Genesis 2:2, commentary and pictures

On the seventh day God finished the work of making the heavens and the earth and all their host in six literal twenty-four-hour days, with everything complete and very good and worthy of Himself. His rest was not as one weary but as well pleased and satisfied with the fruits of His wisdom and goodness, in which He was refreshed, the Father and the Son resting together after a completed work. By that rest He blessed and sanctified the seventh day alone, placing His rest and honor on that day and on no other. The Sabbath was thus instituted in Eden at the close of creation week before the Fall for Adam and Eve and all mankind, and it is the specific seventh day of the week, Saturday. It stands as His memorial identifying the true and living God as Creator and distinguishing Him from all false gods, and as His sign and perpetual covenant and great test of loyalty and obedience.

Creation Completed in Six Days

The heavens and the earth and all their host were made in six literal twenty-four-hour days about six thousand years ago, and that first week of seven literal days measured off the pattern for every succeeding week, six for labor and one for rest. God finished the work of creating the world in those six days and ended His work which He had made and rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had created and made. The seventh day was then blessed and hallowed and sanctified and set apart for man to observe as the memorial of creation, identifying the true and living God as Creator, and that sanctification placed on the seventh day has never been removed so it is still to be observed without any change. This completed work followed by rest was part of God's plan from the beginning for equal taxation of the mental and physical powers, with useful employment in physical labor such as tilling the ground and dressing and keeping the garden of Eden joined to mental exercise and rest. Being convinced of this truth calls for courage to confess it and surrender the whole heart and will to God even when keeping it brings loss of position and threat of want for self and family, for the rest declares who is the living God, placed in the bosom of the Decalogue as the fourth commandment, part of the laws instituted in Eden that God requires His people to respect by obeying every command in truth and righteousness.

On the seventh day God ended and finished the work He had made, with everything He could do done and all pronounced very good and perfect and worthy of its Author. When God finished the heavens and the earth He ended His work and rested on the seventh day from all His work, and this is God's decided Thus saith the Lord giving the very Sabbath for observance. God placed His rest and blessing on the seventh day alone, giving that day an honor that belongs to no other day, and that rest is the basis for the command in Exodus to keep the seventh day, while the first day of the week has been wrongly given the honor that belongs only to the seventh day on which God rested. After God saw everything He had made pronounced very good on the sixth day, the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished, God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work, blessing and sanctifying the seventh day because in it He had rested from all His work which He created and made. The record carries sacredness and binding claims and is God's message to all people on the face of the earth, plainly teaching the sanctity of the seventh day.

That completed work included laying the foundations of the earth, clothing the world in beauty, filling it with things useful to man, and creating all the wonders of land and sea. When God had laid the foundations of the earth and dressed the world in beauty and filled it with things useful to man and created all the wonders of land and sea, He rested on the seventh day from all His wondrous work of creation after six days of work. Man was the last crowning work, made in God's own image and personal form, male and female, blessed with dominion over the earth, which proves God has a real personality like the people He created. God made the world and all nature and all things therein in six days and rested on the seventh day, and that rest makes the seventh day an everlasting memorial of creation, made for man and given to man as a blessing, not merely as a form but as a test.

The world was made by Jehovah working through His appointed agency, One equal with Himself, Jesus Christ, who with the Father created the heavens and the earth and man, and who in infinite wisdom needed no counselor. The Lord of heaven instituted the Sabbath when Jehovah, working through His appointed agency One equal with Himself, made the world and all things in it in six days and rested on the seventh day. After creating the heavens and the earth and all things therein in six days by Jesus Christ, God rested on the seventh day and set that day apart as His own holy day in which no common work should be done. God made the world by the hand of Jesus Christ in six days and rested on the seventh day, and Christ worked with the Father in creating the earth and made the Sabbath holy, so that as a memorial of creation through Christ it also points to Christ's love and power as Creator. Jesus Christ, the equal of the Father, wrought with Him in the work of creation, in six days the world was made, and then God sanctified the seventh day and set it apart as the day of rest to stand ever as a memorial of the Creator of heaven and earth, placing obligation on men and women to keep holy the seventh day.

