contended that the Sabbath did not originate at creation, it being the seventh day
merely which was hallowed. From the second statement, it has been contended
that God did not bless the seventh day at all, but simply the Sabbath institution.
But both statements embody all the truth. God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it; and this day thus blessed and hallowed was his holy Sabbath, or
rest-day. Thus the fourth commandment establishes the origin of the Sabbath at
creation.
The second mention of the Sabbath in the Bible furnishes a decisive
confirmation of the testimonies already adduced. On the sixth day of the week,
Moses, in the wilderness of Sin, said to Israel, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy
Sabbath unto the Lord." xxiv1 What had been done to the seventh day since God
blessed and sanctified it as his rest-day in paradise? Nothing. What did Moses
do to the seventh day to make it the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord?
Nothing.
22
Moses on the sixth day simply states the fact that the morrow is the rest of the
holy Sabbath unto the Lord. The seventh day had been such ever since God
blessed and hallowed the day of his rest.
The testimony of our divine Lord relative to the origin and design of the
Sabbath is of peculiar importance. He is competent to testify, for he was with the
father in the beginning of the creation. xxv 1 "The Sabbath was made for man,"
said he, "not man for the Sabbath." xxvi2 The following grammatical rule is worthy
of notice: "A noun without an adjective is invariably taken in its broadest
extension, as: Man is accountable." xxvii 4 The following texts will illustrate this
rule, and also this statement of our Lord's: "Man lieth down and riseth not: till the
heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep."
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." "It is
appointed unto men once to die." In these texts man is used without restriction,
and, therefore, all mankind are necessarily intended. The Sabbath was therefore
made for the whole human family, and consequently originated with mankind. But
the Saviour's language is even yet more emphatic in the original: "The Sabbath
was made for THE man, not THE man for the Sabbath." This language fixes the
mind on the man Adam, who was made of the dust of the ground just before the
Sabbath was made for him, of the seventh day.
This is a striking confirmation of the fact already
23
pointed out that the Sabbath was given to Adam, the head of the human family.
"The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; yet he made the
Sabbath for man. "God made the Sabbath his by solemn appropriation, that he
might convey it back to us under the guarantee of a divine charter, that none
might rob us of it with impunity."
But is it not possible that God's act of blessing and sanctifying the seventh
day did not occur at the close of creation week? May it not be mentioned then
because God designed that the day of his rest should be afterward observed? Or
rather, as Moses wrote the book of Genesis long after the creation, might
