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The Sabbath a Memorial

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 2, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 5.

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The Sabbath a Memorial

By Eliza H. Morton

A Sign of Royalty and a Test of Loyalty
By ELIZA H. MORTON
A MEMORIAL always points backward to something to be remembered. For example, baptism is a memorial of the resurrection of Christ (Col. 2:12), and as such, resembles the thing commemorated; for as Christ rose from the grave to the glory of the Father, so we rise from the water in baptism to walk in newness of life. Rom. 6:4.
A memorial differs from a type in that the latter always points forward to something to come, which is faintly shadowed by the type, and the type ceases when it meets its antitype. Thus the new moons, the annual sabbaths, and other ceremonial days of the old dispensation, were but shadows of the body of Christ. Col. 2:16, 17. The weekly Sabbath, called the Sabbath of the Lord, was not included in those holy days. Lev. 23:37, 38. Its observance was obligatory throughout all ages. It was a pledge of the rest which remains for the people of God (Heb. 4:4, 9), and a memorial of creation, enduring forever. Ex. 20:8-11; Ps. 111:4; Isa. 66:23.
The Sabbath has in it the thought of creative power—the same power which creates a soul anew in Christ Jesus—and is thus a reminder of redemption, which is re-creation. Eph. 2:10.
The observance of the Sabbath is the sign of royalty to God, and a mark of allegiance to the government of heaven. Eze. 20:12.
The Sabbath is not dependent upon genealogy, but upon the facts of creation. The true Israel of God in every age are those who have clean hearts. Ps. 73:1. To such the Sabbath is a perpetual covenant, even to the end of time.
A certain king ordered a curtain with a purple groundwork. The weaver found it customary and more convenient to weave the curtain with a red groundwork; but his work did not please the king, for purple was the royal color, and a substitute would not do.
A substitute sabbath may be in accordance with custom, and be more convenient, but it lacks the sign of royalty—the rest of Jehovah—which marks God as the Creator.
The Sabbath has ever been the great test of loyalty, the test of the ages. Ex. 16:4; Neh. 9:14. In this age of the world, when men have made void God's law by their traditions, even as they did in the days of Christ (Matt. 15:3), God is speaking to hearts, and calling out a people who will be true to Him. Isa. 58:13, 14.
Light is shining upon God's true Sabbath. The question is agitated, Which day of the week is the Sabbath? A loyal few are obeying the Bible command; but the majority—the world and professed Christians—are saying:
“The cross is hard. We will refrain And hope the Lord may not complain. At least, He'll not bar me from heaven, If I but keep one day in seven.”
God's answer to this, and to the excuse that “the ministers teach us that the first day of the week is now the Sabbath,” is found in Eze. 22:26: “Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.”