The main thing to note is that the day is of divine appointment. The Lord blessed the day. He looked upon it with special favour. It was a day in which He would have special pleasure, a day which should prove a special blessing to man who had been created in God's own image and a day naturally of which He would be specially jealous. Any departure from the purpose for which the day was appointed would meet with His disfavour and bring the offender under His frown. His blessing rested upon the day, and has bestowed upon it as a day of rest when man must cease from his work as completely as God Himself did from the work of creation.

Of none of the other days of the week is it said, "The Lord blessed them." The Sabbath day is a day different from all other days, a day which from the commencement of days, has the divine blessing. Let those beware who would wrest the Sabbath day from the purpose for which it was appointed and because of which the divine blessing rested upon it.

Of this day it also is said, "The Lord sanctified it." The root meaning of the word "sanctify" is to "separate" or "set apart." When used in Scripture it meant to set apart for a holy purpose. The thing sanctified becomes holy, set apart for a divine purpose. When the Sabbath day was appointed it was to be a day separate or set apart, a sanctified or holy day. It was not like the other days of the week but a day existing for a different purpose entirely. When people work in their gardens, as so many do on the Sabbath day, when people indulge in sport on that day, whether on a public golf course or a private tennis court, they are violating the sanctity of that day, they are making a day which God set apart and proclaimed a holy day to be like all other days of the week, and are therefore violating the sanctity of the Sabbath. Keep in mind that from the beginning the seventh day was blessed and sanctified. "And on the seventh day God ended 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."

The Sabbath in Israel

Coming down through the centuries to the time of the exit of the Israelites from Egypt, we find that when God gave to Israel the great moral code by which they were to be guided, He embedded in the midst of the ten commandments one relating to the Sabbath, the day which as we have seen, He appointed at creation. He said in what we call the fourth commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Some people talk as if the Sabbath day were a Jewish enactment. This is not so. When God gave Israel the command with reference to it, He used the word "Remember." He enjoined them to observe something which was already in existence. And the reason given was that God, having completed the work of creation, rested on the seventh day. The Creator rested on that day and He desired that man also should rest. In giving this commandment to Israel He reiterated what had been said of the Sabbath at its institution, "The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

The ten commandments are of universal application. We still teach them to our children. In Christian lands they are the foundation of public morality. Concerning them the apostle James in the New Testament says, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." Note that he says, "if you offend in one point you are guilty of all." The same God who said "Thou shalt not kill," also said, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." And if you offend by not keeping the day holy, you are guilty of a breach of the whole law. This is the way the inspired apostle reasons. And so we see that it is a terrible thing to desecrate the Sabbath. It is on a par with the sin of murder, of adultery and dishonesty, and brings the transgressor under the same awful condemnation. Do the proposers of sport on the Lord's day, and those who spend the day in unnecessary employment, realise that? Theirs is a terrible position and they should be solemnly and publicly warned.

If the other nine commandments are still valid in the great moral and spiritual principles they enunciated, surely the one relating to the sanctity of the Sabbath is also valid. Has it ever been annulled? The Lord of the Sabbath did not do so. In its appointment the day was intended as a rest day for man and beast and the Master when on the earth reiterated the same blessed fact when he declared that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was ever for the highest service of man, and this end is only achieved when the day is observed as a holy day.

It is of interest to note that, in connection with the Israelites, the Sabbath is made to have an additional significance to that which it had at the beginning and which is also repeated in the fourth commandment. In speaking to the children of Israel the Lord said, through Moses, "And remember that thou wast 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." Here we have a new reason for the observance of the Sabbath. In the time of their hard bondage in Egypt, it would seem, they had no Sabbath day when they would have been glad of it. They must value it all the more now. If the advocates of sport on the Lord's day should get their way it will soon come about that we too, like the Israelites in Egypt, will have no Sabbath day and we will be without it, not because of the bondage of hard labour, but because men have become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God and they have robbed Him of His day, the day which at the foundation of the world He blessed and sanctified.

The Christian Sabbath

I am aware that there will be those who will step in to declare that it is not the seventh day, the day that God sanctified, that we keep and for whose sanctity I am pleading. Let me say at once "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." We, who keep the first day do keep every seventh day, and we observe it as a Sabbath of the Lord.

Why do we keep this first day? We do it because for us Christians the Sabbath day has come to have a new significance. With the coming of Christ, our Redeemer, into the world we have an event more stupendous than creation itself, an event which will be celebrated throughout the eternal ages. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus on the first day of the week marks the completion of the work of redemption. His resurrection for ever demonstrates that He was the Son of God and the world's Saviour. It marks the completion of an amazing achievement. This is an event to be commemorated in a special way, and so, very early in the Christian era, exactly when we can not say, the Christians began to keep the first day of the week as their weekly Sabbath. The great law of the Sabbath, in respect of the vital moral principle contained in it, has not been altered. The great and beneficent and holy purpose for which the Sabbath was instituted has not been annulled. Only, for the Christian Church, the day has got the new significance associated with the resurrection. Our Sabbath day is a glorious day. It is a day of rest from all unnecessary toil. It is a holy day, a day blessed and sanctified by the Lord, and it is a triumphant day, a day not of gloom and sadness for it is the day when Christ rose triumphant over death and the grave, and in His victory we Christians share.

Of this day we can say, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." For us Christians the first day of the week is the Lord's day, the Christian Sabbath, and that is why we are so jealous of keeping it a holy day unto the Lord.