HOW THINGS ARE MADE SACRED.
By G.
To set up as sacred, and hold as sacred, anything that God has not made sacred by special action, is idolatry. For man to assume the power and prerogative of imparting sacredness to any thing or any institution, is to assume the prerogative of God, and is therefore blasphemous. It is common to hear that such a day or such a thing is made sacred because of its association with some act or some occurrence; but such ascription of sacredness is sheer assumption. Neither custom nor human decree nor oft recurrence can add sacredness to the character of anything. Nothing but the direct Word of God can impart sanctity to any person or thing, or to any institution. The seventh day was not made sacred because God rested on it from His work of creation until He so ordained. The fact of His resting on the seventh day would not of itself make that day holy any more than His working on the other six days would make them holy. It was God's decree that the seventh day should be holy that made it holy. He made it holy not by resting upon it, but He so decreed because He had rested on that day; it was not any more holy than any other day until after God had so declared it, and He did not so declare until after He had rested on the day. The first seventh day was not a sacred day. "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. "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:11. God gave Moses directions as to what he should do to the sanctuary, after it was completed, and added, "It shall be holy." Chapter 40:9, 10. Moses might have spent his lifetime pouring oil on the tabernacle and its appurtenances, and it never would have been holy without the declaration of the Lord that it should be holy. People assume that the first day of the week is holy because Christ rose from the dead on that day; that it is sacred because of the long custom of observing the day as a holiday. But there lacks the one essential thing to make the day holy, or sacred; there has been no divine decree to that effect. Christ's rising from the dead on a certain day would not make it a sacred day any more than His being born on a certain day, or being baptized, or being crucified, on certain days would make those days sacred. Nothing that He would do as a merely physical act would make the day holy without His decree to that effect. The assumed sacredness of Sunday, and other so-called church holy days, has only the fallible decrees of fallible men as authority for the claim of sacredness. And neither by custom nor by human decree can anything be made sacred. To regard any institution of man as sacred is idolatry. Man may make a holiday, but he can not make a holy day. Nor has he any right to enforce the observance of any day upon his fellow man. G.