The Bible Does Not Teach Christians Must Keep the Seventh-day Weekly Sabbath

The Third Temple has nothing to do with this Sabbath discussion, so I'll treat it very briefly. The Jews have already submitted blueprints for a third temple to the US government, and they are seeking permission to resume animal sacrifice. It is prophesied in Daniel 9 that this third temple will be destroyed in the final (7th) week of the 70 weeks. The entire 70 weeks obviously don't run strait without any breaks in them, because in that case the 70 weeks would end before 70 CE and would not include the destruction of the city that is prophesied as part of the 70 weeks. Also Daniel 9:24 says ""Seventy "sevens"[c] are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish[d] transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.[e]" (NIV) By the end of the 70 weeks there will be "an end to sin" and "everlasting righteousness" among Daniel's people (the Jews) and in the holy city. Sin is still there, and they have not yet accepted the Messiah. Therefore, the 70 weeks are not complete. I'm not sure if Revelation mentions the 70 weeks, I would have to do some research on that; although I'm sure it does allude to the final week somewhere in there. Am I suggesting to abandon the Ark of the Covenant? The Ten Commandments? It is God, not me, who says: "In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land," declares the Lord, "people will no longer say, "The ark of the covenant of the Lord." It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made." (Jer 3:16) Deuteronomy 4:13, Exodus 34:27-28; 1 Kings 8:9, 21 and many other verses show the 10 Commandments were the covenant God made with Israel, and Hebrews 8:7, 13 says that covenant was abolished. Does that mean its now ok to steal, murder, and covet? No. Why not? Is it because 9 of the Ten Commandments are still in force? No. None of them are in force today. So why is it still wrong to murder and commit adultery? Because we have new laws against those things that are better than the Ten Commandments. Below is a quote from my book, Sabbath versus Sunday Error: "But this doesn"t make sense!" You could say. "If the Ten Commandments are abolished, wouldn"t it be now alright to steal, murder, covet, and commit adultery?" First of all, it"s not proper or logical to reject what Scripture says just because it doesn"t make sense to us. I used to reject the doctrine of the Trinity because it didn"t make sense to me. How could 3 = 1? How could the Father be God, the Son be God, and the Holy Spirit be God, and yet not be three Gods? How could the Father be greater than the Son if he is God? (John 14:28) If Jesus is God, to whom was he praying? Was God praying to himself? And how could God, who is immortal, die on the cross? These questions used to perplex me, but when the Holy Spirit revealed himself to me I had to accept the revelation of God even in the face of my seemingly impressive human logic. Human logic, I found out as I studied deeper, is fallible, but God"s word is not. When Scripture says something, like "Christ is the end of the law" (Romans 10:4), we shouldn"t say "that can"t be true" just because it doesn"t make sense to us and challenges our cherished beliefs. Rather, we need to humble ourselves and realize that we are not infallible, and it"s possible we misunderstood some things. The idea that the removal of the Ten Commandments would mean we no longer have any laws, and are free to murder and steal etc, is based on a lack of knowledge. It ignores the fact that Jesus gave us new laws which not only replaced the Ten Commandments, but these new laws are better than the Ten Commandments. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows that the new laws given in the New Covenant that he was bringing are superior to the Old Covenant Decalogue. He says: Matthew 5:27 "You have heard that it was said, "Do not commit adultery." [Old Covenant]" Note how Jesus contrasts this law with a higher principle: Matthew 5:28-29 "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. [New Covenant]" Here, Jesus" contrasted the seventh commandment against adultery, to a much higher principle which says, guard your thoughts against sexual immorality. Under the old law, you had to commit the physical act of adultery to be wrong, but under the new law, you could just look at a married woman and be wrong. In fact, the penalty for breaking the seventh commandment was death (Leviticus 20:10), but people were not put to death for merely looking lustfully upon a woman. If a person were to look upon another man"s wife and proclaim out loud that he wanted her, he still was not guilty to adultery under the Ten Commandments. He could not be put to death for this. We all know what it means to look lustfully at a woman, and surely, giving a woman such a look was not enough to condemn a person to death in Israel. So adultery, under the Ten Commandments, did not include lusting after the woman. The seventh commandment was limited in contrast to the new law Jesus was giving. In fact, many of the holy men in the Old Testament were polygamists, and while I believe this was a sin, it was not considered to be adultery. If for example King David and Solomon were guilty of adultery when they married more than one woman, they would have to be stoned to death! Clearly, adultery did not embrace polygamy back then, but under the New Covenant, adultery does embrace polygamy. Any man taking a second wife is committing adultery. So the Christian law against adultery isn"t the same thing as the seventh commandment; it"s higher, and better, it has a deeper reach. But I find Adventists tend to think what Jesus was doing was, not contrasting the Ten Commandments with new laws, but was trying to explain the deeper meaning of those Ten Commandments. So that Jesus was explaining adultery as including lust. But there is good evidence that in Matthew 5 Jesus was not explaining the meaning of Old Testament laws, but was contrasting them with new laws. For example, notice how Jesus continued to contrast the old laws with the new in all the verses which followed: Matthew 5:31 "It has been said, "Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce." [Old Covenant]" This certificate of divorce was granted for simply displeasing her husband. (Matthew 19:7-8) That old law said: "If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house." (Deuteronomy 24:1) This law allows for divorce on many grounds in which a woman may be found to displease her husband, but Jesus gives a new law stating that you should not divorce your wife at all, except on the single ground of fornication: Matthew 5:32 "But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. [New Covenant]" Jesus also said: "Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9) The Old Covenant allowed divorce, the New Covenant does not. This isn"t an explanation of the old law, but a contrast with the new. Matthew 5:38 "You have heard that it was said, "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth." [Old Covenant]" Contrasted with: Matthew 5:39 "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [New Covenant]" Here is not an explanation of eye for an eye, but rather, a complete contrast. One says to retaliate against your enemy, the other says don"t retaliate. Even in Matthew 5:33-37 Jesus said that the old law allowed men to swear oaths, but now Jesus was saying that we shouldn"t swear at all. Further evidence that Matthew 5 isn"t an explanation of Old Testament laws, but a contrast between them and the new." (Sabbath Versus Sunday Error: 2000 Years of Error, Daley Reece, pp. 153-157) I suggest you get this book http://www.amazon.com... Jesus did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Yes, and when he fulfilled prophecies, the prophecies became a thing of the past no longer applicable or requiring further fulfillment. We don't need another virgin birth, do we. And when Jesus fulfilled the law, it too became a thing of the past. For example, the law commanded a passover lamb to be sacrificed. Jesus fulfilled this law by becoming our Passover who was sacrificed on the cross. "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." (1 Cor 5;7) So because he fulfilled it, we no longer need to offer up a passover lamb. Similarly, Jesus also fulfilled all the other laws of Moses, including the Ten Commandments. He became our true rest (Matt 11:28), so we no longer need to keep the Sabbath. He did come to destroy the law, which means to make the law useless, but to make it serve its purpose by fulfilling its significance. Homosexuality is a sin according to Romans 1:26-28 and many other places, and abortion is also a sin and should not be committed unless its a choice between the mother's life and the child. They are exceptions to rules, but the few exceptions don't change the rules.