The Sabbath Through the Ages
By Charles L. Taylor
VI. The Sabbath Made Known
SUPREMELY awful and terrible to the hosts of Israel was that day when Jehovah, in glory and majesty, descended upon Sinai, and from its hoary summit with voice of thunder spake to them His law. It was a day of blackness and darkness and tempest. God’s voice shook the earth. “And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.” Heb. 12:21. To the great multitude gathered around Sinai’s base the scene was one of inexpressible terror. Afraid of being consumed by the glory of God which, like lightning tongues, seemed to dart forth for their destruction, “they removed and stood afar off,” imploring Moses not to let God speak with them, lest they die. But all this fulfilled a tremendous purpose. Not in vain was a single iota of the entire experience. “And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” Ex. 20:20. The day at Sinai was a day of revelation and enlightenment to a people whose minds had been blinded and whose senses had been dulled by long years of sojourn in a land of base superstition and licentious ignorance. Protracted contact and intercourse with idolatry had destroyed almost totally their sense of right and wrong, and brought them low in the scale of purity and righteousness. “Living in the midst of idolatry and corruption, they had no true conception of the holiness of God, of the exceeding sinfulness of their own hearts, of their utter inability in themselves to render obedience to God’s law, and their need of a Saviour. All this they must be taught.”—“Patriarchs and Prophets,” p. 357. And this the glories of that Sinaitic day did teach them, at least in part. The entrance of the law made their offenses to abound. Rom. 5:20. That is, as the voice of God sounded forth to their consciences the certainty, the completeness, the sacredness of the principles of His government, they were convinced of their sinful condition. Punctuated as they were by divine energy, illuminated by the face of Jehovah Himself, and translated into actual life-experience by angel ministration, God’s commandments ceased to be to the people a mere succession of meaningless clauses and phrases; they were, in the hand of the Mediator, Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:19; 1 Tim. 2:5), Heaven’s agency for bringing conversion to the soul. Ps. 19:7. The real character of the sacred precepts was made known. The mere fact that God had a law and that He asked them to obey its commands, was well known to the Jewish people before they came to Sinai. At the falling of the manna, the Lord had said of them, “I will prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no.” Ex. 16:4. And when the people went contrary to the instruction regarding observance of the Sabbath, He again spoke, saying, “How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws?” Verse 25. Yes, they certainly knew of the law’s existence, but just as certainly failed to understand its holiness. And it was more than simply a coincidence that when God brought to His children a test of loyalty to His law, that test was the Sabbath. The great truth of all truths6 the character of which was so utterly hidden from the people, and which needed at once to be revealed, was that of God’s creative power as brought to view in the fourth commandment. The great Sinaitic announcement, with all its awful display of glory and power, was primarily to make known the Sabbath truth. And it may not be impertinent to say here that throughout the entire history of God’s dealings with mankind, the Sabbath has figured as the first and supreme test of devotion and integrity toward the divine government. In perfect harmony with the foregoing are the words of Nehemiah (Neh. 9: 13, 14): “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and madest known unto them Thy holy Sabbath.” Of tremendous importance, then, is the truth of the Sabbath. Think of it, dear reader! Divinity came down to earth, came with the entire retinue of the heavenly hosts, to sweep away the cobwebs of unbelief and ignorance from the minds of God’s people, that with unclouded vision they might see and appreciate the purpose and power of that sacred command, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Of course, it will not for a moment be supposed that the expression, “madest known,” refers to giving the Sabbath for the first time to the world. We have already seen that the Sabbath was known and was made a test before leaving Egypt; and that at the giving of the manna, thirty days before coming to Sinai, it was again prominently called to the attention of the chosen nation. But in what sense was the Sabbath specially made known? What was revealed to the people that they had not before seen? Ah, the creative power of Jehovah, the same power that operated in giving birth to the world in the beginning, was brought to bear upon the very life of the entire nation. They saw, they heard, they felt, they feared. And while in the midst of that all-pervading power and presence, which to them was a most awful manifestation, the people heard the word which summed up all that they were experiencing,—they heard the announcement that He who spoke and who demanded their allegiance was none other than the great Maker of heaven and earth, the filling and the essence of the fourth command. As the Sabbath commandment alone reveals God as the Creator, so it alone of all the ten is designed to keep man back from idolatry. He who truly keeps Sabbath to Jehovah, in honor of His creative power and work, is thereby utterly and forever held back from giving honor to anything to which that creative power has given existence. Creative power, God as creator, is the everlasting basis of Sabbath rest. Indeed, this is the glorious setting of the entire law of God. The great preamble to God’s ten words is, “I am Jehovah thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Ex. 20:2. Creative power alone wrought the mighty deliverance from the iron furnace of Egypt; and because creative power had thus wrought, God asked that that power be remembered and constantly preserved in the life. It was the reason for a faithful observance of the entire law, and specifically, of the Sabbath. In after years, Moses made this plain when he said, “Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm! therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Deut. 5:15. To-day, dear reader, that reason still remains. God by His creative power, the power of recreation in Christ, is delivering from Egyptian sin and darkness. Ought we not to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy!”