THE SABBATH
The following report is an outline of one of
a series of lectures being delivered at Convention Hall, 179 Wooster Street, by
the editor of this paper. The lectures which have been already extemporised
have treated of “The Beginning;” of the “Elohim;” of “the Earth in its
pre-Adamic state;” “the Spirit of God;” the antecedence of spirit to matter;
the “Heavens and the Earth;” the creation-days not geological periods; the
non-original creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the Fourth Day; the
creation of Man in the “image and likeness” of the Elohim; Man’s original
dominion; the Four States revealed in the Bible; &c. &c.
The lecture now presented to the reader, is
upon that theologico-political “vexed question,” the Sabbath. The lecturer
considers that if the doctrine of the Sabbath as it is exhibited in the Holy
Scriptures were understood, there would be an end to all Sabbatarian disputes,
that Sabbath-desecration denunciations would be withheld, and much valuable
time within and without the halls of legislation would be saved, both in
America and Britain. He states that in its origin the Sabbath was not a
religious institution. It was Paradisaic, but not religious. He hoped the
audience would not misunderstand him in this. He thought they would not when
they understood the sense in which he used the word “religious.” Religion
is a Latin noun converted into an English one by the addition of the letter “n.”
Religio may be derived from the verb “ligo,” to close up by
binding, as vulnera veste ligare; and the particle re, implying
that the thing bound up had once been united, but being divided needed to be made
one again. This might not be the pagan import of the noun, but it was
unquestionably the scriptural. The paradisaic was a state of union
between God and man, which union sin, “the transgression of law,” divided.
Hence, religion is that remedy or system of things, divinely appointed for
closing up the breach, and restoring paradisaic harmony upon the earth. As
the Sabbath, therefore, was instituted before “sin entered into the world by
one man,” it is evident that it was no part of the sin-remedy, and
consequently not a religious institution.
Shavbath, called “Sabbath” in our tongue, signifies cessation,
resting, or time of rest, from the verb shahvath, he
ceased; hence the phrase, eth-yom hasshavbath, the resting or sabbath
day. Moses says that this day was “the seventh day,” and that it
terminated the period during which the Elohim by the Spirit of the Invisible
were occupied in fitting up the earth as a dwelling-place for the animal races.
The work being ended on Friday night, shahvath, he ceased, the Spirit
ceased or refrained from creating and making on Saturday. Hence the
reason given for blessing and sanctifying the seventh day—“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.” He did not rest in the sense of being
tired; for “the everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary:” but he simply assumed inactivity, or
ceased his demiurgic operations. What the words of blessing were we cannot
tell, because they are not recorded. We may, however, infer that they were
words of promise to man for whom the sabbath was made; and judging from
subsequent revelation, we may conclude that the words of sanctification and
blessing predicted a state of things upon the earth in the enjoyment of which
all Adam’s posterity approved of God should “be as the gods,” holy,
happy, and in perfect harmony with himself.
To sanctify is to make holy. This is the
prerogative of Deity. Holiness is not an essential quality of time,
space, or matter, so that if either of these is made holy, it must be by virtue
of its being constituted such. Man, originally “upright,” has lost his
integrity, and is defiled. He is therefore essentially the opposite of
holiness; and cannot therefore confer upon things an attribute of which he is
himself destitute. To make things holy is to separate them from a common to
a special use according to divine appointment. Men cannot therefore of
their own notions make ground, buildings, persons, times, seasons, and days,
holy. They may agree among themselves to call cemeteries, churches, and days,
holy; and can inflict penalties for the “desecration” of such things; but the
violation of their laws with respect to these, lowers no man in the estimation
of God. Adam did not sanctify the seventh day. If he had made the attempt he
would have failed, not knowing in what an acceptable sanctification would
consist; and this is precisely the difficulty in which his posterity are
involved—they have a vague idea the day should be kept holy, but they
know not how to do it, much less do they know how to make it so. God
made it holy by his absolute authority. He made it holy for man’s benefit; for
the Lord of the sabbath has so declared, saying, “The sabbath was made for
man, and not man for the sabbath.”
