Understanding Judgment Day, the Sabbath, and Christian Living

Hey everyone, welcome to That's Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and a part of Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc. That's Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm John, I get to serve as a pastor, I also get to be a part of this show, and you can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions.

And today, I'm here with Pastor Mitch.

Yeah, today we've got a different kind of episode. If you've been listening the last five weeks, we've been in this series, but today we're gonna get to some of the questions that have been coming in. So we're going to our inboxand we're gonna look at four questions. But next week, we're really excited to have a conversation with author Carl Laferton, who's authored some great kids Bible stories, or story Bibles, and other great Christian resources for kids. And so be sure to join us for that.

That's gonna be an awesome thing. Yeah, I'm excited for that. We use one of his kids' story Bibles right now at night with our kids. So excited for that conversation.

It's great stuff. All right, here's our first question. I have a friend who fixates on the difference between the Sabbath versus the seventh day and how we changed it. He used it to point out that in doing so we are outside biblical teaching. As a lifelong skeptic, I like to put him in his place as no amount of rational arguments will change his superior point of view. Isn't the change part of the freedom of worship promised in the New Testament? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks. Well that's what we're here for, right? We want to help people win arguments. That's the goal. That's what we're all about. I think we should change the name of the podcast.

Yeah, totally.

Prove your friend wrong with Jon Delger.

I like that. Oh, man. No, we know that hopefully in there is Christian brothers, godly, trying to help each other understand what the Bible says. So to that point, let's talk about that. Is the day of worship the first day of the week or is it the last day of the week?

I know I always think of the first day of the week as Monday. It's actually Sunday. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, it's important to know that. So last day of the week, Saturday. First day of the week, Sunday.

So we go back to the beginning of the Bible, go back to Genesis, creation. God created the world, six days. He rested on the seventh day. And then for the rest of the Old Testament, we have that pattern of rest coming on the seventh day.

That's when God's people were commanded to celebrate the Sabbath, to have rest from all their labors.

So that's Saturday and that's why Seventh Day Adventists, they do church on Saturday because they think that's, and that's the argument that they're bringing, right? Saturday versus the Seventh Day. So when do we rest? Yeah.

So Old Testament, it was Saturday, sorry. Yeah, no it was.

So when we come to the New Testament, we gotta think about did something change and what happened and should we embrace that change or should we follow more of the Old Testament pattern? So when we think about what happened in the New Testament, Jesus Christ, Son of God, came to the earth.

He fulfilled the law and the prophets, he says. He died on the cross, he rose again, and he rose on the first day of the week. That's the first day of the new creation. Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers, Romans 8 calls him. He's the firstborn of the new creation. The resurrection is this like recreating of everything.

And so, that's actually why we celebrate on Sunday. It's why we gather for worship. It's why Christians see that as the day rather than Saturdays because we've actually entered into a new era, a new creation. So we're celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the Lord's Day. We call it the Lord's Day, because it's the day that the Lord Jesus resurrected from the dead.

Yeah, I was also looking at this in John 20, the first time that the disciples get together after Jesus' death is a Sunday.

Yeah, actually, every time that Jesus appears and it tells us the day, there are some times that he appears and doesn't tell us the day, but every time that Jesus appears and it tells us the day, it's the first day of the week.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's trying to tell us something. So, a couple other passages related to this conversation. Colossians 2, verse 16, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath.

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. And really, this is how we view a lot of what's going on in the Old Testament, shadow versus substance. Foreshadowing versus the actual thing. And Jesus is the fulfillment of the actual thing. Let me, one more passage, Romans 14, starting in verse 5. 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, observe it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God. All right, so I think the New Testament paints a picture for us that things have changed in this New Testament era and even to say that the forms, the shadows of the Old Testament are not quite the same as what's going on in the completion, the fulfillment, the substance in the New Testament. Yeah. I want to ask you a personal question because I think it'll lead us somewhere.

Do you celebrate your day of rest on the first day as a pastor?

I do not. As a pastor, that's my busiest day of the week. It's your busiest day of the week. Yeah, absolutely. So how do we justify that as people who say, the Sabbath should be on Sunday or on the Lord's day?

And then we're people who, we don't have our Sabbath or our rest on the same day. Yeah, so there's a ton of different perspectives on New Testament and how to understand the Sabbath and how all that works. One great book about it is John Frame.

It's a really big, thick book, but if you can get a hold of this chapter in there. But John Frame, it's his book, what's it called? It's on the Christian life. It's the third in that series. Oh, is it on our shelf right here?

