CHAPTER II

THE ADAMIC COVENANTAL SABBATH

"But they like Adam transgressed the covenant — Hos 6:7, marg.

A. CREATION WEEK AND ITS SABBATH

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"¹, and sustained them thenceforth for evermore. God started to give objective existence to His actual counsel "in the beginning", that is, in the beginning of time as such or "creation time" — to be distinguished from time’s later sub-species such as "formation week time", "light time", "solar time", "human time" (such as "golden time" and "lost time"), and "eschatological time" (such as "Sunday time", "intermediate time" and "new earth time"). God alone is timeless, and everything else is subject to time. Not that God is alien to time as such, even though He is essentially before time and above time² — for His pre-temporal and a-temporal eternity penetrates into and throughout the whole of time. But time is the boundary between the Creator and the creation; it is the first of all God’s creatures, and the deepest layer of all created existence³. See Diag. X below.

DIAG.X — TIME AND ETERNITY

In the beginning (of time) God created time as such or "created time", and (with and in time) He also created the raw materials of the heavens and the earth — creatic prima CUM et IN tern pore⁴.

As regards the earth (in contradistinction to "heaven"), it was "without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep" during that primordial stage immediately subsequent to the beginning of time. But nevertheless "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"⁵; for God the Holy Spirit set about the preparation of the earth for its subsequent formation during the creation week to follow⁶.

Then, indefinitely long after the Spirit’s interpenetration of the primordial terrestrial void, God the Son, the Divine Word, was spoken: "Let there be light! And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day⁷, the first day of creation week (or rather "formation week") — creatio secunda IN tempore⁸ — the beginning of "formation week time", i.e. the time of earth’s "creation week". (See Appendix VI for full treatment of the length of the creation days).

The parallels between this first day of creation week when it arose from the "chaos"⁹ and the first day of re-creation week on which Christ rose from the "chaos" of death, are truly striking. In creation, God the Son, the Light of the world, was spoken: "Let there be light"; in re-creation, God the Son, the Light of the world, did as "the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings" from the dead creation¹⁰. In creation, God instituted the first light on the earth without the agency of the sun; in re-creation, after the sun’s "extinction" (Matt. 27:45) on Calvary, the Light of the world arose resplendent as "the Sun of righteousness" Himself before the rise of Sunday’s sun¹¹. In creation, the week (before the fall) thus started with "Sun"-day¹², as it did in re-creation (after Christ’s reversal of the fall)¹³. But perhaps most important of all, in creation, the first day of creation week^13a commenced (before the fall) with a period of light — thus in the morning and not in the evening¹⁴, whereas in re-creation (after Christ’s reversal of the fall and the infralapsarian evening-to-evening sabbath demarcation), the first day of the weeks of re-creation also commenced in the morning when the Light of the world emerged from the darkness of the earth and His voided tomb¹⁵; and even as the light of the first creation day demarcated the measurement of "light time", of all subsequent creation time from day to day and from week to week¹⁶, so too does the Light of the world now demarcate the measurement of all re-creation time throughout all "eschatological time", throughout all subsequent history from (Sun)day to (Sun)day and from week to week¹⁷.

For — leaving aside for the present¹⁸ the question as to whether the morning of the first creation day began at "midnight" or at "dawn", as it were — it is clear that that first creation day began in the morning. For the expression, "and the evening was, and the morning was, the first day" (Gen. 1:5, marg.), although difficult to grasp and variously translatable¹⁹, nevertheless indicates that the day began in the morning, and not in the evening as the day did later amongst the Jews.

That the expression necessarily implies "from evening to evening" is manifestly untrue when it is realized that there could have been no sunset-evening (In the Seventh Day Adventist sensed before the appointment of the sun and moon as time-makers on the fourth day—and yet the expression is not only encountered on the fourth, fifth and sixth solar "days" but also prior to that in respect of the first, second and third non-solar "days".

Clearly, the work of the first day began (as did the subsequent creation days) only after the expression, "And God said" (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24f.). Hence the previously mentioned formlessness and voidness and darkness of the earth (Gen. 1:2) formed no part of the first day’s work²⁰, the characteristic of which was the creation of light, good light, not the twilight of evening. It was only after the first day’s work of the creation of light, that God proceeded to divide the light from the darkness, and to call the light "Day", and the darkness "Night". It was only after the production of light, that evening came (and following on evening, darkness), for the very word "evening" presupposes the subsequent advent of the darkness of night and the previous existence and fading of the daylight, of the light which God called "Day"²¹.

It was only after the darkness which God called "Night" (which followed the first day’s "Day^" and its evening) that the morning came, the morning which marked the end of the first creation day (consisting of "Day" and "Night") and the beginning of the second creation day (on which God created the firmament)²¹. Hence the expression "and the evening was, and the morning was" does not mean a whole day (consisting of a day and a night) [for the Hebrew word from which "morning" is translated, denotes "(day)breaking"; and the Hebrew word for "(after)noon" is altogether absent from the text], but can only mean the "dark-part" (or "Night") interval, the period of demarcation between the "Day" (or light-part) of the first creation day, and the "Day" (or light-part) of the second creation day²² and it is only after the first day’s "Day" (or light) and "Night" (or darkness: evening and morning) had been spent, that the second day’s light began to shine — and light (not darkness) is the main theatre of God’s creation days’ operations²³.

On the second and the third creation days — each separated from the next by "an evening and a morning" — God created the firmament, the dry land and the plants, whereas on the fourth day He appointed the sun and the moon and the stars thenceforth "to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness"²⁴. Pre-solar "light time" now yielded to "solar time" (and also to its satellite "lunar time") in respect of this earth, and it is possible [though not certain²⁵] that the subsequent fifth and sixth creation days were merely twenty-four hours in duration.

After creating the inhabitants of the water and the air on the fifth day, God created all the land animals on the sixth day, in readiness for the creation of man, His image, and thereafter to enter into His creation rest on the Seventh Day. For God had predetermined to create the earth (its materials, its inhabitants and its rest) on the sevenfold or hebdomadal weekly pattern, so characteristic of all creation and indeed of His Own essential activities in His eternal actual counsel, rather than on an unhebdomadal (such as for example an elevenfold or nineteenfold) pattern. Hence God brought all sub-human creation to perfection immediately prior to the advent of man at the close of the sixth day.

Then the three Divine Persons²⁶ confirmed Their covenant as regards Their actual counsel (including its soteriological aspect) once more, in the words "Let Us make men in Our image" — and then They made and entered into a covenant with Their Own image, Adam.

So God made (in perfect holiness, righteousness, knowledge and dominion)²⁷ His (microscopic) image Adam (and from him, Eve), and established with him as head of the entire human race the covenant of works: Adam’s (covenantal) works were to consist of holy, righteous and knowledgeable adherence to the moral law (including its sabbath), and of the exercise of his dominion over the earth and the sea and the sky; for he was to labour to dominate them throughout historical time six days every week, and to rest from his weekly labours every weekly sabbath day, until his task was finished and the covenant of works was fulfilled and he too entered into his own (aev)eternal sabbath rest alongside of God, of which his weekly sabbath-keeping was to be a constant reminder and encouragement²⁸.

With all this in mind, God created man (and, with man, the new dimension of "human time"; for with man’s creation, pre-history yielded to history; "pre-human" to "human" time). Then God rested in man as the crown of His creation; rested from all new²⁹ terrestrial creative activity on the Seventh Day of His creation week (Gen. 2:1-3; Heb. 4:4).

The description of the seventh day is different from that of the preceding six, in that, unlike the latter, it is the only creation day the introduction of which is not marked by the familiar words: "And God said", and the termination of which is not marked by the familiar words: "And the evening was, and the morning was, the (seventh) day"³⁰.

The omission of these two formulae (so characteristic of the quantitative delineation of all the previous days) in respect of the seventh day, immediately raises the important question as to whether the seventh day manifests a quantitative difference from its predecessors, as it indeed does qualitatively, in that it is only creation day³¹ on which something material was not created.

How long, then, was or is the seventh day? This will be investigated firstly from the point of view of God, secondly from the point of view of man, and thirdly from the point of view of the God-man, Jesus Christ.

From the point of view of God, after making the light, the firmament and the waters and the dry land in that order in three days, and after populating the light with the lights, the firmament and the waters with birds and water creatures, and the dry land with land animals and man in that same order in the following three days, the seventh day was the day on which He "had rested" (or "sabbathed" — Heb. "shãbath") from all His work which God created and made", Gen. 2:3, the day on which He "did cease (or "paused" — Gr. "katepausen") from all His works", Heb. 4 :4. It is not intended to deal with the question of God’s "rest" here, for this will be dealt with at length later³². Nevertheless, it is important to write something about it here, as it provides information regarding the length and nature of the Seventh Day from God’s point of view.

This "rest" of God, then, while marking the end of His work of creating "the heavens and the earth . . . and all the host of them", does not imply that God ceased working in them altogether. This cannot be, for God Who has made all things in the past, and Who gives and maintains all life even in the present, is the God in Whom we live and move and have our very being — for we are indeed God’s offspring — and if He should take back His Spirit to Himself, all flesh would perish, and man would return to dust (Job. 33:4. Acts 17:28). Hence God still continues to work now even after entering into His creation rest. As Jesus said in John’s Gospel (John 5:1, 8-11, 16-19) in respect of the sabbath on which He was performing works of mercy — "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work". Moreover, when this statement in John — namely that God "worketh hitherto" (i.e., that He is working still) — is compared with the statements in Hebrews (cf. 4:3-4, 10) that God’s "works were finished from the foundation of the world", that "God did rest on the Seventh Day from all His works", and that "whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labours, as God did from His" — then it is quite clear that God both "rested" and "worked" on that Seventh Day of creation week, and that He "worketh hitherto" [or "has continued working to this hour" (as Moffatt puts it)]. Hence, God’s works of preservation and government are still in progress, in spite of His rest from His works of creation, which rest is also still in progress³³.

Furthermore, God’s rest — which began on the Seventh Day — is represented by David in Psalm 95 as well as by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (in chapter 4 of that book) as something which is continuous, into which the believer is enjoined to enter. Hence, God’s rest is still in progress³⁴.

Since then God’s work in His creation and His rest from His creation, which former continued and which latter commenced on the Seventh Day, are both still in progress, it necessarily follows that, from God’s point of view, in the absolute sense, the sabbath of creation week is still in progress, and has not, ended, even though, of course, in the relative sense, that particular day, that solar day of twenty-four hours (or longer) on which His rest began, has indeed ended. This explains the Holy Spirit’s deliberate omission of the two formulae "And it was so" and "and God saw that it was good" in respect of the Seventh Day, and particularly His deliberate omission of the concluding formula: "And the evening was and the morning was, the (seventh) day"; all of which strengthens the view here adopted that the sabbath (from God’s point of view in the absolute sense) [as opposed to the first solar seventh day in the relative sense with which it commenced chronologically but does not coincide ontically] did not then terminate (thereby differing quantitatively and qualitatively from the preceding six days), but endured thenceforth down through the centuries³⁵.

From the point of view of man, the length of the seventh day had an entirely different meaning.

Unlike the infinite God (Who had planned the Seventh Day in His eternal counsel, and lovingly brought it into the realm of history after omnisciently leading up to it through six quite extraordinary days of progressive formation, every detail of which He intimately understood, devised and sustained), finite man (even though created in the image of God as the last and crown of God’s creation), as then still ignorant of God’s counsel and the details of His creation, and totally oblivious of the possibility of re-creation, must have been overawed by what he saw of creation at the close of that sixth day, and marvelled even more at the rest, blessedness and sanctity which characterized the seventh.

