The Sabbath Through the Ages
By Charles L. Taylor
IX. The Sabbath at the Crucifixion
Why did the Son of God come to earth? What led Him to choose that wonderful course of humiliation, poverty, reproach, suffering, death? Undoubtedly many answers would be given to these questions, all of which might be correct, at least in part. The Scriptures themselves furnish a variety of replies, according to time and place when different writers were led to speak. But when all has been said that can be said, we are forced to accept as the great basic reason which sums up all other reasons, that Jesus, the Son of God, died to satisfy the claims of His Father's broken law. This is an important truth clearly taught. “By one man sin entered into the world.” Rom. 5: 12. “All have sinned.” Rom. 3: 23. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3: 4. “Christ died for our sins,” “and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 Cor. 15: 3; 1 John 2: 2. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Gal. 3: 13. “The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6: 23. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze. 18: 4. The majesty, the holiness, the perfection, the absolute unchangeableness of God's great moral law can never be understood, even in part, except in the light of Calvary. To transgress its least part, brings a terrible loss. The sin of Adam, tho apparently small, brought upon the human race the irrevocable penalty of death, and yet the sentence was only in proportion to the deed itself. The law of heaven had been broken! And so infinite was that break, because of the character of the law broken, only the life of the Son of God was sufficient to heal the breach and restore man to his Maker. The death of Christ testifies in trumpet-tones to the whole universe of worlds that the law of Jehovah is immutable. “But,” says one, “what has this to do with the matter of the Sabbath?” Ah, it has everything to do with it. The Sabbath is an inseparable part of the law which was transgressed, and is just as holy, infinite, moral, and immutable as any other and all other parts of the law. Did Jesus’ death show the law to be divine and its claims unalterable? Then did His cross and its sacrifice of divinity proclaim the Sabbath to be fixed as the hills and that man is under perpetual obligation to keep it in letter and in spirit. How supremely foolish then for man to reason that the death of our Lord abolished the Sabbath! It was because it could not be abolished, yea, could not even be altered or modified, that His death became a necessity. As we have already seen, the shedding of His blood was but the ratification of the everlasting new covenant which puts the Sabbath law along with the whole law into the very heart. In the light of the foregoing, it is perfectly natural and normal to find that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment (which we now see belongs to the new covenant), the Sabbath which had come down without break or change from the very gates of Eden, was faithfully kept by the followers of Jesus after the crucifixion. At the very time when, as some have thought, the disciples were to observe another day, there we find them worshiping upon the Sabbath day, the same seventh day that Jesus, with themselves, had kept before His death. And how could they have done otherwise and be in harmony with truth when, by the death of the Son of God, the Sabbath had come to them as a covenant blessing? The record of that first Sabbath after the cross is wonderfully clear and concise. “And the women also, which came with Him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how His body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23: 55, 56. The Sabbath day according to the commandment was the seventh day. “The seventh day is the Sabbath day of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20: 10. And the seventh day of the commandment was the seventh day of creation, sanctified and given to mankind in Eden. Gen. 2: 1-3. The day kept by those consecrated women was, therefore, the Sabbath which had been kept from the very beginning by patriarch, priest, prophet, and king; and honored both in life and in death by the Lord Jesus Himself. Think of the mighty import of this fact. But we are told another truth in this connection that should not be overlooked. The day which was so sacredly observed by the women of Galilee was none other than the seventh day of the week. We may know this with all the certainty of the word of God, for the word tells us (Luke 24:1)5that the day succeeding the Sabbath was “the first day of the week.” Here is a divine connection between the Sabbath and the week. We have seen in a previous article that the Sabbath appointment of Gen. 2:3 is the only reason that can be found for the cycle of seven days, and that nearly all the great nations of antiquity recognized this fact in their records of the week; but here is an inspired statement which forever seals the truth of what has been stated. It would be perfectly proper to insert the words, “of the week,” into the Sabbath commandment, thus making it read, “The seventh day of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” because, when the women kept the Sabbath “according to the commandment,” they kept the day which came just before the first day of the week, and that was the seventh day of the week. And all that is told us concerning those holy women, is for the purpose of bringing home to our hearts the relation which we should sustain to the Christ and to the Sabbath. The lesson is this: If the first Sabbath after our Lord’s death should be observed, then every succeeding Sabbath demands the same recognition. And, further, we are to learn that the cross of Calvary in no wise abrogates, changes, limits, or modifies the command, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” There is also a beautiful, practical lesson to be gathered from that Sabbath experience of the Galilean women. So holy was the sacred day and so binding were its obligations, that not even the obsequies of their divine Lord were allowed to be performed until the setting sun, twenty-four hours later, announced the arrival of another day. To keep the Sabbath “according to the commandment” is to have so holy a life and so holy a conception of Sabbath rest, that no earthly consideration, however dear, shall for a moment find place in the sacred precincts of the devoted day. Was it simply a coincidence that Jesus lay in the tomb, resting from all His labors, during the Sabbath hours?—Possibly. The fact remains, however, that He did, and that that day in the tomb was His last day as our earthly Prophet. Upon His resurrection He became our great Priest-King, and upon the first day of the week began His new work for mankind. May God’s blessing enable you and me so to drink in the divine truths of both the cross and the Sabbath that in our lives they may ever have place and produce there a divine harmony.