Oh, perfect, The Doctrine of the Christian Life is what it's called. But he does a section on the Sabbath commandment and walks through the different Christian views on the Sabbath. I think he goes through like seven. But the one that I'm most gravitated towards is towards the middle, which is John Calvin's understanding of the Sabbath, which, yes, Christians are supposed to embrace God's call to have a day of rest, and yet it's not specifically has to be on a certain day of the week. He says we should take a 24-hour period of rest during the week. And I agree with that. I think that's what's going on in the New Testament.

So yeah, for pastors, we, I think traditionally, usually for pastors, it's either Monday or Friday is usually our day off, since Sunday is usually our busiest workday of the week.

Yeah, absolutely. And so there is some Christian flexibility, some Christian freedom in what day we choose. There are some people who might be police officers or doctors who are required to work on a Sunday.

Yeah.

And that isn't sinful to work on a Sunday. It's sinful not to observe a Sabbath day, a one day in seven where you're taking that day as in holy setting it aside.

I think sometimes Christians and pastors, we can talk about, yes, there's a lot of freedom in this, but we maybe are soft about saying, no, no, but this is still a requirement for us. We still must obey the Sabbath command. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. We don't, yeah, we want to be, yeah, we want to be relaxed on the day of the week that it's supposed to be specifically, but that doesn't mean that the whole command is gone. The fourth commandment is still to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. So we think that that's changed in terms of it has to be a certain day of the week, but the principle is still there, still applies. And I think in an ideal world, it is Sunday. Yeah, absolutely. I think you should try to make it Sunday.

This is the day that the church gathers. This is the day of the resurrection. Yeah. I think that's the ideal situation. There's something really special about the Lord's Day, gathering together with the body of believers on the Lord's Day. Yeah, even for me and my family, I would say it's still, it's not, we don't treat it just like it's any other day. Yeah. Even though, you know, we have a lot of work to do on that day at church, we still treat it like a special day. So. I also thought it was really interesting that, you know, there's a lot of differences in the Gospels, not that they're not all, that they're contradictory. They are all one story, but every single gospel makes sure to say that Jesus rose on the first day of the week on Sunday. Yeah. Which is kind of interesting. So when they're all united saying the same thing, that's a, it's usually an important thing for us. Yeah. Yeah. Should we still be following all of the Old Testament laws? Specifically, should we avoid eating pork in order to further honor God? Jesus fulfilled the law, but does that mean we should stop following all of the laws? Is there a new law?

Thankfully, my answer is that we can eat meat, specifically pork. And all the brothers said, Amen, hallelujah. Yeah, that's right. Praise God. Bull pork, man. That's right. Couldn't go without that. My freezer's full of it. Yeah, so a couple of things. So one, when we look at the Old Testament, one way that Christians have broken it down, the Old Testament laws, is civil, ceremonial, and moral laws. Now, that's not specifically in Scripture, doesn't use those words to divide the law, but that's something that we've tried to just look at the law and tried to say, tried to categorize it and try to understand how we relate to it. So ceremonial law, meaning like ways of worship, sacrifice, those kind of things that Old Testament Israel did. Civil law, meaning things that have to do with the running of the nation of Israel. And then moral laws, that's what we've labeled things that we see as transcending, specifically the nation of Israel and its laws as it relates to ritual worship and sacrifice and things like that. So, when it comes to certain parts of the law, we view them as ceremonial, as being fulfilled in and through Jesus. And food laws, laws relating to things that we eat is one of those. So a couple of passages that we could look at and think about, I think of Matthew chapter 5,

verse 17, where he says they didn't come to abolish the law, but he came to fulfill the law. Okay, so Jesus didn't come to abolish everything that has to do with sacrifice. He came to be the ultimate lamb who is slain in our place. He became the ultimate sacrifice so that we don't have to make sacrifices anymore. I think about what he says in Mark chapter seven, I guess preach this passage recently. Jesus is talking about what defiles a person.

Let me just read you a section of it. He says, then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his stomach and is expelled.

And in parentheses, still part of scripture, but they put it in parentheses, it says, thus he declared all foods clean. So that's Mark commenting on what Jesus is saying there. And then verse 20 says, what comes out of a person is what defiles him.

