1. The weekly Sabbath did not have its origin with meats, drinks, festivals, new moons, and ceremonial, or annual, sabbaths. It originated during man’s independent, innocent condition before the fall (Gen.2:2,3,) and was thus placed among the original, primary laws which would always have governed him though he had never sinned; while the latter originated with the ceremonial system.webp)
introduced at Horeb.
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2. It did not rest on the same authority with them. Its authority rested upon the voice of God, and the writing of God upon the tables of stone; the ceremonial system was found only in the book written by Moses.
3. It was not typical or shadowy in its nature, any more than the command, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
4. It was not “against us,” as were the things of which Paul is speaking; for “the Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27.
5. It was not “contrary to us,” for there is no commandment or institution anywhere singled out to which so great blessings are attached as are promised to the keeping of the Sabbath, not to the Jews only, but to the Gentiles also. See Isa.56:6,7; Jer.17:24,25; Isa.58:13,14.
6. There is no necessity for including the weekly Sabbath in the expression, “sabbaths which are a shadow of things to come,” inasmuch as there were other sabbaths, of the same nature as the feast-day and new moons mentioned in number amply sufficient to meet the demands of the apostle’s language."
Uriah Smith
