Beginning just where we stopped last night--the thought last night and what we wanted to dwell upon particularly last night, was to find God in Christ in His word in creation; in creating, preserving, holding together and holding up, all things.
Six days He employed in creating, and then the record is (Gen. 2:1-3): "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 God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." And this made it the Sabbath day for man; but the thought still before us is that the Sabbath is the sign that He is what He is, in creating, and in all things else that He is; at the same time, however, that all things that He is, is in the fact that He is Creator.
Then, when He had finished creating, He rested and was refreshed, that is, took delight in the reflection in the created things, of the thought of His mind, the completion of the purpose, as it was manifested in the finished creation. That is the thought in the word "refreshed" in Exodus 31:17. Six days He employed in making the heavens and the earth, and "the seventh day he rested and was refreshed," took delight, rejoiced in his completed purpose, in the creation--the purpose that was in his mind before creation was spoken into existence. Then He blessed the day, made it holy and sanctified it. Therefore the commandment tells us: "Remember the Sabbath day," that is, the rest day, "to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the" rest--"the Sabbath"--the rest "of the Lord thy God." Whose rest is it? [Congregation: "God's."] Whose rest is it then that we should take and enjoy on the Sabbath day? [Congregation: "God's."] Then the man who takes his own rest and enjoys his own rest and not the Lord's rest, does he keep the Sabbath? [Congregation: "No."] He keeps Saturday, doesn't he? [Congregation: "Yes."] A man who takes his own rest on Saturday, even though he enjoys his rest on that day, is not keeping the Sabbath, the Lord's rest, and even though he enjoys it, he keeps Saturday only and not Sabbath.
The man who receives and enjoys the Lord's rest on the seventh day, he keeps the Sabbath, because it is God's rest that he keeps. That is what he does. It is God's rest day. "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the" rest of the LORD thy God, not yours. It is His; His rest, and when we remember the rest day, whose rest day is it we remember? Ours or His? [Congregation: "The Lord's."] Yes, the Lord's. It is altogether God's rest, and the idea of God's rest in the thought of the Sabbath commandment, and the reasons that are given in the commandment, are the same. We are to work six days. The reason is: because the Lord in making heaven and earth worked six days and rested the seventh. And we are to rest the seventh day, because the Lord rested, and blessed it, and sanctified it and hallowed it.
What kind of rest was that, or is that, which is in the seventh day? [Congregation: "Refreshing."] Whose refreshing? [Congregation: "God's."] What is God? [Congregation: "Spirit."] God is Spirit. The only kind of rest which He could possibly have is spiritual rest. Then the man who does not obtain and enjoy spiritual rest in the seventh day, he does not keep the Sabbath, because Sabbath rest is spiritual rest; it is God's rest, and that alone. It is spiritual rest, and the sabbath is a spiritual thing, and God's rest is in the day; spiritual rest is in the day. And by observing the day by faith--"spiritual things are spiritually discerned" by observing the day by faith, that spiritual rest comes to him who observes the Sabbath. That spiritual rest which God put into the day, which became a part of the day, that spiritual rest which is there, comes to a man and is enjoyed and known by him who keeps the Sabbath, the only way it can be kept, by faith in Jesus.
Then He blessed the day. Then the blessing of God is also in the day; the rest of God is in the day, and the joy that we have found, the refreshing, the delighting, the joy of the Lord is also in the day. The blessing of the Lord is in it, too; for He blessed the day. Now, is that blessing in the day yet? [Congregation: "Yes."] If a man does not observe it or pays no attention to it, is the blessing in it? [Congregation: "Yes."] But it does not reach the man, if he does not believe.
Now the thought we had last night--the force of the word of God--the word of God, which spoke the worlds into existence, what effect has it on the worlds and has it had since that day? [Congregation: "It upholds them."] That word that He spoke then keeps the worlds together and in their courses ever since. How long will it do so? [Congregation: "Forever."] "The word of our God abideth forever."
