ENDTIME ISSUES NEWSLETTER NO. 157

“The Sabbath and Creation”

Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D.

Retired Prof. of Theology and Church History

Andrews University

Have you ever wondered why the Sabbath has been under the constant crossfire of controversy during the course of Christian history? Since the time of the Reformation over 3000 treatises have been written debating the Sabbath/Sunday question. At Amazon.com over 350 books are currently for sale dealing with the Sabbath/Sunday subject. In recent years over 30 doctoral dissertations have been produced and published in major universities, all of them attempting to legitimize Sunday as a biblical institution.

Few days ago I sent a 50 pages document to Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary–the most influential Baptist seminary in the USA. In a recent sermon President Mohler attempted to legitimize Sunday as the biblical DAY OF WORSHIP, by contrasting it with the Sabbath which he views as a Jewish DAY OF REST AND RESTRICTIONS. Evangelical promoters of THE COMMANDMENTS DAY went out of their way to show that the Sabbath as seventh-day is Jewish and was nailed to the Cross.

Why is the Sabbath under the constant crossfire of controversy? Why Catholic and Protestant leaders never seems to get tired to attack the Sabbath as a Jewish institution terminated at the Cross? Why is it that they do not seem to have a problem to accept as “Christians” the rest of the nine commandments? What makes the Sabbath so objectionable?

The Sabbath Challenges Us to Be God-Centered

Could it be that the major reason is more existential rather than theological? Could it be that most people find the Sabbath commandment objectionable because it summons us to consecrate the time of the seventh day to God? Most people today are very touchy about time. They want to use their time, especially the weekend, to seek for pleasure or profit, not necessarily for the presence and peace of God in their lives.

We live today in a self-centered society where people are more interested in what pleases them, than in what pleases God. The Sabbath challenges us to be God-centered not only on the seventh-day, but by reflex every day. This helps us understand why the Sabbath plays a vital prophetic role in the endtime showdown between true and false worship. You will find a lengthy discussion of the role of the Sabbath in the endtime showdown over worship in my newly released DVD album on THE MARK AND NUMBER OF THE BEAST. Viewing this two and a half hour video lecture will be an enlightening experience. You can order it online at the special introductory offer by clicking here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/BeastAD/

Sabbath School Quarterly: Beginnings and Belongings

The inspiration for this newsletter came from our current Sabbath School Quarterly entitled BEGINNINGS AND BELONGINGS. The third lesson for October 14-20, 2006, is entitled “The Early Earth,” and briefly mentions the Sabbath. As a service especially to our Sabbath School teachers, I thought I would share a few excerpts from what I have written on “The Sabbath and Creation,” especially since I address several of the topics presented in the lessons. We will continue the study of the Sabbath in the next newsletter, by examining the question of “The Sabbath and Salvation.”

Adventists have been accused of making the Sabbath their Savior. Part of the problem is that our Adventist publications have largely ignored the relationship between the Sabbath and the Savior. When the Review and Herald published in 1982 the scholarly symposium THE SABBATH IN SCRIPTURE AND HISTORY, none of the 22 Adventist contributors examined the redemptive function of the Sabbath in the OT and NT. Incidentally, this is the best Adventist publication on the Sabbath. My chapter deals with the change from Sabbath to Sunday in early Christianity.

In the next newsletter I will summarize my research on the Sabbath and the Savior. We will see how in OT times the themes of the Sabbath rest, liberation, and the sabbatical structure of time, served to nourish the hope and strengthen the faith in the Messiah to come. In the NT the Sabbath is closely linked to Christ’s redemptive ministry. Jesus inaugurated His ministry on a Sabbath in the synagogue of Nazareth, He intensifies His ministry on the Sabbath by offering physical and spiritual restoration to needy people, and He closed His ministry on a Friday afternoon, saying “It is finished,” and then resting on the Sabbath in the tomb.

The act of resting on the Sabbath is presented in Hebrews, not merely as physical relaxation, but primarily as a faith and love response to our Savior. Hebrews 4:10 exhorts us to stop our work on the Sabbath in order to enter into God’s rest, that is, in order to allow the Savior to work in us more fully and freely. I look forward to share with you in the next newsletter this much needed understanding of the Sabbath.

UPDATE ON CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE

What a thrilling experience it was for me to watch the edited version of my video lecture CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE. The taping was done two weeks ago in the media studio of Andrews University by Leonard Brown, Prof. of Filming at Andrews. For the past two weeks Leonard and his assistant have worked incessantly to superimpose my lecture on an impressive virtual studio with a wide screen surrounded by several TV monitors. It looks as if I delivered the lecture from a multi-million dollars Hollywood studio, when in reality the taping was done in the modest studio of Andrews University. It is incredible to see what digital technology can do today!

Prof. Brown spent countless hours dropping manually each of the 135 slides that I have used for the powerpoint presentation. The slides are sharp and clear in the impressive wide virtual screen. It was a most gratifying experience for me to watch the edited version of my lecture which looks far better than I could have ever imagined. The editing process is complete and the duplication has began. All the orders we have already received will be processed during the next few days.

To get a preview of the virtual studio setting of the lecture and of the clarity of the slides, you can view a three minutes trailer of the lecture by clicking here:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/DaVinci/trailer.html

Why I Examined The Da Vinci Code

You may be wondering, why would a Church Historian like me, invest five months of research and thousand of dollars to video-tape an analysis of the novel The Da Vinci Code (Henceforth DVC). The answer is simple. The DVC is much more than a best selling novel that has sold over 60.5 million copies as of May 2006. It is a social phenomenon that is shattering the faith of millions of Christians by blatantly attacking the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. In many ways this is a blasphemious and sacrelegious novel and movie that insults God, Christ, the Gospels, the Bible, and the fundamental Christian teachings. The popularity of the novel and its movie, speak volumes about the postmodern relativism and rejection of the Christian faith.

The problem with the DVC is that it is fiction presented as fact. On page 1, called the “FACT” page, Dan Brown, states: “All descriptions of art work, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate” (DVC 1). On several interviews, Dan Brown repeated the same claim. When asked by Matt Lauer in the Today Show how much of the book was based on actual events, Dan Brown replied, “Absolutely all of it.”

Surprisingly, the DVC has been favorably reviewed in several newspapers and journals. The New York Daily News says: “The research impeccable.” The Library Journal writes: “This masterpiece should be mandatory reading.” The Washington Post states: “Read the book and be enlightened.”

I read the book but I was not enlightened at all. On the contrary, I was shocked and greatly distressed by the sheer absurdity of the many false claims, which are totally devoid of any historical or biblical support. For example, the DVC claims that:

• Christ married Mary Magdalene and they had a daughter Sarah.

• Christ chose Mary Magdalene to lead His church, not the twelve apostles as the Gospels tell us.

• Constantine chose our 4 Gospels out of 80 existing ones, because these promote Christ’s divinity. He rejected the Gnostic Gospels because they stress the human traits of Christ.

• The early Christians worshipped the “sacred feminine” with ritual sex in order to experience the knowledge of God.

• The Catholic Church has conspired to suppress the secret of Christ’s marriage by using murderous organizations like Opus Dei.

As an Early Church historian, I can assure you that there is not a shred of historical evidence for any of these absurd claims. Yet million of gullible Christians are accepting as truth Dan Brown’s false claims about the origin of Christianity. The reason is that they are biblically and historically illiterate.

Polls taken in different countries clearly indicate that DVC has a devastating impact upon the fundamental Christian beliefs of millions of people. In England, for example, 60 per cent of the people who read the DVC believe that the book is telling the truth about the origin of Christianity. To ignore Dan Brown’s deceptive attempts to discredit the Christian faith, means to fail to help the million of confused Christians, who are unable to distinguish between the DVC’s facts and the fiction.

The Aim of the Lecture

The aim of the lecture is to expose, not the UNREAL Catholic conspiracy to cover up Christ’s marital status, but the REAL conspiracy of Dan Brown himself, that is, his deceptive methods to discredit Christianity, in order to promote his neo-pagan forms of worship.

The ultimate aim is to seek to understand how the neo-pagan false worship promoted by the DVC, fulfills the prophetic scenario of the endtime showdown between true and false worship, as predicted by Jesus, Paul, and expanded in Revelation.

The numerous books that I have read on the DVC and the 20 plus powerpoint presentations that I have reviewed, largely ignore the prophetic significance of the neo-pagan false worship promoted by Dan Brown. This is true even of the several Adventist articles and powerpoint presentations. These authors limit themselves to refute Dan Brown’s false allegations regarding the nature of Christ, His marriage to Mary Magdalene, the origin of the Gospels, and the conspiracy of the Catholic Church to cover up the secret of Christ’s matital status. But they make no attempt to understand where is Dan Brown leading people? What is his secret agenda? What are his strategies to lead many people away from the true worship of God into his neo-pagan forms of worship? It is to these questions that I devote the major part of my lecture.