The setting apart of the seventh day happened when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, with the angels as joyful witnesses and the whole angelic host taking up triumph. The day on which God rested and was refreshed and which was set apart as the divine rest-day, the day of God's appointment, was the seventh day, not the first day of the week, and that setting apart happened when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, and the appointed day was then celebrated. When the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, God gave the Sabbath to the world after creating the world in six days, He rested on the seventh day, blessing it as the day of His rest, and gave it to the beings He had created, that man might ever remember that God created the world in six days and remember Him as the true and living God. The Sabbath was instituted in Eden when the foundation of the world was laid, after six days of work, while the morning stars sang together and all the host of heaven shouted for joy, and its establishment is associated with the angels' joyful witness at creation. It dates from the beginning of the world, not from later human custom or church tradition, but rests on God's authority and eternal word with the sanction of God and the angels.

That six-day creation and seventh-day rest is an established fact to be made prominent before all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples as the distinguishing feature of faith. The Lord God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, and this must not be made less prominent but must be made prominent before all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples. The Sabbath was established at creation, when God completed His work and rested, its foundation was laid when the foundations of the earth were laid, memorializing the Creator and identifying the living God who made heaven, earth, and all things. It has been a perpetual obligation for humanity and is the sign of the true God, with faithful observers continuing to witness to it through the history of the church.

Nature of Divine Rest

Genesis 2:2 means that on the seventh day God ended the work of making the heavens and the earth and all their host, finishing in six days all He could do and resting from all His work which He had made. That rest was not the rest of one weary, but of One well pleased and satisfied with the fruits of His wisdom and goodness, refreshed by what He had finished. In that rest He was refreshed, and He desires His people to rest and be refreshed in the same way. The day on which He so rested and was refreshed was set apart as the divine rest-day of God's appointment, the seventh day and not the first day of the week.

The Father and the Son rested together after finishing the work of creation, and their seventh-day rest marked a completed work. That joint rest set the pattern for Christ's death, for God planned that Christ should complete His offering of Himself as a lamb without blemish on Friday and then rest in Joseph's tomb on the Sabbath. There He rested in peace with quiet and uninterrupted rest after opposition and satanic hatred, just as the Father and the Son had rested after creation. The hour of apparent defeat was the hour of victory in the great plan laid before the foundations of the earth were laid, and His Sabbath rest in death was the sign of a finished work.

That rest did not mean stopping all labor, for since laying the foundations of the earth God has upheld and quickened creation without stopping for a single moment. He keeps the sun shining, the waters and streams flowing, the waves moving, and grain, fruit, trees, flowers and crops growing even on the Sabbath, or man would miss the fruits of the earth and faint and die. Nature continues her course and God continues His sustaining care for living beings and His purposes on that day. Because His sustaining work never ceases, the Sabbath is not useless inactivity, and its law is in harmony with relieving suffering, caring for the sick, attending to the necessities of life and meeting the needs of the needy, while He holds guilty the one who withholds such relief.

By resting God set an example of what He wants human beings to do, sanctifying the seventh day and setting it apart as holy time. This completed work followed by rest was part of His plan from the beginning for equal taxation of the mental and physical powers, with useful employment in physical labor such as tilling the ground and dressing and keeping the garden of Eden joined to mental exercise and rest. The Sabbath was made after the creation of man to meet his necessities, for man was not made to fit the Sabbath, and its object was that all mankind might be benefited. It was given so that as man looks on the earth beneath and the heaven above and beholds tangible proofs of God's infinite wisdom, remembering His mighty power and wonderful goodness in making all in six days, his heart is filled with love and reverence for his Maker, his mind is drawn to contemplate God, and he lays aside toil and care for health, refreshment, worship and holy deeds.

By that rest God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He had rested, placing His rest, blessing and honor on the seventh day alone, an honor that belongs to no other day. That rest is the basis for the command in Exodus 20 to keep the seventh day as a memorial of creation, and the first day of the week has been wrongly given the honor that belongs only to the seventh day on which God rested. The seventh day is thus the truth of the Sabbath, the day God made holy, His own holy day on which no common work should be done, given for rest and worship to honor, praise and exalt the Creator. Respect for this day distinguishes those who obey God's commandments and serve Him from those who disregard His command and choose their own times for work and rest, and the weekly count by sevens was meant to keep people mindful of the Creator and His six days of work and rest on the seventh, so that treating the day lightly is transgression. That setting apart happened when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, and the appointed day was then celebrated.

