The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2021 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

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Chapter 101

Satan and the Sabbath

The Greek general, Antiochus Epiphanes, was encircled.

He who was called Epiphanes – “God Manifest,” or “God on display” – sheepishly stood and watched while a Roman drew a circle around him in the dirt!

Antiochus was in Alexandria, Egypt in 168 BCE, ready to conquer Egypt. The Roman Senate sent a decree telling him to stop. They wanted Egypt for themselves. A Roman emissary, Popillius, drew that circle around Antiochus and told him not to leave it until he gave an answer to Rome.

“Antiochus having read the decree, told Popillius he would consult with his friends about it, and speedily give him the answer they should advise; but Popillius, insisting on an immediate answer, forthwith drew a circle round him in the sand with the staff which he had in his hand, and required him to give his answer before he stirred out of that circle; at which strange and peremptory way of proceeding Antiochus being startled, after a little hesitation, yielded to it, and told the ambassador, that he would obey the command of the Senate.” Prideaux’s Connexion, part 2, book 3

After that, Antiochus got out of the circle and then got out of Egypt and instead attacked Judah and Jerusalem. That was okay with Rome.

Antiochus killed tens of thousands of Jews and forbid them to observe the Sabbath, among other things. He also set up a statue of Zeus and sacrificed a pig in the Temple.

In 135 CE, Roman emperor Hadrian did pretty much the same thing. After the Bar Kochba rebellion, Hadrian plowed Jerusalem, built a new Jerusalem with a different name, set up an idol of Jupiter, and forbid the observance of the Sabbath, among other things.

So using worldly rulers Antiochus and Hadrian that was Satan attacking the Sabbath.

Roman Christianity also attacked the Sabbath from early times, especially from the time of Constantine. This has resulted in a Christianity that believes that a Christian has to break the Ten Commandments to be saved. Anyone who seeks to obey the Commandments, as with the Sabbath, is said to be trying to earn his salvation and therefore doomed to hell.

As in this typical statement from one Christian church.

https://ibtministries.org/viewcourse.php?crid=108
Some today, like the Judaizers of Paul’s day, tell us we must keep the Law of Moses to be saved. Those who leave the Gospel of Christ for the Law have fallen from grace (Galatians 5:4; Hebrews 3:12 ). No one can be justified by keeping the Law or any part of it such as offering animal sacrifices, keeping Jewish feast days, burning incense, using instrumental music in worship, keeping the sabbath, etc. Salvation is in Jesus Christ for all upon one basis – obedience to the faith of Christ!

Notice several false premises there.

The first false premise:

Sabbath keeping Christians teach that “we must keep the Law of Moses to be saved.”

That’s totally false. Judaism teaches the law of Moses, and some Messianic Christians try to retain parts of the law of Moses, not with sacrifices but with circumcision and various adornments. Most Christian Sabbath keepers, though, focus on the law of God, which is the Ten Commandments and the two Great Commandments. They absolutely do not teach keeping the law of Moses. To whatever degree, they teach obeying the law of God.

The second false premise:

Since we can’t be justified by our own obedience to the Ten Commandments, we should break the Ten Commandments.

The statement that “No one can be justified by keeping the Law or any part of it…” is totally true. Yet mainstream Christianity reasons that since they can’t be justified by their own Commandment keeping, they shouldn’t obey the Commandments at all.

Paul wrote much about not being justified before God by our own obedience. We can only be justified by the sacrifice of Yeshua. But since we can’t be justified by our own disobedience to the law, does that mean we should purposely disobey the Commandments?

Paul faced that argument in his time, and he answered it in the strongest language.

Rom 3:28-31 (WEB)
28) We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
29) Or is God the God of Jews only? Isn’t he the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,
30) since indeed there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith.
31) Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.

Churches say, as we quoted above, that the “faith of Christ” nullifies the Ten Commandments. On the contrary, Paul clearly says that faith establishes the law.

How does faith establish the law?

Rom 6
1) What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2) May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
3) Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Yeshua were baptized into his death?
4) We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

The faith of Christ is accepting the sacrifice and death of the perfectly obedient Messiah. Then by His spirit we strive to live an obedient life, following the example of Yeshua, obeying the Commandments. Thus we establish the law.

Rom 6:12-15 (WEB)
12) Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13) Neither present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14) For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.
15) What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!

What is sin?

Romish Christianity cannot define sin. They say sin is missing the mark. What mark? Without the Ten Commandments, you ain’t got no mark.

As the early English translations so clearly put it, “sin is the transgression of the law,” 1 John 3:4. Without that definition, sin is not definable. Sin is breaking the Ten Commandments. And Paul said that breaking the Commandments is not to have dominion over us.

Gracism teaches that because Christians are under grace, they are free to disobey God’s Commandments. That means they are free to sin. But Paul said the opposite – Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!

We receive God’s favor, commonly translated as grace, only because our sins have been forgiven. Our sins – Commandment breaking – had cut us off from God. Should we have our sins forgiven just so we can continue sinning? No. That’s not God’s plan. That’s Satan’s deception.

Why was Yeshua justified before God the Father in the first place?

He was justified by His perfect obedience to the Ten Commandments. He didn’t sin.

Why are we not of ourselves justified before God?

Because we have disobeyed the Ten Commandments. We have all sinned.

Rom 3:23 (WEB)
23) for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;

Yet the common Christian belief is that since we cannot be justified because of our disobedience to God’s Commandments, we should keep breaking them. They say that salvation is in Christ, then they refuse to follow His example of obeying the Commandments. They claim to follow Paul but are doing the opposite of what Paul taught.

Rom 6
1) What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2) May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?

We cannot be justified by our own obedience because none have been obedient. We can be made just before God only by Christ who was the only one who was obedient. With His help, we strive to follow His example of obeying the Ten Commandments. We do not want to follow the example of Satan, the great Commandment breaker.

The third false premise:

Since the Ten Commandments were included in the law of Moses, and since the law of Moses is ended, everything that was in the law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments, is ended.

The law of Moses included the Ten Commandments. It also included reminders not to break the Commandments, reminders such as sacrifices, circumcision, and fringes. The law of Moses also included statutes based on the Commandments for the nation of Israel at that time.

Deut 30:15-16 (WEB)
15) Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;
16) in that I command you this day to love Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that Yahweh your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it.

The Law of Moses was based on obeying the Ten Commandm