Christ and the Sabbath

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 17, 1904

Christ and the Sabbath

OUR obligation to worship and serve Jehovah, the true God, rests upon the fact that he is the creator. “For all the gods of the peoples are idols; but Jehovah made the heavens.” “The sea is his, and he made it; and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before Jehovah our maker.” Every revelation of God the Father is made through his Son. “Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” All access to the Father is through the Son. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”

Christ the Creator

Christ, the Son, was associated with the Father in the work of creation, and it was through the Son, the eternal Word, that the work of creation was wrought. “All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.” John 1:3. “Through whom also he made the worlds.” Heb. 1:2. “God the Son, our Lord, is the organ through which the creative purpose moves. Through him the infinite God utters himself in his works. . . . The hand of inspiration writes the name of Jesus where artists put theirs, beneath all things in heaven and on earth, visible or invisible.”

Christ the Redeemer

As it was through the eternal Son that God the Father revealed himself in creation, so it was through the same Son that he revealed himself in redemption. For “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.” The same Word through whom all things were made “became flesh, and dwelt among us.” The Creator and the Redeemer are the same. “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee.” Isa. 43:1. It follows of necessity that the one through whom the power of God was manifested in the creation of the heaven and the earth should be the one through whom he

should manifest his power in the salvation of man; for—

Redemption Is Creation

Creative power is required for redemption, and the redemption of man is simply carrying out God’s original purpose concerning creation. It is for this reason that the work of Christ in salvation is spoken of as a creative work. Thus we read: ‘By grace have ye been saved through faith; . . . for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.’ And again: ‘For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.’ And again: ‘Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.’ 2 Cor. 5:17. So it was that David prayed, ‘Create in me a clean heart.’ Converting power is creative power, and unless creative power is displayed, there can be no genuine conversion, and hence no salvation. He who can create can redeem. He who can redeem can create.

The Sabbath a Sign

A simple reading of the Sabbath commandment, as given in Ex. 20:8-11, shows that the foundation of the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, rests upon the fact of the revelation of creative power in the making of all things, followed by the resting of the Creator. So long as these facts remain, so long does the foundation of the seventh-day Sabbath remain sure. And as creative power is the distinguishing characteristic of the true God, the Sabbath was made the sign between the true God and his people forever; ‘for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed,’ And the Sabbath was not only the sign of the true God, as distinguished from the gods of the heathen, but it was also such a sign that through it the true God might be known. The Scripture thus states this fact: “Hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” “Moreover also I gave them my Sabbath, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Eze. 20:20, 12. “Now as the Sabbath is God’s sign by which men may know that he is the Lord, and as he is known only as he is revealed in Christ, it is the very certainty of truth that the Sabbath is God’s sign by which those who hallow it may know God as he is revealed in Jesus Christ,—the sign by which men may know what God is to the believer in Jesus.” So the Sabbath was instituted for the purpose of—

Revealing God in Jesus Christ

of teaching us of his power, of his divinity. And it follows, therefore, that he who observes the seventh-day Sabbath, the day upon which God in Jesus Christ rested, the day upon which God in Jesus Christ let his blessing rest, the day which was thus hallowed and sanctified—the one who observes the seventh-day Sabbath, thus blessed, hallowed, and sanctified, acknowledges by this act that he believes in the true God, and in the divinity of Jesus Christ, through whom alone the true God is known. Thus the seventh-day Sabbath is the sign to all the world that Christ is the divine Son of God; that it is through Christ that the power of the true God is manifested as it was in creation, when he made the heaven and the earth, as it is also in re-creation, or redemption, when we are created anew in Christ Jesus. And so the Sabbath is the sign, not merely of the power of God manifested through Christ in the creation of the heaven and the earth, but it is the sign of the power which re-creates in Christ Jesus, the power which saves and redeems.

The Sign of Christianity

“In all this it must be borne in mind that it was in Christ and by him that God created all things; ‘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.’ Thus it was Christ who created all things; it was Christ who rested on the seventh day from all his works; it was Christ who blessed the seventh day because that in it he had rested; it was Christ whose presence made the day holy; and it is the continuing, dwelling presence of Christ which sanctified, and sanctifies, the seventh day. It was Christ himself, therefore, who connected with the Sabbath of the seventh day that which is the reflection of himself, that which is the expression of what he is to the believer in him, so that whosoever would hallow the Sabbath might know that the Lord, who is known only in Christ, is his God. God’s rest is in the seventh day; and God’s rest is in Christ. It is impossible for God’s rest to be in antagonistic places; for as with God there ‘is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,’ God’s rest is the same wherever it may be. Therefore, God’s rest being ever the same, God’s rest in the seventh day, and God’s rest in Christ, is precisely the same rest. And this, being impossible to be in antagonism, is in perfect unity, and therefore demonstrates that the Sabbath is in Christ, and Christ is in the Sabbath.” These considerations make clear to us on what basis the Sabbath became the sign of the true God, and how much is involved in this sign. It is most emphatically the sign of genuine Christianity.

Christians and the Seventh-Day Sabbath

A Christian is a believer in Christ and a follower of Christ. A Christian accepts the revelation which God makes of himself in Christ, and lays hold upon the power of God in Christ as the means of salvation from sin. A Christian is a witness for the true Christ and the true gospel, as against any false Christ and a false gospel. The true Christ is the eternal Son through whom the true God is revealed, and the true gospel is “the power of God unto salvation.” But the power of the gospel is creative power, the distinguishing mark of the true God, and the sign of that creative power, wherever revealed, is the seventh-day Sabbath. Every one, therefore, who believes in the true God, as revealed in the eternal Son, and every one who believes in the creative power of the true God as revealed through Christ for salvation from sin, ought certainly to accept with deep thankfulness the sign of that power in the observance of the genuine Lord’s day,—the seventh-day Sabbath. To do otherwise, after God has made it known to us, is deliberately to turn from the true gospel of Christ.

Conclusion

What, then, is the Sabbath?—It is the memorial of the power of God manifested through Jesus Christ. What, then, is the Sabbath blessing?—It is the blessing of sanctification by the power of God working through Jesus Christ. What, then, is Sabbath-keeping?—It is the sign to the Christian that his confidence for salvation rests entirely in the work of Jesus Christ, in whom God is revealed both as creator and as redeemer. All this is inseparably connected with the seventh-day Sabbath and its true observance. When this is really understood, those who desire the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ will gladly turn away their feet from the Sabbath, from doing their pleasure on God’s holy day, and will call the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, “a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable.”

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” “Blessed is the man that . . . keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it.”