Sabbath Instituted in Eden

Genesis 2:2 shows that after finishing the work of creation God rested on the seventh day, and by that rest the Sabbath was instituted in Eden at the close of creation week. It was established before the Fall and before Israel or the Jews existed, given to Adam and Eve in Eden and through them to all their posterity and to all mankind as long as man exists. It was given at the same time the moral law was given in Eden, together with the marriage law. The seventh day was blessed and made holy because God rested then, laying the foundation for the Sabbath as a sign by which all mankind may acknowledge God as Creator of heaven and earth.

The Sabbath therefore dates from the beginning of the world, resting on God's authority and eternal word and not on later human custom or church tradition. Its foundation was laid with the sanction of God and the angels, who were joyful witnesses at creation, and its ancient origin gives it a claim to reverence and makes it sacred and binding. Its holiness comes from God's own act of setting it apart and from His example of resting after completing His work, and it was to remain distinct from ordinary days. God's rest gives the Sabbath its sacred character and enduring obligation as a memorial of His creative power.

The day so instituted is the specific seventh day of the week, Saturday, the last day of the week and the Lord's day, not Sunday or the first, second or third day, not one day in seven or any day. Sunday, the first day of the week, is not the Sabbath of the Lord, has no sanctity, and remains a common working day, while the specified seventh day alone was set apart as the divine rest-day and day of God's appointment. Observing the true memorial requires keeping that very day, just as the fourth of July is kept on its exact date, so substituting an ordinary day disregards the day God set apart. Those who keep the day He sanctified and blessed receive a blessing not found in keeping Sunday, and the Sabbath God gave is for a thousand generations which have not ended, so His requirement still stands and must be learned from Scripture itself and not from the sayings or opinions of others.

The blessing and sanctification placed on the seventh day because God rested in it from all His work of creating and making have never been removed or changed, so the day remains holy, stands on an eternal basis, and is still to be observed without any change. When God laid the foundations of the earth He laid the foundations of the Sabbath, and that rest sanctified the day and pronounced it holy as a memorial of His creative work and as an institution no man can change. There has been no change in God's mind about His rest day, for God does not change nor alter what has gone out of His lips, and there is no foundation for Sunday. The same seventh-day rest was specified when the law was proclaimed from Sinai as holy, a sign and perpetual covenant, because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed, and it was placed in the bosom of the Decalogue as the fourth commandment among the laws instituted in Eden that God requires His people to respect by obeying every command in truth and righteousness.

The Sabbath and the family were instituted together in Eden, and God set the day apart as a merciful limit to toil and an opportunity for family members to spend time in communion with Him, with nature, and with one another. Even in Paradise man needed the seventh day as a Sabbath, for one day of the seven he was to lay aside his own interests and pursuits in order to contemplate more fully the works of God and meditate upon His power and goodness. It was to remind man more vividly of God and to awaken gratitude because everything he enjoyed and possessed came from the beneficent hand of the Creator.

The law given in Eden, including the Sabbath, was later proclaimed with awful grandeur from Sinai, where God delivered Israel from Egypt notwithstanding Pharaoh's opposition so they might keep that law given in Eden and brought them to Sinai to hear its proclamation with His own voice. The opening word Remember points back to creation and shows it was not then instituted, and the fourth precept of the Decalogue is as verily binding as the other nine moral precepts. That Eden Sabbath is the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, given again to the people delivered from bondage when God stood on Mount Sinai and proclaimed His ten holy precepts, and to discard the Old Testament is to reject this Sabbath and the Sinai law. It was also testified to by the manna, with a double portion on the sixth day and none on the seventh, after Israel had been corrupted by idolatry through four hundred years of slavery in Egypt where the Sabbath was largely lost through being forced to violate it.

