6 INTER-AMERICAN DIVISION MESSENGER
DO YOU KNOW WHICH DAY .
(Continued from page 8)
It is conceivable that God might
have given man a day of rest without
necessarily making that day a holy day.
But God not merely gave man a day
of rest for his convenience and refresh-
ment; He did something to the day it-
self. He made it holy time. Such time
had not existed before as related to
this earth. It was a new creation. It
was created for man.
In making holy time out of that
which otherwise would have remained
common time, God revealed Himself
as the supplier of spiritual as well as
temporal blessings. In the six days of
creation, God had supplied man with
all that he could possibly need or want
in regard to temporal necessities. God
saw all that He had made and found
it to be not only good, but “very good.”
Gen. 1:31. The earth was beautiful,
and it brought forth abundantly. Trees,
flowers, hills, valleys, air, water—all
spoke of the goodness of God. God’s
work was perfect. And yet it was not
finished. One more thing must be done.
That which remained to be done was
the most important part of all creation.
It concerned the spiritual. The tem-
poral had already been provided for.
Now comes the supreme spiritual act
of crealion. God makes the Sabbath.
God makes one day holy time. For
this He chooses the seventh day, blesses
it, and sets it apart. It now becomes
holy time. In a special sense God
owns it as “My holy day.” Isa, 58:13.
It is the climax of creation. It is the
pearl of days. It reveals the inmost
spiritual nature of God. It is a bit of
heaven transferred to this earth. It is
the gift of God. It was made for man,
and when it is truly treasured and kept,
it becomes the seal and sign of sanc-
tification. It is God’s own holy Sab-
bath on which He rested at creation,
which rest and blessing He bequeathed
to man.
As noted before, God did not need
to rest. Even if He had needed to be
refreshed, He could have gone back to
heaven to rest, had He so desired. But
He chose to stay here, that He might
keep the Sabbath day with man, that
man might enter into God’s rest, and
that God might enter into man’s rest.
In this rest God and man were united.
The Sabbath became the golden clasp
that bound them together in holy com-
munion. God was with man, God had
become Immanuel, earth and heaven
were one. The Sabbath was Gods
spiritual gift to man.
Had God left His work at the end of
the six days, there would not only have
been no Sabbath, but also there would
have been no week. The weekly cycle
depends upon the Sabbath for its ex-
istence. Without the Sabbath the six
days of labor would be followed by six
other days of labor, and these again
would be followed by six others, and
so on ad infinitum. But thé endless
continuance of the same kind of days
would not constitute a cycle. There
must be an end and a new beginning,
if there is to be a cycle. The Sabbath
constitutes that link and that end. There
1S no astronomical basis for the week,
and there is no ground in nature for
a weekly day of rest. It is a purely
arbitrary arrangement and division of
time for which no sufficient ground can
be found apart from revelation. Re-
move the Sabbath, and the existence of
the week as a measure of time is with-
out historical basis, and no adequate
reason for its origin and general ac-
ceptance can be found. The universal
agreement as to the weekly cycle is in-
contestable testimony to the seventh-
day Sabbath.
It may be profitable to inquire fur-
ther into the method by which God
honored the seventh day and made it
the Sabbath of mankind. We have al-
ready noted that God rested on that
day and blessed it. The statement is
that God blessed the day “because that
in it He %ad rested from all His work.”
Gen. 2:3. That God already “had
rested” when He blessed the day indi-
cates that the blessing was pronounced
after the resting was done. But this
again suggests that it was not the day
that was past that was primarily in
God’s mind when He blessed the sev-
enth day, but rather the seventh days
to come. There would be little pur-
pose in blessing a day that was past.
The blessing was for the future.
God did more than merely bless the
day. “God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it.” Gen. 2:3. The dic-
tionary defines “sanctify” to mean “to
make holy; . . . to set apart as holy,
or for holy purposes; consecrate: . . .
to give sacred or inviolable character to.”
When God made the Sabbath holy
time, when He sanctified the seventh
day, He set it “apart as holy, or for
holy purposes;” He gave it a “sacred or
inviolable character.” He consecrated
it to holy use. No wonder Lange's
Commentary, under Genesis 2:3, re-
marks: “If we had no other passage
than this of Genesis 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 de-
voted to God as holy time by all that
race for whom the earth and its nature
were specialy prepared.”
The institution of the Sabbath em-
braces three distinct acts of God: He
rested the seventh day; He blessed it,
because that in it He had rested; He
set it apart, sanctified it for a holy use.
These three acts constitute the ground
of the Sabbath, (1) God’s example in
resting; (2) the blessedness of the sev-
enth day as distinct from the other
days of the week; (3) the implied com-
mand of God in setting the day apart
for holy purposes, sanctifying the day.
If any should insist that an implied
command is not a command, we reply
that such definite command is not lack-
ing. But we would suggest that the
true child of God is responsive to the
least indication of the wish and will of
God, and does not wait until the thun-
ders of Sinai awaken him to his duty
and privilege. Such thunders will come
—as they did to Israel of old. They
were told in no uncertain tones what
their duty was in regard to the seventh
day. They had failed to heed the still
small voice; they had failed to follow
the example given them; and now God
spoke to them in thunder tones. Let
us fear, then, lest any of us “fall after
the same example of unbelief.” Heb.
4:11.
As we review the historical record
of the institution of the Sabbath, wel
find that God in the beginning set apart
the seventh day of the week as holy
DIVISION DIRECTORY
G. A. RoBERTS - - - President and
Ministerial Assn. Sec’y.
Ww. C, Rargv  - - ~  Secretary-Treasurer
E. R. SanNDERs - Assistant Sec’y-Treasurer
H. L, NigrseN - - Assistant Auditor
W. A. BERGHERM  - - Field Miss. Sec’y
W. L. Apams - - Educational, Missionary
Volunteer, and Home Commission Secretary
W. AMUNDSEN Home Missionary and Sab-
bath School Secretary
INTER-AMERICAN DIVISICN MESSENGER
W. C. Raley, Editor
G. A. Roberts, Assistant Editor
Published semi-monthly as the Official Organ
of the Inter-American Division Conference of
Seventh-day Adventists, Box 2006, Balboa, C. Z.
Price 50 cents a year,
Entered at Cristobal, Canal Zone, as second-class
matter under the Act of Congress of March
3, 1879.
Printed at Cristobal, C. Z., Isthmus of Panama.
Vor. XVII Avucust 15, 1940 No. 14