Man was created in the image of God, yet destined to increase³⁶ in stature according to the measure of his obedience to his Maker; he was a small-scale replica of his Creator³⁷. In respect of time, this means that man, a creature limited by time, is the small-scale image and likeness of his timeless Maker. The same rhythmic cycle which characterized the Creator’s work and rest, was to characterize man’s work and rest, although on a smaller scale. As Atkinson (op. cit., p. 27) remarks: "Man’s sabbath is a microscopic picture of God’s^". And Kuyper ("Gomer" etc. p. 19): "Because God created you in His image, He has also imparted to you that characteristic, that urge, to permit a holy pause, a Divine selah, to enter after six days of labour . . . And rest descends on His human children". And Kelman (op. cit., pp. 266-7): ". . . the procedure of God with respect to this world has been according to a certain plan, comprising six days of creative working, and one of complacent resting, so, when forming man to be His representative as monarch of the world which was made on the seven days’ plan, He wrought that plan into his very nature, so that, when living according to the nature God has given him, man must order his life in this particular way, that after six days of productive labour there shall be one day of complacent, holy resting with God; and thus his whole history shall be a succession of images, every week repeating themselves, of God’s grand and majestic plan of operations with respect to this world. True, these images are not full size, but only in miniature. But in this respect they are like all the other parts of the Divine image which the Creator intended to be seen in His creature man. For example, man, as regards his intellectual powers, and as regards his emotional nature, was made in the image of God: but the image in man was only in miniature — in the nature of things it could not be full size. His dominion, also, over the world was an image of God’s dominion; but of course, the image was only in miniature. Just so with respect to the ordering of his time".

Hence, just as God had performed His great labours for six creation "days", and rested on His great, unclosed Seventh "Day", so too was man to perform his lesser labours for six lesser days, and rest on his lesser seventh day, thereby increasing in stature before his Maker by obedience to Him through the passage of time, i.e., with the passage of weekly cycles, demarcated by the rhythmically recurring seventh day. Just as God’s present rest in the realm of creation will close on the Day of the Lord at the end of this present time and yield to His rest in the realm of the new creation, so too was fallen man’s weekly (day of rest in the realm of time to close at the end of each weekly twenty-four hour sabbath day which was "made for man" — made amongst other things to remind man of the end of his time in this present creation, when, if obedient to God, he was destined to share the continuous rest in the realm of the new creation. Just as God laboured in creation for six days, and began His sabbath rest on the Seventh Day, so too was unfallen man to labour six days and rest thereafter on each weekly sabbath day, so that, through obedience, his rest in God might increase progressively, until he was to have entered the sabbath rest which God Himself prepared for His people, and that in so entering, unfallen man might cease from his labours, as God did from His (Heb. 4:9-10). As Richard Baxter enjoined in "The Saint’s Everlasting Rest": "Use your sabbaths as steps to glory, till you have passed them all, and there arrived".

The quantitative length of the seventh day from the point of view of the first man before the fall, then, as far as can be established, was similar to the present one, namely twenty-four hours in duration.

As regards the length of the sabbath day from the point of view of the God-man, Jesus Christ, God Who became man, this hebdomadal rhythm of labour and rest are perfectly displayed. He is in every sense Lord of the Sabbath.

The eternal Christ, Son of God and one with the Father in essence, finished His six days’ work as the creative Word of God, and entered into His sabbath rest on the Seventh Day as Lord of the Sabbath in creation.

As the incarnate Christ, Son of man and one with mankind by free volition, He finished His appointed days’ work on Calvary as the re-creative Word of God, and via the resurrection entered into His glory, His sabbath rest once more, as Lord of the Sabbath in re-creation.

As the returning Christ, Son of man and Lord of lords, He will consummate this present earthly time and wind up this present history in the Day of Judgement as the perfecting Word of God, so that the new humanity, the Christians, His brethren by adoption, may enter their ultimate sabbath rest to be forever with Christ, as the eternal Lord of the Sabbath of new creation.

The Lord Jesus Christ then, the Lord of the Sabbath, essentially God throughout eternity and voluntarily becoming man in history, is the bridge between God and man, between creation and re-creation, between labour and rest, and between time and eternity. He voluntarily gave up His sabbath rest after His labour of creation, so that by becoming man and labouring without rest in His work of re-creation, He may once more cease from His labours, and rest again as the Author and Finisher of all His works, awaiting the consummation of all things, in the perfect manifestation of the unity of His creation and re-creation at the end of this present earthly time.

So much, then, for the length of the seventh creation day on which God and man both "sabbathed". That day is indeed the germ of all the other sabbaths of Scripture, but it is not qualitatively or quantitatively identical to them. For the word "sabbath", though generally used in Scripture in respect of "the seventh day", does not necessarily imply either "the seventh day" or "the seventh day", and hence still less does it imply "the seventh day of the week" (i.e., Saturday), as many Seventh Day Adventists³⁸ incorrectly assume. The term "sabbath" has various usages, which vary in length of duration and character.

Firstly, "sabbath" is commonly used in connection with the weekly sabbath. From Eden to Sinai it is not known which particular day of the week was the weekly sabbath. From Sinai to the resurrection of Christ, it would appear that the sabbath fell partly on Friday evening, though chiefly on Saturday, at least in respect of the time of Our Lord’s life on earth, Luke 23:54-24:1. From the resurrection of Christ to the resurrection of Christ’s brethren (i.e. from the "Lord’s day" to the "Day of the Lord"), however, it is a fact that nearly all Christians rest from their daily labours for the worship of their Risen Saviour only on Sunday, "the first day of the week". From these facts it is clear that the weekly sabbath falls on a different day in different dispensations, but always endures for one day only — a twenty-four hour sabbath falling on a duly appointed day — the "weekly sabbath".

Secondly, "sabbath" is also used in respect of the ceremonial sabbath feasts of Israel (Lev. 23; and, according to S.D. Adventists, Col. 2:16). The day of atonement, on the tenth day of the seventh month is specifically called "your sabbath" and " a sabbath of solemn rest". The first and seventh days of the feast of the Passover, commencing on the fourteenth day of the first month, were "days of holy convocation" on which "no servile work" was to be done, as were the day of the feast of the first fruits (or Pentecost), and the first day of the seventh month (or the feast of trumpets) respectively. Finally, Scripture records that the first and eighth days of the feast of booths (or tabernacles), beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, were "sabbaths", days of "holy convocation," "feast" days on which "no servile work" was to be done. Now all of these "sabbaths" (so called even by the S.D. Adventists in their Interpretation of Col. 2:16) could fall on any day of the week, whence the chances were six to one in favour of them falling on a day other than Saturday. So they were all twenty-four hour sabbaths which only rarely fell on a Saturday the "ceremonial sabbaths".

Thirdly, Scripture categorically teaches (Lev. 25) that a "sabbath" occurs once every seven years in respect of the land, which "sabbath" lasts for a whole year — a three hundred and sixty-five day sabbath, the "sabbath year".

Fourthly, it would seem from the institution of the "jubilee year" (Lev. 25) that it too is a kind of "sabbath". For it is stated concerning this jubilee that "thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years . . . And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year". Here, it would seem — like the first or eighth day of the week in the New Testament (the eighth day following the last Old Testament seventh-day sabbath, Mark 16:1-2 — the fiftieth year (or first new year after the completed forty-ninth or seventh seventh-year sabbath cycle), is to be hallowed. Whence the institution would seem to be a quinquagenarian sabbath, a "golden jubilee" in the fiftieth year, as it were, indeed: the "jubilee sabbath".

Fifthly, there is the sabbath rest which God entered on completion of His creation (Gen. 2:2, Heb. 4:4) which continued to endure down through the centuries, and, it would seem, throughout the New Testament dispensation even unto the end of this world (Heb. 4:4-10) — a thousands-of-years’ long sabbath, as it were: the "millenial sabbath".

Sixthly, and no doubt related to the fifth kind, there is the sabbath rest in God of the believer, which he enters at the time of his conversion (Matt. 11:28; Heb. 4:4-l0) — the "conversion sabbath".

Seventhly, there is the intermediate sabbath entered by the believer between his death and resurrection, a sabbath enjoyed only according to the soul [cf. perhaps Heb. 4:9-11 and certainly Rev. 14:13 — so Dijk³⁹] — the "intermediate sabbath".

Finally, one may perhaps also refer to the period of "time" following the second coming of Christ and the establishment of the new heaven and the new earth, as a "sabbath", being a fruit, a perpetuation and intensification of the sixth kind of sabbath described above. Yet unlike that sabbath, it is also concrete and after this present life, and unlike the seventh ("intermediate") kind of sabbath, it is enjoyed not only according to the soul, but also according to the (resurrected) body.

On the one hand, it resembles God’s great Seventh Day of creation continuing into the new creation, at least in principle (Heb. 4:4, 9-11 a), but on the other hand it must be remembered that in the new creation God makes "all things new", Rev. 21:5. God will illuminate His new creation immediately by His own glory, rather than mediately by the sun and moon, as in the old creation (Rev. 21:23 cf. Gen. 1:14). Although S.D. Adventists⁴⁰ advocate a weekly sabbath day on the new earth throughout all eternity with an appeal to Isa. 66:22-23 (conveniently ignoring the next verse 24 as outspoken annihilationists!), it would seem that these somewhat figuratively-intended texts have already largely been fulfilled in principle at the first advent of Christ (cf. John 3:36, Luke 17:20-21). Be that as it may, in the new Jerusalem "there shall be no night", for there God’s servants shall "need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light" (Rev. 21:25; 22:5). Indeed, the Lord Jesus is the "bright Morning Star" (Rev. 22:16) and the "Sun of Righteousness", in that new "day which I shall create" (Mal. 4:2-3, Afrikaans version). The new creation will be God’s New Day. God’s Eighth Day which broke through into history in the resurrection of Christ will shine with even fuller power and greater glory with the resurrection of Christ’s brethren at His coming again. Then there will be that cosmic peace in fact which He purchased in principle on Calvary and through His resurrection. A cosmic "sabbath"; a "sabbath of re-created creation", but also a "sabbath of re-created creation"; a sabbath which has progressed from God’s Seventh Day of creation to His Eighth Day of re-creation, His unending New Day of the new creation, His sabbath of eternal morning without evening — the "(aev)eternal sabbath", Heb. 4:9-Il. Cf. too pp. 238-239 infra.

And yet, although these eight kinds of "sabbaths" should be carefully distinguished from one another, nevertheless they are all somehow connected. For they all root in God’s rest on the Seventh Day of creation week as the prototype of them all⁴¹.

B. THE ANTIQUITY OF THE SABBATH

(a) The origin of the week
The Edenic antiquity of the present series of weeks has been questioned by many scholars. Firstly, they advance a counter-argument as to the week’s origin from the silence of Scripture; secondly, an argument from astronomy; thirdly an argument from numerics; fourthly, an argument from history; and fifthly, an argument from logic.

