What is it that you enjoy doing on vacation? It is, after
all, the season of summer trips, long weekends, and recreational activity. Some
people when they go away like to remain busy, filling their days with
excursions, appointments, etc. Others like to read, veg out, watch TV, etc.
Still others make it their job to try and do as little as possible and catch up
on some much needed rest. So, how will you spend this 4th of July
weekend? Truly, there is so much to appreciate about this great country of
ours. However, one of its maladies is its commitment to the grind. While the
concept of rest is often vilified in our 24/7 culture of deadlines and the
ever-encompassing pressure to get ahead, accomplish, and succeed, consider
this: rest is as old a concept as creation itself and was something that even
God endorsed. Today we are going to ask the question: “How did God spend His
vacation?” To be sure, while God never takes a real vacation from sustaining the
universe and seeing to it that His promises are fulfilled, this question is
really trying to understand how God conceives of rest. Therefore, today we are
going to witness three ways God spent day 7 of creation week from Genesis
2:1-3. In so doing, we will learn how and why we ought to rest as those who are
made in His image.
Reflection-2:1-“…Thus
the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts,…”
There is always a great deal of excitement when one
completes something major. One of the things I’m currently working on
completing is my PhD in Theology and Apologetics. With only three classes left,
a few tests, and the writing of the dissertation, I am nearing the end and can
hardly wait until I am able to say, “this degree is complete, along with all
its requirements.” I imagine that following the completion of this endeavor, I
might, as God does on day 7, reflect on what has been accomplished.
Chapter 3 begins with such reflection: “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all
their hosts,…” (2:1). If we recall everything that this sentence considers, we
will remember that in the overture, God created light and darkness in a vacuous
mysterious universe—establishing the theme that the Lord is a God who brings
order out of chaos (1:1-5). In the grand crescendo of 1:6-25, we watched in
amazement as God created separations between the sea and sky and the land and
sea, and then filled the skies with celestial bodies and birds, the sea with
sea creatures, and ornamented the land with vegetation and beasts of all kinds.
This crescendo demonstrates both for the original Hebrew audience and today’s
church that the Lord is a God who stands over and above everything in the universe.
Then, last week we observed God’s greatest creation—Mankind (1:26-31). Being
made in God’s image, humans enjoy a level of glory and honor (Ps. 8) as they
reflect God’s glory back to Him in their constitution, dominion over other
created things, and unique relationship with the heavenly Father. This final
creative act demonstrates that of all the created things in the universe, God
cherishes humanity in general and individual people in particular. Having
completed it all, God saw that it was “very good” (1:31).
Calling to mind the entirety of God’s creation, Moses
reveals that it was completed in verse 1 of chapter 2. In other words, “the
universe is no longer in a process of being created” (Hamilton, 142). Instead,
procreation and self-perpetuation fill the planet with population and genetic variation.
Moses, whether he realized it or not, makes an important statement that, along
with what he has already mentioned no less than 8 times in chapter 1 (“after
their/its kind”), speaks directly against the claims of macro-evolution (change that occurs at or above the level of species).
Contrary to the claim that something new and genetically unique can derive from
something that already exists, the Bible teaches that each created thing
reproduced “after its kind.” By day 7 of that first week, God had already decided
how many species there were and what pools of genes would be given each one,
allowing them the genetic variation we can observe today. The creation of something
new out of nothing is something that only God is capable of doing.
Rest-2:2
This creative work of God was completed on day 7—“by the
seventh day God completed His work which He had done” (2:2a). Moses, again, has
been emphatic on at least two things throughout chapter 1: the timeline in
which God created the universe, and the superiority of God over and above false
Gods (particularly those false God found in Egypt).
