2. The Sabbath.
THE Bible is the voice of God to us, and the sounds of that voice, heard in its earliest pages, proclaim again, at the close of the volume, the unchangeableness of divine purpose.
A perfect work is necessarily a finished one and of the work of creation it is recorded: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. 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. 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 glory of the Creator would be sullied in our souls, were we to tolerate the notion that He did not finish what He commenced when He said, “Let there be light.” Incomplete work denies rest to the worker; but the work being ended―for “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good”―He rested.
The Sabbath then received God’s blessing; it was constituted a holy day, because upon it God had rested from His work, whether of creating-of calling out of nothing matter into existence, or of making― of forming out of matter new forms of life.
The seventh day stands connected with this earth, and the great purpose of God in sanctifying it will never be set aside. For the time being, that rest is broken, and hence the rest of God is still future (see Heb. 4); but “His rest” shall be established, and in it His people will rejoice.
During the long centuries, that spread over the period of time covered by the record of the Book of Genesis, the Sabbath is not mentioned (save as we have said), for, instead of rest, sin reigned on the earth! Sin had destroyed the creation—Sabbath, and the earth has had none since.
In due time God began to work to bring to Himself one nation from among the varied peoples of the earth. He separated Israel to Himself through the blood of the Paschal Lamb, and gave them the Sabbath day. “Remember,” He said, “that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deut. 5:1515And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:15).) Unless there be holiness there cannot be rest in God’s presence. He makes the rest, let it ever be remembered, and His people enter into the rest He has made.
We know, too well, the story of Israel’s departure from God, how they broke His Sabbaths, and fell to the level of the heathen. Then the solemn word of Lev. 26:33-3533And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. 34Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. 35As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. (Leviticus 26:33‑35), was put into effect: Israel was carried away from the land into captivity, and the laid kept Sabbath― “For as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years.” (2 Chron. 36:2121To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. (2 Chronicles 36:21).)
At the end of these seventy years, a remnant of the people returned to the land, and that remnant became once more the nation. But their sin exceeded every previous sin, in that they slew the Lord of Glory, and now the Jews are scattered over the face of the earth. Where has the. Sabbath been kept in the land of Canaan all these long years? The blood of Jesus is upon the guilty people and upon their children!
Let us observe the ways of Jesus in relation to the Sabbath when He was on the earth. The outward observance of a day dedicated to Jehovah could not satisfy Him, unless the heart were right in His sight. Pride filled the Pharisee’s heart, while the garments of superior religiousness hung around his shoulders. The Pharisee observed the Sabbath, but rejected God’s Son, the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus made the day of rest His great day of healing and of doing good, and He answered the objectors, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” (John 5:77The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. (John 5:7).) As God looked down upon the varied work of the creation, He could say, “Behold, it is very good,” and He could rest in His finished work; but as His Son Looked upon the people dwelling in the little-spot on earth where Jehovah’s Name was recognized, He saw the poor, the sick, and the possessed of demons, and His heart yearned over the victims of sin and misery. In this world there was no rest for Him.
The fact that the body of Jesus lay in the grave during the Sabbath day is of solemn significance. Let us place together the words, “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,” and the record of the body of Jesus being taken down from the cross, so that it “should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day” (John 19:3131The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. (John 19:31)), and then of that sacred body being buried in the “garden” (vs. 41), and keeping Sabbath there!
Our hearts cannot but be stirred with most solemn thoughts, as we consider that the day, which should be the holy day for all creation, was the witness of man’s greatest sin. That sacred body bore upon it, in the silence of the grave, the marks of the cross, of man’s most awful enmity against God. With what feelings must the holy angels have regarded the mystery of the grave of Jesus? How did God regard that most solemn Sabbath day? Vain was Israel’s worship, false the praise-song, and the Temple service―the Son of God had been slain, and the grave bore within it on that holy day the precious burden of His body.
The Jew may keep his seventh day in his unbelief and rejection of Christ, but the Christian observes “the first day of the week,” and, indeed, for faith, the end of the week is sup planted by the beginning! We are looking to Christ to bring in the rest and the blessing on the earth. We are looking on to another Sabbath to be introduced, by the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
When we turn to the book of Revelation its recurring testimony of time and events divided into sevens, recalls us to the unchanging purpose of God respecting the Sabbath day. God never changes. He never varies His purpose. True, sin destroyed His first Sabbath, and, as if to end all hopes of man ever entering into true rest by his own strength, the Lord spent the Sabbath in the sepulcher! But there shall be an eternal Sabbath-keeping for all who are redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb—for all who are separated to God by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
A nobler Sabbath than even that first Sabbath day God sanctified, is before us. That first and only perfect Sabbath, which the earth has seen, is a figure of that which is to come, when God shall rest in His love, and rejoice over His own with singing. For “God shall wipe all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.” Then shall the saints be like Christ, as He is, resplendent and glorious, and shall stand before their God in His love, holy, and without blame.