The Sabbath by Eld. H. A. St. John

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 16, 1883

The Sabbath.

By Eld. H. A. St. John

BY ELD. H. A. ST. JOHN. (Concluded.)

6. For whom was it made?

ANSWER, “The Sabbath was made for man.” Thus, in our text, the Saviour directly answers the question. Some, indeed, would have us believe that the Sabbath was made for only a small portion of the human race, namely, the Jews. Hence they are pleased to call it the “Jewish Sabbath.” But there is no foundation in the word of God for such assertions. The Bible nowhere calls the seventh-day Sabbath the Jewish Sabbath. On the contrary, it is called the Sabbath of Him who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in them is. The Jews did not do this work. The Sabbath was made more than two thousand years before there was a Jew on the face of the earth. God, from Sinai, declares that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” How dare men contradict the Almighty and say, “Not so, it is the Sabbath of the Jews.” In the Greek our text reads, “The Sabbath was made for the man,” pointing unmistakably to Adam, the first man, the representative head of not the Jews only, but all nations of the earth. If any of you, my hearers, do not belong to the race of man, then the Sabbath was not made for you. But we see many things about us that were made for man, yet not all for the same purpose. These chairs, and those pews were made for man, but for what purpose? They were not made to work in, nor to sleep in (although I am sorry to say that they are sometimes thus used, even in the house of God), but to sit in. This house in which we are convened, and all the buildings around us were made for man, but not all for the same purpose. This one was made to worship God in, that one across the way to print in, others about us to dwell in, etc. We have learned that the Sabbath was made for man, but—

7. For what purpose?

We have now come to the last question for consideration at this time, and though it is the last it is by no means the least. From my experience in teaching the Sabbath truth, I have learned that many persons have an erroneous view of the purpose for which God gave man a Sabbath. If interrogated upon the question, the answer will generally be, “Why, God gave man a Sabbath to rest his physical, and build up his spiritual nature.” It is also further replied that “God knew that in six days of toil man would get very weary, and need a day to rest his body, and that if he toiled continually, he would become worldly minded, and therefore needed a day for meditation and worship.” All this sounds very good, and we do not deny but that these great blessings are secured to man by the proper observance of the Sabbath; but we do deny that they constitute the grand reasons or purpose, for which God gave man the Sabbath. They are so far from being the true grounds for Sabbatic observance that God did not see fit in giving the reasons for the institution, to mention them at all. Let us now consider the great Sabbath law. Ex. 20: 8–11. “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” Why? for what reason? “For in six days you will get very tired, and will need to rest your weary body?” No indeed! “For in six days you will grow worldly minded, and will need a day for worship, meditation, and prayer?” No, no; but, “For in six days the Lord (not you, nothing about you) made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore [for these reasons] the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.” The acceptance of one error always paves the way for another. So in this case, a wrong apprehension of the true reasons for keeping the Sabbath has opened the way for the introduction of several very serious errors which are becoming quite prevalent, and which it will be in place now to notice:—

1. “The Sabbath has been changed.” This error is very common and wide-spread. Now if the Sabbath was given simply and only as a day of rest and worship, a change might not be impossible. But when it is remembered that the Sabbath is the birthday of the world, and that the great Creator has required its observance in memory of that stupendous event, it will at once be seen that a change of the day is utterly impossible. It is not at all strange, then, that there is not a hint in all the Bible about such a change. The world was not born in one day, nor in two. The birth of all this beautiful creation was not completed till the seventh day, and thus the seventh day becomes emphatically the birthday of the world. Now, does any one think he can change his birthday? Can Washington’s birthday be changed from Feb. 22 to July 4? You say, “Impossible!” The only way your birthday could be changed would be for you to be born over again. So an eminent writer, Alexander Campbell, has truly said that, in order to change the Sabbath, creation would have to be gone over again. We may therefore dismiss the question of the change of the Sabbath by simply saying, “Impossible!”

