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The plan of redemption was conceived in the mind of God
prior to the foundation of the world. It was a mystery
then hid in him alone. Long ages before that mystery was
unlocked to mankind in the person of Jesus Christ, who
made the world's atonement, it cast a love betokening
shadow upon earth. That shadow was the law. The law
embraced the five books of Moses—Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In proof of this, I
cite a quotation from each book.
Paul says that women "are
commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the
law" (1 Cor. 14:34). Where does the law say this? In
Gen. 3:16. I quote from the LXX: "The submission
shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over
thee." Genesis, then, is in the law. "The law
had said, Thou shalt not covet" (Rom. 7:7). Where? In
Exod. 20:17. So Exodus is in the law. Jesus makes two
quotations from the law: 1. "Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart." This is taken from Deut.
6:5. 2. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." This is from Lev. 19:18. So both
Deuteronomy and Leviticus are a part of the law. Again:
"Have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath
days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and
are blameless?" (Matt. 12:5). This is from Num. 28:9.
So all the five books of Moses are embraced in "the
law."
"The law having a shadow of
good things to come" (Heb. 10:1). The whole law
system was but a shadow, containing types and figures of
the plan of perfect redemption. Its Passover, atonements,
sacrifices, offerings, tabernacle, temple, altars, blood,
priests, circumcision, and sabbaths, all belonged to the
law of shadows going before.
Among the promises of coming
redemption was that of Shiloh—the rest-giver (Gen.
49:10). "And his rest shall be glorious" (Isa.
11:10). In fulfillment, Jesus came, saying, "Come
unto me . . . and I will give you rest . . . And ye shall
find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:28; 29). In the
law of shadows there must be a type of this sweet and
tranquil rest found in redeeming grace. Hence God set
apart one day in seven, the seventh, as a "sabbath of
rest."
"Sabbath" means
"rest." Rest is the sole idea of the term. The
law said, "Six days may work be done; but in the
seventh is the Sabbath of rest" (Exod. 31:15). This
is made still clearer in the Septuagint, where it is
rendered, "But the seventh day is the Sabbath, a holy
rest to the Lord." That sabbath, or rest, was "a
shadow of things to come." It reached its fulfilment
in Christ, in whom our souls have found an everlasting
rest (see Col. 2:14-17; Heb. 4:1-11).
The Sabbath, then, was instituted
by God, among the types and shadows of his great
redemption. It pointed back to the creation, and forward
to Christ, just as the Passover pointed back to Israel's
exodus from Egyptian bondage and forward to "Christ
our Passover, sacrificed for us." Whether, therefore,
the Sabbath was instituted before Moses or not, it
belonged to the law of types and shadows. Sacrifices began
in the family of Adam, circumcision began with Abraham,
yet both were nailed to the cross with all the ordinances
of Moses.
But let us investigate, and find
just when and where the Sabbath was first enjoined upon
man. Saturday keepers lay no small stress upon a supposed
pre-Mosaic Sabbath. In fact, it is one of their main
pillars. Back there in the dim past the events of an age
were covered by a few lines in the Bible. Yet "the
main reliance of Sabbatarians is upon arguments drawn from
those remote times of darkness, while in the New Testament
they find little to support their theories, but much to
explain away.''
The scholarship of the world is
somewhat divided on the subject of a pre-Mosaic Sabbath.
Much has been written on both sides of the question. In
either case it has little bearing on present observance.
But since our Sabbatarian friends rely greatly upon a
belief in Sabbath observance from Eden, I desire to set
before the reader what I sincerely believe to be the truth
of the matter. After reading much on both sides of the
controversy, I have been led into the settled conviction
that the argument for Sabbath observance from Eden down
through the Patriarchal age rests upon a very sandy
foundation. I shall submit the following proofs against
it:
There is not one command in the
book of Genesis to keep the seventh day as a Sabbath. In
the language of Canright, "There is no statement that
any of the patriarchs kept the Sabbath or knew anything
about it. Sabbatarians say the record is so brief that it
was omitted. Their proof, then, is what was left
out!"
The first mention of the Sabbath as
a rest day enjoined upon man that is recorded in the Bible
is found in Exod. 16:23-30. This was twenty five hundred
years after the creation of man. It was a new command to
the Jews. On Friday, Moses said to the people,
"Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath unto the
Lord" (verse 23, Revised Version). On Saturday, he
said, "Today is a Sabbath unto the Lord" (verse
25). "So the people rested on the seventh day"
(verse 30). "And the people keep Sabbath on the
seventh day" (LXX). This language, with its context,
seems to prove that the children of Israel there and then
began resting on the seventh day; that the keeping of the
Sabbath was a new thing to them. Their deliverance from
Egypt marked a new era in their history. At this time the
Lord gave them a new year and a new beginning of months.
(See Exod. 12:2.) So, also, he for the first time gave
them the Sabbath (Exodus 16). Many scriptures teach this
fact, a few of which are given below.
"Wherefore I caused them to go
forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the
wilderness. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a
sign between me and them)' (Ezek. 20:10, 12). This text is
conclusive. It simply states that God gave them the
Sabbath when he brought them out of Egypt. "I gave
them my sabbaths" implies the act of committing it to
them, and proves that they did not have it before. It was
a new thing to them, and only for them. The place where
God gave Israel the Sabbath was: ``the wilderness."
