Graham guardian., 1913-06-27
THE SABBATH AND THE
LORDS DAY
CBy Rev. G. c. Rickman. :,

tBy Rev, y. q. Rickmanl
"And He said unto them: The Sab
bath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath: Therefore the Son of
Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. -
Mark 2:27.
Much has been said about changing
the Sabbath. and some would have us
believe that if we keep Sunday as a
rest day instead of Saturday, we are
not Christians. Paul says (Eph. 2:S) I,
"For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is
the gift of God: not of works, lest any
man should boast The law is the
sinners looking glass. But remember
that no one is foolish enough to try to
wash himself with the looking glass.
Now consider some of the principles
which are common TO the Jewish Sab
bath and the Christian Lords day.
First, is the duty of consecrating GER
tain portion of time, at least one-sev-
enth, to the especial service of God.
Remember that thou keep holy the
Sabbath day" means to US Christians,
Remember that thou keep holy one
day in seven" The especial consecra-
ton of one day in seven does not i'm
volve an implied rejection of the rights
of Jesus Christ over all Christian time.
1t is like those small payments known
to the law, which do not profess to give
an equivalent for that which they rep
resent, but only technically to acknowl-
edge much larger claim, it implies
that all our time belongs to God. A
second principle which is common to
the Jewish Sabbath and to the Chris
tian Lords Day, is the periodical sus-
pension of human toll. This is closely
connected with that of Instrumentation
of time. In order to make the day, by
this prohibition, unlike other days; in
order to make room for the acknowl-
edgement Of God on It, ordinary occu-
pations are suspended. The broad priL-
ciple of abstinence from labor, how
ever misrepresented in the later Jewish
practice, was itself sacred; and IL passed
into the Christian Lords Day.
In the next place, are the days iden-
tical? May we rightly call the Lords
Day the Sabbath? These questions
must be answered in the negative. OBJ
serve that the Jewish Sabbath and the
Christian Lords Day, while agreeing
in affirming two principles, differ in two
noteworthy respects. First, they differ
in being kept on distinct days. The
Sabbath was kept on the last day of
the week; the Lords Day is kept on
the first. The change was made be-
cause there was an imperative reason
for making 1T. For the Lords Day
and the Sabbath Day differ. secondly,
in the reason or motive for observing
them. The Sabbath was the weekly
commemoration of the finished work of
God in the creation Of the physical
world. II brought before the mind of
the Jew the ineffable majesty of the
Great Creator, between whom and the
noblest work of His hands there yawns
an impossible abyss. Thus the Sab
bath observance, apart from its directly
sanctifying effect upon individual life,
was the great protection to the Jews
against the idolatry with which they
came in contact in Egypt, in Phoenicia,
in Babylon, and against the Greek
modes of thought which tried them so
sorely at Alexandria and Palestine un-
der the Macedonian kings of later
time. The Christian motive for OBJ
serving the Lords Day is the resurrec-
tiou of Christ from the dead. That
truth Is to the Christian what the crea-
tion of the world out of nothing was to
the Jews. The Lords Day marks the
completed redemption, as the Sabbath
had marked the completed creation.
The resurrection is also the fundamen-