NATURE OF THE SABBATH by E. W. Farnsworth

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 17

NATURE OF THE SABBATH.

By E. W. Farnsworth

BY ELD. E. W. FARNSWORTH.

It is not unusual, when the subject of the Sabbath is introduced in a community, for good people to say, “You observe the Jewish Sabbath, while I keep the Christian Sabbath.” This erroneous idea is no doubt the result of false teaching concerning the nature of the Sabbath. In an effort to evade the binding force of the Sabbath law, religious teachers tell us that the Sabbath was peculiar to the Jews, no other people being subject to it. It will be readily seen that important conclusions follow such a position. If the Sabbath was peculiar to the Jews, then it must have been confined to that people; and when the Jews, as a nation, passed away, that which was peculiar to them must have gone also. Hence the conclusion is drawn that Christians ought not to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. Let us examine this phase of the subject.

We take the position that the Sabbath was not Jewish, but that it was universal in its nature, designed for all people, in all ages. Our Saviour says (Mark 2: 27), “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” How extensive is the term “man” as used in this text? To whom does it apply? Is it confined to the Jews? Let us illustrate this point. We once learned a rule of language as follows: “A noun used without a qualifying adjective is to be taken in its broadest sense; as, ‘Man is accountable.’” In this illustration the term “man” must include Gentiles as well as Jews; for all are accountable. Rom. 2: 12–16; 2 Cor. 5:10. It includes the whole human family. In Job 14:1 I read, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Here the term “man” cannot be confined to the Jews; for we can all testify that Gentiles as well as Jews are born to trouble. Again, verse 10: “But man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” This must include all; for all die, and waste away. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” exclaims the psalmist. Ps. 8:4. Many scriptures might be cited to illustrate this point, but none will dispute that words used in this way must refer to the whole human race. And when our Saviour says, “The Sabbath was made for man,” he must have included the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

Much light is thrown upon this subject by ascertaining when, and by whom, the Sabbath was made. By a reference to Gen. 2:2, 3, we learn that after God had wrought six days in the creation of the world, he rested on the seventh; and after he had rested, he blessed the day, that is, he put honor upon it; then he sanctified the day; in other words, he set it apart for a sacred or holy use. Now for whose benefit was this done? Our Saviour replies, “For man’s.” Here we learn that in the beginning God made a man. That man, as he came from God’s hand, perfect and upright, represented the whole human family; and whatever God gave to him, he gave to the whole human race, through him. Adam was their representative head; and the institutions which he received from God, he received not for himself alone, but for all his posterity.

The force of this truth is more sensibly felt when we compare the Sabbath with marriage, an institution given the day before. Gen. 2:2, 3 contains a record of the giving of the Sabbath institution; in the same chapter (verses 22–24) we find an account of the giving of the marriage institution. Now why do men say that the Sabbath was Jewish, while they will not admit that marriage is? Both these institutions were given in Eden before sin entered; and what was given before the fall cannot be said to be Jewish, for national distinctions did not then exist. It would be as correct to represent the Sabbath as a Dutch Sabbath, a French Sabbath, or an English Sabbath, as to call it a Jewish Sabbath. “But,” asks the objector, “did not God give the fourth commandment to guard the sacredness of the Sabbatic institution; and did not the Sabbath therefore become Jewish?” I reply by asking a parallel question, Did not God give the Jews the seventh commandment, to guard the sacredness of the marriage covenant? And did not marriage therefore become Jewish? No one would take this position for a moment. But the same argument which would prove the Sabbath Jewish would prove the same for marriage; but that which proves too much, proves nothing, and therefore must be rejected.

The truth is, the Sabbath is neither Jewish nor Christian. We never read in the Bible of the “Jewish Sabbath” nor of the “Christian Sabbath.” We hear these phrases so often from the pulpit that we seem to think the Bible must be replete with such expressions; but the book of God never uses them. God, in speaking of the weekly rest-day, calls it, “The Sabbath,” “My Sabbath,” or “The Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” I repeat: the Sabbath is neither Jewish nor Christian in its nature, but it is universal. If it were strictly Christian, none but Christians would have a right to it. The Lord’s supper is a Christian ordinance. The worldling, the profane man, has no right to it. Paul said in his time that because many ate and drank unworthily, they were sickly, and many slept, i. e., they had died. 1 Cor. 11:30. This is a Christian ordinance. Baptism is another; no minister would wish to baptize an unconverted man. The murderer and thief have no right to this ordinance until they are converted. We inquire, Is the Sabbath of the same nature as these? If so, then no man or woman outside of the Christian church has any right to it. As the blasphemer would commit a sin in partaking of the Lord’s supper, and the thief, in his unconverted state, would sin by being baptized; so, if the Sabbath be a Christian ordinance, would the unconverted be adding sin to sin by an attempt to appropriate to their own use that which is purely Christian.

But the mistake is in claiming the Sabbath to be a Christian Sabbath. It is not so, but it is a universal institution, designed not for any one race or class, not for any one nation or sect, but for all nations, tongues, and peoples. Let no one say, then, “I keep the Christian Sabbath, but you keep the Jewish;” for the Sabbath of the Bible is not the property of the Jew or the Christian, but it is “the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”

The following valuable testimony on this point from two eminent critics will be in place here. The first is from Alexander Campbell’s “Popular Lectures,” pages 283, 284. Speaking of the creation of the heavens and the earth, he says:—

“Heaven left not this, the basis of a thousand volumes, to be gathered from abstract reasonings, vitiated traditions, ingenious analogies, or plausible conjectures, but from a monumental institution, which was as universal as the annals of time, as the birth of nations, as the languages spoken by mortals. An institution, too, which, notwithstanding its demand not only of the seventh part of all time, but of the seventh day in uninterrupted succession, was celebrated from the creation to the deluge, during the deluge, and after the deluge, till the giving of the law; and which, when transcribed by the finger of God from the tablets of memory to the tablets of marble, begins with the very word ‘remember,’ the only word which is legitimately inscribed in every land and language, upon every sort of monumental record, natural, religious, moral, or political. The humblest pillar in honor of the dead has ‘in memory of’ inscribed, either in fact or by circumstances, upon its front; and so reads the fourth precept of the everlasting ten, Remember that in six days God created the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; wherefore, remember the seventh day, to sanctify and hallow it.”

The second is from Prof. Wayland, President of Brown University (Baptist). In his “Moral Science,” speaking of the fourth commandment he says (pages 183, 184):—

“It is found in the law of the ten commandments, which is always referred to in the Scriptures as containing the sum of the moral precepts of God to man. Our Saviour and the apostles, who made the most decided distinction between moral and ceremonial observances, never alluded to the law of the ten commandments in any other manner than as of permanent and universal obligation. Now, I know of no reason which can be assigned why this precept should be detached from all the rest and considered as ceremonial, when the whole of these taken together, are allowed, by universal consent, to have been quoted as moral precepts by Christ and his apostles. Besides, our Saviour expressly declares that ‘the Sabbath was made for man;’ that is, for man in general, for the whole human race; and consequently, that it is binding upon the whole race, that is, that it is a precept of universal obligation.”