Firstly, the argument from the silence of Scripture, advanced by Oehler⁴². Here it is argued that there is "no trace" of a pre-Mosaic sabbath (and therefore of the week) in the further portion of Genesis, apart from Gen. 2. But this amazing statement "is simply not in accordance with fact", as Lilley⁴³ has pointed out. For the fact of the matter is that there are even in Genesis very definite traces of a post-Edenic pre-Mosaic sabbath. As Jamieson remarks⁴⁴: "The 1st recorded act of worship . . . is considered by many as done on some anniversary Sabbath [see on (Genesis) Ch. 4:3 — cf. the patriarchal book of Job 1:6; 2:1, where in both places, the Hebrew text has the definite article, the day], and the custom of reckoning by sevens, which appears so frequently in the narrative of the flood (7:2-4, 10; 8:10-12); of the nuptial festivities of Jacob (29:27); and of his mourning ceremonial (50:10); — all of them being probably terminated by the arrival of the Sabbath; the commendation bestowed upon Abraham for keeping the Divine commandments and statutes (26:5), which, according to Selden, the Jewish writers are unanimously of the opinion included the Sabbath. These, and various other incidents of a similar kind, are, in so rapid and concise a history, pregnant with meaning, and seem very plainly to show that the patriarchs hallowed the Sabbath as a day of religious observance".

Secondly, the argument from astronomy, advanced by Ideler in particular⁴⁵, but also by Nägelsbach⁴⁶, Keil⁴⁷ and Geesink⁴⁸: "The weekly division of seven days finds its explanation in the quartering of the lunar month". A good statement of this argument is found in the Hastings’ Bible Dictionary under the article "sabbath": — "They may" [!] "have arisen from various causes. Thus in some cases observation would show that particular times were favourable or unfavourable to certain occupations; but very often they would be determined by superstitious or religious motives. The days thus fixed would gradually be tabulated and systematized; and when calendars had been constructed, particular days would come to be marked upon them as lucky or unlucky, and in some cases these would agree with definite phases of the moon. Such a calendar the Hebrews may" [!] "have inherited or may" [!] "have received from Babylonia or from some other source: if they received it from Babylonia, they detached it from its connexion with the moon (fixing it for every 7th day, irrespective of the days of the month); they generalized the abstinence associated with it, and, more than all, they transformed it into an agency, which . . . has . . . operated on the whole with wonderful efficiency in maintaining the life of a pure and spiritual religion".

In answer to this astronomical argument, the following must be pointed out.

First of all, the lunar origin of the week is very "questionable" [to use Baudissen’s⁴⁹ own word]. The objective Keil⁵⁰, while accepting the lunar theory of its origin, concedes that "it has at the same time, its deeper ground in the fact of the world’s having been created in seven days".

Then again, as pointed out by Piper⁵¹, not only does the Hebrew calendar date from creation; it has a semi-lunar year, consisting of twelve lunar months every year (and thirteen every third year), each having twenty-nine or thirty days (or either 354 or 384 days per annum, the latter occurring once every three years). "But in either case it was sometimes made a day more or a day less in order that certain festivals may fall on the proper day of the week for their due Observance". Hence, the weekly cycle was decisive in event of a calendar clash between the week and the (astronomical) lunar month or the semi-lunar year, from which latter astronomical periods the non-astronomical week could consequently hardly have been derived.

It has also been admitted⁵² by the lunar theorist Keil himself that "each quarter of the moon represents 7 3/8 days", and not the weekly seven days, as that theory requiries. Thus too De Vaux⁵³. If the lunar theory were true, it is clear that the week would have to be regularly adjusted to conform with the lunations (ie., the lunar months). But the succession of the weeks is invariable and has never been broken⁵⁴. This is because the week, a series of seven days demarcated by the sabbath day as the first day (in the New Testament) or the last day (in the Old Testament) of the series, depends upon the movements of the earth on its axis in relation to the sun (which regulates the length of the demarcating sabbath day and all other twenty-four hour days), and not upon the movements of the moon around the earth, as does the month (Or "moon-th"). Consequently. as Gray⁵⁵ correctly remarks, "neither a month nor a year can be broken into weeks without a remainder. Indeed, neither the lunation nor the solar yea consists of an integral number of days. They cannot be divided into equal parts consisting of days . . . But the week recurs with invariable accuracy . . ."

Even the Ninevite calendar⁵⁶is no exception, in which the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th (and possibly the 19th too) were noted as holidays or sacred days. For if this Ninevite calendar was inaugurated at a new moon, it would soon have had to ignore succeeding new moons to preserve the tradition of a sacred seventh day, as opposed to the 7 3/8 days of the quarter of the moon. Conversely, if this calendar were periodically adjusted to conform to the lunation, the seven day week series would have to be broken off, whether by adding days to or subtracting days from some or other subsequent weeks, thus breaking the weekly series of seven days. In either event, the connection between the new moon and the weeks would be broken in well under one month after inauguration of the calendar. Hence, as Gray⁵⁷pointedly remarks, "whatever argument for the antiquity of the sabbath may be drawn from this calendar, it certainly bears testimony against the theory that the week originated in observation of the moon."

Various astronomers, when asked to express their scientific opinion as to the wisdom of a new calendar which included a feature which broke the weekly cycle, opposed the change on the ground that this cycle should not be tampered with, and the remarkable comments and reasons for their opposition are found in the official League of Nations document entitled "Report on the Reform of the Calendar, Submitted to the Advisory and Technical Committee for Communications and Transit of the League of Nations by the Special Committee of Enquiry Into the Reform of the Calendar"^57a.

Thirdly, there is the argument from numerics, in respect of which evolutionists may maintain that so-called "primitive man", conscious of the striking occurrence and significance of the number seven in the natural world, abstracted the idea of "sevenness" therefrom; and, applying it to the realm of time, to group days together for the sake of chronological convenience, consequently produced the week, and later still, the sabbath day to demarcate it.

On this ingenious theory, the following judgements must be passed.

In the first place, the new grouping would hardly be chronologically convenient to "primitive man", as, (from the evolutionists’ point of view) initially bereft of an adequate knowledge of God and His authoritative sabbath, the week would have no authoritative day to mark its beginning or ending. Furthermore, the convenience of the seven day week would soon be rudely shattered by its disharmony with the new moon⁵⁸. Moreover, in an attempt to harmonize the two, it is hardly likely that the length of the week, if it did indeed "evolve" from the figure seven, would remain static! True to the process of its "evolutionistic" origin, it would then surely "evolve" further, adding 3/8 of a day per week or three days every eight weeks to try to keep the harmony. But this could hardly be considered convenient.

In the second place, as Gray⁵⁹ remarks, "No doubt seven prominent celestial bodies (or planets) were very early distinguished. Perhaps also, the seven chords of music . . . But since the week can be traced further back than astronomy or music, such conjectures are of little weight". Clearly, the matter is one of historical precedence here — was the seven day week derived from the occurrences of the figure seven in nature, or vice-versa? The historical evidence indicates that the latter is the case.

In the third place, the testimony of Scripture is that the week, a period of seven days, is the prototypical pattern from which all the other "sevens" of Scripture are derived, and not vice-versa. This is not only so in respect of the subsequent development therefrom of measurements of time⁶⁰, of the sabbatical system (7 days, 7 years, 7 x 7 years = jubilee, etc.), but also of other "sevens", such as oathing⁶¹, etc.

In the last place, the numerical correspondence between the "sevens" of Scripture and the "sevens" of nature, far from suggesting the "evolution" of the former from the latter, rather points to a common Author of both, by Whom the remarkable harmony was designed and is maintained.

Summarizing then, the adverse argument from numerics is untenable because it is chronologically inconvenient, historically incorrect, unscriptural and oblivious of the common Authorship of nature and Scripture.

Fourthly, the argument from history. "Many nations", remarks Geesink⁶², "do not have the seven-day week. Egyptians and Greeks divide the month into three parts. The Romans before Christ had a week of eight days . . . there is no question of a consensus gentium here".

Now it is perfectly true that there is no GENERAL consensus gentium (that is, no general agreement amongst the nations) in respect of the seven-day week. Indeed, some nations have used ten-day periods, and others five-day periods, etc. all of which, strictly subdivisions of the month, were, unlike the seven-day week, subject to modification whenever the month was varied, However, what is generally not realized is that there is a SPECIFIC consensus characteristic of certain nations in respect of the seven-day week, namely characteristic of those nations or communities which profess to worship the one supreme God (e.g. Christian and Islamic nations), and of those nations influenced through contact with the covenant people (e.g. the postdiluvian pre-Abrahamic Babylonians, the post-Solomonic Ethiopians, etc.)⁶³.

Fifthly, the argument from logic. Geesink⁶⁴has reasoned: "The sanctity of the number seven and the existence of the seven-day week have as such nothing to do with the sabbath idea". The first part of his statement is in need of severe qualification (see pp. 13f above). However, the second part of his reasoning is logically unsound, as will be shown.

For the logical chain may be stated thus⁶⁵: The weekly series exists right now. But it bears no relation to astronomical phenomena (such as months or years, the moon or the sun). Therefore its existence must be due to an arbitrary act of some personal will. But it could not exist as a continuous series, unless observed and counted by communities and through generations. Therefore the arbitrary act which established it must have been intended to influence communities and generations, who must all have accepted that act and submitted to its influence. But the imposition of an arbitrary act of someone upon a community, and its acceptance by the community, constitute a tie between the one imposing and the body accepting. Therefore the use and practice of that which is so imposed, betokens and manifests the relation of authority and loyalty. Now the expression of a tie between the community of mankind and a supreme authority is the root idea of the word religion. Therefore the week expresses a religious authority and a religious loyalty. But the only religious Authority Who can institute such a tie is the true God (although such a tie may deform after its institution). Therefore organized human society counts time by weeks, because it recognizes the supreme authority of God. But the successive week is maintained by the institution of a sacred day to mark its boundary, for this sacred day defines the week’s end and beginning. In fact, the week is only known because it is marked by a religious day. Therefore the week cannot exist without the day, or the day without the week. Each implies and supports the other.

(b) The origin of the sabbath
This is still⁶⁶ a warmly debated issue, and at least three schools of thought may be distinguished, which respectively hold that the sabbath dates (a) from after the exile; (b) from Sinai; and (c) from creation.

The liberal representatives of the first (post-exilic) group, victims of the J.E.D.P. higher critical Graf-Wellhausen-Kuenen theory⁶⁷ of the origin of the Pentateuch, hypothesize that the weekly sabbath of Israel was a man-made idea of relatively late Jewish historical development, from which the mythical idea of a seven-day week of creation was rationalistically deduced in post-exilic times. "It is plain", one reads in the Hastings Dictionary of the Bible (pp. 319-20), "that in Gen. 2:1-3 the sanctity of the seventh day is explained unhistorically and antedated". "It appears" [!] "certain", writes Smith⁶⁸, "that the Decalogue, as it lay before the Deuteronomist, did not contain any allusion to the creation, and it is generally believed" [!] "that this reference was added by the same post-exilic hand that wrote Genesis 1:1–2: 4a . . . The connection therefore, between the seven days and the work of creation is now generally recognized as secondary".

The above opinion of the higher critics questions the Mosaic authorship, antiquity, authority and dogmatic relevancy to creation of the sources of Gen .l-3, which sources in the opinion of the Highest Critic while He was on earth⁶⁹ were of unquestionable Mosaic authorship, authority and relevancy (and probably even of pre-Mosaic antiquity), and therefore should be for all His followers too. As Lilley⁷⁰ correctly states: "The temerity of these assertions is only equalled by the entire lack of any evidence in support of them".

The generally conservative yet dispensationalistically orientated and somewhat antinomian representatives⁷¹ of the second group, championed by the voluminous Dr. Foley⁷², like the liberal representatives described above, also question the Edenic antiquity of the sabbath, but for a very different reason. They point out that the seventh day of creation was not called the "sabbath" in Gen. 2:1-3 but only in the much later occurrences recorded in Ex. 16. And they further maintain that as God did not specifically enjoin Adam to keep the seventh day on which God Himself admittedly rested, Adam was not required to keep it.

