Editorial December 9, 1961 Issue

Keeping the Sabbath Holy

Ralph E. Wagers

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul spoke of those who are in Christ as new creatures in whom "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (5:17). Those in whom the Christ-spirit is bringing about a new birth are constantly gaining a higher interpretation of familiar Biblical terms as well as a more spiritual sense of their own existence.

Take the Sabbath, for instance, a day that is so important in the religious life of the Hebrews that the observance of it will be preserved forever in the fourth commandment, which reads in part, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8). To keep something holy is to set it apart in our thinking and living, to devote it to the service of God to the church, or to religion. Devout men were attempting to fulfill this commandment in Jesus time. But in their zeal to make the day conform to their religious concepts, they bound the Sabbath with so many restrictions that Jesus had to remind them (Mark 2:27), "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."

Remove the word "Sabbath" from its familiar context, see it in its spiritual aspect, and it has a value beyond what we formerly attributed to it. It becomes to us more than a welcome break in the routine of daily living, even more than a day in which appropriately to worship God. In this sense, the Sabbath is more a state of thought than a period of time—a mental state in which we are at peace in the recognition that God, Spirit, is the only creator and that every-thing He has made is very good.

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