The Day of the Sabbath

S. D. A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 10, 1884

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 2

The Day of the Sabbath.

SABBATH means rest; the day of the Sabbath means the day of the rest. A strictly allowable translation of the last part of the fourth commandment is the following: “Wherefore, the Lord blessed the day of the rest, and hallowed it.”

No subject is more controverted at the present time than that of the Sabbath; and, no matter what phase the controversy may assume, the real ground of contention is the day. Most people are willing to accept the Sabbath as an institution if they can reserve to themselves the privilege of choosing the day. But that privilege is all that the most obdurately self-willed and rebellious could ask, because the day is the sum and substance of the institution. This is most clearly stated by Mr. Morton in his “Vindication of the True Sabbath,” thus:—

“The only object, direct or indirect, of this commandment, is ‘the day.’ What are we commanded to remember? ‘The day.’ What are we required to keep holy? ‘The day.’ What did the Lord bless and hallow? ‘The day.’ In what are we forbidden to work? In ‘the day.’”

This is strictly true; and therefore he who controls “the day” fully controls the institution, and really controls or gives direction to the commandment. And if an individual, or a people, a legislature, or all the world, assume to fix “the day” to be observed as the Sabbath, they make themselves judges, and not doers, of the law; a position not to be desired in the sight of the Lord. James 4:11.

And the practical result is the same where people affect to reject the fourth commandment, and the Sabbath altogether; for they immediately proceed to build up another institution, based upon another day,—a day which God never blessed, never sanctified, never commanded to be observed, nor in any manner specified as a day of observance. And this gives freedom of action to the same spirit of self-will—of choosing a day differing from that chosen by the Lord,—and thus again is raised the same controversy over “the day.” The real objection of these is not to a Sabbath, or an institution of rest, for that they claim. Their objection is to “the day.” Give them the day of their own choice, and all is well with them. But they will not accept the day of God’s rest; of his blessing; of his sanctifying; of his commanding.

What, or which is “the Sabbath day?” If this can be definitely settled by the Scriptures, the whole controversy is settled. We do not say, however, that we can lay controversy or quiet the objector by proving which is the sanctified rest day of Jehovah. The question may be settled by producing Scripture proofs; but the controversy can be quieted only by removing the spirit of self-will which raised it. The carnal mind cannot be subject to the law of God; Rom. 8:7; it will choose its own way, or delight in “will worship” rather than in keeping God’s commandments just as he has given them.

Of the origin of the Sabbath and the selection of the day, a certain author wrote:—

“The very first day whose evening and morning Adam saw, was the Sabbath day. The sixth day could hardly be called man’s first day, for he never beheld its evening and morning. But the seventh creation day was man’s first day, and that was the day on which God rested, and which he hallowed and blessed. The seventh creation day was identical with the first day of man’s week.”

Others to the same intent might be quoted, but this shows the spirit of the whole. This pretended argument rests on the supposition that the Sabbath necessarily stood related to the time of the creation of Adam. And some go even farther than this, and assume that Adam himself made choice of the day which was to be the Sabbath! But the truth is that the creation of Adam had no more to do with the selection of the Sabbath day than the creation of any other object. The seventh day was chosen “because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

The quotation above says “the seventh creation day was identical with the first day of man’s week.” But the truth is that man never had a week in distinction from God’s week. If any Sabbath ever existed suitable to man’s week, it must be man’s sabbath—a human institution; only of human origin. But the Bible knows nothing of any such week or such institution. The facts concerning the true Sabbath are clearly stated, and easy to be understood. Indeed they cannot be misunderstood. They may be denied, or evaded, or perverted, but no one can misunderstand them. The Bible explicitly says:—

God made the world and all things in six days.
He rested the seventh day.
For this reason he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.

Then the seventh-day Sabbath rests upon the facts of creation week. Nothing else enters into its foundation. And no other day could serve the purpose of a memorial of “all his work which God created.” Any other day of the week did not see “all his work” completed, as a part of his work was done on each of them.