In his excellent and minute "Examination of Dr. Paley’s Argument", Thomson⁷³ describes how Foley asserts that the sabbath was first given to the Jews by Moses in the wilderness of Sin, and that, like the passover, it began with and was part of Judaism, so that its authority ceased when Jesus said on the cross. "It is finished". Gen. 2:1-3, which to the plain reader makes the institution of the sabbath date from creation, Foley calls "proleptical"; that is to say, Gen. 2:1-3 (according to Foley!) does not declare that the sabbath was appointed already at the creation for all men, but, being written at least 2,500 years after creation by Moses, merely assigns the reason why it was only then appointed (in Moses’ day) for the Jews alone.

Paley’s own words⁷⁴ are as follows: "If the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to import [our italics! — N.L.], and if it had been observed all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand five hundred years; it appears unaccountable that no mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, should occur either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish patriarchs, which, in many parts of the account, is sufficiently circumstantial and domestic. Nor is there in the . . . sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the Sabbath, when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an ancient institution which had been neglected, forgotten or suspended; nor is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah . . ."

Against these objections of the antinomian dispensationalists, the third group [consisting, amongst others, of nearly all Calvinists⁷⁵] holds to the Edenic antiquity of man’s sabbath observance, and for the following reasons:— Firstly, it is conceded that the seventh day of creation is not specifically called the sabbath in Genesis 2:1-3, yet it should be pointed out that the Edenic sabbath is implicit in the Hebrew verb for "rest" used there ("shãbath"), in connection with which verb the related noun ("shabbãth") is later used (from Mosaic times onwards) to refer to the sabbath day.

Secondly, the Edenic antiquity of the sabbath is also implied by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the fourth chapter of that book. After pointing out that "God did rest on the seventh day from all His works", v. 4 (which works "were finished from the foundation of the world", v. 3), he states that God spoke later "of another day", v. 8, so that "there remaineth therefore a keeping of a sabbath (Greek: "sabbotismos") to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His", v. 9-10. Here the inspired writer distinguishes the "rest" of Canaan, v. 8, from the previous Edenic sabbatical rest, v. 3-4. For in quoting (v. 3) God’s words from Ps. 95 ("I sware in My wrath, they shall not enter into My rest"), and in making the distinction between this rest of Canaan and the other of Eden, the inspired writer does not say: "although the rest of the seventh day had been instituted in the wilderness for the observance of the Jews", but: "although the works were finished from the creation of the world" — intimating most clearly that that rest had been "entered into" (v. 10) when the [creation] "works were finished" (v. 3).

Thirdly, although it is conceded that it is not recorded that the sabbath was injunctively promulgated as such to be observed by man before Ex. 16, the language of that chapter can hardly be cited as pre-emptively excluding the possibility of the prior observance of the sabbath, for quite the contrary appears from the very terms in which the sabbath is there introduced. When God in addressing Moses enjoins the gathering and preparing by the people of a double portion of the manna on the sixth day, He does it without giving any reason ("And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily", Ex. 16:5). On the supposition of no sabbatical rest and no distinction between that day of rest and the other days of the week having previously existed, this omission of any reason is quite unaccountable. And as soon as it is granted that a sabbatical rest did indeed previously exist, it must also be granted that it must have been instituted at some point in sacred history; but the only prior account which even looks like the institution of the sabbath ordinance, is Gen. 2:1-3, which must consequently be regarded with a great measure of certainty as the time of the institution of the sabbath.

The fact that it is not recorded that God specifically enjoined Edenic man to keep the sabbath day (as He had, for example, previously audibly enjoined them to be fruitful and to subdue the earth, etc.; and subsequently enjoined them not to eat the forbidden fruit, etc.), does not imply that God did not so specifically and audibly enjoin them to keep the sabbath too. And even if God did not audibly enjoin them, it does not follow that God did not inwardly persuade unfallen man — as then inwardly still very sensitive to the Creator’s persuasive leadings — to keep the sabbath.

As Kuyper puts it⁷⁶, "the law stood written on the tablets of Adam’s heart; which indicates in respect of the Fourth Commandment that Adam spontaneously, in his nature, by virtue of his original righteousness, lived by the seven day rhythm, and spontaneously sanctified the seventh day in God’s presence as if by instinct, just as the swallow and the crane still know their appointed times, and divide life into fixed periods of coming and leaving without anyone’s warning . . ."

Opponents of the Edenic institution of the sabbath readily point to the fact that the sabbath is not mentioned in Genesis after its first institution by God, but they forget that neither is any of the other Commandments found there. On this line of reasoning, even the murderer Cain could have successfully challenged God to show him the Sixth Commandment which declares: "Thou shalt not kill".

The stated example of his revelatory Creator in resting on the seventh day, made it quite clear to Adam that he too was to keep the sabbath — for God’s example, His actions, speak louder than His words! Dispensationalists who accept Sunday as the Lord’s day should realize that there too no words of specific institution are to be found — Christ’s example in sanctioning it repeatedly was enough. And Seventh Day Adventists who reject Sunday worship on account of the lack of a record of its specific promulgatory institution, should realize that the same applies in respect of the Edenic sabbath. It is as futile to question (or to Challenge) the Apostolic antiquity of Sunday worship as it is to question (or to challenge) the Edenic antiquity of the sabbath — or vice versa.

Fourthly. there are grammatical considerations involved in the interpretation of Gen. 2:1-3. For the statement about God blessing and sanctifying the Seventh day is introduced in the same consecutive order and is set forth in the same verbal tenses as all the other preceding statements about the various stages of the creative work, and especially those about the creation of man. They are all definite affirmations of what was done then in bringing man into the world, and the same applies to the sentence on the sanctification of God’s seventh day⁷⁷.

Fifthly, the word "remember" in the formal Commandment of Exodus 20 ("Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy") certainly seems to point back to something already experienced (cf. Deut. 5:15 as regards Ex. 20: 8f!). Still more significant, the reason why the sabbath was then (at Sinai) to be observed as a day of rest (namely: "for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it")certainly dates the antiquity of the sabbath as such (as a divine ordinance, whether then observed by man or not) as from Eden⁷⁸.

Sixthly, Christ’s words: "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27-8) plainly imply that the time when man was made was the time when the sabbathwas made — evidently made for him at the time when he himself was made⁷⁹.

Seventhly, the mentioning of the sabbath in the context of Eden in Gen. 2 serves no purpose, unless it has something to say in respect of Edenic man and mankind in general as opposed to the Jews⁸⁰.

Eighthly, there is the plain language of the passage. It is the language of history: And what the historian relates about the seventh day, he relates as done at that time⁸¹.

Ninthly, if, as is admitted, the sabbath was a commemoration of God’s work of creation, then why should not the commemoration by the very nature of the thing commence from the time the work to be commemorated was completed? Was it not thus with the Passover? Was it not thus with the Lord’s Supper? And why not thus, then, with the Sabbath?⁸²

Tenthly, if the sabbath blessing was not somehow intended for and communicated to Adam, it is clear that God made no overt provision for sustenance of Adam’s spiritual life— which is manifestly absurd.

Eleventhly, the division of time into weeks [the antiquity of which is unquestionable (see pp. 59f above)], presupposes the existence of the sabbath.

Twelfthly⁸³, even if it were admitted that there is no reference to the seventh-day rest in the inspired records of the sacred history of the world before Ex. 16, it would not follow that it was not observed by man during that period. For from Joshua to Samuel, a period of perhaps five hundred years, one searches in vain for a single reference, explicit or implicit, to the sabbath;the same applies in respect of the offeringsduring the at least fifteen hundred years between Abel and the flood; again, from Joshua to Jeremiah includes a period of about eight hundred years, in the course of which circumcisionis never named. Had the Jews then, during all this time, set aside this sacrament and national sign? For such inference would be quite legitimate on Paley’s premises. Yet such inference is, of course, absurd; as absurd as the denial of the pre-Sinaitic sabbath or the offerings on similar premises.

Thirteenthly, however, it is not admitted that no traces of the sabbath are to be found in the sacred record before Ex. 16. Undisputedly, the division of time into weeks, or periods of seven days, even antedates the flood⁸⁴, and the existence of the same practice is proved by the most ancient profane records of heathen countries⁸⁵.

Fourteenthly, the evidence for the sabbath’s primaeval appointment and permanent obligation becomes complete when it is observed that within a few weeks after the Ex. 16 scene in the wilderness of Sin, it was enshrined in the very middle of the Decalogue among the other nine moral statutes which, beginning with the race in Eden, had never ceased to be moral. Paley himself admits⁷⁴ that "If the divine command in reference to the Sabbath was actually given at creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to the whole human species alike, and continues, unless repealed by some subsequent revelation, binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it".

Finally, against those who would even go so far as to maintain that the sabbath could not have been given to Adam in Eden for the reason that the book of Genesis was only written by Moses subsequently to Sinai, it is urged in reply [while readily granting that the book of Genesis only reached its present final form in (very early!) post-Sinaitic times] that this fact hardly militates against the pre-Mosaic existence of a reliable (written or oral) God-given Paradise tradition, which was subsequently committed into writing in its present form by Moses under full inspiration of the Holy Spirit⁸⁶.

(c) The institution of the sabbath
After the Lord had "laid the foundation of the earth . . .; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy", He "saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 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" (Job 38:1, 4, 7; Gen. 1:31—2:3).

FIRSTLY,it is revealed that God "FINISHED" [Heb.: "way^ekulloo"] and "ended" [Heb.: "way^ekal"] His creation work.

In the first place it is stated: "thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them"; the "thus" referring back to what immediately precedes it and consequently implying that the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished by the process of creation culminating in the sixth day on which God made His image man.

In the second place, however, it is declared: "on the seventh day God ended His works which He had done", which again points back to the finished work of creation as something which God had already finished making [Heb.: "'ã^sãh"], but which also clearly states in addition that God only finished His work on the seventh day, and then goes on to say that "He rested on the seventh day from all His work . . ."In this sense⁸⁷, then, the work of creation, although finished in six days, was still unfinished! The "finishing touches" had yet to be added. The "finished" work of creation was incomplete without the "finishing" sabbath day, God’s "Amen!".

The Seventh Day then, is an integral part of God’s creation work. Just as man is the crown of all of God’s creatures, so too is the sabbath the crown, the finishing touch of God’s creation work. Just as God once laboured Six Days and ended His creation week on the Seventh Day by entering into His rest thereon, so too was unfallen man to labour repeatedly every six days, and end his work on the seventh day by resting thereon, and, at the end of his life of obedience, to enter God’s sabbath rest in the fullest sense of the word, thereby finishingthe course set before him⁸⁸.

SECONDLY,it is thrice recorded that God finished or ended or rested from "His WORK which He had made", and twice that He rested "from allhis work".

The Hebrew word used in Genesis 2 and in the Decalogue (Ex. 20 and Deut. 5) for "work", is the word "m^ela’kãh", that is, work in general, as opposed to work in the narrower sense or "‘abôdãh",which latter means specialised or career work, such as field labour, manual work or priestly ministry⁸⁹. Hence one may, broadly speaking, render the "m^ela’kãh" of Gen. 2: "work" (in contradistinction to "‘abôdãh":professional "labour"). As the Pentateuch repeatedly distinguishes between the two words, it appears to be correct to conclude that God finished all creative work on the Seventh Day, and expected unfallen man to do the same.

