“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”[1110]
This great truth is therefore worthy to be remembered even in the glorified state. And we shall presently learn that what God gave to man in Paradise, to keep this great truth before his mind, shall be honored by him in Paradise restored.
The future is given to us in the prophetic Scriptures. From them we learn that our earth is reserved unto fire, and that from its ashes shall spring new heavens and earth, and ages of endless date.[1111] Over this glorified inheritance, the second Adam, the Lord of the Sabbath, shall bear rule, and under his gracious protection the nations of them which are saved shall inherit the land forever.[1112] When the glory of the Lord shall thus fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, the Sabbath of the Most High is again and for the last time brought to view:—
“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.”[1113]
Does not Paul refer to these very facts set forth by Isaiah when he says, “There remaineth therefore a rest [Greek, Sabbatismos, literally “a keeping of the sabbath”] to the people of God”?[1114] The reason for this monthly gathering to the New Jerusalem of all the host of the redeemed from every part of the new earth may be found in the language of the Apocalypse:—
“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing [literally, the service][1115] of the nations.”[1116]
The gathering of the nations that are saved to the presence of the Creator, from the whole face of the new earth on each successive Sabbath, attests the sacredness of the Sabbath even in that holy state, and sets the seal of the Most High to the perpetuity of this ancient institution.
FOOTNOTES
[1] For the scriptural and traditional evidence on this point, see Shimeall’s Bible Chronology, part i. chap. vi; Taylor’s Voice of the Church, pp. 25-30; and Bliss’ Sacred Chronology, pp. 199-203.