It was given as a sign between himself and that nation. So
positively teaches the text quoted.
"And remember that thou west 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. 5:15). God
commanded Israel to keep the Sabbath as a memorial of
their deliverance from Egypt. Then, they never kept it
until the reason existed for keeping it. Thus, it was
first enjoined upon them in the wilderness.
The covenant enjoining the seventh
day was not made before Moses. "The Lord our God made
a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this
covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are
all of us here alive this day" (Deut. 5:2, 3).
"Then follows a recital of the Ten Commandments, the
covenant referred to. So if we are to credit the inspired
statement of Moses, we must admit that the law embodying
the seventh day Sabbath had never been given to the
ancestors of the Jewish nation. Nay, "The Lord made
not this covenant with out fathers but with us, even us,
who are all of us here alive this day."
We affirm that every assumption
that the Sabbath had been previously given is a direct
contradiction of these texts.
"Thou camest down also upon
Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven . . . and
makest known unto them thy holy Sabbath" (Neh. 9:13,
14). "Though the Sabbath had been introduced a short
time before when the manna first fell, it is but natural
that Nehemiah should speak of it with the rest of the law,
as given on Sinai, by the audible voice of God, . . . and
made a statute in Israel. If, then, we credit the
testimony of Nehemiah, we trace the origin of that Sabbath
to Moses in the wilderness. There is where God came down
and gave that law."
I shall now quote from The Sabbath
and also from Canright. "Smith and Barnum's
Dictionary of the Bible says, 'In Exod. 16:23-29 we find
the first incontrovertible institution of the day, as one
given to, and to be kept by, the children of Israel.
Shortly afterward it was re-enacted in the fourth
commandment." 'There is no express mention of it
previous to the time of Moses.'—Jahn's Biblical
Archaeology.
" 'The celebration of the
seventh day as a day consecrated to Jehovah, is first
mentioned after the Exodus from Egypt, and seems to have
preceded the Sinaitic legislation, which merely confirmed
and invested it with the highest authority. There is no
trace of its celebration in the patriarchal
times.'—Chambers' Encyclopedia.
" 'The first record of its
observance by the Jews is mentioned in Exod. 16:25, when,
in addition to its being observed in remembrance of the
original rest day of the creation, it was celebrated also
in memento of the day of freedom of the Jews from Egyptian
bondage.'—People's Cyclopedia.
"Smith's Bible Dictionary says
of the argument on Gen. 2:1-3 for the institution of the
Sabbath in Eden, 'The whole argument is very
precarious.... There is no record of its celebration in
patriarchal times.'
" 'The early Christian writers
are generally . . . silent on the subject of a primitive
Sabbath.... Such examination as we have been able to
institute, has disclosed no belief in its existence, while
some indications are found of a notion that the Sabbath
began with Moses.'—Kitto.
"Justin Martyr, who wrote only
forty four years after the death of John, and who was well
acquainted with the doctrines of the apostles, denied that
the Sabbath originated at creation. Thus after naming
Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, and Melchizedek, he says:
'Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned,
though they kept no Sabbaths, were pleasing to
God.'—Dialog with Trypho, chap. 19.
" 'Enoch and all the rest, who
neither were circumcised after the flesh, nor observed
Sabbaths, nor any other rites, seeing that Moses enjoined
such observances.
" 'For if there was no need of
circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of the
Sabbaths, . . . before Moses, no more need is here of them
now.
" 'As, then, circumcision
began with Abraham, and the Sabbath . . . with Moses, and
it has been proved they were enjoined on account of the
hardness of your people's hearts, so it was necessary, in
accordance with the Father's will, that they should have
an end in him, who was born of a virgin, of the family of
Abraham.' —Justin Martyr to Trypho, a Jew." Thus it
will be seen that Justin Martyr understood that the
Sabbath began with Moses, and ended in Christ. This is in
perfect harmony with the Scriptural teaching.
"Irenaeus says: 'Abraham
believed God without circumcision and the Sabbath.'—Adv.
Hoeres, Lib. IV, ch. 30.
"Tertullian, A. D. 200, said:
'Let them show me that Adam Sabbatized, or that Abel in
presenting his holy offerings to God pleased him by
Sabbath observance, or that Enoch who was translated was
an observer of the Sabbath.'—Against the Jews, sec.
IV."
Eusebius, A. D. 324 the father of
church history, says: "They [the patriarchs] did not,
therefore, regard circumcision, nor observe the Sabbath,
neither do we.... Such things as these do not belong to
Christians." Book I, ch. 4.
Here, then, we have the testimony
from the historical records from the second and third
centuries that the Sabbath was not enjoined upon, nor
observed by, the people of God till Moses' time, or for
2,500 years after creation. The early church did not
believe that the Sabbath originated at creation. I shall
add the testimony of eminent men.
"The transactions in the
wilderness above recited were the first actual institution
of the Sabbath." — Paley: Watson's Institutes, vol.
II, p. 515.
