THE PURPOSE OF THE SABBATH.
SABBATH means rest. The Lord’s Sabbath is the Lord’s rest. To observe the Lord’s Sabbath is to observe the Lord’s rest. But rest implies labor performed. Previous to the Lord’s rest came the Lord’s work. “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 Sabbath day [the rest-day], and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:11. It is therefore evident that to keep the Lord’s rest, we must do the Lord’s work. The character of the Lord’s work is thus given: “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Gen. 1:31. “The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.” Ps. 145:17. “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honorable and glorious; and His righteousness endureth forever.” Ps. 111:2, 3. The above expresses the character of the work wrought by our God. And this expresses the character of His rest: “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” Ex. 31:17. The original word naphash, means in its active sense to breathe; in its passive, “to be breathed upon,” that is, refreshed as by a current of air. So Strong. The thought is that the day which came at the close of God’s wonderful works for the blessing of His creatures brought to Him such pleasure, such restfulness, such delight, as comes to the wearied man when a cool, balmy breeze from resinous forests and flower-laden fields fans his fevered face and refreshes his whole being. The Lord was not tired. “Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary;” but He uses the most satisfying figure which could come to weary man to express the blessing and satisfaction of His rest. He breathed His satisfaction and refreshing into the day. He, the great God, was refreshed in the blessing which he gave to man. He has commanded us to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” We are not to keep it to make it holy. Its holiness is not affected by aught that we can do. The sanctity of the day rests wholly upon God’s appointment and blessing and law, and not upon aught that the creature may do or not do. The rest-day is one of God’s righteous ways. To observe it, to “keep it holy,” it must first be made holy; and this holiness God gave it in His separation of that day from the others of the week by His resting, blessing, and sanctification. Only a holy person can keep holy a holy day. Only a holy person can perform the holy works necessary to the observation of the holy rest. Only an essentially holy Being—Creator—can make an essentially holy day. Only a holy Creator can make a holy person who can perform holy works and keep holy a holy day. All these are great self-evident facts which God desires to make great manifest living truths in the experience of all His children of earth. And therefore saith the Scripture of the children of God: “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins [transgressions of His law, Rom. 7:7; 1 John 3:4]; . . . But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. . . . For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained [“prepared,” margin] that we should walk in them.” Eph. 2:1-10. And thus sinful men “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Eph. 4:24. Now among God’s “good works” “before prepared,” is His righteous life and holy Sabbath of rest; and He creates sinful man anew, makes him a new creature, in order that man may serve God, not in his own vain imaginations, but “in righteousness and true holiness,” keeping holy what God hath made holy, what is in the very nature of things essentially holy, whether eyes dimmed with sin can see it or not; for God is no arbitrary ruler. The Sabbath, therefore, becomes a sign to the recreated, regenerated, sanctified child of God, not only “that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God;” but “that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Eze. 20:20, 12. The primary idea of the Sabbath, then, is spiritual rest and refreshing in God. To obtain that it is absolutely necessary to dissociate its blessings from the ordinary “work” of the other days; or in other words to cease the ordinary work of physical, everyday labor on the Sabbath day, and use the day in the contemplation of the work of God, or in works especially and emphatically ordained of Him as belonging to the day and its rest of soul, the rest which Jesus alone can give. Matt. 11:28, 29. But it would be useless to deny that poor, sinful, weary, mortal man needs physical rest. God grants it and guards it in His law. Ex. 20:8-11. But no mere physical cessation keeps His Sabbath. Only spiritual rest reaches its great fount of refreshing. In the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah is a divine commentary on the law of the Sabbath. After revealing the character of the every-day life-work which is pleasing to Him, the Lord thus speaks of the crowning act of acceptable service: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.” Verses 13, 14. The exemplification of all this was manifest in the life of our great Pattern, Jesus Christ. Those who keep the Sabbath as He kept it will find it constantly a refreshing fountain of life, a haven of rest, a port in time of storm, because in it is the abiding holiness, rest, blessing, and presence of our Creator and Redeemer.