“No Need of the Sabbaths”

◆ Two Christian writers who lived in the second century after Christ made these interesting comments about sabbaths: “There was no need of the sabbaths, nor festivals, nor oblations before Moses; so now in like manner, there is no need of them, since Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was by the determinate counsel of God, born of a virgin, of the seed of Abraham, without sin.”—Justin Martyr (Dial. cum. Triph. sec. 23)

◆ “Let them show me that Adam sabbatized, or that Abel, in presenting his holy offering to God, pleased him by Sabbatic observance, or that Enoch who was translated, was an observer of the sabbath, or that Noah, the builder of the Ark, on account of the great deluge, kept the sabbath, or that Abraham amidst sabbath-keeping offered his son Isaac or that Melchisedec in his priesthood received the law of the sabbath. . . . We have nothing to do with the sabbaths, new moons, and feasts in which God at one time took pleasure.”—Tertullian (De Idolatria c. 4 sec. 4; c. 14).