Dr. James White addresses defending the Sabbath against non-Sabbatarian interpretations by distinguishing the perpetual creation ordinance from Israel's abrogated ceremonial calendar in Colossians 2:16. He clarifies that Romans 14:5 permits observing secular holidays like Christmas or Veterans Day without judgment, provided they honor the Lord, while promoting an upcoming Right Response Conference on post-millennialism and theonomy. Ultimately, this nuanced approach preserves the weekly Sabbath's sanctity while allowing flexibility for cultural observances within Christian liberty. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Two Kinds of Sabbaths00:08:57
Big news, really big news.
Our next Right Response Conference is in the works.
We've got a number of things already lined up and organized.
This is what we've got so far.
The whole conference, three days long on post millennialism and theonomy.
And the speakers Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin.
We've got a great lineup, we've got great topics.
If you want to find out dates, And location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website, rightresponseconference.com.
Rightresponseconference.com.
All right, Romans chapter 14, verse 5 says, 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, in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God.
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
Okay, that's a great one, but let's actually add to it, right?
If we want to play the devil's advocate here, which the devil, that's one of his primary businesses, is twisting the scripture.
So if we want to twist this one, let's go ahead and twist an even better one.
All right, so this is Colossians, I believe, chapter 2.
Nathan, maybe you could do a quick web search for Sabbaths and New Moons, Colossians.
If you type that into a search bar, it should pop up.
But I believe it's Colossians chapter 2, but I'd like to know for sure and also the verse 2 16.
That's what I was thinking.
Okay, so Colossians chapter 2.
So these are the two.
So you cited one of them, T, from T.
So T, you cited one of them, Romans chapter, what was it, chapter 12, verse 5?
14, 5.
So Romans 14, 5 is one of the premier verses.
And then the other one that's even, you know, seemingly stronger against the Sabbath that non Sabbatarian guys will use is Colossians 2, 16.
Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival.
Or a new moon or a Sabbath.
These are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Okay, it goes on and says, So then let no one disqualify you.
Say you're in sin, you're not qualified, you're not being holy.
Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind.
Okay, so Colossians 2.
Takes the same principle, right?
So it's the same principle, same concept of Romans 14, 5, but then just gives more specific, particular examples.
And the examples in Colossians 2 of the same principle stated in Romans 15, 14, 5 is the example cited in Colossians 2 of that principle is let no one pass judgment on you with questions of food, drink, or in regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
And I would say that all five of these things food, drink, festival, new moon, or Sabbath all five of these things belong to the ceremonial law of God, which is fulfilled by Christ but also abrogated by Christ.
He makes us clean.
He is our high priest.
He's the Lamb of God, the sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world.
These are aspects, belonging, rituals, artifacts, elements of the old covenant.
That was particular to Israel in that particular time.
And you might say, but it says Sabbath, Joel, and you said that that's not just with Moses and Mount Sinai.
Yeah, you're right.
That's a creation ordinance that is not removed, but renewed from the last day to the first for us still to this day under the new covenant.
The Sabbath, so how do you resolve that tension?
The Sabbath mentioned in Colossians 2, verse 16, is not the weekly Sabbath.
Solid throughout church history, if we look at the consensus of church history, not just your liberal, progressive, non Sabbatarian exegetes that came about in the last 20 years, but if we look at 2,000 years of biblical commentary and theologians on this particular text, looking at Romans 14 5 and Colossians 2, verse 16, the Sabbath in its context is being placed right next to food, drink, festivals, and new moons.
The Sabbath mentioned there.
Is a Sabbath that is unique to Israel's calendar of worship, its annual calendar of worship that followed moon cycles, that followed certain seasons and harvests, right?
You had seven major feasts in Israel, festivals, right?
The Feast of Booths, right?
The Day of Atonement, Passover, these kinds of things.
And the Sabbath mentioned here is actually, it is like a new moon Sabbath.
It's a monthly Sabbath, not the weekly Sabbath, but a monthly.
Or in some cases, maybe a bi monthly Sabbath, bi being every two months, that was unique to Israel's annual calendar of worship following harvests and seasons and lunar cycles.
And it was unique to Israel.
So the short answer is this it's confusing.
It is confusing.
It's difficult.
So it's a good question, T.
But the Sabbath mentioned in Colossians 2 16 is not the Sabbath mentioned in Genesis.
The one in seventh day is not the weekly Sabbath, which belongs to all people in all times, set, established as a creation ordinance by God, who rested on the seventh day, and renewed by the Son of God from the seventh to the first day by virtue of his resurrection.
It's not that weekly Sabbath, which is a creation ordinance in the beginning and then renewed as a part of Christian worship by the head of the church, Jesus Christ himself.
That's a weekly Sabbath, that's perpetual.
All times till the end of the world, says the Westminster in 1689 confession, to the end of the world to be observed by all peoples, not just Christian people, but all people.
The weekly Sabbath belonging to Christian worship that transcends simply the old covenant and the nation state of Israel.
Yet there is another Sabbath.
The weekly Sabbath is not the only Sabbath that Israel observed.
There were also monthly Sabbaths and multiple festivals and feasts and new moon Sabbaths.
That all belong to Israel that would fall underneath not the moral law of God, the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, in the Decalogue, Exodus 20, but rather is a part of the ceremonial law of God.
And it therefore is categorized in the same grouping as the Ark of the Covenant, or the mercy seat, or the cherubim, or the basin, the bowl of incense, or the tabernacle, or animal sacrifices, or hand washings, or A woman and needing to go outside of the camp for seven days, or not eating shellfish and not eating pork.
That's the monthly Sabbath.
The lunar cycle, annual worship calendar, unique to Israel, Sabbath belongs in that category.
Ceremonial, not moral.
That's the weekly Sabbath.
It's two different kinds of Sabbaths.
So now back to Romans 14 5.
One man considers one day what it's really getting as holy, but it simply means.
Particular, that one day is different, set apart, special.
One guy says, Hey, not all days are the same.
This day is special.
It's not talking about the guy who considers the first day of the week, the weekly Sabbath special.
Everyone should consider that special because God said it's special and it's still special.
That's not what Romans 14 5 is talking about.
It's talking about birthdays.
Honoring Christ at Christmas00:01:45
It's talking about, you won't like this one, but Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Veterans Day.
Christopher Columbus Day.
It's talking about New Year's Day.
That's what it's talking about.
And in regard to that, that's precisely what I would use.
That's the text, Romans 14 5.
I would never use that text to try to dismiss the weekly Sabbath.
I would use that text to say, hey, I understand that Christmas has pagan roots, Celtic roots, but if somebody is honoring Christ, And that's the way that they're observing Christmas.
I'm not going to cast judgment on them.
It's okay to celebrate Christmas.
Romans 14, 5 says so.
And likewise, if somebody says, Yeah, but there's just too much pagan and commercialized this and that, and we really hold strongly that there's only one holiday, holy day for Christians, and that's the Sabbath, guess what?
I'm not going to judge that.
I'm going to be like, Well, man, can't argue with that.
That's okay, also.
Why?
Because of the same verse, Romans 14, 5.
But the days that you consider to be holy, it's not referring to the weekly Sabbath.
God considers that day holy.
And so should we.
But there are other days.
Okay.
So that's how I would deal with that question.
Thanks so much for listening.
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