Sabba -th, -tarian

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
This was the day of rest instituted by God in Gen. 2, hence before the Jewish law, and thus belonging to man at large. The Jewish Sabbath under the law, was surrounded with the strictest rules, to prevent its sanctity and rest being brokers (Ex. 20:1010But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: (Exodus 20:10); Neh. 10:31; 13:1931And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the sabbath, or on the holy day: and that we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt. (Nehemiah 10:31)
19And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day. (Nehemiah 13:19)); and those who transgressed it were rigorously punished (Ex. 16:2727And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. (Exodus 16:27); Num. 15:3232And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. (Numbers 15:32)). When the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:2828Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. (Mark 2:28)) carne, he showed that sin having come in, there was no longer any rest for Him who, as Creator (Col. 1.) had rested in Gen. 2 He must finish the work He was sent to do (Matt. 12:1212How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. (Matthew 12:12); Luke 13:1616And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? (Luke 13:16)). After the resurrection, the Sabbath gradually ceased to be observed by Christians as far as its legal enactments, which passed away with the Jewish religion they belonged to. In place of the Sabbath however, still carrying out the divine principle of one day in the seven being set apart from worldly affairs, the first (instead of the last) day of the week was observed as the Lord’s day, being the day on which Christ rose from the dead. On this day the disciples used to assemble to break bread (not on the first of the month or year), Acts 20:77And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. (Acts 20:7). The Lord’s day, however, is not a day of rest in the sense the Sabbath was; on the contrary, it is often a day of hard toil’ but always in the Lord’s service. For the world at large, it is a merciful and wise provision, that God has led governments to enact the public observance of this day in a general way, as a day of rest. For although the injunction for this cannot be found in Scripture, the principle is clearly embodied in Gen. 2 and Mark 2:2727And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: (Mark 2:27), that the Sabbath was instituted for the benefit of man at large; and now, Judaism having passed away, the Lord’s day is observed instead.