Dan Brown Uses Two Strategies to Promote His Neo-pagan Worship

Simply stated, I found that Dan Brown uses two major strategies to promote his neo-pagan worship. On the one hand, he attacks all the fundamental beliefs of Christianity mentioned earlier, and on the other hand, he promotes his neo-pagan forms of worship by teachings such heresies as these:

1) We need to liberate ourselves from the monotheistic worship of one God– the male God of the Bible.

2) We are free to worship several Gods and Goddesses on any day, because the Sabbath is Jewish and Sunday is pagan.

3) We need to liberate ourselves from the worship of Jesus as the Son of God, because He was a mere mortal man, who was declared divine by Constantine in AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea.

4) We need to liberate ourselves from the ignorant belief that the Bible is inspired and authoritative, because “The Bible is the product of man … not of God … and it has evolved through countless translations, additions and revisions” (DVC 312).

5) Ritual sex “is not a perversion. It is a deeply sacrosanct ceremony” practiced by pious Jews and the early Christians (DVC 309).

6) We can become “spiritually complete” and achieve knowledge of God through ritual sex (DVC 308).

7) We must worship the “Sacred Feminine” because Goddesses have unusual powers to give wisdom and saving knowledge.

Prophetic Significance of The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown’s neo-pagan false worship is popular because it appeals to our secular, postmodern, humanistic, new age culture which rejects moral absolutes–such as the Ten Commandments, creation, no sex outside marriage–accepting instead moral relativism. Truth, as Dan Brown puts it, is “whatever you believe it to be.”

Surprisingly, some Adventists appreciate the DVC because of its blatant attacks against the Catholic Church. What these fellow believers ignore, is not only the falsity of the DVC’s allegations, but also the possibility that one day another “Dan Brown” could write a novel full of false allegations to defame our Adventist church as a cult that has suppressed the errors taught by such pioneers as Ellen White and Uriah Smith. It is well to remember that we should treat others as we want to be treated ourselves.

Surprisingly, the prophetic significance of Dan Brown’s neo-pagan false worship, is largely ignored in the Adventist critical reviews and powerpoint presentations that I have read and seen. But as Adventists who claim to have a prophetic understanding of the endtime showdown over worship, we can hardly ignore the prophetic significance of The Da Vinci Code. Our past tendency to place all our eggs in the basket of the papacy, may blind us to the fact that Satan is using a variety of agencies to lead the world into idolatrous forms of worship.

The false worship being promoted by the DVC represents in my view a significant manifestation of the prophetic endtime battle between true and false worship. God’s final appeal in Revelation is to come out of the false worship promoted by spiritual Babylon, that is, by a variety of satanic agencies: “Come out of her my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues” (Rev 18:4).

Revelation portrays Satan like a monster with many tentacles, using different strategies (beasts) to win the battle over worship. The DVC is one of the significant strategies. Our calling is to proclaim to the world God’s final warning message: “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the funtain of the water” (Rev 14:7).

Viewing the DVD recording of CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE, will be for an inspiring and enlightening experience. It will help you understand some of the subtle deceptions of our time. The DVD album offers you an ideal tool for witnessing to your neighbors and friends who have read the DVC. It will help you and your friends to see the prophetic significance of the neo-pagan false worship promoted by Dan Brown, the New Age movement, and our post-modernistic culture.

To make it possible for many to benefic from this timely visual lecture, we are offering the DVD album on CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE until OCTOBER 31, 2006 at the following introductory prices:

ONE DVD ALBUM for $35.00 instead of regular price of $100.00.

TWO DVD ALBUMS for $50.00 instead of $200.00.

SEVEN DVD ALBUMS for $100.00 instead of $700.00.

The quoted prices include the AIRMAIL to any overseas destination. You can order the DVD albums on CRACKING THE DA VINCI CODE  in four different ways:

(1) Online: By clicking here:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/DaVinci/

(2)  Phone:  By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3)  Email: By emailing your order to this address: <[email protected]>. Be sure to provide your  postal address, credit card number, and expiration date.     

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing your check to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

FORTHCOMING VISIT TO SYDNEY AND BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

Our Australian subscribers living in Sydney or Brisbane, will be pleased to learn about my forthcoming visit to their cities. The details of my itinerary are as follows:

November 17-18: PARRAMATTA SDA CHURCH, SYDNEY

Location: 77-81 Hammers Road, Old Toongabbie, Sydney NSW 2146

For information feel free to contact Pastor Rein Muhlberg at (02) 9620 5382 or (02) 9896 3158. I look forward to a great rally. Pastor Muhlberg is a fine pastor who invited me many years ago in Auckland, NZ.

November 20: Monday 9:00 a. m. – SYDNEY WORKERS’ MEETING

Location: Greater Sydney Conference, 4 Cambridge Street, Epping, NSW 2121, Sydney. For information call the Ministerial Secretary, Pastor Garth Bainbridge at (02) 9868 6522. The meeting is primarily for our GSC workers, but Pastor Bainbridge may be willing to grant you admission, if you first make public confession of all your past sins (Please laugh!).

The plan is for me to present two lectures. The first is entitled “From Sabbath to Sunday: How It Came About.” In this powerpoint presentation I will share the highlights of my research on the change of the Sabbath, done in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University. The second lecture is entitled “The Mark and Number of the Beast.” This powerpoint study examines the various past and present interpretations of the mark and number of the Beast. It is designed to help our pastors and members understand why our Adventist church has moved from the numeric to the symbolic interpretation of 666.

November 24-26: BRISBANE: SABBATH CONFERENCE

Location: Brisbane Adventist College, 303A Broadwater Road, Mansfield, QLD 4122. The Sabbath Conference is co-sponsored by the South Queensland Conference and several sabbatarian churches in the Bribane area. For information feel free to contact Pastor Mark Pierce at 0417625884.

November 27: Monday 9:00 a. m. – BRISBANE WORKERS’ MEETING

Location: 19 Eagle Terrace, Brisbane, QLD 4000. For information call the Conference office at (7) 3218-777. If you are not a pastor, ask the Conference office for permission to attend. There should be no problem.

FREE CD/DVD ALBUM OF PROF. GRAEME BRADFORD

Several pastors have reported to me that after showing to their congregation Prof. Bradford’s live DVD lecture on Ellen White, most members were very eager to purchase a copy of the book MORE THAN A PROPHET at the special offer of $5.00 per copy, instead of the regular price of $25.00.

To make it possible for every Adventist family to benefit from Prof. Bradford’s timely book MORE THAN A PROPHET, I decided to offer until October 31, 2006, one FREE CD/DVD album of Prof. Bradford, with any order of 2 or more copies of the book MORE THAN A PROPHET. The regular price of the CD/DVD album is $100.00, but you will receive this album free with your order of 2 or more copies of the book. The reason for this offer is the conviction that when your church members and friends view Prof. Bradford’s DVD lecture, they will be eager to purchase a copy of his book. For more details and order information, click here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/BradfordOffer/offer.htm

More than a Prophet is the fruit of twenty years of Prof. Bradford’s painstaking research on the prophetic ministry of Ellen White. It is a long-overdue book that clears the air of prevailing misconceptions about Ellen White which have caused thousands of Adventists to leave church.

A dozen of Conferences have already donated a copy of More than a Prophet to each of their workers. For example, the Texas Conference ordered 200 copies. Other conferences have ordered fewer copies because of their smaller number of workers. Overseas conferences like the South African Union, ordered 300 copies. Your personal effort to promote this timely book in your church is greatly appreciated.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AT THE END OF THE NEWSLETTERS

A detailed description of the special offers on goods and services is provided at the end of this newsletter. Here is a brief listing of the announcements that are expanded at the end of this newsletter.

1. CALENDAR OF FORTHCOMING WEEKEND SEMINARS for the months of October, and November 2006. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

2. PROF. BRADFORD NEWLY RELEASED BOOK MORE THAN A PROPHET, AND HIS CD/DVD ALBUM. The CD/DVD album is offered free at this time with the purchase of two or more books. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

3. DR. BACCHIOCCHI’S NEWLY RELEASED DVD ALBUM ON THE MARK AND NUMBER OF THE BEAST. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

4. DR. BACCHIOCCHI’S PACKAGE OF ALL HIS RECORDINGS. The package consists of 5 albums which are offered for only $100.00, instead of the regular price of $500.00. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

5. PROF. JON PAULIEN PUBLICATIONS IN ONE CD ALBUM.  The album contains more than a dozen of books and scores of articles written during the past 20 years of research. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

6. PROF. JON PAULIEN’S 60 CD DISKS containing 120 lectures that explain verse by verse the book of Revelation. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

7. TAGNET SPECIAL NEW WEB HOSTING OFFER for Adventist churches and members. TAGnet provides an incredible number of webhosting services to our churches and members. This newsletter comes to you through their gracious and efficient service. For detail information, visit their website at http://www.netadventist.org or http://home.tagnet.org/ You may also call their office 800 - 9TAGNET. They are ready and eager to help you.

