FACTS OF FAITH By Christian Edwardson
Chapter 7
Christ and the Sabbath
(70) THOSE who oppose
the Bible Sabbath center their attack on three points, claiming (1) that the
Sabbath was not instituted at creation, and hence is not an original law for
the whole human family; (2) that the Sabbath commandment is not a moral command
as the other nine, but was a part of the Jewish ceremonial law; (3) that Christ
or the apostles abolished the Sabbath, and gradually substituted the first day
of the week in its place. We shall now test these propositions one by one.
THE
SABBATH AN EDENIC INSTITUTION
God the Father has always worked through His Son, both in
creation and in redemption. (Genesis 1:26; Hebrews 1:1, 2, 8-10; John 3:16.)
Gen 1:26 And
God said, Let us 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.
Heb 1:1 God,
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets,
Heb 1:2 Hath
in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds
Heb 1:8 But
unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of
righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
Heb 1:9 Thou
hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Heb 1:10 And,
Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the
heavens are the works of thine hands
Joh 3:16 For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Therefore it was Christ who created the world
is six days and rested on the seventh day. "All things were made by Him;
and without Him was not any thing made that was made....He was in the world,
and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." John 1:3, 10.
(Compare Colossians 1:14-18.)
Col 1:14 In
whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Col 1:15 Who
is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Col 1:16 For
by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or
principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17 And
he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Col 1:18 And
he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
It is a great comfort to a poor, weak sinner
to know that our Saviour is "the Mighty God" (Isaiah 9:6) who spoke
the worlds into existence (Psalm 33:6, 9), and who is "upholding all
things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). His word has creative
power, and if we receive it by faith, it will change our hearts and lives, and
give us victory over sin. (John 1:12; Genesis 1:3; 2 Corinthians 4:5, 6;
Matthew 5:16; Isaiah 60:1.)
Joh 1:12 But
as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name
Gen 1:3 And
God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
2Co 4:5 For we
preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants
for Jesus' sake.
2Co 4:6 For
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
Mat 5:16 Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.
Isa 60:1
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon
thee.
As the crowning act on the sixth day, the Lord made man in
His own image, and then He "rested on the seventh day" from a
"finished" work. (Genesis 1:27, 31; 2:1-3.)
Gen 1:27 So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and
female created he them.
Gen 1:31 And
God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the
evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Gen 2:1 Thus
the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Gen 2:2 And on
the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the
seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Gen 2:3 And
God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had
rested from all his work which God created and made
Thus the
seventh days stood as a memorial and reminder of a finished work in Christ. And when man lost the image of God
through sin, Christ came to restore in man that divine image by a new creation.
(Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24; 2:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17.)
Col 3:10 And
have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him
that created him
Eph 4:24 And
that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness.
Eph 2:10 For
we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them.
2Co 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed
away; behold, all things are become new.
On the
cross He cried out: "It is finished." John 19:30.
Joh 19:30 When
Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed
his head, and gave up the ghost.
This was on Friday evening, and He rested the
Sabbath day from a finished work of re-creation, just as He had originally
rested on it from a finished work of creation. (Luke 23:52-56.)
Luk 23:52 This
man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.
Luk 23:53 And
he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was
hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
Luk 23:54 And
that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.
Luk 23:55 And
the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld
the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
Luk 23:56 And
they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day
according to the commandment.
Thus the
seventh-day Sabbath stands in the New Testament as a memorial of a
"finished" work in Christ, just as it did in the Old Testament. The
work of Christ, both in creation and redemption, was for the whole human race,
not for the Jews only.
(71) Christ says: "The
Sabbath was made for man." Mark
2:27.
Mar 2:27 And
he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath
And
therefore it was made when man was created. "So God created man in His own
image,,,,And the evening and the morning were the sixth day....And He rested on
the seventh day....And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it."
Genesis 1:27, 31; 2:2, 3. This was two thousand years before Abraham (the first
Jew) was born, therefore the Sabbath could not be Jewish. But, as Christ says,
it was "made for man," and the
term "man" is not confined to any one race, but embraces all mankind.