Now there is the word of God, that He blessed the seventh day. What is the effect of that blessing which, away back there, He put upon the day? It is there yet, and it will always be there, because to all eternity it will be a fact that God did bless the seventh day; that He Himself cannot contradict, you see. He Himself cannot say that He did not bless the seventh day, for He says He did. Even if He should blot out the whole of creation, it would still be a fact that He blessed the seventh day when it was there. Wouldn't it? [Congregation: "Yes."] Then that is settled. Then to all eternity it will remain a fact that God did bless the seventh day. And just as long as it remains a fact that He did it, so long will it remain a fact that the blessing of God is in it and so long it will remain a fact that the man who observes it as only the Sabbath can be observed--by faith in Jesus--he will get the blessing of God out of it and enjoy it as such.
Now referring to the first chapter of Genesis, there we read in the twenty-seventh and twentyeighth verses: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them." What day was that? [Congregation: "The sixth day."] Then God blessed the man before He blessed the seventh day. That is settled, is it not? [Congregation: "Yes."] Now is it as much of a certainty that He blessed the day as it is that He blessed the man? [Congregation: "Yes."] Is the blessing with which He blessed the day, as real as the blessing with which He blessed the man? [Congregation: "Just the same."] It is as real. What was the blessing? Whose blessing was it that He put upon the man? [Congregation: "The blessing of God."] Whose blessing did He put upon the day? [Congregation: "God's blessing."] Well, then, when that blessed man came to that blessed day, did he receive additional blessing in the day beyond what he had, before he came to the day? [Congregation: "Yes."]
Then the Sabbath was intended to bring to the man, who was already blessed of God with spiritual blessings--the Sabbath was to bring to man additional spiritual blessings? Well, is that so still? [Congregation: "Yes."] "The word of God liveth and abideth forever." It is so now.
Well then He made the day holy. But what made the day holy? Now I need not go through the texts on this; you have had these in Brother Prescott's talk Sabbath before last. What was it that made the day holy? [Congregation: "The presence of God."] The presence of God makes things holy. It makes a place holy. It makes a man holy. The presence of God made the day holy. Then the holiness of God is attached to the day. The presence of God, the holy presence of God, is attached to the seventh or Sabbath day. Well then when the man comes to that day, as only man can come to it, spiritually-minded--with the mind of the Spirit of God--and receives the spiritual rest, the spiritual refreshing that is in it, the spiritual blessing that is in it, does he not also receive that presence, become a partaker of that presence, in which is the holiness of God to transform him? He does indeed. And that is Sabbath-keeping.
Well then He sanctified the day, but I need not rehearse those texts either. What is it that sanctifies? [Congregation: "The presence of God."] Then the presence of God, His sanctifying power is in the seventh day. Is that so? [Congregation: "Yes."] Then the man who comes to the Sabbath of the Lord according to the Lord's idea of the Sabbath of the Lord, and his intent, obtains spiritual rest. He finds that there. He finds spiritual refreshing, delight; he finds spiritual blessing. He finds the presence of God and the holiness which that presence brings to transform him. And he finds that sanctifying power in that presence which sanctified the day to sanctifying him.
For what purpose was all this done? Why was the sabbath made? [Congregation: "For man."] It was made for man. Well then, God rested and put His spiritual rest upon the day for man, did He? [Congregation: "Yes."] God's refreshing, His rejoicing in that day was for man. The blessing with which He blessed it was for man. The holiness which His presence brought to it and which His presence gave to it, was for man. His presence sanctifying it was for man. Well then was it not that man through the Sabbath might be a partaker of His presence and be made acquainted by living experience with the spiritual rest of God, the spiritual blessing, the holiness, the presence of God to make holy, the presence of God to sanctify him? Is not that what God intended the Sabbath to bring to man? Well, the man who gets all that in the Sabbath is the man who is a Sabbath-keeper. And he knows it too. He knows it and he is delighted to know it.
Now another thing: Who was the real present agent in creating? [Congregation: "Christ."] Who was it that rested? [Congregation: "Christ."] Who was refreshed? [Congregation: "Christ."] Who blessed? [Congregation: "Christ."] Whose presence made it holy? [Congregation: "Christ's"] Whose presence is in the day? [Congregation: "Christ's."] Then the man whom the presence of Jesus Christ does not sanctify, and does not make holy and does not bless and to whom it dos not bring rest, why, he can't keep the Sabbath. Don't you see, it is only with Christ in the man that the Sabbath can be kept; because the Sabbath brings and has in it the presence of Christ.