Okay, so Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writing this part of scripture, is commenting on what Jesus is saying, that thus he declared all foods clean. And then one last one, I think of actually in Acts chapter 10, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit speaking of Peter, specifically addresses this. Peter has a dream about eating pork, and he wrestles with this, Lord, no, I can't do this. But then God says, no, he says, whatever I've called clean, you need to eat it.

So I think actually the Lord specifically addresses this concern about things that we can eat, declaring all foods clean, saying that those laws are no longer anymore.

Yeah.

One quick question. So, you talked about this comment that Mark makes, and it's in parentheses in our English Bibles. Is that still inerrant? Is that still God's Word, even though it's in parentheses? I think that's a question that a lot of people have as they're reading their Bible, where

an author makes a comment close to something that Jesus is saying, is that still Scripture?

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, so we don't believe that just the red letters in the Bible are from God. We believe that all the letters are from God. So absolutely. So we put in parentheses, that's kind of an English translation thing. It's just us trying to help make the reader, make it easier on you to understand what's going on in the passage. You know, there wasn't parentheses like that

in the original text. It was just right there. But yeah, what we believe is it's not just what Jesus said that was inspired, it's Mark as he's recording what's going on that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, carried along by the Holy Spirit as he writes it down.

And so, yeah, his comment is in there about what Jesus is saying, and that's inspired by the Holy Spirit.

So if we didn't have this vision from Peter and Acts, Mark would be sufficient for us to know that all food is clean for us to eat. Yeah.

I think that's a good point for us to understand as we are trying to understand Scripture better. And also we have these other passages that add a lot of clarity. You talked about civil, ceremonial, and moral. Can we talk a little bit more about maybe why did God give people a ceremonial law and why is that fulfilled in Jesus today? So what would you say, if you're going to define a ceremonial law and its purpose, why did God give Israel these laws? Right. So when we think of the ceremonial law, we think specifically of animal sacrifice. And so God gave his people those laws, knowing that they were not perfect, that they would sin against him, that they needed a way to cover their sin. And so he gave them this, and it was also illustrative. It gave them a picture of what actually has to happen for sin.

We know that in the New Testament, Romans chapter 6, the wages of sin is death. So Old Testament Israel got to see that day in and day out, morning and evening, animals dying, blood being shed because people sinned. So they got to see that every single day.

I think they had a much better picture than we do of the consequences of sin. They knew, they could hear the animals' noises as they're being killed each day. They could see the blood, they might smell the smell, they participate in the sacrifice, they might even eat the meat. Yeah, they're seeing that the consequences of sin is death. And then, of course, we know that ultimately that's fulfilled in Jesus, the true lamb of God who came to die for the sins of the world. I think of Hebrews 9 says that the blood of bulls and goats cannot bring the remission of sins.

Only Jesus can do that. So he's the ultimate fulfillment of all those sacrifices.

Yeah.

I heard of a story of a youth pastor who once brought a lamb to a retreat. And, you know, for the entire week, the lamb was wandering about with the kids. Yeah, yeah, you know, this is going. And the last day he brought it up on stage and slaughtered it. Like everyone named it.

Yeah, he did because he wanted people to see, you know, to experience it. I think that's a little bit crazy. I was a youth pastor for a while. That, I'm sure that would have got me fired, but like, you know, he definitely committed to the bit of quite the demonstration. So he wasn't trying to sacrifice the land for their sins. No, no, no, no. He was trying to say this is what it would have been like.

Yes, absolutely. Sorry.

So it wasn't theologically bad. It wasn't theologically bad. There were just some practical problems there.

It was just probably hard for middle school girls to see. Yeah, he probably got some letters from some parents. Yeah, I'm sure he did. One way that we describe ceremonial laws, we say they're purity laws, right, that they were intended to keep Israel pure as they would come into contact with the Holy God, and that Jesus is the way that we now in the New Testament find our purity. And so there are some laws that were required to keep Israel pure that because of the blood of Jesus we don't need those laws because we're already pure. Things like touching a dead body or touching fluids that come from a body, right? That a lot of Leviticus, if you're struggling to read through Leviticus, it's not a terrible book, it's a great book, but it's illustrating those things of there's a holy God and there were things that Israel needed to do in order to stay pure. And so I think maybe there's another angle to look at it.

We don't need to, you know, we can be doctors, we can be morticians as Christians and not be impure because Jesus has made us pure.

So, in the question they ask, is there a new law? What would you say to that, John?

Yeah, well, it reminds me right away of a passage in 1 John where Jesus says, I do give you a new law to love one another. But even in that passage, we know that it's really not new. That's not new. You know, the summary of the law has been and continues to be, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, the first and second.