8. SPECIAL OFFER ON HITACHI PROJECTORS: HITACHI has offered an additional discount to help especially our churches and schools in developing countries. For examples, the special offer for the new 2500 LUMENS PROJECTOR CP-X260, WHICH I RECEIVED ON OCTOBER 12, 2006. IS ONLY $1195.00, instead of the previous SDA price of $2595.00. See the details at the end of this newsletter or call me at 269-471-2915

9. SPECIAL OFFER ON NEWLY RELEASED TOSHIBA LAPTOP TECRA A8 with dual processor and finger-print security. See details at the end.

10. REMOTE PRESENTER: Special offer on the smallest and most powerful REMOTE powerpoint presenter by Honeywell. See the details at the end of this newsletter.

11. BED & BREAKFAST FACILITIES IN LONDON, ENGLAND

If your travel plans call for a stop in London, will be pleased to learn about a most gracious Adventist couple that offer the best accommodation and breakfast I have ever enjoyed. See details at: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/Promotions/BED&BREAKFAST.htm

“The Sabbath and Creation”

Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D.

Retired Prof. of Theology and Church History

Andrews University

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

This Bible study is excerpted from chapter 2 of my book THE SABBATH UNDER CROSSFIRE. For the sake of brevity, I have left out not only the footnotes, but also the historical debate about the creation Sabbath.

If you are looking for a book on the Sabbath to give to a friend, I would heartily recommend this book, rather than the other three Sabbath books that I have authored. The reason is that this book responds in a compelling way to all the major arguments used to negate the continuity and validity of the Sabbath.

During the past five years, this book has helped over 200 ministers to accept the Sabbath. In some instances, whole congregations belonging to the Salvation Army, Southern Baptists, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Mennonite churches, have moved their services from Sunday to Saturday. To facilitate the distribution of this timely book, we offer it by the case of 32 copies for only $200.00, postage paid, that is, $6.25 per copy, instead of the regular price of $25.00. For details and order information click here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=bookstore&Product_Code=BP-SUC-SP&Category_Code=specials

The study of the Sabbath and Creation is important because most Christians today, including former Adventist pastors and professors who recently left the Adventist church, attack the Sabbath by denying its creation-origin and reducing it to a Mosaic institution given exclusively to the Jews. Christ allegedly fulfilled the Sabbath by replacing the literal observance of the day with the offer of His rest of salvation. By rejecting the creation origin of the Sabbath these Christians attach a negative, “Jewish” stigma to seventh-day Sabbathkeeping, identifying it with the Jewish dispensation allegedly based on salvation through legal obedience.

Sundaykeeping, on the other hand, is associated with the Christian dispensation based on salvation by grace through faith. Thus, Sabbathkeeping is perceived as a trademark of Judaism, while Sundaykeeping as the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity.

This view is passionately defended by Dale Ratzlaff, a former Seventh-day Adventist Bible teacher and pastor who has written an influential book Sabbath in Crisis (345 pages). Recently, Ratzlaff has retitled his book as Sabbath in Christ, obviously because the title Sabbath in Crisis suggests that God Himself is in crisis, since He established the Sabbath in the first place. The truth is that Ratzlaff, not God, is in crisis. Most likely he has experienced the Sabbath as a burden, rather than as a blessing. Consequently, he is trying to find ways to negate the validity and value of the Sabbath.

Ratzlaff argues that the Sabbath is not a creational/moral institution for humans, but a ceremonial/Old Covenant ordinance given to the Jews. Allegedly, Christians no longer need to observe the Sabbath because Christ fulfilled its typological function by becoming our Sabbath rest. It is unfortunate that Ratlaff’s unbiblical teachings have influenced thousands of Adventists to leave the church.

The creation origin of the Sabbath has come under constant attack because what Christians believe about its origin determines what they believe about its validity and value for today. Those who believe that the Sabbath was established by God at creation for the benefit of human beings, accept its observance as a creation ordinance binding upon all, Jews and Christians.

By contrast, those who hold that the Sabbath originated at the time of Moses, or after the settlement in Canaan because of socioeconomic or astrological-astronomic considerations, regard the Sabbath as a Jewish institution not applicable to Christians. These implications make it to briefly examine how the question of the origin of the Sabbath.

Objectives

This Bible study has three basic objectives. The first is to survey what the OT and NT teach regarding the origin of the Sabbath.

The second objective is to examine the specific arguments recently advanced against the creation origin by former Sabbatarians. In most cases, their arguments are old, having already been used in the past by those who have attempted to negate the continuity and validity of the Sabbath. Yet these arguments deserve a close examination because they are used today to mislead many sincere people.

The third objective is to reflect on the human implications of the creation origin of the Sabbath. Specifically, we consider the significance of God’s act of resting, blessing, and sanctifying the seventh day for the human family. We shall note that creation week is in a special sense a human week because all that God did on that week was designed to have a lasting result for the human family.

Our ultimate objective is not to expose the fallacies of the various arguments raised against the creation origin and universal function of the Sabbath, but to encourage a fresh appreciation for the Biblical account of the Sabbath origin and meaning for today.

THE CREATION-SABBATH IN SCRIPTURE

The Creation-Sabbath in the Old Testament

The biblical view of the origin of the Sabbath is unequivocal: the Sabbath, as the seventh day, originated at the completion of the creation week as a result of three divine acts: God “rested,” “blessed,” and “hallowed” the seventh day (Gen 2:2-3). Twice Genesis 2:2-3 states that God “rested” on the seventh day from all His work. The Hebrew verb sabat, translated “rested,” denotes cessation, not relaxation. The latter idea is expressed by the Hebrew verb nuah, used in Exodus 20:11, where the divine rest fulfills an anthropological function as a model for human rest. However, in Genesis 2:2-3 the divine rest has a cosmological function. It serves to explain that God, as Karl Barth puts it, “was content to be the Creator of this particular creation . . . He had no occasion to proceed to further creations. He needed no further creations.”⁴ To acknowledge this fact, God stopped.

Genesis 2:3 affirms that the Creator “blessed” (barak) the seventh day just as He had blessed animals and Adam and Eve on the previous day (Gen 1:22, 28). Divine blessings in Scripture are not merely “good wishes”—they are assurance of fruitfulness, prosperity, and a happy and abundant life (Ps 133:3). In terms of the seventh day, it means that God promised to make the Sabbath a beneficial and vitalizing power through which human life is enriched and renewed. In Exodus 20:11, the blessing of the creation seventh day is explicitly linked with the weekly Sabbath.

Genesis 2:3 also affirms that the Creator “hallowed” (RV, RSV) the seventh day, “made it holy” (NEB, NAB), or “sanctified it” (NASB). Both here and in the Sabbath commandment (Ex 20:11), the Hebrew text uses the verb qiddes (piel), from the root qds, holy. In Hebrew, the basic meaning of “holy” or “holiness” is “separation” for holy use. In terms of the Sabbath, its holiness consists in God’s separation of this day from the six working days. The holiness of the Sabbath stems not from man’s keeping it, but from God’s choice of the seventh day to be a channel through which human beings can experience more freely and fully the awareness of His sanctifying presence in their lives.

The Importance of the Creation-Sabbath

The great importance of the creation-Sabbath in the Old Testament is indicated by the fact that it provides the theological motivation for the commandment to observe the seventh day (Ex 20:11) and the theological justification for serving as a covenant sign between God and Israel (Ex 31:17).

The theological reason given for the command to observe the seventh day Sabbath “to the Lord your God” (Ex 20:10) is “for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Ex 20:11). The tie between the creation-Sabbath and the Sabbath commandment is so close that the former provides the basis for the latter. To keep the Sabbath holy means (1) to follow the divine example given at creation, (2) to acknowledge God as Creator, and (3) to participate in God’s rest and blessings for mankind.

The creation-Sabbath serves also as “a sign” (‘ôth) of the covenant relationship between God and His people: “It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed” (Ex 31:17). The very nature of a sign is to point to something beyond itself, to mediate an understanding of a certain reality and/or to motivate a corresponding behavior.

As a covenant sign rooted in creation, the Sabbath mediates an understanding of redemptive history (i.e., covenant history) by pointing retrospectively and prospectively. Retrospectively, the Sabbath invites the believer to look back and memorialize God as the creator of an original, perfect creation (Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:8,11; 31:17). Prospectively, the Sabbath encourages the believer to look forward and trust God’s promise to fulfill His “everlasting covenant” (Ex 31:16; Heb 4:9) to restore this world to its original perfection. Thus, the Sabbath stands as a sign of an “everlasting covenant” between creation (Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:11; 31:17) and redemption (Deut 5:15; Is 56:1-4). It directs us to the past perfect creation and it points constantly to the future, ultimate restoration.

Christ and the Creation-Sabbath

The New Testament takes for granted the creation origin of the Sabbath. A clear example is found in Mark 2:27 where Christ refutes the charge of Sabbath-breaking leveled against the disciples by referring to the original purpose of the Sabbath: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Christ’s choice of words is significant. The verb “made-ginomai” alludes to the original “making” of the Sabbath and the word “man-anthropos” suggests its human function. Thus to establish the human and universal value of the Sabbath, Christ reverts to its very origin right after the creation of man. Why? Because for the Lord, the law of the beginning stands supreme.

