Analogous Day Interpretation

[A Beautiful Truth]

Anyone here an adherent to the Analogous Day Interpretation?

BrianB, have you considered this interpretation? I like it better than the framework view already because it does not require a lot of details, it is the simplest to understand. As we consider the seventh day not being 24 hours (God is still on His sabbath rest as we see from numerous scriptural references, and since one takes their sabbath rest on the sabbath day, we can scripturally conclude that God's sabbath day is still continuing), it is easy to see the creation account set up as a week of days to fit the analogy of a work week. You work for six, off the seventh, just like God did in the creation "week". I like it.

The creation week, though analogous, is still an historical account of God's creative acts in preparing everything for man.

I'd love to dialouge with someone who knows about this view.

~Charleen

[Socratism]

The scriptural references to the Sabbath Rest do not necessarily imply that God is still resting.

This assumption seems to me to be preposterous on the face of it.

[A Beautiful Truth]

The scriptural references to the Sabbath Rest do not necessarily imply that God is still resting.

This assumption seems to me to be preposterous on the face of it.

I'm sorry, perhaps I did not explain from what God was resting--His act of creation. He will not create again until the new heavens and the new earth. He has always been at work, even while on the Sabbath (referece the gospels), but His work of creation has ceased.

Do you agree that God's creation work week has ceased? (in other words--do you believe that God is still creating but that these other creation days have NOT been recorded in scripture?)

Do you agree that God is on His Sabbath rest? (reference Hebrews, Psalms)

Do you agree that it is at least reasonable to assume one takes ones Sabbath rest on the Sabbath "Day"?

Do you agree that the Sabbath day is the seventh day?

~Charleen

[Socrates]

I'm sorry, perhaps I did not explain from what God was resting--His act of creation. He will not create again until the new heavens and the new earth. He has always been at work, even while on the Sabbath (referece the gospels), but His work of creation has ceased.

Do you agree that God's creation work week has ceased? (in other words--do you believe that God is still creating but that these other creation days have NOT been recorded in scripture?)

Do you agree that God is on His Sabbath rest? (reference Hebrews, Psalms)

Do you agree that it is at least reasonable to assume one takes ones Sabbath rest on the Sabbath "Day"?

Do you agree that the Sabbath day is the seventh day?

Typical OEC non sequitur. None of this entails that the seventh day itself continues. E.g., someone could say, "My holiday [vacation to Yanx] began last Monday and is still continuing." It doesn't mean that Monday still continues.

This is just as much an abuse of language as Charleen's sig, which invokes such indefinite words as "ancient" in the Bible and tries to use them to prove OEC v YEC. But they are all relative terms, and are in comparison to human lifespans, so even a few thousand years old is "ancient".

[A Beautiful Truth]

Typical OEC non sequitur. None of this entails that the seventh day itself continues. E.g., someone could say, "My holiday [vacation to Yanx] began last Monday and is still continuing." It doesn't mean that Monday still continues.

Do you agree or not that God's SABBATH rest continues?

Do you agree or not that one takes their SABBATH rest on the SABBATH "DAY"?

Your vacation example does not apply. To make it a relevant analogy, you would have to say, "My Sabbath rest began on the seventh day and is still continuing." Which, of course, is my point--it DOES mean that the sabbath day continues. How can you remove Sabbath rest from Sabbath day? Is there some other time one is suppose to take one's Sabbath rest? Not according to scripture. According to scripture, one takes their Sabbath rest on the Sabbath day and so follows God's work six/rest the seventh analogy.

This is just as much an abuse of language as Charleen's sig, which invokes such indefinite words as "ancient" in the Bible and tries to use them to prove OEC v YEC. But they are all relative terms, and are in comparison to human lifespans, so even a few thousand years old is "ancient".

I was only going for the clear, plain, straightforward meaning of the text, Socrates. So we need YEC to tell us what "ancient" and "age-old" REALLY mean?

In your view, the scriptures were only true for ancient man. In your view, a modern man cannot read those words and understand them without talking to you first.

[Socratism]

Do you agree or not that God's SABBATH rest continues?

Yes.

Do you agree or not that one takes their SABBATH rest on the SABBATH "DAY"?

Yes.

Your confusion is that one takes their sabbath rest every week on the seventh day (the Sabbath), and that these Sabbath days follow after the other days of the week.

