I T seems remarkable, to any one who gives the subject careful thought, that there should ever be any question as to which day of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord. I remember, when a small boy, having learned in the Sunday-school to repeat the Ten Commandments, that the query was awakened in my mind as to why we observed the first day of the week instead of the seventh day, as enjoined in the fourth commandment. In my childish theological difficulty, I appealed to my God-fearing mother, who set my conscience at rest by telling me that before the death of Christ the seventh day was kept, but that since that event the first day has been kept in honor of Christ's resurrection. This set my mind at rest, and I thought no more of the question until nearly eight years later, when I chanced to read Matt. 5:17, 18, in which passage Christ says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
How could I harmonize this statement of the Saviour with what my mother had told me? I could not again appeal to her, as she had been laid away to rest to await the call of the Life-giver.
Appealed to the Highest Tribunal.
In my perplexity and anxiety, I turned to the word of God as the only source of appeal. I found that more than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ it had been prophesied of Him, "He will magnify the law, and make it honorable." Isa. 42:21.
Turning to that law, of which Christ declared, "One jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law," and which it was His mission to "magnify" and make "honorable," it declared in words that had been heard amid the awful grandeur of Mount Sinai, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord." Ex. 20:8-11. Another passage declares, "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of My lips." To make sure that God's covenant here referred to is the Ten Commandments we have only to read another statement as follows:
"And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even Ten Commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deut. 4:13.
Scripture Prophecy of Sabbath Change.
Seeking for some scripture bearing upon the change of the Sabbath from the day which God appointed, a passage is found in the prophecy of Daniel which declares of a certain anti-Christian power, that "he shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hands until a time and times and half a time." Dan. 7:25.
Since Jesus Himself admonishes us not to think that He has made any change in the law of God, and since it has been predicted of a wicked, anti-Christian power that it would lay unholy hands upon that sacred law, and think to effect a change therein, it seems passing strange that the professed followers of Christ, in our day, persistently charge the world's Redeemer with having done that which He declared He would not do.
How the Sabbath Was Made.
The Sabbath was one of the things made during, and at the close of, the first week of time. It was made by three specific acts performed. First, God rested upon the first seventh day of time, thus forever fixing the seventh day of the week as God's Sabbath, or rest day. Secondly, He blessed the seventh day "because that in it He had rested." Thirdly, He sanctified—set apart for a holy or sacred use—the seventh day. The first of these three acts, resting upon the day, took place upon the seventh day of the first week of time. After resting upon that day, God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath. Therefore, the blessing and sanctifying of the Sabbath pertained, not to the first seventh day, which had already passed, but to the seventh day of each succeeding weekly cycle. Gen. 2:2, 3. Nowhere in all the Bible is there an intimation that God rested upon, blessed, or sanctified any other day of the week.
The Saviour declares that the Sabbath was made, not for any one particular race of men, but "for man." Mark 2:27. God made the holy Sabbath to be an everlasting sign or memorial of His creative and sanctifying power. "It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed." Ex. 31:17. Just so long as the fact remains that God created in six days and rested upon the seventh, the Sabbath stands as a weekly sign or memorial to the Israel of God of His creative power. "Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." "And hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20:12, 20. The power that created is the only power that can recreate, or redeem. The holy Sabbath, therefore, stands as a double sign of creation and of redemption.
Bread from Heaven.
The history of the Sabbath has ever been, on the part of God's people, a test of loyalty and obedience. After bringing His people out of Egyptian bondage, in order that they might keep the Sabbath, the Lord said, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." "And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days." Ex. 16:4, 5, 27-29. This took place thirty-three days before the people encamped at the base of Mount Sinai, which proves beyond question that the law of God, of which the Sabbath is a part, existed prior to its promulgation by the voice of God to the assembled host of Israel.
When the law was proclaimed, thirty-three5days later, the fourth precept of the Decalogue was introduced by the words, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," showing the Sabbath to have been an existing institution.
Sabbath Rest and Recreation.
Just as the Creator, after finishing His work and pronouncing everything that He had made "very good," rested on the Sabbath from the work of creation; so the world's Redeemer, after having completed the work of man's redemption, bowed His head, saying, "It is finished," and rested in the tomb on the Sabbath from the work of recreation. Never, before nor since, has the universe beheld so remarkable an instance of Sabbath observance. The holy women,
having prepared spices, held the Sabbath in such sacred reverence that they refrained from going to the sepulcher on that day to anoint His body. It is recorded of them that they "rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment," and that "upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared." Luke 23:56; 24:1.
A World-Wide Reform.
Prophecy foretells a reform message to go to all the world, just prior to the second coming of Christ, calling the attention of mankind to the down-trodden Sabbath of Jehovah. Such a message of the everlasting Gospel is now being heralded to earth's remotest bounds. Nearly one hundred thousand honest, God-fearing men and women have responded to the call, are keeping the Sabbath of Jehovah, and rejoicing in the saving power of the last Gospel message. The heralds of this glorious message of our soon-coming Lord are in every land and every clime. Soon the opening heavens will reveal One "like unto the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle," coming to reap the harvest of the earth. See Rev. 14:12, 14-16.
God grant that reader and writer, on that day, may be among those who will look up and exclaim, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."