The importance of God’s original design is emphasized in another instance in reporting the corruption of the institution of marriage, which occurred under the Mosaic code. Christ reverted to its Edenic origin, saying: “From the beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:8). Christ then traces both marriage and the Sabbath to their creation origin in order to clarify their fundamental value and function for humanity.

The Creation-Sabbath in Hebrews

Another explicit reference to the creation-Sabbath is found in the book of Hebrews. In the fourth chapter, the author establishes the universal and spiritual nature of the Sabbath rest by welding together two Old Testament texts, namely Genesis 2:2 and Psalm 95:11. Through the former, he traces the origin of the Sabbath rest back to creation when “God rested on the seventh day from all his works” (Heb 4:3; cf. Gen 2:2-3). By the latter (Ps 95:11), he explains that the scope of this divine rest includes the blessings of salvation to be found by entering personally into God’s rest (Heb 4:3,5,10). Our immediate concern is not to understand the meaning of the rest mentioned in the passage, but rather to note that the author traces its origin back to the time of creation when “God rested on the seventh day from all His works” (Heb 4:4).

The context clearly indicates that the author is thinking of the “works” of creation since he explains that God’s “works were finished from the foundations of the world” (Heb 4:3). The probative value of this statement is heightened by the fact that the author is not arguing for the creation origin of the Sabbath; rather, he takes it for granted in explaining God’s ultimate purpose for His people. Thus, in Hebrews 4, the creation origin of the Sabbath is not only asserted but is also presented as the basis for understanding God’s ultimate purpose for His people.

OBJECTIONS TO THE CREATION SABBATH

Four major objections are used to negate the creation origin of the Sabbath are the following:

1) No command to keep the Sabbath is given in Genesis.

2) No example of Sabbathkeeping is recorded in Genesis.

3) No mention is made of the word “Sabbath” in Genesis.

4) No formula of “and there was evening and morning” is used

for the seventh day.

(1) No Command to Keep the Sabbath Is Given in Genesis

The first argument used to negate the creation origin of the Sabbath is the absence of an explicit command to observe the seventh day in Genesis 2:2-3. The Worldwide Church of God formulates this argument by means of six rhetorical statements: “There are several things that Genesis does not tell us:

1) It does not say that humans rested.

2) It does not say that humans were told to follow God’s example.

3) It does not say that humans were told to rest.

4) It does not say that God taught Adam and Eve on the Sabbath.

5) It does not say that God created the Sabbath.

6) It does not say that humans kept the Sabbath.

Dale Ratzlaff uses the same argument, saying, “There is no command for mankind to rest in the Genesis account.” “Nothing is expressly mentioned regarding man in the seventh-day-creation rest.” For him, this fact indicates that the Sabbath is not a creation ordinance binding upon humanity, but a temporary institution introduced by Moses for Israel alone.

Reasons for “No Command”

There are several possible reasons for the absence of an explicit command to keep the Sabbath in Genesis 2:2-3. First of all, we must remember that Genesis is not a book of commands but of origins. None of the Ten Commandments are ever mentioned in Genesis, yet we know that their principles were known because we are told, for example, “Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Gen 26:5). It is evident Abraham knew God’s commandments and laws, though no reference is made to them in the book of Genesis. The reason is that Genesis is a book of beginnings; it tells us how we get from the creation of this planet to the creation of God’s people in the book of Exodus.

Another possible reason for the absence of a command to keep the Sabbath in Genesis is the cosmological function of the seventh day in the creation story. The divine act of resting on the seventh day is designed to tell us how God felt about His creation. It was “very good,” and to dramatize this fact, twice we are told that “He rested” (Gen 2:2-3)—that is, “He stopped.” No finishing touches were to improve His perfect creation.

In the Near Eastern creation myths, the divine rest (technically called otiositas), which usually implies the establishment of a secure world order, generally is achieved either by eliminating noisy, disturbing gods or by creating human beings. For example, in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish, the god Marduk says, “Verily, savage-man I will create. He shall be charged with the service of the gods, that they might be at ease!”⁸³ In the creation Sabbath, however, the divine rest is secured not by subordinating or destroying competitors, nor by exploiting the labor of mankind, but by the completion of a perfect creation. God rested on the seventh day, not to conclude His work of creation, but rather because His work was “finished . . . done” (Gen 2 :2-3). As stated by Niels-Erik Andreasen, “It is not the rest (cessation from work) which concludes creation, but it is the concluded creation which occasions both rest and the Sabbath.”

The Function of God’s Rest

Any responsible artisan works on a product until it is brought it up to the ideal; then the work stops. In an infinitely higher sense, God, having completed the creation of this world with all its creatures, desisted from creating on the seventh day. This is essentially the meaning of the Hebrew verb sabat which is twice translated “rested.” Its more accurate rendering is “to stop, to desist, to cease from doing.”

To express the idea of rest from physical exhaustion, the Hebrew employs a different verb, namely nuah, which is also generally translated in English “to rest.” The latter, in fact, occurs in Exodus 20:11 where God’s pattern of work-rest in creation is given as the basis for the commandment to work six days and to rest on the seventh. In Genesis 2, however, the verb sabat is used because the function of God’s rest is different. It fulfills a cosmological rather than an anthropological function. It explains to us not why people should rest but rather how God felt about His creation: He regarded it as complete and perfect; and to acknowledge it, He stopped.

This function of God’s rest has been recognized by numerous scholars. Karl Barth, for example, remarks: “We read in Genesis 2:2 that on the seventh day God, the Creator, completed His work by ‘resting.’ This simply means that He did not go on with the work of creation as such. He set both Himself and His creation a limit. He was content to be the Creator of this particular creation—to glory, as the Creator, in this particular work. He had no occasion to proceed to further creations. He needed no further creations. And He had found what he created very good’ (Gen. 1:31).” “When creation ended with man, having found its climax and meaning in the actualization of man, God rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. It was to this that He looked in the recognition that everything was very good and therefore did not need to be extended or supplemented.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer similarly explains that “in the Bible ‘rest’ really means more than ‘having a rest.’ It means rest after the work is accomplished, it means completion, it means the perfection and peace in which the world rests.” We might say that by confronting His creation with His cessation-rest, God proclaimed the Good News that there was no need to put additional finishing touches on what He had created, since He regarded all of it “very good” (Gen. 1:31). God’s cessation from doing expresses His desire for being with His creation, for giving to His creatures not only things but Himself.

An Example Rather Than a Command

The fact that the Sabbath is established in the creation story by a divine example rather than by a divine commandment could also reflect what God intended the Sabbath to be in a sinless world—namely, not an alienating imposition but a free response to a gracious Creator. By freely choosing to make themselves available for their Creator on the Sabbath, human beings were to experience physical, mental, and spiritual renewal and enrichment. Since these needs have not been eliminated but heightened by the Fall, the moral, universal, and perpetual functions of the Sabbath precept were repeated later in the form of a commandment.

What is it that makes any divine precept moral and universal? Do we not regard a law moral when it reflects God’s nature? Could God have given any stronger revelation of the moral nature of the Sabbath than by making it a rule of His divine conduct? Is a principle established by divine example less binding than one enunciated by a divine command? Do not actions speak louder than words?

The argument that the Sabbath originated at Sinai makes Moses guilty of distorting truth or, at least, the victim of gross misunderstanding. He would have traced the Sabbath back to creation in the Sabbath commandment, when in reality it was his own new creation. Such a charge, if true, would cast serious doubts on the integrity and/or reliability of anything else Moses or anyone else wrote in the Bible.

(2) No Example of Sabbathkeeping Is Recorded in Genesis

The oldest and perhaps the strongest argument against the creation origin of the Sabbath is the absence of an explicit reference to Sabbathkeeping after Genesis 2 for the whole patriarchal period up to Exodus 16. For example, in his doctoral dissertation on “Sabbatic Theology,” Roger Congdon writes: “There is absolutely no mention of the Sabbath before the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you . . . On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily’ (Ex 16:4-5). These words indicate that the event was bound to the Decalogue of Sinai. . . . The first mention of the Sabbath in the Bible and the first chronological use of the word in all history is in Exodus 16:23.” In a similar vein the Worldwide Church of God affirms that Genesis “does not say that humans kept the Sabbath.”

Not Observed?

The absence of explicit references to Sabbath-keeping between Genesis 2 and Exodus 16 does not necessarily mean that the principle of Sabbathkeeping was unknown. The apparent silence could mean that between Adam and Moses, the Sabbath, though known, was not observed. The non-observance of the feast of the Booths between Joshua and Nehemiah, a period of almost a thousand years, would provide a parallel situation (Neh 8:17).

Taken for Granted

A more plausible explanation is that the custom of Sabbathkeeping is not mentioned simply because it is taken for granted. A number of reasons support this explanation.

First, we have a similar example of silence regarding the Sabbath between the books of Deuteronomy and 2 Kings. Such silence can hardly be interpreted as non-observance of the Sabbath since, when the first incidental reference occurs in 2 Kings 4:23, it describes the custom of visiting a prophet on the Sabbath.

