Article April 17, 1920 Issue

The Sabbath

ROBERT C. BRYANT

Throughout the history of the Jewish people, up to the time of Jesus the Christ, the sabbath was the most important religious institution. Of the Ten Commandments, the one concerning the observance of the sabbath is elaborated most at length and with the most careful detail. Christ Jesus recognized the importance of the sabbath, and historic Christianity has in turn accepted this Jewish institution and given it a place of first importance in its own system of belief and worship. But why this great emphasis on the sabbath? It could not be merely to provide one day of rest in seven for mankind. Important as this may be, it does not account for the place occupied by the sabbath in religious thought.

The spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures in Christian Science reveals the deeper meaning of the sabbath and makes very clear the reason for its great importance. The record of creation, as given in the first chapter of Genesis, speaks of the six days in which God formed the earth and the heavens. But these "days" were not days of twenty-four hours each, for solar time did not yet exist; nor were they periods of time at all. When we understand that God is divine Mind, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, we must see that time is only a human concept and does not exist as a condition or property of Mind. All that God, divine Mind, is and thinks and does must be as infinite, eternal, and unchangeable as God Himself. All that God creates always has been and always will be, an idea in Mind. There never was a time when any part of God's creation did not exist. God did not create light in one period of time and after that create the firmament in another period of time. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, we read (p. 502): "The creative Principle—Life, Truth, and Love—is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected." And on page 504, continuing, Mrs. Eddy says, "The successive appearing of God's ideas is represented as taking place on so many evenings and mornings,—words which indicate, in the absence of solar time, spiritually clearer views of Him, views which are not implied by material darkness and dawn."

The "days" of God's creation are, then, conditions of thought only. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." "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." Thus we see that divine Mind, conscious of the completeness and perfection of its own creation, has perfect rest,—not cessation of activity, for that would be death, but rest from any sense of incompleteness, imperfection, or inharmony. The sabbath, then, is that condition of thought in which the completeness, perfection, and harmony of all creation is seen and understood.

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