Jesus and Disciples Plucking Grain on the SabbathBible World
2:27Mark 2:27
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
The Sabbath was made to bless and restore humanity with rest and relief, not to oppress with burdens that deny human need, and He said this to defend His hungry disciples for rubbing grain in their hands and eating on that day. It was instituted in Eden after creation before there was a Jew, blessed and sanctified as a lasting memorial of creation for all mankind. It belongs to Christ because He made the world and made man and set it apart, and as its Lord He stripped away human traditions that had turned blessing into bondage to restore its true holy keeping. Works of necessity to sustain life and works of mercy to relieve suffering are therefore in harmony with it, while ordinary labor for livelihood and pleasure must cease. Its claim remains unchanged as the seventh day named in the fourth commandment, to be kept around the whole round world until the end of time and in the new earth.
Words and Setting
The saying was given as a defense when the disciples were charged with doing what was not lawful because, passing hungry through a grain field on the Sabbath, they plucked heads, rubbed them in their hands, and ate the kernels. The accusers had been watching with impatient, critical spying for something to bring against Him, and He repelled their charge and established the innocence of His disciples in the deed. Their rubbing and eating was in harmony with the Sabbath commandment, so they stood guiltless.
As David when in need was guiltless in violating even the holiness of the sanctuary by eating the showbread set apart to holy use and sharing it with hungry followers, so the disciples were much more excusable and right to satisfy hunger by plucking grain on the Sabbath. What was right for him in his excessive hunger made their simple act lawful for sustaining bodily strength to be used in God's service. God's law already permitted a hungry person passing through a field to eat grain or fruit from a neighbor's field, so the disciples' eating accorded with that humane permission and the Sabbath law was not meant to overturn it.
The service of God comes first and the object of God's work in this world is the redemption of man, so what is necessary to be done on the Sabbath to accomplish that work is in accord with the Sabbath law. When fatigue and hunger attend that work it is right and lawful to satisfy human want even on the Sabbath day. As the priests performed greater labor on the Sabbath than on other days yet were blameless because their work was in God's service and pointed to the redeeming power of Christ in harmony with the object of the Sabbath, so the disciples doing the work of Christ were engaged in God's service. Sabbath work that serves God, such as temple service, is therefore distinct from ordinary business.
Christ, greater than the temple and Lord also of the Sabbath and above all question and above all law, acquits His disciples by appeal to the very statutes they were accused of violating. He casts over them with unique dignity the shield of His own prerogatives as God in the flesh in whom divinity and humanity were united. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, with all things delivered by the Father and with life in Himself and authority to execute judgment as Son of man. His divine nature was not transformed into human nature, yet His authority as Lord of the Sabbath confirms His judgment that the disciples were guiltless.
Origin in Creation
The Sabbath was instituted in Eden after God had made the world and created man upon the earth, before the fall and before there was a Jew, at the beginning of earth's history, so it was made for all mankind and for humanity and not only for the Jewish people or for Israel. It was set apart as holy and given as a memorial of creation. After working six days God rested on the seventh day, being refreshed, and blessed and sanctified and hallowed the day of His rest, setting apart the day on which He rested from creation as holy for man to keep. He established it after creating man to meet human needs, as a day of rest from labor following His own example after six days of work, and as time to reflect on the created world, to remember that God made it and all things in it in six days and rested on the seventh, and to grow in love and reverence for the Creator in response to the evidence of His wisdom.
It belongs to God's law whose principles of the ten commandments existed before man's creation and governed angels and were suited to holy beings, and it was made known to Adam and Eve. Nothing was taken from that law by Adam's sin and fall and its principles were not changed, though additional precepts to meet man in his fallen state were later given to address humanity's fallen condition. Its origin in creation and the Creator's rest and blessing make it a lasting gift and institution and memorial of creation and of God's great and wonderful works for humanity. It was kept by Adam and the patriarchs and later entrusted to Israel to preserve God's law.