Second, Genesis does not contain laws like Exodus but is rather, a brief sketch of origins. Since no mention is made of any other commandment, silence regarding the Sabbath is not exceptional.

Third, throughout the book of Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus one finds circumstantial evidences for the use of the seven-day week which would imply the existence of the Sabbath as well. The period of seven days is mentioned four times in the account of the Flood (Gen 7:4, 10; 8:10,12).

Apparently, the “week” also is used in a technical way to describe the duration of the nuptial festivities of Jacob (Gen 29:27) as well as the duration of mourning at his death (Gen 50:10). A similar period was observed by the friends of Job to express their condolences to the patriarch (Job 2:13). Probably all the mentioned ceremonials were terminated by the arrival of the Sabbath.

Lastly, the Sabbath is presented in Exodus 16 and 20 as an already existing institution. The instructions for gathering a double portion of manna on the sixth day presuppose a knowledge of the significance of the Sabbath: “On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily” (Ex 16:5). The omission of any explanation for gathering a double portion on the sixth day would be inexplicable if the Israelites had no previous knowledge of the Sabbath.

Similarly, in Exodus 20, the Sabbath is presupposed as something already familiar. The commandment does not say “Know the Sabbath day” but “Remember the Sabbath day” (Ex 20:8), thus implying that it was already known. Furthermore, the commandment, by presenting the Sabbath as rooted in creation (Ex 20:11), hardly allows a late Exodus introduction of the festival.

To speculate on how the patriarchs kept the Sabbath would be a fruitless endeavor since it would rest more on imagination than on available information. Considering, however, that the essence of Sabbathkeeping is not a place to go to fulfill rituals, but a set time to be with God, ourselves, and others, it is entirely possible that the patriarchs spent the Sabbath holy hours within their households, engaged in some of the acts of worship described in Genesis such as prayer (Gen 12:8; 26:25), sacrifice (Gen 12:8; 13:18; 26:25; 33:20), and teaching (Gen 18:19).

(3) No Mention Is Made of the Word “Sabbath” in Genesis

The absence of the term “Sabbath” in Genesis 2:2-3 is seen by some as an indication that the Sabbath as an institution did not originate at creation but later at the time of Moses. For example, Robert Morey emphatically states: “But isn’t the Sabbath creation ordinance found in Genesis 2:1-3? No, the word ‘Sabbath’ does not appear in the text.”

Harold Dressler makes a similar statement: “Genesis 2 does not mention the word ‘Sabbath.’ It speaks about the ‘seventh day.’ Unless the reader equates ‘seventh day’ and ‘Sabbath,’ there is no reference to the Sabbath here.” In a similar vein, Dale Ratzlaff writes: “There is no mention of the word ‘Sabbath’ in the Genesis account; nothing is said about man resting; in fact, man is not even mentioned in connection with this seventh-day-creation rest.”

Verbal Form

It is true that the name “Sabbath” does not occur in the passage, but the cognate verbal form shabat (to cease, to stop, to rest) is used and the latter, as noted by Ugo Cassuto, “contains an allusion to the name ‘the Sabbath day.’” Moreover, as Cassuto sagaciously remarks, the use of the name seventh day rather than Sabbath may well reflect the writer’s concern to underline the perpetual order of the day, independent and free from any association with astrological “sabbaths” of the heathen nations.

Perpetual Order

It is a known fact that the term shabbatu, which is strikingly similar to the Hebrew word for Sabbath (shabbat), occurs in the documents of ancient Mesopotamia. The term apparently designated the fifteenth day of the month, that is, the day of the full moon. By designating the day by number rather than by name, Genesis seems to emphasize that God’s Sabbath day is not like that of heathen nations, connected with the phases of the moon. Rather, it shall be the seventh day in perpetual order, independent from any association with the cycles of heavenly bodies.

By pointing to a perpetual order, the seventh day strengthens the cosmological message of the creation story—precisely that God is both Creator and constant controller of this cosmos. In Exodus, however, where the seventh day is given in the context of the Genesis, not of this cosmos, but of the nation of Israel, the day is explicitly designated “sabbath,” apparently to express its new historical and soteriological function.

(4) No Formula of “and there was evening and morning” Is Used for the Seventh day

The omission in the creation account of the formula “and there was evening and morning” in connection with the seventh day indicates to some that the Sabbath is not a literal 24-hour day like the preceding six days, but a symbolic time representing eternal rest. For example, Dale Ratzlaff writes: “The Genesis account does not mention an end to God’s seventh-day rest. Rather it is presented as an ongoing state by the omission of the formula ‘and there was evening and morning, a seventh day.’” He interprets the absence of this formula as indicating that “the conditions and characteristics of that first seventh day were designed by God to continue and would have continued had it not been for the sin of Adam and Eve.”

Eternal Rest

Both Rabbis and Christian writers have interpreted the absence of any reference to “the evening and morning” in connection with the seventh day of creation as representing the future, eternal rest of the redeemed. Augustine offers a most fitting example of this interpretation in the last page of his Confessions, where he offers this exquisite prayer: “O Lord God, grant Thy peace unto us . . . the peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath which has no evening. For all this most beautiful order of things, ‘very good’ . . . is to pass away, for in them there was morning and evening. But the seventh day is without any evening, nor hath it any setting, because Thou hast sanctified it to an everlasting continuance; . . . that we also after our works . . . may repose in Thee also in the Sabbath of eternal life.”

This spiritual, eschatological interpretation of the creation Sabbath has some merits because the vision of the peace, rest, and prosperity of the first Sabbath inspired the prophetic vision of the peace, delight, and prosperity of the world-to-come. This interpretation is also found in Hebrews 4 where believers are urged to strive to enter into the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God (Heb 4:9, 11).

Literal Day

The symbolic interpretation of creation’s seventh day which has no evening does not negate its literal 24-hour duration for at least four reasons:

First, the seventh day is enumerated like the preceding six days. Note that in the Bible whenever “day–yom” is accompanied by a number it always means a day of 24 hours.

Second, the Decalogue itself clearly states that God, having worked six days, rested on the seventh day of creation week (Ex 20:11). If the first six days were ordinary earthly days, we must understand the seventh in the same way.

Third, every passage which mentions creation’s seventh day as the basis of the earthly Sabbath regards it as an ordinary day (Ex 20:11; 31:17; cf. Mark 2:27; Heb 4:4).

Last, the commandment to keep the Sabbath as a memorial day of the creation-Sabbath (Ex 20:11) implies a literal original 24-hour Sabbath. God could hardly command His creatures to work six days and rest on the seventh after His own example if the seventh day were not a literal day.

The omission of the formula “and there was evening and morning, a seventh day” may be due to the fact that the seventh day is not followed by other creation days. The formula serves to separate each of the first days of creation from the following ones. The seventh day, being the last day of creation, did not need to be separated because there was no “eighth day” to follow. By marking the termination of the creation week, the seventh day did not need to be defined in terms of its termination because there were no further creation days.

Another suggestion is the possibility that the Sabbath was blessed with extraordinary light. For example, referring to the Messianic age, Zechariah remarks that “there shall be continuous day . . . not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light” (Zech 14:7). Here we have a probable allusion to the seventh day of creation which in Genesis has no mention of “evening and morning.” Such a detail was interpreted by the rabbis as signifying that the Sabbath was especially blessed by supernatural, continuous light. To this we return in chapter 4.

THE CREATION WEEK IS A HUMAN WEEK

A fundamental problem with the preceding objections against the creation origin of the Sabbath is their failure to realize that the creation week is a human week, established by God for regulating our human life. God did not need six days to create our solar system. He could have spoken it into existence in a second, since His creation was accomplished by the spoken word (Ps 33:6). But He chose to establish a human week of seven days and to use it Himself in order to give a divine perspective to our six days of work and to our seventh day of rest.

This means that as we work during the six days and rest on the seventh day, we are doing in a small scale what God has done on a much larger scale. God’s willingness to enter into the limitations of human time at creation in order to enable us to identify with Him is a marvellous revelation of His willingness to enter into human flesh at the incarnation in order to become Emmanuel, God with us.

On each of the first six days of creation God did something that had lasting results for the human family. We would expect the same to be true for the seventh day. Roy Gane notes: “God set up cyclical time even before man was created (Gen 1:3-5, 14-18). According to Genesis 1:14, God made heavenly luminaries, chiefly the sun and the moon (Gen 1:16), to mark earthly time as ‘signs,’ ‘seasons.’ i. e., appointed times, days, and years. So when Genesis 2:3 says that God blessed and hallowed the seventh day, this blessing and consecration could be on-going in a cyclical sense, applying to each subsequent seventh day. In fact, the seventh-day Sabbath provides a plausible explanation for the origin of the week, which is not defined by the movement of heavenly bodies.”

Creation Sabbath and Weekly Sabbath

The emphatic threefold repetition of “the seventh day” with its four divine acts (“finished,” “rested,” “blessed,” and “hallowed”—Gen 2:2-3) at the conclusion of creation indicates that just as man is the crown of creation, so the seventh day, the Sabbath, is the final goal of creation. Thus, the creation Sabbath tells us not only how God felt about His creation, but also what He planned for His creatures. G. H. Watermann makes this point saying: “It seems clear, therefore, that the divine origin and institution of the Sabbath took place at the beginning of human history. At that time God not only provided a divine example for keeping the seventh day as a day of rest, but also blessed and set apart the seventh day for the benefit of man.”