We are not alone in believing that the Sabbath was instituted
at creation, as the following quotations from leading men in different
denominations show:
F. C. Cook, M. A., Cannon of Exeter, says:
"'And God blessed the seventh day.' The natural
interpretation of these words is that the blessing of the Sabbath was
immediately consequent on the first creation of man, for whom the Sabbath was
made (Mark 2:27). It has been urged from the silence concerning its observance
by the patriarchs, that no Sabbatic ordinance was really given until the
promulgation of the law, and that this passage in Genesis is not historical but
anticipatory. There are several objections, which seem fatal to this
theory." - "The Holy Bible, with an
Explanatory and Critical Commentary by Bishops and Clergy of the Anglican
Church," Vol. I, p. 37. New York: 1875.
Thomas Hamilton, D. D., in his Five-Hundred-Dollar Prize
Essay, meets this objection to the historicity of Genesis in the following
forceful way:
(72)
"Palcy...says: 'The words [of Genesis 2:1-3] do not assert that God then blessed and sanctified the seventh
day.'...But such an interpretation really amounts to an interpolation. It
alters the passage....Once admit such a mode of dealing with Scripture, or of
dealing with any other book, and we may bid farewell to certainty regarding any
author's meaning....No history could stand if subjected to such treatment. The
plainest and most unvarnished statements might be so twisted and distorted as
to bear a meaning the exact contrary to that intended by its author....
"It is not only said God 'rested,' but He 'blessed,' the
day and 'sanctified' it....If all this do [sic.] not amount to the institution
of a weekly Sabbath for man in all time coming,...we fail to see what
intelligible meaning or purpose is to be extracted from the narrative." - "Our Rest Day." Pp. 10-15, New
edition. Edinburgh: 1888.
Dr. Martin Luther says on this text:
"God blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it to Himself.
It is moreover to be remarked that God did this to no other creature. God did
not sanctify to Himself the heaven nor the earth nor any other creature. But
God did sanctify to Himself the seventh day. This was especially designed of
God, to cause us to understand that the 'seventh day' is to be especially
devoted to divine worship....
"It follows therefore from this passage, that if Adam
had stood in his innocence and had not fallen he would yet have observed the
'seventh day' as sanctified, holy and sacred....Nay, even after the fall he
held the 'seventh day' sacred; that is, he taught on that day his own family.
This is testified by the offerings made by his two sons, Cain and Abel. The
Sabbath therefore has, from the beginning of the world, been set apart for the
worship of God....For all these things are implied and signified in the
expression 'sanctified.'
"Although therefore man lost the knowledge of God by
sin, yet God willed that this command concerning the sanctifying of the Sabbath
should remain. He willed that on the seventh day both the word should be
preached, and also those other parts of His worship performed which He Himself
instituted." - "Commentary on
Genesis," Vol. I, pp. 138-140, translation by Professor J. N.
Lenker, D. D., Minneapolis: 1904; and also "Copious Explanation of
Genesis," Vol. I, pp. 62, 63. Christiania: 1863.
(73) The following
words from a distinguished Hebrew scholar are worthy of note here:
"'Finished.' To finish a work, in Hebrew conception, is
to cease from it, to have done with it. On the
seventh day. The seventh day is distinguished from all the preceding
days by being itself the subject of the narrative. In the absence of any work
on this day, the Eternal is occupied with the day itself, and does four things
in reference to it. First, He ceased
from His work which He had made. Secondly, He
rested....Thirdly, He blessed the
seventh day....In the fourth place, He
hallowed it or set it apart to a holy rest....
"The present record is a sufficient proof that the original
institution was never forgotten by man....
"Incidental traces of the keeping of the Sabbath are found in
the record of the Deluge, when the sacred writer has occasion to notice short
intervals of time. The measurement of time by weeks then appears (Genesis 8:10,
12). The same division of time again comes up in the history of Jacob (Genesis
29:27, 28). This unit of measure is traceable to nothing but the institution of
the seventh-day rest." - "A Critical
and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Genesis with a New Translation,"
J. G. Murphy, D. D., T. C. D. (Professor of Hebrew, Belfast), pp. 70, 71.
Andover: 1866.