Purpose for Humanity
The Sabbath was made to do humanity good, to be a blessing and gift and joy that gives rest and peace, not to be a grievous burden or oppressive institution or denial of human need that interferes with the needs of being with pain and discomfort. It was made after the creation of humanity to meet human needs and be a blessing, not to make people serve a burdensome institution, for it is a gift for people rather than a burden imposed for its own sake. Hunger and fatigue do not make it wrong to obtain food to sustain bodily strength for God's service, so satisfying human want even on that day is right and lawful, as shown when excessive hunger left David guiltless in eating the holy shewbread and sharing it with his hungry followers, making the disciples much more excusable in plucking and eating grain. Because work required on that day can lead people to treat unnecessary work as necessary and lose the sense of its sacredness and make the commandment ineffective, its observance calls for reform, yet its humane purpose does not make it subject to human convenience, but requires arranging temporal affairs in obedience to God's righteous standard and preserving its sanctity.
It was established to meet human needs for healthful rest, worship, and holy deeds, with six days given for work and the seventh reserved for relief from toil and care and anxiety to protect health and life, for spiritual strength and special blessing and for God's glory. People need this break from work, care, and anxiety, for without rest health and life are endangered, while the reserved day honors God and respects His authority and is to be welcomed like the coming of a dear friend around the family altar in complete harmony of human will with the Creator's will. Keeping it in that way requires strict regard for God's law and shunning even the smallest sin even at inconvenience, loss, or privation, with all needful preparation on Friday of clothing, shoes, baths, and food so the least work is done, with plain wholesome food and only two meals eaten with relish, freeing all including preparers to attend worship.
Its purpose is to remind humanity of the Creator and keep the living Creator in remembrance, turning the mind from secular labor and things of earth to contemplate God's goodness and glory and wisdom and mighty power as seen in earth beneath and heavens above, and to grow in love and reverence and thanksgiving and delight. It was established after the creation of man to meet human need as a day of rest from labor and time to reflect on the created world, to remember that God made it in six days and rested on the seventh, and to respond to the evidence of His wisdom with love and reverence. Keeping it holy does not require staying indoors or spending nearly the whole day confined in lengthy sermons and tedious prayers, for such use misses and misuses its purpose, especially when business distracts the mind. Believers should instead gather to speak about God and consider the truths of Scripture and pray without excess or tediousness, and spend part of the day outdoors in nature.
Had humanity always kept the day God blessed and sanctified, drawing the mind away to God in a special sense, there would never have been an infidel in the world. All institutions God established are for the benefit of mankind, including the law of ten commandments of which the Sabbath forms a part, given as a blessing for human good always to preserve life alive, to be kept with gladness and singing and thanksgiving and praise, so that all who keep the Sabbath from polluting it will be brought to God's holy mountain and made joyful in His house of prayer. The Sabbath is a sign between God and His people identifying them as worshipers of the living God, Creator of heaven and earth, remaining a sign as long as God has a people on earth to serve Him, and a test and everlasting memorial that God made the world and all things in six days and rested on the seventh.
Christ Maker and Lord
Because the Sabbath was made for man it is the Lord's day and belongs to Christ, since Christ made all things and when He made the world and made man He made the Sabbath and set it apart as a memorial of creation. It remains a sacred gift and obligation, for Christ did not abolish it by dying on the cross, and the fourth commandment remained binding forty years after His death and continues to claim the human family as long as heaven and earth remain. As Lord of the Sabbath He removed the rubbish of human tradition piled on the Sabbath of the fourth commandment to make its true holy keeping plain.
The Sabbath points to Him as both Creator and Sanctifier, declaring that He who created all things in heaven and earth and by whom all things hold together is head of the church and by His power reconciles humanity to God. It is a sign of His power to make people holy and is given to all whom Christ makes holy, to all who through Christ become part of the Israel of God.
