CHRIST AND THE SABBATH.*
By W. W. Prescott
(Continued.)
WE have this inquiry made in 2 Cor. 13:5: "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" This word "reprobate" means spurious, counterfeit. If you are a real Christian, Jesus Christ is in you. That is the very idea of salvation, for we read in Col. 1:27: "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." That is the Christian experience; that is the Christian life. But when Christ dwells in the heart by faith, he by his presence makes the believer holy.
It is not only said that Christ blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it, but he sanctified it. Notice what it is that sanctifies. Ex. 29:43: "And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory." What is it that sanctifies?—It is the presence, the glory of Christ. And just as Christ dwelling in the tabernacle made it holy, so Christ in the believer sanctifies him.
Now read Eze. 20:12: "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Or, as another translation reads, "I am Jehovah, their sanctifier." And in connection with that read Ex. 31:13: "Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you." Another translation gives that clause in this way, "I, Jehovah, am sanctifying you." Now of what is the Sabbath to be a sign to us as it recurs week after week?—It is to be a sign that "I, Jehovah, am sanctifying you." I am making you holy, and every succeeding Sabbath marks the progress of that work of sanctification. We receive the blessing of God on one Sabbath; the next one comes, and if we have been growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the blessing of the next Sabbath is an added blessing. It teaches us more and more of the power of God in creation and in redemption. We add to our experience, and it is a sign continually. "I, Jehovah, am sanctifying you," making you holy.
Notice what a close connection there is between this power of God as manifested in creation and the Sabbath idea. The ninety-second psalm is a psalm, or song, for the Sabbath day. That is the title of the psalm. "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High; to show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound. For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work; I will triumph in the works of thy hands." How is it that the Lord makes me to be glad?—Why, when I behold his works, and behold his power in those works, I remember that that power is pledged to me for salvation. And so I can say I will triumph in the works of thy hands, and it is indeed a psalm, or song, for the Sabbath day, because that day reminds us of the power of God in Christ manifested in creation, and with that comes the blessed assurance that He who has created has also redeemed. The Creator is the Redeemer. The power in creation is the power in redemption.518 Now notice the conclusion to which I referred earlier in our study, and that is, that many a person has been desirous to keep the Sabbath and has not kept it. Why?—Because Sabbath keeping is resting in the Lord. No person in whom Christ does not dwell by faith can keep the Sabbath. He may keep Saturday, he may keep Sunday, but he cannot keep the Sabbath. There is only one day in which a person can thus, in this special and particular manner, rest in the Lord, because there is only one day in which Christ has put his presence in that particular way. Ah, but, says one, cannot we have the blessing from the Lord on any other day?—Certainly, every day, and every hour of every day; we are having the blessing of God here now. But there is a blessing in Sabbath keeping that comes in no other way. You cannot keep Sabbath on Wednesday, because Christ is not there to make it Sabbath, to make it rest in him. You can enjoy the presence of Christ every day and the blessing of Christ; you can enjoy an added blessing on the day that he has blessed, and that blessing is Sabbath keeping, resting in the Lord; and it is impossible at any other time. Whenever I invite anyone to Sabbath keeping, I am glad to invite him to the special blessing of God in Jesus Christ; Sabbath keeping is being blessed especially of God in Jesus Christ. Sabbath keeping is resting in the Lord, on the Lord's rest day, and I invite anyone who never has kept Sabbath—I do not care whether he is a Saturday keeper or a Sunday keeper—I invite him to keep the Sabbath. I invite him to the presence of Christ, whose presence gives rest, whose presence is blessing, whose presence makes holy, whose presence sanctifies. I invite everyone to Sabbath keeping, to the blessing which God has put upon his own day, and which no man ever has removed, or ever can remove, from it.
When we understand what Sabbath keeping is, and what the Sabbath really is, there is not a person who desires Jesus Christ, there is not a person who longs for the blessings and the rest that there are in Jesus Christ, who would stand one moment to discuss with me what day it is. It is what it is rather than when it is that we must consider, because when we study what it is, we shall at the same time find out in the most emphatic way when it is. One day will do just as well as another in which to rest physically, but there is only one day on which we can keep Sabbath; there is only one day that has the blessing by the presence of Christ in this way. Come to the Sabbath blessing; come to Sabbath keeping; come to rest in the Lord.
Let me now call your attention further to the fact that the Sabbath always has been, and always will be, a sign of the power of God. The reason given in the commandment for setting apart the seventh day as the Sabbath is that in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, and rested the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day, therefore, is a sign of the creative work. This sign of creative power always calls our attention to the One who made the heavens and the earth, and it is true if the Sabbath had always been kept that there never would have been any false religion or idolatry; for once each week would the minds of men have been turned to the true God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. The distinguishing characteristic of the true God is his creative power. In the ninety-sixth psalm we read: "Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; show forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all the people. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens." So we read again in Jer. 10:10-12: "But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king. . . . The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, he hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." THE SABBATH THE SIGN OF HIS POWER.
And the Sabbath day was given as a sign of this power of God, this creative power, and since its institution, the Sabbath has been used as a sign of the display of this same creative power. Let me read from Deut. 4:32-34: "For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?" Mark the inquiry. You ask from one end of heaven to the other, and you go back to the very day that man was created, and inquire whether there has been from that time to this present time such a display of the power of God as was seen in the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt.
