The Seventh Day

Genesis 2:1‑3

The Seventh Day

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

R

est is such a necessary part of human life that we cannot help but wonder what is meant when we read in the sacred text that God rested. What can the Spirit mean? Did God close His eyes and fall asleep? Was the world unattended while He napped? Should we think that He took a holiday in order to refresh Himself in mind and in body? Was His new creation at the mercy of the moment? Was the universe subject to serendipity as God rested?

Of course the foregoing suggestions are patently silly. Whatever may be meant by the revelation that God rested, we may be confident that His rest has a profound effect on man, for God blessed that day in which He rested. Whenever God blesses, man is the beneficiary. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath [cf. Mark 2:27] according to Jesus’ words. This must mean that the Sabbath is to bless and not to burden man.

The Seventh Day is frequently referred to as the Sabbath Day—a term which unfortunately carries negative connotations for many of us. Whenever I speak of the Sabbath there is no question but that some visualise a dull day of inactivity in which grandpa nods off before a family Bible whilst children sit quietly and parents cease all activity save for that which is absolutely necessary. It was not that many years past that the Sabbath meant that anything resembling fun was off-limits. That such was undeniably the case in far too many instances cannot be denied.

Permit me to say very clearly that Sunday is not the Sabbath, nor is it even the Christian Sabbath. The day on which most Christians gather to worship the Risen Lord is the first day of the week, the day on which Jesus broke the bonds of death and forever freed us from the fear of the tomb [see Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1]. Since that glorious resurrection we have known the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day [cf. Revelation 1:10]. This is the day on which the early church met to worship by observing the Continuing Ordinance [see Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2]. With the exception of but few professing Christians, the first day of the week is set aside as the Lord’s Day and we gather to worship Christ the Risen Lord of Glory. Thus the Sabbath is distinct from the Lord’s Day and the two concepts should not be confused.

This does not change the fact that many have misunderstood the Sabbath. This institution seems to have been a day particularly marked out for the people of God. Certainly the institution of the day goes back as far as the Exodus from Egypt and the Sabbath marks the lives of those freed from Egyptian bondage. Though we who are freed from the Law by the death and resurrection of Christ the Lord are no longer required to keep the Sabbath, the concept antedates the Law and is found subsequent to the Law as a Christian concept. To understand this concept, then, we must understand the roots of the Sabbath and grasp the significance of God’s blessing on the seventh day.

The Seventh Day Marked a Completion — By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. God completed all His work of creating in six days and the completed work is marked by this seventh day. You have no doubt noticed by now that the seventh day differs from all the other days in the account. For instance, there is no introductory formula provided for this seventh day. In the other instances you will observe the words, then God said. God’s creative word is no longer required by this seventh day.

You will no doubt remember that the establishment of the Sabbath, as given to us in the version of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus, is related to Creation. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy [Exodus 20:8-11]. According to this account the Sabbath is clearly dependent upon the fact that God rested following the Creation. The covenant purposes of God for His people are rooted in the creative purposes of God for this world. God's creative purposes and His covenanted love belong together. This is part of what the Sabbath tells us.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy… in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth… he rested on the seventh day. These words mark a divine rhythm seen throughout the Creation account. This is a pattern of universal significance. This is not just a special rule for God’s people, linking what they learned back to creation. The seventh day stands outside the paired days of creation, having no corresponding day in the foregoing creation week. The literary pattern of six plus one is designed to highlight the seventh day. Lastly, this day alone is blessed.

The completion of the task points to the rest which would normally be expected. Save for the meanest of slaves, the completion of a task indicates rest from the labour which was necessitated by the task. This day is set apart by not having the closing refrain evening and morning to indicate its termination. It would appear that the plan of God seems to have been that His creation would enjoy a perpetual rest following this day, but that rest was interrupted by sin. The term designating this day (seventh day) is repeated three times and twice more by the pronoun it.

