The New Testament Sabbath
By L. A. S.
Is the New Testament Sabbath a different institution, either in letter or spirit, from the Old Testament Sabbath? The Outlook, Dr. Lyman Abbot’s paper, answers this question in the affirmative, and makes this supposed difference the basis of a different observance, which it says is appropriate to the “Lord’s day.” The difference between the two, it says, is this: “The Old Testament Sabbath was consecrated by a prohibitive precept,—“Thou shalt not work.” The New Testament Lord’s day is consecrated by a positive purpose,—“Lay hold on the life eternal.”” In explanation of this it says further: “The wise conservative will follow the New Testament in its substitution of the positive purpose for the prohibitive precept. The precept reiterated in the Old Testament is wholly absent from the New. In its stead is put a purpose, with incentives to strive for it.” “The fact that needs all emphasis is that the external regulative given by Moses is superseded by the inward regulative given by Christ.” But what of the other commandments—“Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” etc.? Do they need changing because they are prohibitive precepts? Is the fourth commandment different in this respect from all the rest? Surely not. The Outlook seems to have overlooked some words touching this subject in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah. In this chapter the Sabbath commandment is set forth as being something more than a mere prohibitive precept. For it says: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord,” etc. Isa. 58:13, 14. Here is a positive purpose—that of delighting in the Sabbath and delighting in the Lord; yet there is no change in the commandment, nor in the day; for it is the Old Testament Sabbath of which the prophet is speaking. Men are to delight themselves in keeping the Sabbath, as they are to delight themselves in doing all the will of God. They are to delight in it because it is the sign of their allegiance to the true God that made heaven and earth, and because they love him. They are to delight in the Sabbath because it is the one thing that comes to them unchanged from man’s lost Eden home, unmarred by sin and the curse, bringing the blessing of rest from labor and the promise of rest and peace in the kingdom of God. This is the positive purpose which the Old Testament Sabbath contains, and it is the loftiest purpose by which human endeavor could be inspired. To the man of faith, all the commandments of God are a delight. They are mere negative prohibitions only to him who has no faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. There is no need of any change in the law of God, to put into the heart of man a positive purpose by which he might carry out God’s will. There was never any need nor any6possibility of such a change. What was needed and is needed to-day is a change in the heart of man—a change from unbelief to faith. God could not save man by changing the divine law, but man could be saved by being himself transformed to meet the divine requirements, and only so. And this is the change that is made in the heart and character by faith. The Old Testament Sabbath and the New Testament Sabbath are one and the same. There has been no change either in letter or spirit. The law of God stands to-day the same that it was when spoken from Sinai. Men may invent plausible theories, but God’s word, not man’s, is always the test of truth. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” L. A. S.