And the seventh-day Sabbath commemorates the work of God—not of man. We do not commemorate Adam’s rest, but God’s rest. It was not the seventh day nor any day of a week which Adam constructed, but the week of the Creator, five days of which were fully in the past when Adam was created. All those who try to relate the Sabbath to “man’s week,” or “Adam’s first day,” or with anything but the rest of the Creator, are abusing the word of the Lord, and walking in the light of the sparks of their own kindling. Isa. 50:11.

We come now to examine the fourth commandment and the Sabbath which it enjoins, and we inquire: Whose Sabbath is this? and, What does it commemorate? And we will notice the positions of those who say it originated at the time when Israel left Egypt. Does the record in Exodus 16 justify their statement? Not at all. They say its first occurrence was when the manna was given, and was withheld on that day. But on the sixth day Moses said: “This is that which the Lord hath said [in some past time], To-morrow is the rest [though the day spoken of was future, it was, by past appointment, the rest day] of the holy Sabbath [it was a sanctified day, by some past act] unto the Lord,” or of the Lord. Now to what facts do these statements refer? To none but those of creation week. At that time God did rest the seventh day; Exodus 16 identifies the seventh day as the rest day. And God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, the day of his rest. Exodus 16 says the seventh day is a holy rest day. God sanctified the seventh day because it was the day of his own rest. Exodus 16 says the seventh day was the holy or sanctified day to or of Jehovah. The reference to the Creator’s rest day is unmistakable, without a hint of anything else to which it can refer.

And one other point in the Pentateuch must be noticed. A very recent writer says:— “The seventh-day Sabbath was declared by Moses (Deut. 5:15) to have been instituted on account of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage.”

This is the idea put forth by many who oppose the Sabbath of the fourth commandment; and we are always surprised that such statements are made. Notice the following facts on this point:—

1. Deut. 5:15 is in a rehearsal of past events, and is not a literal copy of the fourth commandment as God gave it to them. Indeed, it does not claim to be. Moses said, “Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.” God did command them, speaking to them with his own voice; and nobody will pretend that the Lord used these words which were used by Moses—“as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.” He does not pretend to give the commandment literally, in this historical review.

2. Moses did not declare that the Sabbath was instituted on account of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage. He did not tell why the seventh day was chosen rather than another; he did not give any account of its being blessed and sanctified; he did not even intimate that there existed any reason for its sanctification. He gave no reason of the institution at all. But we shall presently see where all these points are clearly revealed.

3. Moses referred to a local reason for the requirement resting specially on them, but there never existed any local reason for the institution. The rest, the blessing, the sanctification—everything which made the institution,—all lay far back of deliverance from Egypt. For an example of a local reason for enforcing a general obligation, see Deut. 24:17, 18. “Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge; but thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee; therefore I command thee to do this thing.” And Lev. 19:35–37. “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have; I am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them.” Will any contend that righteousness and justice and truth were not of obligation before deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and were of obligation only upon those who were so delivered? They may with all the reason with which they contend that the seventh-day Sabbath was instituted because of that deliverance.

We will now examine the fourth commandment itself, as delivered by the voice of God in the hearing of all the people. “Remember the Sabbath day [the day of the rest] to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath [rest] of the Lord thy God.” How and when did the seventh day—this self-same day commanded to Israel—become the rest of the Lord God? Jehovah himself gives full information on this point. These are his own words: “For 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, and hallowed it.”

Now we affirm without fear of contradiction, that this is the only seventh day that God ever commanded to Israel. This is the Sabbath day referred to in Ex. 16 and Deut. 5; and this is the only reason of the institution. And these are identically the facts set down in Gen. 2. Mark well the words. In Ex. 20:11, the Lord says, 1. He made all things in six days. 2. He rested the seventh day. 3. For this reason—which “wherefore” means—the Lord blessed the rest day and hallowed it. See how exactly this corresponds with Gen. 2:3. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because [for the reason] that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Now we shall be pleased if some one will give explicit Bible proof that the seventh-day Sabbath—the Sabbath of the fourth commandment—became the rest day of the

Lord at any other time than that recorded in Gen. 2:3; that it was blessed and sanctified for any other reason than that given in the commandment, namely, that in it the Lord rested from all his work of creating the heavens and the earth.