THIRDLY,it is twice declared that God "RESTED".

In the first place, it is stated: "on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had made, and rested [Heb. "wayyishbôth"] on the seventh day from His work which He had made". Here God’s rest is mentioned as a consequence or result of His ending His work which He had made. In the second place, it is stated: "AndGod blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, becausethat in it He had rested[Heb. "shãbath"] from all His work which God created and made". Here the words "and" and "because" indicate that God’s rest is the reason for or the cause of His sanctifying and hallowing the Seventh Day as the Sabbath, which, as remarked by Christ, was made for man. So God’s rest is both the result of His work of creation and the cause of His sanctifying and hallowing the Seventh Day for man; and as such His rest represents a link or sign between the Creator, the creation and the human creature made in the Creator’s image.

But what is to be understood by the phrase, "God rested"? This can be ascertained by establishing: negatively, what God’s rest cannot imply; and positively: what God’s rest therefore must imply.

NEGATIVELY, God’s rest cannot imply: i), that He was tired after creation and needed to rest, for He "shall neither slumber nor sleep", and He "fainteth not, neither is weary"⁹⁰ ii), that God simply returned to His Intratrinitarian counsel and "eternal sabbath rest" as before creation, as in creation something new, "something completely exceptional" [Kuyper⁹¹] had happened; iii), that God, after a period of twenty-four hours’ rest, resumed the interrupted creation work from which He had rested [for firstly, God endedHis work on the Seventh Day (and not on the eighth, ninth, tenth days, etc.); secondly, God began to rest on the Seventh Day and did not rest anew on the eighth, ninth, tenth days, etc., but merely continued that same rest which He had begun on that still unterminated Seventh Day⁹² and thirdly, God is still in His rest, even now in New Testament times, wherefore even modern man is enjoined to enter into His rest (Heb. 4:3-11; Ps. 95:11)]. Neither does God’s rest imply: iv), that He is now idle, for the Lord Jesus Christ distinctly taught in respect of the sabbath, "My Father has continued working to this hour, and I work too" (John 5:17. Moffatt) [i.e., His Father’s "continued working to this hour" did not constitute a breach of His sabbath, and hence that the "work" of preservation, begun before God entered into His rest from His creation works, is not incompatible with God’s rest⁹³].

POSITIVELY then, God’s rest must imply: i), something He did not need, and which must consequently have been introduced for the need of someone else, namely man(Mark 2:27-28); ii), no mere return to His Intratrinitarian counsel, but a new relationship to His now materialized creation. "He rested on the seventh day from new creative effort . . . ceased to originate anything new in the world"⁹⁴ iii), His work is finished and perfect, "and there is nothing He can add to it"⁹⁵. Whereas God’s rest is not to be equated with sustentation, the nature of His rest is rather to be sought, iv), in His satisfaction with His creation⁹⁶, for the Lord doth "rejoice in His works", and "on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed" (Ps. 104:31; Ex. 31:17). Yet God’s rest, the continuing bulwark against pantheistic confusion of the Creator with His creation⁹⁷, v), although co-extensive with the duration of this present creation⁹⁸, is not yet the consummation; vi), God rested in the creation of man His image, so that man may labour through history⁹⁹ until he ultimately enters into God’s eternal rest with all the products of his labours, with all the glory and honour of this world’s kings and nations"¹⁰⁰. Only when man has thus entered into Gods rest, will God’s rest itself be consummated with the creation of a new earth under a new heaven when God’s Seventh Day of creation yields to His Eighth Day, with the re-birth of His universe¹⁰¹.

FOURTHLY,it is stated that God "BLESSED" the Seventh Day. Although both God’s blessing and His sanctifying of the Seventh Day proceed from His rest upon it, it is clear that "blessing" is not the same as "sanctifying". For the Hebrew does not declare: "And God blessed or sanctified the seventh day", but "And God blessed the seventh day and He sanctified it" ["way^ebãrêk 'Elôhim êth-yôm hashsh^ebi'i, way^eqaddesh 'ôthô"].

From the words "AndGod blessed the seventh day", we are able to infer the following — In the first place, that God’s blessing of the Seventh Day was a logical and chronological consequence ("And")or result of His entering into His rest upon it. The S.D. Adventist Andrews has maintained (op. cit.,p. 16) that although God rested on the seventh day of the first week, it was only on the first day of the second week that He blessed and sanctified that seventh day, for the future use of man. But this theory has two drawbacks. Firstly, if the first seventh day is admittedly man’s pattern for the weekly sabbath, how could it not have been sanctified on that very first sabbath day when Adam was assuredly first required to sanctify it? And secondly, how can man now keep the weekly sabbath in the same way in which the first sabbath was kept, if man is now required to sanctify the now sanctified sabbath which had not as thenbeen sanctified when it was first kept by Adam? So Andrews’ speculative construction must be rejected as highly unlikely and open to serious objections. It would appear that God blessed and sanctified the sabbath on that first sabbath just after He had entered into His creation rest on that same day.

In the second place, it is stated that God blessed the Seventh Day. This clearly does not mean that the Seventh Day was less holy than the rest of creation before God blessed it, for all the works of God’s hands were equally holy. And yet it pleased God to specifically bless certain of His works in Gen. 1 in particular, namely i), the creatures of the water and the air; ii), man, both male and female; and iii), the Seventh Day. For the word ‘bless’, as it has hitherto been used in the course of the first chapter of Genesis (vv. 22, 28; ch. 2:3), has entailed both fruitfulness and dominion, God therefore intended the sabbath to be the means of producing spiritual fruitfulness in the lives of His people, and to be the dominating factor in their lives¹⁰². It would thus appear from Gen. 2:1-3, that the words were given in the form of a command from God to Adam designed to secure the weekly and continued observation of a day excepted from labour and dedicated to sacred worship¹⁰³.

In the third place, it is recorded that God blessed "the seventh day". Not that God neglected to bless the other days of creation week and all subsequent weeks, but he imbued the Seventh Day of creation and the succeeding weekly sabbaths with a special blessing — the day was "to be fruitful and multiply in the experience of all who received it with faith in God . . . to reproduce itself in the character and conduct of all who observed it, and so mould their life into harmony with the mind and will of the Creator"¹⁰⁴.

And in the fourth place, however, this "blessedness" of the sabbath is nonetheless not merely limited to the first sabbath day, nor is it rigidly limited only to each successive weekly sabbath day to the utter exclusion of the other days of the week; for God’s blessing of the Seventh Day of creation was not only of one twenty-four hour day, but also of the rest of time¹⁰⁵.

FINALLY,it is stated that God "SANCTIFIED" the Seventh Day. From the words of the institution of the sabbath ("And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it"), the following can be inferred: —In the first place, as in respect of God’s blessing, His "sanctifying" of the Seventh Day was a logical and chronological consequence ("and") or result of His entering into His rest upon it. When God rested on the sabbath, He sanctified it for the use of man. Hence, the sabbath day can only truly be a day of rest to man if he sanctifies it likewise.

In the second place, it is to be seen that the Seventh Day was set apartfrom the six days of labour. This is apparent not only from the general meaning of the word "sanctify" in the rest of Scripture [Heb.: "qiddesh" "to set apart from", "to dedicate to"], but indeed from the very context of Genesis 2 itself. For it has not only been noted¹⁰⁶ that the Seventh Day "stands apart" from the preceding six days [in that, like the sixth day, it abounds with triads], but furthermore [unlike the sixth day], that the three formulae ["and God said"; "and God saw that is was (very) good"; and "and the evening and the morning were the (seventh) day"] do not appear. It was also noted that the Seventh Day is consequently God’s "finishing touch" to His works. For this reason then, God "sanctified" the Seventh Day, which thereupon became, as it were, the hallowed "amen" of the prayer of creation. And like God, man too was to hallow the sabbath, to "set it apart" from his six days of labour¹⁰⁷.

In the third place, the Seventh Day was "sanctified" or "set apart" from the six days of labour, and thereby lifted above all earthly transitoriness, in order that it should be dedicated to God. "The believer’s whole life",writes Atkinson, "is consecrated to God, but the consecration of the daymeans that he is intended to engage upon it in the service of direct approach to God and to give attention to spiritual needs, not always possible during the six days of activity. The consecration of the dayhas always involved the assembly of the people of God for acts of common worship, again not possible while each is engaged on his ordinary duties". "Constituted as he was at the beginning, and still is", writes Lilley,"man could not rise into the ideal of his whole life without the use of a sanctifiedseventh day. Sabbatism of itself is an essential element of his advancing moral experience. Even as the creator wrought and rested — so must man, by the very irreversible bent of his composite nature, find his real progress in a labour that admits of repose in God every day, but is also so arranged as to admit of one whole day in every week being spent in unbroken fellowship with Him"¹⁰⁸.

And in the fourth place, God sanctified the Seventh Day, set it apart from the other days and dedicated it to His use, to accord with the cyclic rhythm in creation and especially in the life of man. This has been dealt with at some length above¹⁰⁹, and one would here only add the following words of Kuyper¹¹⁰: "Rhythm indicates a movement which does not continue monotonously, but arrives at a certain point, continually undergoing a similar and even change . . . in the change of the days, something of the divine rhythm from out of the work of creation lingers on; and thus the days are joined seven by seven into weeks, to commence anew after the completion of each week, and thus to rule over the fleeting days as a higher law. In this manner the Lord impresses the succession of days with His divine stamp. He breaks their monotony and their power, by arranging them in groups. Thus His ordaining hand comes to rule in time. And now, it is into this thus broken time, that the Lord God inducts His Sabbath. Every seventh day becomes the symbol and vehicle of His divine rest. For the Lord God blesses it, and has sanctified it . . . The day is like any other day; but it is its wealth and glory, that God has blessed and sanctified it".

Summarizing the data on the institution of the sabbath, then, it has been seen that God finished His work of creation on the Seventh Day, which latter constituted the "finishing touch" to, and hence an integral part of, that work. After all His work was finished, God entered into His rest, with the intention that man should ultimately follow Him thereinto by way of obedience. As a logical and chronological consequence of God entering into His rest on the seventh day, He blessed it and sanctified it for man. Thus, as Christ remarked, "the sabbath was made for man", in order to associate his life with God¹¹¹.

(d) The subjects of the sabbath.
Although Christ declared that "the sabbath was made for man", it is not thereby to be supposed that it was made only for man — for it also served the interests of, on the one hand, the Creator and, on the other hand, ALL creation, namely: land, animals and man (and possibly the angels too). Thus the sabbath was, and is, of cosmos-embracing significance.

Unlike the creation, THE CREATOR is not subject to law, and therefore not even to the law of the sabbath. Yet when He entered into His rest from His creation works, it was no mere return to His Intratrinitarian counsel as before the creation. His creation, hitherto only existing inside His mind as a gigantic uncreated reality, had now been brought outside His mind as a gigantic created reality. Something new had happened. God in Himself purposed to cease creating and to enter into His creation rest on that first sabbath¹¹².

It is, however, conceivable that the ANGELS are subject to the law of the sabbath, for they did perhaps keep at least the first sabbath in praise of creation, when the Lord "laid the foundations of the earth . . . when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy¹¹³. As to this possibility, see too p. 127 note 120, infra.

As to whether the sabbath was also given in respect of LAND before the fall, it is difficult to assess. Though then still uncursed and "very good", yet it was also undoubtedly permitted to rest from being cultivated by man once every seven days. After the fall, of course, land too was to "sabbath" — to lie fallow every seventh year to rest, and to revert to its former owner every fifty years (Leviticus 25).

