Our Bible Reading by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 9, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 31.

Our Bible Reading

By Editor

The Sabbath

(Quotations are from the American Revised Version)

1. What is the origin of the institution of the Sabbath?

“And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on THE SEVENTH DAY God finished His work which He had made; and He RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY from all His work which He had made.” Gen. 2: 1, 2.

2. In what three steps did God institute the Sabbath?

(a) “He RESTED on the SEVENTH DAY from all His work.”

(b) “God BLESSED the SEVENTH DAY.”

NOTE.—Thus specifically the record declares the institution of the Sabbath. We hear much nowadays of man’s reasoning out the necessity of the Sabbath in man’s needs, but the Lord did not leave it to the imagination or reason of man to find out that he needed a Sabbath. He who created man knew man’s need, and in the very beginning established the Sabbath by resting, blessing the day, and hallowing it, or setting it apart. Resting upon the day made it God’s rest-day; blessing the day placed within it potencies of good for man; hallowing it set it apart to the service of God, separating it from the ordinary days of the week. When God would thus mark the Sabbath in the beginning, it would be highly reasonable to suppose that if any change should take place or any new day should be instituted we would have the same clear, explicit, public record of the act.

3. Why did God thus make the Sabbath?

“BECAUSE that in it HE RESTED from all His work which God had created and made.” Gen. 2: 3.

“He hath made His WONDERFUL WORKS to be REMEMBERED.” Ps. 111: 4.

4. In the great law of the Decalogue how did God guard the Sabbath?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto Jehovah thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for IN SIX DAYS JEHOVAH MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, the sea, and all that in them is, and RESTED THE SEVENTH DAY: wherefore Jehovah BLESSED the SABBATH DAY, and HALLOWED IT.” Ex. 20: 8-11.

5. What shows that the Sabbath was at this time no new institution?

“REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY.” “For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth . . . and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Cf. Gen. 2: 2, 3.

6. What is there in the Sabbath law which shows that it is not man who hallows the Sabbath?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to KEEP it HOLY.”

NOTE.—God has already hallowed the Sabbath. He asks that man shall keep holy that which He has made holy.

7. Of whom, then, did the Sabbath become a sign to God’s children?

“Hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a SIGN between Me and you, that ye may know that I AM JEHOVAH YOUR GOD.” Eze. 20: 20.

8. Of what is the Sabbath a sign to the truly converted man?

“Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a SIGN between Me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah that SANCTIFIETH them.” Eze. 20: 12.

9. For whom was the Sabbath made?

“The SABBATH was made for MAN.” Mark 2: 27.

10. What do the Scriptures say of that law of which the Sabbath precept is a part?

“The works of His hands are truth and justice; ALL HIS PRECEPTS ARE SURE. They are ESTABLISHED FOREVER AND EVER; they are done in truth and uprightness.” Ps. 111: 7, 8.

“It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fail.” Luke 16: 17.

NOTE.—Rotherham renders the last text: “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than that of the law one little point should fail.”

This little reading is but a very small part of the testimony which might be given on the great subject of the Sabbath, but it proves this: First, that it was instituted in the very beginning when man was created, and therefore was made not for any particular race or nation of mankind, but for the whole race; secondly, that it was instituted by three specific acts or steps on the part of the Creator; thirdly, that it is emphasized by God’s holy and universal Decalogue, being placed right in the very center of that great document; and fourthly, our Lord Jesus Christ places His emphatic endorsement upon the law, and declares with the psalmist for its everlasting, unchanging continuance.