As God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day at the completion of His creation, so human beings are to accomplish their work and purpose in this creation during the six working days of the week and to follow the example of the Creator by resting on the seventh day. Sabbathkeepers can find satisfaction and fulfillment in their work and rest, because the Sabbath reassures them that they are doing on a small scale what God has done and is doing on an infinitely larger scale.

Earlier we noted that God “rested” on the seventh day to express His satisfaction over his complete and perfect creation. This idea is conveyed by the verb shabat used in Genesis 2:2-3 which means to “cease or stop working.” We must not ignore, however, that in Exodus 31:17 the creation rest of God is interpreted as a model for human rest. Israel is called to keep the Sabbath because “in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed” (Ex 31:17). The Hebrew verb used here is nephesh, which describes God as being “refreshed” as a result of His rest on the seventh day of creation.

It is evident God did not need to rest from fatigue because “He does not faint or grow weary” (Is 40:28), yet the Bible speaks of God in human terms (anthropomorphically) as being “refreshed” on the Sabbath in order to set the pattern for the human Sabbath rest. This is not the only example in the Bible where God does something to set an example for His creatures to follow.

Jesus asked John the Baptist to baptize him, not because He needed to be cleansed from sin (Rom 6:1-5), but to set an example for His followers (Matt 3:13-14). Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper trace their origin to a divine act and example that established them. In the same way Scripture traces the origin of the Sabbath to God’s act of resting, blessing, and sanctifying the seventh day. This is the fundamental problem with Sunday observance. No divine act established the day as a memorial of the resurrection. None of the words uttered by Christ on the day of His resurrection suggest that He intended to make the day a memorial of His resurrection.

The Blessing of the Seventh Day

The blessing and hallowing of the seventh day at creation further reveals that God intended the Sabbath to have on-going benefits for the human family. It would make no sense for God to bless and sanctify a unit of holy time for Himself. The blessings of God are outgoing, benefiting His creatures. They represent not wishful thinking but assurance of fruitfulness, prosperity, and abundant life. For example, God blessed the first couple saying, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28; cf. 9:1; 49:22-26). Similarly, we read in the Aaronic benediction: “The Lord bless you and keep you” (Num 6:24). The blessing of God results, then, in the preservation and assurance of abundant life. This meaning is expressed explicitly by the Psalmist when he writes: “The Lord has commanded the blessing, life for evermore” (Ps 133:3). Applied to the Sabbath, this means that God made this day a channel through which human life can receive His beneficial and vitalizing power.

It must be said that the meaning of both the blessing and sanctification of the Sabbath is not spelled out in Genesis 2:3. This is puzzling because in most instances God’s benediction is accompanied by an explanation of its content. For example, “God blessed them [animals], saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth” (Gen. 1:22). Similarly, God said to Abraham regarding his wife, Sarah, “I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her” (Gen. 17:16; cf. 9:1; 17:20). Yet with regard to the blessing of the Sabbath, nothing is said as to what such a blessing entails.

The mystery of the blessedness and sanctity of the Sabbath begins to be unveiled in Exodus with the establishment of Israel as God’s covenant people. The day becomes now linked not only to a finished creation but to the new nation which God has miraculously brought into existence: “See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath” (Ex. 16:29). From being cosmological, a symbol of a perfect world, the Sabbath has now become a soteriological-historical symbol of God’s redemptive plan for His people. Thus the Sabbath becomes now more intimately connected with the ups and downs of the life of God’s people.

The manna story offers a starting point to understand the nature of the original blessing of the Sabbath. Notice first certain parallelisms between the creation and the manna narrative. Both are divine acts accomplished according to the seven-day structure. Both testify to the perfection of God’s activities: the daily creation was “good” and the daily portion of the manna was satisfying (Ex 16:18). ln both instances, the creative activity ceases on the Sabbath: creation is “finished” (Gen 2:2) and the manna ceased to fall (Ex 16:25). In both cases God’s blessings are bestowed upon the Sabbath—by proclamation at creation (Gen 2:3) and by preservation in the manna (Ex 16:24).

In the context of the aridity of the desert and of the murmuring of the people caused by their inability to secure food, the miracle of the preservation of the manna throughout Sabbath stands as a most conspicuous revelation of the nature of the Sabbath blessings, namely, God’s reassuring gift of physical nourishment and life. In order to receive the blessings of the Sabbath, believers need to consecrate the day to God by altering their behavior, as in the manna experience. As John Skinner puts it: “The Sabbath is a constant source of well-being to the man who recognizes its true nature and purpose.”¹⁰⁰

The Sanctification of the Sabbath

Genesis 2:3 also affirms that the Creator “hallowed” (RV, RSV) the seventh day, “made it holy” (NEB, NAB), “declared it holy” (NKJV), or “sanctified” (NASB). Both here and in the Sabbath commandment we are told that God made the Sabbath holy. How did God make the seventh day holy? Since the day is not a material substance but a unit of time, it cannot be made holy by applying a holy substance such as anointing oil (Lev 8:10-12). The meaning of the holiness of the Sabbath must be found in its relation to the people who are affected by its observance.

Dale Ratzlaff argues that God did not sanctify the seventh day as such for human beings to observe, but the “conditions of that day were sanctified and blessed.” By “the conditions,” Ratzlaff means the condition that existed on “the first day after creation was completed.” In other words, the sanctification of the seventh day refers primarily to the “conditions” of “fellowship and communion” that existed on creation’s seventh day rather than to God setting aside the seventh day for humanity to experience in a special way His sanctifying presence.

The problem with this interpretation is that nowhere does the Bible suggest that the sanctification of the seventh day at creation refers to the sanctification of the conditions that existed “the first day after creation was completed.” God did not sanctify “conditions” but the seventh day itself.

The Meaning of Sanctification

The basic meaning of the Hebrew idea of “holy—qodesh” is “set apart,” “separated.” Applied to the Sabbath, the divine sanctification of the day consists in God’s setting apart the seventh day from the rest of the six days. It must be emphasized that God did the setting apart, not man. The holiness of the Sabbath stems not from those who keep it, but from the act of God. Believers experience the holiness of the Sabbath by altering their behavior on that day. They stop their work to allow God to enrich their lives with His sanctifying presence.

John Skinner perceptively points out that the Sabbath “is not an institution which exists or ceases with its observance by man; the divine rest is a fact as much as the divine working, and so the sanctity of the day is a fact whether man secures the benefit or not.”

The verbal form (Piel) of the Hebrew verb “to sanctify–yeqaddesh,” as H. C. Leupold explains, has both a causative and a declarative sense. This means that God declared the seventh day holy and caused it to be a means of holiness for humanity. It is noteworthy that the word “holy” is used for the first time in the Bible with reference not to an object such as an altar, a tabernacle, or a person, but with regard to time, the seventh day (Gen 2:3).

The meaning of the sanctification of the Sabbath becomes clearer with the unfolding of the history of salvation. In Exodus, for example, the holiness of the Sabbath is elucidated by means of its explicit association with the manifestation of God’s glorious presence. From Mount Sinai, which was made holy by the glorious presence of God, the Sabbath is explicitly proclaimed to be God’s holy day: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8). The commandment, it should be noted, not only opens with the invitation to remember and keep holy the Sabbath (cf. Deut 5:15), but also closes by reiterating that its holiness is grounded in God’s sanctification of the day at creation (Ex 20:11). In Hebrew, the identical verb is used in both instances.

An Experience of God’s Presence

The experience of God’s glorious presence on Mount Sinai served to educate the Israelites to acknowledge the holiness of God manifested in time (the Sabbath) and later in a place of worship (the Tabernacle). The motif of God’s glory is found in all of these (Sinai, Sabbath, and Tabernacle) and ties them together. The Israelites were instructed to prepare themselves for the encounter with God’s holy presence (Ex 19:10, 11), when the Lord would “come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people” (Ex 19:11). The preparation included personal cleansing (Ex 19:10, 14) and the setting of a boundary around the mountain (Ex. 19:12, 23) which was to be invested with God’s glory.

The nexus with the holiness of the Sabbath can hardly be missed. Indeed, personal preparation and the setting of a boundary between common and holy time are the basic ingredients necessary for the sanctification of the Sabbath. Can one enter into the experience of God’s holy presence on the Sabbath without making necessary preparation? Or is it possible to honor God’s presence on His holy seventh day without setting a boundary in time that fences off personal profits and pleasures?

The meaning of the holiness of God is further clarified at Sinai by the invitation God extended to Moses “on the seventh day” to enter into the cloud and thus experience the intimacy of His presence. “Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people. And Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain” (Ex 24:15-18).