Equally difficult to assess is whether ANIMALS rested sabbatically before the fall. If they did, it is possible that man instinctively felt when it was the sabbath day, not only inwardly within himself, but also outwardly, in observing the restful harmony of nature in the rest of the animals. After the fall, it is recorded in the Decalogue and elsewhere that a man’s ox and ass and all his cattle were to rest from all work on the sabbath. And it is also instructive to note that Christ commends kind deeds to animals as legitimate works of mercy on the sabbath day¹¹⁴.

Ultimately, and indeed primarily, however, "the sabbath was made for MAN", as Christ specifically taught (Mark 2:27-28). It is true that Christ was there primarily concerned with refuting the criticisms of the legalistic sabbath-keepers of His day, and that that is the primary reason for His use of these words. Yet nevertheless, He did not say "the sabbath was made for Jewish man", but "for man", that is, for mankind in general, and "therefore the Son of man (that is, the son of Adam, of the first man — not "the Son of David") is Lord also of the sabbath". This argues against the likelihood of the dispensationalistic view of the sabbath being correct, namely that for man as such it was only instituted at Sinai under Moses, and was intended specifically for the Old Testament Jews, and that it was consequently nailed to the cross as a typical Mosaic ceremonial ordinance, and that it now no longer obtains either in respect of Saturday, Sunday, or any other day, Scripture not requiring the observance of any weekly day of rest today. To the contrary, the fact that the sabbath was "made for man", then, enhances the likelihood of it having been given to man (i.e. to Adam, which in Hebrew means "man"), to the first man from whom all other men have descended. Indeed, the doctrine of the covenant (Hos. 6:7) requires that Adam was aware of the moral law, i.e. the substance of the Ten Commandments, including the Fourth¹¹⁵. So the sabbath is given to man, not only to believing man (for the Lord Redeemer "Yãhvêh" is not mentioned in the sabbath’s Gen. 2:1-3 institution), but to all men (as their bounden duty to the Lord Creator "'Elôhim" — Gen. 2: lf.).

Dispensationalists have also attempted to argue that Adam was not enjoined to keep the sabbath. This inexactitude we have amply refuted above¹¹⁶, but would add here that even if such were the case, it would still be true, even from the dispensationalistic point of view, that God instituted the sabbath for man, even if only from Mosaic times onwards.

Summarizing then, while the newly created interests of the Creator, namely the material creation and His relation thereto, are also served by the ordinance, the subjects of the sabbath in respect of which the latter was instituted, are primarily men (and possibly angels too), but animals and land are also benefited thereby.

C. ADAM AND THE SABBATH

(a) The sabbath’s significance to Adam
The significance of the sabbath to Adam can be summed up in one word —"covenantal". This has been dealt with in detail above¹¹⁶, and here a mere summary is given of what is involved therein.

Firstly, the weekly Edenic sabbath had COMMEMORATiVE significance to Adam. Its celebration commemorated God’s creation of heaven and earth in the PAST. Every sabbath day, Adam would behold the works of creation in reverential awe and ponder on their creation and sustentation by the Almighty Creator and Sustainer¹¹⁷.

Secondly, the weekly sabbath had ESCHATOLOGICAL significance to Adam; it looked forward to the FUTURE of Adam (and indeed of the entire cosmos). In the long run, Adam was destined to move through time towards his goal, the entrance into God’s sabbath rest, if obedient in the execution of his covenant of works [involving the exercise of his dominion over the earth and the sea and the sky to the glory of God, and his observance of the moral law (including its weekly sabbath) and his resistance of the devil]. And the weekly divine invitation to Adam to move obediently through time towards and ultimately to enter into that rest, was his obligation to celebrate the weekly sabbath as a miniature symbol of that rest¹¹⁸.

Thirdly, the weekly Edenic sabbath had RELIGIOUS significance to Adam in the PRESENT. The commemoration of creation in the past and its foreshadowing of consummation in the future, were to be religiously celebrated by Adam in the present. Each weekly sabbath Adam was to conduct his religious worship of the Lord, mindful of his own Source and Destiny¹¹⁹. Even before the fall, daily worship of God was not sufficient (because Adam was constructed on a hebdomadal cyclic principle), and weekly sabbath celebration was essential to the exercise of true religion¹²⁰.

Fourthly, the weekly sabbath also had TEMPORAL significance to Adam. By this is meant its necessity as a calendar to man in his passage through time from the past of creation through the present of the moment on his way to his future sabbath rest alongside of God. For human time must be broken at regular intervals, lest man becomes a slave of time. If time proceeds endlessly without alteration, it dominates man. But, as Kuyper¹²¹ declares, if, on the other hand, God divides time, and causes man too to divide time, then God controls time, and human life moves towards the minor goal of the weekly sabbath, which, when reached, brings its rest. For man, and indeed the entire cosmos, were (and are) not static, but destined to unfold and to develop dynamically through terrestrial history as demarcated by seven-day weeks and their sabbath days¹²².

Fifthly, the weekly Edenic sabbath also had PHYSICAL significance to Adam, in that as "rest", it offered a much needed weekly counterbalance to the six days’ human "work" of subjecting the earth and the sea and the sky to God’s glory (Gen. 1:26-28). The spiritualistic suggestion that Adam needed no rest before the fall, is refuted by the consideration that he was not eternal like the incessantly working God in His notional activities, but constructed on a hebdomadal principle as His small-scale image according to His hebdomadal actual counsel and as the crown of His hebdomadal creation week. Unfallen man was physically just as subject to the alternation of work and rest (Gen. 2:1-3; Mark 2:27-8) and wakefulness and sleep (perhaps Gen. 2:21) as was the rest of terrestrial creation to the alternation of night and day (Gen. 1:3f), evening and morning (Gen. I :5f), months and years (Gen. 1:140, summer and winter¹²³. In addition to this, a weekly day of rest is now essential to medical well-being, and no doubt was before the fall too¹²⁴.

Summarizing, the sabbath had commemorative, eschatological, religious, temporal and physical significance to Adam, all of which necessarily proceeded from the establishment of the covenant of works between God and His human image.

(b) The sabbath’s commemoration by Adam
(i) The day of the sabbath’s commemoration
At the first glance it may appear to be facetious to discuss the day on which the first sabbath day was commemorated, but when it is remembered that God is still in His sabbath rest, which He entered after completion of the sixth day of creation week, but that man’s weekly sabbath — even his first weekly sabbath — is only twenty-four hours in duration, the question of the time of commencement of man’s first sabbath and its synchronization with God’s great sabbath "Day" is found to require some considerable discussion.

Firstly, then, what day was Adam’s first sabbath?

Kelman¹²⁵ believes that God certainly did "determine for our first parents which day of the week they should observe as the Sabbath of the Lord their God, although it is probably impossible for us now to know with absolute certainty whether it was the second day, or the seventh day, of man’s history, that was observed as man’s first Sabbath". He feels, even though it cannot now be absolutely ascertained which day of Adam’s history was observed by him as his first sabbath, that the most natural opinion seems to be that it was not the second but the seventh day after Adam’s creation, for in this way Adam would be most closely following the example of God, and in this way there would also be sufficient time allowed for the transactions recorded in Genesis ii. 18-21, which would scarcely be the case if the very next day after Adam’s creation was his sabbath.

With the greatest respect, one must here disagree with the learned Kelman, For if Genesis 1-3 is read with an open mind, one certainly gets the first impression that Adam and Eve were both created on the sixth day (Gen. 1:27, 31), and that "the transactions recorded in Genesis ii. 18-21, to which Kelman refers (namely the naming by Adam of all the creatures which God had created, and Adam’s search for a help meet unto him from among them) were all concluded before the creation of woman [who of course, was created together with man on the sixth day, yet after him and from him (Gen. 2:21-23)]. Kelman forgets that the "transactions" could have been concluded in less than half a day; for all the creatures God had created were as then relatively few in number, and probably represented only by basic stocks from which the endless varieties within each genus would only develop later. Moreover, as the fall had not yet as then occurred, and as man’s intuitive knowledge and acute powers of perfect perception had not yet as then been impaired and twisted by sin as they are now, the "transactions" needed nothing like the length of time to be concluded which they would require today.

Moreover, Kelman’s view raises the question: What did Adam do on the very next day after his creation, on the day on which God entered into His sabbath rest. Did Adam work? If so, he desecrated God’s sabbath rest. Did Adam rest? If so, then he kept that day as sabbath, the first full day of his existence, and not the seventh, as Kelman suggests. All the previous¹²⁶ objections against the Seventh Day Adventist Andrews’ view that God did not bless and hallow the first sabbath until after that first sabbath, apply with equal force here against this view of Kelman.

It seems then that Adam’s life practically began with the sabbath, as the S.D. Adventist Andreasen¹²⁷ correctly holds, where he writes: "The first sunset Adam ever saw, was a sabbath sunset". As to whether that first sabbath actually commenced with the sunset following the sixth day, or only commenced at midnight or the next morning, will be considered presently. But at this point one would agree with the S.D. Adventist Andreasen that Adam commenced observation of his first sabbath within twenty-four hours after his creation, and not only seven days later, as Kelman maintains.

Seeing Adam started to keep his first sabbath shortly after his creation, then, and seeing that he had in no wise lived a full day of twenty-four hours before he started keeping the sabbath, it follows that the first full day of Adam’s life, was a sabbath day. For if sabbath was then calculated from evening to evening as S.D. Adventists maintain, then Adam entered that first sabbath at sunset of the day on which he was created; and if sabbath was then calculated from midnight to midnight or from morning to morning, it is also apparent that Adam had only existed for about twelve to twenty-four hours before his first sabbath commenced. Whichever view one takes, it is clear that the first full day of Adam’s life, was a sabbath. He started life with the sabbath, as it were. As the ex-Seventh Day Adventist Johan de Heer¹²⁸ correctly remarks: "After he had been created, Adam found all things in readiness, both in the plant kingdom and in the animal kingdom; and the Sabbath as the rest of God greeted him on the first day of his life." The seventh day of God’s creation was thus the first day of Adam’s life. Thus too Karl Barth¹²⁹.

The sabbath was the first day of the unfallen Adam’s week.

Once this is seen, one may observe the perfect parallel between God’s creation week and Adam’s weeks before sin entered into the world. It is a superficial view which can conclude from Genesis 1 and 2 that God first "worked" for six days, and only then "rested" on the seventh, the next day. This is partially true, of course, but a deeper insight reveals that God was first at rest before creation, and then "worked" for six days, and then rested again on the seventh day even unto now, while yet never ceasing to "work" in maintaining and developing His creation.

As Eloff¹³⁰ correctly remarks, "Before the fall the day of rest was instituted and celebrated before the (human) working week. God first rested in His Counsel of Peace, then He entered the stage of creation, and thereafter He again entered into a condition of rest . . . When it is clear that man rested for the first time on that day on which God rested, (and when it is clear that) according to Scripture a certain rhythm is indicated in the life of God (first rest, then a work of creation of six days, and after that the rest of the seventh day), which was intended as an example for man, it implies that man too must rest every seventh day. Man’s rest, then, began on the day on which God rested. It was the first full day of human existence" And Jamieson: "This 7th day, being the first day of Adam’s life, was consecrated by way of first fruits to God; and therefore Adam may reasonably be supposed to have begun his computation of the days of the week with the first day of his existence. Thus the sabbath became the first day of the week".