So you have no evidence that when God rested on the seventh day from His labors of Creation Week that this particular first seventh day never ended, for to my mind this would be an absurd conclusion to draw from scripture.

In your view, the scriptures were only true for ancient man. In your view, a modern man cannot read those words and understand them without talking to you first.

You raise a very important point here.

Some people believe that statements in scripture made at one particular time in the past to one particular group of people under one particular set of circumstances must of necessity then apply to all people of God today and in the future.

For God cannot lie.

I personally believe that this is an extreme form of biblicism which is not supported by scripture itself, and leads to much mischief within the Body of Christ.

God has frequently "changed the rules" in the past. He has His good reasons for doing this, and certainly has the power and authority to do this as He sees fit. The proof that this is the case is that there is a New Covenant as well as an Old Covenant.

Christians do not follow the Old Covenant that required converts to be circumcised, and in the Book of Acts this is seen as the major dispute between the Disciples and Paul, one that was finally resolved by the compromise that the Discples would go to the Jews and Paul would go to the Gentiles. And further it was agreed by all that the converts of Paul did not have to be circumcised, despite the fact that this act was a primary requirement for the People of God in the Old Covenant.

Thus, Christians must be very careful in reading scripture in differentiating between what is applicable for those today who belong to the Body of Christ, and what was certainly true, but intended only for those in the past called "The People of Abraham".

[A Beautiful Truth]

Your confusion is that one takes their sabbath rest every week on the seventh day (the Sabbath), and that these Sabbath days follow after the other days of the week.

So you have no evidence that when God rested on the seventh day from His labors of Creation Week that this particular first seventh day never ended, for to my mind this would be an absurd conclusion to draw from scripture.

I am sorry, I did not quite understand what you are saying. Please help me here...are you saying that after God rested on the seventh day, that he started "working" again for the next six days and then took another sabbath rest on the "second" seventh day and has continued this work/rest pattern up until the present? So God is a regular "worker", working every six and resting every seventh?

So you are saying that God is only on His Sabbath rest when man is on His Sabbath rest? So the scriptures that indicate that God is still on His Sabbath day only apply to Friday night into Saturday before dusk?

I most likely just misunderstood you.

If I did misundertand you, please answer the following again.

If God is still on His sabbath rest, and the sabbath rest is designated for the sabbath day, then why is God not still on His sabbath day?

Are you saying that the sabbath rest can be separated from the sabbath day? You would have to argue for that on an *appeal to ignorance* for all the scriptures I read say that the sabbath rest is designated for the sabbath day.



Some people believe that statements in scripture made at one particular time in the past to one particular group of people under one particular set of circumstances must of necessity then apply to all people of God today and in the future.

For God cannot lie.

I personally believe that this is an extreme form of biblicism which is not supported by scripture itself, and leads to much mischief within the Body of Christ.

God has frequently "changed the rules" in the past. He has His good reasons for doing this, and certainly has the power and authority to do this as He sees fit. The proof that this is the case is that there is a New Covenant as well as an Old Covenant.

Christians do not follow the Old Covenant that required converts to be circumcised, and in the Book of Acts this is seen as the major dispute between the Disciples and Paul, one that was finally resolved by the compromise that the Discples would go to the Jews and Paul would go to the Gentiles. And further it was agreed by all that the converts of Paul did not have to be circumcised, despite the fact that this act was a primary requirement for the People of God in the Old Covenant.

Thus, Christians must be very careful in reading scripture in differentiating between what is applicable for those today who belong to the Body of Christ, and what was certainly true, but intended only for those in the past called "The People of Abraham".

Hmmm. I am sorry, I did not see the connection between my signature line and the above....

When God compares His works from the foundations of the earth to antiquity, His main point is its antiquity. A man of today could only understand that scripture if the earth was indeed "old". If he did not have a young earth coach behind him, he very well may end up believing the earth is old because "the Bible says so" and because "God was there, He would know". So you are saying without prior YE knowledge, a man would be led to heresy, compromise, and other various unfortuanate titles if he were to read it at face value?

I do understand context needs to be considered and so forth. But these scriptures I have referenced about the earth's antiquity should not need a particular Bible interpretation (young earth creationism) read into the text in order to be understood.

[Socrates]

Do you agree or not that God's SABBATH rest continues?

