The Sabbath Made by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1874

The Sabbath Made.

By Uriah Smith

IN conversation on the Sabbath question not long since, this objection was offered: Mark 2:27, says the Sabbath was made; and as moral duty grows out of our nature, therefore the Sabbath is not a moral obligation. Please explain this to us through the REVIEW. L. B.

ANSWER. The idea of setting apart a portion of our time for the honor and worship of our Maker grows as much out of our nature as the idea of having no other Gods before him. The rest of God at creation, and his subsequent acts in reference to the seventh day, made the Sabbath so far as designating what portion of the time, and what day should be so devoted. Therefore we say that the Sabbath law expresses moral obligation as much as the rest of the decalogue, and God made no mistake when he classed it with laws of that nature, and assigned it its place in the very bosom of a moral code.

But suppose we grant what the opponent claims, that the Sabbath is wholly positive, resting only on arbitrary enactment, how does that relax our obligation to keep it? If God makes a positive enactment for all people and for all time, are we not bound by it? And the Sabbath can be shown to possess just these characteristics: it is of universal obligation, and immutable and perpetual in its nature. It is primary law, not secondary growing out of man's relation to God as a sinner. It was instituted in Eden. It was not suspended upon any conditions, nor bounded by any limitations. The reasons upon which it rests are plainly stated; and those reasons are as good for the world to-day as they were for Adam or for Israel. U. S.