Memorial of the Creator

The seventh day is God's memorial of creation, blessed and hallowed and set apart for man to observe because in six days He finished making the heavens and the earth and all things therein and rested on the seventh from all His work which He had made. It identifies the true and living God as the Creator of heaven and earth, the source of being and object of worship, preserving among the nations a clear definite knowledge of Him as God above all gods. It distinguishes Him from all false gods and is a line of demarcation between him that serves God and him that serves Him not, a sign and perpetual covenant that those who keep it holy are His peculiar people whom He sanctifies. Had it always been kept there would never have been an idolater, atheist or infidel, for keeping the day wherein God rested preserves the knowledge of God and keeping what He blessed and sanctified keeps men from infidelity. The same seventh-day rest was specified when the law was proclaimed from Sinai and placed in the bosom of the Decalogue as the fourth commandment, holy and to be kept with no work done, because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh He rested and was refreshed. Being convinced of this truth calls for embracing and faithfully keeping the Lord's rest-day, the true Sabbath, with courage to confess it and surrender heart and will to God even at loss of position and threat of want, and obedience brings great blessing.

As a memorial of creation through Christ it also points to Christ's love and power as Creator, for after creating by Jesus Christ God rested, and Christ worked with the Father in creating the earth and made the Sabbath holy. The day was given to Adam as a memorial of creation and a sign of God's power and love. Jesus Christ ordained the Sabbath, sanctified it and blessed it as a memorial of His creative works, and on that Sabbath He comes with converting power to touch the human heart and draw people to give themselves to Him.

It was given so that as man looks upon the earth beneath and the heavens above and reflects that God made all these in six days and rested upon the seventh, he beholds tangible proofs of God's infinite wisdom. Then his heart is filled with love and reverence for his Maker and his mind is drawn away from earthly things to contemplate God and His mighty power. The Sabbath was made after the creation of man to meet his necessities and that all mankind might be benefited, for man was not made to fit the Sabbath. Every look at the world reminds of the mighty hand of God that called it into existence, who gives the sunshine that makes the earth bring forth, the fruitful showers, the sun and stars, human reason and daily watchcare, so justice requires respecting the day on which He set His blessing. Above all on that day he should study God's messages in nature and Christ's parables spoken in fields and groves, leaving the occupation of daily life to devote those sacred hours to healthful rest, to worship and to holy deeds, not to useless inactivity.

That rest gives the reason for gathering together for worship on the seventh day of the week, to rest from labor and to look upon heaven and earth to honor, worship, praise and exalt the Creator.

Sign Covenant and Test

Genesis 2:2 shows God finished His work of creation and rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made, and when the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished everything He could do was done and all the works of His hands were pronounced good. That rest instituted the Sabbath in Eden, given to Adam and Eve and through them to all their posterity and all mankind at the same time the moral law was given, to be observed through all generations. By blessing the seventh day and sanctifying it because in it He had rested, He made it the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord, with special honor that belongs to that day alone. As God rested and was refreshed, He desires His people to rest and be refreshed in the same way. The six days of making heaven and earth and the seventh-day rest are the reason for keeping the Sabbath holy throughout generations as a perpetual covenant.

That Sabbath is God's sign, seal and perpetual covenant between Him and His people, His pledge throughout their generations that He is the Lord who sanctifies them. It is His continual sign of His love and mercy and of their obedience, and a constant reminder that they are included in His covenant of grace. It is His pledge that He has chosen and set them apart as His peculiar people, holding them in covenant relation to fulfil His purposes for them. By observance of it all mankind may signify acknowledgment of God as Creator of the heavens and the earth. Keeping it holy in obedience to the law of God marks His chosen people and bears testimony to the nations of the earth that they are His chosen people, designating the people of God from all peoples and nations and distinguishing the obedient from the disloyal and the just from the unjust.

Observance of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is God's great test and the sign of loyalty to Him, not merely as a form but as a test and blessing made for man and given to man as an everlasting memorial of creation. God plainly teaches by this the sanctity of the seventh day, because He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it for the reason that in it He had rested from all His work which He had created and made. God's law, including rest on the seventh day, was created when the Lord made heaven and the earth and requires perfect obedience from Adam and no less from every one of the human family, for true holiness is obedience to God, not transgression, and those who love God will cheerfully yield obedience to all His commandments. That seventh day set apart in Eden as holy time is the seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible that God bids His people keep, and keeping it is one of the principal marks of the obedient, peculiar people God is gathering from all nations in this age. It gives the day a significance and sanctity that belong to the seventh day, so that moving or transferring the memorial to another day destroys its significance and sanctity, and misinterpreting this purpose and object is the special work of Satan.

