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KEEPING THE SABBATH

I. QUAR., LESSON X., MAR. 5th, NEH. 13:15-22

Golden Text—”Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”—Exod. 20:8

While from this scrap of history we learn of the worthy zeal of Nehemiah for the observance of the Sabbath day by Israel, in accordance with the law of Moses—the provisional statement of the law of God—it is necessary to remember that we are living in a different dispensation. The Jewish or Law Covenant having passed away (Col. 2:14), we are now living under the provisions of the “New Covenant”—a covenant of life, not through the keeping of the Mosaic law, but through faith in Christ, whose righteousness is imputed to us by faith.—Rom. 3:20-26.

This “New Covenant,” unlike the Law Covenant, does not stipulate that in order to prove ourselves worthy of everlasting life we shall not kill, nor steal, nor bear false witness, nor that we must keep the seventh day as a Sabbath or day of rest from labor, etc., etc. But it does stipulate that, while we humbly trust in the provisions of the New Covenant for our justification through the precious blood of Christ, we must follow after “the law of the spirit of life”—the law of Love—supreme love to God, and love to the neighbor as to self. (John 15:12-14; 1 John 3:23,24; Rom. 8:2; Jas. 2:8; Gal. 6:2; 5:14; Heb. 8:10; 10:16; Jas. 1:25.) According to this New Covenant, all who, accepting of the redemption provided through Christ, have a disposition or spirit in harmony with God’s perfect law of love are reckoned of God to be worthy of life, regardless of the inability of their fallen, imperfect human nature to fully express that spirit or disposition. This New Covenant, with these gracious and merciful provisions for the weaknesses of our flesh, and this benevolent discernment of the willingness of our spirits to conform fully to the perfect will or law of God, is secured and made possible by the fact that Christ died for us, to liberate us from the curse of the law, Jews being set free from the condemnation resulting from failure to obey the law given by Moses, others being released by the same sacrifice from the condemnation inherited through Adam, the penalty of the original sin against God’s law or command in Eden. And our Lord’s resurrection became our assurance of the acceptableness of his sacrifice, and that in due time he will be the Deliverer of all that obey him, from the bondage of sin as well as from death, its penalty.

The law of love is not given to all the world now, but merely to those who enter

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the bonds and cover of the New Covenant: just as the Mosaic Law Covenant was not upon all the world, but merely upon those who came under that Covenant—Israel after the flesh. Strictly speaking, the world is under no law except that of their own consciences—even though the light of conscience be greater in some and less in others. Since

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the world failed (representatively—in Adam’s failure to obey the supreme law of Love to God, which implied obedience) it has been “without God and without hope” (Eph. 2:12), and without any law except what remained of the originally perfect law of nature,—conscience.

While the New Covenant, which went into force after being sealed with the precious blood of Christ, was declared to be for ALL, it really applies only to those who have come under it, by knowledge of, faith in, and obedience to it and its Mediator,—Christ Jesus, our Lord. Such alone are under the Law of the New Covenant—Love. And to all such it is as useless to impose the Sabbath of the Law of Moses as to warn them not to blaspheme God’s name, nor to worship other gods, nor to kill, steal, bear false-witness, etc. If they are under the New Covenant nothing so gross will apply to them: the only law which will reach their case will be the finer requirements of the Law of Love; and no Sabbath of mere cessation from labor will be real rest to them, but rather the rest of faith in Christ’s finished work of redemption and coming work of rescue. Such, under the terms of the New Covenant, may do any work of service for God or men on any day of the week; and such would be prohibited from any violation of its law of Love on any day. The only laws governing those under the New Covenant, on the question of abstinence from good works on any day, would be the civil laws of the world. And these laws are peculiarly favorable to any good works of necessity or mercy or worship. In any case we are to “be subject to the powers that be” in all matters which do not conflict with the law of the New Covenant—Love.

The Law of Love is the real law of God. (Rom. 13:10.) It was this law or principle that was originally written in the perfect nature of the first perfect man, when he was created in God’s likeness and image. The Mosaic Law Covenant, with all its forms and ceremonies—its typical sacrifices, its feasts and its new moons and sabbath days—has passed away: no one is longer under its dominion. Therefore, says the Apostle Paul, “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come.”—Col. 2:16,17.

Thus we are taught to consider the Jewish Sabbath as typical of some higher blessing, realized during the Gospel dispensation; and the next question is, What did it foreshadow? The term “Sabbath” signifies rest, and the fourth commandment in the Law given by Moses was that this day of rest shall be kept holy unto the Lord. And as such it beautifully prefigured the worshipful rest of faith, and freedom from the bondage of Satan and sin, into which all believers come, on entering the New Covenant.

This antitype is not a rest of one day out of seven, but a continual rest, to be enjoyed every day; and the fact of the observance of this rest among the Jews on the seventh day, after the six days of labor, is further typical of the fact that the fulness of the antitype will not be realized until the six thousand-year-days of evil and toil under the curse of sin are ended and the seventh or Millennial day has begun.

When the early Church began to realize its freedom from the Law Covenant, gradually the seventh-day Sabbath ceased to be observed, and the first day of the week began to be observed; not as a Sabbath or special rest day, but as a day of worship and praise, commemorative of our Lord’s resurrection and of the new and blessed hopes inspired by it. It was not regarded by them as taking the place of the Jewish Sabbath, and was never observed with that scrupulous exactness which was required for the Seventh day under the Jewish dispensation.

The restoration of the proper observance of the Jewish Sabbath and the various other reforms instituted by Nehemiah and Ezra indicated a commendable zeal for that Law Covenant then in force which the Lord surely appreciated. And while it is not our part to similarly seek to bind the obligations and penalties of the Jewish law upon those whom God hath made free from the law, we may have a similar zeal for God in those things which he does require of us now, under the New Covenant. With a similar zeal we should seek to cultivate and manifest in ourselves and others that which our Lord defined as the spirit of the divine law—Love. This law of love is of universal and eternal application, and its blessed outcome of harmony, peace, happiness and joy will fully repay the protracted effort of obedience.

“Love is the fulfilling of the law:” “Let love be unfeigned:” “Love worketh no ill to its neighbor:” “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear.”

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— February 1&15, 1893 —