https://www.fivedoves.com/letters/mar2023/jeans35.htm

Dear John and Doves:

It appears to me that Jean's premise is that the charges Jesus brings against the church of the Laodiceans are grounded in hypocrisy, and this hypocrisy is connected to their failure to follow the ten commandments.  This, by extension, would also apply to us.  Jean sees the Laodiceans and modern believers guilty of "picking and choosing" which commandments to observe, and which to disregard with anticipated impunity.  These "cafeteria plan" Christians, Jean believes, will be the ones who will be "found not worthy to stand before the Son of Man. They will be Messiah rejects, the vomit people."

Jean offers an example:

One example of a commandment which many disobey is Commandment 4. Honor the Shabbat and keep it Quodesh (Set Apart). Since The Creation, it has been from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, where one is living. It is the Shabbat on Day 7 of the Scriptural Week. The Messiah has declared “I am the Master of the Shabbat.” Neither Abba Father or Son has gotten rid of it or replaced it with another day.

This, I suspect, is really the only example from the Ten Commandments that Jean could have picked.  No NT believers that I know or have heard of claim that idolatry, or adultery, or theft, or lying, or being disrespectful to parents or ANY of the rest is either negotiable or safely ignored under God's grace.  Indeed, they are all reinforced by the teaching of Paul, with the lone exception of sabbath-keeping where Paul asserts individual discretion (Romans 14:5).

I think there's general agreement that the problem with Laodicea was carnality:  "I am rich, have become wealthy and have need of nothing," and while there may be a connection between this attitude and a failure regarding Torah-compliance or sabbath-keeping, that connection is not readily apparent.  

Jesus rebuked the Laodiceans for blindness and nakedness.  Regarding blindness, Paul addresses this with regard to the Jews in 2 Cor. 3:14-16 where in the reading of the Law, a veil is laid on their hearts, and the veil is taken away in Christ.  So it could be that the blindness of the Laodiceans is connected to the Law.  Similarly, we are to be clothed in Christ, so if these Laodiceans are naked, it could be that they are not in Him.

As we know, the Pharisees in Jesus' day were meticulous keepers of the Law.  Like the Laodiceans, they believed they "had need of nothing" and certainly had no need of a self-taught Galilean rabbi-carpenter whose own family said He was out of His mind (Mark 3:21).  So I'd suggest that the church at Laodicea might have been "Torah compliant" - meeting on Saturdays and meticulously keeping the Law of Moses - and that was the basis of their "hypocrisy."  And it is:  they keep the OUTSIDE clean while the inside is full of corruption (Matt. 23:27).  Having wealth and not needing anything means having wealth and not needing Christ or His righteousness.  Embracing the Law is "blindness" and having any righteousness outside of Christ is "nakedness."  2 Cor. 5 explores this.

Regarding the sabbath, I think we've discussed this before.  Christ our Passover is crucified for us.  "Passover" is not a day, it is a Person.  In the same way, we are to rest in Christ.  Our rest ("sabbath") is no longer a day, it is also a Person.  All of these things converge in Him; He is the end of the law to all who believe.  Our faith puts us in Christ, and He fulfills and is the fulfillment of the law on our behalf.  Just as in Adam all sin, even so in Christ shall all be made righteous.  The Law is our tutor to bring us to Christ; it is NOT the basis of our justification.  Jean is correct in saying that "Neither Abba Father or Son has gotten rid of it or replaced it with another day." What she missed is that Jesus has replaced the sabbath day ... with Himself.

Do we please God by becoming Torah-compliant?  Is that God's will for us?  Well, a search in scriptures for "God's will" or "will of God" or "will of the Lord" does not bring up any NT scriptures that support the idea.  We fulfill the Law by loving God and loving our neighbors (Matt. 22:37-40).  That's why we shun idolatry, why we don't commit adultery, why we don't murder, why we don't steal.  There are LOTS of things we don't do - not because of "The Law", but - simply because we want to honor God and because we love our neighbors.

I personally think that "sabbath-keeping" in the sense of setting aside a day, was re-cast by Christ in a nuanced statement missed by us but no doubt grasped by the Jews in Jesus' day.  That statement appears three times in the gospels:  Matt. 12:8, Mark 2:28 and Luke 6:5.  If our sabbath, our "rest" is a person, then we keep the sabbath when we rest in Christ.  Jesus is LORD of the sabbath, so we live in sabbath if we are resting in Him.  The "work" we're not supposed to do is any "work" of self-righteousness.  That seemed to be the problem of the Pharisees, and may also have been a problem in Laodicea.

If it means "do no work" as the Torah-compliant folks seem to believe, then Jesus was a sabbath-breaker, as was the Father (John 5:16-18).  And I'd wonder if a Torah-compliant Jew or Christian who is a medical doctor would see a patient on a Saturday.  Or if they see that resting in Christ is insufficient and needs to be supplemented by obedience to the OT view of the 4th commandment.  Jean noted that in the OT the "sabbath" was to be honored and set apart.  In the NT, it is Christ Who is honored and set apart (1 Peter 3:15).  Again, the sabbath is not a day any more; now it's a Person.

God is interested in justice and righteousness.  Amos 5 speaks directly to this.  Keeping "feast days" or "solemn assemblies" is a stench to His nostrils if justice and righteousness are absent.  In the case of Laodicea, it appears that they were comfortable with worldly wealth, NOT the true riches, NOT the righteousness of Christ.  Externally correct they may have been, but Jesus indicted them for their true condition.  I would submit that the Pharisees had the same problem:  they were certainly more "Torah-compliant" than any of us could ever hope to be.  They knew the scriptures and they obeyed the letter of the Law.  There was a reason that Saul of Tarsus abandoned it, as he explains in Phil. 3:3-8.  The term he uses to categorize all his former works in the law and his efforts by the Law to obtain a right-standing before Christ is skybalon - gently translated as "rubbish" in the NKJV and meaning:

any refuse, as the excrement of animals, offscourings, rubbish, dregs - of things worthless and detestable

A warning to us, one might think.  We think of "rubbish" as old newpapers, used fast food packaging, junk mail, maybe coffee grounds.  If you accidentally drop your car keys into the trash, you'd probably retrieve them.  But if your keys fall into skybalon (KJV uses "dung") you would find your spares or have new keys made.  GROSS!!  Paul did not suggest we supplement our righteousness in Christ with any human efforts to be Torah-compliant.  You don't supplement ANY good thing with skybalon.

Matthew 7:23 looms large.  And so does Matthew 24:4-5.  There are, it seems, many well-credentialed Christian and Messianic leaders who are trying to bring people back to the Torah.  Paul saw all of the Law as being fulfilled in and by Christ, so that a life lived out in obedient faith in Him was well-pleasing to the Father.  I don't believe Torah-compliance was in view in Rev. 3:16, nor will it come up at the Bema Seat.  While it's certainly a good thing to have a day of "down time" every week, I don't think it's a sin or judgement issue.  As you know, many folks equate the commandment with a requirement to go to church or gather with others for a corporate "worship service."  That's a separate issue.

I should also point out that the ten commandments were God's civil law to the nation of Israel.  Adultery, theft, murder and the like were always morally reprehensible but the keeping of a sabbath day is not a moral issue. 

Very best,

Steve