Dr. J. P. Lange says: "The expression, He hallowed it,
must be for man, for all men who were to be on the earth.
"If we had no other passage than this of Genesis 2:3
there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept for the universal
observance of a Sabbath, or the seventh day, to be devoted to God, as holy
time, by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were especially
prepared. The first man must have known it. The words 'He hallowed it,' can
have no meaning otherwise. They would be a blank unless in reference to some
who were required to keep it holy." - Commentary
on the Holy Scriptures, John Peter Lange, D. D., Vol. I, pp. 196, 197.
New York: 1884.
(74) Dr. M. W. Jacobus,
Professor George Bush, and C. O. Rosenius, and others forcefully emphasize the
same facts. The preceding statements taken from leading men in different
denominations need no comment. They state the plain facts of the Bible
narrative in their most natural setting.
Another remarkable thing in this connection is the fact that
the heathen nations for centuries after the days of Noah retained the
seventh-day Sabbath. The learned Dr. John Kitto says:
"We find from time immemorial the knowledge of a week of
seven days among all nations - Egyptians, Arabians, Indians - in a word, all
the nations of the East, have in all ages made use of this week of seven days,
for which it is difficult to account without admitting that this knowledge was
derived from the common ancestors of the human race." - Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature, Vol. II,
art. "Sabbath," p. 655.
Professor A. H. Sayce declares:
"The Sabbath-rest was a Babylonian, as well as a Hebrew,
institution. Its origin went back to pre-Semitic days....In the cuneiform
tablets the Sabattu is described as 'a
day of rest for the soul,'...it was derived by the Assyrian scribes from two
Sumerian or pre-Semitic words, sa and bat, which meant respectively 'heart' and
'ceasing,.'...The rest enjoined on the Sabbath was thus as complete as it was
among the Jews." - "Higher Criticism
and the Monuments," pp. 74, 75.
During their servitude in Egypt, the majority of the Jews
evidently worked on the Sabbath, just as the rank and file of the Jews do
today, but the knowledge of it was retained then as now, and it was kept holy
by a faithful few. Besides other evidences, we see this from the fact that,
thirty days after they left Egypt, and more than two weeks before the law was given on Sinai, God tested the people on Sabbath-keeping (Exodus
16:4, 27, 28), which He certainly could not have done, if the Sabbath had not
been known among them till the law was given on Sinai. Then, too, God speaks of
it as a familiar institution. (Compare Exodus 16:28 with Genesis 26:5 and 2:3.)
Exo 16:28 And
the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my
laws?
Gen 26:5
Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my
statutes, and my laws.
Gen 2:3 And
God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had
rested from all his work which God created and made.
The
fourth commandment itself points back to creation and commands us to "remember the Sabbath day" on which
He rested at the close of creation week. (Exodus 20:8, 11.) No human logic can
therefore explain away the historical facts that the Sabbath was set apart for
man at creation.
THE
SABBATH MORAL OR TYPICAL?
(75) Some claim that
the Sabbath commandment does not enforce the observance of the seventh day of the week, but only the
seventh part of our time, the particular day being left to our choice. But
nothing could be more contradictory to the plain wording of the commandment. If
God's commands and promises are to be so construed as to mean the very opposite
of what they state, then we may bid farewell to all certainty and comfort
derived from the Scripture. God commands us to keep, not a seventh, but the
seventh day, on which He rested, the day He blessed and sanctified.
(Exodus 20:10, 11.) The Sabbath rests on a historical event that cannot be
changed to another day, any more than our birthday can be changed.
In regard to the claim that the Sabbath commandment is not
moral as the other nine, but ceremonial, it needs only to be said that there is
no statement to that effect in the whole Bible, and it would involve its
advocates in the most serious difficulty. All through the Bible a clear
distinction is maintained between the two laws, the moral and the ceremonial.