The lecturer proceeds to remark, that beyond
an allusion to the division of time into periods of seven days in the account
of Noah’s sending forth the dove from the ark, nothing more is said about the
seventh day than what is contained in Genesis 2: 2-3, until a miracle was
wrought to prevent its desecration, in giving a double quantity of manna on
Friday and none on Saturday; and until its observance was enacted by a law
accepted by the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The church and state of this renowned
people was one and indivisible, and grafted upon the stock, whose roots were “the
Foundation of the World.” They were therefore told to “remember
the resting-day, to keep it holy.” In what way it was to be kept holy is
defined in the sabbath-law. It consisted in not doing any work on the seventh
day. There was no other way of keeping it holy. The Son of Man, who is Lord of
the sabbath, taught that it was “lawful to do good on the sabbath day;”
but then for an Israelite to kindle a fire, or pick up sticks, or buy and sell,
or speak his own words, or do any kind of work, or for any other member of his
household, stranger, or any thing that was his, to work and pursue the ordinary
avocations of the previous six days, was doing evil and not good, for the
simple reason that God had forbidden it. To observe the seventh day law in letter
and spirit was to keep it holy; but to violate it in one particular was to be
as much guilty unto death as if no regard were paid to the day at all; for the
transgressor came under the sentence, which extended to the violation of the
Mosaic law, in whole or part, namely, “Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.”
Besides this total abstinence from work, “two lambs of the first year,
without spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with
oil, and a drink offering of strong wine to be poured unto the Lord,” were
to be offered as the burnt-offering of every sabbath, beside the continual
burnt-offering, and its drink offering. These sabbath-offerings, like all
others, were only acceptable from the Altar and from the Holy Place of the
tabernacle and temple. It is clear, therefore, from the requirements of the
law, that not only do the pious among the Gentiles not keep the sabbath, but
neither can they, nor the Israelites, however zealous for its observance.
But saith the lecturer, the observance of
the seventh day was only enjoined upon those who were “under law” to
God; not upon those who were “without law;” that is, non-Israelitish
nations. The sabbath was “a sign” between the God of Israel and that
people; and signified good things to come upon them, and through them upon the
rest of mankind, when “the times of the Gentiles” should be fulfilled.
This appears from the words of Jehovah to Israel by Moses his faithful servant
in all his house. “Verily,” saith he, “my sabbaths shall ye keep;
for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations: that ye may
know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath
therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall
surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall
be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh
is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth work on the
Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of
Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their
generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the
children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”
That the observance of the seventh day was
given exclusively to the house of Israel appears from the reason assigned for
imposing it upon them. “Remember,” saith Moses, “that thou wast a
servant in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah, thy God, brought thee out
thence with a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm: therefore, the
Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” When they were slaves
in Egypt they served a hard bondage to Pharaoh, having no rest to their souls;
but after being “baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,” the
nation rested from its work, and in anticipation of its rest
under Joshua, kept the Sign-Sabbath in the wilderness. The Egyptian servitude,
the national baptism into Moses, the wilderness-cessation from the works of
slavery, and the Joshua-rest in Palestine, were, however, examples only, first,
of things spiritual in relation to baptised believers of the gospel of the kingdom;
anticipative, secondly, of things national on a grander scale, when, the
world having passed through its MILLENNARY WORKING DAYS of six thousand years
from its foundation, the Twelve Tribes and the Nations of the Earth, ceasing
from their own works in which they serve their own lusts, and the tyrants who
oppress them in mind, body, and estate, shall, by a mighty hand, and
out-stretched arm, be constitutionally inducted into Abraham and his Seed, the
Christ, and keep the DIVINE SABBATISM, the rest that remains for Israel in
their own land under their glorious and immortal rulers; and for the nations
under their own vines and fig-trees, in all the Day of Christ, the
Millennary Sabbath Day of a thousand years, in which God and men will cease
from their works, and be refreshed.
