The Seven Days of the Week
By William S. Holman
THROUGH the turmoil and conflict of opinion existing to-day, can we not see that God, in His infinite wisdom, designed a double significance in the order of the days of the week, to reprove the errors and traditions of men? The initial principle of the Sabbath was to be the recognition of Jehovah as the maker and sustainer of all things. It was to be a reminder of what we owe to Him, giving, at the same time, opportunities to worship the great God, our Creator. There is also a prophetic significance, supplementary to the regulation of work, rest, and worship. The six days of work are parallel to the age of the world as inhabited by man in his fallen state, ending in the consummation of that great sabbath—the millennium. Ever since Satan assumed the dictatorship in the Garden of Eden, the world has had no rest from its labor of sin. And present conditions prove we are still in the six working-days of its history. The “rest that remaineth”—the millennium—will be the first sabbath of absolute rest—one of the many that are to adorn eternity. The world as it is now, more than ever, bears the burden of constant work and toil. Business men, with a superficial respect for the ethics of religion, vacate the scene of active pursuits for a day, only to carry a load of mental anxieties concerning their next week's ventures, till they are again plunged into the water that absorbs them, body and soul. Whatever the day, they labor and have no rest. There is a vast difference between labor and occupation. Labor tires, while occupation edifies. Labor is the result of sin; occupation is the essential of intelligence. The Scriptures teach us that even God Himself is occupied attending to the wants of His creatures, from His mystic center of existence. The duties of Eden were but an occupation—an occupation that many a gentle soul has found pleasure in since that early day—pruning and tending the growth of flowers and fruit—a task that brings the mind into touch with the loving hand scattering these gems upon the crust of our now sin-cursed world. When man was decreed to till the ground, thus to incite what before was spontaneous—when he was told that as a result of his disobedience, he was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow—occupation was changed into the strain of labor. We are chained by circumstances to work while the six thousand years of the world age lasts. When that ends we shall be emancipated from the burden of undue exertion, to take up an occupation that will thrill the whole ransomed throng. By keeping the first day of the week as the sabbath—in honor of the Lord Jesus, as some say—we are to a certain extent perpetuating the first thousand years of the world's history—a period marred by the first sin and the perpetration of the first murder. Surely such an association can not honor the Lord, our Redeemer.