"The Sabbath Abolished" A Book Review

It’s not exactly a book. It’s a 16-page booklet written by the late Jack Meyer, Sr., and published by Quality Publications in Abilene, Texas. Here is my review:

Why do I, a 7th-day Sabbath keeper, want to review such a book? Because reading this book greatly strengthens my belief that Christians should indeed keep the 7th-day Sabbath.

Why do this man’s arguments against the Sabbath strengthen my belief in the Sabbath? Because this misguided minister’s pathetic attempts to prove that the Sabbath was abolished shows me that the anti-Sabbath teachers really do not have a Scriptural leg to stand on.

I’ll give the guy credit for being upfront about what he believes. Even before you open the book, the cover illustration of a “Shure-Erase” eraser rubbing out the Sabbath Commandment lets you know what the author believes. And when you open the book, you soon find out that the “Shure-Erase” eraser does not stop with just rubbing out the 4th Commandment. It erases the other nine Commandments as well.

“The Ten Commandments were, therefore, abolished,” Meyer writes. As a matter of fact, the entire Old Testament Law “was abolished by Christ,” he claims -- even though Christ said “Think not that I have come to abolish the law (Matt. 5:17).

The book has three parts. The proof texts that Meyer uses in Part I are Jeremiah 31:31 (“a new covenant”) and the verses in Hebrews that elaborate on Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant.

Meyer fails to realize two things. First, the context of these verses in Hebrews shows that the “change of law” and the “taking away of the first [covenant]” in order to “establish the second [covenant]” are not talking about all the commandments of the Torah. The context of this passage shows that it is talking specifically and only about the laws concerning sacrifices and burnt offerings offered by the Levitical priesthood in the Tabernacle. It is only these elements that were “taken away” and “changed” to “establish the second [covenant],” a covenant based on the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, with our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek in the heavenly Tabernacle.

A close look at Hebrews chapters 7-10 (along with Jeremiah 7:22-24) shows that these statements in Hebrews refer only to the law of sacrifice and burnt offerings that were offered by the Levitical priesthood in the Tabernacle. These were the laws that were “added [to the already-existing Torah] because of transgressions [against the Torah], until the seed should come” (Gal. 3:19). (See Until the Seed Should Come ; scroll to page 48.)

The second thing Meyer fails to realize about the new covenant is that it does not abolish the Torah, it internalizes the Torah by writing it on the believer’s heart. That’s what is new about the new covenant! It is still God’s Torah. (“I will write My Torah on their hearts,” He says.) The same Ten Commandments that were written on tablets of stone are now written on the fleshly tablets of our heart.

In Part II of Meyer’s book, he argues for a Sunday “Lord’s Day.” Of course he misuses the three standard verses that have long been misused by Sunday Christians: Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10. (All three of these have been dealt with in great detail in past issues of GOE and in my book Hermeneutics.)

Since the only way that a person can argue Scripturally for a Sunday “Lord’s Day” is by yanking these three verses out of their context, Meyer has to resort to quoting from the uninspired writings of some of the post-Apostolic church leaders who kept Sunday. Of course he is careful to not discuss any post-Apostolic writings that mention 7th-day Sabbath-keeping Christians, who were still in existence at that time.

The writers Meyer quotes support a Sunday “Lord’s Day,” of course. But it should come as no surprise that the Sabbath was abandoned in favor of Sunday soon after the death of the Apostles. The Apostles saw the Apostasy starting even before they died. “For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work,” Paul wrote (2 Thes. 2:7, NIV). Jude wrote about “certain men crept in unawares” who were changing the grace of God into a license to sin. John wrote that the domineering Diotrephes had “cast the brethren out of the church” (3 John 9f). If the people who were being “cast out of the church” near the end of John’s life were “the brethren,” who then were the people left in the church after “the brethren” were cast out? They were obviously not brethren, because the brethren had been cast out.

The writings of post-Apostolic church leaders are not inspired. Or if they are inspired, it is by a different spirit, the spirit of antinomianism.

These writings can provide historical information about the beliefs and practices of a church in apostasy, but they cannot rightfully be used like inspired Scripture to establish doctrine. Yet approximately one-third of the entire text of Meyer’s book consists of quotes from these uninspired writings. In his effort to prove a Sunday “Lord’s Day,” Meyer gives a lot of weight to the alleged authority of apostate church leaders, but provides only three Bible verses, and all three of these verses are divorced from their context and are twisted to mean something totally unrelated to the context.

In Part III Meyer argues that the Sabbath was never meant to be kept by Christians because it was a sign “between God and the Israelites.” Yet on the very next page, almost directly across from this statement, Meyer writes “The Christian is the seed of Abraham. The church, then, is God’s Israel.”

How ironic that Meyer says that the Sabbath is for Israel, then on the very next page says that the church is Israel. If the Sabbath is for Israel, and the church is Israel, then the Sabbath is for the church. Simple logic. If the pie is for Teresa’s husband, and I am Teresa’s husband, then the pie is for me. What could be clearer?

In addition to The Sabbath Abolished, Meyer has written Miracles Abolished. Also, Why We Do Not Use Musical Instruments in Worship.

No Sabbath, no miracles, no music. What a great church!

| DB