THE SABBATH.
IT has been already suggested that the division of the creative
work into six days rather than into five or ten or any other number,
contemplated the weekly Sabbath and was designed to connect this
Sabbath for man with God’s rest from this creative work so that the
Sabbath should be at once a memorial of the creation and should bear in
itself the force of God’s example in his relative periods of labor and
of rest. God created this beautiful earth for man’s abode, and man to
dwell upon it; therefore let man remember his Great Creator and Father,
thoughtfully contemplating his works, admiring and adoring, worshiping
and serving the Glorious Author of both his being and his blessings.
God wrought six days and rested one; so let man throughout all the
ages of earthly time. Such is the relation of the Sabbath to God and
to man.――――Note therefore
1. _God ordained and enjoined it._ It is precisely a divine
institution――not man-made but heaven-born; an outgrowth of God’s wisdom
and love for his offspring man――for that one of all his creatures whom
only God “made in his own image.” “God blessed the seventh day and
sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which
God created and made” (Gen. 2: 3). “Blessed and sanctified”――not _as
to himself_ but _as to man_; _i. e._ not to make the day a blessing to
himself but a blessing to man; not to make the day holy _to himself_
but holy _as to man_. It was a day for man to keep holy and a day
laden with blessings for man on condition of his sacredly observing
it in its true spirit and intent.――――In accord with this view are our
Savior’s words (Mk. 2: 27), “The Sabbath was made for man”――to become a
blessing for man, one of the great and sure channels of mercy from the
Great Father to his obedient children. Thus the Sabbath was instituted
for man when the race existed in Adam and Eve alone――one of the
institutions revealed from God and enjoined in Eden――good for man
before his fall, and surely not less needful to the race fallen than
to the race sinless. Let it be distinctly considered that this Sabbath
was instituted with no limitations of time or race or nation――not for
Eden alone; not for the race before their fall only――to become defunct
when man began to sin; not for the Jews alone to be only a Jewish
national observance and to become obsolete when the ceremonials of
Judaism “waxed old and vanished away.” It was indeed prescribed anew
to the Hebrew nation and enforced with new sanctions, especially by his
obligations to his covenant-keeping God for national deliverance from
Egyptian bondage; but this weighs not a feather against the doctrine
that the Sabbath was made _for man_. While the Sabbath obligation,
thus heightened by new mercies, might be said to become more sacred and
obligatory upon the Jewish nation, this fact could by no means make the
day less sacred to the Gentiles of every land and of all time.
2. As sustaining scripturally this argument for the divine appointment
of the Sabbath for the race of mankind, let it be noted that the
seven-day division of time is unquestionably traceable to this primeval
institution. It did not originate in the revolution of the earth on
its axis which makes the common day, nor in its revolution in its orbit
round the sun which makes the year, nor in the changes of the moon
which mark off lunar months. It is an abnormal――we might say unnatural
division of time――one which comes not of nature but from a source above
nature――from God directly and from God alone.
Historically we find this seventh-day period in existence during the
flood. Noah observed it and sent out the raven and the dove after
seven-day intervals of time.――――It becomes most distinctly apparent
in the recorded history of the manna (Ex. 16: 22–30). By the natural
law of the manna, each next day’s supply was distilled each night
upon the adjacent grounds, ready for the labor of gathering it in
the early morning. This would normally make labor a necessity for
their subsistence _every day_, leaving them no Sabbath. Therefore God
arrested the normal law at the Sabbath point and provided a double
supply on the morning next preceding, giving none on the morning of the
Sabbath. Moreover by another special provision, this double supply was
kept two days from putrefaction――in this case only, so that it sufficed
perfectly for their wants till the Sabbath was past. Some of the people,
oblivious of the Sabbath, “went out on the seventh day to gather, and
found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep
my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you
the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two
days; abide ye every man in his place; let no man go out of his place
on the seventh day” (Ex. 16: 27–30). Most decisively therefore does
this narrative assume that the Sabbath was not then a new institution
but an old one. This scene and these words, be it remembered, were
before (not after) the giving of the ten commandments from Sinai.
To the same purport is the form of the fourth commandment; “_Remember_
the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” The Lord does not say――I now
introduce a new and special precept. His words, “Remember” etc. do not
imply this but imply the very opposite of this. So also do the reasons
assigned; viz. God’s creative work finished in six days with rest on
the seventh. If this were a reason for the Sabbath, it was certainly
good for Adam in Eden and for all of Adam’s children to the end of the
world. Corresponding to this we may note that in this fourth command
God does not say――I appoint each seventh day for a sign between me and
thee and a memorial of your national deliverance from Egyptian bondage
(as many have maintained――to make out that the Sabbath was nothing but
a Jewish institution) but this is not the form in which the Sabbath
stands in the immortal decalogue. These points――a “sign” between the
Lord and Israel and a memorial of deliverance from Egypt, came in fitly
afterwards as a supplement――an appendix to this fourth command _in its
special relations_ to the children of Israel. See Ex. 31: 12–17 and
Ezek. 20: 12, 20, with my Notes on the passage in Ezekiel. But these
special and superadded relations of the Sabbath to the Hebrews can
not possibly in reason diminish the obligation of the original Sabbath
ordained for man as a race in Eden.
4. To complete the argument for a perpetual Sabbath, it is only needful
to add that our Lord re-endorsed it and gave it the whole weight of
his sanction for all future time; and in these several ways: (a.) By
re-endorsing the entire decalogue――“I am not come to destroy the law
but to fulfil” (Mat. 5: 17). The scope of the sermon on the mount――(of
which these words are a part) proves that his eye was on the great
moral law of ten commandments. Plainly he could not have spoken of the
Mosaic ceremonial law, and therefore must have spoken of that special
code of precepts of which the Sabbath was the fourth.――――(b.) He
endorsed the Sabbath as perpetual and universal by solemnly
declaring――“The Sabbath was made _for man_” (Mk. 2: 27).――――(c.) Also
by affirming it to be his own prerogative to enforce the Sabbath and to
set forth its spirit and expound its obligations. “Therefore,” because
the Sabbath was made for man, for all men of all time, “therefore,
the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mk. 2: 28). It was in
order to relieve the law of the Sabbath (as then currently expounded)
from burdensome, excessive and injurious constructions which human
nature could not bear and which were alien from its true spirit, that
our Lord confronted the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees and
sought to place this great institution upon its true and eternal
basis.――――(d.) Finally as showing historically that our Lord had never
a thought of terminating the obligation of the Sabbath at his death but
designed its obligation to be perpetual, we have this very incidental
word――“Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the
Sabbath day” (Mat. 24: 20). When the Roman armies should bring down
the judgments of the Almighty upon the doomed city of the murderers of
Jesus, his followers must flee to the mountains across the Jordan; yet
let it be their prayer that they might not be compelled to flee either
in the severity of winter’s cold, nor on the holy Sabbath. Flight for
life might be morally admissible even on this sacred day; yet it would
be most appropriate to pray that God would spare them this moral trial
and not subject them to the necessity of labor on this holy day.――――In
these various ways our Lord most fully and undeniably re-endorsed the
Sabbath as for all time.