As it pertains to the nature of the “days” of creation, a
few things are important to keep in mind when one goes to interpret this
passage. Via the creation of light and the presence of darkness (and their
separation) on day one, God began a program of 24 hour periods that Moses calls
“day” (yom). Though this word is
taken figuratively elsewhere in reference to other things (2 Pet. 3:8),
whenever it is attached to a cardinal number, it typically describes a 24hour
period. Not only that, but when the qualification “and there was evening and
there was morning” is added, it becomes even clearer that a literal 24 hour
period is an appropriate interpretation. If not, one would have to ask, “why
did the Spirit move in Moses’ life to lead him to write “and there was evening
and there was morning, one day” if it was not explicitly intended to refer to
what men and women would have understood as a typical day. Though the creation
narrative is intentionally hymnic and near-poetic at times, it is not pure
allegory/metaphor, especially when one considers that this construction of
“day,” cardinal number, and “evening and morning,” is repeated on each of the six
days of creation (Answers in Genesis).
Interestingly enough, as was mentioned several weeks ago, early
Jewish and Christian interpreters had a hard time believing that it would take
God this long (6 days) to create the entire universe. Surely He would have been
powerful enough to create it all at once! Still more interesting is that more
recent modern scholarship wonders how God could have possibly created it all in
so short a time. Ever since Darwin’s Origins
of the Species and enlightenment’s claim of a billion-year-old universe and
more recent fantasies of a big bang, many, even those within the church, have a
hard time interpreting Moses’ account in this more grammatically conservative
and straight-forward way—believing that the earth must must must be millions of
years old. However, this foists a severely allegorical interpretation on what
Moses seems to take pains to make clear. To arrive at an old-earth
interpretation, one must turn “day” into something that does not mean “day,”
“morning” into something that does not mean “morning,” “evening” into something
that does not mean “evening” and “one,” “two,” “three,” etc. into something
these numbers do not represent. This seems to be quite a stretch, especially
when the repetition Moses employs and the organization of the text assumes
organization and straightforwardness (a theme that is reiterated time and time
again in chapters 1-2). This is why I believe the best interpretation is that each
day was a 24 hour period, complete with evening and morning.
As it pertains to Yahweh’s superiority over other gods,
Moses has been quite clear. Inasmuch as God’s origin is assumed and never
explained (unlike other ancient deities whose origins were known), and given
that God created the celestial bodies, sea creatures, land animals (which were
in many cases deified in the pagan world), Yahweh is depicted as head and
shoulders over every other presumed ruler (especially the gods of Egypt).
Though God’s superiority over individual things has been suggested in more
specific ways throughout chapter 1, here Moses is more general and emphatic in
his claim saying, “God completed His work, which He had done” (2:2a). It is almost as if Moses says to his people, “our
God is a God that did something no other God (or unguided process you’ve ever
heard about) could do—He created the universe!”
So how does God celebrate his grand achievement? He rests—“and
He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done” (2:2b). The
verb used here (sabat) and again in verse 3 underscores that the end of God’s
work, not fatigue, motivated this rest (Matthews, 178). In other words, there
was nothing left to create in order to satisfy God’s will. “Rest” (sabat) also
means “the cessation of creative activity” (Matthews, 178) both here and in
Genesis 8:22 (the only other time this verse is used in Genesis). Therefore,
God’s rest on day 7 of the creation week involved the abstention of work (see
Cassuto, 63).
I imagine God delighted in His rest as he looked over the
universe at all He has wrought out of nothing. Although on an infinitely inferior
level, I imagine that God’s satisfaction and rest was similar to the way I feel
after I spend the day in my yard. More often than not, after I work in the yard
(mow, trim, weed, prune, water, etc.), I take time to sit and examine the finished
product with a small, but meaningful sense of accomplishment. Imagine how
content God must have been to witnesses the fruits of His labor!
Reverence-2:3
The seventh day is the first and only day to be called “blessed”
–“Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it…” (2:3a). Though creatures
and humans have already been blessed with the gift of procreation, this is the
only interval of time that God esteems in a special way in this text. The
reason for this is because God “sanctified it”—the very first act of
consecration in the Scriptures. Anytime God consecrates something, He declares
it especially devoted to Himself. This is true here of the Sabbath day. Eventually,
Moses would reiterate the special nature of the Sabbath and his people’s
responsibility on this day in Exodus 20:8, 11.