The author of the Hebrew letter interprets God’s Sabbath rest as an event which begins with the completion of the first six days of creation and continues to the present. Since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

“So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.” And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”

It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience [Hebrews 4:1-11].

God’s invitation is for His people to share in His fellowship rest. Because of disobedience, the Psalmist states that the fathers could not enjoy God’s Promised Land.

Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,

as you did that day at Massah in

the desert,

where your fathers tested and tried me,

though they had seen what I did.

For forty years I was angry with that generation;

I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,

and they have not known my ways.”

So I declared on oath in my anger,

“They shall never enter my rest.”

[Psalm 95:8–11]

Nevertheless, the invitation to enjoy God’s rest remains—which is why readers are urged not to fail to receive it through disobedience. Instead, with confidence we are to approach the throne of God’s mercy where we will find grace to help us in our time of need [Hebrews 4:16]. Through the mercy and grace of God which is extended us in Christ Jesus our Lord, we enjoy fellowship with God and enter His rest.

Our Sabbath rest is the opportunity God gives us to share His delight. Human life is meant to include more than labour, more than the struggle for the appropriate stewardship of the world, more than the reforming of society. The six plus one alternation of work and rest is not the rhythm of work plus recovery so as to be able to go back to work. It is a rhythm of engagement with the world in work, and then thankful enjoyment of the world in worship. By worship I do not mean simply church activity. Worship is to offer back to God, for Him to enjoy, our enjoyment of His world. The climax of the creation is Man the Worshipper—Homo Adorans.[1] Here is the one who in fellowship with the Creator enjoys the Creator’s works.

What is our creation for? That we may be creatures of the seventh day! That we may share God’s work of bringing order in His creation! That we may grow in personal communion with Him and so reflect His image! That we may share the delight of His rest! That we may have fellowship with the Creator! That we may be caught up in praise with the sun and moon and stars, the trees and flowers and birds; with all creatures great and small, of fish and of beasts! All these look to God for life and for their sustenance; all these in their silent ways sing the song of their Creator.

In The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis, with words of indelible beauty, tells of the founding of Narnia.

In the darkness, a voice began to sing. Its low notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise [Digory] had ever heard…

The rich colours, the glorious sounds, the stars, sun valleys and hills all carry the song of the Lion. Genesis one is such a song. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men [John 1:3, 4]. Christ, the Word through whom all creation is called forth, is the same Christ who reveals the Creator to us as our Father. It is through Christ that we can know God, and we are therefore bold to say I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. All the universe owes its existence to Him. All living creatures owe their existence to Him. All things exist in Him. In Him we live and move and have our being [cf. Acts 17:28].

In the same way we human beings have been given something more than life. We are given the gift of understanding something of His majesty and His mysterious freedom. To us alone is revealed something of His intimate yet commanding relationship with the world. We alone among the creatures are called to reflect His image—to share a history and a destiny with Him. We are invited to enjoy the fellowship of the Lord’s Sabbath rest. Thus in the rhythm of our work and our worship we can give a voice to the silent order of the universe, that it too, with us, may sing the Creator’s praise.

The Seventh Day Mandated a Commemoration — On the seventh day he rested from all his work. Transitions seem to naturally invite some form of commemoration. Witness the millennial celebrations of recent years. God rested and because the day marked a completion He appointed the day as a holyday, in the truest sense of the word. That rest is too often misunderstood to mean inactivity … even if that inactivity should be imposed on observers by dint of force. The spiritual fervour of individual believers was gauged by their level of senescence on a day arbitrarily designated as the Sabbath.

The tragedy of such enforced inactivity is that it fails to grasp the intent of the Word of God and that it obscures the more important aspect of the Sabbath. Consequently, too many of the people of God imagine that their spiritual fervour may be gauged by the degree of their negative disposition. Looking as though we were weaned on dill pickles is not a mark of authentic worship. Though we should maintain purity of life, inactivity should not characterise our worship. Sunday is not a day of rest for it is not the Sabbath. Sunday is the Lord’s Day, a day on which we are to celebrate.