So you see when God set up the Sabbath, He had set creation all before man to start with and man could see God in creation. But the Lord wanted to get nearer to man than that. Man could study creation and find a knowledge about God. But God wanted him to have the knowledge of God. In creation he could know about Him. In the Sabbath he would know Him, because the Sabbath brings the living presence, the sanctifying presence, the hallowing presence, of Jesus Christ, to the man who observes it indeed. Therefore we see the creation was before man and he could study God in creation and thus know about him. But God came nearer than that and set up that which signifies that God is what He is, and when the man would find what God is there, then he would not only know about Him from the created things, but would know Him in Himself.
So then the original purpose of God in creation and the Sabbath as the sign of it was that man might know God as He is and what He is to the world in and through Jesus Christ. Is not that so? [Congregation: "Yes."] Do you see that? [Congregation: "Yes."] What is it for now, then? [Congregation: "The same."]
Now another thought here. The Sabbath was thus made at the end of creation and the real thing that made creation week. The Sabbath then was a sign of the power of God manifested in Jesus Christ and the sign of a finished creation--the sign of God as manifested in Jesus Christ in a completed and finished creation. He saw all that He had made in the five days and behold it was good, but when it comes to the sixth day, He saw all things, and behold it was very good. Gen. 1:31. And His purpose stood completed. "thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them," and there they were, the expression of the thought that was in His mind, that the word expressed when He spoke them into existence. Then the Sabbath--the sign "that I am the Lord your God," because in six days He made heaven and earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed--is the sign of the finished and completed work of God in creation.
Now let us go on from that. Did man, at that time, in the garden of Eden, standing as God made him, know all of God that he ever could know? [Congregation: "No."] Then as each Sabbath day came, it would bring to him additional knowledge and presence of God. But who is this? [Congregation: "Christ."] Additional knowledge and presence of Christ in Himself. Then if he had remained faithful, he would still have grown in the knowledge of God, in Himself, in His own experience, growing more and more in all that the nature of God is. But he didn't stay there. He didn't remain faithful. The creation was completed as God finished it, and all the host of them, and they were according to His own mind. That is so. But Satan came in and swung man and all this world clear out of God's purpose entirely. Didn't he? [Congregation: "Yes."] Reversed God's order, so that, where God was reflected to man's mind in all things above and in man himself before, now Satan is reflected in man and that puts a blur upon the reflection of God in anything, so that the natural man does not see God, even in nature.
Well, then, when Satan had swung this out of God's purpose, and turned it about and reversed God's order, the Lord did not leave it then. He said, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." That broke the power of Satan over man to that extent that it released him from total depravity; set him free to find God. But in whom was that done? [Congregation: "Christ."] Christ again. God in Christ wants to bring man and the world back again into His original purpose. And was it not the same power in Christ and by the same means--His word-- that He would bring back men and the world into His purpose, that produced them in the first place? [Congregation: "Yes."]
It was God in Christ, by His word, that produced the world and man, in the first place. Now Satan has taken it all away from God and turned it contrary to God's purpose. Now it is God in Christ, by His word, that brings men and the world back into His purpose. Then is not the work of salvation simply the power of God in another way than that which brought all things in the first place? In other words, is not salvation creation? Assuredly.
Now another thought on that to see it still more plainly, if need be. Is God's original purpose in creation completed now? [Congregation: "No."] It was completed, but is it now? [Congregation: "No."] No, sir. When the salvation of mankind is completed will His original purpose then be completed? [Congregation: "Yes."] Then what is the work of salvation but God's carrying out and completing His original purpose in creation? [Voices: It is the same thing."] "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." Then what can the work of salvation be but original work of creation? The same God, in the same Son, by the same means, to accomplish the same purpose. Well, then isn't the sign of this work in salvation the same as the sign of that work in creation? To be sure it is.