"The Sabbath is no where
mentioned, or even obscurely alluded to, either in the
general history of the world before the call of Abraham,
or in that of the first three Jewish patriarchs."—Paley:
Wakefield's Theology.
"Whether its institution was
ever made known to Adam, or whether any commandment
relative to its observance was given previous to the
delivery of the law on Mt. Sinai . . . cannot be
ascertained."—John Milton: Christian Doctrine, vol.
I, p. 299.
"That the Israelites had not
so much as heard of the Sabbath before this time [the
wilderness], seems to be confirmed by several passages of
the prophets." —John Milton.
"Now as to the imposing of the
seventh day Sabbath upon men from Adam to Moses, of that
we find nothing in holy writ, either from precept or
example."—John Bunyan: Complete Works, page 892. On
page 895 of the same book Bunyan says, "The seventh
day Sabbath, therefore, was not from paradise, nor from
nature, nor from the fathers, but from the wilderness and
from Sinai." Bunyan was well versed in Scripture.
From all the foregoing it is
clearly seen that the united scriptural testimony, the
most authentic historical records, the teachings of the
most highly learned and eminent men, all point to the
wilderness and Sinai for the institution of the Sabbath.
It is clearly traced to Moses and the law. Upon what,
then, do Saturday keepers base their claim for a
pre-Mosaic Sabbath? Upon their own misinterpretation of
the words of Moses in Gen. 2:2, 3. They argue that God
rested, blessed, and sanctified the seventh day in Eden,
and that hence an obligation rests upon all to observe it.
That this reasoning is incorrect
and the whole argument unsound I shall now proceed to
show.
1. The Book of Genesis, including
these words, was not written at the time of the creation
of man, but twentyfive hundred years later, by Moses
himself. In fact, this statement of Moses' in Gen. 2:2, 3
was not written until after the covenant enjoining the
seventh day Sabbath upon the Jews had been delivered
upon Sinai.
2. The language clearly proves that
God did not bless and sanctify the day back at Eden when
he rested, but at a later date. "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." He blessed and sanctified the day
"because in it HE HAD rested." He rested back in
Eden. But God's rest did not make the day holy. It was not
holy in itself. Twentyfive hundred years later God in the
wilderness blessed and sanctified the seventh day as a
holy day to the Jewish nation, and assigned as one reason
for doing so that "in it he had rested." After
God blessed and sanctified the day in the wilderness,
Moses wrote the book of Genesis; and in writing the
account of the creation he said that God began resting on
the seventh day from all his work, and that the same day
on which God had rested he now sanctified and
blessed. Here again the inspired Word points to the
wilderness for the institution of the Sabbath.
"As this narrative, i. e.,
Gen. 2:2, 3, was composed after the delivery of the law,
for their special instruction, so this passage was only
intended to confirm more forcibly I that institution; or
that it is to be understood as if Moses had said, 'God
rested on the seventh day, which he has since blessed and
sanctified.' "—Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical
Literature. To this we say amen. The language of Genesis
II cannot be understood in any other light, unless the
text is wrested.
"As the seventh day was
erected into a Sabbath, on account of God's resting upon
that day from the work of creation, it was but natural
enough in the historian, when he had related the history
of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the
seventh day, to add, 'And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it, because that on it he had rested from all
his work which God created and made'; although the
blessing and sanctification, that is, the religious
distinction and appropriation of that day, were not made
till many ages after. The words do not assert that God
then blessed and sanctified the seventh day, but that he
blessed and sanctified it for that reason.'' Paley: Moral
and Political Philosophy, Book IV, ch. 7.
On this point I quote the following
from Canright:
"As Moses wrote his books
after he came to Sinai, after the Sabbath had been given
in the wilderness, he here mentions one reason why God
thus gave them the seventh day, viz.: because God himself
had set the example at creation; had worked six days and
rested the seventh. Such use of language is common. We say
General Grant was born at such a time. We do not mean that
he was a general then, but we mention it by anticipation,
using a title which he afterwards bore. So in Gen. 3:20,
'Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the
mother of all living.' Here is a future fact stated as
though it had already occurred. So 1 Sam. 4 :1, the Jews
'pitched beside Ebenezer.' But the place was not named
Ebenezer till years after (1 Sam. 7:12). 'Judas Iscariot,
which also was the traitor' (Luke 6:16). Here a future
fact with regard to Judas is mentioned when he is first
spoken of, though the act of betrayal did not take place
till years later. Just so when the seventh day is first
mentioned, its sanctification is referred to, though it
did not occur till afterwards."
3. "Though the record from
Adam to Moses covers a period of twenty five hundred
years; though we appear to have a full account of the
religious customs and worship of the patriarchs, such as
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., though we are
told about circumcision, the altar, the sacrifices, the
priests, the tithe, the oath, marriage, feast days, etc.;
yet never a word is said about anyone keeping the
Sabbath."—Canright.
The first mention of the Sabbath's
being kept by anyone is recorded in Exodus 16. It began
with Moses and was instituted in the wilderness. To go
back of Moses for proof in favor of Saturday keeping is
going outside the Bible, into the fogs and mists of
speculation and darkness.
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