Great commandments and the summary of the law. So really, I think the answer is there's not a new law.

Correct.

There's not. All of scripture is God-breathed, all of scripture is true, all of scripture is applicable. I think on this side of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, it applies, parts of it apply differently.

Yeah. The ceremonial law no longer applies in the same way. Yeah, I've even heard people say that, you know, when Jesus goes on the Sermon on the Mount, it's like he's a new Moses bringing a new law to his people. And unfortunately, that's the wrong way to look at it. He's clarifying the law that Israel had forgotten, that it wasn't about works, but it was about loving God, and it was about believing in Yahweh, the one true God.

Clarifying, fulfilling, getting to the heart of it.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, let's jump into our third question. How far do you take Matthew 5, verse 38 through 42? If someone attacks me or my family, should I do nothing in defense? Should this apply to being a police officer or the military?

If I'm threatened to be unjustly sued in court, should I just pay out whatever they're requesting willingly? Yeah, good question. So that's a question lots of people have asked over the years of can I do self-defense? Can Christians serve in the military? Can Christians be police officers? Do Christians have to be pacifists or is there any kind of violence that Christians can participate

in? So I think when we look specifically at the Sermon on the Mount and that part of Matthew 5 that's talking about Jesus throughout the Sermon on the Mount is really taking a lot of assumptions that people have about their interpretation of the law and turning them on their heads. So it's taking an assumption that people have made about eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and about what they think that means about retaliation and flipping it on its head. Retaliation, revenge is really not. Revenge seeking is now what Christians are called to do. So it's teaching that and that important principle and concept.

And yet I would say it is not teaching across the board pacifism that Christians can never use violence in any way. Correct. For example, if somebody breaks into my home, I'd say, yeah, I have a responsibility to protect my family.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that this question could get silly if we decided that we were going to take this guideline that Jesus is giving us as a hard, fast rule that applies to every situation in our life. I mean, things like we wouldn't be able to have a justice system, we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves if someone were to break in. I mean, even thinking about like sports, like if someone scored on, and I was coaching first and second grade football. If someone scores on us to tell my team that we need to go score back, we need to answer back to them. If we're gonna take this to its furthest extent, that'd be sinful for me to say, we gotta go back and score. I mean, it could get a little silly.

Yeah, Christians are not called to be losers. Correct. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we should.

Or doormats. Yeah. Christians should score touchdowns.

I'll say that.

You can put that on a t-shirt if you'd like.

Nice.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

The most touchdowns, in fact, I'd say.

Yeah, right. Well, it makes me think of some of the other things that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Yeah.

Right.

So, is that necessarily the literal thing that you're supposed to do whenever you're sinning, if my right hand causes me to sin, I should actually cut it off. Maybe, probably not. Correct. Yeah, I think Jesus is making a broader principle point about the seriousness of sin and about the lengths to which Christians should be willing to go to to eliminate it.

Yeah, this is about generosity and not about saying that you can never stand up for yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah, or even to stand up societally to wrong. Right. I think we look at things like capital punishment or just the justice system itself to be able to pronounce judgment, to be able to say that there is going to be a punishment for wrongs committed against a society, against a community. That's a good thing that God tells us that we ought to do. I mean, Paul talks about in Romans and Peter talks about it, that we are supposed to submit to these governing authorities that some kind of government that enacts justice is a good thing.

Yeah, so in Romans 13, Paul lays out, I think, a little bit of a window into what government is supposed to look like, and he says they bear the sword. Government bears the sword and Christians can participate in that government. We can be part of it. Law enforcement, for example, military, for example. Yeah, it bears the sword in order to protect people, in order to do justice. Yeah. Yeah. I also think looking back to the Ten Commandments, looking at the commandment to that you shouldn't commit murder. Oftentimes we like to think that that really means that you shouldn't kill anything ever and really murder is saying that it's a senseless killing or or an unnecessary

Killing and that's what just unjust killing. Yeah, and that's what's prohibited. It's not saying that Killing is off the table always and forever I think that this passage can be used as a justification to say well We should never ever be a part of any sort of killing ever, but God does call people to defend and to protect people and to use force to do that. Right. So Christians should not be people who are

seeking revenge all the time, you know, going back to the turn the other cheek. Correct. We should not be easily offended, we should not be quick to, you know, react and hit somebody back, whether that be, you know, physically or verbally or whatever. You know, we should be people who are slow to anger, who are careful, measured, thoughtful, wise. But yeah, yeah, there's the ability to defend yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's jump into our last question. If our souls go immediately to heaven when we die, then when does judgment day happen? Do we leave heaven to go to judgment day?

