THE EARLY CHRISTIAN SABBATH - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Early Christian Sabbath
the original creation of the earth, but also the new creation of the spiritual man in Christ
Jesus.
The creating and redeeming God, who rightly requires that He be served and
worshiped, has not left us in darkness concerning His will. He has given us His word, the
Holy Bible, which tells us how we are to worship and serve Him. He has set aside a day
dedicated especially to His service and worship. This day, His holy Sabbath day, is an
institution as old as creation.
God made the earth, says the Bible, in six days. To accomplish this miraculous
creative act, God used six days. We do not know why He chose this period of time. We
believe that He could have done everything in a single instant. Doubtless He could have
consumed in this creative process millions of years had He so chosen. But we are told
that He did it in six days. When the six days were past, He declared that everything that
He had done was good. It was complete in its goodness. Then He did a remarkable thing.
He set aside the next day, the seventh day of the week of creation, in a special way.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and
made.” Genesis 2:1-3.
Thus the Creator laid down at the beginning of this world, not the principle of
worshiping God one day in seven, but the keeping of the Sabbath, the specific seventh
day of the week, as the holy time for worshiping the eternal, creating, and redeeming
God.
God rested on the seventh day. That does not mean that He ceased His divine
supervisory work over the universe. It does not mean that He ceased to look after the
welfare of this earth. It means that He had ended His specific creative work for this earth
and rested from it. He had been busy creating; now He ceased that work, and marked that
one day of His ceasing as a rest day. He put into that special day the blessing of His own
divine presence. In His divine way He set for all mankind an example of the privilege of
rest from labor. He then dedicated that day to man's worship of Himself.
The unique position of this seventh-day Sabbath is that it is of God's appointment.
He has established it and put His blessing upon it. If I wish, I may go to church on my
birthday, and say to my heavenly Father: “Lord, I am grateful to Thee that Thou has
allowed me to complete another Year of life, and so this morning I come to this sacred
building to worship Thee!' God is gracious, and He accepts the worship which I thus
tender to Him upon my birthday. But my coming to Him and worshiping Him upon my
birthday is meeting Him upon a day, not of God's appointment, but of my own. I ask God
to hear me and He does.
So on Thanksgiving Day I come before God and tell Him how grateful I am to
Him for the goodness and mercy He has shown to me throughout the year. God has not
asked me to do this, specifically. My forefathers, and their political successors, have
appointed this day, and I enter into this excellent custom of corporate thanksgiving and
join my fellows in expressing my gratitude to God. This, too, is a day of human
appointment only, but God graciously accepts the worship and thanksgiving tendered to
Him at that time.
It is the same with Sunday. For centuries millions of Christians have gathered to
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