Not necessarily:

John 5:17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

But once more, the argument is fallacious, and no one ever thought of it before the non-Hebrew-scholar Ross conjured it up. Dr Doug Kelly, a systematic theologian trained in Hebrew, responded to Ross’s argument as follows (Creation and Change, p. 111):

‘To say the least, this places a great deal of theological weight on a very narrow and thin exegetical bridge! Is it not more concordant with the patent sense of the context of Genesis 2 (and Exodus 20) to infer that because the Sabbath differed in quality (though not—from anything we can learn out of the text itself—in quantity), a slightly different concluding formula was appended to indicate a qualitative difference (six days involved work; one day involved rest)? The formula employed to show the termination of that first sabbath: “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (Gen. 2:2) seems just as definite as that of “and the evening and the morning were the first day”.’

Do you agree or not that one takes their SABBATH rest on the SABBATH "DAY"?

Hebrews 4:1–11 teaches that the seventh day of Creation Week was a parallel to the spiritual rest found through Christ alone. Only those who have believed in Christ enter this rest. If the Bible was speaking of an actual continuation of the seventh day of rest, then all would already be in this rest. The rest referred to is obviously a spiritual rest.

Your vacation example does not apply.

It applies perfectly. The rest (or cessation from His creative work) was clearly on an ordinary day which He blessed. It makes no sense to claim that God was really blessing a seventh indefinitely long age of time that still continues, and somehow this was a forerunner to the 4th Commandment.

I was only going for the clear, plain, straightforward meaning of the text, Socrates. So we need YEC to tell us what "ancient" and "age-old" REALLY mean?

What crap -- I was going by the straightforward meaning of the text, which is an unspecified "ancient". Using Scripture to interpret Scripture, it's easy to show that all the words were used in relation to human time scales. That's how the Church Fathers and Reformers understood these passages, since they were unanimous that the earth was <10,000 years old. Fact is, without uniformitarian indoctrination, no one would think that thousands of years is anything but "ancient". We call ourselves "young"-earth creationists only in relation to uniformitarian indoctrination, not because we really think that 6000 years is "young".

So you will need to show from Scripture that these non-specific words MUST mean billions of years and CANNOT mean thousands.

In your view, the scriptures were only true for ancient man. In your view, a modern man cannot read those words and understand them without talking to you first.

Nope, Ross has repeatedly called nature a 6th book of Scripture, and claims that only now with modern "science" can we understand the 66 books correctly. Ross's error, that Charleen dutifully parrots, is to bring aberrant modern conceptions about what "ancient" means and impose them on the text.

[A Beautiful Truth]

Socrates,

You have failed to understand the point Jesus was making about working on the Sabbath.

While God is at rest from *His work of creation*, He does still "work", as we ought to also "work" on the Sabbath by doing good. Was this not the point Jesus was making--it is right to do good on the Sabbath? Doing good on the Sabbath may nessesarily involve doing "work" on the Sabbath.

You have missed the point.

You also once again said your "vacation" analogy works. Let me try to explain this another way as to why it does not work. To fit the analogy, you would need to say, "My Monday is still continuing" because it is known that the Sabbath itself nessesarily entails a particular day so you cannot seperate them as you could seperate "vacation" and "day". Therefore, since God takes His Sabbath rest exclusively on the Sabbath day (they mean the same thing) and His Sabbath rest continues, His Sabbath day continues. It is an analogy of our 24 hour day, but it is not an actual 24 hour day. Don't confine God to our systems. Ours is only a "copy and shadow" of His work/rest system.

Now, other of your points got shuffled in the quotes you gave. Perhaps you can clear the following for me:

Do I understand right that you do NOT believe God is on His Sabbath rest? (a simple "yes, I believe He is still on His Sabbath rest", or "no, I do not believe He is on His Sabbath rest" would be so helpful)

[Socratism]

I am sorry, I did not quite understand what you are saying. Please help me here...are you saying that after God rested on the seventh day, that he started "working" again for the next six days and then took another sabbath rest on the "second" seventh day and has continued this work/rest pattern up until the present? So God is a regular "worker", working every six and resting every seventh?

God is not a "regular worker". The term "Sabbath rest" is taken from the first Sabbath when God rested from His Creation Week labors. Any other extrapolations regarding what God did or did not do on subsequent days is presumptuous on your part unless they can be supported by specific scriptural citations.

So you are saying that God is only on His Sabbath rest when man is on His Sabbath rest?