Exodus 20:8, 11-“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy,…For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all
that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath
day and made it holy.”
The setting aside of the Sabbath day in this way, as with
the entire narrative so far, is again as much an explanation as it is an argument
against other worldviews. “In the Babylonian creation stories the gods are
freed from their labors after the creation of humans, who were formed for the
sole purpose of serving the deities’ needs. God’s Sabbath, however, is not
aversion to labor but the celebrative cessation of a completed work, whereby He
expresses His mastery over time by sanctifying it” (Matthews, 179). In fact,
the celebration of the Sabbath was unique to ancient Israel. Also, while days,
months, and years were related to the solar and lunar cycles, the Sabbath is
not connected to any celestial movement. “The Sabbath thus underlines the
fundamental idea of Israelite monotheism: that God is wholly outside of nature”
(Sarna, 15).
God spent this reverent day resting, “because in it, He
rested from all His work which God had created and made” (2:3b). In so doing,
He created a work schedule/rest schedule that he then gifted to the
newly-created human race! “The sanctification of the Sabbath institutes an
order for humankind according to which time is divided into time and holy time…By
sanctifying the seventh day God instituted a polarity between the everyday and
the solemn, between days of work and days of rest, which was determinative for
human existence” (Westermann, 1:171). Therefore, in addition to the world, its
creatures, its vegetation, and the blessings of reproduction and dominion, God
gave the human race a pattern in which to live that involved both work and rest—labor
and reverent relaxation.
The Sabbath is both a spiritual and practical gift.
Spiritually, a Sabbath reminds the adherent that God is in control as the time in
reverent rest is spent abstaining from work in celebration of the one who
created it all and sustains it all. This
not only exalts God but it humbles people as they are forced to honor Him,
instead of toil for selfish or alternative reasons. Not only that, but resting
as God rested is one way that we demonstrate our likeness to the Lord as human
beings. Those who refrain from Sabbath rest are trying to be something other
than human. God is not impressed by super-humans who work 24/7. Practically
speaking, Sabbath rest provides many health benefits, as rest is essential to
one’s overall wellness. Not only that, but Sabbath rest makes one more
efficient during the work week. Finally, Sabbath rest, when observed, allows
the people to God to stand out in a world of workaholics. In this way,
believers testify to the lost that they belong to a God who is so lofty and
powerful that He can take of things, even we take a break.
So What?
Ultimately, this passage reveals that God in His sovereignty
gifted a day of rest to the human race as a reminder of His power and glory. As
God is depicted as reflecting, resting, and spending time in reverence on this
day—so too should the people of God set aside time to reflect on what He has
done, rest in knowing that God is ultimately in control, and seek Him in
reverence. To neglect the Sabbath is to neglect God’s prescribed schedule and
strive to live outside of one’s created potential.
However, one must also remember that the Sabbath is a
spiritual and practical gift, not an encumbrance. Just as gifts given by our
fathers are for our good pleasure and benefit, so too is the Sabbath and the
command to heed it. Thankfully, Jesus clarified the heart of the Sabbath
command in Mark 2:27 saying, “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath” to correct those who were overly-legalistic and believed that the
Sabbath meant abstaining from any and all physical labor of any kind. In saying
what He did in Mark, Jesus redeemed the Sabbath back into what was originally
intended—a time set aside for reflection of what God has done, rest in who God
is, and reverence toward what God wills. “It is a day on which we are called
upon to share what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to
the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the
world” (Heschel, The Earth is the Lord’s
and the Sabbath, 10).
Therefore, one way in which we image God is by resting as He
chose to rest—spending special time in reflecting on His power, resting in His
sovereignty, and reverently seeking Him. Inasmuch as God breaks up His week of
creating, humans image Him by breaking up their schedules of working with this
kind of Sabbath rest.
"Be still,
and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted
in the earth."-Psalm 46:10
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