Law-teachers try in every way possible to evade the fact that the Sabbath was only Jewish. To admit this would prove that they are trying to revive an abolished institution which belonged wholly to a single nation in a former dispensation. But this is the truth set forth in the plainest terms.
Says God, “I gave them [the Jews] my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them” (Ezek. 20:12). Not to angels in heaven and to Gentile nations on earth, but to the Jews, God gave the Sabbath. If I gave John a dollar, is it not John’s dollar? “I gave them [the Jews] my Sabbath,” saith the Lord. Is it not their Sabbath? Notice how plain the record is that God gave the Sabbath to the Jews, and to no others. “The Lord hath given you the Sabbath” (Exod. 16:29). “Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily, my sabbaths ye shall keep” (Exod. 31:13.) “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel” (vs. 17). “The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath…through THEIR generations” (vs. 16).
Surely this is plain. But right in the face of such positive declarations, Sabbatarians contend that the decalog enjoining the observance of the seventh day rules the universe of God; hence is binding upon angels in heaven and upon all nations of earth. Therefore they argue that the angels keep the seventh-day Sabbath. Let us examine it.
“The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire,… saying, I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.…Keep the Sabbath Day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;…And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath.” “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly.…And he wrote them in two tables of stone” (Deut. 5:2-15, 22).
This is the Sabbath commandment as enjoined in the decalog. Saturday-keepers contend that this command is obligatory upon all nations and even upon angels in heaven; but a careful reading of the foregoing will show that it was given only to the Jews, to the children of Israel. It was but a Jewish institution. This covenant enjoining the seventh-day Sabbath Moses declares was not made with their fathers (the patriarchs), nor with Gentiles, nor with angels in heaven, “but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.”
It was made with the children of Israel only. It applied only to them. “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” Were the angels in Egyptian bondage? Would not that sound a little queer to Gabriel and the heavenly host? Were the Gentile nations there? How does this apply to us Americans? Were we in Egypt? Not many of us. We are free-born. Then, to whom are the words applicable? The answer is obvious: To the Jewish nation, and to no others. Notice the language: “Keep the Sabbath Day.…The seventh is the Sabbath. Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out… therefore [or for that reason] the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath Day.” Language could not be framed to teach more clearly that the Sabbath commandment was to the Jews only. So it read on the tables of stone, and when law teachers apply such language to Gentile nations, or to angels in heaven, they prove that they “understand neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (1 Tim. 1:7).
“Take the Sabbath commandment: ‘Thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates’ (Exod. 20:10). Think of that commandment being given to angels in heaven! ‘Sons,’ ‘daughters,’ and ‘thy neighbor’s wife’ (vs. 17), when they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Again: ‘Cattle,’ ‘ox’ ‘ass,’ etc. Do the angels own cattle and work oxen and asses in heaven? So ‘man servants and maid servants.’ This means bond-servants or slaves, such as the Hebrews owned in those days…Their ‘man servants and maid servants’ (Exod. 20:17). But do the angels own slaves? Did Adam have servants in Eden? Do Christians now have slaves? Will the redeemed own them hereafter? What nonsense to apply this law to the angels and to Eden and to heaven! This word was specially adapted to the social condition of the Jews as a nation in the land of Canaan, and to no others.
“Once more: ‘Thy stranger that is within thy gates’ (vs. 10). As everybody knows, ‘the stranger’ was the Gentile. ‘Within thy gates’ was a common expression meaning within your cities or dwelling in your land. It has no reference to living on your farm or inside the gates that enclose your farm, as Adventists always explain it. The towns were walled in and entered by gates. Here is where the judges sat and business was done. Thus: ‘All that went in at the gate of his city’ (Gen. 23:10). ‘Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates’ (Deut. 16:18). To this custom of the Jews the Sabbath commandment refers. All the Gentiles dwelling in their cities among them must be made to keep the Sabbath. This shows it to be a national law, worded in all its parts to fit the circumstances of the Jews at that time.
“This command, then, could not apply to any but the Jews.”—Canright.
“The laws regulating how the Sabbath should be kept show that it was a local institution adapted only to the Jewish workshop and to that warm climate.” “All the rigorous limitations and exactions of the Sabbath Day, as under the Jewish law, could only be carried out by a small people in a limited territory where the church bore rule. A particular day, the seventh (Deut. 5:12, 13); definite hours, sunset to sunset (Lev. 23:32); no fires must be built on the Sabbath (Exod. 35:3); they must neither bake nor boil that day (Exod. 16:23); they must not go out of the house (Exod. 16:29); they were stoned to death for picking up a stick (Num. 15:32). Their priests must offer two lambs that day (Num. 28:9); they must compel all among them, living in their land, to keep it (Exod. 20:10). It was to be wholly a day of rest.” —Canright.
Such was the Jewish law. We are not Jews, nor under the Jewish law. “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law” (Rom. 3:19). But the Gentiles “have not the law” (Rom. 2:14); and Christians “are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14).
That Jewish law could not be universal. In cold countries people would freeze without fires, and suffer without warm food. Adventists with all their blind zeal cannot keep the day according to the law. “They go many miles on the Sabbath and drive; they offer no lambs; they can compel no one to keep it; nor do they stone those who break it.” In this they expose their folly in trying to observe an obsolete Jewish day.
In Hos. 2:11 the Sabbath is plainly said to be “her Sabbaths that is, Israel’s sabbaths. It is classed in with Jewish “feasts” and “new moons,” and all belonged to “her”—Israel. This settled the matter. The seventh-day Sabbath is the Jewish Sabbath. To this day the Jews claim the Sabbath as their institution.
All chapters posted from The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day.
The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day. By H. M. Riggle, 1922. Life Assurance Ministries, Inc.
- The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day - October 2, 2021
- 27. Sunday-Keeping is Not the Mark of the Beast - July 8, 2020
- 26. The Pope and the Sabbath - July 2, 2020