The Object of the Sabbath

Ellet J. Waggoner

The Signs of the Times : September 11, 1893

“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27. The Pharisees had laid down rigid rules as to how the Sabbath should be kept. There was no allowance for difference in circumstances, but these rules were to be carried out by everybody on every occasion. Being only human rules they could not be adapted to the condition of men. With them the Sabbath was of their own making, not the Sabbath of the Lord, it was everything and man was nothing. It was far better in their eyes to let a man die than to do anything for his relief on the Sabbath day. Thus they made the Sabbath a burden, whereas God gave it to man for a blessing.

The Savior’s statement that the Sabbath was made for man does not at all convey the idea that it is a plaything for man; that man can do as he pleases with it; but it does show that it is designed for man’s welfare. Man’s welfare is the great consideration. It is man that God cares for. He has not made institutions and arbitrarily commanded man to keep them, so that it makes no difference what the man may suffer, if only the institution be preserved intact. God is not a tyrant. It is true that he has made institutions, the Sabbath among them, and that he designs that they shall be kept; but only because the keeping of them is beneficial for man. God in his wisdom has devised such institutions that the observing of them just as he has commanded, is the only way in which man can attain the highest good, and experience its fairest blessings. 

“The Sabbath was made for man.” Mark well the fact that this statement by the Saviour did not introduce a new order of things. He did not say that the Sabbath which God gave in the beginning had been a hard yoke, but that he had come to modify it, so that men might do with it as they chose, keeping it if convenient, and dispensing with it if they saw fit. No, “the Sabbath was made for man.” When God gave it to man in Eden, as well as when he spoke the fourth commandment upon Mount Sinai, it was designed as a blessing for mankind. God, who made man, knew what he needed, and in the Sabbath he gave him that which would lift him to the original possible place.