The present dispersion of Israel is the
penalty for not keeping holy the seventh day in its true significancy. For if
they had turned away their foot from the Sabbath, from doing their pleasure on
God’s holy day, and called the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord,
honourable; and had honoured him, not doing their own ways, nor finding their
own pleasure, nor speaking their own words: “then,” saith Jehovah, “shalt
thou delight thyself in the Lord: and I will cause thee to ride upon the high
places of the earth, and feed thee, O Israel, with the heritage of Jacob thy
father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Thus testifies Isaiah;
and the testimony of Jeremiah is like it, only with a threatening of the
consequences to the nation if it did not keep the day. “It shall come to
pass if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden
through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day,
to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings
and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses,
they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and
this city shall remain for ever. And they shall come from the cities of
Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and
from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt
offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing
sacrifices of praise. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath
day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on
the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall
devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” That
fire has been twice kindled unquenchably, once by Nebuchadnezzar, and once by
Titus: and on both occasions, because they regarded not the Sabbath of the Lord
in the way that pleased him. At the Assyrian overthrow of their commonwealth
they defiled the Sign-Sabbath; and at the Roman, they refused to hallow it in
its spiritual signification, by ceasing from their own works in no longer
serving sin in the lusts thereof, and delighting in the Lord whom Jehovah had
sent them as an ambassador of peace and glory to the nation—the Angel of the
great Sabbatic Covenant.
“The law,” which is a phrase expressive of the Mosaic
institutions in the aggregate, being “the representation of the knowledge
and the truth,” and “the pattern of things in the heavens,” the
sabbath, which, being incorporated into it, is a part thereof, is also “a
shadow of things to come.” The sign-sabbath is a “rudiment” or “element
of the world;” and therefore classed among “the weak and beggarly
elements” to which the Galatian christians wished again to be in bondage.
In writing to the Colossians the apostle says, “Let no man judge you in
respect of a holy day, or of the sabbath: which are a shadow of things
to come; but the body (casting the shadow) is of Christ.” Jesus rested
on the seventh day in the silence of the tomb from all his work pertaining to
his offering for sin; and on “the eighth day,” commonly called Sunday,
or the first of the week, arose as the Light of the new creation, as a strong
man to run a race. The mystery of the Sabbath was thus laid substantially in
him. The sabbath, or “rest remaining to the people of God,” was
proclaimed in his name to the Jew first, and afterwards to the Greek. All
believers, who desired to enter into that rest, were commanded to “cease
from their own works, as God did from his;” in other words, to sabbatise
from sin, by being “buried with him by baptism into death” to sin; “that
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
they also should walk in newness of life.” This, saith the lecturer, is the
only way Jew or Gentile can keep the sabbath, so long as the commonwealth of
Israel, and the dwelling place of David, are in ruins, and trodden under foot
of the worst of the heathen, as at this day.
But the seventh day was only one of the
sabbaths of the law. To mention no others, the eighth day was also a sabbath.
The first and eighth days of the feast of ingathering, were sabbaths. This
feast was representative of the future ingathering of the Twelve Tribes into
their own land; and of the gathering of the Saints, the palm-bearers, with them
unto Messiah their king, when both classes shall rejoice before the Lord. They
will then celebrate the eighth day as the sabbath day of the Age to Come
instead of the seventh, as it is written in Ezekiel, saying, “Seven days
shall they purge the altar, and purify it, and the priests shall consecrate
themselves. And when these days are expired, it shall be, that upon the eighth
day (Sunday) and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt
offerings upon the altar, and your peace offerings, O Israel; and I will accept
you, saith the Lord God.” This testimony relates to the order of things in
the kingdom of Israel under Messiah the Prince during the Millennium. Israel and
the nations will then keep the Eighth-day, instead of the Seventh-day, Sabbath,
as under Moses. The gospel is glad tidings concerning that kingdom and age; and
those who believe it, and have obeyed it, being therefore the heirs of its
kingdom and glory, sabbatise by ceasing from sin, and rejoicing in their
present eighth-day probation in hope of entering God’s millennial rest by a
resurrection to the life of the age to die no more.
