“And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.”[86]
Luke testifies that these women kept “the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” The commandment says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” This day thus observed was the last or seventh day of the week, for the following[87] day was the first day of the week. Hence the seventh day of the commandment is the seventh day of the New-Testament week.
The testimony of Nehemiah is deeply interesting. “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant.”[88] It is remarkable that God is said to have made known the Sabbath when he thus came down upon the mount; for the children of Israel had the Sabbath in possession when they came to Sinai. This language must therefore refer to that complete unfolding of the Sabbatic institution which is given in the fourth commandment. And mark the expression: “Madest known[89] unto them thy holy Sabbath;” not madest the Sabbath for them: language which plainly implies its previous existence, and which cites the mind back to the Creator’s rest for the origin of the institution.[90]
The moral obligation of the fourth commandment which is so often denied may be clearly shown by reference to the origin of all things. God created the world and gave existence to man upon it. To him he gave life and breath, and all things. Man therefore owes everything to God. Every faculty of his mind, every power of his being, all his strength and all his time belong of right to the Creator. It was therefore the benevolence of the Creator that gave to man six days for his own wants. And in setting apart the seventh day to a holy use in memory of his own rest, the Most High was reserving unto himself one of the seven days, when he could rightly claim all as his. The six days therefore are the gift of God to man, to be rightly employed in secular affairs, not the seventh day, the gift of man to God. The fourth commandment, therefore, does not require man to give something of his own to God, but it does require that man should not appropriate to himself that which God has reserved for his own worship. To observe this day then is to render to God of the things that are his; to appropriate it to ourselves is simply to rob God.
CHAPTER V.
THE SABBATH WRITTEN BY THE FINGER OF GOD.
Classification of the precepts given through Moses—The Sabbath renewed—Solemn ratification of the covenant between God and Israel—Moses called up to receive the law which God had written upon stone—The ten commandments probably proclaimed upon the Sabbath—Events of the forty days—The Sabbath becomes a sign between God and Israel—The penalty of death—The tables of testimony given to Moses—And broken when he saw the idolatry of the people—The idolaters punished—Moses goes up to renew the tables—The Sabbath again enjoined—The tables given again—The ten commandments were the testimony of God—Who wrote them—Three distinguished honors which pertain to the Sabbath—The ten commandments a complete code—Relation of the fourth commandment to the atonement—Valid reason why God himself should write that law which was placed beneath the mercy-seat.
When the voice of the Holy One had ceased, “the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.” A brief interview follows[91] in which God gives to Moses a series of precepts, which, as a sample of the statutes given through him, may be classified thus: Ceremonial precepts, pointing to the good things to come; judicial precepts, intended for the civil government of the nation; and moral precepts, stating anew in other forms the ten commandments. In this brief interview the Sabbath is not forgotten:—
“Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.”[92]