Mission of the Saviour—His qualifications as a judge of Sabbatic observance—State of the institution at his advent—The Saviour at Nazareth—At Capernaum—His discourse in the corn-field—Case of the man with a withered arm—The Saviour among his relatives—Case of the impotent man—Of the man born blind—Of the woman bound by Satan—Of the man who had the dropsy—Object of our Lord’s teaching and miracles relative to the Sabbath—Unfairness of many anti-Sabbatarians—Examination of Matt. 24:20—The Sabbath not abrogated at the crucifixion—Fourth commandment after that event—Sabbath not changed at the resurrection of Christ—Examination of John 20:26—Of Acts 2:1, 2—Redemption furnishes no argument for the change of the Sabbath—Examination of Ps. 118:22-24—The Sabbath neither abolished nor changed as late as the close of the seventy weeks. In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son to be the Saviour of the world. He who fulfilled this mission of infinite benevolence was both the Son of God and the Son of man. He was with the Father before the world was, and by him God created all things.[244] The Sabbath being ordained at the close of that great work as a memorial to keep it in lasting remembrance, the Son of God, by whom all things were created, could not be otherwise than a perfect judge of its true design, and of its proper observance. The sixty-nine weeks of Daniel’s prophecy being accomplished, the Redeemer began to preach, saying, “The time is fulfilled.”[245] The ministry of the Saviour was at a time when the Sabbath of the Lord had become utterly perverted from its gracious design, by the teaching of the Jewish doctors. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it was to the people no longer a source of refreshment and delight, but a cause of suffering and distress. It had been loaded down with traditions by the doctors of the law until its merciful and beneficent design was utterly hidden beneath the rubbish of men’s inventions. It being impracticable for Satan, after the Babylonish captivity, to cause the Jewish people, even by bloody edicts, to relinquish the Sabbath and openly to profane it as before that time, he turned their doctors so to pervert it, that its real character should be utterly changed and its observance entirely unlike that which would please God. We shall find that the Saviour never missed an opportunity to correct their false notions respecting the Sabbath; and that he selected, with evident design, the Sabbath as the day on which to perform many of his merciful works. It will be found that no small share of his teaching through his whole ministry was devoted to a determination of what was lawful on the Sabbath, a singular fact for those to explain who think that he designed its abrogation. At the opening of our Lord’s ministry, we read thus:—