Christ is its Lord who stated its blessing plainly and showed no respect to strict priestly views about Sabbath observance. He proved He was from God by works of mercy relieving suffering of every kind and degree, yet kept the Sabbath according to God's law. He did not abolish the law and did not break the Sabbath, nor did His followers break it, for He kept His Father's commandments and lived as a living representative of the law with no violation found in Him. When He and His disciples were accused after rubbing and eating grain, He said they were guiltless because their actions were in harmony with the Sabbath commandment.
He came to reveal God by freeing the Sabbath from human traditions and rubbish under which it had been buried and placing it on its eternal basis. He put His divine sanction on the seventh day, cutting through added requirements and human inventions and removing them to make its true holy keeping plain. Through His precepts and example His disciples constantly gained new discoveries of truth, and He presented the kingdom of heaven and of earth as united in harmonious action. The Sabbath rests on its original basis as God's gift, not on human rules, and replacing it with Sunday does not make the days interchangeable.
Its loving object of securing rest, peace, and joy had been lost when Jewish teachers covered its significance with man-made traditions, added their own commandments and pronounced them binding, and wrested Scripture with foolish interpretations. What God made a blessing they made a curse and a yoke of bondage, turning a day of rest and joy into a day of rigorous exactions, oppressive customs, and frivolous restrictions, so that even the healed man's carrying his bed was treated as a crime.
The rulers nevertheless condemned as a Sabbath-breaker the one who made the Sabbath, showing the folly of human judgment against its Maker and a spiritual blindness as if they had put out their own eyes. Though He proved His mission by mercy they refused to believe because it went against what they wished to be true.
Right Sabbath Keeping
The Sabbath law was made to bless all who obey it, not to oppress them or to prevent the meeting of human needs. Hunger and fatigue do not make it wrong to obtain food to sustain bodily strength for God's service, and the necessities of life may be attended to. Christ stated this blessing plainly and gave no respect to strict priestly views, proving His mission from God by works of mercy that relieved suffering of every kind and degree.
Caring for the sick, relieving suffering and pain, helping the needy, supplying the wants of the poor, saving souls, and other acts of benevolence and mercy are always in order and in harmony with the Sabbath as a day for mercy. God does not require preventable suffering to be left unrelieved and does not want any creature to suffer an hour's pain that can be relieved on the Sabbath or on any other day. To neglect one who needs such help is not guiltless. A physician's care for the sick is therefore no violation of the Sabbath.
God's work of sustaining creation and granting blessings never ceases but is even greater on the Sabbath, and in the same way man has work to do on that day. The Sabbath is not a time of useless inactivity, and people should not stop doing good. Christ's healing honored the law and its intent. His Sabbath miracles met the needs of suffering people and showed that relieving human suffering is fitting work for the day, not works done merely to display power.
Work that serves God, such as temple service, is distinct from ordinary business. Ordinary work for livelihood or worldly pleasure, profit, writing, labor, and pleasure-seeking such as ball playing and swimming must cease. Regularly spending the day in such ordinary writing or labor harms spiritual life and fails to honor God, and unnecessary pleasure-seeking amounts to neglect of the day sanctified by God.
Because the Sabbath was made for man, works of necessity and mercy do not violate it. When mornings are cool or weather is cold, providing hot water or hot gruel and warming food already cooked when needed are lawful. All other labor, especially cooking, must be finished on Friday.
Keeping it holy as God's holy day given for joy requires strict regard for God's law and shunning even the smallest sin. It requires turning away from doing one's own pleasure, ways, and words on God's holy day and calling the Sabbath a delight. It is to be welcomed like the coming of a dear friend around the family altar in complete harmony of human will with the Creator's will. All needful preparation is to be made on Friday of clothing, shoes, baths, and food so the least work is done on the Sabbath. Food is to be plain and wholesome, with only two meals eaten with relish, freeing all including those who prepare food to attend worship. Keeping it holy brings blessing, while willfully trampling it forfeits blessing.
