God's Memorial by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 9, 1882

God's Memorial.

By John Nevins Andrews

To PROFESS faith in God as the creator of all things, and to pay no attention to the memorial which he ordained to keep the work of creation in lasting remembrance,

is to have, in this respect, a dead faith. We thus profess to know God; but in works we deny him. We have faith without works. Our faith in the one God, who by his sovereign power, framed the worlds out of materials which did not before exist, is like the faith of the devils, a dead faith, because that grand act of obedience which was ordained to express that faith, we do not perform. And we are not to think that there is no need of this effort to maintain faith in the one God who in six days created heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh.

The world is full of atheism. The Sabbath is the grand bulwark against that fatal error. Its observance by the people of God is a solemn protest against atheism, and a public confession, by works corresponding to their faith, that they believe the record of the creation of the heavens and the earth. The atheist has no faith in the record of the creation. To him the rest-day of the Creator is of no account whatever. But, with men believing the Bible record of the creation, the case is different. They confess their faith in the six days of the Creator's work, and his rest upon the seventh, and that he set apart the day because he had rested upon it. If their works correspond with their faith, they will regard the rest-day of the Lord. Can the Christian, who believes the record of the creation, and the atheist, who denies the existence of the Creator himself, both act alike in disregarding the rest-day of the Lord? See the believer in the record of the first seven days of time. When the seventh day, which the Creator set apart in memory of his own rest on that day, arrives, he lays aside all labor, and rests from all his work. Every one understands the act. But the atheist continues his labor as on other days. His works are consistent with his unbelief. But what shall be said of those Christians who imitate in their works the conduct of the atheist? Surely, the observance of the Creator's rest-day is the proper act of obedience by which we manifest our faith in God as the Creator. And whatever the intention, the violation of the rest-day of the Lord is practical atheism.

God set apart the seventh day in Paradise. This proves that the observance of the Sabbath is not a carnal ordinance, for it was instituted before sin entered our world. It was not ordained to commemorate the flight of Israel from Egypt, for the children of Israel did not flee out of Egypt till more than two thousand years after this. It was not an institution ordained for the Jews, for it began with the human race, and thus preceded the existence of the Hebrew people for many ages. But the most remarkable fact that appears in this record is, that this memorial was needed even in the garden of God. Though man could converse with God face to face, yet every week, by the most impressive act, Adam was called to remember and acknowledge God as his Creator. The rest-day of God was set apart, not as a mere rest from wearisome toil, for Adam had almost as little occasion for rest from weariness in Paradise, as had the Creator from his work of infinite might, but as a day when man should desist from everything else and think of God.

And even the very manner of this observance was exactly calculated to bring to remembrance the grand fact that distinguished God from all other beings, viz., the fact that he had created the heavens and the earth. He must rest as God rested, and on the very day that he rested. And thus doing, God, his Creator, could never be forgotten, nor the relation which God sustains to all other beings, and to all things, ever pass out of mind. It is a day of worship in the highest sense, in that it reminded man of his relation to God, and kept the great facts respecting the origin of all things vividly before the mind. Man must rest on that day, not because he specially needed rest on account of weariness, nor because rest on a certain day of the week is better calculated to give him relief than resting upon some other day would be. But he must rest in memory of what the Creator did, that he might not forget his infinite obligation to that great Being who had given him existence.

The record in Gen. 2:1-3, is worthy of our most careful attention for the remarkable distinctness, brevity, and freedom from ambiguity, which characterize it.

1. It is certain that God rested upon the first seventh day of time. 2. That he did not bless and sanctify the day because he was about to rest upon it, but because he had rested upon it. 3. And hence it was not the first seventh day of time which he blessed and set apart, for that had expired when he performed these acts. 4. And thus it is evident that the blessing and sanctification related to the seventh day for time to come. 5. This was done because God had rested upon that day, showing that it was in memory of that event. 6. God placed his blessing upon the day, thus making it a more precious day than any other. 7. He appointed the day to a holy use, thus making it obligatory upon Adam and his posterity to observe it. 8. And it is also to be observed that he did not bless the institution of the Sabbath, and sanctify that as a movable thing which could be placed upon one day or another, just as it might best suit the circumstances. Nothing is said of a Sabbath institution. God rested the seventh day. God blessed the seventh day. God set apart the seventh day to a holy use. 9. This indeed made the Sabbath. Or, if the reader chooses to use the expression, this was the setting up of the Sabbatic institution. But the seventh day was the recipient of all the things which conferred. The rest, the blessing, and the sanctification, pertained to that alone. When, therefore, some other day is taken, every element that constitutes the Sabbath is left out of the account and lost. When another day is taken, we get that which God never rested upon; and as he blessed the seventh day because he had rested upon it, when we take some other day besides that of God's rest, we take a day which God has not blessed. As he sanctified the day on which he rested, and which he had for that reason blessed, when we take one of the six days which God employed in the work of creation, we take a day which has not one element of the Sabbatic institution pertaining to it. Certainly there are but seven days in the week. The first six days God did not rest. On the seventh day he did rest. These facts can never be changed. We cannot place the blessing and sanctification on any day only the one of God's rest, for they are conferred upon it because of that rest. And we cannot change the rest from the day on which he rested to one on which he wrought in creation. Not even Omnipotence can do this. And thus the definite seventh day stands out with the utmost distinctness.

It cannot, therefore, be denied, except by doing violence to the sacred narrative, that the creation of the heavens and the earth was immediately followed by the establishment of a divine memorial of that grand event. And it is evident that this memorial is to be observed as an act of obedience whereby our faith in the creation of the heavens and the earth is shown to be a living faith. Those who profess faith in this great truth do thereby acknowledge themselves under obligation to manifest that faith by observing the memorial ordained by the Creator for that very purpose. Those who neglect this memorial, render their faith in this fundamental doctrine of the Bible a dead faith. God's great bulwark against atheism was never so much needed as in the last days of our world's history. We have come down some six thousand years from Paradise. Darkness now covers the earth, and gross darkness the people. Surely, an institution that was needed in Paradise, when man conversed face to face, is needed a thousandfold more in these days of awful apostasy and atheism. We have not yet ceased to be under sacred obligation to the almighty Creator, and it is in the highest degree proper that we, by the observance of that institution which he has ordained for the very purpose, should humbly acknowledge that obligation. J. N. A.