God doesn’t change. Sabbath? Tithes? Circumcision?
Nonsense
Someone zealous about keeping the ritualistic-law of Moses and mixing it with God’s Holiness (which is a flawed argument) wrote:
“If our current Christian teaching promotes the idea that commandments like the Sabbath were once important to God, but now they are no longer important to Him, we perhaps should re-think our theology. God doesn’t change.” — Torahresource Institute
This kind of logic is ‘flawed’ and is greatly ‘against’ the Living God.
I’ll prove it here briefly.
God doesn’t change. Yes!~
I’ll start with the quoting Malachi 3:6 in “full” (not just part of it like the picture here).
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” (Malachi 3:6)
Malachi 3:6 is quoting that the “Lord does not change” with respect to “not destroying” the descendants of Jacob (Israelities) even though they did not “keep the Sabbath/pay their tithes etc as the subsequent verses in this chapter elaborates on their disobedience” (as the Old Covenant required).
Note that the verse in Malachi 3:6 did “not” say that the “Lord does not change” with respect to “keeping the Sabbath/paying tithes” (Read His Words respectfully and carefully and you’ll see this ‘literally’ –> In the verses after that, God explains the ‘reasons’ why they ‘transgressed’ against Him which is that they did not keep His commandments).
Now, going by ‘their logic’, circumcision was also a command which was once ‘very important to God’ but ‘now’ it means ‘nothing’ in Christ Who is the Anointed Messiah to fulfill and nullify the Old Covenant. Their ‘logic’ directly ‘contradicts’ this verse below and hence is ‘false’:
“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5:6)
How important was circumcision to God?
Remember that in the incident below, the act of ‘circumcision’ saved Moses’ life:
“At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)“–> (Exodus 4:24 – 26)
In case some of you are wondering, God was “about to kill Moses” in the verse quoted above. Shocked? Yes, God has “no” partiality even toward Moses for He “doesn’t change”.
Here’s a simple verse (directed to the Jews or the Hebrew people) with the ‘same’ message that the Old Covenant is ‘over’ and a ‘New’ Covenant is in Christ but yet they cling to it:
“By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” (Hebrews 8:13)
You see, by God making a “New” Covenant replacing the “Old”, He still didn’t change. That’s His Choice. That is, He doesn’t change from making His own choices.
There are many deceivers among the Jews (of the circumcision) as this next verse warned literally:
“For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group.” (Titus 1:10)
Why? They will deceive by telling things like ‘you got to be circumcised to be saved’ or ‘you got to keep the custom of Moses too’. Here’s the verse proving that (‘literally’):
“Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1)
Next, the Bible states that these ‘deceivers’ will further ask you to ‘keep the Law of Moses’ under the New Covenant time-period as this verse also identifies them ‘literally’:
“Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” (Acts 15:5)
Need I say more to this ‘nonsense’?
All these ‘Sabbath-respecters’ miss our Lord’s beautiful point:
“Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.” (NLT – Mark 2:27)
And hence, they ‘think’ they’re greatly avowed by keeping the Sabbath.
Remember, when Christ kept the Sabbath and broke it too (to prove that He is the Lord of the Sabbath – being greater than the Sabbath itself and not bound by it), the Old Covenant was still ‘in force’.
Hence, quoting Christ’s observance to the Sabbath or the Passover is ‘logically flawed’ since the verses such as Hebrews 8:13 have not been written yet because the New Covenant only came into the making on the Night He was Betrayed in the Last Supper.
That is, Christ fulfilled the Old Covenant by obeying its ritualistic Laws too during the time when it was still ‘in force’ for that “age” before He ‘nullified’ it and made a better ‘New Covenant’ for ‘this age’ (time-period).
Lastly, under the New Covenant don’t let these ‘deceivers’ judge you for not keeping a feast (such as Passover) or even any type of “Sabbaths” as even this verse directly and ‘literally’ (again) states in all ‘truth (you only cannot be judged of things not commanded to keep – a fact):
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon, or Sabbath days–” (Colossians 2:16)
P/S:
For those who still insist to disobey and continue to observe the Sabbath or be circumcised in the Name of Christ under this New Covenant, apostle James put this ‘condemnation’ forth beautifully for those who insist on keeping some parts of the Law (ritualistic) for y’all to endure:
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10)
Note that apostle James does “not” encourage the keeping of any Law (ritualistic) by the verse above. End.