Keeping it holy does not require staying indoors or spending nearly the whole day confined in lengthy sermons and tedious prayers. Such a use misuses the day and frustrates its purpose of turning the mind from secular labor to contemplate God's goodness and glory. Believers should gather for meaningful discussion of God and Scripture and prayer without excess, tedium, or uninteresting length. Part of the day should be spent outdoors in nature, with worldly business and thoughts set aside.
Its humane purpose does not make it subject to human convenience. People must arrange their temporal affairs in obedience to God's righteous standard and preserve its sanctity as God's holy day keeping the living Creator in remembrance. Because work required on the Sabbath can put people at risk of treating unnecessary work as necessary, losing the sense of the day's sacredness and making the commandment ineffective, Sabbath observance calls for reform.
Lasting Obligation Worldwide
The Sabbath is the seventh day named in the fourth commandment, the Sabbath the Lord Jehovah blessed and sanctified, and its sacred obligation remains unchanged in the bosom of the Decalogue just as written by the finger of God. It was sanctified and blessed and given to mankind for respect and observance, instituted before there was a Jew as a memorial of creation for humanity and not only for the Jewish people. It was given to humanity at creation to be respected and observed until the end of time, to be observed until Christ comes and still kept in the new earth. Christ made the Sabbath and did not abolish it by dying on the cross, the fourth commandment remained binding forty years after His death and continues to claim the human family as long as heaven and earth remain.
It is God's enduring commandment and gift, not a human rule that rulers may replace or set aside, and human beings are to obey God's Sabbath rather than be compelled to observe a humanly appointed day. Replacing it with Sunday does not make the days interchangeable, for Sunday is a human-instituted substitute and false, spurious Sabbath exalted above God's day. Keeping a day of human invention rather than God's appointed day matters in view of the judgment, for the Sabbath rests on its original basis as God's gift and not on human rules. Moving or transferring this memorial destroys its significance and sanctity, and misinterpreting its purpose and object is Satan's special work. Ever since its institution in Eden as a test and an everlasting memorial that God made the world and all things in it in six days and rested on the seventh day, Satan has made a determined effort to destroy this memorial and to institute a spurious sabbath in its place, so that the memorial of God's great and wonderful works is lost from the mind and worldwide apostasy against God's law is brought about.
Leading men and women to disregard the fourth commandment places them on Satan's side of the controversy, because whoever keeps the whole law yet offends in one point is guilty of all. To exalt a false sabbath above that Sabbath is to be out of harmony with the law of righteousness that will try every work and thought, to trample the sign God gave between Him and His people that He is their sanctifier, and to stand answerable before the Lord who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all therein, who proclaims Himself a jealous God. It is the Lord's Sabbath and a sign of the true God, and its long neglect does not cancel its continuing claim. Knowingly breaking the holy command against labor on the seventh day is a grave offense and transgression of God's law. It cannot be dismissed because most people keep another day or because Sabbath observance seems to affect no one else, and rejecting the Sabbath when its truth is understood is transgression.
Under the Mosaic law such an offender could be put to death, requiring the offender's death. The final penalty for violating God's law is the second death, the full and final penalty, and the unrepentant transgressor will not enter heaven but will suffer it. The Sabbath is God's holy day on which He claims one day in seven as His own and forbids unnecessary work, set apart after creation as a day for people to stop ordinary work and worship Him after the example of God's own rest after six days of creating. Those who understand the fourth commandment are to obey it rather than set it aside for convenience, turning away from doing their own pleasure, their own ways, and speaking their own words on God's holy day and calling the Sabbath a delight. Keeping it holy brings the blessing of the Lord, while willfully trampling it forfeits blessing.
The Sabbath was made for a round world and for the whole round world, made for the needs of people in God's created world in honor of His creation of the world in six literal days. Obedience is therefore required in perfect consistency with the Lord's created world and its different conditions across the earth. The time to observe it in all countries and lands is when the seventh day comes in that round world controlled by the sun that rules the day, its observance following the seventh day as marked by the sun. Where sunrise or sunset does not occur for months, the Sabbath period is determined from records kept, and the Lord accepts all obedience according to the circumstances of time in the sun-rising and sun-setting world.
