This statement summarizes the Adventist position in reading the Sabbath as the "Day of the Lord," which is refuted by all the major sources of Christian doctrine, as we will see later.

II. Basic Texts Against the Old Testament Sabbath Concept

Repeatedly in the pages of the New Testament words are quoted that are accusatory to those who wish to establish a particular day for the worship of God. In fact, since the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Gospel and the early Christian church have regarded the first day of the week as (the Day of the Lord) (Rev. 1:10), as we have tried to show earlier. In addition to those passages of Holy Scripture that show the difference between the Day of the Lord and the Sabbath, the Apostle Paul (a Jew of the Jews and a Pharisee of the Pharisees), who is an authoritative New Testament author, declared that the Sabbath "as a law" was completed on the cross of Golgotha and no longer binds Christians (Col. 2:16-17). As this is a rather broad topic that it cannot be fully covered by this work, we may recommend that readers refer to numerous works on the subject, especially Dr. Louis Sperry Chafer's Grace and Norman C. Deck's The Lord's Day or the Sabbath, Which?. These publications contain invaluable material that refutes the Sabbath. Dudley M. Canwright in "Seventh-day Adventism Renounced" also reflects on this topic in detail and professionally.

In order to conduct a brief and illustrative study of this subject, let us turn to the main New Testament texts, which, in the light of their contextual and syntactic analysis, will refute the erroneous position of the Adventists and show us the true historical position of the Christian Church from the time of the Apostles and the time of the Holy Fathers.

A. Colossians 2:13-17

Of all the passages in the New Testament, the following verses most strongly and clearly refute the Sabbath as a teaching about the continuation of the tradition of the Jewish Sabbath. Let us heed the inspired counsel of the apostle Paul, who is not only the greatest of the apostles, but also a former Pharisee, whose zeal for the fulfillment of the law far exceeded that of the most faithful Adventists:

"And you who were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh He made alive with Him, having forgiven us all sins, having destroyed by doctrine the handwriting which was against us, and He took it from among us and nailed it to the cross. Having taken away the strength of principalities and authorities, He imperiously subjected them to shame, triumphing over them by Himself. Therefore let no one condemn you for eating, or drinking, or for any feast, or New Moon, or Sabbath: these are the shadow of things to come, but the body is in Christ" (Col. 2:13-17). This translation is one of the best translations of the Greek version of the Gospel and contains a very important teaching.

First, all of us who were previously dead have been made alive in Christ and have been forgiven of all our sins and transgressions. We are exempt from the condemnation of the law in all its aspects, because Christ was punished for us on the cross. As already noted, there are no two laws in the world (moral law and formal law), but only one law containing many commandments, all of which were fulfilled by the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Therefore," the Apostle Paul emphasizes, "let no one condemn you for eating, or drinking, or for any feast, or New Moon, or Sabbath: this is a shadow of things to come, and the body is in Christ."

In the face of this teaching, Sabbath-worshippers return to their theory of the double law and argue that the Apostle Paul was referring only to the formal Jewish law of Sabbath observance, and not to the moral law that prescribes the observance of one of the Ten Commandments. However, we can see that the Ten Commandments are part of the moral law contained in the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. 19:18; Rm. 13:9).