God spoke the Ten Commandments to the people directly, "and He added no
more" (Deuteronomy 5:22); He engraved them on two tables of stone (Exodus 32:16; Deuteronomy 9:10); and had them
laid "in the ark" (Deuteronomy 10:5; 1 Kings 8:9).
But the ceremonial law of ordinances was
spoken to the people by Moses, was written by him "in a book," and
laid beside the ark. (Exodus 21:1; 24:3, 4, 7; Deuteronomy 31:24-26. --
The English and American Revised Versions, the Jewish, Danish, Norwegian, and
Swedish versions render Deuteronomy 31:26, by
the side of the ark." Others render it at the side of the ark," and beside
the ark.") Now we respectfully ask: Would any one claim that God
did not understand the difference between moral and ceremonial laws, and hence
wrote a ceremonial command into the very bosom of His moral law, the Decalogue?
Such an accusation of God would be preposterous, and yet, this is what the
above claim necessarily implies! We must therefore conclude that all the Ten
Commandments are moral, which practically all the leading religious
denominations teach in their confessions of faith.
DID
CHRIST CHANGE THE SABBATH?
(76) Christ came to
lift people out of the degradation of sin, not to leave them in sin. He
received the name "JESUS: for He shall save His people from their
sins." Matthew 1:21. And "sin is the transgression of the law."
1 John 3:4. The law here referred to is the moral law of the Ten Commandments.
(Romans 7:7, 12; James 2:10, 11.) Christ firmly refuted the idea that He was to
abolish any part of God's law. He says: "Think not that I am come to
destroy the law……. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law." Matthew 5:17, 18.
Christ was to "magnify the law, and make it honorable." Isaiah 42:21.
And this He did, for He freed it from all the traditions and additions of men.
(Matthew 15:3, 6, 9, 13.) The Pharisees had burdened down the Sabbath with
hundreds of man-made regulations. All these Jesus swept away, and restored it
to its original purpose, that it should be a blessing, a sacred "delight"
to God's people. (Isaiah 58:13.) But He never made any change in the day. He
kept it Himself, and taught His followers to do the same. (Luke 4:16, 31;
Matthew 24:20; 12:11, 12.)
SATAN'S
HATRED OF THE SABBATH
The Lord gave His Sabbath to man as a weekly reminder of
Christ's sanctifying and keeping power, because man needed this reminder.
(Ezekiel 20:12.) But Satan has always tried to blot out all memory of the true
God from the earth, and to draw man's allegiance and worship to himself through
idolatry. (1 Corinthians 10:20.) He has therefore made relentless efforts to
pull down God's Sabbatic flag, and to trample it in the mire. We have seen that
for a long time after the descendants of Noah had dispersed over the earth
retained the knowledge of the Sabbath. This was true even after they went into
idolatry. Egypt was the first among the heathen nations to turn from honoring
the seventh-day Sabbath, and to lead other nations to regard the first day as
the weekly holiday of their sun-god. Truels Lund gives a detailed story of this
change, tracing it back to 1400 B.C. We quote the following from his extensive
work:
(77) "According to
the Assyrian-Babylonian conception, the particular stress lay necessarily upon
the number seven....The whole week pointed prominently towards the seventh day,
the feast day, the rest day, in this day it collected, in this it also consummated.
'Sabbath' is derived from both 'rest' and 'seven.' With the Egyptians it was
the reverse....For them on the contrary the sun-god was the beginning and
origin of all things. The day of the Sun, Sunday, therefore, became necessarily
for them the feast day....The holiday was transferred from the last to the
first day of the week." - "Daglige
Liv I Norden," Vol. XIII, pp. 54, 55.
"The seven planetary names of the days were at the close
of the second century A.D., prevailing everywhere in the Roman Empire....This
astrology originated in Egypt, where Alexandria now so loudly proclaimed it to
all....'The day of the Sun' was the Lord's day, the chiefest and first of the
week. The evil and fatal Saturn's day was the last of the week, on which none
could celebrate a feast....
