THE SABBATH by H. C. Balsbaugh

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 17, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 42.

THE SABBATH.

By H. C. Balsbaugh

THE institution, or beginning, of the Sabbath is recorded in Gen. 2:2, 3. Here it is stated that the seventh day was sanctified and set apart as a day of rest. The word "Sabbath" means rest. Reason alone makes it evident that there can not be a day of rest before there has been a day or days of work. Hence the first day of the week, or Sunday, can not in truth be called a day of rest. Sunday, therefore, is without this central idea of the Sabbath, namely, rest.

The Sabbath of the Lord, mentioned in Gen. 2:2, 3, is perpetual. From time to time the Jews for a long period neglected to keep the Sabbath day holy, and for this neglect God punished them, and in mercy kept on entreating them to keep it. Of this we have distinct record, embracing the latter as well as the early time of their history. See Eze. 46:1; Neh. 13:15-22, B.C. 574 and 445.

In the New Testament Christ very clearly makes known the continuance of the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. See Matt. 24:20. The event alluded to there is the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred, as is commonly known, seventy years after Christ.

The apostles and disciples taught the seventh day as the Sabbath by precept and example. James, the most directly practical of the New Testament writers, speaks in no uncertain way of it. In chapter 2:8-11 he refers to a royal law. Royal means kingly, in this instance the kingly law of God, our great King. And that we may know for a certainty what particular law James refers to, he quotes from the law of Ten Commandments, the fourth precept of which enjoins the keeping of the Sabbath day holy.

This same Ten-Commandment law is spoken of by Christ in Matt. 22:36-40. Christ here makes two divisions of the Ten Commandments, the first division including the first four commandments, which teach the duty to love God with all the heart, and the second division comprising the last six, which teach the duty of loving our neighbor as ourselves, or love to man. Of the two commandments that Christ gives here as embracing all the others, He calls the first the greater, and in this division is the Sabbath commandment.

These references indicate the perpetuity of the law of Ten Commandments. It is a fundamental law, abiding forever. This law is as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not to be experimented with, but it is to be implicitly obeyed. It is true and tried, and its abiding character is clearly seen from the fact that it was written by the finger of God on tables of stone, the enduring quality of stone signifying permanency.

H. C. BALSBAUGH.