Metaphysical meaning of Sabbath (mbd)
Sabbath (Heb.)--the seventh, seventh (day); seventh (month); seventh (year); restoration; restitution; return to a former state; at-one-ment; atonement; completion; perfection; wholeness; repose; rest.
The seventh day of the week. Under the old Jewish law, no one was allowed to do any work on that day (Exod. 20:811).
Meta. The Sabbath is the consciousness that we have fulfilled the divine law in both thought and act.
The Sabbath of the Lord has nothing to do with any day of the week. God did not make days and weeks, nor has He darkened His clear concepts of Truth by the time element. Time is an invention of the human.
The Sabbath is a very certain, definite thing. It is a state of mind that man enters or acquires when he goes into the silence of his own soul, into the realm of Spirit. There he finds true rest and peace. The seventh day means the seventh or perfect stage of one's spiritual unfoldment. Man had become so lost in the darkness of sense consciousness that he could not save himself, so a Savior came. When man lays hold of the indwelling Christ, the Savior, he is raised out of the Adam consciousness into the Christ consciousness. He then enters the seventh stage of his unfoldment, where he finds rest and peace. The Sabbath can be enjoyed at any hour. Man shows his ignorance and limits his happiness by confining the Sabbath to any one of the days of the week. He should learn to read the Bible in the spirit, and pay less attention to the letter of it.
The Sabbath as an institution was established by man. God does not rest from His works every seventh day, and there is no evidence that there ever has been a moment's cessation in the activity of the universe. Those who stickle most for Sabbath day observance are met on every hand by the evidence of perpetual activity on the part of Him whom they claim to champion.
We are cited to the trees, flowers, suns, and stars, as the work of God; we are told that it is God who sustains and governs, controls and directs, them in every minutia. Yet trees, flowers, suns, and stars are active the first day and the seventh day of the week just the same as on other days. Sacerdotalism has never yet found that the operations of nature on Sunday are in any way different from its operations on any other day of the week
It would seem that if God ordained a certain day for rest, and rested on that day Himself, He ought certainly to have left some evidence of it in His creations; but He has not, that anybody knows of. The fact is that Divine Mind rests in a perpetual Sabbath and that which seems work is not work at all. When man becomes so at one with the Father-Mind as to feel it consciously he also recognizes this eternal peace in which all things are accomplished. He then knows that he is not subject to any condition whatsoever, but is "lord of the sabbath."
It is your privilege to be as free as the birds, the trees, the flowers. "They toil not, neither do they spin," but are always obedient to the divine instinct, and their every day is a Sabbath. They stand in no fear of an angry God, though they build a nest, spread a leaf, or open a petal on the first or on the seventh day. All days are holy days to them. They live in the holy Omnipresence and do the will always of Him who sent them. It is our duty to do likewise. That which is instinct in them is in us conscious, loving obedience. When we have resolved to be attentive to the voice of the Father and to do His will at any cost, we are freed from the bondage of all man-made laws. What was a chain about our wrists, or a yoke about our neck, in the form of some fear of transgressing the divine law, slips away into the fathomless sea of nothingness and we sit on the shore and praise the loving Goodness that we are nevermore to be frightened by an accusing conscience or by the possibility of misunderstanding His law.
We are not to quarrel with our brother over observance of the Sabbath. If he insists that the Lord should be worshiped on the seventh day, let us joyfully join him on that day; and if he holds that the first day is the holy day, let us again acquiesce. Not only do we do God's service in praise, song, and thanksgiving on the seventh day and the first day, but every day. In the true Sabbath our souls are turned upward to God every moment, and we are ever ready to acknowledge His holy presence in our heart and life; we are ever praising the holy Omnipresence that burns its lamp of love perpetually in our heart and keeps the light of life before us on our way. This is the observance of God's holy day that the divinely wise soul a}ways recognizes. The true church is the heaven within one, where one meets the Father face to face, where one goes to Him at will, in closest fellowship.
On the other hand, the observance of every seventh day as a day of rest, or Sabbath, has its source deep in the constitution of things. Among nearly all peoples similar rest days have been instituted, and history proves that Moses was not the originator of the system. The observance of a weekly rest day is now very widely held to prove a natural basis in the needs of man. The consistency with which such an institution has been maintained for many centuries among Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and some of the so-called pagan nations amply supports this view. It bas been found by experience that one day of rest in seven is the right proportion. During the French Revolution, when a ten-day period was substituted for the week, one day's rest in ten was found insufficient.
"And on the seventh day God finished 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 hallowed it." This quotation from Genesis presents in concise words a law that pervades the universe. According to some geologists the rock-ribbed earth beneath our feet bears record of six great creative periods, with a seventh in process of completion. Seven movements of the creative law are found at the foundation of the world about us. The seven colors of the spectrum, the seven principal tones of music, the seven senses of man (two not yet universally used)--all point to these degrees or days of action and rest.
When man in his wisdom unites his thought with Divine Mind, as did Jesus, he has power to use the same creative law that God uses in bringing forth the universe. The seven elements of the body are found everywhere, and through understanding that they are not fixed, material things, but forms of thought, man gains entrance to a realm where he can speak words that will give him the obedience of those elements, according to his power.
When you have gained power to still the stormy, undisciplined thoughts in your own mind you can speak to the winds and they will obey you. When you have arrested the scorching currents of anger that burn up your body cells you can quench the fire in a burning building. When you have ceased to drop into the weak, watery mental states called discouragement, despondency, and fear, you can command the waves and walk upon the waters, as did Jesus.
Before man can rise into his natural dominion, however, he must understand and realize that God's whole plan of creation is to bring forth the perfect man. This means that man is the supreme thing in creation and that all laws are for his convenience. The universal tendency of great men to manifest this inherent excellency proves that it is natural. Most of them miss the mark by seeking to dominate other men and nations before they have mastered themselves.
When men set up a law and make its observance burdensome they are slaves of their own creation. The Jews had become burdened with the observance of the letter of the Sabbath commandment, and had a multitude of ridiculous prohibitions and formalities, from which Jesus sought to rescue them by His example of bold freedom and disregard of certain man-made laws.
The Sabbath was instituted for man, not man for the Sabbath. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, whether it be preaching in a pulpit, healing the sick, or in any other way saving men from ignorance and its results. Luther said of the Sabbath: "Keep it holy for its use's sake both to body and soul. But if anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, if anywhere any one sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall reprove this encroachment on the Christian spirit and liberty."
To repeat, the true Sabbath is not the observance of an outer day; the outer is but the symbol. The true Sabbath is that state of mind in which we rest from outer thought and doings, and give ourselves up to meditation or to the study of things spiritual; it is when we enter into the stillness of our inner consciousness, think about God and His law, and commune with Him.
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Preceding Entry: Sabaoth
Following Entry: Sabeans