The Sabbath rest is for man's benefit, not God's. God can choose to rest if He wishes any time He desires. Or to work any time He wishes also for that matter.

So the scriptures that indicate that God is still on His Sabbath day only apply to Friday night into Saturday before dusk?

And what other scriptures would those be? Come, let us reason together.

If God is still on His sabbath rest, and the sabbath rest is designated for the sabbath day, then why is God not still on His sabbath day?

Actually the term is not "Sabbath rest" but instead is "Sabbath of rest to the Lord". By shortening the term the meaning is changed, for the Sabbath of rest to the Lord is something that God commanded His people to observe by resting and remembering the Great Acts that God had performed.

God is not "on His Sabbath rest". That ended on the seventh day, the one that followed the six days of creation week.Rather, it was the people of Abraham, at the time of the giving of the Law to Moses, who were commanded to observe the "Sabbath rest of the Lord". It was the people who were to rest on the Sabbath, not God.

One can verify the truth of this by searching on the word "Sabbath" in both testaments and noting that in every single instance it is always the people who are admonished to keep the "Sabbath of the Lord", the day He established for His people to rest and worship Him, and not something that God does every seven days.

Are you saying that the sabbath rest can be separated from the sabbath day?

The Sabbath rest is simply another way of stating the Sabbath day.

You would have to argue for that on an *appeal to ignorance* for all the scriptures I read say that the sabbath rest is designated for the sabbath day.

Exactly, which is why it is bizarre for people to think that it continues throughout the week. It merely is repeated every week for one day. That is the sense in which it "continues" for it does not end but continues week after week. But it is what the people do, not God.

If you can quote scripture that shows otherwise please do.

The bizarre "opinions" of others do not interest me, since they seem to be in conflict with scripture, at least as far as I have been able to determine.

[A Beautiful Truth]

Socratism,

I know you have considered the passages in Hebrew, please tell me why you do not believe God's Sabbath rest continues:

You previously agreed that one cannot seperate "Sabbath Day" and "Sabbath rest".

"For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, 'As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest,' although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works'; and again in this passage, 'They shall not enter My rest.'...There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His." Hebrews 4:3-5,9-10

The above sciptures do indicate that God has been on His Sabbath rest/day since He finished His works "from the foundation of the world" and that believers can enter that day as well. If Sabbath rest and Sabbath day are truly interchangeable, then when we enter His Sabbath rest through belief, we enter His Sabbath day that has been continuing since God finished His analogous creation work week--we enter God's rest.

The believer's rest is to rest from his works of the flesh and to believe in Him with an obedient heart. (It has nothing to do with resting from your physical labor work week) In so doing, we enter His rest, as God rested from His works since "the foundation of the world." The scriptures say here that God has been resting since "the foundation of the world." Since God has set the example to rest on the Sabbath and God is still resting from His works since His creation week ended, then God is staying true to the example He gave to rest on the Sabbath, and continues His analogous Sabbath rest/day.

Unlike our physical work week, His creation work week have been completed since the "foundation of the world", therefore, while our work/rest cycle continues weekly, His work week has ended and His Sabbath rest continues. When we, as believers, enter God's Sabbath rest, we no longer strive in the flesh under the law, but believe in Him, rest in Him--on His Sabbath day.

Since God's rest from works continues "from the foundation of the world", His Sabbath continues, for that is the example He gave--rest on the Sabbath. The analogy is clear in scripture, you work your works and then you rest--specifically on the Sabbath. It is an analogy. I think the reason why you cannot see that since God's rest continues His Sabbath Day continues, is because you bring your 24 hour day interpretation into the text and not because it is absurd, as you have said.

In order for you to defend your view, you need to explain how it is possible that since "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" that there does not remain a Sabbath day, God's Sabbath day of rest for the people of God. "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works...they shall not enter My rest." These scriptures indicate that the seventh day of rest continues and that God's people can enter this continuing Sabbath rest through their belief with an obedient heart.

If it is true that the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath day are inseperable (something to which you already agreed) and if it is true that there remains a Sabbath day for the people of God to enter through belief and not works, and if it is true that this Sabbath day is God's rest (above scriptures affirm this), then it is also true that God's Sabbath day does indeed continue.

[Socratism]

Dear Charleen,

The analogy is clear in scripture, you work your works and then you rest--specifically on the Sabbath. It is an analogy.

I agree that it is an analogy.

