Peculiarities Concerning the Sabbath.
By Raymond F. Cottrell
THERE are some peculiarities with the opposition to the Sabbath. Those who hold that the Sabbath has been abolished, teach that it was two thousand five hundred years after God rested upon the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it, before any one was under obligation to keep it holy; that from Adam to Moses no one was bound to recognize the day as sanctified; that then it was binding on the Hebrew people only down to the cross of Christ, to which it was nailed, since which it is not binding. And yet it is admitted that Isa. 66:22, 23, teaches that the Sabbath will be observed in the world to come. To evade the bearing this fact has on the question, the attempt is made to befog the subject by inquiring, “What Sabbath?” The peculiarities, then, of the opposition are these: From the time the Sabbath was sanctified, i. e., set apart to a sacred use, there is a void of some two thousand five hundred years during which it was not binding; then it was binding for some fifteen hundred years; then there is a gap of some two thousand years in which it is not binding, and then it will be binding to all eternity in the world to come. This is singular indeed; especially that such an arrangement should be attributed to the Creator and Disposer of the universe. It looks much more like childrens’ play. The Sabbath has its peculiarities also. Its law was placed by the finger of God in the midst of nine moral precepts, precepts that no sane man can deny to be binding on all the human race. And, compared with these nine precepts which are universally and perpetually binding, the Sabbath has several peculiarities. 1. Its institution is described in the record of the creation; whereas none of the other nine precepts are found in the record of several hundred years. 2. The Sabbath existed and was kept by Israel in the desert before they came to Mount Sinai, where the law was given in form by God himself. Ex. 16:23, 30. The keeping of any one of the other nine separately is not found in the record up to that time; though all were kept by Abraham. Gen. 26:5. 3. The Sabbath precept was a part of God’s law more than a month before that law was written on tables of stone. Ex. 16:4. This is not definitely revealed of any other precept of the decalogue. 4. The Sabbath precept is the only one of the ten that refers us back to the creation of the world for its origin. Ex. 20:11. 5. The Sabbath is mentioned oftener in the New Testament than any other commandment of the ten. 6. The Sabbath is the only precept of the ten that we are distinctly taught shall be observed in the new earth. Isa. 66:22, 23. Is it not truly remarkable that a precept thus fortified should be the one singled out for abolition and destruction?