A moment's thought will show you that it was creative power then displayed. They were delivered by signs and wonders, which were a display of creative power. It took the same power when Aaron's rod was cast down before Pharaoh and it became a serpent as it did to create the serpent in the first place. It took the same power to bring darkness over all the face of the land—darkness that could be felt—and yet have light in the dwellings of the children of Israel, as it took in the first place, when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." It took the same power to divide the waters of the Red Sea, that the children of Israel could go through on dry land, as it did in the first place when the waters were created. That is, there was at that time a display of the creative power of God. So, after the children of Israel had been delivered by such creative power, the Sabbath obligation is repeated, and the Lord says: "And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Deut. 5:15. Some make the mistake of thinking that the Sabbath was merely a sign to the children of Israel of their deliverance from Egypt, and has nothing to do with any other people. The fact is simply this: In the first place the Sabbath was the sign of creative power. When the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, that same power wrought for their deliverance. When the same God uses the same power, he calls attention again to the same sign as the sign of that power; and so to the children of Israel after their deliverance, the Sabbath was a sign of God's creative power in making heaven and earth, and it was also a sign of Christ's creative power in delivering them from the land of Egypt. But, further, we have learned that redemption is creation, and the Sabbath is the sign of creative power wherever it is displayed. The Sabbath was the sign of creative power when the heavens and the earth were made. The Sabbath was the sign renewed to the children of Israel of creative power when they were delivered from the land of Egypt. But the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt is but a type of the deliverance of the Christian from the power of darkness, because deliverance is wrought for him by creative power, just as the children of Israel were delivered by creative power. So the Sabbath is a sign to every Christian of the creative power of God in his deliverance from the power of sin. It is a sign to him of the blessing of God in turning him away from his iniquities. It is a sign to him of the presence of Christ to make him holy. It is a sign to him of the presence of Christ in him to sanctify him. That is to say, it is a measure of the working of that creative power in his individual experience.
But the real purpose of God in creation will not be fully carried out until all who receive Jesus Christ have been created anew, until the body has been fashioned anew, that it may conform to his glorious body, until the new heavens and the new earth are made. Then, with the new heavens and the new earth, with the body conformed to his glorious body, and with the character of God in Jesus Christ wrought in us by faith, then the earth will be peopled with a righteous people, just as God intended in the first place, and just in pursuance of his original plan of creation. And so in the new earth will still be the Sabbath, the sign of God's complete work in creation. And thus we read in Isa. 66:22, 23: "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." And so onward through all the ages of eternity, the Sabbath will always be the sign of the creative power of God. When Christ was here upon the earth, we read of the testimony that the Father bore of him (Matt. 3:17): "And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Another translation gives this version of this text: "Lo a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I did delight." Read, in connection with that, the prophecy of Isa. 42:1: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth." This is a prophecy of Christ. So, when Christ came, the testimony was, "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I did delight." Now read that familiar scripture in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, the thirteenth verse: "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." Another translation brings out the idea in a little plainer way, although not changing the sense at all. It says, "And hast cried to the Sabbath, 'A delight.'" Our version says, "And hast called the Sabbath a delight;" this translation says, "And hast cried to the Sabbath [called out as the Sabbath came], 'A delight,'" and to the holy of the Lord cried out also, "Honored." Put these texts together. The prophecy in Isa. 42:1 speaks of Christ as God's delight; and when Christ came, the record is in Matt. 3:17, "This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I did delight." When the Sabbath comes, we are instructed to call out to it, to hail it, to cry to it as it comes, "A delight!" Why?—Because He in whom the Lord did delight, the delight of the Lord, the delight of the soul, is in the Sabbath. Jesus Christ is in the Sabbath, and so when the Sabbath comes, we are to call to the holy of Jehovah, "Honored!" It is the holy of Jehovah. And Christ was the holy child Jesus, and it is the holy day because Christ is there in the day. And the Scripture says that if we do call to the Sabbath, "A delight!" and to the holy of Jehovah, "Honored!" "then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." Why?—Because the Lord, who is the delight, is in the Sabbath. And so we shall delight ourselves in the Lord on the Lord's day. That makes the Sabbath a glorious thing. At every step of the way, when it is properly understood, the Sabbath is suggesting Christ and his work for us. At every point it is Christ and his power; it is the creative power pledged for our redemption. It is the sign of Christ to bless, to give rest, to make holy, to sanctify. It is the sign of Christ, the delight of the soul; it is the sign of Christ, the Holy One. It is the sign of Christ, whom we are to honor. As the Sabbath suggests at every point Christ, as Creator, as Redeemer, as Saviour, and as we are to honor the Son even as we honor the Father, therefore it is impossible that one should honor Christ when he knowingly dishonors Christ's day. For that reason no people can exalt Jesus Christ as the people who honor him in the observance of the day which he has blessed and sanctified. Therefore, there is no way in which we can exalt Jesus Christ from first to last, as Creator, as Redeemer, as Saviour, when we knowingly and willfully trample upon the day which he has blessed and sanctified.
It being evident that the Sabbath is designed to turn men's minds toward the true God, and Jesus Christ as the agent in creation and in redemption, it follows that if any movement is to be made to defeat the plan of God in the salvation of man, in the recreation of man, the first thing to be done is to turn men away from the Sabbath, the reminder of Jesus Christ as the only Saviour. If men's minds can be turned away from Christ, they will fail of salvation. Christ's power is the only power sufficient to save. If men can be led to trust in any other power, they will be disappointed in all hope of salvation. Therefore the most certain way to defeat the plan of Christ for the salvation of men is to turn men's minds away from Christ; and the first thing to be done, then, is to turn men's minds away from that which reminds them of Christ. Therefore, if the Sabbath can be hidden, if men's minds can be turned from the Sabbath and the meaning of the Sabbath, the hardest blow has been struck and the strongest effort has been successful in turning men away from the plan of salvation in Jesus Christ.
(Concluded next week.)