God’s invitation to Moses to enter on the seventh day into His glorious presence unveils the cryptic meaning of God’s sanctification of the Sabbath at creation. The holiness of the Sabbath is now explained to be not a magic quality infused by God into this day, but rather His mysterious and majestic presence manifested on and through the Sabbath in the lives of His people.

This meaning of the holiness of the Sabbath is brought out more forcefully a few chapters later when, at the end of the revelation of the tabernacle, God says to the people of Israel, “You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you” (Ex 31:13). The sanctity of the Sabbath is now clearly equated with the sanctifying presence of God with His people. The mystery of the sanctification of the creation-Sabbath is now unveiled. It consists precisely of God’s commitment to manifest His presence in the lives of His people.

For six days God filled this planet with good things and living beings, but on the seventh He filled it with His presence. As the symbol and assurance of God’s sanctifying presence in this world and in human lives, the Sabbath represents a most sublime and permanent expression of God’s loving care.

The Permanence of the Sabbath

In the creation account, we learn that God set up the ideal order of relationship that should govern human life. He instituted the Sabbath, marriage, and work—three institutions which embody principles which were later formulated in the Ten Commandments.

When Adam and Even disobeyed God by eating of the forbidden fruit (Gen 3:6), their marriage and work suffered as a result of the curse of sin. But the Sabbath did not. “The Sabbath is not affected by any curse resulting from the Fall. Unlike the other two Creation institutions, the Sabbath remains a little piece of Paradise. As such, its value is enhanced by the deterioration around it. Now that work is exhausting, ceasing from labor on the Sabbath provides needed rest. More importantly, now that human beings are cut off from direct access to God, they need a reminder of His lordship [and fellowship] even more than they did before the Fall.”

The Fall did not eliminate the order that God established at creation to govern human life and relationship. Marriage and labor have remained, though they became more difficult. In the same way, the Sabbath has remained, though its observance is often made more difficult by working schedules that infringe on the Sabbath and by many personal tasks that clamor for use of the Sabbath time.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, we conclude that God, by resting, blessing, and sanctifying the seventh day, created a day that would delineate the on-going weekly cycle for human beings, and invites them to fellowship with Him in a special way on the Sabbath day. God created the natural world by speaking, then man by moulding him out of dust and vivifying him with His life-giving Spirit, and the Sabbath by “sabbatizing” Himself.

By instituting the Sabbath at creation along with the basic components of human life such as marriage and labor, long before Israel existed, God made the day a permanent institution for the human family (Mark 2:27). The fact that later the Sabbath became one of the Ten Commandments does not negate its universality, but rather supports it, since the other nine commandments are universal principles binding upon the whole human family, not Israel alone.

Conclusion

Our examination of the objections to the creation origin of the Sabbath has shown the arguments to be based on gratuitous assumptions. The consistent and unanimous testimony of Scripture is that Sabbath is rooted in the creation event and marks the inauguration of human history. This means that Sabbathkeeping is not a temporary Jewish ceremonial law, but a creation ordinance for the benefit of humanity. It also means, as so well stated by Elizabeth E. Platt, that “we have our roots in the Sabbath; we belong in it from Genesis on into Eternity in God’s plan.”

UPCOMING WEEKEND SEMINARS

As a service to our subscribers, I am listing the date and the location of the upcoming seminars for the months of October and November 2006. I wish to extend my personal, warm invitation to all who are able to attend one of the followings rallies.

OCTOBER 6-7: CANADA -MISSISSAUGA SDA CHURCH

Location: 2250 Credit Valley Road, Mississauga, Ontario L5M 4L9, Canada.

For information call Pastor Nerval Myrie at (905) 755-0014 or (416) 303-7287.

OCTOBER 13-14: ONTARIO SDA CHURCH, CALIFORNIA

Location: 856 North Sultana Avenue, Ontario, CA 91764

For information call Pastor Mike Leno at (909) 997-7870 or (909) 986-8261.

OCTOBER 20-21: LOS ANGELES - NORWALK SDA CHURCH

Location: 12191 Firestone Boulevard, Norwalk, CA 90650.

For information call Pastor Frank Haynes at (562) 863-0614 or (909) 399-0949

OCTOBER 27-28: OMAHA: WESTSIDE COMMUNITY CONFERENCE CENTER

Location: 3534 South 108th Street, Omaha, NE 68144.

For information call Pastor Jim Anderson at (402) 932-0046 or (402) 616-7811.

NOVEMBER 3-4: CALGARY: GARDEN ROAD SDA CHURCH

Location: RR7, Site 17, Box 5, Calgary T2P 2G7, Canada.

NOVEMBER 10-11: ST. PAUL/M-MARANATHA SDA CHURCH

Location: 717 Highway 7, Hopkins, MN 55305 (Minneapolis). For information call Pastor Absalon Birai at (763) 557-7285 or (612) 386-4608

NOVEMBER 17 TO 28: AUSTRALIA, See above.

ANNOUNCEMENTS OF SERVICES AND PRODUCTS

PROF. GRAEME BRADFORD BOOK AND CD/DVD ALBUM

* The book More than a Prophet

* The CD/DVD album with Prof. Bradford’s writings

and live video lecture on Ellen White

The book More than a Prophet

The book More than a Prophet was born out of the raging controversy over the credibility of Ellen White as an inspired writer. This timely book that can restore confidence in the prophetic ministry of Ellen White and help reclaim former Adventists who have left the church because of unresolved questions about Ellen White’s writings.

With clear reasoning and compelling documentation, Prof. Bradford helps the reader to rediscover the TRUE Ellen White–a frail woman used by God in a mighty way, in spite of her limitations and personal problems. She has left a rich legacy not only for the Seventh-day Adventist Church but for the world at large.

The CD/DVD Album with Prof. Bradford’s Publications and Video Recording

The CD-ROM Disk

The CD disk offers a searchable data base of most of Prof. Graeme Bradford published and unpublished writings. It includes also the latest book More than a Prophet! During the past 30 years, he has written books and articles on a wide variety of subjects such as occultism, near death experiences, Israel in Prophecy, expository preaching, kids and drugs, the Bible and Archeology, and endtime prophecies. His articles always offer a refreshing biblical perspective on current issues.

Until now Prof. Bradford’s books and articles were available only in a printed form, often unavailable at local ABC stores. In view of my indebtedness to Prof. Bradford scholarship, I have offered to help him to place all of his books and articles on a CD album. This makes it possible with the ACROBAT global search, to locate immediately what he has written on biblical texts or current topics.

You will find in this collection a priceless resource to enrich your understanding and experience of biblical truths. You will especially appreciate his latest book More than a Prophet–a book that has been long overdue and will do much to restore confidence in the validity of Ellen White’s prophetic ministry.

The DVD Video Recording

On June 20, a professional crew recorded Prof. Bradford’s popular two hours powerpoint lecture on “More than a Prophet,” at the Avondale College Media Center in Australia. With the help of 75 slides, he discusses in an open and objective ways the major issues related to the prophetic ministry of Ellen White.

This lectures clears the air of prevailing misconceptions about Ellen White which have caused thousands of Adventists to leave church. Listening to this dynamic, visual presentation will enhance your appreciation for the gift of prophecy manifested in the writings, preaching, and teachings of Ellen White.

SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY OFFER

MORE THAN A PROPHET

1 copy of More than a Prophet for $25.00 plus $5.00 for mailing in the USA of $10.00 for airmailing overseas.

2 copies of More than a Prophet for $40.00, plus $5 for mailing in the USA of $10.00 for airmailing overseas. With this order you will receive until October 31, 2006, ONE FREE CD/DVD ALBUM with Prof. Bradford’s publications and live video lecture on Ellen White.

10 copies of More than a Prophet for $100.00 (instead of $250.00), plus $5 for mailing in the USA or $20.00 for airmailing overseas. With this order you will receive until October 31, 2006, ONE FREE CD/DVD ALBUM with Prof. Bradford’s publications and live video lecture on Ellen White.

30 copies of More than a Prophet for $150.00 (instead of $750.00), plus $5 for mailing in the USA or $20.00 for overseas surfice mail. With this order you will receive until October 31, 2006, ONE FREE CD/DVD ALBUM with Prof. Bradford’s publications and live video lecture on Ellen White.

CD/DVD ALBUM WITH PROF. BRADFORD’S BOOKS, ARTICLES, AND VIDEO LECTURE

The Album contains both the CD disk with all Prof. Bradford’s publications and the DVD disk with his two hours video lecture. The introductory offer is only $50.00 (instead of $100.00). Airmailing expenses are included to any foreign destination. You can receive until October 31, 2006, this CD/DVD album FREE, when you order 2 or more copies of More than a Prophet. See above.

FOUR WAYS TO ORDER!

(1) Online: By clicking here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/BradfordOffer/offer.htm

(2) Phone:  By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3) Email:  By emailing your order to <[email protected]>. Be sure to provide your postal address, credit card number, and expiration date.

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing a check to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

SPECIAL OFFER ON THE NEW DVD ALBUM ON THE MARK AND NUMBER OF THE BEAST

The DVD album consists of two disks which contain the live recording that was done at the Andrews University Towers Auditorium on Wednesday, February 1, 2006. The marathon lecture lasted over two hours and was delivered with the help of 175 powerpoint slides. The lecture was introduced by Prof. Jon Paulien and Prof. Ranko Stefanovich, two foremost Adventist experts on the book of Revelation.