Then the Sabbath of the Lord is just as certainly the sign of the creative power of God manifested in Jesus Christ through His word, in the salvation of my soul as it was in the making of this world in the first place.
But God is revealed everywhere in Christ, in all places, you see. That is the thought before us continually. Then His name is I AM WHAT I AM. But what He is can be known only in Jesus Christ. Therefore to men, to all intents and purposes, to men in this world, Jesus Christ is God Himself and what He is, isn't He? [Congregation: "Yes."] I say to all intents and purposes--not that it is making them one, identical and the same individual, but as no man can know the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him, no man can know God except as He is revealed in Jesus Christ; consequently, to man, Christ is God and all that He can know of God is in Christ. And therefore Christ becomes practically, to all intents and purposes, God to us; and God said when He was born, He is "God with us."
Well then the Sabbath is the sign that He is the Lord our God. But it is the sign that He is what He is. Then Christ being God to us, is not the Sabbath the sign of what Jesus Christ is to the man who believes in Him. [Congregation: "Yes."] At creation it was the sign of what Jesus Christ is in creation. And now as Christ has to carry on His own work in salvation in order through this means to finish His original purpose in creation, the Sabbath is the same sign of the same creative power, in the same one, Jesus Christ. So it is still the same thing right along. Only now the power is manifested in a different way from what it was before, because of the reversal of the order, but it is the same creative power from the same Person in the same One by the same means, and accomplishing the same purpose. And therefore the same sign is the only one that ever could be attached to it. You cannot have any other sign of it. It is impossible. So that it is literally true that the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, the blessed seventh day, is God's own sign of what Jesus Christ is to the man who believes in Jesus Christ.
Now let us study that a little further. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." "The wages of sin is death; therefore death passed upon all men, for all have sinned." All are dead. Is that so? [Congregation: "Yes."] They are all gone out of the way. They are gone from God's original purpose entirely. What is the first thing that Jesus Christ is to the man who believes in Him? [Congregation: "Creator."] "Created anew in Christ Jesus." God in Christ unto the sinner is still Creator, the very first thing, because God speaks and he lives. By the word of God we live. And "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. 2:10. Then God made man to walk in good works, but man walked the other way. Now in Christ God brings man up to the place where He started him. So salvation is only the accomplishing of the original purpose of God in Christ in creation.
Well, therefore, "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature." The first thing that Christ is to anybody and the first thing that God is to anybody--to the sinner--in this world is Creator, making him a new creature. "Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a right spirit within me." Then the work of God in salvation is creation.
Well, when we have thus found Jesus Christ as our Creator and been made new in Him, then what is the first thing we find in Jesus? [Congregation: "Rest."] Yes, rest, of course. And there is the first thing that He did in the beginning. He rested. So first thing we find in the manifestation of His power in us is rest. What kind of rest? [Congregation: "Spiritual rest."] That is the invitation: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Then He says, "I am with you." I am with you. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." And when He spoke to Moses in the wilderness, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." What does His presence give? [Congregation: "Rest."]
And when that man has become a new creature in Christ and finds that rest what then does He do? [Voice: "Works the works of God."] No. He rejoices first, and he goes to work rejoicing. What did God do? Rejoiced. What does the man do? He rejoices in the purpose of God accomplished in himself. But is that all the rejoicing there is? No. "I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." Then God rejoices again in the rest which He gives to us and which we obtain in Him. And again He is refreshed; again He delights in His people.
Well then the next thing that belongs to the Sabbath day and the next thing that belongs all through this is blessing. Last verse of Acts, third chapter: "Unto you first, God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away from every one of you from his iniquities." Then Christ is a blessing to the sinner, isn't He? He is a blessing to the man who believes in Him. But further: That text that we have studied here so deliciously, Eph. 1:3; "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." God has given to us all the spiritual blessings He has. They are given to us in Christ, though.