So the S.D.A. Andreasen correctly maintained¹²⁷ that this first day of the week from Adam’s point of view, was indeed the first sabbath. But this can only mean that before the fall, the weeks of Adam’s life were to begin with the weekly sabbath day, and not to terminate with it, as was the case after the fall¹³¹.

Before the fall, man’s week thus began with the sabbath day, and was to be followed by six working days out of gratitude to God. Hereby man was by covenantal obedience to enter into "the sabbath rest which remains for the people of God"¹³² — Paradise Possessed (in measure).

After the fall, man forfeited that initial weekly day of rest when he forfeited his ability to enter into the eternal sabbath rest by virtue of his own obedience¹³³. But that eternal sabbath rest will still be entered on man’s behalf by Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the covenant and the Lord of the sabbath¹³⁴, but only in the future. Hence, after the fall, the weekly sabbath was shifted into the future, which is conceivably what is implied by the words "at the end of the [week of] days" in Gen. 4:3 — Paradise Lost (in sin).

After the reversal of the fall by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Second Adam, redeemed man’s week follows the same pattern as that which unfallen Adam’s week followed and was to have continued to follow; the Christian begins his week with his sabbath rest in the completed work of the resurrected Christ on the day of His resurrection, the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1 etc.), and he works for God out of gratitude on the following six days (John 20:1, 19, 26) — Paradise Regained (in principle).

(ii) The hours of the sabbath’s commemoration
To the question: "At what time of the day did Adam commence keeping his sabbath?", certain Seventh Day Adventists¹³⁵ would immediately reply: "from even(ing) unto even(ing), shall ye celebrate your sabbath", with an appeal to Lev. 23:32. This "evening to evening" rule, they maintain, is the demarcation intended for the sabbath day even before the fall, and is, they further hold, logically the same demarcation as the formula often repeated in Genesis 1, "and the evening and the morning were the (first [etc.]) day".

But this exegesis cannot be allowed for a number of very good reasons.

In the first place, the text Lev. 23:32 which S.D. Adventists adduce in support of their contention — which is the only text in Scripture which even vaguely suggests that the "sabbath" should of necessity be kept from evening to evening — does not really apply in respect of the weekly sabbath at all, but only in respect of a ceremonial "sabbath", namely the day of atonement, which fell on the tenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, and was unknown and uncelebrated until after the time of the Exodus. S.D. Adventists are the first to stress the absolute distinction between the weekly sabbath and the Jewish ceremonial sabbaths when it comes to interpreting Col. 2:16, and it is only right that they should be consequential and do the same in interpreting Lev. 23:32. Furthermore, it should be noted that this "evening to evening" rule is not even mentioned in respect of all the Jewish ceremonial sabbaths, but only in respect of the day of atonement, and of that day alone. One is not here concerned with the (unwarranted) extension of this principle of demarcation to days other than this day of atonement by later Judaism¹³⁶; one is here concerned only with the precise meaning of God’s Word when and in respect whereof God Himself intended it. Finally, it is not clear how "from evening to evening" can be summarily equated with "from sunset to sunset", as the S.D. Adventist position would suggest, as the earthly evening of God’s first day was totally devoid of sunset, the sun only being appointed the demarcator of earthly time on God’s fourth day. Still less does this expression (from evening to evening) imply a "six o’clock p.m." demarcation, which Van Baalen¹³⁷ maintains S.D. Adventists once "practised for ten long years"!

In the second place, one must try to determine the precise meaning of the expression "and the evening and the morning were the (first (etc.]) day". But before so doing one should note the limited value of applying any conclusion which may be reached to the seventh day in the creation account, in respect of which seventh day (as opposed to the previous six) this expression (not without some good reason of the Holy Spirit Who purposely omitted it) is totally lacking. It should also be noted that it is difficult to grasp the precise meaning of the expression, as the various attempts to render Gen. 1:5b in official Bible translations amply indicate¹⁹.

Bearing these limitations in mind, it is clear that this difficult expression, which occurs six times in Gen. 1 (once each time in respect of each of the six days of creation), must surely bear the same meaning in respect of the first day that it does in respect of the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth days. Hence, if one can establish its meaning in respect of the first day, one has established its meaning throughout.

But it has been proven above¹³⁸ quite abundantly, that God’s first creation day did not begin in the evening, but in the morning; whence it necessarily follows that God’s sixth creation day also began in the morning, and therefore ended the next morning just as God’s Seventh Day began, and that that latter day, man’s first sabbath day, therefore began in the morning too. The only question remaining to be solved is whether the morning then began at midnight or at daybreak.

It was also seen above¹³⁹ that there is an intimate nexus and parallel between the first day of creation week when light first shone on the earth, and the first day of re-creation week, Easter Sunday, when the Light again shone on the earth. And so if one can determine what time morning began on the first day of re-creation, one can probably conclude that the morning began at the same time on the first day of creation (that is, terrestrial formation), and that the morning also began at the same time on that first day of rest at the advent of which God and Adam started to "sabbath" simultaneously.

Kelman¹⁴⁰ believes that the creation days (and the first sabbath) probably commenced at daybreak. Yet he also notes in respect of this same matter that in the New Testament dispensation, which in principle restores fallen creation to its former order, Paul "protracted the evening meeting with his preaching till midnight" (Acts 20:7).

It will be remembered that this very New Testament dispensation was inaugurated by the resurrection of the Second Adam on the third day after His crucifixion (Luke 24:1, 13, 33, 46, etc.), on the first day of the week. But it is clear that this resurrection on the first day had already taken place before sunrise or daybreak of that first day, for "on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark (= hence before sunrise — N.L.) unto the tomb", after the Lord had already risen¹⁴¹.

Kelman himself correctly maintains¹⁴⁰ that Christ appeared to His eleven disciples on Resurrection Sunday "the same day at evening being the first day of the week". Now this appearance must have taken place about "two hours" after sunset — the two disciples (Cleopas and his friend) having apparently walked from Emmaus to Jerusalem, for "the distance was about seven or eight miles". It was "toward evening, and the day . . . far spent", before those two disciples had even reached Emmaus, where they tarried for some time in eating their supper. And it was only after that — hence quite long after sunset —that they even started out on the eight mile journey back to Jerusalem.

We are faced then with two undisputable facts. Resurrection Sunday started with Christ’s resurrection quite some time before sunrise on Sunday, and it was still in progress at least two hours after sunset that same Sunday. Hence, neither sunset (thus the Seventh Day Adventists) nor sunrise (thus Kelman) is the time of demarcation of the Lord’s day in New Testament times.

Now as the solar day was then always twenty-four hours in duration, it is clear that the Lord’s (resurrection) day must have terminated at a point in the night AFTER at least two hours subsequent to sunset on Sunday night, and BEFORE a considerable time prior to sunrise Monday morning (being twenty-four hours after His resurrection on that Sunday). In other words, that Sunday must have terminated at some point in the night between about 8 p.m. Sunday night and 4 a.m. Monday morning.

Similarly — working twenty-four hours back from the termination of that day, one arrives at its commencement, which must therefore have been at some point in the night AFTER at least two hours subsequent to sunset on Saturday night (being twenty-four hours prior to a point of time known to have still fallen on Resurrection Sunday), and at a time BEFORE and considerably prior to Sunrise Sunday morning (namely at the exact time of the Lord’s resurrection), and hence at a time not later than the commencement of Resurrection Sunday. In other words, that Sunday must have commenced at some point in the night between about 8 p.m. Saturday night and 4 a.m. Sunday morning.

Now it is clear that midnight-Saturday-Sundayis the midpoint between the two possible extremes during which Sunday must have commenced, and that midnight-Sunday-Monday is the midpoint between the two possible extremes during which Sunday must have terminated. In principle, midnight is also that point from which the darkness gradually recedes and the light gradually increases. And is that not precisely what happened that first Resurrection Sunday morn, when the darkness of the tomb receded behind the Risen Lord, as He the risen Sun of righteousness waited for the rising of the solar sun, waited for the advent of daylight and the coming of the women? And when we are told, as we have seen, that Paul preached "till midnight" "upon the first day of the week" at Troas, "ready to depart on the morrow", our view gains strength.

But there is more. The slain and risen Lord is the fulfilment of the Passover¹⁴², and it was precisely "at midnight that the Lord smote all the first born in the land of Egypt", and from that time that same night the Exodus began. Does it not seem likely then, that the Lord of the SABBATHHimself should have conducted His Exodus from the tomb, the Egypt of our sins, at that same time?

When it is considered that all these events were milestones in the history of re-creation — of re-creation, be it noted — is it not possible, to say the very least, that they corresponded with those first six days, those milestones of the history of creation, even to the extent of those six days also commencing at midnight? This would certainly seem a possible interpretation of the expression "and it was evening, and it was morning, the (first, etc.) day", in that midnight is precisely the very midpoint between the "evening" and "morning" which are mentioned, and in that the "midnight" interpretation — unlike certain others — preserves the written order "it was eveningand it was morning".

If God’s Word had said "And it was night and it was day, the (first, etc.) day", it could still perhaps be argued that sunset was the start, sunrise the midpoint, and sunset the end of the whole period of twenty-four hours called a "night-and-day". For "night" clearly endures for about twelve hours throughout the whole dark period from sunset to sunrise, whence the halfway point is called "mid-night", and "day" for about twelve hours through the whole light period from sunrise to sunset, whence the halfway point is called "mid-day".

But God’s Word avoids these terms "night" and "day" in the expression, stating instead: "And it was evening and it was morning, the (first, etc.) day". Now "evening" does not last for twelve hours, as does the "night". On no account can "evening" be construed to last beyond midnight, and generally it refers only to that period of time immediately around sunset. In the expression "and it was evening and it was morning" then, unlike the expression "and it was night and it was day", we are faced with a breach in timeat some point in the night between "evening" and "morning". Now it seems logical that the point in question should be midnight, that is, that point beyond which "evening" cannot possibly proceed, and before which "morning" cannot possibly commence, towards which the night has waxed, and from which the night will wane¹⁴³.

And so too will it be at the end of the world, when Christ returns on the Day of the Lord. For example, it is stated in the parable of the ten virgins that "while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry made, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh! Go ye forth to meet Him!’". And then the Lord applied this parable to the concrete situation, saying "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh" (Matt. 25:5,6, 13).

In other parts of God’s Word, it is stated that the Lord (and hence the Day of the Lord) will come "like a thief in the night" (I Thess. 5:2), when "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven" (Matt. 25:29). It is true that no one knows at what hour He will come, "whether at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning" (Mark 13:35); but on the balance of the Scriptures it seems clear that He will come in the darkest moment of world history, in the very midnight of despair, whence Christians are enjoined "to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we (first) believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand" (Rom. 13:11-12).

But more. God’s Seventh Day of creation — the day not followed by the expression "and there was evening and there was morning, the seventh day", Gen. 2:1-3 — has not terminated, but is still in progress, Heb. 4:4, 9-11, and will remain so unto the end of the world. But the end of the world will be occasioned precisely by the advent of God’s "Eighth Day", the Day of the Lord, James 5:7-8, Mal. 4:1-6. But it has just been seen that God’s Eighth Day will commence at the darkest point of the world’s history, at its "midnight" as it were. Now the world’s history is co-extensive with the duration of God’s Seventh Day; therefore God’s Eighth Day will commence at the end of God’s Seventh Day. But God’s Eighth Day will probably commence at "midnight" (on God’s macroscopic scale); therefore God’s Seventh Day must also end at "midnight". But if God’s Seventh Day ends at midnight (on God’s macroscopic scale), it must too have commenced the "previous" midnight, "twenty-four" macroscopic "God-hours" beforehand. But then this commencement of God’s Seventh Day at "midnight" must have followed immediately at the termination of God’s sixthday; therefore God’s sixth day must have terminated (and consequently also begun twenty-four God-hours’ previously) at midnight. But the termination of God’s sixth day (like the preceding first, second, third, fourth and fifth days) is marked by that difficult expression: "And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth (or first, etc.) day". Therefore this expression, it would seem, points to a "midnight" demarcation of the day in respect of which it is used.

