One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.
Numbers 15 lays down the rule for meal offerings, drink offerings, and offerings for sins of ignorance, requiring one rule for Israelites and for resident foreigners alike in these matters. The same chapter also records the case of a man who in presumptuous, open defiance violated the fourth commandment by gathering sticks on the Sabbath in defiance, for which he was stoned. There is one law and one manner for the native and for the stranger who sojourns with them, so that as Israel is so the stranger is before the Lord, with no distinction and equal treatment under the same law and the same standard. The same law and rule applied to Israelites and to strangers living among them.
This was one ordinance forever for the congregation and for the stranger that sojourns, standing before the Lord under the old dispensation. That equality rests on all nations being made of one blood to dwell on the earth, having one Father and one Creator, on God regarding not persons and loving the stranger with food and clothing, on all men being brethren with one Master in Christ, and on doing to others whatever one would have them do. Israel was the chosen people through whom the knowledge of God was to extend through the earth as a light to surrounding nations, revealing what it means to be a member of God's government and God's people, whose constitution was the Ten Commandments explained by added ceremonial by-laws with universal claim over every person of whatever race or nationality who sojourned with them.
By contrast, those who so held taught that the verse belongs to subsidiary laws given through Moses, not to the Decalogue constitution, being part of time-bound sanitary and police regulations adapted to Israel in the wilderness for dealing with special flagrant cases of presumptuous sin, easily distinguishable in moral principle from the eternal Ten Commandments. The benefits of Israel's God-given government were open to all, but citizenship was voluntary, applying when people from other nations gave themselves to God and joined Israel, who could choose to join or to leave. Foreign servants bought with money were to be circumcised and made part of the household during their service, naturalized as citizens of the state and members of the congregation and partakers of all its rites and privileges, and like Hebrew servants were alike amenable to the laws of the state and alike receiving protection from them.
The Sabbath given at creation nearly two thousand years before there was a Jew belongs to the whole human race and not to the Jews only, so whoever belongs to the human race has right to it because it was made for man and Gentiles are men as well as Jews. The Gentile stranger had right and privilege to join in worship and keep the same Sabbath on the same terms as Israel, which Isaiah 56:1-8 presents as the same Sabbath rather than a new one, because character counted more than birth. A Gentile is not promised salvation while remaining in Gentile faith and practices, but if he turns away to keep God's commandments and have faith in Christ he is grafted into Israel and is no longer to be regarded as a Gentile.
Numbers 15 lays down the rule for meal offerings, drink offerings, and offerings for sins of ignorance, requiring one rule for Israelites and for resident foreigners alike in these matters. The same chapter also records the case of a man who in presumptuous, open defiance violated the fourth commandment by gathering sticks on the Sabbath in defiance, for which he was stoned. There is one law and one manner for the native and for the stranger who sojourns with them, so that as Israel is so the stranger is before the Lord, with no distinction and equal treatment under the same law and the same standard. The same law and rule applied to Israelites and to strangers living among them.
This was one ordinance forever for the congregation and for the stranger that sojourns, standing before the Lord under the old dispensation. That equality rests on all nations being made of one blood to dwell on the earth, having one Father and one Creator, on God regarding not persons and loving the stranger with food and clothing, on all men being brethren with one Master in Christ, and on doing to others whatever one would have them do. Israel was the chosen people through whom the knowledge of God was to extend through the earth as a light to surrounding nations, revealing what it means to be a member of God's government and God's people, whose constitution was the Ten Commandments explained by added ceremonial by-laws with universal claim over every person of whatever race or nationality who sojourned with them.
By contrast, those who so held taught that the verse belongs to subsidiary laws given through Moses, not to the Decalogue constitution, being part of time-bound sanitary and police regulations adapted to Israel in the wilderness for dealing with special flagrant cases of presumptuous sin, easily distinguishable in moral principle from the eternal Ten Commandments. The benefits of Israel's God-given government were open to all, but citizenship was voluntary, applying when people from other nations gave themselves to God and joined Israel, who could choose to join or to leave. Foreign servants bought with money were to be circumcised and made part of the household during their service, naturalized as citizens of the state and members of the congregation and partakers of all its rites and privileges, and like Hebrew servants were alike amenable to the laws of the state and alike receiving protection from them.
The Sabbath given at creation nearly two thousand years before there was a Jew belongs to the whole human race and not to the Jews only, so whoever belongs to the human race has right to it because it was made for man and Gentiles are men as well as Jews. The Gentile stranger had right and privilege to join in worship and keep the same Sabbath on the same terms as Israel, which Isaiah 56:1-8 presents as the same Sabbath rather than a new one, because character counted more than birth. A Gentile is not promised salvation while remaining in Gentile faith and practices, but if he turns away to keep God's commandments and have faith in Christ he is grafted into Israel and is no longer to be regarded as a Gentile.