"From Rome, through the Roman legionaires, the seven planetary
days pressed farther north to Gaul, Britain, and Germany. Everywhere...people
yielded respectfully to the astrology in its popular form: the doctrine
concerning the Sun-day with its fortune, the Mood-day with its alternative
play, and the filthy, unlucky Saturday....As a concentrated troop the planetary
appellations and names of heathen deities stood on guard, when later
Christianity reached Europe, and attempted to displace them....
(78) "For the
Christians the lost was cast by the reception of the...day of the sun.
Not till they themselves had later gained power were they awakened to
doubt....And the heathen names of the days seemed at variance with Christian
faith." - Id., pp. 91, 92, 110.
The London Anglican rector, T. H. Morer, says of Sunday:
"It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of this
day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old Egyptians
worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial of
their veneration, dedicated this day to him. And we find by the influence of
their example, other nations, and among
them the Jews themselves, doing him homage." - "Six Dialogues on the Lord's Day," p. 22. London:
1701.
Thus we see how Satan, through heathenism, tried to
stigmatize the Sabbath of Jehovah and to elevate Sunday as a joyful day. The
Egyptians worshiped their sun-god under the name of Osiris, and the Apis bull
(the golden calf made at Horeb) was a representation of him. This worship was
conducted by turning to the rising sun. (Ezekiel 8:16.) Therefore the Lord
ordered the tabernacle always to be pitched with the front toward the east, so
that the people, worshiping before it, had to turn their backs upon sun
worship. (Numbers 3:23. See also Exodus 26:22; 36:27, 32 in American Revised
Version, and Jeremiah 32:33.) Talbot W. Chambers, D. D., says that sun worship
was "the oldest, the most widespread, and the most enduring of all forms
of idolatry known to man."
"The universality of this form of idolatry is something
remarkable. It seems to have prevailed everywhere. The chief object of worship
among the Syrians was Baal - the sun....In Egypt the sun was the kernel of the
state religion." - "The Old Testament
Student," pp. 193, 194. January, 1886.
(79) In Babylon the
sun-god was called Bel, in Phoenicia and Palestine, Baal, and Sun-day was
"the wild solar holiday of all pagan times." - "North British Review," Vol. XVIII,
p. 409.
Rev. W. H. Poole says:
"The first and principal idol was the sun - the glorious
luminary of the day....Baal was the great sun-god of all the East. With our
Israelitish ancestors the sun-god came west. His day is our Sunday. Every time
you name our Sabbath-day Sunday you are reminded of our great, great, great
grandfathers' principal deity." - "Anglo-Israel
in Nine Lectures," pp. 389, 390. Detroit, Mich.: 1889.
The Encyclopedia Britannica
says of the worship of Baal:
"As the sun-god he is conceived as the male principle of
life and reproduction in nature, and thus in some forms of his worship is the
patron of the grossest sensuality, and even of systematic prostitution. An
example of this is found in the worship of Baal-Peor (Numbers 25)." - Vol.
III, (New American ed., Werner Co.), art. "Baal," p. 175.
This sun worship was the greatest of all abominations to God
(Ezekiel 8:13-16), and the warnings to Israel have great significance to us
today: "I will visit upon her the days of
Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with
her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat Me,
saith the Lord." Hosea 2:13. (See also 1 Corinthians 10:11.)
1Co 10:11 Now
all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
When we remember that it was Christ who took Israel out of
Egypt (Hebrews 11:26, 27; 1 Corinthians 10:4),
Heb 11:26
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt:
for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
Heb 11:27 By
faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as
seeing him who is invisible.
1Co 10:1
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
1Co 10:2 And
were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
1Co 10:3 And
did all eat the same spiritual meat;
1Co 10:4 And
did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock
that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
and who
labored so earnestly to turn them away from sun worship and Sunday-keeping, and
that it was Satan who always led them into this idolatry, we ask with all
candor: Could any one suppose that Christ, in the New Testament, has exchanged
places with Satan, so that He is now leading people to keep Sunday, while the
devil is leading them to keep the Sabbath of Jehovah? Every thoughtful person
must say with the Apostle Paul: "God forbid." Rom. 3:31.
(((GOD
FORBID!!!!!!!))))
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