This requires men either to observe the day He sanctified and set apart or to repudiate His Word by accepting a day He has not sanctified and has not blessed. Loyalty to it will be tested, with a man-made spurious sabbath set up against it requiring firm refusal even at the cost of life. In the day when every case is decided these charges of the Word of God will be brought forth and men will be judged by them, and those who have not searched the Scriptures to know what God commanded and have observed a day He has not blessed will not be excused for ignorance. Its claims have not been abrogated or lessened but remain binding as part of God's law, with His command forbidding labor on it. God made His Sabbath for a round world controlled by the sun that rules the day, so when the seventh day comes it is the time in all countries and lands to observe it, and in lands with months of no sunset and months of no sunrise the period is calculated by records kept, with God accepting obedience according to circumstances of time rather than exacting scrutiny of minutes, for obedience in keeping it is the test to honor and glorify God.

Keeping the day He sanctified and blessed brings great blessing not found in keeping another day, with assurance of His love and kindness and mercy, and its observance sanctifies the whole person and gives evidence of genuine conversion. The day is God's sign between Him and His people and evidence of His kindness, mercy and love, a token and line of demarcation distinguishing His obedient covenant people who serve Him from all false religionists and those who serve Him not, with pledged blessing for obedience. As He rested satisfied with His work, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, and man's observance of that day of rest again causes joy among the angels of heaven. Keeping it holy brings His blessing, and its observance is a sign of obedience and loyalty continuing through generations until the redeemed observe the Sabbath in the city of God, for keeping it is the way to have entrance into the city of God. The seventh day He blessed is definite and can be known, not uncertain, and is for a thousand generations which have not ended, so His requirement still stands and must be learned from Scripture itself and not from the sayings or opinions of others.

Those who disregard it will learn that God's commands are sacred and that transgression brings punishment, for treating the day lightly is transgression whose reward is death. Using the day for worldly pursuits and love of gain desecrates the Sabbath, and every such transgression will bring its punishment. The verse gives a commandment not only to be believed but to be obeyed to put by labor on that day just as He Himself rested after six days of work laying the foundations of the earth and dressing the world in beauty and filling it with things useful to man and creating all the wonders of land and sea, and God will not pass over any transgression of it now more lightly than when He pronounced judgment against Adam. Human disobedience does not change the day's sanctity or lessen God's command to keep it holy.

Sabbath Through the Ages

Adam kept the Sabbath in Eden before the fall, when he and Eve observed with the angels the day God blessed and made holy, and he continued to keep it after sin and after expulsion from Paradise. All the loyal children of Adam honored that rest day as Jehovah's express command, sacred and immutable, while Cain and his descendants did not respect it but chose their own time for labor and for rest regardless of the command. That disregard was open rebellion against God's law carrying sure penalty, and from that early time there were two distinct classes upon the earth, an obedient class who kept God's commandments and revered His Sabbath and rebels who broke it. The Sabbath thus established before sin entered the world continued through later generations as the creation Sabbath of the fourth commandment with sacred and continuing obligation.

The same Eden Sabbath was kept by all the patriarchs from Abel to Noah to Abraham to Jacob, for it was made for all mankind before there were any Jews and is as old as the human race. After four hundred years of slavery and corruption by idolatry in Egypt, where Israel had lost knowledge of God's law and was forced to violate it, God called them out that they might obey His laws and keep His Sabbath, proclaiming it anew in awful grandeur and terrible majesty at deliverance and repeating it on Mount Sinai as a requirement of the law. Christ who made the worlds and made the seventh day sacred is Lord of the Sabbath, and He freed it from human traditions and rubbish so its holiness is not limited to the Jewish dispensation. John kept that seventh-day Lord's day when he preached among the people and observed it still on Patmos, where prophetic things were revealed to him on it.

It was kept sacredly by all Christians in the first centuries as the holy of the Lord and ancient Sabbath memorial of creation, the only precept unmistakably pointing all mankind to the true and living God as Creator of heaven and earth and distinguishing Him from all false gods. It was still kept even after Sunday was made a festival and called Lord's day, until councils pressed it down while exalting the pagan festival of Sunday in its place. That change of the consecrated seventh day into Sunday was made by Christians on human authority, supplanting God's institution from creation, and those who changed the divine law knew what they were doing and deliberately set themselves above God. Sunday observance is a different institution turned into a sacred day by the Roman power, and by resting on Sunday instead of the seventh day the earth is caused to do homage to the power that originated Sunday, so that nearly all Christendom has turned from the holy commandment.