There are two crotchets among the people
respecting the sabbath which deserve a passing notice in conclusion of the
subject. The one is that the seventh day, or Saturday, should be kept holy
according to the Mosaic law; and the other is that Sunday should be observed as
the Jewish sabbath. The adherents of the former, are Israelites, and Gentile
Sabbatarians; while those of the latter, are the pious who maintain that the
seventh day observance was changed for the keeping holy of the eighth according
to the sabbath law. Both these classes are great sticklers for keeping holy their
sabbath days after Moses’ prescription; yet, it is manifest from what has gone
before, that they have no scriptural claims to the approbation of the Lord for
so doing. If Sabbatarians would keep the seventh day holy, they must keep it
according to the law thereof. They have no right to dispense with what suits
them not, and to retain the rest. Neither God nor Moses have given them this
license. In lighting fires, making up beds, cooking, using their horses,
&c., and preaching sermons, which is “speaking their own words,” certainly
not the Lord’s, they break the sabbath and defile it, as much as any
anti-sabbatarian, who performs double work on Saturday that he may lose as
little as possible by resting from his labour on the following day. Such
keeping of the Sabbath in the light of Moses’ law, is truly wonderful, and only
parallelled by the others who impose on God the pretension of keeping his
sabbath by abolishing the celebration of the seventh day, and observing Sunday
after their own taste and convenience. When God says, “Keep holy the seventh
day, O Israel, by resting from every kind of work, and offering the sacrifices
of the law;” he does not mean, “Keep holy the first or eighth day, O
Gentiles, by resting according to your views of profit or convenience.” Yet,
practically, such is the construction put upon his words by those, who would
bind heavy burdens upon men’s shoulders, grievous to be borne, but would be the
last to help them to endure. A rest of one day in seven is an excellent
provision for labouring, and business men; and if they could be persuaded to
use it aright, it would be inestimable. They cannot, however, keep Sunday to
the Lord as his day, while they remain disobedient to the “one faith.”
They must believe and obey the gospel, and then “continue steadfastly in the
apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and in prayers.” When
such assemble on the First Day for the worship of the Father in spirit and in
truth; and to honour the Son even as they honour him, showing forth his death,
and memorialising his resurrection, in hope of his appearing in his kingdom and
glory, ceasing from their own works, and doing the works of God; they observe
the Lord’s day in the only way acceptable to Him who seeketh only such to
worship him as are intelligent in the truth.
Having brought the subject to this point,
the following recapitulation is presented, which concludes this exposition of
the Bible doctrine of the Sabbath. I have shown,
That the seventh
day is the measure of the duration of each of the previous six days of the
creation-work;
That God
sanctified, or separated it, from the other days of the week as a sign
foreshadowing good things to come, in a millennial Sabbatic day; which should
be a sabbatismal refreshing for mankind when the work of replenishing the
earth, and subduing it, should be sufficiently accomplished;
That the hallowed
seventh day was incorporated with the institutions of Moses; and its observance
imposed upon the Twelve Tribes of Israel, with the penalty of death to all individual
violators of its holiness, and the overthrow of their commonwealth for its
national desecration;
That the hallowed
resting day, called Saturday by the Gentiles, was enjoined by the Mosaic law as
a sign between Jehovah and the descendants of Jacob or Israel—a sign of the
divine rest they shall enjoy from all their national afflictions, under their
own kings and princes of the house of David—adopted into that royal house by an
obedient faith in the gracious promises covenanted to him: and destined to ride
upon the high places of the earth in the everlasting age;
That God commanded
Israel to keep the sabbath day, because that in bringing them out of Egypt he
had caused them to rest from all the works imposed upon them by Pharaoh’s
taskmasters;
That non-Israelitish
nations were never commanded to keep the seventh day holy;
That Sunday, or
the first day of the week, was never imposed upon the nations by divine
authority to be kept holy according to the law of Saturday or the seventh day;
That the seventh
day is kept holy neither by Israelites, nor Sabbatarians; because they do not
observe it according to the requirements of its law; which, under existing
circumstances, can be kept by none;
That Sunday will
be the sabbath, or resting day, for Israel and the nations, when they shall all
be constituted the kingdom and empire of Jehovah’s king in the Age to Come. And
lastly,
That the only
persons who keep holy the sabbath day in its spiritual signification, are those
who, having become obedient to the gospel of the kingdom promulgated in the
name of Jesus as its king, “cease from their own works, as God rested from
his.”
* * *
John Thomas