I think the reason why you cannot see that since God's rest continues His Sabbath Day continues, is because you bring your 24 hour day interpretation into the text and not because it is absurd, as you have said.

I regret having said that your view was absurd. It is absurd to me, just as you might think my view is only because I believe in the literal days of creation. I feel that your view is also biased by your disbelief in ordinary six days of creation.

I can only say that the "rest" is apparently for the benefit of those who are wise enough to "enter into it". This "rest" is, as you stated, an analogy with the Genesis statement that God "rested" on the seventh day. Being an analogy it can not be taken as literally as you apparently think. If this is true then it does not serve as much support for the concept that because "God's rest" is continuously available to us , that this "proves" that the seventh day is still continuing.

In my view "God's rest" is not dependent on whether the seventh day ended, as YECs believe it did, or whether the seventh day is still continuing to the present period as many OECs believe. IMHO the analogy does not extend that far.

I apologize again for my use of the word "absurd" in discussing your viewpoint.

[A Beautiful Truth]

I can only say that the "rest" is apparently for the benefit of those who are wise enough to "enter into it". This "rest" is, as you stated, an analogy with the Genesis statement that God "rested" on the seventh day. Being an analogy it can not be taken as literally as you apparently think. If this is true then it does not serve as much support for the concept that because "God's rest" is continuously available to us , that this "proves" that the seventh day is still continuing.

Thank you, Socratism, for being gracious.

I understand what you are saying here, I believe. You are saying that God's rest itself is an analogy and does not prove that the seventh day is continuing.

While I understand it, I do not believe you have the scriptural support that you would want. Again, I reference the example God gave us in the creation week analogy. Since one takes their rest on the Sabbath, and since God has been resting from His creative work since "the foundation of the earth" then God's seventh day still continues. I believe this is the logical interpretation of scripture.

"There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God". Sabbath rest and Sabbath day are not seperable, I believe. Therefore, if you take the opinion that this rest is an analogy, you must admit that it is an analogy of a day--the seventh day. You must believe that the seventh day is a analogy. And I submit that if the seventh day is an analogy, the other days complete the week analogy, which was the purpose Moses had in using "days" and "evening and morning".

Moses wrote Genesis one as he also wrote Ex. 20:11. Moses framed God's creative work in a week as an intelligent and understandable way to communicate what He did. The Hebrews had the work six, rest the seventh mentality--framing God's work in a week would make sense to them, as it does to us.

Thank you for your input, and your patience. :smile:

~Charleen

[BrianB]

Hi Charleen,

Are you referring to the Analogical Days Interpretation? Assuming you are, my only knowledge of it comes from a brief perusal of what is on the net. Where have you read an exposition of it that you'd recommend?

From a brief glance, it looks like it could 'fit' very easily with Kline's view of the nature of the Days, those being 'days in heaven' (in the upper register) that are not earth-days. See his Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony for a fuller statement.

And, just as a methodological note, 'simplicity in understanding to our modern western mindset' is an inappropriate criterion for determining whether something is the correct interpretation of a passage. 24-hour advocates will often press this wrong-headed criterion as well, but we must throw it away if we're to have a proper approach to scripture. We must look for understanding in _their_ mindset, not ours. There will, of course, be some overlap.


I must give you a compliment on your discussions with the YECs in this topic. I've frankly given up with posters who go to the absurd lengths they do in order to deny the obvious. Even those who aren't as blindly dogmatic will resort to things like "God's resting and rest are two different things," just to try and prop up their position. (not to say that all YEC posters in this thread are of the blind-leading-the-blind ilk)

Your logic on the Heb4 passage and God's Sabbath seems pretty good to me.


Oh, and every time they say they hold to 'ordinary' or 'literal' days, feel free to point out that they are not being honest with the text, because the first three YOM they interpret as abnormal, non-solar 24-hour periods instead of ordinary days. It's important for this intentional misstatement (for those who are aware of it already) to be publicly exposed so that others can see it for what it is.

Regards,
Brian

[A Beautiful Truth]

Hi Charleen,

Are you referring to the Analogical Days Interpretation? Assuming you are, my only knowledge of it comes from a brief perusal of what is on the net. Where have you read an exposition of it that you'd recommend?

I do not have a source, I was hoping somebody here could explain it to me better.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. If you ever think anymore about it, please comment.

Thank you again,

Charleen