The creation Sabbath established in Eden before the fall was not removed after the fall or after the cross and was not intended only for the Jews, but was given to Adam and Eve for all their descendants with obligation continuing in the Christian age and to the end of time as long as heaven and earth endure. His rest is the reason the seventh day was set apart for sacred use, made known to humanity before Sinai as the Creator's rest day belonging to the enduring law and sign of His power. It will continue to be observed by the redeemed and the angels in honor of the Creator forever, kept in the restored Eden and future world by all the earth's inhabitants.

The foundation laid when the foundations of the earth were laid enshrines the true Sabbath in the fourth commandment in the center of the ten as the memorial of the living God, whose observance would have preserved the world from atheism, infidelity and idolatry, and after its trampling by changing the seventh to the first day a message just prior to the great day of God warns men to return to allegiance to the law. After 1844 searching the Scriptures revealed on solid evidence that the seventh day must be kept, that Sunday is a spurious sabbath born of papal authority which God did not set apart or ordain, and that making laws with penalties to compel it enforces human enactments against Him who made the world. Keeping that seventh day sanctified and blessed by the Lord is the reason for being Seventh-day Adventists, to be kept ever afterward in commemoration of creation testifying through eternal ages that God is the only living true God. The facts concerning this Sabbath rest must be made known as present truth in all its fulness as part of the third angel's message, with Scripture evidences presented everywhere and men and women educated to go forth and speak intelligently about it, and its observance is the hinge of the whole final battle not to be given up for Sunday.

Christ's Rest in Redemption

The Father and the Son rested together on the seventh day after finishing the work of creation, and that rest marked a completed work. That seventh-day rest set the pattern for Christ's death, for God planned that He should complete His offering of Himself as a lamb without blemish on Friday and then rest in the tomb on the Sabbath. He rested in Joseph's tomb on the Sabbath in peace with quiet and uninterrupted rest after opposition and satanic hatred, just as the Father and the Son had rested after creation. The timing of His death was designed in God's plan, and His Sabbath rest in death was the sign of a finished work of redemption. The hour of apparent defeat was the hour of victory in the great plan laid before the foundations of the earth were laid. That creation Sabbath is linked to the Sabbath when Jesus rested in the tomb after completing redemption, and it remains a day of rest and rejoicing when the saved will worship God and the Lamb.

God's rest from creation was on the seventh day, a specific day of the week. This is contrasted with Christ's resurrection, which did not occur on a corresponding numbered day of the week.

Keeping the Sabbath Holy

God gave six days for labor and all secular business and reserved the seventh day for Himself as His own holy time, sanctified and blessed and set apart from all other days as a memorial of creation for spiritual duties and service devoted to Him. In it no servile or common or unnecessary work and no own work or own pleasure is to be done by oneself or children or work animals, for to appropriate it for one's own business is to withhold from God what He claims and rob Him. Even sacred building work must give way to its observance, and being convinced of this truth calls for courage to confess it and surrender heart and will to God even when keeping it brings loss of position and threat of want for self and family. Obedience to it distinguishes those who love and fear God from the disobedient and unholy, marking those who serve Him.

It is kept by putting work away before the setting of the sun when it begins, ending business and secular work before sunset Friday with all preparation finished the day before so worship can be attended without hurry and worry. That preparation includes personal tasks such as polishing boots and shaving and blacking boots and mending clothes, and cooking and baking, with children's clothing laid out beforehand on Friday so all can dress and come to the table quietly. On the morning itself there is prompt early rising for worship and service, dressing quietly, laying aside secular cares, with quietness and reverence and without boisterous noise, contention, levity, loud-toned commands, confusion, rushing about, or hasty speeches. The day is not for lying abed or useless idleness or strolling off to please oneself, nor is it to be made a day of pleasure and excursion, but for worship, prayer, Bible reading, religious conversation, religious instruction, and sacred rest.

