3759 — From One Sabbath to Another
By Editor
Please explain Isa. 66:23. When God's people come to worship from one Sabbath to another, does it not mean during the ages, ceaselessly, continuously? If we make it say every new moon, and every Sabbath, for such worship to be done, it seems to me that we are placing God's requirement of worship in the new earth, as we now have it, only weekly. The scripture is not one which declares all the worship. That is not its object at all. Its object is to show that in that new heavens and the new earth there will be God's ordinances. It is not weekly worship alone that God asks of His children here. There is weekly worship and there is a weekly worship day, but that very weekly worship day in its command implies continuous worship. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," is to remember it all the week; but entirely apart from the day, there are God's other requirements demanding constant, faithful worship during all the intervals between the Sabbaths. The Sabbath is given because man is a social being. If it were God's design that man should live alone, he would need no Sabbath. He could come into connection with God at all times, under all circumstances, as he can now. But He made man a social being. He would have him come in connection with his fellows, learn to know his fellows, and learn better to appreciate the unselfishness of God's requirements, and therefore the Sabbath. And throughout all eternity God's Sabbath will be honored. Throughout all eternity His children will come together to worship Him and glorify His name on that day. And so from new moon to new moon—from month to month is better—will they come up to meet with each other and with God. It seems clear to us that the text points out Sabbath congregational worship and monthly congregational worship. God's children will go throughout all His boundless realms. He will give them pleasant, glorious tasks to do, blessed employment, on that new earth. They will find the sweetest, holiest communion alone with God and His works. And they will carry all these blessings, from week to week and from month to month, to the great assemblies that shall meet in the great center of God's universe of worship. The text does not imply all worship, but simply social, congregational worship. There is very much which can be said upon this in the origin of the Sabbath itself.