But the Sabbath brings to us spiritual blessing. Where did the Sabbath get the spiritual blessing? [Congregation: "From Christ."] Yes, from Jesus Christ. Then in the matter of spiritual blessing which the Sabbath brings to us, it brings it to us from Jesus Christ only and through Jesus Christ only, so that in that respect, the Sabbath is a channel through which spiritual blessing flows from Jesus Christ to the people of God. That is a fact; because all spiritual blessings are given to us in Christ, and the Sabbath has the spiritual blessing of God in it, and therefore it being spiritual blessing it could not get it in any other place or way that in, by, and from Jesus Christ. Consequently the Sabbath is one of those links that Brother Prescott referred to awhile ago that binds us to Christ, that we may have spiritual blessing.
Then further: "My presence shall go with thee." His presence makes holy the person where he is. And further: Another thought, to come up to the same point another way. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." What is the gospel? [Congregation: "The power of God."] What is manifested in Christ? [Congregation: "The power of God."] What is manifested in the gospel? [Congregation: "The power of God."] To what purpose? [Voice: "Creation."] But the power of God unto salvation is the same power in the creation. It is the power of God in both places. Then whatever the sign of the power of God is in one place, it is the sign of the power of God in every place and in every way, because it is the power of God alone all the time, and you cannot set the power of God against the power of God. So you do not need any other sign of the manifestation of the power of God. You cannot have it; it is impossible.
Well then the gospel is the "power of God unto salvation," and the gospel is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Then the man who believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ, Christ dwells in him. Christ's presence is there, and Christ's presence makes holy. That is what made the Sabbath holy. Then the Sabbath, in the point of the matter of holiness, is exactly the sign of what Christ is to the man who believes in Him.
Further, the presence of Christ sanctifies. Then in sanctification the Sabbath is the sign of what Christ is to the believer. Don't you see. So unto the believer in Jesus, God in Christ creates anew; to him God is rest, refreshing, delight, rejoicing, blessing, holiness, sanctification. That is what Christ is to the believer, but that is what He was to the Sabbath long ago, for the believer.
He made the Sabbath for man, as we found, at creation. He made it there, at creation, that the man, even though he had remained faithful to God and had never sinned at all, it would have been to man the sign of what God was to man in Jesus Christ and the presence of Christ in the man. And now in the new creation it is the same thing. In the work of salvation it is the same thing.
Then another thing: Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is our sanctification. He sent Paul to preach the gospel, you remember. To preach to the Gentiles, "to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." But sanctification and its ultimate purpose, accomplished purpose, is the complete work of Christ finished in the individual. The image of Christ completely formed in the believer, so that when Christ looks upon the believer He sees Himself. That is so. That is sanctification.
The Spirit of prophecy has defined sanctification for us in these words: "Sanctification is the keeping of all the commandments of God."--not trying to keep them, or doing our best to keep them. It is the keeping of all the commandments of God. No man will be the keeper--the keeper as God expects and calls a keeper--of all the commandments, in whom Jesus Christ is not completely formed, His own image impressed there, and when He looks upon that man, He sees Himself. That is so.
Now the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is that which makes us righteous, which saves us, which sanctifies us, which is all in all to us. When we have obtained that righteousness, and that righteousness is there according to righteousness, God's idea of righteousness, what is it that witnesses to the righteousness of God in the believer in Jesus? [Congregation: "The law."] The law of God. But here is this work of Christ growing up in the individual, that progressive work; that is the work of sanctification--the work of sanctifying; for that is the thought, the work of sanctifying. It is the growth of Christ in the individual. When Christ has grown to the fulness there, then that is the completed work of sanctification.
What is the sign that God sanctifies? [Congregation: "The Sabbath."] What is the sign, then, that the presence of Christ is sanctifying the individual? [Congregation: "The Sabbath."] When the work is completed, what will witness to that? [Congregation: "The law."] What part of the law, particularly? [Congregation: "The fourth commandment."] Just as the whole law will witness to the complete work of the righteousness of God in a man, but the Sabbath stands there as God's sign of a completed work. It is the sign of a completed work at creation, isn't it? But when that was undone, and God's order reversed, now the Lord has to carry on His work through this means in order to finish that original purpose of creation. Then the Sabbath stands there in this finished work of God in salvation-- the Sabbath stands there at the pinnacle of the law itself, as the witness of the sanctification completed, so that the Sabbath is the sign of the completed work of God in the original creation, and in this secondary creation, which is the carrying out of the original purpose of creation.
