The word “Sabbath” means rest. It is the untranslated Hebrew word signifying rest. So where we read, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” it is the same as though it read, “The seventh day is the rest of the Lord thy God.” That this is so will be plain to any one who recalls the statement that on the seventh day God rested from all His works which He had made.
Now let it be remembered that it is the Sabbath of the Lord that we are called upon to keep. In these days we hear such terms as “The Jewish Sabbath,” “The Continental Sabbath,” “The Puritan Sabbath,” “The American Sabbath,” “The Christians' Sabbath,” etc.; but the only Sabbath that the Bible tells of is “The Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” “Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep” (Ex. 31:13). The Lord speaks of the Sabbath as “My holy day” (Isa. 58:13). Therefore it is the Lord's rest that we are to keep. Not merely are we to abstain from our own work on the day on which the Lord rested, but we are to keep His rest. What does this mean? Let us see.
The Saviour tells us that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). More exact is the marginal reading of the Revised Version, “God is Spirit.” He is not merely one of a number of spirits, but He is Spirit. He is a spiritual, not a physical, being. Does that mean that He is only a shadow? Not by any means. The only enduring things are those that are spiritual. God is substance, for it is declared that Christ is “the very image of His substance” (Heb. 1:3, R.V.). It is a mistaken idea that we are so prone to get, that spiritual things are unreal. “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). Christ's body after His resurrection, the body with which He ascended to heaven, was certainly a spiritual body; yet it was very real and tangible. We cannot tell what a spiritual body is, but we know that it is infinitely higher and more perfect than our physical bodies. It is not subject to the limitations that natural, physical bodies are.
E. J. Waggoner
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