment, but cessation from activity. For six days Yahweh created, and on the seventh he rested. The seventh day is a commemoration of grace—Yahweh did the doing. We rest in that.
Now notice, carefully, what Paul says about these Old Covenant regulations:
things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Colossians 2:17 NASB
Old Testament law commanded people of God to refrain from all work from Friday night at sunset until Saturday night at sunset and observe a Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11). Sabbath means “to stop” or “cease” and was rooted in God’s rest following the six days of creation, when God declared the day “blessed” and “holy” (Genesis 2:1-3). The people were expected to recognize the Sabbath as a “sign” to God’s people and the world of the covenant God had with them (Exodus 31:14-17).
Under the New Covenant, Jesus is our Sabbath. All the various “rests” legislated in the Mosaic Law under the Old Covenant—the weekly Sabbath rest, the annual festival rests, resting the land and the freedom rest of the Jubilee Year—pointed to the ultimate rest we now have in Christ. To “legislate” modern rules for keeping Sunday as the new Christian Sabbath is both theologically unnecessary (Colossians 2:16-17) and ignores the Apostle Paul’s vehement opposition to those who would impose various Jewish laws, including Sabbath keeping, on Gentile Christians (Romans 14:5; Galatians 4:10). Right or Wrong? Keeping the Sabbath
The bottom line is this: observance of the Sabbath is not a requirement of Christianity. Keeping the Sabbath, along with all the other sacrificial laws, are not necessary for those who live under the New Covenant. We don’t keep the Sabbath for the same reason that we don’t sacrifice lambs for the remission of sin. We enter God’s rest when we put our faith in the person and work of Christ. The entire Law of Moses (which includes the Ten Commandments), is obsolete because Jesus Christ fulfills the Law of Moses. Jesus institutes the New Covenant. Jesus death on the cross is fully sufficient for our salvation and our sanctification.
There are two very good reasons to understand this truth (and for this blog post to be shared with our church body).
The first reason is that teaching observance of the Sabbath law diminishes the completed work of Jesus Christ. There is no greater truth which we may place our faith than the truth that Christ’s work on the cross is completely sufficient. Our Savior is our Sabbath rest. Our Savior makes us holy. Observance of a day, or any aspect of the Law, will not gain us the righteousness we so sorely need. We embrace Christ alone through faith alone.
The second reason we need to understand this truth is that we are not to bind another person’s conscience with commands that are not applicable to the Christian life. There are two commands we may find joy in observing so our Savior gets the glory. Let’s keep our eyes on our pursuit of loving God and loving our neighbor.
eBook
You can download a free eBook of Chapters One – Five of this study here. Please share with family and friends as God leads.
Next Time
In the next part of our special series, The ‘Hebrew Roots’ Movement, we’ll look at the HRM belief that believers should keep the Jewish feast days.
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