Now another thought: The Sabbath being the sign of what Christ is to the believer, will the believer know fully what the Sabbath is until he knows fully what Christ is? [Congregation: "No."] So then when the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ has absorbed all of the mind itself, then the Sabbath will be also known fully to the mind itself. But the Sabbath is the sign of what God is in Christ, and when that is brought fully to the mind itself, what is that but the image of God, the name of God, in the mind of the believer, and that the seal of the living God, through the Sabbath of the Lord?
Well, then, you see at every step of the way, every line of thought, brings us only face to face with that, that the Sabbath as it is in Jesus Christ, and as the believer in Jesus observes it, that alone is the seal of the living God. Saturday keeping is not the seal of God. Christ as He is reflected in the Sabbath of the Lord, through the Sabbath of the Lord, and in it, in the mind and heart of the believer, in the living image of God completed--that is the seal of the living God. Then there is written in the foreheads of that people the name of the Father.
Now see here. Turn to Numbers 6:23-27: "Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them." Now that is the blessing with which the high priest blessed when the Day of Atonement was over. When the work of atonement was finished and the priest come out of the temple to sanctify and bless the people, that is the blessing. And in that blessing what did he put upon them? He "shall put my name upon the children of Israel." The judgment was passed, and they were secure. That was in the figure.
Now turn to Rev. 3:9-12: "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." That message was the message that was given when the Day of Atonement began, was it not, our Day of Atonement?
That was fulfilled when the Day of Atonement began.
Now: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name." Then when His work of atonement is finished, the name of God is completed in the mind, and He pronounces the work finished; for what God is there, in the believer and in the Sabbath, is the sign of a finished work in sanctification.
Now Isa. 58:13, 14: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the" Sabbath. [Congregation: "No. 'Delight thyself in the Lord.'"] Why not in the Sabbath? Doesn't it say you are to call the Sabbath a delight? That you are to call it the holy of the Lord? honorable? Not doing thine own ways. They why not delight yourself in the Sabbath? Ah, there is that meaning there, you see. You do that to the Sabbath, and you delight yourself in the Lord, because the Sabbath is the sign of what the Lord is to the man.
Therefore he put that just right. You do that with respect to the Sabbath, and you will delight yourself in the Lord, because it is the sign of what the Lord will be to you and what you will be to the Lord. Well, then, I want to know how in the world anybody is going to compromise with any other rival institution, when the Sabbath is the sign of what Christ is to him. The man to whom the Sabbath is the sign of what Christ is to him, will he be asking whether he shall work or not on Sunday? [Congregation: "No, sir."] Why, no.! He knows well enough that that does not come into it. He knows he cannot compromise and have half of Christ and half of something else, and besides, Christ is all in all, and the Sabbath is the sign of what Christ is to him, and Christ is all in all to him, and to suggest anything else is to insult him.
Then those people who are asking these questions do not know what Christ is, anyway. They might as well keep Sunday as not. They are not keeping Sabbath.
But there is the thing. The Sabbath has the living image of Jesus and the presence of Jesus Christ in it. He put it there. He put it there for the man, and the man who believes in Jesus Christ can get it there. In addition to the blessing he has of the Lord when he comes to the Sabbath day, he gets additional blessing from the Lord. It matters not how much the presence of Christ is with him, when he comes to the Sabbath day, additional presence of Christ comes to him. He knows it.
No difference how much of the rest of the Lord he is enjoying, when he comes to the Sabbath, which is the sign of what Christ is to the believer, and has the presence of Christ in it, it brings to him additional rest in the Lord. No difference how much holiness of Christ he has in him, when he comes to the Sabbath more of it is revealed in him from observing it in the fear of Christ and by faith in him. No difference, though he be completely sanctified and all of self is gone and none but Christ there, even then, when he comes to the Sabbath day, in the depths of eternity it will reveal to him still more of the wonderful knowledge and the sanctifying, growing power there is in Jesus Christ to the man who believes in him.