Because God’s work of creation was completed by the seventh day that day stood out from all the other days of the week. In the estimate of God the day mandated a commemoration. It deserved to be noted as distinct from the other days with a purpose different from the other days. The other days are days of activity … of work. When we read the Exodus account of the Ten Commandments we saw that God said as a preamble to giving the command to observe the Sabbath, six days you shall labour and do all your work [Exodus 20:9]. There is a shared similarity of the days of the week as they are days in which to provide for your family, for your future and for your necessities of life.

The seventh day, marking the completion of God’s creative work, was set apart as a day of commemoration. The divine commemoration was an assignment of the day as one in which man would refresh his spirit and refresh his body. How easily we forget that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath [see Mark 2:27]. It was meant to be a day in which man would fellowship with God. That this was intended to be universal (for all mankind) is seen in the fact that the notation of God’s rest occurs long before the giving of the Law. That the Jewish observance is not mandatory for all peoples is seen in the second statement of the Ten Commandments which assigns a further reason for the Jewish Sabbath observance.

In the Deuteronomic version of the Ten Commandments, given some forty years after the first issuing of the Mosaic Law) God provides another reason for establishment of the Sabbath. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day [Deuteronomy 5:12-15].

Here, God’s rescue of Israel from slavery is stated as the reason for the establishment of the Jewish observance of the Sabbath. Both man and beast have need of rest, and thus God points to the pattern given in His own work of Creation in the account in Exodus. The two accounts provide an abundance of reason for what we receive as divine command. In Exodus we have a thoroughly theological reason for the Sabbath, whereas in Deuteronomy we have a psychological reason. Man needs a day of rest. For the Jews, the Sabbath was a commemoration of freedom from slavery. For Christians, the concept of Sabbath still remains that we recognise the need for refreshment as we withdraw to be with our Creator.

The import of this information is that though we are not Jewish, and though we are not under the Law, we do well to set apart time for refreshment of body and spirit. One day in seven should be observed as a day in which we refresh our bodies and our spirits. The ideal day is yet the day on which God rested—the final day of the week. Because of our social customs here in Canada, setting aside a day for spiritual and physical restoration is easy enough. Fortunately, we are able as well to worship vigorously on the first day of the week in our current cultural context. This is the result of our Christian heritage, though it is doubtful that many today wish to remember that we do have this underlying national heritage.

The Seventh Day Means a Consecration — God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Three times God’s work is mentioned in the verses before us. This emphasises that all creation was His work alone. No other labourers are introduced throughout the Word of God and especially should we note that none are mentioned in the divine text. We should not expect that another may lay claim to creation save God alone. God alone is the author of all that is. Thus God blessed the day as a means of blessing the work which He had done. Man, as the apex of God’s work, is to keep the day holy in order to glorify God and to himself be blessed.

At the heart of the divine blessing lies our understanding of what is meant by rest. By far the most of religious leaders appear to have succumbed to the view that rest means inactivity. I am not remiss if I emphasise for our sake the concept of refreshment. God was not inactive following the creation. Instead we read that He walked with man and woman in the Garden. We are led to believe that God enjoyed sweet communion, sweet fellowship, with our first parents. Jesus did not hesitate to affirm that God works when He affirmed My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working [John 5:17]. However, activity and rest are not necessarily incompatible. God ceased all creative work and began to delight in the glory of His creation.

When we are called to set apart the day for rest because it is blessed of God, can you not see that this is nothing less than a call to delight ourselves in God and in His creation? It is a glorious opportunity to discover the marvel of God’s work. It is a call to refresh our spirits through spending time in the presence of Holy God. This call to rest provides us opportunity to reflect on His power and might and invites us to meditate on His goodness toward all that He has made. I am bold to say that for many of us it is more likely that we should worship as we rest and refresh our minds than ever we should through meeting together on a Sunday. I am bold to suggest that we are not likely to worship on the Lord’s Day if we fail to worship in the presence of God on a day of rest.

