The Sabbath-The Man by W. M. Healy

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 10, 1907

The Sabbath—The Man

By W. M. Healy

W. M. HEALY

In a recent number of the Christian Leader and the Way, appears an article from J. H. D. Tomson on the subject of the Sabbath. He quotes Mark 2:27, 28, —“The Sabbath was made for man,”— and says: “Now we admit that the Sabbath was made for man, and that God commanded men to keep it.” Then he asks, “Who told Christians to keep it?” He asserts that the patriarchs and Christians never were commanded to keep the Sabbath. We have always supposed that the patriarchs and Christians belong to the class of beings called “men.” But this writer teaches that the words “man” and “men” do not include them.

With this as a basis, he proceeds: “Now, sir, I propose to show what man the Sabbath was made for.” He informs us that “man” meant only the “Israelite,” the “Jew.” In the following words he gives his reason why this has not been known before: “Sabbatarians, like other sectarians, seem to have given no heed whatever to studying the Word of truth with a view to its proper division.” But what a different meaning the Scriptures would have had, if such an interpretation had been made as that above indicated. Thus, when God, at the creation of the earth, said, “Let us make man,” he only intended to make a “Jew,” though this was two thousand years before there ever was a “Jew.” When the Lord said, “I will make a man more precious than . . . the golden wedge of Ophir,” did he mean only the Jew?

In 1 Cor. 11:9, we read: “Neither was the man [Jew?] created for the woman; but the woman for the man [Jew?]” If this divider of the Word of truth had been present when Christ uttered the words, “The Sabbath was made for man,” and had given the information that “man” only meant Jew, and the Christian need not keep the Sabbath, he could have informed the world that the Christian was free also from all responsibility of keeping the woman; as she was made for “man,” that is the Jew. Just let the Jew with his “Sabbath yoke” draw the matrimonial cart with all its cares and burdens. It is his natural lot to have trials, for Job said, “Yet man [Jew, of course] is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7.

It is strange that mankind will run into such absurd positions to avoid the plain command of God. The term “man”, used by our Saviour in Mark 2:28, had the plain meaning of the human race, the family of mankind for whom the Sabbath was made. As it was for the whole race, it was given to the first man, and will continue to the last one. It was given in Eden before there was any sin, and will exist when sin is no more. Isa. 66:22, 23. As the Sabbath belongs to a pure and holy state, and as the Sabbath command is part of a pure and holy law, the carnally minded find it against them, as the command, “Thou shalt not steal,” is against the thief, and, “Thou shalt not kill,” is against the murderer. But such commands are not a yoke nor a burden to the honest and pure in heart. To those who keep the Lord’s Sabbath, it is a blessing and a “delight.” Come walk therein, and God will prove his promise true.

San Diego, Cal.