The Sabbath was made to bless and restore humanity with rest and relief, not to oppress with burdens that deny human need, and He said this to defend His hungry disciples for rubbing grain in their hands and eating on that day.
It was instituted in Eden after creation before there was a Jew, blessed and sanctified as a lasting memorial of creation for all mankind.
It belongs to Christ because He made the world and made man and set it apart, and as its Lord He stripped away human traditions that had turned blessing into bondage to restore its true holy keeping.
Works of necessity to sustain life and works of mercy to relieve suffering are therefore in harmony with it, while ordinary labor for livelihood and pleasure must cease.
Its claim remains unchanged as the seventh day named in the fourth commandment, to be kept around the whole round world until the end of time and in the new earth.
Words and Setting
The saying was given as a defense when the disciples were charged with doing what was not lawful because, passing hungry through a grain field on the Sabbath, they plucked heads, rubbed them in their hands, and ate the kernels. The accusers had been watching with impatient, critical spying for something to bring against Him, and He repelled their charge and established the innocence of His disciples in the deed. Their rubbing and eating was in harmony with the Sabbath commandment, so they stood guiltless.
As David when in need was guiltless in violating even the holiness of the sanctuary by eating the showbread set apart to holy use and sharing it with hungry followers, so the disciples were much more excusable and right to satisfy hunger by plucking grain on the Sabbath. What was right for him in his excessive hunger made their simple act lawful for sustaining bodily strength to be used in God's service. God's law already permitted a hungry person passing through a field to eat grain or fruit from a neighbor's field, so the disciples' eating accorded with that humane permission and the Sabbath law was not meant to overturn it.
The service of God comes first and the object of God's work in this world is the redemption of man, so what is necessary to be done on the Sabbath to accomplish that work is in accord with the Sabbath law. When fatigue and hunger attend that work it is right and lawful to satisfy human want even on the Sabbath day. As the priests performed greater labor on the Sabbath than on other days yet were blameless because their work was in God's service and pointed to the redeeming power of Christ in harmony with the object of the Sabbath, so the disciples doing the work of Christ were engaged in God's service. Sabbath work that serves God, such as temple service, is therefore distinct from ordinary business.
Christ, greater than the temple and Lord also of the Sabbath and above all question and above all law, acquits His disciples by appeal to the very statutes they were accused of violating. He casts over them with unique dignity the shield of His own prerogatives as God in the flesh in whom divinity and humanity were united. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, with all things delivered by the Father and with life in Himself and authority to execute judgment as Son of man. His divine nature was not transformed into human nature, yet His authority as Lord of the Sabbath confirms His judgment that the disciples were guiltless.
Origin in Creation
The Sabbath was instituted in Eden after God had made the world and created man upon the earth, before the fall and before there was a Jew, at the beginning of earth's history, so it was made for all mankind and for humanity and not only for the Jewish people or for Israel. It was set apart as holy and given as a memorial of creation. After working six days God rested on the seventh day, being refreshed, and blessed and sanctified and hallowed the day of His rest, setting apart the day on which He rested from creation as holy for man to keep. He established it after creating man to meet human needs, as a day of rest from labor following His own example after six days of work, and as time to reflect on the created world, to remember that God made it and all things in it in six days and rested on the seventh, and to grow in love and reverence for the Creator in response to the evidence of His wisdom.
It belongs to God's law whose principles of the ten commandments existed before man's creation and governed angels and were suited to holy beings, and it was made known to Adam and Eve. Nothing was taken from that law by Adam's sin and fall and its principles were not changed, though additional precepts to meet man in his fallen state were later given to address humanity's fallen condition. Its origin in creation and the Creator's rest and blessing make it a lasting gift and institution and memorial of creation and of God's great and wonderful works for humanity. It was kept by Adam and the patriarchs and later entrusted to Israel to preserve God's law.