Yeah, great question. So the reason that, I assume the reason the person's saying, you know, our souls go immediately to heaven when we die. So, I think, you know, apart from the body, with the Lord, coming from 1 Thessalonians, I think of, you know, Jesus says to the thief on the cross next to him, today I will see you in paradise. Yes, we know from Scripture that we don't go to a waiting period in between, that we go right to being with the Lord when we pass from this life. So, praise God for that. That's good news. That's hope.

Yeah. So we're saying no to purgatory. We're saying no to soul sleep.

Those types of things. Yeah, totally. Totally. And yet scripture says in numerous places that we will be judged. That every action, every word, that each of us, every person will be judged. I think of Revelation 20. There's a picture of the end of all things and a judgment before our great white throne. Now we can talk a lot about some specifics there and how some people have interpreted that, dispensationalism versus covenant theology, but without getting into that, scripture does picture a judgment. So how is it that Christians come into that judgment or when do they come into that judgment is kind of the question.

Yeah, it's thinking about if I die today and I go to heaven, and then there's a judgment day towards the end of time, towards the consummation of all things. What happens? Do I get judged on the way into heaven? Do I get pulled out of heaven to go into judgment day?

How does that all work? Right, so I think essentially, on your, you know, after you pass from this life, you face judgment. You will go to one of two places. You're held in a waiting room for judgment, but you will go to one of two placements, and that is an effective judgment. You will either, because of your faith in Jesus and because of his righteousness and his saving work for you, you will go to be with God in eternal bliss in heaven, or because you haven't put your faith in Jesus and he hasn't covered your sin going to hell, a place of God's wrath. Scripture quite clearly lays out for us those two directions. I think in passages like Matthew 22, Matthew 25, Jesus paints some pictures of these two directions that somebody can go. And at the same time, we also have this... So that's kind of the first one. So the first answer is each of us are judged as soon as we exit this life. It's not like a long period of time, but we end up in two different places as a result of God's judgment. I don't know exactly what that looks like. If we're sat down and explained that, I don't know what that looks like between this life and the next. But we end up in two different locations as a result of that judgment. And then we also have this picture of the end of all things, for example, Revelation chapter 20, of an ultimate judgment. And so I think in some sense, all people, whether they passed away many years ago or whether they were alive when Jesus returned, in some way, shape, or form, I think there is sort of, there's some kind of judgment that we will all be witness to. I think really for those who have passed away, it will have already happened. It'll just be kind of coming to its full consummation. I think of, you know, what Revelation says about at that time that Satan and the demons will be cast into the lake of fire. So there's really this ultimate judgment where it goes beyond humanity to all created beings, including Satan. Satan doesn't rule over hell. Satan himself is cast into hell in the end.

And so there will be a final judgment, but it won't be different from the other judgment. It will really just be the first ones judged and then people will and that that will rejoice when God's judgment is laid out. I think to look forward to that God's judgment is something that we should They'll inspire us to worship him. Well, yeah the day of the day of the Lord or the day of judgment cuts both ways Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. It is a day of judgment and salvation. Yep. So for those who are trusting in Jesus, it's great news It's something to hope for something to look forward to be excited about and yet we see in other parts of scripture

We think of the prophets for example are using the day of the Lord the day of judgment as a warning to people, because it is. It's the final, you know, the day of judgment is when it's all over. You gotta make your decision before that period of time. And so it can be, it will be a day of great pain for some who have rejected Christ.

It'll be a great day of great joy for those who have received Christ. Yeah, I heard a pastor once talk about our state right now is that God the Father is holding back his full wrath against all of humanity, and at the same time, begging us to come to himself. And one day on the Day of Judgment, he will drop both hands and no longer be accepting people and letting his full wrath come against those who have rejected him.

Awesome. Well, hey, thanks for the conversation. Great stuff. Great questions. Thanks so much for sending them in. Keep sending them, peacechurch.cc/questions. Excited next week to have that conversation with author Carl Laferton about kids ministry, about kids' Bibles, about how to disciple our kids to walk in the way of the Lord, and then excited for more questions to answer after that. You can find more great content at resoundmedia.cc, and please follow us, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, great place to subscribe and follow and find more great resources. Have an awesome week.