God's rest was not useless inactivity but the pattern for leaving the occupation of daily life and devoting its sacred hours to healthful rest, worship, prayerful thought, and holy deeds. Work that earns a living or seeks worldly pleasure or profit is to cease and no secular work is to be done, following the example He gave in blessing and hallowing the day because He rested on it. Yet His rest does not mean stopping all labor, for He continues upholding and quickening creation at every moment, keeping sun shining and waters flowing and crops growing even on the Sabbath or man would faint and die, and the Sabbath law is therefore in harmony with relieving suffering, caring for the sick, attending to necessities of life, healing the sick, and doing good which honors the Sabbath. God holds guilty the one who withholds relief on the Sabbath, and He answers prayer on that day with what is best, while physicians must plan accordingly and travel only to relieve real suffering.

Parents should give time to children on the Sabbath and teach them its reason, taking them outdoors in pleasant weather to walk in fields and forests and among lofty trees, shrubs, flowers, opening buds, spires of grass to show that God is the Maker of all these things in six days and rested the seventh. So viewed in nature the Creator is called to mind and thought is carried back to creation, and the day becomes a delight and a blessing and not drudgery, with sacred significance and most profitable instruction. Children may be happy and walk outdoors on the Sabbath, since Christ led His disciples out by the lakeside on the Sabbath and taught them, His Sabbath sermons not always preached within walls, and nature on that day especially helps parents teach God's word and praise. Sacred observance in words and actions shows love and honor for Him as Creator, reveals spiritual relation to Him, and speaks to neighbors of God.

Keeping it holy is more than legal observance, for accepting the Sabbath of creation which God blessed and sanctified puts the true sign upon a person and stamps him with the mark of God's government and loyalty. Obeying its claims sanctifies the whole person, soul, body, and spirit, through obedience to truth and to all His commandments from love to God, reverencing the Sabbath keeping the first three commandments toward God and the last six duties toward fellow man as the covenant and golden clasp uniting man to God and man to fellow man. Coming out from the world and being separated by it gives evidence of genuine conversion and true allegiance to God's government, making calling and election sure so as never to fall and receiving abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. That faith must be shown by practical righteousness in all transactions of life, with words and deeds a savor of life, self abased and Christ exalted and light shining in good works, since faith without works is dead, and keeping that day honors God and confesses truth on Christ's side while failing to keep it testifies to falsehood.

The seventh day belongs to God's law and covenant which He will not break nor alter, blessed and sanctified for human observance as a memorial of creation, with justice and stewardship requiring respecting the day and giving God what belongs to Him as Creator. God gave man six days to work for himself and labor for temporal good but reserved the seventh for Himself to be specially honored, glorified, and obeyed, calling it by His name the Sabbath of the Lord for holy communion and to contemplate His power and love in creation and redemption, given both for man's good and God's glory lest without relaxation health and life be endangered. To steal even a little of this reserved time for self, to keep another day instead of the exact seventh or treat one day in seven as enough or rest on the first day instead, is trampling the sanctified day, presenting Him a common day He has not blessed, robbery of God, bearing false witness and transgression of the law no more excused than stealing or murder or adultery when light has come. Willfully disregarding it robs the transgressor of rich blessing and brings a curse by separating from God the source of good, while in poverty Sunday and other days may be used for labor while the seventh alone is rest, requiring living by faith.

Sunday Counterfeit and Proclamation

Sunday, the first day of the week, is not the Sabbath of the Lord, for God rested on the seventh day alone and placed His rest, blessing, sanctification and honor on that day only, and that honor belongs to no other day. The seventh day so blessed and sanctified is the Sabbath specified in the fourth commandment, set apart for human worship, and keeping the first day does not keep the day God sanctified but follows human authority and the canons of Rome. God did not rest on the first day and did not bless or sanctify it, so it remains a common unsanctified working day with no sanctity, and neither age, reverence, law, nor the sayings or opinions of others can make it holy or change His requirement which stands for a thousand generations. Those who keep the day He sanctified and blessed receive a blessing not found in keeping Sunday and have entrance into the city of God, while giving the first day the honor that belongs only to the seventh day on which God rested is wrong and insults the Creator.