Purpose for Humanity
The Sabbath was made to do humanity good, to be a blessing and gift and joy that gives rest and peace, not to be a grievous burden or oppressive institution or denial of human need that interferes with the needs of being with pain and discomfort. It was made after the creation of humanity to meet human needs and be a blessing, not to make people serve a burdensome institution, for it is a gift for people rather than a burden imposed for its own sake. Hunger and fatigue do not make it wrong to obtain food to sustain bodily strength for God's service, so satisfying human want even on that day is right and lawful, as shown when excessive hunger left David guiltless in eating the holy shewbread and sharing it with his hungry followers, making the disciples much more excusable in plucking and eating grain. Because work required on that day can lead people to treat unnecessary work as necessary and lose the sense of its sacredness and make the commandment ineffective, its observance calls for reform, yet its humane purpose does not make it subject to human convenience, but requires arranging temporal affairs in obedience to God's righteous standard and preserving its sanctity.
It was established to meet human needs for healthful rest, worship, and holy deeds, with six days given for work and the seventh reserved for relief from toil and care and anxiety to protect health and life, for spiritual strength and special blessing and for God's glory. People need this break from work, care, and anxiety, for without rest health and life are endangered, while the reserved day honors God and respects His authority and is to be welcomed like the coming of a dear friend around the family altar in complete harmony of human will with the Creator's will. Keeping it in that way requires strict regard for God's law and shunning even the smallest sin even at inconvenience, loss, or privation, with all needful preparation on Friday of clothing, shoes, baths, and food so the least work is done, with plain wholesome food and only two meals eaten with relish, freeing all including preparers to attend worship.
Its purpose is to remind humanity of the Creator and keep the living Creator in remembrance, turning the mind from secular labor and things of earth to contemplate God's goodness and glory and wisdom and mighty power as seen in earth beneath and heavens above, and to grow in love and reverence and thanksgiving and delight. It was established after the creation of man to meet human need as a day of rest from labor and time to reflect on the created world, to remember that God made it in six days and rested on the seventh, and to respond to the evidence of His wisdom with love and reverence. Keeping it holy does not require staying indoors or spending nearly the whole day confined in lengthy sermons and tedious prayers, for such use misses and misuses its purpose, especially when business distracts the mind. Believers should instead gather to speak about God and consider the truths of Scripture and pray without excess or tediousness, and spend part of the day outdoors in nature.
Had humanity always kept the day God blessed and sanctified, drawing the mind away to God in a special sense, there would never have been an infidel in the world. All institutions God established are for the benefit of mankind, including the law of ten commandments of which the Sabbath forms a part, given as a blessing for human good always to preserve life alive, to be kept with gladness and singing and thanksgiving and praise, so that all who keep the Sabbath from polluting it will be brought to God's holy mountain and made joyful in His house of prayer. The Sabbath is a sign between God and His people identifying them as worshipers of the living God, Creator of heaven and earth, remaining a sign as long as God has a people on earth to serve Him, and a test and everlasting memorial that God made the world and all things in six days and rested on the seventh.
Christ Maker and Lord
Because the Sabbath was made for man it is the Lord's day and belongs to Christ, since Christ made all things and when He made the world and made man He made the Sabbath and set it apart as a memorial of creation. It remains a sacred gift and obligation, for Christ did not abolish it by dying on the cross, and the fourth commandment remained binding forty years after His death and continues to claim the human family as long as heaven and earth remain. As Lord of the Sabbath He removed the rubbish of human tradition piled on the Sabbath of the fourth commandment to make its true holy keeping plain.
The Sabbath points to Him as both Creator and Sanctifier, declaring that He who created all things in heaven and earth and by whom all things hold together is head of the church and by His power reconciles humanity to God. It is a sign of His power to make people holy and is given to all whom Christ makes holy, to all who through Christ become part of the Israel of God.
