HOW THE SABBATH WAS INSTITUTED
By George I. Butler
It Was Made for All Mankind — Christ Was the Active Agent — The Creator's Rest on That Day Fixed It for All Time
"THE Sabbath was made for man." Mark 2:27. These were Christ's words. He Himself was the agent of the Father in making all worlds. "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made." John 1:3. Certainly He was competent authority to give information concerning the origin of the Sabbath, and the object in view in the making of it. When He says it was made "for man," He means it was made for the race of men. We say, "Man is mortal." The term "man" is often used in the broadest sense, meaning mankind. That must be Christ's meaning when He says, "The Sabbath was made for man." It was made for his benefit, for his best interests, for his spiritual and eternal good. HOW BROUGHT INTO EXISTENCE
In order to learn the facts relating to the making of the Sabbath for man, we shall need to go back to the time when the Sabbath and man were brought into existence. We shall find them intimately associated from their very creation, Genesis 1. This grandest account of the creation of our world, and of the race of man, to be found anywhere, is worthy of most careful study. That God had a distinct purpose in view in dividing the period of His labor in creating our world, into six portions, constituting the six days of creation week, preparatory to His cessation from labor on the seventh day of that week, can not be questioned. He was laying the foundation of the Sabbatic institution. He was, indeed, making the Sabbath for mankind, as Christ declared. THE ACTIVE AGENT IN MAKING THE SABBATH
Christ Himself was the active agent in making the Sabbath. And so, indeed, He was the Lord, or Maker, of the Sabbath, God the Father and Christ the Son being one in all things made. Let it be noted that the last act of creative power was the making of man, and the appointing of his sustenance and work. The first part of the sixth day was allotted to the creation of the beasts of the field and creeping things. But the creation of man was evidently considered, by the Deity, as the most important act of all. "God said, Let Us [that is, God the Father and God the Son] make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Gen. 1:26, 27. The last work in the creation, on the latter part of the sixth day, was the creation of man. The next step, at the beginning of the seventh day, was the first act in making the Sabbatic institution. There can be no denial that the first event in the making of the Sabbath was God's resting upon the whole of the seventh day of the creation week. There are just three facts connected with the Sabbath institution: First, God rested upon the seventh day of creation week. No other day did or could become God's rest-day. Second, He blessed it. Third, He sanctified it, "because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Gen. 2:2, 3. The blessing and sanctifying of the day is declared to be because He had first rested upon it. "Sabbath" is a Hebrew term meaning simply "rest." Evidently the blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day must have taken place after the seventh day had passed. The language used, "because that in it He had rested"—past tense—makes this conclusion absolutely certain. FOUNDATION TO STAND FOREVER
The cessation of the Creator's work for a period of twenty-four hours was a wonderful thing, a marvelous thing. On a certain occasion, when Christ had performed a miracle on the Sabbath, the Jews sought to kill Him for breaking their traditions concerning the Sabbath. Christ said to them, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." John 5:17. God's works are seen throughout the universe. They are constant. But He rested on the seventh day of creation week, for so His word declares. He did thus because He was laying the foundation of the Sabbatic institution, which was to last during the existence of this world—yea, through eternal ages, or while mankind exists. Isa. 66:23.4
This rest of the Creator was a monumental event, and He blessed and sanctified that day as soon as His rest was completed. He blessed it. That which Jehovah blesses is blessed. The seventh day was made a better day than the other six days of the week. A higher honor was placed upon it. The blessing was not placed upon that particular twenty-four hours on which He had rested, for that day was in the past, and would never exist again. But the blessing and exaltation was for all the future seventh days, which should recur in all the weeks of future time. When men trample on and show despite to the sacred day of Jehovah's rest, they dishonor the day that the Creator honored. He sanctified the day of His rest. To sanctify is to set apart to a sacred or holy use. The Sabbath was made for mankind. To set apart that day for man, is, in short, to inform man of its sacred character, and teach him to use it differently from the other working-days. It is God's sacred day. It is emphatically a religious day, the one specific day devoted to religious duties and privileges. Man's nature requires such a day. It is an exalted memorial, set up for all time, to keep in memory God's work in creation. He ceased from His labors on that seventh day of creation week. He directs that we do the same on the return of each seventh day. In the creation of the Sabbath institution, God made the weekly divisions of time. The twenty-four hour day marks a revolution of the earth on its axis. The month is derived from the moon's phases. The year is the period occupied by the earth in making its revolution around the sun. But the week has its origin in the Sabbatic institution. No other origin can reasonably be assigned to it. Christ declares, "The Sabbath was made for man." We thus comprehend, step by step, how it was made.