Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 16, 1912

Editorial

By Editor

The Sabbath Institution

Its Divine Origin

TWIN institutions have descended to us from Eden, and have been closely identified with the history of man throughout his experience. These sister institutions are the Sabbath of the Lord and the marriage relationship. Both institutions have suffered from the attacks of the great adversary of truth. The forgetting of one, that of the Sabbath, has led to the forgetting of God, the creator of it. The disregard of the other has led to the corruption of society. These attacks have sometimes been outspoken and brazen in their effrontery. More often, however, they have been subtle, insinuating, and undermining.

These two institutions in the closing days of earth’s history will continue to be the special object of Satan’s maliciousness. Perhaps there are no religious questions before the world at the present time receiving more wide-spread consideration than the questions of the Sabbath and the marriage relationship. It is proper that this paper, an appointed herald of Sabbath truth, should often review the evidences upon which our faith in this divine institution is based.

Naturally, when we come to consider an institution of this character, we inquire for its origin, and by what authority it makes claim to our regard and observation. In seeking for this information relative to the Sabbath, we have not far to look. The Scriptures of truth bear plain and unmistakable testimony with reference to this.

Christ Lord of the Sabbath

Of his own relationship to the Sabbath the divine Author of Christianity himself declares, “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” In what sense is Christ Lord of the Sabbath?—Primarily in the sense that he is the creator of it. In his divine purpose he made it. He made it in the beginning when he made the worlds.

The great apostle to the Gentiles says he was ordained “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” Eph. 3:9. Again he says, in his letter to the Corinthians, “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” 1 Cor. 8:6.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Colosse, after stating that Christ is the image of the invisible God and the first-born of every creature, he says: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Col. 1:16, 17.

One more positive declaration will suffice to prove the companionship of Christ with the Father in the creation of the universe. Says John, in the first chapter and second and third verses of his Gospel, in speaking of Christ, or the Word: “The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.”

Hence we must conclude that, as all things were made by Christ, as by him all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, were created, as by him all things consist, and as without him nothing was made that was made, Christ must have been the creative agency in the formation of this earth. He was present when the long reign of darkness was first broken by the light, as recorded in the first day’s record of time. It was his power that separated the light from the darkness, that created the bodies in the firmament of heaven to give light by day and light by night, that caused the earth to bring forth, and the waters to multiply living things. And he it was who formed man, the masterpiece of his work, in his own image, as the ruler of the world he had made.

Upon the work of his hands the Creator looked with pleasure. He had wrought wisely and well. He “saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” What a scene was here! Sin had not marred God’s wondrous work. No blot rested upon the fair face of nature. It was a day, as the Lord declared to his servant Job, when “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”

The Sabbath a Memorial

One thing remained to constitute a fitting climax to this creative week. God gave the earth to man, and now, that the human family might ever keep in mind the Author of their existence, the Giver of all the blessings with which they are surrounded, the Lord created a memorial of his work. “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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.”

The Creator did not rest because he himself was weary. “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” The Lord rested upon the Sabbath day in satisfied contemplation of his work, and for the benefit of mankind. By this act he constituted the Sabbath a memorial of his work, an institution through which he designs the human family ever to bear in mind the one true God. Thus in a double sense Christ is Lord of the Sabbath. First, he is its author. He constituted it the Sabbath by his own divine act. Second, he made it the sign or memorial of his great creative power. Related thus to Christ and his work, the Sabbath is emphatically a Christian institution, and as such demands the allegiance of Christ’s followers. Of the steps by which the Sabbath was more fully dedicated to this use, we shall speak further. F. M. W.