Creation and the Sabbath
By R.
IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The beginning is always a very important part of a thing. The birth of our Republic was one of the most important events in the history of the United States. The birth of a child is always of so great importance as to be forever cherished and its memory kept fresh by happy reminders of the event. When our President begins his four years of office, the event is of enough importance to call for an inaugural address and is marked by solemn ceremonies attendant upon his taking the oath of office. And when Jesus Christ entered upon His earthly ministry, it was ushered in by wondrous events at the River Jordan, the audible voice of God speaking from heaven, and then the great sermon of all times from the lips of the Master, the Sermon on the Mount. In one way or another all these events are kept in mind. The birthday of the Republic is commemorated each year by the celebration of the Fourth of July. The birth of a child is kept in mind through the years by his birthday. Creation, the great beginning of our world, is also commemorated by a suitable birthday. God Himself, who created all things, set apart this birthday of creation. It is the Sabbath. In those same scriptures where we find the record of the work of creation, we find also its divinely appointed memorial. “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He9had rested from all His work which God created and made.” Gen. 2: 2, 3. Sometime in the history of the unmeasured universe, God saw fit to call our world into existence. He who could perform this complete and mighty work with one word, chose rather to accomplish creation by successive stages through the interval of six days of time. In doing so He not only created the world but set it to marking off time into days of twenty-four hours each. From these days He arbitrarily chose a cycle of seven, and this, and this only, is the origin of the week. The month was perhaps suggested by the moon, the year is determined by the cycle of the sun, but the week has no such reason for its origin, and can be accounted for only by the fact that God so arranged it at the first. The week is derived from nothing in nature and owes its existence to the divine appointment of the seventh-day Sabbath. This period of time is marked only by the recurrence of the rest day of the Creator. With the beginning of time, the Creator began to count days, giving each an ordinal number for its name. The seventh He set apart by its name, the seventh day, to a holy use as the memorial of the creative work. This gave existence to the week as a period of seven days. Thus God set an example for man. Now He said, “Six days shalt thou labor, as I have done, but the seventh is the Sabbath, in it shalt thou not do any work.” Ex. 20: 9, 10. Thus He caused man to begin the count of a new week as soon as the first seventh day had ceased. And consequently, from that day to this “seven has been the ancient and honored number among the nations of the earth. They have measured their time by weeks from the beginning.”—Dr. Coleman. Thus the week has stood and still stands as the unimpeachable witness to the truth of Genesis, and cries forth the binding obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath. And furthermore, since God has given to man, in all, but seven different days, and has given to each a name showing its exact place in the week, His work of setting apart this seventh day, which definitely and alone marks the week, can never, except by the sophistry of man, be made to relate to an indefinite, or uncertain day, or to any other day of all the seven. Besides, we should remember that this seventh day is to be the memorial of creation. And anybody knows who knows anything about the matter that the great rival of the Sabbath these days, the Sunday rest day, is not observed as the memorial of creation, but as a memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Sunday is to be substituted for the seventh day as a Sabbath, what becomes of God’s memorial of His creation? Christ instituted the communion service, or Lord’s Supper, to commemorate His death, intercession, and final return, saying that this institution was to preach His death till He come. 1 Cor. 11: 26. It was to be a reminder of all that Christ had done for man. 1 Cor. 11: 24, 25. And He further gave the ordinance of baptism as a memorial of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and as a confession on our part that we accept Him as our substitute, thereafter to be dead to sin and alive to God. Romans 6. These are the divinely appointed memorials and signs of the earthly work of Christ. But the Sabbath is forever linked with creation. When instituted—blessed and set apart to a holy use—it was because that in it God had rested from all His work. Gen. 2: 3. And when the Sabbath commandment was spoken from Sinai by God’s own voice amidst the fire and smoke, and graven in enduring stone by His omnipotent finger, it was because “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.” Ex. 20: 11. Thus in the record of creation we find the Sabbath and creation indissolubly linked. And again in the Sabbath commandment from Sinai we find the Sabbath and creation inflexibly linked. God blessed and sanctified (set apart to a holy use) the Sabbath, because that in it He had rested. Gen. 2: 3. “He had rested” is past tense; it is more than that, it is perfect past tense. When God had rested, and therefore that first seventh day had passed, God blessed and set apart to a holy use each recurring seventh day as a Sabbath. Thus would man follow in the example of his Creator, by working six days and resting the seventh. Ex. 20: 8-11. In this way, not only the Sabbath, but, in a sense, the whole week, becomes a memorial of the Creator and His work. On each of the first six days of the week, man labors and does all his work, remembering that in six days God also labored and did all His work in creating the heaven and the earth. And each day as he works he is to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” And remembering it so on each day that he works, he remembers why he is to remember it; namely, that he is an imitator of God to work and rest as God worked and rested. And when the Sabbath comes, he rests, because, as he remembers, God on this day also rested from His labor and was refreshed. So the man’s labor and his rest constantly speak to him of God. Thus week days and Sabbath days he follows the example of his Maker. And the Sabbath, remembered all through the week that it may be observed, and remembered each seventh day by being observed, becomes, as God instituted and designed it to become, the continual memorial of God and His work and rest with all that this can mean to man. R.