Question Answered by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 41.

Question Answered.

By Editor

THE following question is asked by an interested reader of the SIGNS:—

"In Ex. 31:17 I find the Sabbath called a sign. Why was it so called if it was real as given to the Israelites?"

The questioner evidently labors under a misapprehension as to the meaning or scope of the word "sign." We think—as we can only infer—that he uses the word "real" in distinction from typical or shadowy. But that idea is misleading. The word is first used in Gen. 1:14. The sun and the moon are there declared to be "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." There is nothing in contrast with "real" in this.

The text cited by the questioner relieves the subject of all difficulty when it is noticed of what the Sabbath is a sign. The Lord himself said: "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." Of the word, Gesenius gives this definition: "A sign of something past, a token, memorial, Ex. 13:9, 16; Deut. 6:8. Hence a memorial, monument, Isa. 55:13; Eze. 14:8." He also uses the words, "a token, argument, proof." The Sabbath is God's token or memorial of creation. As such it is also "proof," and it is used by the Lord in Eze. 20:20, as proof of the most important nature: "Hallow my Sabbath; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." The true God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth; see Jer. 10:1-16; Acts 17:22-25, and many others. Of this the seventh-day Sabbath, the day of Jehovah's rest, is a standing memorial or proof. This is real, everlasting, as long as the earth remains, yes, as long as it remains a fact that God created the heavens and earth in six days, so long will the seventh day be a memorial of that act of creation. Mark the words of God's commandment: "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." How came it to be the Sabbath or rest of the Creator? "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 [the day of his rest], and hallowed it."

Thus it is seen that it is not "the Jewish Sabbath," as it is often called. It comes from creation; it belongs to the Creator. The error of that expression—"the Sabbath of the Jews"—will be very clearly seen if we remodel the whole commandment to conform to such a change. It is customary even for men of learning to take the name of the Creator, the Lawgiver, out of the first part of the commandment and insert the name "the Jews" in its stead. Now if they may so amend one part of the commandment, we may the other. Then it will read as follows:—

"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Jews; in it thou shalt not do any work. . . . For in six days the Jews made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Jews blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."

Of course no one will accept this reading; but why not? Sabbath means rest, and the Sabbath day is the rest day. Remember that the seventh-day rest or Sabbath is given to commemorate the work of creation; and the Lord claimed it as his day because he created all things in six days and rested the seventh day. The claim is highly reasonable. But the opposers of the Sabbath say it belongs—not to the Lord, but—to the Jews; it is the Sabbath of the Jews. But the rest certainly belongs to him or to them who performed the work. If the seventh-day rest belongs to the Jews, if it is a Jewish institution, it is because the Jews did the work which it commemorates! No one can rest from a work which he never did; but the seventh day is the rest day of the Creator of the heavens and the earth. It commemorates that work and no other. We claim, and fear no contradiction, that no greater violence is done on the commandment by inserting "the Jews" in the last part, than by inserting those words in the first part. In either case it is a mutilation of the law of the Most High. It is treason against the supreme moral Governor of the universe, to corrupt his statutes; to take his own signature, placed there by his own hand, out of his law and to insert in its stead a name which is almost everywhere a by-word and a reproach.

When carefully examined, there is no testimony which is more decisive in favor of the Sabbath of the Lord God, the Creator, than is found in those texts in which the Lord claims it as a sign that he made the heavens and the earth. May he give us wisdom and grace to accept it in the light in which we gave it, as "the holy of the Lord, honorable." Isa. 58:12, 13.