2. “God is not particular which day we keep, if we only keep one day.” But we might inquire, How are we to know that God is particular to have us keep even one day? You answer that God has told us to keep one day. Very true, but it should be remembered that the same God, and the same law, that tells us to keep one day, tells us which day; and unless that particular one day is regarded, there is no obedience to God in the matter. The whole question, therefore, resolves itself into this; viz., Is God particular whether we obey him or not? Again, we may observe that God’s care for the week, and the seventh day, to preserve their identity from oblivion and obscurity, is another good proof that God is particular. The history, the testimony, and the practice of all nations, establish unmistakably the identity of our week with the week of creation, and, consequently, the identity of the true seventh day. To question this is to question a truth resting on as firm a basis as any truth within the compass of God’s revelation. Lastly we observe that God “hath made his wonderful works to be remembered.” Ps. 111: 4. How reasonable it is that the infinite Creator should want his creatures whom he hath endowed with intelligence and accountability, to remember his wonderful works! And in order to enable them to do this in a practical manner, he has given them a memorial of the highest order. In calling the attention of his creatures to it, he begins with the word “remember,” thus: “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” He tells us the seventh day is this Sabbath, or memorial day. Let it be a day of rest, and of directing the mind to the wonderful creation, and thus to the Creator. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is [these are certainly the wonderful works of God]; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.” There is no fact of American history remembered so well by young and old in this republic as the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th day of July, 1776. Why is this? Simply because the event is remembered by an annual celebration on the 4th of July. No monument, though of the most enduring granite, would serve the purpose of a memorial so well as the celebration of a day. So the Lord well knew what was the best kind of memorial to keep his wonderful works in lasting remembrance, and so gave to man a memorial at least fifty-two times better than the 4th of July. Notwithstanding this, however, many peoples and nations have trampled down God’s holy Sabbath, and thus they have been led to forget God, and go into infidelity, idolatry, and atheism. It needs but a casual examination of the subject to enable a person to see that Sabbath desecration lies at the foundation of atheism and idolatry, and that a Sabbath reform lies at the foundation of all reforms. By the sacred observance of the holy Sabbath, we are enabled to show in a substantial and practical way our gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the “heavens and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” There is no fanaticism, therefore, in saying that we keep the seventh-day Sabbath by divine appointment, in order to show our thankfulness for the grains and fruits that constitute our daily food; for the sweet and lovely flowers that bloom around us, and brighten our path; for the animal creation, including the beautiful birds that flit all about us, enlivening the hours of day with their happy notes of song; for the atmosphere that we breathe; for the water that we use; for our own existence; in short, for everything that we are, or have, on this mundane sphere. Now if all these things belong exclusively to the Jews according to the flesh, then may the Sabbath belong to them only, but if all mankind have need of the blessing comprehended in that statement in the great Sabbath law, “heavens and earth, the sea and all that in them is,” then should all mankind sacredly remember the Sabbath-day, and keep it holy.

It is an easy matter to say we are sorry when we are not. Words are cheap. We express our sorrow for the poor, but honest drayman, with a worthy family, who has just lost his faithful horse, and is not able to buy another; but when asked to show our sorrow in a practical way by a donation of five dollars, more or less, and we do nothing when we might lend him assistance, it proves that there is no depth or foundation to our sorrows—simply talk, nothing more. The same is true of thankfulness. There is much that is called thankfulness that is empty and vain.

And now, my dear readers, I must soon leave this heavenly theme with you, and I do it with the earnest reminder that it is not enough that we simply say we are thankful for all the blessings of this life while we refuse to show our gratitude to the bountiful Giver by remembering the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Thankfulness and love are inseparable from obedience. It should be a matter of the greatest importance, and of the deepest interest to us all, that God is now, in these last days, testing the faith and gratitude of the human family, by a glorious Sabbath reform. Let us raise the standard high, and cheerfully and lovingly rally around it. By departing from all iniquity, and through Jesus, obtaining the love of God shed abroad in the heart, we may be channels through which the flood of light now shining upon the holy Sabbath of the Lord may shine upon many now sitting in darkness around us. And then in the sweet by and by, when the holy Sabbath shall shine as glorious as the first, in the earth made new, with all the redeemed host we may assemble from Sabbath to Sabbath in Paradise restored to worship the Lord of glory.