That spurious first-day sabbath began as vile heathen sun worship, was cherished by Rome, and was instituted by papal and man-of-sin authority thinking to change times and laws and exalting human enactments above the divine. Changing the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day is Satan's attempt carried on through the Protestant churches to change Jehovah's law and to make void the law binding on every member of the human family. God Himself ordained and founded the seventh-day rest in Eden as the rest day bearing the mark of His government, and observing it acknowledges subjection to His kingdom, while the substituted rest is a spurious sabbath bearing the mark of the man of sin and the kingdom of rebellion, and observing it acknowledges subjection to that rebellious kingdom. Rulers will take that spurious sabbath under the care and protection of law and place divine honors upon it to restore lost ascendancy to the man of sin, exalting the false sabbath while the true creation Sabbath is trodden underfoot and cast aside.

To set aside the Eden institution laid when the foundation of the earth was laid, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, and to uphold the first day instead, makes the commandment to remember and keep holy of none effect. Rejecting the memorial God gave at creation for a counterfeit Sabbath tramples God's instituted Sabbath, transgresses His holy law, robs God with an offering He hates, and worships an idol with no sacred authority and no word of divine sanction. After light has come about the true Sabbath its observance in place of the seventh day is idolatry in plain contradiction to the law of God, and the world's going after a false Sabbath comes from the enemy taking possession of human minds. As with Adam's transgression and Cain's offering of his own choice and Nadab and Abihu's common fire and Nebuchadnezzar's image exalted by Satan, stealing homage due to God for a man-made tradition makes worship null and void.

Keeping the seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible set apart in Eden as holy time is one of the principal marks of the obedient peculiar people God is gathering from all nations, and loyalty to it will be tested by a man-made spurious sabbath set up against it requiring firm refusal even at the cost of life. When a spurious sabbath is accepted and exalted and divine honors and sacred garments are placed upon it and the commandments of men are pronounced holy, persecution will break forth upon those who observe the Sabbath God gave in Eden as a memorial of His creative power. That Sabbath question is a test that will come to the whole world and to all of God's people, bringing oppressive persecution, and to compel men to respect the man-made first day while trampling the seventh-day Sabbath underfoot arrogates power to set aside God's holy day. God compels none and holds not accountable those who died without light, yet disregard of this Sabbath commandment is traceable to contempt for law and order, violence and crime, and the wretchedness of multitudes, and keeping the Sabbath of creation again causes joy among the angels of heaven.

The record that on the seventh day God ended His work of making heaven and earth and all their host and rested from all His work, with blessing and sanctifying setting the day apart, is the Word of the Lord given for observance of the seventh day, a plain Thus saith the Lord to be gathered as proof from Scripture and read before congregations. When others are determined to enact Sunday laws there is to be no controversy but only the reading of this Word, so that the burden of responsibility rests on those who reject it and their controversy is with God. This six-day work and seventh-day rest is an established fact to be made prominent before all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples, requiring God's people to observe the seventh-day Sabbath so distinctly that the world cannot fail to recognize them, and the story of creation and God's rest and blessing is part of the last warning gospel message to be told in cities by little companies of workers going out two and two. God's Word is true and just in declaring the seventh day His day, so its sanctity and the importance of keeping it stand and call for acceptance and full conversion, with the Holy Spirit convicting Bible readers directly and with the message defended against contempt in sanitariums and schools.

God made heaven and earth in six literal days and on the seventh day rested and was refreshed, and by that rest blessed and sanctified the seventh day and pronounced it holy as His certain memorial of creation and heaven-given sign of obedience, not uncertain and not changed by day-line theories. He made His Sabbath for a round world controlled by the sun that rules the day, so when the seventh day comes in that round world it is the time in all countries and lands to observe the Sabbath. In lands with months of no sunset and months of no sunrise the period of time is calculated by records kept, and God accepts the obedience of every creature according to the circumstances of time in the sun-rising and sun-setting world rather than exacting scrutiny of precise minutes and hours. Obedience in keeping it is the test to honor and glorify God throughout generations forever as a perpetual covenant, while transgression meets God as a consuming fire, and blessing is pronounced on all who keep it holy even unto the city of God.

God gave man six days to work to obtain a livelihood while reserving the seventh day to Himself for His service, and this division of time is the pattern for the law of almsgiving in which He gives man the nine-tenths and just as sacredly reserves the tenth to Himself. The Eden home that Adam and Eve lost by transgressing God's law is regained through overcoming as Christ overcame by perfect obedience to His Father's commandments, by which obedience we are brought back to our Eden home and by bending footsteps heavenward point others there.