You will be thrilled by this passionate lecture that will help you understand what the mark and number of the beast are all about. This prophecy is not about external markings, barcodes, biochips, or pope’s titles, but rather about the internal control of the mind of every human being. It is a battle over who will people worship in the final showdown: the true God or Satan. This visual presentation will help you to see the role of the Sabbath in the battle over worship in the endtime showdown.

At the end of the second DVD disk, there is a separate powerpoint file with all the 195 slides and accompanying script. This should prove to be a valuable resource for evangelists, pastors, and anyone engaged in sharing the prophetic message of Revelation. They can use some of the stunning pictures for their own presentation.

How to Order the DVD Album

The special introductory offer on the DVD Album on The Mark and Number of the Beast, is only $50.00, instead of $100.00. The airmailing expenses to any foreign country are included in the special price. You can order the DVD album in four different ways:

(1) Online: By clicking here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/BeastAD/

(2) Phone:  By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3) Email:  By emailing your order to <[email protected]>. Be sure to provide your postal address, credit card number, and expiration date.

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing a check for $35.00 to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

SPECIAL OFFER ON THE 5 ALBUMS CONTAINING ALL OF DR. BACCHIOCCHI’S PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS

 In occasion of the release of the new DVD album on The Mark and Number of the Beast, I am pleased to offer you the complete package of all my DVD and CD recordings, consisting of 5 Albums, for only $100.00, instead of the regular price of $500.00. This is a one-time incredible offer.

You can see the picture of all the FIVE ALBUMS and read a detailed description of them, just by clicking at this URL address:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/holidayoffer.htm

You can order the complete package of 5 DVD and CD Albums for only $100.00, instead of the regular price of $500.00, in four different ways:

(1) Online: By clicking here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/holidayoffer.htm

(2) Phone:  By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3) Email: By emailing your order to <[email protected]>. Be sure to provide your postal address, credit card number, and expiration date.     

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing a check for $100.00 to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

CD-ROM WITH PROF. JON PAULIEN BOOKS & ARTICLES

Prof. Jon Paulien is one of the most respected Adventist scholars. Besides serving as the chairman of the New Testament at Andrews University Theological Seminary, he writes and lectures extensively in many parts of the world.

Until now Prof. Paulien books and articles were available only in a printed form, often unavailable at local ABC stores. In view of my indebtedness to Prof. Paulien’s scholarship, I have offered to help him to place all of his books and articles on a CD disk. This makes it possible with the ACROBAT global search, to locate immediately what he has written on biblical texts or current topics.

The newly released CD-ROM contains more than a dozen of books and scores of articles written by Prof. Paulien during the past 20 years of research. You will find in this collection a priceless resource to enrich your understanding and experience of biblical truths. Prof. Paulien examines fundamental biblical beliefs in a profound and yet popular way. He is a recognized expert on the book of Revelation. Several of his books will help you to unlock the secrets of Revelation.

         The special introductory offer of the newly released CD-ROM ALBUM with all of Prof. Paulien books and articles is only $35.00 instead of the regular price of $50.00. The price includes the airmailing expenses to any overseas destination.

To order the newly released CD ALBUM with all of Prof. Paulien books and articles, simply click here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/PaulienAD/

If you have a problem ordering online, email us your order at <[email protected]>, giving us your address, credit card number, and expiration date. You can also order by phone, calling us at (269) 471-2915. We will take your order by phone.

SPECIAL OFFER ON PROF. JON PAULIEN’S 5 ALBUMS (60 CD DISKS), called The Bible Explorer Series on Revelation

The book of Revelation has both delighted and frustrated readers ever since it was written. Sensational but senseless interpretations of the book abound. In this unique package consisting of 120 lectures professionally recorded in 60 CD disks, Prof. Jon Paulien guides you through a verse by verse study of the intriguing messages of Revelation.

Prof. Paulien is rightly regarded inside and outside the Adventist community, as a foremost authority in Johannine literature, especially the book of Revelation. Students have told me that listening to his lectures, is a mind-opening experience. Personally I esteem Prof. Paulien as the leading Adventist authority on the prophetic books of the Bible.

If you wish that you could go back to school and seat in Prof. Paulien classes, I have good news for you. You do not need to worry about your age or your financial limitations. You do not even need to enroll at Andrews University and spend thousands of dollars of tuition to benefit from Prof. Paulien’s instruction.

All what you need to do is simply to order his 120 lectures which have been professionally recorded and packaged in FIVE ALBUMS, EACH CONTAINING 12 CD-ROMs, for a total of 60 CD disks. The set is called The Bible Explorer Series on Revelation and takes you verse by verse through the whole book of Revelation. These lectures are the equivalent of four Seminary courses (about $2000.00 of tuition), yet they are presented in a way that lay people can understand. Each lecture concludes with spiritual lessons for everyday life.

To express my appreciation for the contribution that Prof. Paulien has made to the understanding of Revelation, I am promoting and distributing his The Bible Explorer Series on Revelation consisting of 5 albums with a total of 60 CD-ROMS, as a free service without any commission. I have offered my service to facilitate the purchase of this timely set of 120 lectures through the shopping cart at my website: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/paulien/

         Your special offer for the complete The Bible Explorer Series on Revelation consisting of 5 albums with a total of 60 CD disks, is only $175.00, airmailing expenses included to any domestic or oversea destination. You can order the package in four ways:

(1) Online: By clicking here:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/paulien/

(2)  Phone: By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3) Email:  By emailing your order to this address: <[email protected]>.

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing a check for $175.00 to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

INCREDIBLE NEW OFFERS ON HITACHI PROJECTORS

Lately HITACHI has given an additional discount on their projectors to help especially our churches and schools in developing countries. This is the special offer on the following four models:

CP-X250 HIGH RESOLUTION 2000 LUMENS - Only $1095.00

Previous SDA price for the 2000 lumens was $1900.00.

CP-X260 HIGH RESOLUTION 2500 LUMENS - Only $1195.00

Previous SDA price for the 2500 lumens was $2595.00.

CP-X444 HIGH RESOLUTION 3200 LUMENS - Only $1895.00

Previous SDA price for the 3200 lumens was $3295.00.

CP-X1250 HIGH RESOLUTION 4500 LUMENS - Only $3895.00

Previous SDA price for the 4500 lumens was $4900.00.

WARRANTY: The above prices include a 3 years 24/7 replacement warranty that is worth about $285.00.You can order these projectors in four ways:

You can order the HITACHI projectors in four ways:

(1) Online: By clicking here:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/bpprojectors/

(2)  Phone: By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3) Email:  By emailing your order to this address: <[email protected]>.

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing a check to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

NEW TOSHIBA LAPTOP TECRA A8-EZ8312

This is the latest TOSHIBA laptop that was first released on June 27, 2006. These are the specifications: Duo processor 1.66Hz, Memory size 512MB, Monitor size 15.4”, Resolution 1280x800, Hard drive 60GB, Optical drive CD-RW/DVD-Rom, Wireless, 3-USB ports, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Works software. The special price is $895.00.

You can order the TECRA A8-EZ8312 in four ways:

(1) Online: By clicking here: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/Toshiba/Notebooks.html

(2)  Phone: By calling us at (269) 471-2915 to give us your credit card number and postal address.

(3) Email:  By emailing your order to <[email protected]>.

(4) Regular Mail: By mailing a check to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4990 Appian Way, Berrien Springs, Michigan 4990, USA. We guarantee to process your order immediately.

THE MOST POWERFUL REMOTE PRESENTER

If you are looking for an outstanding REMOTE for your PowerPoint presentations, you will be pleased to know HONEYWELL has just come out with the smallest and most powerful remote in the market.

The size of the transmitter is smaller than a credit card. You can stick it inside the palm of your hand and nobody can see it. I tested the remote in an open environment, and the radio signal can go up to 400 feet of distance. IT IS INCREDIBLE! The transmitter has three button: forward, backward, and laser.

You can order online the new POWERPOINT PRESENTER simply by clicking here:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=bookstore&Category_Code=RP

If you have a problem ordering online, simply call us at (269) 471-2915. We will take your order by phone.

You can also email us your order at <[email protected]>, giving us your address, credit card number, and expiration date.

DOES YOUR CHURCH OR SCHOOL NEED A SCREEN?

 If your church/school is looking for a screen, the DA-LITE SCREEN COMPANY, the largest manufacture of screens in the world, has agreed to offer their line of screens to our Adventist churches and schools at a about 30% discount.

The procedure is very simple. Visit the DA-LITE SCREEN COMPANY website at http://www.da-lite.com. You will see hundreds of models of screens with their respective prices. Once you find the screen that you need, give us the model number by phone (269) 471-2915 or email your request <[email protected]> We will forward your order immediately to DA-LITE that will ship the screen directly to your address. You will receive the screen at about 30% discount.