God's True Rest—part 3

When the first Sabbath came to earth, only God had worked the six previous days. The angels had looked on in wonder and admiration, but they had not created. Man had been brought into existence on the sixth day. So neither angels nor man had worked six days. Adam had indeed worked on the day of his creation in naming all the animals. But he had worked at most only part of one day. In a special sense, therefore, the first Sabbath in Eden was God’s Sabbath, for He was the only one who had worked six days. It was His holy day, His day of rest. Hence, the strength and appropriateness of the Bible statements: “The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord” (Exodus 20:10). “My holy day” (Isaiah 58:13). “My rest” (Hebrews 3:11; 4:3, 5). “His rest” (Hebrews 3:18, 4:1, 10).

“On the seventh day God ended His work” (Gen. 2:2). God did more than merely end His work on the seventh day. A person may stop his work without finishing it. God not only stopped His work; He finished it. And He finished it on the seventh day. Had God finished His work on the sixth day, there would have been no Sabbath for mankind. But God included the Sabbath in the creation week, and thus made His finished work include both work and rest. Having worked six days and rested the seventh, God says to man, “I have worked six days and rested the seventh; now you work six days and rest the seventh, for the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” It is noteworthy that two thousand years after creation, God speaking of the Sabbath does not say that the seventh day was the Sabbath of the Lord, but that it is. In this Christ concurs when He affirms that the Son of man is, not was, Lord of the Sabbath.

God’s ideal of perfect life, perfect communion, perfect love, joy, and peace, found expression in that first Sabbath in Eden. As we have noted, in a peculiar and distinct sense it was His Sabbath, His rest…. The fact that He picks on the seventh day and specifically mentions that this is the day on which He rested in the beginning, and that it is “His rest” to which He invites all to enter, is significant. And that this is recorded in the New Testament in Hebrews, more than thirty years after the death of Christ, is equally significant. Christians would do well to ponder this.

Let the mind dwell upon the first Sabbath. God has finished His work and as He contemplates it, finds it “very good.” God states this very modestly, for the earth and what He had made must have been surpassingly beautiful. As God beheld His creatures; as He saw Adam in his perfection of strength and manhood, and Eve in her loveliness; as He saw angels and men, sons of God, cherubim and seraphim; as He saw “the whole family in heaven and earth” in sweet communion and fellowship, He saw life as He meant it to be ideal, pure, complete, satisfying. And so, as He drank in the whole scene, He rested and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:17). The ideal and the climax had been reached.

Read Part 4