Christ is its Lord who stated its blessing plainly and showed no respect to strict priestly views about Sabbath observance. He proved He was from God by works of mercy relieving suffering of every kind and degree, yet kept the Sabbath according to God's law. He did not abolish the law and did not break the Sabbath, nor did His followers break it, for He kept His Father's commandments and lived as a living representative of the law with no violation found in Him. When He and His disciples were accused after rubbing and eating grain, He said they were guiltless because their actions were in harmony with the Sabbath commandment.
He came to reveal God by freeing the Sabbath from human traditions and rubbish under which it had been buried and placing it on its eternal basis. He put His divine sanction on the seventh day, cutting through added requirements and human inventions and removing them to make its true holy keeping plain. Through His precepts and example His disciples constantly gained new discoveries of truth, and He presented the kingdom of heaven and of earth as united in harmonious action. The Sabbath rests on its original basis as God's gift, not on human rules, and replacing it with Sunday does not make the days interchangeable.
Its loving object of securing rest, peace, and joy had been lost when Jewish teachers covered its significance with man-made traditions, added their own commandments and pronounced them binding, and wrested Scripture with foolish interpretations. What God made a blessing they made a curse and a yoke of bondage, turning a day of rest and joy into a day of rigorous exactions, oppressive customs, and frivolous restrictions, so that even the healed man's carrying his bed was treated as a crime.
The rulers nevertheless condemned as a Sabbath-breaker the one who made the Sabbath, showing the folly of human judgment against its Maker and a spiritual blindness as if they had put out their own eyes. Though He proved His mission by mercy they refused to believe because it went against what they wished to be true.
Right Sabbath Keeping
The Sabbath law was made to bless all who obey it, not to oppress them or to prevent the meeting of human needs. Hunger and fatigue do not make it wrong to obtain food to sustain bodily strength for God's service, and the necessities of life may be attended to. Christ stated this blessing plainly and gave no respect to strict priestly views, proving His mission from God by works of mercy that relieved suffering of every kind and degree.
Caring for the sick, relieving suffering and pain, helping the needy, supplying the wants of the poor, saving souls, and other acts of benevolence and mercy are always in order and in harmony with the Sabbath as a day for mercy. God does not require preventable suffering to be left unrelieved and does not want any creature to suffer an hour's pain that can be relieved on the Sabbath or on any other day. To neglect one who needs such help is not guiltless. A physician's care for the sick is therefore no violation of the Sabbath.
God's work of sustaining creation and granting blessings never ceases but is even greater on the Sabbath, and in the same way man has work to do on that day. The Sabbath is not a time of useless inactivity, and people should not stop doing good. Christ's healing honored the law and its intent. His Sabbath miracles met the needs of suffering people and showed that relieving human suffering is fitting work for the day, not works done merely to display power.
Work that serves God, such as temple service, is distinct from ordinary business. Ordinary work for livelihood or worldly pleasure, profit, writing, labor, and pleasure-seeking such as ball playing and swimming must cease. Regularly spending the day in such ordinary writing or labor harms spiritual life and fails to honor God, and unnecessary pleasure-seeking amounts to neglect of the day sanctified by God.
Because the Sabbath was made for man, works of necessity and mercy do not violate it. When mornings are cool or weather is cold, providing hot water or hot gruel and warming food already cooked when needed are lawful. All other labor, especially cooking, must be finished on Friday.
Keeping it holy as God's holy day given for joy requires strict regard for God's law and shunning even the smallest sin. It requires turning away from doing one's own pleasure, ways, and words on God's holy day and calling the Sabbath a delight. It is to be welcomed like the coming of a dear friend around the family altar in complete harmony of human will with the Creator's will. All needful preparation is to be made on Friday of clothing, shoes, baths, and food so the least work is done on the Sabbath. Food is to be plain and wholesome, with only two meals eaten with relish, freeing all including those who prepare food to attend worship. Keeping it holy brings blessing, while willfully trampling it forfeits blessing.
Keeping it holy does not require staying indoors or spending nearly the whole day confined in lengthy sermons and tedious prayers. Such a use misuses the day and frustrates its purpose of turning the mind from secular labor to contemplate God's goodness and glory. Believers should gather for meaningful discussion of God and Scripture and prayer without excess, tedium, or uninteresting length. Part of the day should be spent outdoors in nature, with worldly business and thoughts set aside.
