Genesis 2:2-3 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.… I. WHO WAS IT INSTITUTED THE SABBATH? God. It sets forth the Divine complacency — how He looked back on the work He had finished, and how He was refreshed with the contemplation of it. And this gives us the true idea of the first Sabbath, when the Lord rested from His work; He set it apart, that His creatures might rest also, that they might be taken from the work to the worker, from the gift to the Giver, from the creation to the Creator. II. THE CONTINUATION OF THE INSTITUTION (Exodus 20). Though the appointing one day out of seven was a moral command, yet it was also positive: it was arranged in the garden of Eden before Satan tempted man to fall. Therefore it had its truth, not in Mount Sinai, not because Moses gave it, but from the living God Himself. And there it stands at an amazing distance from all ceremonies and all shadows. It sets forth a great truth, I allow — our rest in Jesus: but the setting apart a day of rest was no shadow; it was God's claim on His people. "Your bodies are Mine, your souls are Mine, and you shall give what you owe to Me." III. THE GREAT END AND OBJECT OF THE SABBATH (Hebrews 4:11). Just as the Creator did rest from His work, and did command His creatures to rest as He rested, giving themselves up to the contemplation of Himself: so in the Christian Sabbath we are led by Eternal Spirit to seek our rest, and to find our rest, in the Lord Jesus Christ. IV. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THAT OBEDIENCE WHICH OUGHT TO BE GIVEN TO IT BY CHRISTIANS? Let him beware of Jewish legality, of the spirit of bondage — of that principle which, while it seemeth as if it honoured God in strictness, strains at a gnat and swallows a camel. You and I, to obey one single principle aright, must have a right principle. It is in vain the command comes to us: it can work on us by authority and by terror: but we must have a higher principle to influence the inner man. The nature of the obedience is at once unfolded in the nature of the institution. Whatever has a tendency to promote my entering into that rest, to promote my spiritual acquaintance with that rest, enters of necessity into the consideration of the Christian Sabbath. Whatever has a tendency to hinder it, whatever has a tendency to prevent it, whatever has a tendency to chain me down to this earth, is to be avoided by a Christian man. (J. H. Evans, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. |
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