Our Bible Reading

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 27, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 25.

Our Bible Reading

The Sabbath a Definite Day

1. What is the record of the institution of the Sabbath?

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. Gen. 2: 1-3.

Note the definite character of this record. First, "The heavens and the earth were finished." Second, "On the seventh day God ended His work." Third, "He rested on the seventh day from all His work." Fourth, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it;" that is, set it apart for a sacred use. Thus do we have three distinct references to the definite seventh day in the institution of the Sabbath. A thing that is so definitely and so repeatedly spoken of as belonging to "the seventh day," is not left to the chance of falling on "just any day" and on "no day in particular."

2. When the Sabbath commandment was given, was it also definite in making a particular day the Sabbath day?

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 Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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. Ex. 20: 8-11.

NOTE.—The commandment prescribes six days of labor to come first, with the Sabbath to follow, and not to precede the days of work. We are commanded to "remember the Sabbath day." "The" Sabbath day is a definite day. It could not, according to the terms of the commandment, be "just any day" and no day in particular. The commandment makes it definite which day is "the Sabbath day," by saying explicitly that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." The "seventh day" is a particular day. It can not be "just any day." It has to be definite, and one certain day of the week; and no other day besides that one particular day will answer the definite specifications of the commandment. God "rested the seventh day." That was a particular day on which He rested. It could not have been otherwise than a special day. It could not be that He rested on "just any day" and no day in particular. And the day on which He rested He says Himself was the "seventh day," and "wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." If any one will give proper attention to the record of the institution of the Sabbath, and will properly study the Sabbath commandment itself, he will have no difficulty in seeing that God's rest day is definite, and that it falls on a particular day of the week, and that He accepts no other day as the Sabbath.