The Sabbath Made for Man.
By Roswell F. Cottrell
"THE Sabbath was made for man," Mark 2: 27. As this text stands in our English Bible it gives the Sabbath to the universal family of man. It cannot be forced to mean otherwise. It contradicts the position that the Sabbath was intended only for a portion of the great family of man. But in the original Greek it reads, The Sabbath was made for the man, and not the man for the Sabbath. This gives it to Adam, the head of the human race, and through him to all his posterity. Is Adam the father of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles also? The Sabbath was made. Then there was a time when it was made. What was the state of things when it was made? Only two human beings were in existence, Adam and his wife. They were created on the sixth day of the week, and on the seventh day the foundation of the Sabbath was laid. God rested. This was the first or the preliminary act in making the Sabbath; but the institution was not completed on that day. After he had rested throughout the day and consequently the day was past, he blessed and sanctified the seventh day, because that in it he had rested. Now the Sabbath was complete. The sanctifying of the day was the setting it apart for man's observance; and the next seventh day was the first one for man to keep. So the Sabbath was made for the man. Man was first created, then the Sabbath. The relation of man and the Sabbath to each other may be illustrated by that of Adam and Eve. Says Paul, Adam was first formed, then Eve. 1 Tim. 2:13. Again, Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. 1 Cor. 11:9. In this last quotation the proper names of Adam and Eve are not mentioned. Nor are they mentioned in the connection. Yet who doubts that the man and the woman refer directly to them? There is no more reason to doubt that in the expression, "The Sabbath was made for the man," reference is made to the man and the Sabbath which came into existence in the same order in which the man and the woman did, and in the same delightful paradise in which they dwelt. As the Sabbath was made for man while in his innocence in his Eden home; so when man and Eden are restored in the new earth, the holy Sabbath will still exist. See Isa. 66: 22, 23. Then it will be fully understood that the Sabbath was made for man, and hence was never "against" him or "contrary" to him, and never was taken away being nailed to the cross of man's Redeemer.
R. F. COTTRELL.