not, "God worked on six natural days, and rested on
the seventh; do you therefore the same." Such an argument could have
no moral or religious force, more especially as it could not be
affirmed that God habitually works and rests in this way. The argument
reaches far deeper and higher. It is this. God created the world in
six of his days, and on the seventh rested, and invited man in Eden to
enter on his rest as a perpetual Sabbath of happiness. But man fell,
and lost God's Sabbath. Therefore a weekly Sabbath was prescribed to
him as a memorial of what he had lost, and a pledge of what God has
promised in the renewal of life and happiness through our Saviour.
Thus the Sabbath is the central point of the moral law--the Gospel in
the Decalogue--the connection between God and man through the promise
of redemption. It is this and this alone that gives it its true
religious significance, but is lost on the natural-day theory. It
would farther seem that this view of the law was that of our Lord
himself, and was known to the Jews of his time, for, when blamed for
healing a man on the Sabbath, he says, "My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work"--an argument whose force depended on the fact that God
continues to work in his providence throughout his long Sabbath, which
has never been broken except by man. Farther, the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews takes this view in arguing as to the rest or
Sabbatism that remains to the people of God. His argument (chap. iv.,
4) may be stated thus: God finished his work and entered into his
rest. Man, in consequence of the fall, failed to do so. He has made
several attempts since, but unsuccessfully. Now Christ has finished
his work, and has entered into his Sabbath, and through him we may
enter into that rest of God which otherwise we can not attain to. This
does not, it is true, refer to the keeping of a Sabbath-day; but it
implies an understanding of the reference to God's olamic Sabbath,
and also implies that Christ, having entered into his Sabbatism in
heaven, gives us a warrant for the Christian Sabbath or Lord's day,
which has the same relation to Christ's present Sabbatism in heaven
that the old Sabbath had to God's rest from his work of creation.[49]

We may add to these considerations the use of the Greek term _Ai[=o]n_
in the New Testament, for what may be called time-worlds as
distinguished from space-worlds. For example, take the expression in
Heb. i., 2: "His Son, by whom he