You have no doubt heard quoted the aphorism which Augustine wrote long ago. You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You. The rest which is implicit in God’s blessing is that rest in which we resort to Him. The characteristic of fallen man is restlessness. Restlessness is not a characteristic of this age alone, though it is assuredly a characteristic of this age. We have difficulty focusing on one thought for very long. We need diversion and amusement. To focus on one subject requires thinking and thinking is painful because ultimately all thinking leads us back to the fact that we have no lasting stability in this life.

Even in the church do we find this restlessness. In a distant age, pastors settled in one congregation and invested their lives in that parish. Pastorates of thirty, forty, and even of fifty years were common. Today, pastors are hard pressed to remain long in one location. The average length of a pastorate when I first came to Canada was eighteen months. One web site I visit contains the caution for pastors to resist the temptation to preach the same sermons again. There is so much movement between the churches that it is possible for a pastor to have a file of no more than fifty sermons and repeat them with a degree of regularity because they are facing a different congregation on such a regular basis. There is always an attraction to a better known, more powerful, pulpit. The thought persists that a move will permit advancement up the ecclesiastical ladder.

Those who attend the services of the church reveal their restless spirits in various ways. The congregations expect that messages will be brief and that they will shift focuses rapidly so as not to require too much thinking. Christians do not wish to dwell overly long on one thought. I well remember a former denominational leader who was adamant that any sermon longer than fifteen minutes was too long. He did not believe that the people would listen any longer than that. Other church members to whom I have spoken in this land say that their pastor need not be a preacher so long as he is able to keep his remarks brief and not cause too much distress through demanding thinking. What are such sentiments save acknowledgement that we are a restless people within these dawning days of the Twenty-first Century?

I am not calling for a return to days of solemn reflection marked by dark clothing and sober faces. I am not calling for a return to the Law. Christ has forever freed us from the Law and we would be foolish to attempt to return to that schoolmaster. I am suggesting that we do well to see God’s act of blessing the seventh day as a challenge to our thinking in this day. I do urge us to consider how much we have sacrificed by our frenetic pace of life which excludes even time to invest in the presence of God. Our bodies are not rested and our hearts reflect the fatigue which our souls experience in their frenzied existence.

I wonder what it would be if for one month you who listen to my voice were to covenant before God to seek a day of rest? On that day you set apart for rest during that month I would encourage you to invest the day in enjoying God’s creation. I am not speaking of hiking to say that you made a certain hike, though your day of rest may include hiking. I am not suggesting that you fish just so you can have time on the water, though your day of rest may involve fishing. I am urging you to have a day in which you delight yourself in God and in His handiwork of creation. On that day you invest considerable time in reflecting on Him and on His grace. You will do no work on that day, save work of necessity, but instead you will actually endeavour to refresh your soul.

The refreshment of soul may be accomplished through reading the Scriptures, reflecting on God’s character and perfections, discovering His workmanship in nature and through speaking with Him. Assuredly the refreshment will entail worship, thinking of the majesty of our God and delighting yourself in Him. After one month … four weeks in which you carefully set apart one day for rest … review what has occurred and see if you are not more vibrant as a Christian, more alive as a human being, more attuned to God’s presence than before you began.

I am bold to say that if you are not a Christian you cannot rest. Though you may pursue one religion after another, your heart will yet be restless and you will discover that you can’t get no satisfaction. There is a rest promised and immediately available to each individual who receives Christ as Master of life. This is the promise of God, who cannot lie. If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 10:9-13].

That is our plea to you … to rest in Christ, ceasing to work. By your works you only condemn yourself before God; but when you cease working and believe this Good News you enter into God’s rest. Be saved tonight. Amen.

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