Now if the above is true of the chronological relationship between God’s Seventh Day and God’s Eighth Day on God’s macroscopic scale, one would expect to find a reflection of that relationship on man’s microscopic (twenty-four hour) scale too.

It was seen above (p. 33f.) and will be seen even more clearly below (p. 200f.), that the first day of the week, the "Lord’s day", is the microscopic picture of the Eternal Day of God’s new week, the "Day of the Lord", just as the (weekly) sabbath day is the microscopic picture of God’s Seventh-Day rest of creation. The (Saturday) sabbath precedes and yields to the Lord’s day of Matt. 28:1 (see too Mark 16:1, 2 and Luke 24:1), where we read: "In the end of the sabbath day, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week¹⁴⁴. But if the (Saturday) sabbath day (at least in Judaism contemporary with the earthly lifetime of Christ) ended at evening (as particularly the Seventh Day Adventists maintain), and if it only "dawns" at daybreak, then midnight Saturday-Sunday could have been the only point of demarcation equidistant from "the end of the sabbath day", and "as it began to dawn TOWARD the first day of the week".

So the midnight-hypothesis fits both man’s microscopic picture of creation and re-creation history, as well as God’s macroscopic picture of the same.

The whole argument may perhaps be represented diagrammatically, thus: —

DIAG XI — GOD’S CREATION AND RE-CREATION RESTS.

And so it has been demonstrated that there is little evidence that God commenced each of His creation days at evening, and the great weight of the evidence points to a time of commencement at midnight (or possibly at daybreak).

But coming to Adam’s sabbath day, the absence of the formula "And there was evening, etc." must be borne in mind. However, the commencement of that first sabbath of Adam (together with that of God) must have immediately followed the termination of God’s sixth day, and, on the balance of the facts, it would seem to the present writer that Adam’s first sabbath also very likely commenced at midnight. But before setting out further reasons for this view, one must first discuss the following beautiful picture of the first sabbath drawn by the S.D.A. Andreasen¹⁴⁵: "The first sunset Adam ever saw was a Sabbath sunset . . . God had finished His work. Six days He had laboured, and now evening was approaching, the evening that would usher in the Sabbath".

Now the suggestion that "the first sunset Adam ever saw was a sabbath sunset" begs the question. It is not questioned that Adam and Eve might have seen the sunset at the end of the sixth day — that might very well have been the case, bearing in mind that the sixth day only terminated after God had given His commands and instructions to both Adam and Eve, Gen. 1:27-31. For this passage can only mean that the data of Genesis 2 in connection with Adam, namely his formation from the dust of the ground and his vivification by God’s breath of life, his receiving of the test prohibition, and his naming of "every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air" which the Lord brought to him to see what he would call them, his inability to find "an help meet for him", his "deep sleep" and his discovery of his wife thereafter, and the instructions regarding food, etc., which they both subsequently received from God, Gen. 1:28ff, all took place before the sixth day was spent, and possibly, even probably, before sunset occurred. Before sunset, because God’s last instruction concerning the food of man was probably not given in the dark between sunset and midnight, when such food could not have been seen, but rather before sunset whilst it was still light. This is surely implied in the fact that the final instructions regarding food are immediately followed by "And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day". Whence one is, perhaps, left with the impression that Adam and Eve, having heard the last instructions of God, saw the evening of the sixth day, and hence the "sunset", as Andreasen stresses.

But this does not imply that it was already sabbath! To the contrary, the simple words of Scripture seem to indicate that the sabbath only came later, on the seventh day, and that this seventh day succeeds the "evening and the morning, the sixth day" of Gen. 1:31, apparently starting in that morning of Gen. 1:31 (at midnight, or after; possibly at daybreak, as Kelmanwould maintain). This seems to be the sense, if we read through from Gen. 1:31 margin to 2:3, namely: "And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening was and the morning was, the sixth day. And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on (not before!) 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".

Furthermore, the view that the days of Eden, and hence the first sabbath day, were computed from morning (midnight or daybreak) and not from evening, seems to find some distant echo in Job 38:7, which certainly applies in respect of at least part of creation week and which, as the Seventh Day Adventists themselves insist, perhaps correctly, applies specifically to the sabbath day¹⁴⁶.

If, as the S.D.A.’s then suggest, this verse Job 38:7 applies in respect of the first sabbath, is it not significant that it was "the morning stars" which then "sang together"? The "morning stars" could not sing together the previous evening of the sixth day and still be morning stars, neither could the "evening stars" of the previous evening sing together the next morning of the seventh day, the sabbath morning, unless they were morning stars, which they were not¹⁴⁷. So here is the spectacle of sabbath evening, which S.D. Adventists stress so much as the point of sabbath commencement, being totally ignored in this text, and the "morning stars", implying sabbath morning, receiving all the emphasis! And is it not significant that the Lord Jesus, the Son Whom S.D. Adventists describe together with the Father as the Co-Author of creation and the sabbath, is variously described in Scripture as the "Star out of Jacob" Who shall rise (not set! — N.L.) out of Israel"; the Sun of Righteousness", Who "shall . . . arise; "the Dayspring from on high", Which shall "give light to them that sit in darkness"; "the Light" Which "shineth in the darkness", Which the darkness could not overcome; and finally, as "the bright and Morning Star", cf. His resurrection on Easter Sunday morning¹⁴⁸!?

It is quite possible, of course, that Adam’s "deep sleep" only commenced at sunset, and that it was then only after sunset that Eve was created, albeit still on the sixth day. But this possibility only strengthens our position that the sixth day then did not end and the sabbath did not begin at sunset, but only at a later point there beyond, such as at midnight.

But even if it seemed likely that Adam’s sabbath actually began at sunset of the day on which he was created — and it does not — there would still be difficulties in the celebration of the sabbath. For are we to suppose that Adam, soundly rested after his "deep sleep" on the day when he was created, having watched the sunset of that day together with Eve and hence (on the S.D. Adventist Andreasen’s hypothesis) having started to celebrate the sabbath, promptly went to sleep again until the next morning, thus ceasing from sabbath celebration for about 8-10 hours, and then resuming it again? Was that first sabbath, unbroken as then by sin, nonetheless broken by Adam’s sleep? Or are we to believe that he continued celebrating that sabbath in his sleep? Or did he stay awake the whole night and continue to celebrate the sabbath without interruption? How much easier are the "midnight" and "morning" hypotheses of sabbath commencement, which would portray Adam and Eve wakening from their night’s sleep to start celebrating their already commenced sabbath continuously and uninterruptedly. It may even be that they were awakened by the hymns and praises of the angels, the "host of heaven", Gen. 2:1, when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy"! If so, what a beautiful way to start the sabbath!

Finally, even apart from the above data, there are at least six other texts in the Old Testament —Gen. 19:33-4; Ex. 12:6, 18; Judg. 6:38, Judg. 21:2-4; I Sam. 19:11 and I Sam. 28:19 — which clearly teach that even after the fall the day was sometimes demarcated from the morning¹⁴⁹.

Summarizing then, it would seem that the first sabbath of which Adam was conscious, probably commenced at midnight, though conceivably at daybreak, but at any event in the morning of that day, God’s Seventh Day and Adam’s "first", and not in the evening of God’s sixth day.

(iii) The mode of the sabbath’s commemoration
If God commemorated His creation sabbath by entering into His sabbath rest¹⁵⁰, and His angels by singing together and shouting for joy¹⁵¹, the question remains: how did Adam and Eve celebrate it?

Many¹⁵² have sought to describe the first sabbath’s celebration in Eden, and perhaps Martin Luther has come nearest the truth. Luther felt that on the morning after the creation of Adam and Eve, that is, on the morning of "the Sabbath day, Adam and Eve were mindful of the will of God, etc. Thus Adam and Eve, flowering in innocence and original righteousness, and full of security on account of their trust in the most kind God, walked around naked holding fast to the word and mandate of God, and praising God, as befits the sabbath day¹⁵³".

Elsewhere¹⁵⁴ Luther has claimed: "If Adam had stood in his innocency, yet he should have kept the seventh day holy, i.e., on that day he should have taught his children and children’s children what was the will of God, and wherein His worship did consist; he should have praised God, given thanks, and offered [that is, performed an act of sacrifice — N.L.]. On the other days he should have tilled his ground, looked to his cattle". For "Adam was to gather with his descendants on the Sabbath at the tree of life", i.e. at a small orchard of trees of the same species¹⁵⁵, "and when they had together eaten of the tree of life, to preach, i.e. to proclaim God, and His praises, and the glory of creation, . . . and to exhort them to a holy and sinless life and to a faithful tilling and keeping of the Garden".

Calvin too has insisted¹⁵⁶ that the tree of life was a "sacrament" which God gave "to Adam and Eve, as an earnest of immortality, that they might feel confident of the promise as often as they ate of the fruit". God rested on His sabbath, "then blessed this rest, that in all ages it might be sacred among men". God "consecrated every seventh day to rest", so that "inasmuch as it was commended to men from the beginning, that they might employ themselves in the worship of God, it is right that it should continue to the end of the world", in that "this institution has been given not to a single century or people, but to the entire human race". Accordingly, "we have an equal necessity for the sabbath with the ancient people", and "it is not credible that the observation of the sabbath was omitted when God revealed the rite of sacrifice to the holy Fathers, but what in the depravity of human nature was altogether extinct among the heathen nations, and almost obsolete with the race of Abraham, God renewed in His law."

Bavinck¹⁵⁷, referring to Gen. 4:3, has maintained that "sacrifice in the broader sense" was "suited to man in the state of rectitude" as "prophet, priest and king", who was then obliged to "glorify God’s Name and dedicate himself to God with all that he had", and who "in the Sabbath . . . received a special day for the service of God; and to this end he needed special forms of cultus; and there is nothing strange [in the idea] that sacrifice as well as prayer belonged thereto".

Barth¹⁵⁸ has written that after man was created outside of the Garden, he was taken inside it "and brought to rest there", Paradise being "a distinctive spatial parallel to the institution of the Sabbath as a temporal sanctuary", man being "given rest in the place whose centre is constituted by the tree of life", where he "is really at rest in respect of his nourishment, and his work . . . is the permitted minimum of the Sabbath which does not disturb the freedom, joy and rest of his existence."

And Wurth¹⁵⁹ feels that as "joy is in any case a valuable thing for the Christian", that "the element of play and of festivity" should be part of his life, as "man is not only created to work", but he also received "a day of rest, that is, a day to relax . . . to be able to enjoy life freely and to the full, to be able to be happy, to be able to celebrate festivities". For Sunday is the day of "glorious restoration of the genuine life of creation" which may be enjoyed "rejoicing and devoid of care"; yet it is a "holy" feast, "no day of man, no going-out-day, no day of jest, no day on which we can gloriously do and leave undone what we like", but it is "the day of the Lord".

Putting all these thoughts together, then, it would then seem that Adam and Eve probably awakened from their first night’s sleep some time early in the morning of the seventh day, perhaps being awakened by the choirs of angels, when all the host of heaven sabbathed, "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (G