Untitled article by E. E. Andross

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 31, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 22.

BY WHOM WAS THE SABBATH INSTITUTED?

By E. E. Andross

E. E. ANDROSS.

AFTER the Creator had rested upon the seventh day—thus laying the foundation of a divine institution, the memorial of His own great work—the record states that "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. 2:3. The same thought is stated in the fourth commandment, thus: He "rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." The second act, then, in instituting this memorial, was to place His blessing upon the day of His rest, thus making it the blessed rest-day of the Lord. A third act completed the sacred institution. The blessed rest-day of the Lord is now sanctified, or hallowed. In other words, it was made sacred, or holy, set apart for a holy purpose. It was thus evermore to be the blessed, sanctified rest-day of the Lord.

By Whom Instituted.

It is quite important that we understand by whom this great work was all accomplished. "All things were made by Him [Christ]; and without Him was not anything made that was made." "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." John 1:3, 10. "God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." Eph. 3:9. So, also, see Col. 1:14-17; 1 Cor. 8:6.

As Christ is the One by whom all things were made, and as the Sabbath was among the things that were made (Mark 2:27), it therefore follows that Christ was associated with the Father in resting, blessing, and sanctifying the seventh day; that it was He who was refreshed—took delight in the rest of a completed work.

And therefore the seventh-day Sabbath is properly called "the Lord's day."

Finally, the Sabbath is shown to have been committed to Adam, the representative of the human race, and so to all mankind, to be an eternal witness to the "one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and

we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him;" to have been set as a perpetual memorial of that power and wisdom which brought all things into being, and ordered their adaptations and harmony; to be a witness of the most important truths that it is possible for man to know. It, therefore, imposes upon all races and generations of men a dutiful observance.