THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH.
By T.
In our article on “the day of the Sabbath” last week, the question was raised in regard to the change of the Sabbath. There are thousands, and for aught we know, hundreds of thousands, of honest, conscientious people who believe that the seventh-day Sabbath of the old dispensation has been superseded by a first-day or Sunday-sabbath in the new. A little careful thought on this subject will enable us to arrive at the facts. In previous articles it has been shown that the Sabbath was instituted as a memorial of creation. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, and for that reason He blessed and sanctified the seventh day, and called it the Sabbath. Thus the Sabbath was made the great bulwark against idolatry, or any other form of worship that does not bring the worshiper into the audience-chamber of the great Creator of all things. Our God is also our Creator. And not only did He create us, but He created every planet in all His great universe. To see and to sense the greatness and majesty of His power is to reach the sublimest heights and depths of true worship. True worship of the Creator is not a servile adoration of some ill-formed ideal, some ideal that has been created by finite and imperfect man, some ideal that can not possibly lift one above the low level of the possibilities of the mere human; but real worship of the all-powerful God lifts us into the realm of the Infinite. Every emotion and power of the mind is stirred to the highest point of activity and real joy as we seek to comprehend more of our great Creator, our divine Father. True worship lifts the soul higher, it makes the emotions and aspirations purer, and every faculty of the mind and heart is broadened and ennobled. Knowing the great effect of true worship, the Lord has given us the Sabbath, not as a mere day of rest, but as a day on which to “remember” that God is our Creator, and that we may have time to contemplate and “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Sabbath-keeping is not spending the day in languid, dreamy, or possibly lazy rest. The Sabbath brings us a day of restful activity. It gives the joys of rest in action, so that both mind and body are built up and revived. Sabbath-keeping stirs the memory. The first thought is to “remember” the Sabbath day. And in calling the day to mind, we instinctively recall the great acts of God’s creative work, for which the day stands. We see our heavenly Father calling the earth from chaos into a thing of beauty by His creative word; we see the sun and the moon taking their places in the heavens, and one after another the myriads of stars begin the majestic rounds of their never-ending course in space. How vast is this great creation! How infinite the power required to form it, and to keep it in all its intricate and uncomprehended life and movements! Our God is calling us to know more and more of His majesty and great power, as we study to know Him, who is the Creator of all things. But you are now impatiently asking, “What has this to do with the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday?” It has a great deal to do with it. It is intended to show you that the Sabbath, in the very nature of things, could not be changed. The Sabbath is the memorial day of creation, and the creation that it commemorates is a fixed thing of the past. It is as immovable and as unalterable as any other of the eternal things of God. God’s Sabbath law is not based upon any of the movable and shifting things of time. It rests upon the solid basis formed for it in creation by the God who alone creates. And in the face of all heresies, and idolatries, and delusions of the ages, it has come down to us as one of the mighty oracles of God; and still in tones as clear and as strong as the thunders of Sinai, it turns the mind to the omnipotent One, who alone has the power to make the worlds and the things upon them. Do you talk about the Sabbath being changed? Then strive to comprehend what Sabbath-keeping means, as defined in God’s Word. As you do this, the fact will dawn upon you that such a thing as a change of the Sabbath is an utter impossibility. To make such a change would nullify the importance of creation, and constitute the Creator a changeable being like finite, imperfect man. Nowhere in God’s Word does He even intimate an intention to change His Sabbath day. And as the importance of the Sabbath is studied, as the object the Lord had in giving it is seen, who could have a heart so at variance with his Creator as to desire that His memorial of creation should be changed? Why change an institution that is so bountifully blessed, and that in turn is so full of blessing for every one who observes it? Begin at the book of Genesis, and carefully read every word of the Old Testament, and you will nowhere find any intimation of any other than the seventh day of the week being the Sabbath. Begin with the Gospel of Matthew and just as carefully read every word of the New Testament, and you will not find a shadow of evidence that either Christ or His apostles made any change in the Sabbath day. The Master was particular to show His disregard for many of the Jewish superstitions and burdensome requirements that they, without any divine authority, had cast upon the great rest-day of Jehovah; but when it came to the realities of the Sabbath as the Lord gave them, He showed the unsurpassable respect of perfect obedience. The Saviour did for the Sabbath what the prophet foretold He would do for every one of the precepts of Jehovah. It was written of Him, “The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will magnify the law, and make it honorable.” Isa. 42:21. How could He “magnify” a law and make it “honorable” by mutilating or changing it? A law that has to be changed shows that it has come from a finite hand, and that it is therefore imperfect. This is not true of the great law that the Saviour, by brushing away the superstitious traditions that man had piled upon it, magnified and made honorable. No, indeed! The Sabbath has not been changed. The great rest-day of Jehovah—His great memorial of creation’s week, so filled with mighty power—still lives on. God still designs that we should have one whole day in seven in which the mind shall be absorbed in the study of His infinite power, so that we may know that He who created still sustains, and guides, and keeps that which He has made. While the Sabbath has not been either changed or abolished, yet has there been an attempt so to do, and this attempt to change, and therefore to abolish the Sabbath, is one of the most interesting things that prophecy foretells. The prophecy that foretells this attempt to change the Sabbath will be the theme of an article next week. T.