Its humane purpose does not make it subject to human convenience. People must arrange their temporal affairs in obedience to God's righteous standard and preserve its sanctity as God's holy day keeping the living Creator in remembrance. Because work required on the Sabbath can put people at risk of treating unnecessary work as necessary, losing the sense of the day's sacredness and making the commandment ineffective, Sabbath observance calls for reform.
Lasting Obligation Worldwide
The Sabbath is the seventh day named in the fourth commandment, the Sabbath the Lord Jehovah blessed and sanctified, and its sacred obligation remains unchanged in the bosom of the Decalogue just as written by the finger of God. It was sanctified and blessed and given to mankind for respect and observance, instituted before there was a Jew as a memorial of creation for humanity and not only for the Jewish people. It was given to humanity at creation to be respected and observed until the end of time, to be observed until Christ comes and still kept in the new earth. Christ made the Sabbath and did not abolish it by dying on the cross, the fourth commandment remained binding forty years after His death and continues to claim the human family as long as heaven and earth remain.
It is God's enduring commandment and gift, not a human rule that rulers may replace or set aside, and human beings are to obey God's Sabbath rather than be compelled to observe a humanly appointed day. Replacing it with Sunday does not make the days interchangeable, for Sunday is a human-instituted substitute and false, spurious Sabbath exalted above God's day. Keeping a day of human invention rather than God's appointed day matters in view of the judgment, for the Sabbath rests on its original basis as God's gift and not on human rules. Moving or transferring this memorial destroys its significance and sanctity, and misinterpreting its purpose and object is Satan's special work. Ever since its institution in Eden as a test and an everlasting memorial that God made the world and all things in it in six days and rested on the seventh day, Satan has made a determined effort to destroy this memorial and to institute a spurious sabbath in its place, so that the memorial of God's great and wonderful works is lost from the mind and worldwide apostasy against God's law is brought about.
Leading men and women to disregard the fourth commandment places them on Satan's side of the controversy, because whoever keeps the whole law yet offends in one point is guilty of all. To exalt a false sabbath above that Sabbath is to be out of harmony with the law of righteousness that will try every work and thought, to trample the sign God gave between Him and His people that He is their sanctifier, and to stand answerable before the Lord who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all therein, who proclaims Himself a jealous God. It is the Lord's Sabbath and a sign of the true God, and its long neglect does not cancel its continuing claim. Knowingly breaking the holy command against labor on the seventh day is a grave offense and transgression of God's law. It cannot be dismissed because most people keep another day or because Sabbath observance seems to affect no one else, and rejecting the Sabbath when its truth is understood is transgression.
Under the Mosaic law such an offender could be put to death, requiring the offender's death. The final penalty for violating God's law is the second death, the full and final penalty, and the unrepentant transgressor will not enter heaven but will suffer it. The Sabbath is God's holy day on which He claims one day in seven as His own and forbids unnecessary work, set apart after creation as a day for people to stop ordinary work and worship Him after the example of God's own rest after six days of creating. Those who understand the fourth commandment are to obey it rather than set it aside for convenience, turning away from doing their own pleasure, their own ways, and speaking their own words on God's holy day and calling the Sabbath a delight. Keeping it holy brings the blessing of the Lord, while willfully trampling it forfeits blessing.
The Sabbath was made for a round world and for the whole round world, made for the needs of people in God's created world in honor of His creation of the world in six literal days. Obedience is therefore required in perfect consistency with the Lord's created world and its different conditions across the earth. The time to observe it in all countries and lands is when the seventh day comes in that round world controlled by the sun that rules the day, its observance following the seventh day as marked by the sun. Where sunrise or sunset does not occur for months, the Sabbath period is determined from records kept, and the Lord accepts all obedience according to the circumstances of time in the sun-rising and sun-setting world.