God did not create man because He had a Sabbath and needed someone to keep it. Rather, an Allwise Creator knew that man, the creature of His hand, needed opportunity for moral and spiritual growth, for character development. He needed time in which his own interests and pursuits should be subordinated to a study of the character and will of God as revealed in nature, and later, in revelation. The seventh-day Sabbath was ordained of God to meet this need. To tamper in any way with the Creator’s specifications as to when and how the day should be observed is tantamount to denying that God knows what is best for the creatures of His hand.
God ordained that the Sabbath should be a blessing, not a burden, and it is to man’s interest and not his injury to observe it. It was designed to increase his happiness, not to work a hardship on him. Sabbath-keeping does not consist essentially in the petty observance of certain formalities and in abstention from certain pursuits; to think of it in this light is to miss completely the true spirit and objectives of Sabbath observance and to engage in the pursuit of righteousness based on works. We refrain from certain tasks, from certain pursuits, from certain topics of thought and conversation, not because that by so doing we think to win favor with God. We refrain from these things in order that we may devote our time, our energies, and our thought to other pursuits that will increase our understanding of God, our appreciation of His goodness, our capacity to cooperate with Him, and our ability to serve Him and our fellow men more effectively. Sabbathkeeping that consists only, or primarily, in the negative aspect of not doing certain things is not Sabbathkeeping at all; it is only when the positive aspect of Sabbathkeeping is practiced that we may hope to derive from Sabbath observance the benefit ordained by a wise and loving Creator. See on Isa. 58:13.
The legion requirements of the rabbis pertaining to the meticulous observance of the Sabbath were based on the concept that the Sabbath was of more importance in the sight of God than man himself. According to the apparent reasoning of these blind exponents of the divine law, man was made for the Sabbath—made to keep it mechanically. The rabbis reduced the Sabbath to an absurdity by their rigid and meaningless distinction between what might and what might not be done on that day (see on v. 24). They emphasized the negative aspect of Sabbath observance—of refraining from certain things. The forms of religion were set forth as the substance of it.
Man.
Gr. anthrōpos, literally, “a person,” a generic term including men, women, and children (see on ch. 6:44). “Mankind” would reflect the meaning of anthrōpos more accurately. The Sabbath was designed and ordained by a loving Creator for the welfare of humanity. It is only by the wildest stretch of reasoning that a person could consider the Sabbath “against” man in any respect (see on Col. 2:14).