The Sabbath - A Gibraltar by ALBERT E. PLACE

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 7, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 48.

The Sabbath — A Gibraltar

By ALBERT E. PLACE

The Sabbath, at its birth, stood in sinless Eden, a sign and memorial of a finished creation, hence of all the power of the almighty Creator.

God placed it, and it still stands, as a Gibraltar in the very gate of Genesis revelation. Gen. 2: 1-3.

It occupied the bosom portion of the divine constitutional law when given amid the thunders and lightnings of Sinai. Ex. 20: 8-11. Its name and character were there engraved in the tables of stone, by the same hand that carved the beauties of the universe. Ex. 32: 16.

It stood as one of the beautiful cardinal virtues in the life of the Son of God. Luke 4: 16. As Lord of it, He established its obligations as a part of His own righteousness. Mark 2: 27, 28; Ps. 119: 172.

As the Lord rested at the close of creation’s week, so at the close of re-creation’s week, He said, “It is finished” (John 19: 30); and through “the Sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23: 56), He rested in the tomb, having confirmed the covenant with His own blood. Gal. 3: 15.

The Sabbath will stand, with all its Edenic purity and power, when the curse of sin has been removed from this world, and Eden is restored. “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66: 22, 23.

The Sabbath stands, then, as a great rainbow of promise, with one end in sinless Eden, and the other in Eden redeemed, and spanning the great chasm of a lost world. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

ALBERT E. PLACE.