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IX.
Sabbath
Chapter 91
:
Institution of the Sabbath
1. WHEN and by whom was
the Sabbath made?
"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." Gen.
2:1,2.
2. After resting on the
seventh day, what did God do?
"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." Verse 3.
3. By what three
distinct acts, then, was the Sabbath made?
God rested on it; He
blessed it; He sanctified it.
Sanctify: "To make sacred or holy; to set
apart to a holy or religious use."-Webster.
4. Did Christ have
anything to do with creation and the making of
the Sabbath?
"All things were made by Him; and
without Him was not anything made that was
made." John 1:3. See also Eph. 3:9; Col.
1:16; Heb. 1:2.
NOTE.-Christ, being the active agent in
creation, must have rested on the seventh
day with the Father. It is therefore His
rest day as well as the Father's.
5. For whom does Christ
say the Sabbath was made?
"And He said unto them, The
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the Sabbath." Mark 2:27.
NOTE.-It was not made for the Jews alone.
The Jews derive their name from Judah, one
of the twelve sons of Jacob, from whom they
are descended. The Sabbath was made more
than two thousand years before there was a
Jew. When Paul says, "Neither was the man
created for the woman; but the woman for the
man" (1 Cor. 11:9), we understand him to
mean that marriage was ordained of God for
all men. So likewise with the Sabbath. It
was made for the race.
6. What does the
Sabbath commandment require?
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep
it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do
all thy work: but 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 man servant, nor thy maid servant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within
thy gates." Ex. 20:8-10.
7. What reason is given
in the commandment for keeping the Sabbath day
holy?
"For in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them
is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore
the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed
it." Verse 11.
NOTE.-The Sabbath is the memorial of
creation, and the sign of God's creative
power. Through the keeping of it God
designed that man should forever remember
Him as the true and living God, the Creator
of all things.
8. Did God bless and
sanctify the seventh day while He was resting
upon it, or when His rest on that day was past?
"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." Gen.
2:3.
NOTES.-God blessed and sanctified the
seventh day then future, answering to the
day on which He had just rested. The acts of
blessing and sanctifying involve the idea of
a future use of those things which are
blessed and sanctified. Past time cannot be
used. It is gone forever. The blessing and
sanctification of the day, therefore, must
have related to the future- to all the
future seventh days.
In Joel 1:14 we read: "Sanctify [i. e.,
appoint] ye a fast, call a solemn assembly,
gather the elders and all the inhabitants of
the land into the house of the Lord."
Wherever used in the Bible, the word
sanctify means to appoint, to proclaim, or
to set apart, as in the margin of Joshua
20:7; , 2 Kings 10:20,21; Zeph. 1:7. So when
the Sabbath was sanctified, as the last act
by which it was made for man, an
appointment, or proclamation, of the Sabbath
was given. See Ex. 19:23.
"If we had no other passage than this of
Gen. 2:3, there would be no difficulty in
deducing from it a precept for the universal
observance of a Sabbath, or seventh day, to
be devoted to God as holy time, by all of
that race for whom the earth and its nature
were specially prepared. The first men 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."-
Lange's Commentary, Vol. I, page 197.
9. How did God prove
Israel in the wilderness?
"Then said the Lord unto Moses,
Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for
you; and the people shall go out and gather
a certain rate every day; that I may prove
them, whether they will walk in My law, or no."
Ex. 16:4.
10. On which day was a
double portion of manna gathered?
"And it came to pass, that on the
sixth day they gathered
twice as much bread, two omers for one man:
and all the rulers of the congregation came and
told Moses." Verse 22.
11. What reply did
Moses make to the rulers?
"And he said unto them, This is
that which the Lord hath said, Tomorrow is the
rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord."
Verse 23.
NOTE.-This was a full month and more before
they came to Sinai.
12. When had God
said this?
In the beginning, when He sanctified
the Sabbath. Gen. 2:3.
NOTE.-In the wilderness of Sin, before
Israel came to Sinai, Moses said to Jethro,
his father-in-law, "I do make them know the
statutes of God, and His laws" (Ex.
18:16), which shows that these statutes and
laws existed before they were proclaimed on
Sinai.
13. What did some of
the people do on the seventh day?
"It came to pass, that there went
out some of the people on the seventh day for to
gather, and they found none." Ex. 16:27.
14. How did God reprove
their disobedience?
"And the Lord said unto Moses, How
long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My
laws?" Verse 28.
15. Why was double
manna given on the sixth day?
"See, for that the Lord hath given
you the Sabbath, therefore He giveth you on the
sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye
every man in his place, let no man go out of his
place on the seventh day." Verse 29.
16. How, then, did the
Lord prove the people (verse 4) whether they
would keep His law, or not?
Over the keeping of the Sabbath.
NOTE.-Thus we see that the Sabbath
commandment was a part of God's law before
this law was spoken from Sinai; for this
incident occurred in the wilderness of Sin,
before the children of Israel came to Sinai,
where the law was given. Both the Sabbath
and the law existed from creation.
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